Dust to Dust

by Ellen Caldera

Author's note: A special thank-you to Karen Miller whose constructive comments helped to make this a much better piece than it originally was. Thank you to Sharon Clark and Dee Tervo, as well, for harassing - er, encouraging me to get the dang thing finished.

It was warm and dark, just warm enough to be comfortable and just dark enough for sleep, but then the cold crept in, under the blanket, brushing across warm skin. He tried to ignore it, but it refused to go away. He scooted over, closer to Sha're, and tugged at the covers. Blanket hog. Even after a year, she was no more accustomed to sharing her bed than he was. Not that either one of them would have it any other way, but lifelong habits were hard to break. So she hogged the covers and he retaliated by yanking them back. Sometimes, though, she would roll over onto the edge of the blanket, and he wouldn't be able to pull it back without waking her up. Then, like now, he would just curl up next to her, letting the warmth of her body make amends for her theft. She was his own little Ayers Rock, giving back heat long after the Abydos suns had left the sky.

He had almost drifted back to sleep when she slipped out from under his arm. Aha! The blanket was his now, along with the warm spot where her body had been - and her pillow, that smelled of her hair, something like lavender and cloves from a native herb that she put into the rinse water. Bliss, plain and simple. Yes, that was exactly the word for it. Bliss. He grudgingly opened one eye, though, just to make sure she was all right. Light from one of the moons filtered in through the half-open shutters, making a blurred little moon of her face as she stood by the bed, looking down at him.

"Come back to bed, Sha're." He closed his eyes and burrowed further into the pillow.

"I can't."

Her response didn't register for a moment, but then he opened his eyes. Can't? She had never refused that invitation before, even when the first sun was already rising. He raised himself up on one elbow and squinted at her as she took her robe down from the hook next to the bed and wrapped it around her body. Something was definitely wrong. It was nowhere near morning, and Sha're guarded every precious moment of sleep as jealously as he did. He fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table and slipped them on.

She knelt down next to him and laid a hand to the side of his face - so very warm, her skin much warmer than his. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were sad, reminding him of the day after their wedding night, when he still hadn't realized they were married - when she had explained to him that she didn't tell the others that he didn't want her. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"I must go now."

"Go? Go where? What's wrong?" He was beginning to be seriously worried now. There was something niggling at the back of his mind, not a memory exactly. Or was it? She had said that to him before. Exactly those words. When had it been? Or had he just imagined it, or maybe feared it?

"It's all right, my Daniel. I am free now. You set me free. But I can't stay. I'm not really here."

"What? What are you talking about?" Set her free? From what? He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. She was right. She wasn't really here. Neither was he. This was a dream, but knowing that didn't bring it to an end. He couldn't stop what came next.

The something that wasn't a memory, but may as well have been for as many times as he had relived it, snapped back into place. Amonet. Cimmeria. Thor's Hammer. The light engulfing them, nothing more than light to him, but pain to her, pain for Amonet. Necessary pain. Cutting out the diseased flesh and sealing the wound with fire.

He managed to hold onto her as her body twisted and convulsed, her eyes wide and staring, like some poor animal hit by a car and dying by the side of the road. She screamed, a horrible sound that went on longer than he thought she'd have the breath for, and her eyes flashed with golden light. Gold like the sun. A merciless Abydan sun. Damn the sun. Damn Amonet. And damn Apophis. Damn them both to the deepest depths of the darkest hell ever imagined.

She screamed again, but this time, there was a subtle difference. This was a human scream, a raw but oh-so-human voice, without the deep echo of a Goa'uld. This was Sha're. He knew that scream, so much like her screams when she gave birth to her son. This time, though, she was giving birth to herself. Or so he hoped. She twitched one last time. He held his breath, waiting. She was still and silent. Waiting. He'd waited so long for this.

"Sha're?" No answer. Her eyes were fixed, unblinking, staring past his shoulder as if he weren't there. He reached up and gently brushed a strand of hair off of her face. "Sha're."

She blinked once, then again. Slowly, her eyes turned towards him and centered on his face. "Daniel?" The name came out half strangled, but no sound could've possibly been more beautiful to him.

"Yes, Sha're. It's me. I'm here. You're going to be all right. You're free now." Freedom. So precious, taken for granted until taken away. Tears stung his eyes, but he fought then back, meeting with only partial success.

"Free…" She breathed the word so quietly he almost didn't hear her, but the light in her eyes was unmistakable - a natural, human light.

He pulled her close to him, burying his face in her hair. It was still there - the faint scent of something like cloves and lavender. And she was warm, so warm. He couldn't hold the tears back any longer, and he let them flow, tears of joy and sorrow mixed together, joy for the future, sorrow for what had been taken from them. That didn't matter, though. All that mattered now was that she was here, with him, and they both were free. He simply held onto her, listening to the sound of her ragged breathing, feeling the warmth of it against his neck, life rushing in and out. Sha're's breath, the breath of freedom.

There was a sudden silence. Breath stopped - first hers, then his in response. God, no. He pulled back, his eyes darting across her face. "Sha're? What is it?"

"Oh, my Daniel," she whispered. "I must go now."

"What? Sha're! What are you talking about? You're not going anywhere. You're staying right here with me." No, no, no, no, no - silent refusal repeated like a drumbeat, pounding in the center of his chest, making it ache.

"I'm sorry, Daniel." She looked right at him for a long moment, and he wanted to turn away from what he saw there. I love you. Goodbye. So plain, so simple, so beautiful, so painful. His eyes must've said, "I love you," back to her because she smiled before all the words were gone, her eyes sliding slowly shut as she went limp in his arms.

"Sha're. Sha're!" He shook her, but all that succeeded in doing was jarring her eyelids back open. No light there now. None at all. Where there's a will, there's a way. Where there's life, there's hope. Things his mother used to say to him. But what about when there's no life? What then? He laid his hand on Sha're's cheek and called her name again. He would've taken even the golden light now, anything but this. "No." The word didn't change anything, but he said it again. "No." And then he threw his head back and screamed his denial.

"Noooo," Sam groaned. "Would you please just shut up?" She groped for a pillow and clamped it over her head. What a rat hole. Her grandmother would've called it "a den of inequity." Prostitutes being pawed by drunken men out front, impromptu gambling in the lobby, hallways hazy with smoke, not all of it from tobacco. And the noise - traffic in the street, a dog barking, a bottle being smashed, slurred singing that she wouldn't have been able to understand even if it had been in English, and the occasional wordless shout or scream. And no air conditioning, not even a fan, so she had the choice of putting up with the noise or sweltering in an airless room. She just couldn't tune out sounds like that, though - damned soldier's instincts. She finally gave up, rolled herself out of the twisted sheets, flipped on the lamp and slammed the window shut.

That muffled the noise from outside, but it finally dawned on her that the sound that had disturbed her sleep this time was coming from the adjacent room - something halfway between a moan and a scream. Goosebumps prickled along her arms despite the heat in the room. She hadn't heard that sound in a long time, not since the first few missions, so soon after Sha're had been abducted. She knew he hadn't put it behind him and never would until his wife was free or he was dead, but he had learned to cope well enough that he could usually get a good night's sleep. That is, until they'd captured Apophis and had seen firsthand that the host not only survives, but is aware of what has happened, even thousands of years of a waking nightmare.

And now this sound that came from a nightmare. What could she do? She couldn't take that kind of pain away. But she couldn't turn her back on it, either. And she certainly couldn't try to go back to sleep. But she also didn't want to step on any toes. Sometimes it was hard to tell what would embarrass Daniel. He'd do the craziest things sometimes - flapping his arms and squawking like a chicken (she wished she could've seen that one firsthand), steepling his fingers to imitate the roof of a building, gesturing and making faces and scribbling in the dirt - anything in the name of communication. Other times, though, just a simple question or a few teasing words could make him blush right up to his ears.

She walked over to the door between the two rooms, her hand on the knob. She could hear him more clearly now, but she still wasn't sure if she should wake him up or leave him alone and let him fall back to sleep on his own. When the moan changed over completely to a scream, though, she couldn't stop herself from throwing the door open. She could turn a deaf ear to that kind of sound in combat if she had to, but she couldn't do it here and now.

"Daniel! Daniel, wake up!" She grabbed his arm and shook him, but he only thrashed away from her, kicking the sheets away and onto the floor. Then his eyes snapped open and he sat up, his hands flailing wildly around him. She grabbed his shoulder, and he reached up and latched onto her hand, gripping it tightly.

"Sha're?"

She flinched at the plaintive note in his voice. No one had ever said her name quite like that. Not because she didn't know what love was, as a Daniel who wasn't really Daniel had once told her, but because she'd never seen it reflected back to her to that degree and in quite that way. She was inclined to lie to him, to let him believe for a moment that his wife was here with him, but he would know in a matter of moments that it wasn't real. He wasn't dying like Jack had been in Antarctica. "No, Daniel. It's me. Sam."

He blinked. "Sam?"

"Yes. You were having a nightmare." Simple fact. Keep to the facts, Sam. Don't push him. Don't ask him what it was about. You know already anyway. If he wants to talk, then talk. If not, not.

"Where are we?" His eyes swept about the room, which was only dimly illuminated by the light shining in through the open doorway to her room.

It was hot as hell in here. Daniel had either shut his window a long time before she did or else he had never opened it at all. He was drenched in sweat, the t-shirt under her hand damp, his hair plastered to the sides of his face. "In Egypt," she said softly, fighting the urge to brush the hair away from his eyes. "Remember?"

He swallowed hard and nodded, then looked down at her hand on his shoulder. He just sat there, staring at her hand, but she couldn't bring herself to take it away. She just held her breath, not knowing what to say. It was almost a relief when he very gently twisted himself away, swinging his legs out of the bed on the other side. He sat there for a moment, facing the wall while she stared at the back of his head. He finally drew in a deep breath and stood up, stretching his arms over his head while he said in a voice struggling to sound normal, "God, it's hot in here."

OK, good. Facts. You can deal with facts, Sam. "Well, you shouldn't have kept your window shut."

He shuffled over to the sink in the corner and leaned on the edge of the countertop, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. She wanted to go over to him, but she had a feeling that he would rebuff any physical contact. There was something about him lately, something cold and distant that sent shivers up her spine just as surely as that scream had done. It wasn't always there. Just sometimes. Moments of silence like right now. It was as if the Daniel she had known was gone, or just carefully packed away until he could safely come out again. Or maybe packed away for good, that version of himself outgrown. Or maybe lost, never to be found again. She felt that loss very keenly and sincerely wished at times that the Daniel she had first met on Abydos still existed, even if it meant that he had never left Abydos and she had never gotten to know him.

He finally grabbed the faucet handle and twisted it on, leaning over to splash the water onto his face. It couldn't be very cold - the sink in her room only produced lukewarm water regardless of whether she turned the hot or cold knob - but he splashed his face repeatedly before shutting off the tap and fumbling for a towel - on the wrong side of the sink. Something else she could deal with. She walked around the foot of the bed and pulled a towel off the bar. She put her hand back on his shoulder, ignoring the startled jump that he made, and pressed the towel to the middle of his chest. He simply muttered a thank-you and buried his face in the towel.

She couldn't look at that. She had to give him a moment to pull himself together, so she turned around and opened the window. The air that came in was warm, but cooler than the room itself. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath through her nose. It was even relatively quiet for the moment. Everyone had to sleep sometime, after all. There was a sweet scent in the air, something a little like lavender but vaguely spicy. A pot of some kind of night-blooming plant brimming with white flowers was sitting on the ledge of the window below.

She heard the creak of the bedsprings as he sat back down and was beginning to think she should make an excuse to go back to her room when he said, almost sounding like himself, "You know, I think we've been spending way too much time together. We're even starting to dress alike off duty." She turned around and looked at him, then chuckled. They were both wearing Army issue t-shirts and shorts, but he was also wearing a pair of white socks, definitely not Army issue, one of them half pulled off of his left foot.

"What's with the socks? Your feet couldn't possibly be cold."

"Oh," he said, sounding like he'd just noticed he was wearing them. He reached down and pulled the left one back up. "Sha're was always complaining that my feet were cold, so I'd wear my socks to bed. She even tried to make me some new ones when the ones I'd brought with me wore out. They were awful and itched like crazy, but I wore them for her. That was one of the first things I bought when I came back here - some *real* socks. I know it sounds weird, but I just feel naked without them."

She hesitated for a moment, wondering if this meant he wanted to talk or wanted her to go away so he could be alone with his memories. She hesitated to make calls like this, all whim and intuition, no substance to back them up. Once upon a time, she would've plowed right ahead, but growing up in Jacob Carter's house had made her a bit more circumspect. She decided she had to at least test the waters. Daniel liked to talk things out, whether it was a scientific theory or a personal problem. The former was safe territory, but the latter… Well, she tended to keep things a little bottled up at times. Not as bad as Jack, but still, she was military, too, and the military sort of frowned on its members being touchy-feely. But Daniel wasn't military and never would be, not even if he never wore anything but fatigues for the rest of his life.

She sat down next to him on the bed, keeping a careful distance between them in case she had misjudged. She liked to think she knew him pretty well by now, but she wasn't about to fool herself into thinking that she knew him inside and out. She doubted anyone could know another person that well, except maybe a Tok'Ra and its host. "Are you all right?" It was a stupid question, but it was all she could think of to say.

"I've been better." He was silent for a moment, and she was desperately fishing for something else she could say when he added, "Maybe we shouldn't have come here. I mean, are we really doing any good? Maybe Jack was right. Maybe this is all just smoke and mirrors. Maybe that really is just a lump of clay." He pointed to his backpack in the corner, carrying its precious cargo of the Egyptian funerary statue that held the dying breath of the poor scribe who had suffered imprisonment in his own body for thousands of years as the unwilling host of Apophis.

Religion and the nature of the soul. She'd taken a few philosophy courses, and her grandmother had been just one step short of a zealot, but Sam had never been comfortable discussing things like this. Maybe she should just try to keep him talking. "Do you really believe that?"

"Oh, God, Sam, I don't know." He snorted. "Oh, that's good. 'Oh, God.' I say that enough, but it's just words. I've spent so much time studying other cultures, trying to get inside other people's heads, trying to understand their beliefs, that I'm not really sure what I believe any more. It doesn't help that I know most of those people were led astray in the religion department. Sometimes it's hard to believe in anything at all."

"I know."

"Do you? I mean, what do you think, Sam? Is this a fool's errand?"

That caught her off guard. Here she was trying to tip-toe around the religion subject, and she left the door wide open for him to turn the tables on her. If that shrewdness had a military bent, he'd probably be wearing as many citations as Jack. But she also knew that Daniel wasn't intentionally trying to back her into a corner. He was simply curious. She paused a moment to collect her thoughts. "If you're asking me if I believe there's life after death, then yes, I think there is. Consciousness, individuality, sentient thought - none of that can be explained by atoms or chemical reactions. There has to be something more to the equation."

"There speaks the mathematician." Someone else might've meant that as an insult, but not Daniel.

She was annoyed with herself nonetheless. Why did it always have to boil down to an equation, action/reaction, theories based on evidence, even if the evidence was sketchy at best? She laughed and nodded, though, admitting he was right. She was a mathematician, but right now, he was looking for something so completely removed from science that it was silly to put it in scientific terms. She changed her tack. "My grandmother used to tell me that the reason they called it faith was because you have to believe without any proof other than what your own heart is telling you. That poor scribe believed that he was finally going to find some peace. Nothing else really matters."

Daniel nodded and looked down at his hands, carefully folded in his lap. There was more that she could've said, other reasons to be here. They both knew what it was like to be trapped in a prison of flesh, she because of Jolinar and he because of Machello. Different situations, true, but they had both been helpless to do anything about it. There was precious little that could be done for the victim of Apophis, but she intended to do whatever she possibly could, even if it was nothing more than some kind of symbolic gesture. And then there was Sha're. Maybe Daniel was here simply because he couldn't do anything for Sha're. Maybe he was looking for a proxy. It was obvious that the events of the last week had dredged up unpleasant thoughts that he normally kept tucked away, but she just couldn't bring herself to go poking around in any of those wounds right now. They both needed to sleep. "Get some rest," she told him, reaching out to gently squeeze his shoulder. "We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow." She turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She leaned against it for a moment, then sighed and crawled back into bed and turned out the light. It was a long time before she heard the creak of bedsprings in the next room that told her Daniel was finally lying down to sleep. Or at least lying down, even if he didn't sleep.

The seat creaked a bit as Teal'c stirred, rousing himself from his meditations. He could not understand why, with all the resources available to the Tau'ri, they insisted on placing so many seats in a single aircraft. At least half of them were empty on this flight, the closet passengers to him and O'Neill several rows back.

"Did ya have a nice nap?" O'Neill asked.

Teal'c quirked an eyebrow at him. They were both warriors, and Teal'c usually had no difficulty understanding O'Neill's motivations or thought processes, but his manner of speaking and sense of humor were still difficult for him to comprehend at times. He was learning, though. "I was not napping, O'Neill. I was meditating."

"I know that Teal'c. Here," he said, tossing a small, silvery packet to Teal'c. "I didn't want you to miss out on the peanuts."

Peanuts? He had encountered peanut butter and found its taste quite pleasing. These "peanuts" must be the source of peanut butter. He watched as O'Neill tore open his package and pulled out some of the contents. He followed the example and found that the nuts were salty and did not have as strong a flavor as peanut butter, but they were still quite satisfying. He wondered if they had an unusually high nutritional value since there were so few of them in the package. "I have been contemplating our reasons for making this trip, O'Neill. I have spoken with Daniel Jackson concerning your people's beliefs on life after death, but he could not give me a definitive answer."

"Whoa. OK, switch gears. That's a heavy topic, Teal'c."

O'Neill had explained "switching gears" to him before, both in terms of driving a car and in terms of changing the subject of a conversation. He was unsure as to what O'Neill meant by calling the topic "heavy," though. The dictionary Daniel Jackson had given him had several definitions for that word as he recalled. O'Neill always assumed that Teal'c knew what he meant, however, so Teal'c would have to ask if he wanted an explanation. "Heavy?"

O'Neill turned to look at him. Sometimes Teal'c felt that his commander actually forgot that he was an alien. "Yeah, heavy. Serious. Requiring deep thought. Heavy."

"Oh. I see. On Chulak, we would call this a light topic." At least, he hoped he was translating the word properly. "Light" had as many as if not more definitions than "heavy." "A thing of the mind," he added, noting that O'Neill seemed to be amused by his explanation. He failed to see where the humor was. "Without substance. To be accepted and not questioned. We were taught that Apophis would watch over us in this life and protect us in the next. But now I know there is no truth in that belief."

"So you're doing a little soul searching? Picking the next bandwagon to jump on?"

"Is this bandwagon some kind of conveyance for religious processions?" Truly, O'Neill could be so cryptic at times that Teal'c often believed he was speaking another language altogether.

O'Neill sat up a bit straighter in his seat and frowned a little. Good. This meant that he was willing to speak plainly for at least a few moments. "Sorry. Never mind the bandwagon comment. I'm just a little cynical when it comes to organized religion. Look, Daniel really is the expert in that department. I know he tends to lecture, and he probably gave you a lot more information than you really wanted. You just have to be very specific when you ask him a question. Maybe you should try asking him what he personally thinks."

This had not occurred to Teal'c. Daniel Jackson was his friend. "Do you not think he would be insulted by such a question? On Chulak, we are taught not to question matters of faith."

"Huh. The people here are just about completely the opposite. Well, some of us are. We ask questions every chance we get. And we're not usually so worried about insulting others. In fact, I think sometimes you have to insult someone to really get to know them. And sometimes it's just calling it like it is. No bullshit. Just straightforward, on-the-level, no-nonsense, this is how it is."

"Is this then why you refused to accompany Daniel Jackson to Egypt?"

O'Neill stared at Teal'c for a long moment. Teal'c was beginning to wonder if he had insulted his friend, but he had just been told that these kinds of insults were sometimes desirable. "No," O'Neill finally offered, although his tone of voice did little to convince Teal'c that he was sure of his answer. "That was more of a knee-jerk reaction, I think." Teal'c looked down at O'Neill's knee. He had never witnessed this knee jerking, other than when Dr. Frasier tested O'Neill's reflexes. Maybe it had something to do with the colonel's "bad knees."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Teal'c. It's a figure of speech. Why do you have to take everything so literally? Look, I'm not really sure why I said I wouldn't go. I guess I was just trying to thumb my nose - sorry - have revenge on Apophis, but this really has nothing to do with him. It's really hard for me to keep this whole host/Goa'uld thing separated."

O'Neill was silent for a moment, leaving Teal'c wondering if his friend also had difficulty remembering that the infant Goa'uld he carried both was and was not a part of himself. But his Goa'uld did not control his actions and did not speak with his voice, so more than likely, O'Neill did not consider the Goa'uld to be anything other than an unwelcome guest, if he thought about it at all. He certainly seemed to be disturbed by reminders and turned away whenever the Jaffa's pouch or its occupant were visible. In some ways, Teal'c could understand O'Neill's feelings on the subject.

"Bottom line, Teal'c, is that we're part of a team. Just because I think Daniel is nuts doesn't mean that I shouldn't be there to back him up. And he did make a promise."

Teal'c nodded solemnly. Loyalty and keeping promises were concepts he had no problem understanding. He was still confused about one thing, though, and perhaps a little concerned. He held up the empty silver bag. "I have heard Captain Carter say that one is what one eats. Is this what has made Daniel Jackson 'nuts'?"

O'Neill simply laughed, and Teal'c couldn't completely hide the smile that was tugging at the corners of his own mouth.

"Wakey, wakey. Rise and shine!" Jack wrinkled his nose. This place was a dump. And Daniel looked like hell. Obviously, there had been very little sleeping going on last night, and what there was of it had been disturbed. The bed was a rumpled mess with Daniel sprawled on his stomach in the middle of it, the sheet tangled around his legs and one pillow clutched to his chest. And he was drooling. Nice.

He was tempted just to let the poor guy sleep for a little while longer, but they needed to finish what they came here for and get their butts back to Colorado. General Hammond had said he couldn't give his permission for Teal'c to leave the country, so Jack hadn't asked. It had been quite a feat to pull all the strings necessary to smuggle an "illegal alien" out of the country without the general getting wind of it. George was no fool, though. He knew exactly what Jack was up to and was willing to turn a blind eye as long as nobody got caught with their pants down. That meant SG-1 reporting bright and early the day after tomorrow for their next mission briefing. A few days leave for the whole team might be noticed, but it certainly wasn't unheard of. The pace they kept simply couldn't be maintained indefinitely. More than a little midnight oil had been burned by all four of them, especially lately. Jack made a note to himself to make sure they all got some *real* leave soon. Just not right now.

"C'mon, Danny boy. Time to wake up." Jack reached out and shook Daniel's shoulder. Geez, the guy could probably sleep through a bomb detonating outside of his window once he got to ripping the z's. No, Daniel would never be a soldier. Not to mention that Jack would've been sleeping with his gun clutched to his chest rather than a pillow in a place like this. The clown at the front desk had not only coughed up Daniel's room number, but a spare key as well. And all it took was a crisp, new twenty and a glare from Teal'c. Jack considered not for the first time having that glare registered as a strategic weapon.

Daniel groaned and mashed his face further into the pillow. OK, there's some progress. He actually moved. Jack shook him again, trying to gain ground while he had the advantage. Daniel finally flopped over onto his back, scrubbing a hand over his face and blinking furiously.

"Aha! It's alive!" Jack was victorious.

"Jack?" Daniel fumbled for his glasses and slipped them onto his face as he sat up.

"Last time I checked. Here." Jack waved a cup of steaming black coffee under Daniel's nose. The guy was basically useless before he got some caffeine into him, so Jack had planned ahead.

Daniel sat up and took the offered cup, wrapping his hands around it and blowing gently on the surface before taking a sip. "Thanks."

Jack rolled his eyes. "'Thanks,' he says. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a good cup of coffee in a neighborhood like this? There isn't exactly a Starbuck's on every corner." Jack had been there when Daniel had told Sam about the great little hotel he'd made reservations at. Obviously, things had gone downhill since the last time Daniel was here.

OK, the caffeine seemed to be kicking in now. Daniel was looking marginally more alert, at least enough to peer at Jack with a look that said, "What the hell are you doing here?", which is exactly what he said, followed by, "I thought you had to finish that report on new team selection."

Jack winced. It was an excuse he had thrown onto the end of his refusal to go to Egypt to waste his time burying a stupid hunk of prehistoric junk. Daniel was obviously still pissed about it, and rightly so. "Oh. That." Jack tried to make light of it, even as he was mentally kicking himself and telling himself that he really should be apologizing. Oh, well. In for a penny, in for a pound. "I pretty much already knew what recommendations I was going to make. I just had to put it down on paper. Borrowed a laptop and did it on the flight on the way over."

"You? Borrowed a computer?"

Jack could tell it was meant as an insult, but it didn't quite come out that way. The grudges that Daniel held onto were few and far between, and apparently, he had decided not to make this one of them. "Well, geez, don't sound so surprised. You'd think I'd never touched one before. I even showed Teal'c how to play Solitaire." Jack was really warming up now and gestured towards Teal'c, who was standing by the door - on guard, Jack realized. Ever the vigilant soldier. And Daniel, ever the oblivious scholar, not only had his back turned to the Jaffa, but also apparently had no idea that he was there until Jack pointed him out. Daniel almost spilled the precious cup of coffee as he twisted his head around to take a look over his shoulder.

"Teal'c! I, uh, oh - " Coffee sloshed over his hand as he stood up, and he quickly set the cup down on the nightstand and wiped his hand on his shirt. "I thought General Hammond didn't want you to leave the country."

"He does not know where I have gone. He believes that I have," Teal'c paused and looked at Jack, "gone fishing."

Daniel just stood there, looking back and forth from Jack to Teal'c. Jack had to wipe a smile off his face as Daniel turned back towards him and said, "You told me I was crazy if I thought this was going to make a difference." The statement was half accusation, half question. OK, so he wasn't quite ready to let go of it yet.

Jack thought it was beating a dead horse, but Daniel was the kind that wanted explanations. He could do that, but he wasn't about to get all wishy-washy about it. "I do think you're crazy, but it doesn't matter what I think. This isn't about me."

"No, it's not."

Silence again, but it wasn't angry silence this time. Not quite. "Daniel, I'm sorry." There. He'd said it. "Look, you know me. I don't have much patience with all this spiritual mumbo jumbo, but I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I'm sorry."

Daniel still didn't say anything, and Jack was beginning to wonder if he was just flat-out wrong about the grudge. Finally, with a perfectly straight face, Daniel said, "What have you done with my friend?"

"Huh?" What on earth was the kid talking about?

"You're obviously an imposter. You said, 'I'm sorry,' twice in less than thirty seconds. You couldn't possibly be Jack O'Neill."

Jack just stood there, stunned, until Daniel finally cracked a smile. A joke! It was a joke. A rather sarcastic one, but he had to admit that it hit dead center. "Ouch. Bull's eye!"

Teal'c took the opportunity to chime in with one of his "stranger in a strange land" questions. "Does this have anything to do with the bullshit you were telling me about earlier?"

Jack couldn't help but bust out laughing then, and he was glad to see Daniel joining in. "Jack, what have you been teaching him?"

"None of your business. We were just shootin' the shit." He couldn't resist. Teal'c frowned, setting both Jack and Daniel off again. Jack had to wonder how much of that stoic façade was just an act. He couldn't really still be that baffled by Earth humor, could he? But wait a minute. Someone was missing out on all this. "Hey, where's Carter?"

Daniel pointed at a closed door in the wall perpendicular to the window. This threw Jack completely off-balance. "She's in - your bathroom?" Had he blundered into something here that he really didn't want to know about?

"No, the bathroom's down the hall." Daniel stopped laughing and started to turn red, which worried Jack all the more. "She has an adjoining room. You didn't think we were - sharing a room, did you?"

That was exactly what he had thought for about a split second, but he wasn't about to admit that. Not going there. "Well, of course not! I was just kidding. Maybe we should go and wake her up, huh?" All right, Jack, time to shut your mouth and go for some diversionary tactics.

As he was reaching for the doorknob, though, the door swung open and almost smacked him in the face. A startled Captain Carter took a step back, her posture instantly defensive, then relaxing as she saw who it was. "Colonel! Teal'c! How did you get here?"

"We flew in an airplane," Teal'c said. Completely straight-faced. Not a hint of a smile. Very deliberate.

Jack decided to call his bluff. He wagged a finger at Teal'c. "That's funny."

"It is a statement of fact, O'Neill. I fail to see how it could be humorous."

"You're doing that on purpose, aren't you?"

"What am I doing?"

"Pulling my leg."

Teal'c looked down at Jack's leg. "I have not touched you."

Daniel laughed. So did Carter, but she tried to suppress it when Jack glared at her. Teal'c, however, remained the perfect straight man. Jack wasn't about to comment on that, though. Then he'd have to explain the term to Teal'c when he had a sneaking suspicion he already knew exactly what it meant.

It was late afternoon by the time they arrived at Karnak, the charter plane they had rented circling slowly above a small airstrip that would've normally been very busy. This late in the tourist season, there were only a few other planes waiting to take their passengers back to Cairo. Daniel was glad that the temple wouldn't be too crowded. It would make what they had to do much easier. He hadn't been able to ask for permission to bury the funerary statue on the grounds. That would've resulted in far too many questions, and he doubted that even the truth would've convinced the local authorities to approve such a strange request. It didn't matter, though. Permission was irrelevant. He'd never given rules and regulations much thought. Even less so now.

As they made their final approach to the airstrip, they were treated to a breathtaking view of the Nile Valley, a swath of impossible green winding its way across barren land. This was all that was missing from Abydos to make it the twin sister of Egypt. There was no surface water on Abydos and just enough water underground, tapped by deep wells, to make a little farming possible. He and Sha're had a small garden outside their home, mostly devoted to the necessary food crops, but one small corner was filled with herbs and flowers. Most of them also had medicinal values, but they were beautiful as well, made even more so by the gardener that tended them. That little corner had been Sha're's special place.

Daniel wrenched his thoughts away from those memories. They were too painful. Comforting at first, but then he'd inevitably recall why there were only memories. He distracted himself by thinking back instead to the first time he had come to Egypt with his parents, just a kid who didn't really understand what he was seeing - dark-skinned people wrapped in robes with turbans on their heads speaking a language he only half-understood, stone monuments and statues and pyramids he'd seen pictures of in books but so much larger in reality than he could've possibly imagined, the heat and the dust and the oxen plowing the irrigated fields, the hum of insects and the stars at night, so much brighter than back home. And his parents, so serious and determined to wrench the secrets of the past from the earth, almost giddy with delight when they uncovered a particularly interesting artifact. He would eventually know that same feeling himself. He remembered the feeling, but it didn't come back to him today. He felt somehow emptier now, as if all the years in between had leached something vital away from him. Maybe it was just that he had seen so much in the intervening time, had experienced so much that was so far beyond that little boy's imagination, beyond even the grown man's imagination, had gained and lost everything that he most wanted in life. None of that mattered at this moment, though. What mattered was that he keep his promise. That he do something, no matter how small or insignificant it might be in the grand scheme of things. He had to do something. Once upon a time, he had come here looking to uncover the past, but now he came to bury it, to return it to its rightful home.

"Whoa! Now that's what I call rocks!" Daniel almost corrected Jack, but he bit his tongue and forced a small smile, a bit bemused at the sight of Jack O'Neill staring in a way that might almost be called awestruck at the avenue of sphinxes leading to the temple entrance. He quickly turned his attention back to the task at hand, though. He couldn't help but be distracted by the weight of the backpack hanging from his shoulder. All he wanted was to lay down that burden as quickly as he could. Too many bad memories there. Too much chance for anger and frustration if he allowed himself to think beyond the main reason he had come here. He led the way into the temple, his eyes straight ahead. He knew exactly where he was going. He had a particular courtyard in mind, at the far side of the temple. He'd "discovered" it when he was a child. His father had yelled at him for getting underfoot yet again, so he had wandered off by himself, eventually ending up in the secluded courtyard where his frantic mother had finally found him at dusk.

The rest of the team followed along after him in silence. Daniel was grateful for that. Any other time, he might've run off at the mouth about how this place had come to be, added onto by countless dynasties over hundreds of years, but his heart just wasn't in it today. Today, only one man mattered, and he hadn't been a pharaoh or even a member of any royal court - just a simple scribe who had the misfortune of being handsome enough to catch the eye of his god. He probably believed at the time that he was blessed beyond measure. Now the only blessing he could count was his own death.

When they finally reached their destination, the sun was beginning to set, the sky above glowing with every imaginable shade of rose and orange and gold. Heat still rose from the earth and stones, but the air was quickly taking on a chill. He tried to ignore it, but it refused to go away. Blanket hog. No. He would not let himself remember that. Not now. Maybe later.

He made his way across the courtyard, to a spot on the western wall opposite two columns that framed the eastern sky. Here, the morning sunlight would always warm this little space of earth. He carefully laid the backpack down on the ground and extracted a small camp shovel from an outer pocket. He set quickly to work, not complaining or even thinking to complain about the hardness of the ground. He could feel the presence of his friends standing behind him quietly watching, guarding the silence. They didn't offer to help. They knew him too well for that. He just kept his mind on the digging, one spadeful of earth after another.

He took the statue carefully out of his backpack - quite possibly the most precious artifact he'd ever handled in his life - and gently laid it to rest. His gut twisted as the memories came back for a moment - a voice calling out the name of Amonet, a similar but very different voice recounting a nightmare thousands of years long. He pushed it all aside. Later. Not now.

He gathered a handful of dirt and stood up, his hand clutching the dry and crumbling earth. He said the words of power softly but clearly, the sounds rolling off his tongue as though it were his native language, sending a lost soul back to its home, through the seven gates and into an eternity of bliss. Or so he hoped. He had to hope. He had to believe, or nothing, none of it, mattered. He let the earth trickle out of his hand, gently showering the serene face of the statue, and was somewhat surprised to find his friends gathering around him, each of them bending down to gather their own handful of earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Sam with her faithful heart, Teal'c with his questioning search to fill a void, and Jack… He'd accused Jack of not having any faith, but now, he was beginning to think that Jack had more faith than anyone he'd ever met in his life. It was simply his own kind of faith, the kind that trusted in people more than words.

It wasn't until much later that Daniel could even try to say anything more about what he was feeling. It took him the trip back to Cairo, the series of flights that took them back to Colorado, and a night of exhausted sleep thankfully free of any dreams before he could even begin to sort it out. He and Jack were in the locker room gearing up for the next mission. "What if that's all I can do for Sha're?"

"What's that?" Jack answered as he continued to lace his boots. A lot of people would've thought Jack wasn't paying attention, but Daniel knew better.

He swallowed. He couldn't drop it now. Better to just get it out in the open. "What if all I can do for her is hold her while she dies?"

Jack stopped lacing his boots and looked up, but he was staring at the opposite wall instead of looking at Daniel. "Then you hold her while she dies," he said quietly. "And then you move on."

He had a feeling Jack would say something like that. He took a moment to digest the advice. "I can't do that."

Jack went back to lacing his boots. "I know."

Daniel folded his hands in his lap. There was another possibility, both more and less terrible. "We may never even find her."

"You will."

So simple. Just like that. "You don't know that."

"No. I don't. But you do."



"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life

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Within the context and limitations of the site Disclaimer, Any and All original characters, situations, story line, dialogue and narrative © May 5th, 1999 the author