Please note: 
Jack is the major voice and strong focus of this story, as Daniel is brought back to us.
Despite appearances, never fear: I do not write major character death stories.
This story is an AU as it uses a different process of descension for bringing Daniel back
than that used in canon, and it also takes place prior to the 6th season episode 'Full Circle'. In my private little world, Abydos was never destroyed.

Steep Descent

by Jb

Part One
Survival for Sale

You know, I can't speak for anyone else, but right now I'm not so sure my survival is worth the price being paid.

Sitting here now, warm and clean and safe, thinking back, it had been pretty clear right from the get-go there wasn't a pig shit's worth of hope of us getting out of that one. To be honest, back then I was at the point where I wasn't really all that sure I much cared anymore. Yeah, okay, I was upset, and damned scared; after all the brash and daring Colonel Jack O'Neill - me, myself, and I - is only human, and contrary to contrived appearances I'm not too stupid to know when to be afraid. I was pissed off, too. Angry beyond description that Teal'c was going down with me, and that although Carter would probably live through it what she'd end up with was a life she wouldn't want to be living. But the bald truth was there just didn't seem to be much point to expending any further energy - it wasn't like anything other than our own lives was at stake. No saving the Earth while going out in a blaze of glory; no selfless sacrifice for the lives of innocents; no opportunity for grand or heroic gestures or leaving of legacies for others to follow, although I could imagine Hammond trying that last one on for the memorial service.

No moral to the story, not that time around. In short, we were toast, and for no good reason. Sure, you could get all hot and bothered over something like that, over the seeming waste, especially after all we'd been through over the years. And now, sitting here looking back on what happened, I'm not shy about admitting I did just that - spectacularly so, in fact. For quite a while I was bent way out of shape over what I knew was coming. See, I wasn't ready yet. But time passed and nothing changed except the inevitable drew nearer, so I had to get ready. And I did. So it was all right. I could do it.

Teal'c, well, Teal'c dying alongside me - that wasn't for me to decide was all right or not. But he seemed, well, he seemed pretty Teal'c-ish about the whole thing, so we knelt there, the two of us, and I told those creepazoids, hey, you freakin' assholes, what are you waiting for, bring it on. Carter wasn't very impressed when I said that, but there was nothing any of us could do other than draw it out all too painfully by waiting passively or by stalling, and she knew it. I like to think that even right then and there she forgave me that bit of false bravado.

Quinn, well, who the hell knows what he was thinking or feeling. He just stood there, kinda pastey-like, either trying for maximum stoicism or else too shit scared to move a muscle, and you know what? Which it was, was another thing I didn't much care about either. Unavoidable impending death does that to a guy - shakes the chaff loose from the rest; brings home what really matters. Quinn was allowed to go back home - with our ears, no less. I kept getting this inane image replaying in my mind, of Hammond receiving my ears and saying, well, hell, what good are these to me now if he never listened to me before? Hah. None, George, none at all.

Anyway, basically the homeward bound Quinn was the chaff and not worth much attention, while the thing that really mattered, the thing that was so on my mind I thought my brain would burst with the pain and regret, was that judging from the crude necklaces made of jawbones and teeth sported by many of the creepies, after seeing me and Teal'c lose our heads Carter was going to be taunted with that memory for as long as our killers decided they liked having her around - even long after the more immediate and blatant reminders gave in to decay. The damned, pointy-tipped poles were already erected. Ready and waiting.

Two incredibly big guys with the hefty adzax-machlever-thingys stepped up behind me and Teal'c, and I told them I wanted the taller pole - that, after all, fair was fair; I always had to look up to Teal'c while alive so the least they could do was to throw me a bone in death. But they didn't seem to clue in on that one at all. Morons. I remember thinking they obviously weren't worth the breath I was wasting on them, so instead I told Carter I was sorry and not to watch, and damn it, she started to cry. Not an all out weeping and wailing, no, that's not Carter - just a soft noise and some tears spilling over. When I saw that, well, shit, I couldn't help myself. I'd put all I had into that reverse-headbutt. It was a doozy. To this very moment my only regret about that part was the guy wasn't a bit taller so that instead of landing it on his belly, I could've nailed him where he lived.

That's when it happened. Or, at least, when it started.

I ended up face down in the dirt with the prick's big, bony knee grinding a hole in my lower back, which meant I didn't actually see the thing that had Teal'c rasping out what I'm pretty sure was a Goa'uld epithet, and Carter saying "Oh my God," in a tone of voice usually reserved for momentously unbelievable events. Come to think of it, she said it just the same way as she did those years ago when we burst in to find Daniel on the ground next to a dying Sha're. Got to hand it to her, Carter's nothing if not consistent.

Anyway, so being nose to the ground I didn't see what they saw, but it was clear it was something special and unexpected, because in addition to Carter and Teal'c being startled the knee making sawdust of my lumbar spine suddenly lightened considerably, and I became more aware of the restless natives well living up to that cliché. Then I heard the low rumble, and even before I managed to squirm over onto my side, I knew - or, I thought I did - we were all going to come out of this intact. As you can imagine I was pretty damn happy about that.

Sitting here alone, looking back, I'm thinking that happiness was sorely misplaced. That was the start of everything which brought us to this point now. And damn, goddamn it, I feel just sick about it.

So. Anyhoo. I rolled onto my side, deciding there was no way was I going to lie there and let someone else do all the work. I kicked out at the big oaf holding the sharp beheading implement - not one of my better moves, in retrospect, because in the process I almost dislocated my shoulders what with the way they had the ropes attached behind my back from my wrists to ankles. He swung the thing, and caught me on the upper arm. It was just a glancing blow, more of a mediocre scrape and peel than a decisive slice and dice, but it was enough that Fraiser wasn't in the least pleased when we got back here. I'm not thrilled about it either, duh.

In any case, in the split second after I rolled and kicked and got my owie, the big guy was skittering back away from me to join his Mayhem and Murder Unincorporated cohorts as they gathered into a disorganised, confused huddle, all of them fearfully staring at the sky. I cranked my head around and saw what had them so unsettled - our salvation, luminescent against the suddenly stormy sky, swirling and darting impressively. Hot stuff. Yeah! Boy, was I pumped. And when I'm pumped, well, we all know what happens with my mouth, right? Now that I'm confronted with the end result I'm ashamed to admit how vocal I was about exactly what I wanted to see happen to these assholes. I recall somehow climbing back up onto my knees and yelling out, "Yes! Yeah!" and, "C'mon! Get down here," and even the very memorable, "Yeah, so get to it already - do these guys!" along with assorted other equally ambitious encouragements.

There was another rumble, only deeper and more prolonged, and a flash that started way up in the sky and then dove toward the ground just like an eagle after its prey - and suddenly there he was. Daniel, or the image of him anyway, popping up between me and Teal'c and the bulk of the bad guys, who still had Carter. The natives reared back when they saw him suddenly standing there, having literally come out of nowhere. A few of them actually shrieked and skedaddled into the surrounding woods. I remember Daniel whirled around and glanced at me and Teal'c, and then just as quickly turned back to face the natives. It was then I noticed two things: he was wearing full SGC field gear, minus weaponry - well, not really wearing it, because, well, oh, you know - and he looked upset. Really upset. Almost panicky, which at the time I just assumed was concern for our welfare, but there you go, huh? I may not be nearly as dense as I pretend to be, no way, but even so there sure are times when I'm hardly a mental giant.

It wasn't until Daniel starting talking to the bad guys, saying, "Wait, wait. You don't really want to do this..." and was interrupted by another low roar of noise from the sky that I realised there was still something flitting around up there. Daniel pointedly looked over his shoulder, silently but intently pleading with something off behind me somewhere, but just as I was going to turn my head to see what he'd so anxiously looked at he turned back to the goonie-woonies and starting talking again, real fast, and then talked even faster, telling them it would be all right - that if they just let Carter and the rest of us go everyone would be fine. He quickly glanced over his shoulder a second time as he advised it would be a really good idea to untie Teal'c and me right about now, but the apes all just stood there gaping at him. They got a bit restless as he looked away from them, so he squared off to them again. Talking so fast that if he'd actually had lungs anymore the words would've all come out on a single breath with lots of carbon dioxide to spare, he expectantly repeated the advice louder.

Hmph. Fat chance. Daniel always had been much too hopeful when it came to man's basic nature, and this upscending thing hadn't seemed to have pulled the blinkers off. I mean, hell, back in Ba'al's nest of iniquity he'd tried to convince me that even I was worthy of being granted access to the fast line at the supermarket, for crying out loud. Well, as far as I'm concerned most people aren't, myself included, and those guys sure weren't. Took the dimmer bulbs in the sockets, ohh, about ten seconds to deny what their eyes had seen, and even though they had no idea what was going on, to decide they didn't want to give up their status in the Murder and Mayhem Club of the Month. Two of them roughly yanked Carter farther away from us, and I swear Daniel shimmered with so much frustration I actually felt it as a sort of disturbance in the air. His image didn't flicker or fade away or anything like that, no... he just kind of, I don't know, radiated something that came across that way. Felt like he was in my head, almost, and it also felt like he was at his wit's end, or worse.

Shit. I wish I'd known then what I do now. But I didn't, and I was afraid for Carter, so I bellowed at Daniel, "Jesus Christ, Daniel! Don't just not really stand there!"

I shouted other crap at him, too, making damn sure he understood exactly what I wanted him to do. One of the thugs grabbed Carter by the hair and dragged a knife up to her throat, the rest of them milling around and getting braver by the second - by every second that Daniel didn't actually do anything. And then the shit hit the fan big time. The crack of thunder was so loud it popped my eardrums, and Daniel whirled around, away from where they were slowly hauling Carter toward the woods, and raised both fists to the sky and yelled like I've never heard him yell before, everything about him positively screaming of desperation. "No! No! I have to see this through! Let me do this!"

There was a blinding streak as something swooped down onto Daniel, just sort of wrapped around him, his image distorting and sort of - I'm not really sure how to describe it - folding or being drawn into it or something. Whatever, I had the distinct impression the embrace wasn't the least bit mutually satisfying. It wasn't good, whatever was going on; I knew that right away. Suddenly I was more afraid for him than I was for us and Carter - the new development had the M and M crowd totally flummoxed, and more than half of them were running away as fast as their dirty, hairy legs could carry them, including the one who'd had the knife to Carter's neck. So the only one who appeared to be in any sort of immediate trouble was Daniel, and the hell if I knew what any of us could do about that. Nothing. Big fat nuthin', damn it.

I took a quick look over to check on Carter to find she was staring at the swirling energies, looking completely blown away. Utterly transfixed, and only barely comprehending. We very briefly talked about that not long ago, after we got back, just before we got the initial report from Fraiser and the curtain fell and we became unable to look each other in the eye. She'd been dumfounded when she saw Daniel show up, and then dumbfounded and scared and fascinated and horrified all at the same time when he was scooped up like that, she'd explained to me. Then Fraiser passed on the word, and the conversation was over before it had really got started. Carter had started that quiet crying again, and I felt like doing the same. It's okay, I understand, I'd told her, but it hadn't made her feel any better. And I understand that, too.

So, back on the planet the lifetime ago that was just early this morning, I'd hollered at Carter and she came out of her trance, giving me a quick nod as she started squirming away from the rest of the goons as well as her bound hands and feet allowed for. Which reminded me that even though the bad guys had backed off, we were still sitting there thoroughly hogtied. Just why the hell was that, huh? Suddenly, Daniel's earlier begging, desperate glance over his shoulder twigged in with me, its meaning hitting me like a load a bricks falling on my head. Cursing up a blue streak that did nothing to take away the sting of that revelation, I looked behind me and sure enough Quinn, the only one of us with feet that could move and hands that could reach anything - his being tied in front so as to better carry ears with - was impotently frozen in place. I yelled at him, but he was too far gone. Way far gone.

It didn't occur to me then, but I realise now what had him nailed to the spot like that. He never really understood what had happened to Daniel, never really understood about Oma and Shifu and the Ascended even though he'd read about it all and could recite it back word for word. He hadn't seen what happened when Daniel died, and as insight and imagination don't exist past being inked words on a page for him, as far as he'd been concerned Daniel just plain old didn't exist as Daniel anymore. So, yeah, now that I think on it I realise that seeing The Dead Guy Himself pop up like that probably completely shut down what little experiential processing power he has. Even so, knowing that was likely the case does nothing at all to make me feel any better about it. Realising is one thing, understanding is another. I'll never understand - and I will never forget.

Bottom line: this didn't have to happen. Quinn should have moved with the first opportunity; got us loose the very second Daniel did his distraction bit and those brutes first backed off, and then we could have taken care of ourselves. God knows Daniel did everything he could, and, in retrospect, a whole lot more than that, to give Quinn the chance. But Quinn didn't take it. So history repeats itself, and I don't know if or how I can find my way to forgiving him for his part in this. I do know that I will never forget. Never.

I was struggling with my bonds, cursing at Quinn trying to get him moving, when Teal'c suddenly roared out Daniel's name - never a good sign. I looked back to see Daniel's struggling image all but completely enveloped by the white blur of energy, and slowly being drawn upward. What was left of the Daniel I was familiar with turned to a luminescent swirl of its own, flaring out against the one that had come down on him, quickly entangling with it to the point I couldn't tell one from the other. Then he was gone. They were gone. Just... poof. Nothing. The struggle, the swooping and swirling - it all simply vanished in the blink of an eye. The sky cleared up, the wind settled down, and the tingle in the air and in my brain disappeared. The silence was eerie. There was just us: three of us lying tied up in the clearing, and the fourth standing there with his mouth hanging open staring up into the sky as if there was still something to see there.

Naturally, because we're so freaking attractive a group, we weren't left alone for long. Quinn had only just decided to join us, finally retrieving the fallen knife and starting to cut Carter loose, when Teal'c gave us the head's-up on the more neanderthal of our captors venturing out of the woods to check things out. Seemingly capable of only the most primitive information processing and retrieval, either they'd entirely forgotten about the lightshow and mysterious appearance of Daniel now it was no longer happening, or they remembered but were far too stupid to worry it might happen again. Either way, doesn't matter; obviously we weren't dealing with members of a brain trust here, which was too bad for us.

They came out from the shelter of the trees slowly at first, peering around, and Carter practically spat at Quinn to hurry him up. He got her free and the two of them bolted for me and Teal'c, but their movement was enough to spur the M and M Executive Council into action. They came running, shrieking and growling and waving not only their knives and head-loppers and stuff, but also the automatic weapons they'd taken from us. Not that they knew how to use them. I guessed it was too much to hope for that one of them might accidentally find a safety and a trigger and blow the guy next to him's face off. Oh well. One could dream.

They were coming, and even though Carter was free of the ropes and along with Quinn had reached our sides and was ready to get Teal'c and me loose, I knew that in just another few seconds we were going to be pretty much back at square one. In other words, dead meat. It sucked big time, but there wasn't much opportunity to think about that, because what followed came on pretty damned quick. They were just about on us when there was a new rumbling and the sky darkened again, and then everything happened so quickly that even now I have to really concentrate to put it all together. Things went fast. Real fast. Like rounds coming out of a P90 set on full automatic - bambambam, bambambam! There was that rumble and the sky boiled over, and in a matter of a millisecond, before any of us could so much as blink, there were bolts of lightening shooting down. But it wasn't just lightning, just energy, alone - each one was a concentrated combination of energy plus a high pressure stream of fire like out of some giant narrow-focused flame-thrower. They came down with enough force to send debris spraying into the air from the ground where each of them hit. There were dozens of them hurtling down so fast, landing so close together and yet all around us everywhere in every direction, that I couldn't keep track of them all, and with each one the ground lit up at the point of impact and stayed on fire. The noise and heat were incredible. Deafening. Suffocating.

We cowered. At least, I know I did. It was kind of hard to keep track of anyone else in all that upheaval. It was just at the end of it, just a split second after the last one had hit, that I looked up through streaming eyes and saw that the bolts had landed to form a complete circle around SG-1. We were huddled directly in the centre of a low ring of fire. Got to admit, when I realised what that meant I was stunned into a sort of amazed stupor for a few moments. Totally ineffective leadership for a bit there. It was Teal'c who snapped me out of it as he yelled at Carter and Quinn to get moving and get us untied. It was then, when I saw his mouth moving and dimly realised I couldn't hear him very well, that I realised the next thing: the active assault on the ground seemed over, but not so the chaos in the sky. There was a huge thunderhead up there, furiously roiling and rolling, with erratic flashes of lightning shooting all through it. It was a breathtakingly impressive and monumentally awful sight both at the same time.

There was no time for rubbernecking, though, not in the least because it was damn hot. It was hard to breathe, and it felt like my hair and skin were about to spontaneously ignite. And boy, were there sparks flying or what? It was only after we'd got back home and I went to shuck my BDUs off that I discovered the little burnt holes in my clothing and the circles of melted synthetic fibres in my vest and utility belt. So... hot, noisy, suffocating - no sightseeing. Teal'c was suddenly next to me, his face grim as he cut the ropes behind my back. He glanced up at the turmoil in the sky, and coughed out that there was little we could do, adding, "We must leave here immediately, O'Neill, as difficult as that may be."

Okay. Self-deprecating truth number far too many for one day, here. I thought I understood what he meant, at the time, but I didn't. I figured he was anticipating us having difficulty getting through the wall of fire that had been erected around us. He wasn't.

Crap. Sometimes I barely meet minimum criteria for sentience, you know?

I managed to force my attention off the light show and back onto what I ought to be doing - working on getting us the hell out of there. Not particularly caring about what the natives might be doing, or even if they were still around, I picked the point in the circle where I thought we had a decent chance of dashing through without setting ourselves on fire. Quinn immediately re-locked into an instant replay of his rigor mortis rehearsal, but Teal'c gave him a strong, two-handed shove, sending him through like a cork popped out of a shaken champagne bottle.

Hey, I was going to go first. Really. I was. Teal'c took matters into his own hands before I got the chance, is all. What was done was done, though, so I waited a beat or two and as soon as I saw Quinn had made it through without being barbecued, I gave the signal for Carter to make the dash with me, followed by Teal'c. I remember there being an especially almighty boom of thunder, damned deafening, just as Teal'c jumped through. The accompanying flash made my eyeballs hurt. Teal'c got a bit singed, what with being startled off course by the power and intensity of that last explosion of sound and lightning. And it was the last, as it turned out. We were suddenly left with a quiet, not just in comparison to the tumult we'd been caught in, but an actual stillness so thorough it creeped me out. It was such a complete and utter silence, except for the low noise of the flames, that it was surreal. For a few moments as we lay in the dirt outside the circle of fire, each of us staying right where we'd landed, I was even more unnerved by the unnatural stillness than I had been by the chaos that'd gone on all around us.

We did a quick visual recon of the treeline, but the goonies were gone. Then we were up and going ourselves, heading toward the 'gate at a decent enough jog considering sore muscles and assorted bruising for the three of us who'd been tied up, plus one gashed arm for me, plus for Quinn the lethargy which came from still being totally stunned out of one's mind. We were across the flat and most of the way up the rise when Teal'c glanced back over his shoulder, stopped dead in his tracks, and hollered, "O'Neill!"

Without explanation nor waiting for me to so much as grind to a halt myself, he spun on his heel and started to run back the way we'd come. It would have been annoying, except Teal'c doesn't do stuff like that for no good reason, so I turned to follow him back down the hill... and looking down on where we'd been, back to that still burning circle, I saw it too. Even if my eyeballs didn't pick up right away on precisely what it was - that pale splotch against the sooty, scorched dirt to the inside of the slowly dying ring of fire - my gut sure did. It'll be with me forever, in my mind; not the details of the actual image, because that was something which came only after I actually got back down there, but the understanding of it, the insight, the feel and taste of the recognition of what it was.

Thinking back over it right now, the immediate reality of it snatches at my breath, resurrecting yet again the terrible knowledge of what we'd been just a few seconds close to never having been aware of... just a few seconds from leaving behind. If Teal'c hadn't have glanced back when he did, if we'd have kept on going and topped the rise and headed on down the other side -

Shit. Oh, goddamn shit. This is bad, so bad. Because just now, for a second, for a single raw heartbeat, I just wished to myself here that Teal'c hadn't looked back, even though the implications of that thought are horrifying enough to make me want to puke. What's the saying? That what you never know can't hurt you? Yeah, well, Jackbutt, what about the other guy, huh? Sure, I might never have known and then this wouldn't hurt like it does, but what about him? Pain so huge it's incomprehensible, unimaginable. God. How could I have wished for that? Selfish son of a bitch bastard.

Teal'c and I had plunged back through the remnants of the flames, and I didn't need to reach out and touch to know for sure. It was obvious, so clear that I wonder why back in Ba'al's hell I'd ever needed to chuck a shoe to try to tell the difference. He was naked, unmoving, his eyes closed, sprawled face down with one arm underneath him and the other outflung. I semi-hysterically almost laughed out loud what with wondering what had happened to the full field dress he'd sported earlier, thinking, hey, epitome of the stereotypical best dressed man -all image and flash but no substance. Teal'c squatted down at Daniel's side and hesitantly reached out, making a few abortive attempts before tentatively placing two fingers on the underside of his exposed wrist. I felt another insane giggle bubble up at that - it seemed such a silly, totally inadequate thing to do, and all the more loony when Teal'c cried out something go'auldish and snatched his hand away upon coming into contact with actual flesh. It woke me up, though, Teal'c's cry, and with my hands shaking so bad I wasn't sure what I was really feeling, I did a quick carotid and respiratory check. Teal'c's reaction didn't seem so silly then; I had to work at keeping control of myself when I felt overheated skin and muscle, so firm and solid under my hands. It really hit me then, really sank in, that although Daniel was unconscious he was back with us in the flesh. In the intact and unblemished flesh, I realised with a leap of what could only be described as victorious joy as we rolled him over and Teal'c shouldered him to take him home.

Victorious joy. Right.

He's woken enough to be moving restlessly in the bed, but that's more or less about it. He flings an arm out here and there, or turns his head in the general direction voices and noises around him are coming from, but there's not much else going on other than some indistinct moaning and groaning and mumbling. He's not really responding. Not following commands or speaking intelligibly. Basically he's still pretty much out of it - just shifting around, crying out on and off, and carrying on a disorientated and uncoordinated running battle with the nurses over the oxygen mask they keep replacing each time he manages to swipe it off.

Carter is down there with him. Except for during that damned however many minutes when Fraiser explained it all to us, Carter's been attached to him by an invisible umbilicus for the whole hectic five hours we've been back. Hasn't even showered or changed clothes. She went to the scanner with him each time, and she stood plastered to just the other side of the room with her back turned in unwilling compromise when the doc wanted her to leave so they could put in the catheter and do other invasive stuff. She refuses to back off even when the nurses have to wash him down after he repeatedly pukes up and does otherwise all over himself. I knew Carter had taken Daniel's death badly and that she's continued to miss him as much as any of us, if not moreso, but I hadn't realised just how much more to it than that there was for her. Looking down through the observation glass at her now, as she sits there still desperately clutching that damned device waiting to hear what attempt number four might have brought, even after being told there wasn't anything behind doors numbers one through three, I can see the guilt and the regrets. The dread, and the fear.

The same things I'm feeling myself. Wait; no. Not fear, exactly, for me - more like angry terror.

Fraiser's just appeared and is talking to Carter. I don't need to bother flicking on the intercom to know what's being said. I see the slump of Carter's shoulders and the way her face crumples in on itself as she listens, and then the determined shake of her head as she clearly lets Fraiser know in whatever terms, no, no way is she leaving even for long enough to take a piss, never mind to shower and change clothes. Fraiser taps on the chart she holds, no doubt pointing out some agonisingly dire bit of medical crap, and I'm glad the intercom is off. I really don't want to know any of the nitty gritty details. But suddenly, unexpectedly, Hammond opens the door to my little enclave, walks in, and goes right up to the glass and taps gently on it. Damn. When Fraiser looks up at him and tugs at Carter's sleeve, I know that what I want or don't want is neither here nor there, because unless I turn tail and run away I'm about to hear it all anyway.

I won't do that - run away. As much as I wish I could, I won't run from this. This is the price being paid for our lives, for my life, and the least I can do for Daniel is to bear witness to its payment. In full.

Part Two
Death on a Time-Share

"Wait. Stop. Simply reciting medical data to me does nothing to clarify the bottom line here, Dr. Fraiser."

Jack jerked his head sharply in agreement. Yeah, right, You tell her, Homer. Tell her to shut the hell up. Sure, he had to stay there and watch it happen, but that didn't mean he wanted to listen to a blow-by-blow commentary.

Hammond's bearing was stiff, his tone demanding. Unreasonable, actually, but that wasn't so hard for Jack to understand. Nothing about the situation was in any way reasonable. "Teal'c and SG3 have just returned, Doctor. They had no luck, and in fact ran into considerable difficulties owing to the enquiries they were making. I need definitive information - is there or is there not any realisable benefit to be had which will outweigh the apparent risk to our people should we step up our off-world efforts to locate the Tok'ra?"

Scrubbing a shaky hand across his face, Jack unsuccessfully tried to block out his tumbling emotions as Fraiser answered the question in just as unreasonable a manner herself, her voice defensive. "Sir. I can give you the medical information I have to-date, but that's all I can do. Begging your pardon, General, I'm not comfortable with the suggestion that I abbreviate my report according to what you may or may not find relevant. I'm not a mind reader; I'm a medical doctor." The general looked like he was about to explode, his hands fisted and face reddening, but then as Hammond glanced through the glass to the scene below something inside him seemed to snap, and Jack almost flinched as he saw the ruthlessness with which Hammond quickly and visibly slammed the door on any emotion. He became all but unreadable, a virtual pillar of formal detachment, except for something disturbing which entered his eyes. Jack thought he could see it actually happening in real time - the weight of responsibility actually taking its toll reflected in the dark pupils. It was as if a fog of weary gray was overcoming the black, and then leaching out further to smother the light and colour in Hammond's eyes until they were dull and flat and impenetrably distant.

Hammond tersely addressed Fraiser. "Your point is acknowledged, Doctor, but pardon is withheld for the time being. Explain the results to me, then, however do keep in mind the nature of the decision at hand. Do you understand?" Jack closed his eyes as if that might help shut out hearing the details he'd tried to avoid, although he knew it was stupid to think it might somehow help him cope with what he was finally about to hear.

"Oh, yes Sir, of course I understand." She was still put out, and Jack felt the discord in the room notch up even higher than it had already as she took a deep breath before continuing. "However, I do want to stress, with all due respect, Sir, that the best I can do is to summarise the medical findings for you. I don't have a verbatim answer to your question and the decision is not mine to make."

Whoa. Insubordination. Jack opened his eyes to see Fraiser standing huddled behind the chart she had clutched to her chest, her body language screaming "please don't make me do this" all too loudly, despite her assertive and aggrieved denial that she had any answers to his problem. Hammond stared a hole into her that Jack imagined he could see right through, his voice as icy as his gaze. "Continue on, Doctor."

When Fraiser spoke her delivery was stilted, and far more formal than usual for her. "The latest results are in, and I've compared them to past investigations. There are some inconsistencies and unanswered questions, but overall things are at the point where answering them probably won't change anything." Fraiser couldn't or wouldn't meet the general's eye, looking down at the papers she held as if reading the information on them. "A slight improvement was produced by the healing device this last time, just as with the first three times Sam tried it. Unfortunately, even though there was a minor improvement in hemodynamic status, it isn't nearly enough to make a difference overall. The effects are simply too transitory and not strong enough to effectively alter the course of..."

Beside Jack, Carter let out a slight whimper and covered her face with both hands. Fraiser paused, glancing in her direction with an apologetic grimace before accelerating the moderate-fat hi-calorie version of medicalese into hyperspeed, maybe in the hope that the more formally, impersonally, and the faster she said it the less painful it might be to spit it all out. Jack knew that wouldn't work for her any better than closing his eyes would've for him. "I just finished a detailed chart review. Presently, over the last hour and a half, we're holding fairly steady at the equivalent of hour eleven as compared to last time. For some inexplicable reason tissue breakdown is no longer accelerating as it has been prior to this point, but even so, we're facing significant internal tissue necrosis and the onset of systemic sepsis."

She lifted her head, finally, and reluctantly made eye contact with the general. "Even if the cell damage doesn't progress past this comparative hour eleven, we're looking at impending major organ systems failure and vascular collapse. In the absence of medical technology far exceeding that which we possess, Sir, it's immutable. He'll... the outcome is...." The formal facade slipped badly and she faltered, letting her voice trail off.

Jesus. Immutable. Eleven. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars; just go goddamned straight to goddamned immutable hour eleven. This was all so screwed up. Jack had an almost overwhelming urge to physically strike out at something.

Fraiser lowered her head, her voice breaking slightly. "Obviously I'm not an expert on the healing device, General. It's clear Major Carter is not nearly as proficient with it as one of the Tok'ra would be, however we're pretty much back at the point where even if General Carter or someone equally as capable were to show up, subjective judgements on quality of life will be just as much an issue as with last time." She lifted her head and stared pointedly at Jack, and he looked away, still unwilling to correct the mistaken impression she and the others had laboured under since Daniel's death. He'd been the one to pull the plug on their efforts, so to speak, and there'd been some conclusions drawn. He didn't intend to set them straight. This was hardly the time and place. In fact, there never would be a time and place for that. It was private.

Hammond directed a hard look at Jack, but addressed both him and Carter. "Yes. Last time. Colonel, Major Carter, what makes you so certain what happened last time won't happen again? Given the dangers of extending our search for the Tok'ra, I need to know with as much certainty as possible that..."

"No way." Jack snapped out the answer, irritated at having to repeat the obvious. "They booted him out on his ass, Sir, and it's a damn good bet..." He slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand in emphasis, only to find it increased rather than decreased his rising anger. "A damn, damn good bet they knew all too well what the result would be." Barbarism. This was nothing short of premeditated murder. An execution.

"Major?" Carter, still covered up, nodded at the general and muttered her agreement that there was little to no hope of an ascension this time around. Hammond simply replied, "I see. So we'll accept that as a dead end, then." Time stretched out into infinity as Jack felt the inopportune choice of words tear into and shred his gut like a jagged edged knife moving in ultra slow motion, but Hammond didn't even seem to have noticed what he'd said. He'd simply gone on to turn back to Fraiser, his eyebrows raised, clearly returning to consideration of the only remaining hope.

Fraiser obliged him as much as she was able, going all professionally formal and stiff again to avoid turning all blubbery. "Given the issue of quality of life, I really have no idea if at this stage the healing device is an effective enough tool to warrant a risk to others in attaining it. All I can do is inform you of his current status and the response to our attempts at treatment to this point, Sir."

Jack realised this was all just so, so much a waste of time. All they were doing was going in circles. Hammond sent quick glares at all of them and then turned away, and Jack watched as his body language became even more distant than it already had. The knife twisted, and he had to clench his jaw and hold his breath, fiercely concentrating for a second or two before managing to push back the urge to scream at Hammond that he couldn't do this, couldn't just stand by and let this happen. Not again. But the handwriting was on the wall. No Tok'ra. No second chances. No hope. No... no. No.

Carter's shoulder was intolerably close, almost touching his arm, and Jack abruptly moved away, needing to distance himself from everyone and everything even as he couldn't help but draw himself in closer by resentfully spitting out the obvious, leaving victims strewn in his wake as he did so. "Oh sure. Right. As if 'informing' us of 'his current status' is all you're doing, Doctor. You're saying without saying it that it's too freakin' late again - that it wouldn't work even if Dad walked through that door right now."

Fraiser looked down at the floor, her jaw tight and shoulders stuff, and Carter cringed, a little bleat of emotion making its way past the hands which still covered her face. Hammond's voice crackled with a touch of protective belligerence, his carefully detached demeanour abrading around the edges as he looked from Carter to Fraiser to Jack. "Colonel O'Neill, that's quite enough. Don't put words in other people's mouths, and surely you don't need reminding that Major Carter has attempted to use the healing device four times now. You ought to be well aware that the first such effort was made at a point far earlier in the progression than at present."

Yeah, yeah. But too late is still too late and - Wait. "At present" was, what? Eleven, and holding? Is that what Fraiser had said? Jack suddenly realised that left a gaping plothole in the story, even to someone as medically ignorant as he was. Carter had obviously been struck by the same thought behind her handy curtain, as she beat Jack to it, uncovering her face as she hurriedly blurted out, "The progression! Janet? Eleven? Why... and, how?" Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks wet. "He descended, what..." She looked to Jack for confirmation. "Six?" He nodded. "Okay, about six hours ago, and you said yourself the tests at that time showed he was pretty close to the start of it all. So, if this progression is different, which it obviously is, then how can you be sure the outcome will be the same?"

"Sam. I am sorry, believe me. I wish there was a straw to grasp. It's the rate of deterioration that's different, and that's hardly to our advantage."

Oh, yeah, great. Let's all be very explicit at pointing out just how much faster Daniel was dying an agonisingly painful death this time around. Sure. Looking out the observation window down at the weakly restless man in the bed below, at his friend who was again dying in such a horrible way for the benefit of others, Jack felt the hair at the back of his neck rise. Wrong, this was all wrong. He half listened as a suitably defrosted Hammond gently but wholly unhelpfully pointed out to Carter that no matter how you count up the hours, dying is dying. He heard Fraiser admit she didn't know how or why what was happening was happening in the way it was, but that's how it was, and then launch into an explanation of how her chart review and the current diagnostics matched one another for hour eleven, and had done so for the past couple of hours.

Jack shuddered, the twist of the knife in his gut starting up again as it occurred to him that for some deranged reason Daniel's body had been playing a devastating game of catch-up with itself over the last four hours, quickly going from hour two to hour eleven of dying a horrifying death. As much as wanted to, he couldn't shut out Fraiser's voice pointing out that even though it didn't make any sense at all, that's what had just happened. That all her data and results confirmed it, matching one another for the hours of two through to eleven last time to the hours of one through four this time around. According to her, given the extent of the damage Daniel was now past any possibility of survival, barring superior technology or a miracle. And yeah, yeah, shut up already, all right? Jack got it. He got it. He couldn't help but get that even sitting at the equivalent of eleven for the past two hours, Daniel's accelerated march toward death matched the pattern, albeit not the timing, of deterioration of a year ago oh so completely freakingly fuckingly perfectly -

No. Hang on. No, not perfectly, Doc. Not perfectly. Ah, shit, no, no, don't go there. Don't. He'd managed to skirt that line for all these hours; he could damned well avoid crossing it now, right? Wrong, dammit. He pleaded with himself not to go there, but in the end it was a lost cause. It was looming over him, demanding attention no matter how hard he tried to look the other way. Daniel was back in the flesh and was again dying of radiation sickness, of the same radiation sickness that already killed him before, only a hell of a lot faster this time around. But even though no one had said a word yet, they knew - all of them: him, Carter, Fraiser, Hammond, Teal'c - all too well it wasn't quite that straightforward. That there was this other unspoken-of little matter hanging over their heads.

Aw, crap. Jack felt his heart speed up and his lungs twist into knots of anxiety as he tried but utterly failed to push his train of thought away. To deny he'd actually knowingly, explicitly turned his mind in that direction. Didn't work. The door was open now, and he knew he'd have to face whatever bad karma lie in wait behind it, no matter how much he wanted to run in the other direction. He looked down at Daniel - at strong arms and hands now home to multiple IV lines and littered with bruises from venipunctures; at soft hair and sideburns tipped with sweat; at well-known features set in a disorganised, disorientated frown under the oxygen mask. Daniel's face, even though it was that of the same familiar friend, somehow seemed more and more like that of a stranger the longer Jack looked at it.

His heart ached so badly over the sight below him he wanted to rip it from his chest in an attempt to free himself of the pain. But that wouldn't help anyone but him, who really didn't deserve the help, and underneath outward appearances he could really be a glutton for punishment at times like this, so he moved forward right on up to the glass, as close to Daniel as he could get. He pressed both hands and his forehead flat against the window's cool indifference as he cast the die, asking the question he'd been afraid of getting the wrong answer to for the last four hours, ever since Fraiser had confirmed Daniel to be dying of radiation exposure. He took a not so fortifying breath and finally let out the question he'd been sucking back for fear of jinxing the only thing of Daniel still intact. The only thing of Daniel still left to them.

"So why does he look like that, then?"

The voices stopped their stilted back and forth, and there was an uncomfortable and discernibly accusatory moment of silence before Fraiser quietly answered him. "I don't know. It doesn't make any sense, medically."

He didn't bother to push himself away from the glass to turn around and look at any of them. He knew what he'd see on their faces. He knew as well as they did what he'd just done. He'd just voiced the impossible, risked drawing it to the attention of the negative energies of the cosmos that had always seemed to find and plague Daniel for as long as any of them had known the man. But there was something wrong here, and Jack knew way down deep, beneath his fear and misgivings, that now they were here actually talking about what was happening to Daniel, this ought to be asked no matter their dread of possibly finding it was an invalid question after all. Jack stared through the glass, his eyes searching Daniel's face and arms and hands, deathly afraid that now he'd actually said it out loud at any moment it'd all fall apart - that the outside of Daniel would all fall apart just as badly as his insides were. That suddenly they'd once again horribly lose what little of him they had left, the only thing still remaining of the person in the bed that they could relate to and use to identify him as in fact being their friend.

Even despite that fear and despite the hours of effort he'd put into avoiding this very moment, Jack acknowledged to himself he was choiceless in finally voicing the question. Because God knows they'd encountered a whole lot of weird shit over the years, things they just weren't equipped to understand or appreciate the importance of. Maybe this was one of them. Maybe they needed to pay attention to this, even as horrible as it would be if their fears came true, instead of dodging it due to some superstitious fear of somehow messing it up.

"Daniel..." Jack softly breathed out Daniel's name, fogging the glass under his mouth. "Daniel," he whispered again, thinking, just what have you gotten yourself into this time, Danny?

Jack re-tuned in to the others in the room to find Fraiser reluctantly forging on ahead, no doubt because Hammond had probably put on his baffled face. Her self-protective persona was back in full force, the impersonal, formal medical jargon clearly the only thing enabling her to carry on without breaking down. "Sir, as you already saw before, epidermal cells are pretty much at the head of the line for damage from the high doses of radiation that are responsible for necrotising internal tissues. It may not make any sense that his epithelial tissue and sense organs remain intact, but it doesn't change the fact that internally the necrosis and major systems deterioration is progressing in the same way and to this point to the same extent as before, although... well... although a lot faster this time around."

Jack heard the change in her voice as she rushed the final few words out, and knew her shield was giving way; she was finally on the very edge of giving in to the tears she'd been holding off. But she was a good little soldier, and as much as he wished she'd just shut the hell up, he had to admire her for being strong enough not to.

"No matter what he looks like on the outside, he's going to die, Sir. In a matter of hours if this thing gets going again like it did last time, and if not then it'll just take longer. A few days, maybe a week at the very most if we provide really vigorous support. But the end result will be the same. And I can't do anymore to prevent it now than I could the first time."

Below, Daniel stirred more forcefully in his restlessness, twisting in the bed, one hand haphazardly coming up to push at the oxygen mask. "Really don't like that thing, huh, Buddy?" Jack whispered to the glass, watching as the nurse came over and tightened the elastic strap holding the mask in place. Daniel tossed his head, resisting ineffectively as she took his hand and lowered his flailing arm back down onto the mattress beside him. As soon as she let go he grasped the sheet covering him, his fingers curling into a weak fist and then opening, only to close again. And open. And close. The hand went up again to grab at the mask, but the nurse was there to catch it mid-flight and once again return it to the bedsheet. And so it repeated itself. Open, close. Up, down. Open, close, open. Jack shut his eyes, unable to watch the struggle even though he accepted Daniel wasn't really aware of it himself. Presumably, Daniel - all that made Daniel, Daniel - was already gone.

Or...? He jerked his head away from the glass. "Why is he so out of it? " He turned his head toward Fraiser. "You said hours one to four was equivalent to hours two to eleven. He was awake during a lot of that time, before, and when it got worse he was with us until the drug doses got too heavy for him. Why hasn't he woken since we brought him back? Even for just a bit, hours ago?" But even as he asked, it occurred to Jack that the answer would probably be another, "I don't know," and that the ongoing stupor and disorientation - the closest a return to them Daniel had made since they'd found him naked and unconscious in the dirt - probably had a lot more to do with the violence of the fall from grace rather than to the radiation sickness.

But Fraiser looked at Carter, and they both looked at the floor, and he knew that wasn't the answer after all. "What?" he said, and then when they didn't answer right away, repeated it as a demand. "What!"

Fraiser looked up and despite the redness of her eyes adopted a cool, authoritarian manner befitting a CMO, which didn't fool him for a second. "I didn't chance it, Colonel. He's been receiving continuous intravenous sedation and analgesia since shortly after we first discovered the internal damage."

Uh huh. Of course. Jack let his forehead thunk back down against the glass. The nurse and Daniel were still doing their little dance routine down there, but now he wasn't so sure of what he was seeing after all. Oh, crap. Them that need to know are always the last to know. "Why?" he muttered.

Fraiser erupted, her body jerking with stress and her voice brittle. "It's a painful death, Colonel! And I for one don't intend to watch him suffer through it all over again." The verbal explosion ended with a barely controlled sob, and Jack rolled his head side to side along the glass in a negative, waving a conciliatory hand in the air.

"No, no." He closed his eyes against the sight of Daniel in the bed below him. "I didn't mean that. What I meant was why didn't you tell us earlier. I thought..." God. Why the hell does everything need to be so complicated? He didn't understand anything anymore. Oh, hell. All this time he'd assumed Daniel was -

All this time, all these hours, possibly wasted? Suddenly finding a focus for the anger part of his tangle of emotions, Jack straightened up, turning to face her. "You should have told me. I've been thinking he's not here, not aware," he tapped the side of his own head. "Not aware of being Daniel, of who he is anymore." He found himself getting more and more upset and less able to contain it as he spoke, as just what this could mean, just what opportunity had been stolen from him here, became more clear to him. "You should have told me," he repeated, his own cowardice of a year ago taunting him in the form of his own voice in his head - despite the fact that you've been a terrific pain in the ass for the last five years... may have, might have... admire you, just a little...

Might have, a little. A little? Oh, yeah, the price being paid was too high, all right. Inside of a moment, suddenly buried too deep in guilt and anger to stop himself, Jack found himself yelling at Fraiser, his hands fisted in the air between them. "Shit! What a screw-up! How could you not tell me? I figured he was already gone, brain damaged, or something. I didn't think whatever was left of him could be... that he might be -"

"Oh, you supercilious hypocrite, you! Did you ask?" Carter was suddenly in his face, waving a hand toward the isolation room, tears streaming from her eyes as she lambasted him. "Look at how many hours we've been back. Did you think to come down off your perch on high in here, to even once lower yourself to actually go down there?" She was clearly out of control and so openly insubordinate that even through his own turmoil Jack knew they were turning a corner here that they wouldn't be able to back up to later. The only way to go would be straight on ahead. "Did you, Sir? Did you even think to ask if he was at all lucid at any point, if he even knows what's happening to him? If he's in pain?"

She was on a roll, not hysterical but definitely as heading in that direction as Carter ever would, and Jack was far too shocked by her open animosity to be able to do anything other than stand there and take it from her. "No, you didn't! Of course not, right? Why should you worry about any of that. Not even worth the trip down a flight of stairs. Been there, done that, right, Colonel? After all, this is no different than any other soldier's death, is it? Just another day, another death, right, Sir?"

Her eyes widened as she spit out the last bit, and she suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth, uttering a garbled "Oh, God," before chopping everything off to rigidly stand there staring at him. Her whole body shook, trembled like a leaf in the wind, and all of a sudden Jack could identify with her. He completely understood what was building in her, screaming for release. Almost a year's worth of repressed anger and latent guilt; a deep, abiding grief that'd barely had a chance to settle before cruelly being resurrected by this new travesty. Grief, love, and loss, and desperate horror - no person, place, or thing had dominion over these. Neither that hand over her mouth nor all the military training in the world had any business attempting to forestall this. He knew it was right for her to do this, and knew something else that was right, too - she was right about him.

He moved, moved fast before his own military training could usurp his humanity, sweeping her into his arms and holding on as he whispered to her that he understood. She couldn't overcome her conditioning anymore than she already had, though, and stood there quaking in his arms, crying in that silent, agonised way of hers, and punched hard at his chest and shoulders a few times. That was all right - he did it for her, the admittance and the absolution, meeting Hammond's sorrowful gaze over her shoulder as he told her that yes, he'd been a damn bastard, a coward and a fool, and he deserved everything she'd said and more. He felt tears sting his own eyes as he told her it was more than just right - hell, it ought to be mandatory, an official order - to cry for Daniel, because of course it wasn't just another day and Daniel wasn't just another soldier.

Carter pulled away before he did, which was only fitting as he had no right nor intention to abandon her yet again over this. Over Daniel, and over what it really meant to be a friend, to be family. She moved out from his arms, looking at the floor as she wiped her face with her palms and muttered an indistinct apology for her behaviour. Jack reached an arm out to her, but she backed away from him, and an uncomfortable, faintly embarrassed silence full of questions about where they go from here filled the room and the spaces between all of them. Jack flinched as suddenly the door to the outer corridor swung open, the noise of hinges and latch intruding into the weight of silence. Teal'c stood in the doorway, still in field gear, and as his eyes passed over them and came to rest on Carter, Jack knew what the scene in the tiny room might look like to Teal'c. And ah, hell, sure enough, Teal'c froze in place for an instant, the abrupt tightening of his face and bobbing of his adam's apple signalling his distress, before abruptly turning and plunging back out the door and down the steps to the corridor.

Hammond's subtle head tilt wasn't necessary; Jack was already pushing his way past Carter and Fraiser, out the door, then clattering down the short staircase. Teal'c was nowhere in sight, and Jack hesitated, wanting to convince himself that Teal'c would have gone straight to his own quarters, preferring to deal with his grief in isolation. But he knew that was actually his own escapism at work; Teal'c was much stronger than that. It took a few seconds to face the prospect of finally going into the iso-room itself, but he did it, forcing himself to quietly slip inside. Avoiding looking directly toward the bed and equipment in the room, he was nevertheless fully aware of every little detail of the scene: of the monitoring equipment and the multiple IV stands, the bed elevated to waist height, the bubbling of the oxygen delivery system, and assorted beeps and flashing lights and readouts. Tubes and wires and basins, and the stack of clean, extra linen and the laundry hamper half-full of what he really, really didn't want to think about. And, especially, he was all too aware that he was all the more the asshole for not being able to bring himself to go over there quite yet.

He found himself shoulder to shoulder with Teal'c along the back wall, and glanced up to see Hammond purposefully staring at him through the window. Right. Bring Teal'c back up there. Yeah, he knew that, thanks. He nudged Teal'c gently with his shoulder, whispering "Hey, Teal'c," hoping the body contact might say a lot more than his lame greeting had.

There was pause, then Teal'c sighed deeply and admitted, "I am undecided if it is for the better or worse that I misunderstood, O'Neill."

Oh yeah, a lot stronger than him, for sure. Jack doubted he could have found the courage and honesty to come right out and admit to his terrible ambivalence and confusion like Teal'c just had. Basically, though, no, Teal'c hadn't misunderstood, really. It was just a matter of timing, was all. Nevertheless, Jack nodded, acknowledging at least that part of Teal'c's perceptions. "Yeah. About that. We were... actually, I messed up, and we... well, Carter and I, anyway, were just having a bit of a heart to heart talk."

"This talk did not go well, O'Neill?" Despite his words being a question, Teal'c's voice was flat, devoid of any indication of real interest. He was staring intently toward Daniel's bed as he spoke, and Jack got the distinct impression there was a specific message being conveyed - an unspoken, there is something far more important here than you, O'Neill; why do you think I might be in the least bit interested in what you were doing?

A deep-seated, habitual tendency toward bluster had his mouth moving before his brain could shut it down. "Oh, well, actually, it went a lot better than it did the last time." Given Teal'c's real message, it was of course a completely stupid comment - not to mention that thanks to his obstinate repressiveness there hadn't even been a last time. The very second the flip remark was out, Jack regretted having said it. Dismayed with himself, he fumbled beside him for the edge of the doorway. "Teal'c, Hammond wants -"

Teal'c stepped away from the wall a pace just as motion caught out of the corner of Jack's eye distracted him. He automatically sourced and tracked it. The nurse. She was stepping away from the bed, looking over her shoulder at them. When she saw them notice her, she turned right around to face them and gestured toward the bed, her eyebrows raised in what was clearly both reassurance and a question - it's okay, you can, you know... weren't you going to come over here? Teal'c immediately pushed off and made the distance to Daniel's bedside in a couple of huge strides, quietly thanking the nurse as he bent slightly at the waist to hover over the raised bed. Jack followed more slowly, glancing up to the observation room as he did so only to see the room was now empty. Questions of why, when, and where were pushed away as he reached Teal'c's side and looked down at the man in the bed - as finally, Jack actually came face to face with the lie of his own worth.

What the...? Jesus, look at that! Just look at - The attempt to hold back the abrupt seething inside setting his fingers trembling, Jack reached out and as gently as he could unfastened the velcro at one shoulder of Daniel's hospital gown, flipping the twisted front portion of the arm of the gown forward in order to take the pressure off the armpit equivalent of a wedgie. Infuriated by the sight of the pinkish pressure line along the inside front of Daniel's shoulder, curling up from his underarm, all he could think was that someone was going to answer for this. Where the hell did these people get their qualifications, anyway?

God, stupid, so stupid for Daniel to be dying while idiots like that blithely carry on. He looked to the far side of the bed, to the other shoulder, but luckily the gown was unfastened at that side, the front portion already folded well forward, far enough to reveal the monitor electrodes on his shoulder and ribcage, plus, oh for crying out loud, laying bare a goodly portion of Daniel's chest on that side. Crap, just how stupid are these people? On or off, warm or cold - make up your freaking minds, would you? He shot off a quick, "Turn the heat up in here, will you? It's goddamned freezing," to the nurse, his tone of voice and the look on his face leaving no doubt it was an order and not a request. The nurse stood there frozen in place for a second, appearing flustered as she glanced over to the far wall at the preset, centrally-controlled, untamperable-with thermostat. He glared at her, not interested in any excuses, and returned his attention to the place it was most needed.

What a mess. His hand hovered in mid-air for a moment, then moved down and carefully tried to pull the edge of the crumpled topsheet away from Daniel's side. Had to be uncomfortable, just had to be, to lie right up against the bunched edge of that sheet like that. Didn't these people know that? Hadn't they ever lain in a bed themselves, for Christ sake? Daniel stirred as the sheet was pulled away, both hands beginning to move in a restless flutter. There, see? Uncomfortable. The damned sheet had been bothering Daniel. Jack glared at the nurse and sent a meaningful glance to Teal'c, who in turn transferred a look full of concern to the nurse. Right, see? You tell her, Teal'c. Bedmaking 101, for pity's sake. You tell her that she's doing a shit job here. Worthless; she was worse than worthless. Just look. The gown, the sheet, the... the... son of a bitch, look at that. Look at the foot of the bed.

Gritting his teeth against angry words trapped in his throat, his mouth moving in soundless accompaniment as his mind whispered a mantra of worthless, worthless, worthless, Jack sidled down and moved to free the bedcovers from under the end of the bed.

"Sir?"

From where the weight of them had to be - just had to be - hurting Daniel's toes something awful. The linen was slippery, though, and tucked in so firmly; he couldn't keep his grip, couldn't curl his fingers tightly enough to...

"Colonel?"

Dammit, damn, where did they get these crummy sheets anyway? Talk about rough and nubbly. Daniel was squirming, his legs moving weakly, and Jack knew he needed more room under there for his feet, but the sheets weren't co-operating. He muttered under his breath, stringing a curse together with a general complaint about the quality of the medical staff, and pulled harder. Wait. There. Got them.

"Sir!" Hands appeared on top of his, stopping him from pulling the sheets out the rest of the way. He batted the hands away.

"O'Neill." Fingers clamped down firmly onto Jack's shoulder from behind, and he winced at the strength with which Teal'c forcibly manoeuvred him around so they were as nose to nose as they could get without bumping into one another. The expression on Teal'c's face was grave as he whispered to Jack, "It is of no benefit to you nor anyone else that you turn your anger on the nursing staff. The room temperature is fine. The linens are fine. Our friend is well cared for."

The pressure on his shoulder eased up, and Jack stood there dumbly for a moment under Teal'c's steady gaze. What the hell was he talking about? The linen wasn't fine. It was pressing on Daniel's toes. He swivelled and reached back, but immediately his hands were gripped by others, preventing from going back to the sheets. He looked up to see it was Carter, standing by the end of the bed, holding his hands back.

"Sir... Jack." She curled her hands around his, leaning forward to look at him with a pleading expression on her face. "Please, leave them. He gets pretty restless sometimes, and if they aren't tucked in they get all tangled around his legs."

What? Oh. Oh, Carter. Sam. He fumbled around trying to reconcile what she'd just said with his certainty the sheets were hurting Daniel, and that he could help. Under her hands, his fingers skimmed the linen for a solution, his mind roving just as helplessly. He pulled slightly at the sheets, uselessly arranging them into a messy tent over Daniel's feet. "Well, they need loosening, Carter. There's tucked in and then there's tucked in, isn't there?"

Wincing over how lame he'd just sounded even to himself, he brought his head up to look at her, expecting to see the disgust and sarcasm she'd managed to keep out of her voice written on her face. She answered him, "Yes, Sir. There is," and was surprised when all he saw and heard was, unaccountably, concern for him as she continued, "Teal'c is right, Sir. He's well taken care of. They're doing all they can to keep him as comfortable as possible."

Yes, of course. Sure they were. Teal'c was right, and, God, what was wrong with him? What the hell did he think he was doing? He pulled his hands out from under Carter's, mumbling an indistinct acknowledgement, feeling like ten different kinds of fool. Teal'c gently squeezed his shoulder, then released him, and Jack had to fight off a sense of humiliation. Empathy, it was empathy they were offering, not sympathy, he told himself, but wasn't really certain if he believed it. He'd just been acting like a total loser, after all. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to locate some semblance of rational composure. In the darkness, his heartbeat thumped in his chest and swished in his ears, and along with it he felt and heard, may have, might have... may have, might have... may have, might have...

Jack didn't know if Daniel could hear him or even knew he was there, but he took a lesson from Carter and just went with what his thudding heart told him to do. He moved up toward the head of the bed and reached out, placing his hand on Daniel's shoulder, leaning forward as he whispered, "Hey, Daniel. Sorry I'm late." His voice was as shaky as his emotions as he said Daniel's name, and he almost smiled as he imagined he heard Daniel's voice in his mind dryly telling him how touching that was.

Something hit him in the back of the leg, and he glanced around to see the nurse had brought Carter's stool over from the other side of the bed and placed it pretty much right under his butt. He sank down onto it, and Teal'c settled in beside him, standing there with one hand resting lightly on the raised bed rail and the other just brushing Jack's lower back. It was like a chain, the contact flowing from Teal'c through him to Daniel and vice versa, and he looked for Carter to complete it, only to find her standing well away from them, still down at the foot of the bed. He looked straight at her, and his stomach flipped over when she saw the invitation but stayed where she was and turned her head away. Yep, he had a lot to answer for.

Daniel fidgeted, turning his head to one side as he gasped under the oxygen mask, kicking his legs slightly. Jack watched as Carter gently rearranged the sheets he'd desperately messed up, making sure they were loosely tucked in under the foot of the bed just in time to prevent them from becoming entangled with Daniel's feet. Beside Jack, long fingers clawed at the air, Daniel's arm moving restlessly over toward the side of the bed. Teal'c caught the hand before it could smack against the side rail, and Jack heard a sigh from the big Jaffa as Daniel's fingers curled around Teal'c's own immediately upon making contact. He kept his eyes forward as he heard Carter softly ask the nurse when the next dose of pain medication might be due, and felt a strong sense of foreboding as the answer, "soon, very soon," came back.

He absently rubbed Daniel's shoulder, frowning as he looked down at the smooth skin of Daniel's arm, his neck, his forehead. Why? And what did it mean? The urge to tell the nurse to withhold the medication when it came due battled equally with his fear of the consequences and of the unknown - fear of increasing the pain for no good reason; fear of giving in to that very fear and possibly losing an opportunity to discover something that might stop this. He didn't want Daniel to suffer - God, no - but at the same time there was something wrong here, and the need to try to talk to Daniel, to try to find out just why what was happening was happening the way it was, was growing ever stronger by the minute now that he was actually really right there with Daniel. Sorrow mingled with his confusion, indecision mounting. "Danny, why?" he murmured under his breath, and leaned far forward over Daniel to whisper into his ear. "Tell me there's a way out, Daniel. Tell me what to do. I don't know what to do."

He heard conversation in the background - Carter gently bringing Teal'c up to speed on the situation - but disregarded it, staring intently at Daniel's face, searching for any sign he'd been heard and that Daniel was aware of him and capable of making even the smallest effort to respond. All he got was a completely incomprehensible mumble, an intense frown, and a twist of Daniel's head that set the oxygen mask askew. Jack adjusted it, and tuned back in to Carter and Teal'c just in time to hear that Fraiser was with Hammond in the general's office and that yes, while Teal'c had been out running around looking for the Tok'ra the prognosis had not only been confirmed but was now pretty much unalterable.

"You have been unsuccessful with the healing device." Jack heard both the statement and the question in Teal'c's comment, and mutely shook his head at Teal'c. No, that door was closed, big guy. No hope there.

Daniel turned his head again, rubbing his cheek against the pillow. Jack waited a moment until he stopped, and carefully eased the now twisted elastic holding the oxygen mask on back into its proper position. A water drop of condensation ran out from under the mask down onto Daniel's neck, and Jack wiped it away with his thumb.

Carter moved over to the opposite side of the bed, picking the healing device up off the bedside table. She brushed her fingers over its face. "I tried, Teal'c. Over and over again. I can activate it, but what happens after that just doesn't seem to have much to do with what I want or how hard I try. Even though I really, really want it to work..." She shook her head, her face scrunching up with distress as she tried to explain. "I don't know how to do it, how to focus its energy properly. I really try, but it's like, I don't know... it's like wearing fogged up sunglasses; no matter how hard I try to see where I'm going, everything seems so blurry and dark, so hard to make out."

"You were able to heal Cronos. Is it possible you try to hard, Major Carter? Perhaps in your desperation to make it work, you... I believe the Tau'ri expression is, 'choke on the reins'?"

Ah, crap. Jack knew Teal'c meant well, but all he was going to do was make things worse that way. He mentally counted down from ten as Carter stared at Teal'c, only getting to eight before she turned her back on them, grinding out over her shoulder, "Cronos wasn't completely falling apart inside, Teal'c, like... like Daniel is. And neither am I when I'm trying to use the healing device. I don't need an analyst, or a cheerleader."

Teal'c was clearly taken aback, opening his mouth then closing it again without having said a word. He bowed his head, uncharacteristically avoiding Jack's attempts to make eye contact with him. As for Carter, she looked and sounded as if she might start up that silent crying stuff again if they continued with this. Jack didn't think he could handle that without losing what little dignity he had left, and promptly changed the subject toward more neutral territory, away from what any of them might possibly see as being an area of personal failure. "Hammond mentioned you guys had some problems off-world, Teal'c."

Teal'c looked relieved over the change in topic. "Enquiries regarding the whereabouts of the Tok'ra were not well received, O'Neill. Several members of SG2 received minor injuries as a result of the unpopularity of the questions, and I myself was the subject of a betrayal by the people of P7T 445. We remain unable to contact the Nox, nor have the Asgaard responded."

Shit. Jack took his eyes off an ever-increasingly squirmy Daniel long enough to look Teal'c over more closely. "You okay?"

Teal'c's voice was tinged with disdain. "The deceit was readily discernible even before it was fully carried out. I recommended to the general that I be permitted to return there as soon as possible, to confront the culprits and continue the search." He looked directly at Daniel, and his tone became soft, filled with disappointment and sadness. "Yet, still, here I stand in this room."

Yeah. That kind of spoke for itself, didn't it. There wasn't much else anyone had to say. Carter turned back around, placed the healing device on the table beside the bed, and moved to stand opposite Jack at Daniel's other side. Finally, she met his gaze and a small measure of unspoken, mutual apology and understanding flowed between them. Jack nodded at her, relieved and grateful for that modest beginning, and she returned it in kind. He sat there in silence after that, thinking how very pathetic they were, how pitiful it was that it had taken something as dire as this vigil to bring them to the point they were trying to share themselves with one another. To provoke this quiet communion and finally bring about a willingness to renew the lost connection between the three of them..

Lost, disconnected - yeah, that pretty much described them since Calona. Even when working closely together on the same project or off on the same mission, essentially they'd each been alone and adrift, isolated from each other by a chasm of unadmitted-to, unapproachable differences, and completely lost as to how to deal with them. Damn... how did that happen? Where did they go so wrong?

Daniel reached up with the arm opposite Jack, yet again making a play for the oxygen mask. The nurse closed in quickly to restrain the movement, and Jack flinched as Daniel's hand ineffectively tried to jerk away from her contact. Low moaning making its way out from under the mask did him in. He couldn't take having to just sit and watch this. He unsnapped the elastic from the side of the mask, and flipped it off Daniel's face. The nurse started to protest, but he waved her off. "No. Not this time. You can put it back on in a minute. Just get me a towel or something."

He was handed a soft facecloth, and with a corner of it started to gently wipe the moisture that had collected under the mask off of Daniel's face. Daniel tossed his head, and Jack patiently followed the bouncing ball, leaning in to whisper a reassurance he was pretty sure wouldn't be understood even if it was heard. Carter pitched in, stroking Daniel's hair, murmuring soothing sweet nothings as Teal'c moved up closer beside Jack, relying on proximity to indicate his support. Here, Jack thought. Right here. Here was where they had gone wrong. Last time, right here, when they dealt with Daniel's dying in isolation from one another, not speaking of it nor sharing their strengths and their weaknesses with one another; neither coming together in spirit nor in body, not even to sit with Daniel as a team. That's where it had gone all wrong. When they'd put death and loss on a time-share.

The hissing made by the humidified flow of oxygen into the mask didn't conceal the low noises Daniel was making nearly as well with the mask lying on the pillow than it had when it'd been on his face. With the mask off, Jack began to wonder if the low moans and unintelligible sounds were just that, or if maybe they were more of an actual attempt at speech than just random noises. Jack leaned in, frowning in concentration as he listened. Was that...? That one sound, repeated over and over amid the indecipherable others... was it, what, an oww? Just pain, then? No, not quite...

"Oma." Carter was leaning forward so far she was practically touching noses with Daniel. She looked at Jack. "He's saying, Oma, Sir, and..." She listened for a moment, and then abruptly straightened up, her face turning chalk white in an instant. "Oh my God. Oh, Daniel."

Jack didn't need her to translate; he could make out enough of it now to be as thoroughly sickened as Carter. Daniel was in pain, goddamn it all. And he was calling for Oma, choking out her name. Even worse were the barely comprehensible words having something to do with being alone. A foul taste flooded Jack's mouth as he put the disjointed words together into a plea for Oma not to leave Daniel to die all alone, not to do this to him. Appalled not only because of what it said about Oma that she would do this to Daniel, but also because it was clear now that all this time Daniel had known what was happening to him after all, Jack sat there staring stupidly at Daniel, seeing him in a new light that illuminated far more than Jack wanted. Ah, crap - not only did Daniel know he was dying, he thought he was alone. Hell, hell, hell. His mind helplessly screamed out, no, no, we're here, Daniel, you aren't alone. But he knew it was a lie, because if through the drugged fog and the pain Daniel wasn't aware they were there, then for all intents and purposes he was alone after all, wasn't he?

Jack's own promise to himself that he wouldn't run from what was happening, that he'd stick it out and bear witness to the price being paid for their lives, suddenly seemed so sanctimoniously self-serving that he thought he'd puke out of disgust for himself. He'd sat up there all this time, all these hours, thinking he was doing the right thing by Daniel. But what did it matter what he promised to put himself through out of some misguided impression it would be the right thing to do - what good did that do Daniel, if Daniel thought he had been abandoned? Shit. Worthless. So worthless. It wasn't enough. It didn't even begin to skirt the far reaches of approaching enough. Carter was so, so on target with him, after all.

He looked across at her, silently acknowledging how right she was, and felt vaguely ashamed when he saw what she was doing. Crap, he was at it again, wasn't he? This wasn't about him, dammit. Carter was leaning over Daniel, repeatedly trying to assure him they were here and he wasn't alone. She stroked his cheek, and as Daniel thrashed his arms and jerked his head away from the contact instead of calming and leaning into it, she cast an anguished glance at Jack. The nurse appeared beside one of the intravenous pumps by the head of the bed, holding two syringes and an alcohol swab. "Meds are due; they're IV, so he should settle down right away once I give them to him," she tried to reassure them. "It's all right."

It's all...? What, was she kidding? Jack couldn't believe what he'd just heard, and glared at her, sharply gesturing toward Daniel. "It's all right? Please, do enlighten me... just what is it about this, even just one little thing, that could possibly be 'all right'?"

His voice was too loud and Daniel reacted with a start, repeatedly moaning for Oma ever more clearly as he grabbed at the sheets with his fists and tossed his head. The nurse looked chagrined for a moment, and then recovered to simply give him an exaggeratedly sympathetic look. Jack held back against the urge to reach out and smack her a good one. Still plagued with the compelling suspicion they were handling this all wrong, yet torn between the feeling they were missing something here and the knowledge that to try to chase it down would mean exposing Daniel to unimaginable pain, he held his tongue and sat there watching her get on with her job. An antipathy he didn't fully understand swelled as she juggled the syringes and swabbed the injection port on the IV line. It grew and filled him to bursting as he watched her open the valve on the port and slowly administer the contents of the first syringe.

Abruptly, something seemed to... he wasn't sure... it felt like - like something suddenly just went snap. And with it, in the same moment Jack felt that whatever-snap-crackle-pop, Daniel let fly a garbled cry that reeked of pain and frustration, and somehow found enough energy to just as suddenly surge up in the bed, raising his head and shoulders and calling out for Oma. And... whoa! Jack felt his own chest tighten in alarm as Daniel gasped wildly and collapsed back onto the pillow, his mouth and eyes wide and the tendons in his neck standing out. Crap, no! Jack realised with a flash of panic that Daniel couldn't inhale... couldn't catch his breath, wasn't hardly breathing, couldn't... couldn't - oh, oh, wait a minute here; not just Daniel... he couldn't breathe; oh hell, he couldn't draw air; his chest was caving in; his own chest, not just Daniel's, it wasn't just Daniel - couldn't take a breath... squeezing... couldn't -

Chest muscles rigidly straining in an attempt to inhale, his eardrums bursting, Jack recoiled as a stinging flash of cold, white light all but blinded him for an instant. The abnormal air pressure in the room seemed to abruptly snap back, his ears popping sharply and welcome air rushing into his lungs. He became aware of a loud, deep thrumming, its vibration so penetrating he could feel it thudding right on through his bones. And then things happened even faster - before he could make sense of anything, never mind recover. In the very next instant after the burst of light had appeared, it spiralled down to a central point. The powerful thrum was overlaid with a discordant shrieking as an indistinct, dark shadow seemed to coalesce into being, blossoming out from the point into which the light had collapsed. Jack couldn't tell if it was a part or a product of the afterglow and noise, and for a second he thought maybe it was just his imagination, but it didn't go away when he blinked hard, and - oh Christ, what the hell is this now... no way! - as it grew it seemed to be reaching out for Daniel.

Jack felt Teal'c move, heard him roar, "No! Do not!" and even before the dancing spots in his field of vision resolved and his brain could properly interpret what he was seeing, Jack's own body took over and he was up out of his chair, his arm reaching out to join Teal'c in trying to intercept the contact. His heart hammered at his ribcage in fear for Daniel, and he only realised he'd also just opened his mouth and yelled something or other when he felt the raspiness of his throat and got a taste of something indefinably spicy on the air.

Carter's hand appeared in there too, but astonishingly enough it was his own arm she quickly knocked away. The part of him that was starting to understand just what might, maybe, possibly, perhaps be going on reluctantly told him to withdraw and pay attention as he realised Carter was adding noise of her own to the general uproar - a lot of very urgent-sounding noise, in fact. Doing a lot of talking, really fast. "No, no, Sir, Teal'c, no. Leave him. Okay, it's okay... please, it's all right. It's - No! Teal'c, stop her, no alarm!" Teal'c bumped Jack hard as he moved away at speed, the impact jarring his brain and eyeballs into finally putting together and understanding the scene. So, well, yeah, apparently he was seeing what that slightly quicker than goddamned molasses part of him had thought he was seeing, after all.

Okay, yep. The new addition more clearly consolidating itself over here was Shifu, all right. And the frantically falling apart presence over there was the nurse, who was now being all but tackled by Teal'c as she made her ill-fated dash for the red panic button. The nurse's initial shriek, he realised, had been a key element in the noise, which now was limited to Carter's quieter, rushed voice and the thankfully and significantly diminishing, deep, vibratory thrumming that at full intensity had set his insides to shaking apart.

Gee. Other than Shifu's image waxing and waning, going from being kinda translucent to looking pretty solid and then back again, the kid didn't look much different than the last time they'd seen him... that time he'd messed with Daniel's mind, supposedly teaching him. Right. Some lesson. Jack mentally shrugged. Whatever. It didn't really - Ah, wait a minute - Shifu; here be Shifu, by gawd. Jack felt his heart leap with relief. Holy fuck, Shifu! Shifu was here! Elated over what this meant for Daniel, he surged forward and leaned over the bed, pumping his fist into the air. "Yes! Shifu, old buddy!"

The return response he got was hardly in kind, nor encouraging. Shifu jerked like he'd been tasered, popping off and on again as if he was a faulty light bulb, causing the air pressure in the room to do a bit of a dance. Carter shut up just long enough to cast him a quick glare, and Jack's excitement deflated like a punctured balloon as he took a better look at the boy. Something was wrong, obviously. The noise, that eyeball-vibrating thrumming-whatever disturbance - more muted now than upon his sudden arrival - was actually coming from Shifu, and judging from the distressed look on the kid's face Jack realised it could well be his version of crying. If so, he sure wasn't very good at doing the weeping and wailing thing, but, then again, it occurred to Jack Shifu probably hadn't had much practice at it.

Shifu's mouth was moving soundlessly, one hand hovering just over Daniel's forehead without appearing to touch him - well, no, sure, not looking like touching, because Shifu was still wavering in and out, intermittently shimmering with such insubstantiality that half the time he looked more like heated air rising off black pavement than anything else. Did that matter? No, no, hell, Jack'd take him anyway he could get him just so long as it meant they had a way out of this situation. Unfortunately, though, despite Carter's attempts to soothe Shifu and get him to settle down and maybe even talk to her, if anything not-really-a-real-boy was looking more rather than less frightened. Daniel, visibly weakening and starting to fade off as the drug he'd just received apparently did its thing, shifted restlessly in the bed, repeatedly groaning out what was quickly degenerating from his ongoing plea into a nondescript slur. Shifu's shimmer intensified.

Boy. There was upset, and then there was this. Wow. Jack was having some trouble understanding what was going on and glanced over for a clue from Teal'c, but he was talking quietly on the wall phone, the nurse standing next to him looking like she needed to visit the little girl's room yesterday. Damn. Come on, Shifu. Take a deep breath or something, eh? Hell, the kid was one of those floaty beings. Immensely powerful. So, just get out the zapper, and fix it, huh? Not clear on what else to do for the moment, Jack stood there listening to Carter's soft assurances, thoroughly confused over just what the heck Shifu's big problem was. Jack tried, he really did, but his patience with it didn't last long, though. Whatever was up with the kid, they could fuss over it later. Daniel and Shifu could have a nice little talk and a hug, and blah-blah and all that stuff. Later. Right now, the important thing was Daniel had what it took to ascend - well, duh - and Shifu was an Ascended and had what it took to facilitate the deal. Ergo, it was simple. Nothing to it. Nothing. La la la la la-la-la. So it was time to get this show on the road.

Jack loudly cleared his throat, but was completely ignored by everyone, including Teal'c who'd bodily hauled the nurse over to stand with him on the same side of the bed as Shifu. So he did it again, only this time even more exaggeratedly loudly. Everyone looked at him this time, including Shifu who had an open-mouthed, stunned look on his not-a-face. The expression reminded Jack of the way a certain archaeologist used to react to sudden and unexpected events during their early days of travel together, and he felt an unaccountable flush of warmth and concern for Shifu fill him. The boy suddenly seemed to take full notice of them, looking from him to Carter to Teal'c and back to him again in that so greatly missed surprised and still bewildered way, and Jack's heart twanged at seeing such a familiar, long-lost Danielism without the actual Daniel.

Everyone's attention to him was momentary, though, as just then Hammond and Fraiser noisily came barrelling in through the door, followed by the requisite big burlys with guns. Teal'c headed them off, although that wasn't much of a chore as they stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of Shifu. Hammond ran straight into one of the small equipment tables, and a metal tray and basin clattered from it onto the floor. Jack gave them a perfunctory glance, Daniel reacted to the ruckus by shifting and opening his eyes to half mast, seemingly looking up toward Shifu, and in turn Shifu abruptly broke through his whatever he broke through, snapping his head around to stare at Carter as he found his voice. An altogether unhappy, accusing voice. "He sees and hears but does not come. What do you do, that the way is barred to him?"

Carter's mouth opened, but before she could say anything Shifu closed his eyes, an expression of such intense concentration on his face that she clearly thought twice about speaking. The air around him crackled forcefully as in an instant Shifu's image stabilised into sharp clarity, and Jack knew, even though he didn't understand how it was possible, that there was no way any sort of tossed object would fly right on through that kid even though what now stood in front of him was still entirely an ascended being. Shifu turned reproachful, coal-dark eyes onto him, and Jack quickly dismissed the question, reminding himself this wasn't the first time they'd had a solid but ascended Shifu come to visit. He devoted his full attention to trying to process what the hell was being said as Shifu challenged, "You return loyalty with trespass. To spoil the seed at hand surrenders the distant harvest."

Jack met Carter's eyes, but she just shook her head slightly in response to his raised eyebrows. Yeah, well... all right, sure, rotten seeds don't sprout. Got that part. But shit, Daniel being this bad off wasn't anything the people in this room had a hand in, was it? Wasn't any of them that had tossed Daniel into the middle of a ring of fire to die. How dare -

Suddenly angered beyond suppression all over again, Jack raised one hand as a stop sign. "Oh, no, no, no. Hang on a minute there, kiddo. Ever heard the ones about black pots and kettles and barking up trees? Well, your people, or whatever you are, are the honking big fat pots, and I got a news flash for you - you can stop your barking right now because you won't find any kettles up these trees, bucko."

Shifu stared blankly at him. Nothing. And just how irritating was that? He felt Carter's hand touch his own to try to head off anything the fist it was slowly curling into might conceivably end up doing. "Sir. Please." He lowered his hand reluctantly, and watched Shifu's face as Carter took a different approach. "Daniel is very sick, Shifu, but it's nothing we did to him. He was already affected when he was - when came back to us." She flinched as her eyes strayed to the healing device still on the bedside table. "We tried to help him, but we couldn't."

Fraiser stepped forward. "Shifu, it's radiation poisoning, like he had before. There's nothing we can do. Unless you can... do something... something like Oma did - he'll die."

Shifu first glanced over at the healing device before continuing on to look carefully at each of the people in the room in turn, and then simply stated, "He should not be ill." He then just stood there, his stiff posture and silence seeming more than just a little disapproving.

Jack's insides churned with impatience as he forced himself to shut up and wait. He found himself quickly reviewing the play by play of Daniel's violent fall, and with each frame that fast-forwarded through his head he felt his resentment and distrust of these up-ass-ended creatures grow ever stronger. By the time Shifu's only response to Carter and Fraiser was to transfer his gaze to Daniel and reach out, placing a hand on Daniel's forehead, Jack was well primed for action. His own hand shot out without hesitation to firmly grasp Shifu's wrist. A faint spark of light flared at the point of contact of Shifu's fingers and Daniel's forehead, and Jack felt an uncomfortable tingle run from his hand all the way up his arm to his shoulder.

Daniel was sinking deeper, barely squirming at all anymore, his eyes closed and his breathing moving from groaning gasps into slow, laboured moaning. The three of them stayed that way, Daniel as the centrepiece with Shifu touching Daniel's head and Jack keeping a cautionary grip on the boy. Teal'c stepped forward, firing off an accusation of his own at Shifu. "You are already aware what Major Carter and Dr. Fraiser tell you is in fact so. It is why you have come here."

Shifu nodded, not taking his eyes or his hand off Daniel. "Yes."

Well, phfft... that, what... why - what the goddamned hell was all that trespassing loyalty harvesting the spoils all about then? A little zen demonstration on how to have fun and score points baiting the lower caste? Jack's grip involuntarily tightened as he ground out, "Yes? What do you mean, yes? So what the hell was that all stuff about us spoiling the seeds, if you already know it's not our fault he's like this?" Annoyingly, Shifu didn't respond, so he sweetened the pot with more ire and a slight shake of the wrist he held. "Jesus! You know what? This isn't the time for that kind of crap. Actually, no time is the time for that bullshit. You know exactly who's to blame for this, and no amount of word twisting is going to hide that."

Shifu looked startled, and then puzzled for a moment, closing his eyes and frowning. When he opened them his expression was clear and composed "Oma teaches that he who takes meaning from but one instance truly knows little."

Argh! The top of Jack's head actually ached with a need to fly apart. Teal'c headed off the imminent explosion by all too calmly observing, "If that is so of us, then the failure is your own. If your message is worth speaking in the first place, you should tell us outright what you mean to say." Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise at Teal'c. Hey, way to go. Cool shit. Teal'c leaned forward, his tone harsh as he continued, "I care nothing for obscurity or spiritual insight while my friend lies dying. Either you are willing to help him, and will get on with just that, or you are not, in which case you are of no further use nor interest to me."

Shifu's bearing was sympathetic as he slowly nodded. "I understand. You use your ears yet do not hear distinctly, but even so in your speech there is some truth." He seemed oblivious to the rising hostility in the room, looking back down at Daniel. "The message intended was not to do with the cause of the sickness, but with sacrifice of the future for the sake of the present." He looked back up, straight over at Fraiser. "You have done something to him against his will which prevents him from coming to me. He rejects it but you do not listen. He calls to Oma for help, as he sees and hears me but he cannot cross the bridge to meet me."

Oh, crap. Jack let go of Shifu's wrist and scrubbed his face with both hands. The drugs? Fraiser inferred the same thing, stepping forward to get a good look at Daniel, asking the nurse, "When was his last dose of morphine or sedation?" The nurse pointed with a shaking hand over to the IV line where the discharged syringe she'd been using when Shifu appeared still hung out of the injection port of the line. Fraiser cast a quick disgusted glare at the nurse, and walked around behind Shifu to remove it, giving the boy a faintly ohmigawd look behind his back and a wide enough berth that she would have looked comical had the situation not been so dire.

Shifu stared at the needle and syringe as it was withdrawn from the line. Fraiser explained to him, "We give Daniel medications - beneficial chemicals that we inject into his body - so he's as comfortable as we can make him. Without them he'd be in much more severe pain, and we don't want him to suffer unnecessarily."

Increasing concern written over his face, Shifu finally lifted his hand off Daniel's forehead. "He retreats farther." He indicated the various pieces of medical equipment around the bed. "There is so much you do here I do not understand. So it is these 'medications' that prevent him from crossing the bridge?"

Fraiser frowned. "I can't say for sure, Shifu, because I don't understand exactly what you mean by that. Some of the medications we give make him very drowsy, and he isn't aware of things he'd be aware of if he didn't receive them. They fog his mind, yes, if that is what you are asking."

"Then you must undo this thing. Daniel must find his way across the bridge. I must meet with him."

Fraiser winced hard, and Jack felt a mirroring twinge in his chest. Ouch. Big huge ouch. Except... okay, yeah, well he'd had that same thought before, himself, hadn't he. Fraiser shook her head with worry, and Carter said, "Oh, Shifu, he'd be in terrible pain if we did that."

Shifu also shook his head, the movement carrying powerful sadness. "Those whose courses are different cannot lay plans for one another. I cannot know if there is any helping him if you bar the way."

Jack looked again at Daniel, at the incongruously intact skin of his face and arms and hands, and was just as conflicted about the whole thing as he'd been before. Knowing about Shifu not being able to talk to Daniel because of the drugs wasn't nearly as helpful as - ahhh, hang on. Whoa there. "Wait. Just wait a minute..." Jack waggled a finger at Shifu. "It can't be the drugs. That's not it."

Everyone looked at him in surprise, and Carter asked, "Why not, Sir? It makes sense. If Shifu is trying to talk to Daniel via some sort of, I don't know, telepathy for want of a better word..."

"No. That's wrong. It has to be something else." They all looked at bit shocked at the strength and abruptness of his insistence, and quite expectant to hear an explanation, but he was at a loss as to how to back it up without getting into what had happened to him, and between him and Daniel, just before Daniel died last time. That was something private he'd never intended to tell anyone about, and even were he to change his mind this was hardly the right time for the crap it'd raise between them all. Not to mention the possibility of stirring up a bucketload of shit over the timing of Daniel's decision.

Fraiser was gabbing something about it being all right, Colonel, she would recommend against anything that would leave Daniel open to suffering unless they were sure it was a last resort, and then gave him a look so full of misplaced, faulty sympathetic insight that his toes curled. He slashed his hand through the air to cut her off. "No. Hell, as far as I'm concerned you never should have loaded him up in the first place. We needed to see if he was still with us or not, to talk to him about what the hell is going on here. Not to abuse him into a drugged-up stupor."

Carter and Fraiser stared at him with hurt, horrified looks on their faces, and Hammond, a silent observer to this point, stepped forward. "Colonel. That's enough."

It wasn't enough. It'd never be enough. Nothing will ever... "No Sir, it's not. I'd ask you to order her to go draw up the narcan right now, except it's probably too late. You said it yourself, Doc - hour eleven. Look, it's not that I... believe me, I don't want to see him in pain anymore than the rest of you, but..." Aw, crap. How to do this? "Just take it from me, it's not the drugs that's the problem. There's something wrong here other than that he's dying, and you all know it. I'm as bad as the rest of you for letting it slide by, but now Shifu's here and he's saying there's something strange going on, too."

"All Shifu is saying is that the drugs are interfering with whatever process he wants to use to connect with Daniel, Sir. I think that's what we should be focusing on." Carter's unspoken, not on your problem dealing with your feelings of guilt, Sir, hung in the air for everyone to see and hear all too clearly.

Jack murmured an "oh for Christ's sake," under his breath, and turned to Shifu. "Look, it can't be the drugs or anything else we're doing. It has to be something to do with whatever your people did to him, or maybe something to do with you."

"Why?"

Shifu's straightforward, one word question momentarily had Jack fumbling. Okay; so the kid was catching on to normal communication. Too bad, because he really didn't want to have to respond equally as straight-on. He tried to fudge it, sticking his chin out and saying, "Just because, okay?" A sinking feeling in his gut warned him that even he thought it was an inadequate answer, and so he tried to explain without explaining. "Look, Daniel can back me up on this - you should be able to do whatever it is you're trying to do even with him swacked out on the drugs."

Shifu frowned deeply, and didn't let him off the hook. "You wish that I speak plainly, yet do not yourself. Even behind walls constructed of caring, in concealment is often deception."

Shit. He gave in. There was little else he could do, considering Shifu was their only hope for Daniel. No matter what conflict it'd mean for Jack, it was in Daniel's best interests for him to spill in the hopes it'd help solve Shifu's problem. "Okay. All right, already. Oma did it. The radiation sickness, dying brain cells, the drugs - she did it, no sweat."

He heard Carter's gasp beside him, and felt the piercing presence of Teal'c's full attention on him. Fraiser looked baffled, but Hammond cocked his head and eyed him shrewdly. Jack suspected the wheels of speculation were turning at about mach 5 in Hammond's brain, and knew when this was all over the 'xplaining he'd have to do to Hammond would put Lucy and Desi to shame.

"I am not Oma," Shifu said, his frown deepening even further.

"You're of Oma's kind, aren't you?" Jack knew his voice was harsh, but hell, shouldn't what he was pointing out be obvious to the kid?

"Yes. As are you of yours." Shifu looked at Jack, and then around the room to the others. "Yet you are individuals. Is the flight of an arrow not in accordance with the strength and skill of the bowman? Oma teaches me..."

Shifu seemed to freeze in place for a moment, and then the frown on his face slowly morphed into an expression of intent thoughtfulness. "Oma teaches me. I am her student..." Momentarily animated, his eyes sparking, he quickly reached forward and placed a hand on Daniel's head again. "Of course! Yes, I now understand. I have been an inattentive student." To Jack's dismay, however, Shifu's voice quickly fell as he closed his eyes and quietly added, "I am sorry, Daniel. I am so very sorry."

Oh, man. Jack's sigh felt like it came all the way up from his toenails as he watched an obviously sorrowful Shifu spread his fingers widely over Daniel's head. This was getting more and more frustrating with each minute that passed. So, what... was that the kid's way of pointing out that not all the ascended could do the same things? Didn't want to hear it. No, no, no. There was no more room for that possibility than there was for that other unspeakable possibility. Shifu could contact Daniel. He had to. And he could do the rest, too. The door wasn't closed on this. It couldn't be. He looked away, focusing a steady stare on the floor, more to avoid the sight of Carter laboriously girding herself up to question him - and won't that be fun - than to get a grip on himself. He was okay. All under control. He'd stay that way, too, just so long as Carter kept her mouth shut.

Shifu murmured under his breath, "Daniel is wise. It is not merely in the instruction of the teacher that the opportunity for learning resides. What is not taught is the greater lesson."

What? Jack had only a scant moment to wonder if somehow Shifu might have absorbed a few doses of those drugs Daniel was loaded up with. The faint spark Shifu had created before at Daniel's forehead suddenly reappeared, only this time it didn't just fade off right away but instead stayed put and quickly brightened. "Hey! Wait. What..." He moved fast, grabbing Shifu's wrist once again, and as a sharp tingling rose in his fingers he barely managed to grind out, "...are you..." before the white glow suddenly burst into a blinding flash. An intense, paralysing pain exploded in his hand and shot all the way up his arm to his shoulder, and then through his chest. Blinded. Suffocating. God, it hurt.

When he could see and breathe again the first thing he noticed, aside from the torturously painful pins and needles sensation in his arm, was that he was no longer holding Shifu's wrist. The second thing was that Shifu wasn't even standing there across from him anymore. And the third thing to hit him was that the bed in front of him was empty.

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Within the context and limitations of the site Disclaimer, Any and All original characters, situations, story line, dialogue and narrative © June 2nd, 2003, the author