Steep Descent

by Jb

Part Three
The Best of Nothing

There was a fourth thing, and then a fifth, too.

Jack stood staring at the dented pillow where Daniel's head had been just an instant ago. His arm so painful there were tears in his eyes, shocked and confused and with his gut contracting as his alarm ratcheted upward, Jack realised number four. He wasn't in Kansas anymore. Or Colorado either.

He whirled around, clutching his arm to his chest, searching the room. "Carter? Teal'c?" Oh, crap. Revelation number five: Dorothy and Toto were notably absent. But it wasn't only them; Jack's bladder came as close as it ever had to involuntarily letting go on him as he realised that not only was he not in Kansas anymore, but that he didn't seem to be anywhere anymore. Apparently he wasn't standing on anything, or even in anything. He rolled his eyes around in their sockets, keeping the rest of him rigidly still otherwise, and ohmigawd yeah, yeah, he was right - the floor was gone, the room was gone; geez, it looked like everything and everyone else was gone, save the empty bed and the overbearingly noisy equipment around it, all of which sat next to him on... nothing.

On nothing? How was that possible?

Not. It wasn't possible. Just imagination running wild, is all. Look again.

Okay, okay, looking - Oh holy fuckaroonies; there was nothing, utterly nothing! He swallowed hard as his mind stuttered and then completely stalled, refusing to wrap itself around the incomprehensible. Nothing was just a useful, everyday, ordinary word; a concept. Right? Such a thing as real nothingness couldn't really be... real? He pushed his panic back and only with great difficulty managed to move his head, the tendons and muscles in his neck so unresponsive at first he was suddenly scared they too were gone, swallowed by the impossible. Agonisingly slowly, impending panic biting at his ass, he and looked around, and up, and then bravely down at his feet and almost puked with alarm and disorientation. Shit. Not possible. Not happening. Not, not, not.

Cautiously, Jack twisted around, searching high and low as he slowly turned his body, then slammed his eyes shut as he caught a glimpse of his own feet sliding over... across... in... through... on... argh! Okay, okay, wait. Calming breath. So fine, it was none of those. Prepositions were over-rated anyway, right? If he'd told his linguist once, he'd told - okay, stop. Stop the blathering. It didn't matter. It was all right. He was okay; he wasn't falling or anything like that, or at least he didn't think he was.

Wait - could he be falling and not know it? No, no, that'd mean the bed and all that noisy junk was falling with him and hey, oh crap, maybe it was? But hang on a second, just relax - So what? Even if that was the case, if he was falling, there wasn't anything to slam into anyway, right? Yeah, right.

But, it was only right because... because there was freaking nothing anywhere!

No, that had to be wrong. It wasn't possible... yet here he was. Shit, he had to get a grip. If the others were here, they wouldn't be on the edge of outright panic like this, right? Carter would prattle off some sort of sciency-speculative-whatever, Teal'c would go all pragmatic, and Daniel would - no. It was Quinn, not Daniel. What would Quinn do? Oh bugger, who cared? None of them were here; it was just him. So, okay, figure this out. How did he get here? He was standing at Daniel's bedside when the kid touched Daniel and all of a sudden there was this glow, and he reached out and - Oh! Damn it!

Jack's eyes snapped open and he roared out Shifu's name, twisting around to search for the little shit. The disorientation hit him hard, and he cried out, flailing his arms against the nothingness as abrupt, utterly nonsensical sensations assailed him - his gut plummeting, body tumbling backward, feet slipping out from under him even though his eyes told him that in relation to the bed next to him he was erect and standing still. His eyes had to be lying, though, because all of him was whirling and somersaulting in all directions at once nevertheless, even though he could see the bed sitting unmoving right next to him.

Closing his eyes again in desperate self-defense, he hollered, "Shifu! Dammit!" as he worked on convincing his brain to re-interpret the situation. That it wasn't his eyes delivering false information; it was the rest of him. Had to be. This wasn't happening. He was standing still, his feet planted on an actual surface of some kind, his body upright. In control. Anything else was a lie. Completely bogus. Lies, rumours, fairytales... right, Daniel? So he yelled for Daniel, too, just for good measure, and then set off a whole new bout of sickening sensations as he jerked forward in alarm upon suddenly feeling a weight land on his shoulder. Falling, twisting, twirling... he was...

"Jack."

Jack. He was Jack. Not lost. Not falling, not twisting, not uncontrollably whirling. Not trapped in an impossible nothingness. He was...

"Jack!"

Whoa! Jesus! Was that real? Did he just hear...? Jack forced himself to think past the sensation of plunging out of control. He struggled to divert all his attention to his left shoulder. There was something on his shoulder. Firm, warm. Breathe deeply, slowly. Centre on that gentle pressure. Ignore the wild pitch and yaw.

"Jack? Just relax. Just concentrate on my voice. You're all right."

Daniel? Oh, God, Daniel! Yes, yes, that was Daniel. He was here with him. Jack did as he was told, focusing on the mild voice that continued to reassure him, and on the feel of Daniel's hand on his shoulder, concentrating fiercely until he could identify each individual finger pressing firmly, comfortingly into his body, grounding him and helping to erase the fear and disorientation. Then he cracked his eyes open and stared straight ahead, steadily, into the impossibility of nothingness, determined to overcome this. Daniel helped by squeezing his shoulder while nattering on and on about pretty much nothing.

Natter, natter, natter. How glad Daniel was Jack and the team had gotten out of that bad situation off-world. How much he liked Sam's new hair style. How Hammond looked like maybe he'd lost a bit of weight lately. He hoped that was purposeful, and not because the general was under too much stress. How he really regretted he hadn't been able to join them all in celebration of Cassie's seventeenth birthday, but considering the overall circumstances it was probably best that he'd stayed at a distance.

Jack used Daniel's voice and touch as anchors, and slowly the sensation of falling and somersaulting through a void became less overwhelming. He realised that when he had touched Shifu, he'd been dragged along to wherever Shifu was going, or into whatever Shifu was doing. A flicker of self-satisfaction ran through him as he thought, there, see, he'd been right; it wasn't the drugs; it was Shifu himself that was the source of the barrier. He nodded smugly, pleased he'd helped Shifu figure it out, but the movement set off a new wave of disorientation so he fixed his gaze straight ahead again and re-focused his attention on Daniel's voice. On the words coming out in a steady, soft stream from somewhere just behind his left shoulder. Words he suddenly realised were now moving on from being about nothing much into somewhat more significant territory.

How Daniel had learned a lot of really cool stuff about life, the universe, and everything. And in the end, right then and there at this particular end, in fact, how Daniel thought he was pretty much at the point where he'd finally figured out what was really important and what was just filler. How often he'd thought of his friends, and how he'd tried his best to keep track of them, even though sometimes it was impossible and he'd only find out after the fact, too late, that something bad had happened. He was sorry about that. Really he was.

Jack moved his head. Cautiously. Slightly. It was okay, so he looked down at his feet, and although it was still completely unbelievable that he wasn't standing on anything, he didn't totally panic this time around.

Not that Daniel could have done much to help at the time, though, which, as Daniel hoped Jack could imagine, was quite frustrating, not to mention disillusioning. How sorry he was that bad things had happened in the first place, but how even more sorry he was he hadn't been of more help. Sorry, Jack, so very sorry.

Hey, no problem, Danny, Jack thought. After all, he understood, sort of. A bit. Ahm, well... okay, so he didn't understand, really. But hey, he was more than willing to try to understand. And anyway, Daniel was here helping him right now, wasn't he, and things were getting better by the second. Jack found he could move his arms and legs, even shuffle his feet forward and back, without going all inside-out. His brain was coping with all this weirdness much better. But hey, just where the hell were they, anyway?

How sorry Daniel was he'd taken so long to grab a clue, and especially so sorry that his own curiosity and interests had blinded him to the things he was now coming to understand were really most important in life. Things that meant more than anything else, really. Things like values and beliefs and being true to yourself. Friends, and loyalties. Self-determination.

What? Uh, Daniel?

How Daniel was desperately sorry Jack and the others were having to watch him die all over again, and how it probably - no, no probably about it, Jack, sorry about that, Jack - it undoubtedly would have been better for them if they hadn't turned back and found him. It would have been best if they'd have just kept right on going.

What the hell...? Oh, for God's sake.

But, even so, and Daniel knew this was incredibly selfish of him and he probably shouldn't be saying this at all, he had to admit he was glad Jack was here with him. Of course, he knew it was just an accident that'd brought Jack here now, and if Jack decided he wanted to leave that was okay. Really, it was okay. Perfectly understandable. Daniel was pretty sure he and Shifu could work out some way to send Jack back without Shifu having to leave as well.

What? Jack rolled his eyes as he listened to the ongoing patter, thinking, oh, give it a rest, Daniel. What the hell was all that malarkey? Boy, he'd forgotten just how amazingly full of crap Daniel could be sometimes.

Daniel had to be honest here; he'd been pretty shocked and upset to find himself back in this position, and angry at first, not to mention that it was goddamned painful on more than one level. But he wasn't quite so angry anymore because it wouldn't change anything, being angry, would it? And anyway, now he knew he wasn't alone he was feeling a bit better about the whole thing, and so if Jack did want to go back and Shifu made that happen, well, it was all right, he thought he could probably cope with -

"Daniel! Knock it off." Jack abruptly yelled at Daniel and turned around, doing his best to disregard the resultant momentary loop-de-loop. He spun around, and wow, there Daniel was. He was actually there. Visibly there. Excellent. Jack hadn't really been sure, even though he'd felt Daniel's hand on his shoulder and heard his voice. This wasn't Kansas, after all, and all bets were off.

Standing not six inches away, one hand still on Jack's shoulder, the surprised expression on Daniel's face slowly morphed into a tentative smile as he observed, "Hey, this is great. You must be doing better now."

Jack just stared, taking a minute to process the incongruity of it all - the contrast between the inferences in the words of a few seconds ago with the lightness of the ones just spoken; the slight smile on Daniel's face as he stood there right next to him in the nothingness even though he was actually dying in the infirmary; the ultra-white, ultra-clean version of hospital scrubs Daniel was wearing; the fact that this was even happening. If it was even happening, of course.

"Jack?" The smile faded and then disappeared, to be replaced with a frown of uncertainty. "Uh... okay, so, not so great?"

"No, Daniel. Great is not the first word that comes to mind to do with..." Jack waved his uninjured hand, indicating... well, the lack of anything around them. "With this. Whatever or wherever this is. Or isn't. Or otherwise. Etcetera."

"What?" Daniel looked around, his gaze following Jack's gesture, bewilderment deepening the frown.

Acutely aware that this experience was oh so different from the one he'd had when he'd stood at Daniel's deathbed close to a year ago, Jack needed answers. Needed a rational explanation - like, hey, maybe this was an interactive, but entirely constructed, dream placed in his head like what Shifu had done to Daniel that first time they'd met the kid, or like maybe he'd been zapped off to somewhere, or something - because otherwise, his brain would explode trying to make sense of it. He waited on Daniel, but nothing more came out after the perplexed "What?" so he raised his eyebrows and pointed first to the bed and equipment, and then up, and down, and across, and then gestured around the inexplicable. "Yeah. You got it. Exactly. What. As in, what the hell is all this...?"

Daniel looked even more confused and his mouth formed the word again, his lips pursing then opening even though he didn't actually say it out loud. He raised his own eyebrows and stared expectantly at Jack for a moment, but then suddenly his expression changed radically. Unable to meet Jack's eyes, Daniel was abruptly looking anywhere but right at him, and Jack couldn't help but notice just how obviously disturbed Daniel was as he took his hand off Jack's shoulder and plucked at his hospital scrub shirt, twisting the fabric between his fingers. Taken aback by the speed at which Daniel had just gone from puzzled and enquiring to distressed, Jack didn't even begin to understand what was going on with the guy. So... nothing new there, huh? Funny how some things never changed no matter what plane of existence you found yourself in. On. Whatever.

Unable to meet Jack's eyes, Daniel turned away and stammered, "Uhh, oh. Oh. Okay... okay, then. It's all right. I understand." Daniel moved a few paces away and ended up sort of at an angle to and slightly higher up than Jack, provoking a flare-up of anxiety as Jack once again became aware of the obscene void they were in. Even through that upset, though, he caught the clue bus and was ready when Daniel turned in a slow circle, searching with his eyes, and called out Shifu's name.

"Daniel, no. It's all right." Jack's hand shot out, but Daniel was just that bit too far away now, so when Daniel ignored him and called out for Shifu again Jack actually had to take a step to get to him. It wasn't pleasant, but he did his best to ignore the disorientation, making it a giant enough step that he could grab Daniel's shoulder as he urgently repeated himself, "No. Don't, Daniel. It's all right. We don't need Shifu."

Daniel talked right over him in a shaky voice, though, not listening, twisting around so that Jack had to really clamp down on his shoulder to avoid losing contact with him. "Sorry, sorry. It was a lot to ask; I understand that. Shifu? Can you show yourself? I shouldn't have said anything, Jack. It wasn't fair to you. Put you in an awkward position. Hey, Shifu? We need you to -"

"No!" Jack lunged forward and got both hands on Daniel, manhandling him around so they were face to face. "Daniel, I said no."

There was a flicker of motion to one side and Shifu suddenly became visible, Daniel turning his head to greet the kid and starting to spout garbage about Jack wanting to leave. "Shifu! Great. Look, this was an accident, right? Jack being here? Well, we need to..."

Jack had to raise his voice to get Daniel's attention. "No! I don't want to go back, Daniel."

"... fix it, to send - What?"

Jack patiently repeated himself, knowing with absolute certainty that Daniel was far more shaken by his own circumstances than he was letting on. The guy was absolutely full of shit. "I said, I don't want to go back. I want to stay with you."

Daniel stared at him, white-faced, and Jack felt a stab of empathetic pain in his chest at seeing how the momentary hope that flared in Daniel's eyes so quickly gave way to self-protective doubt. He gently squeezed Daniel's shoulder. "Really. I want to stay." The feel of Daniel's body under the tight squeeze of his hand made him realise something, and he released the pressure to drum a couple of fingers against the solid muscle of Daniel's shoulder. "It's great to see you, to talk to you, Daniel... and great to be able to actually touch you."

"To... touch..." A stunned look on his face, Daniel turned his head slowly, his gaze sliding down to focus on Jack's hand on his shoulder. He whispered, "Oh, Jack, oh God, you can actually feel me," as he stared at it, and then suddenly reached up and grabbed Jack's hand with his own. Jack felt tremours start up in the hand covering his own, and while he didn't fully understand at first what the big trauma could be, he readied himself to give whatever support might be necessary. Then it hit him that this was quite obviously the first time Daniel had felt a human touch, had been touched by another while wearing his human form, since his ascension. He gripped Daniel's hand more firmly, but it turned out he didn't have to do much more than that - just kind of hang on and be there - as Daniel briefly closed his eyes and managed to gather himself all on his own. Letting out a unsteady, bitter laugh as he opened his eyes again, looking down at where Jack still couldn't help thinking a freaking floor ought to be but was not, Daniel simply said, "You know, this really sucks."

Jack flicked a quick look over to the side, and yeah, Shifu was still over there, standing motionless with his hands folded in front of him, watching them, waiting. Good. That was good. "Daniel..." He lowered his head and then had to twist it around to the right as he tried to make eye contact with an evasive Daniel. "It sucks big time, yes, so how about we get on with doing something about it, okay?"

Daniel's face twisted into a grimace as he shakily laughed once more, the sound of it like acid rain. Jack frowned, and took his attention off Daniel for a second to jerk his head at Shifu, signalling he wanted the kid to get on over there. He forced as much positivism into his voice as he could as he called out, "So, Shifu! Let's do this thing, eh?" But all that happened was Daniel let out another soft but caustic hoot, and Shifu turned his head away.

"Okay. Getting a bad feeling about this..." Jack muttered to himself, but then he had a brainstorm and understood. "Oh! Okay, yeah, I get it. All right..."

Yeah. Right. Daniel had to die first, right? He'd had to die last time. Yecch. Well, that was a bummer for sure, yeah, but they could work with that. Fraiser would be more than pleased, he was sure, to wield enough needles to ensure Daniel didn't feel a thing until it happened. Jack nodded vigorously as he planned it all out. It'd be all right. He'd have to spill it all to everyone, of course, for them to believe him; he'd have to tell them all about this, and probably all about last time too, but if it meant -

"No, Jack, you don't get it." What? Daniel was staring straight at him, and now that he could look him right in the eye Jack didn't like what he was seeing. Not one bit. Even worse was what he was hearing. "I know what you're thinking, what you're hoping for, Jack. But I can't re-ascend. Shifu and I just tried that, and it won't work."

Jack stared back. "What? When? You can't know that for sure already. We just got here. And Shifu only just showed up a minute ago." Oh, wait. For just how long was he wallowing around trying to process the reality - uh, non-reali... uhh, oh fuck it - of being thrust into nothingness and nowheresville? Long enough for Daniel and Shifu to...? Did time work the same here as in Kansas? Or in Colorado?

Hang on, wait again - a new thought struck him, and he blurted it out. "Maybe Shifu just hasn't quite got the hang of it. He just needs a little more practice, or a new lesson or something." After all, the kid hadn't known how to even get past that damned bridge-thing, had he, at first? Daniel shook his head, no, and Jack found himself feeling angry over the look of hopelessness on Daniel face. Frustrated, he squeezed Daniel's shoulder again, probably too hard, and added a little shake for good measure, not stopping to worry about it maybe hurting him. "Okay, look, we just have to stop and figure this out, is all. Besides, you're not dead yet, so of course it didn't work. You just need to die again, and then you'll be fine."

Daniel didn't answer. He just stood there unmoving with that deadpan, professorial don't-muck-about-in-my-lecture-hall-you-stupid-ass look artfully combined with a so-are-you-done-yet expression on his face - the look that had always made Jack feel like he really ought to be very sorry, even when he wasn't sorry, for whatever he was getting the look for. His anger dissolved. It wasn't Daniel he'd been mad at in the first place, of course, and yep, he had a really, really bad feeling about this now. Damn.

"Won't work? You both sure about that?"

Daniel nodded and looked away, down at Jack's hand clamped on his shoulder, swallowing so hard Jack thought he could hear the gulp. "Yeah. We're sure." Then he snorted lightly, the soft sound riding on a warm puff of air that Jack felt on his hand. "Just take my word for it, okay? I can't go back. And, uh, Jack? Ow?"

"Oh, sorry." Jack snatched his hand away, watching as Daniel rubbed at his shoulder. His mind was stuck in neutral, spinning its wheels as all he could think over and over again was that they had to be wrong, they had to. It had to work. There was no reason it shouldn't work. In Ba'al's prison cell Daniel was sure Jack was a candidate for cotton-candy flavour of the month, and hell, if Jack was potentially capable then sure as shit Daniel could do it. Daniel was one of the best of the good guys and had already been ascended once, and Shifu was an Ascended and had the goddamned power, and one plus one always equalled two. So, Daniel could re-ascend. Carter had told them that Orlin dude had re-ascended, even though before that the guy was major league persona-non-grata with - Ohh, crap.

"Oh, yeah, real benevolent, your kind!" Seething, Jack whirled to face Shifu, whipping his arm around to point an accusing finger. After a moment full of uncontrollable, totally dizzying, bowel-twisting, bladder-loosening gyrations he ended up off to one side from and perpendicular to Daniel, his body rotated slightly downward, his arm and finger extended not in Shifu's direction but roughly toward Daniel's left foot. He would have spat out the bile that rose into his mouth, except that he was scared about just where it would or wouldn't go. The vertigo was terrible. Eyes closed. Deep breath. Not happening; not, not happening.

Hands closed onto one arm and one hip, and he felt himself being manoeuvred, gently prodded and pulled. The vertigo worsened for a moment. "Okay, okay. Come on, here, let's just sit down." Daniel's voice was in his ear, soft and reassuring, and then he felt something solid along one thigh. The hands shifted, then pulled, and he was jerked into a seated position, his own hands instinctively splaying out beside him. The bed. He felt the mattress beneath his butt, and crumpled linen under his palms. Daniel had plucked him out of the nothing and sat him down on the bed. Geez. Why hadn't he thought of doing that himself, right off the bat?

The mattress shifted and something jammed into his upper thigh. Tentatively, Jack cracked open an eye. The whirling didn't get any worse, and in fact was rapidly resolving, so he opened both of them and took and careful look around. Daniel was next to him on the bed, sitting cross-legged, one knee pressed right up against him. That solid contact was purposeful, no doubt, and Jack wasn't sure if he ought to feel glad or annoyed that Daniel was babying him like that.

Shifu stood directly in front of him, a puzzled expression on his face. When he noticed Jack looking at him, he frowned even more heavily, and looked to Daniel, asking, "What is the matter with him?"

There was a quietly amused snigger from next to him, and Jack hurried to head Daniel off at the path just in case there was going to be more coming than that soft sound. Spitting out, "Nah-ah-ah. Shut up, Daniel," he stared aggressively at Shifu. "Nothing. There's nothing the matter with me. It's your precious Ascended..." He waved a hand, "...and this, this whatever, this place, that there's something wrong with." Turning to Daniel, he asked the burning question he hadn't got an answer to earlier, seeing as Shifu had brought the subject up again. Well, sort of. "This is different from last time. Way different. Daniel, what's going on? Where the hell are we?"

Daniel shoulders brushed against Jack as Daniel shrugged. "Well, yes, it is different. Shifu had to first localise and then access my self-awareness... basically he had to find me, and then come to me and draw my consciousness forward to meet with him, because I'm not ascended anymore and I can't go anywhere on my own. But he isn't able to draw on my subconscious to integrate a familiar environment with it, like Oma can. He wasn't taught how to do that. Actually, he wasn't even sure how to come get me, for that matter."

And, so? That didn't answer the question. Did it? "That's nice, Daniel. Now, where the hell am I?"

"Well, you came along for the ride because he was so involved with pulling himself down and connecting with me that he didn't realise you'd got caught up in it. He is just learning all this stuff, you know. It's a lot harder to do than you'd think."

Uh-huh. Oh, brother. Jack had never known anyone who was quite so skilled as Daniel at answering questions without actually providing any comprehensible answers. Self-awareness, consciousness, subconscious environments, yadda yadda, yadda. God. All he'd wanted to know was - Oh, wait a minute. No, no, no. Not possible. Jack looked around at the absence of anything but them other than the bed and medical equipment, and then anxiously grabbed at parts of himself. Okay, yes, he was definitely there. All of him, including the important bits, were solidly just as they ought to be. And he could feel his heart beating in his chest, and air going in and out his nose as he breathed.

Beside him, Daniel was nodding, and then he actually confirmed the unthinkable. "That's right. You're not just a construct of my imagination, or me of yours. You're you, I'm me, and Shifu is Shifu. This isn't a dream, or a vision, but it's also not some actual physical place, some wacky room, you've been transported to. What it boils down to is that our essences are all, well, boy, how do I explain this? Although it's not entirely accurate, I guess you could say that we're in my mind, so to speak."

Oh Jesus. "Always knew your mind was a freaky place," Jack shakily mumbled, and waved his hand around again, the gesture meant to say, but shit, look at this; it's nowhere, full of nothing; how can that be?

Daniel's eyes followed the flapping hand, and then he sighed and pulled a hand through his hair. "Jack, close your eyes."

Jack narrowed his eyes.

"No, really. Just, close them. Just for a minute, okay?"

Yeah, okay, fine. Closed. They're closed. So what.

"Okay, now, imagine yourself in your own mind. Invoke yourself. Who are you? Think, me, I'm me. Concentrate on getting a sense of yourself, of who and what you are, not just physically but in every way."

Oh, for God's sake. Ridiculous.

"Jack!"

Okay, okay! Geez, don't blow a gasket. Doing it. Doing it. Thinking, me. Jack.. Me. Invoking me.

"Are you there? Can you sense yourself, and if so, what do you see?"

Black. Insides of eyelids. Nothing. A whole bunch of nothing. Wait. Okay, okay... not entirely nothing. Me. A metaphysical me, Jack; whatever it is that makes me, me. It's me, who I am, where I am, along with bits of the shit-weird stuff where I am. Ah, shit.

"I see a mob of naked women with really big honkers. Anise. I see Anise in there. No, wait. They're all Anises."

"Jack."

Jack sat there with his eyes still closed, as damned close to getting it now as he probably would ever be, but bull-headly unwilling to give in. "Better get out of here. They're coming, Danny. She's coming for you. Oh, my mama never did shake like that." He sensed the grudging fondness in the deep sigh of exasperation he heard come from Daniel next to him, and suppressed the urge to come right out and actually say out loud, yep, right backatcha, buddy.

Opening his eyes, Jack found himself a whole lot more comfortable with the nothingness than he'd been before. He was somewhere after all. Last time, with Daniel and Oma, he'd assumed Daniel wasn't really actually standing there with him, but that Oma had acted as some sort of conduit between him and Daniel, representing Daniel, giving him a vision or a kind of a waking dream sort of thing in order to communicate Daniel's wishes to him. But now he knew differently. His new awareness of the ultimate intimacy of that earlier experience brought a lump to his throat, and the knowledge that it was happening again here and now almost undid him completely.

Jack blinked against the sting in his eyes, realising just how really-with-Daniel he really was with Daniel - he was so thoroughly with Daniel, in fact, that the very idea of it turned him on his ear. Okay, so yeah, it was weirdness incorporated, all this yanking him from his body and dumping him right smack into someone else's self-awareness crap, yeah, but no matter how incomprehensible this whole thing was, he knew in his heart that Daniel was telling it like it was. He knew that he was really himself, and Daniel was really Daniel, and that he was as with Daniel as he could ever be plus a whole lot more. And he knew he was safe here. This was a good place. The best, dammit.

His eyes stung all the moreso as the thought of having been brought to meet with Daniel in this way reminded him of why - of what had led to them being here like this, and of what he was about to lose yet again. Only this time it looked like the loss would be absolute and irrecoverable, all because of the arrogance of a race of beings that thought they had the right to pronounce judgement on Daniel according to some egotistically skewed credo of non-interference. Anger rose fast and furiously at the injustice of it all, that such a high price was being paid for values and actions which ought to be rewarded rather than so cruelly punished. He turned to Shifu, levelling the accusing finger again. "You have to do something. Go get your precious Oma, if you can't handle it yourself. Get her here, now. Fix this, dammit!"

That invasive thrum started up again, and Jack leaned forward and yelled past the low noise and the anxious look on Shifu's face. He didn't want to notice that what he'd said had obviously upset the kid; he wasn't interested in feeling anything but angry. "No, oh no you don't. Don't start that up again. This isn't about you; it's about Daniel and what your kind did to him." He jabbed a finger toward the kid again, his voice even louder and harsher than it already had been as he forcefully repeated himself. "Go, Shifu. You just do whatever doorbell-ring-thing you gotta do and get Oma here, right now!"

"Jack. Stop."

The words were whispered. Jack realised Daniel was whispering and yet he could hear him just fine, and was suddenly aware of the dead silence that had snapped into place now that he was done with the yelling. There was a swish against his shoulder, and then another one. He turned his head to see Daniel was rocking, sitting next to him studiously looking down at his hands clasped in his lap, gnawing on his lower lip as he ever so slightly rocked forward and back.

Jack looked from Daniel to Shifu - whose face was scrunched up into a painful-looking constipated knot , but at least that godawful noise was gone - and back to Daniel again. "What?" he asked, even though the images of all that swooping and swirling and lightening and thundering re-appeared in his head and he was thinking, uh oh, he probably already knew what. There was no response from either of them, so he nudged Daniel with his shoulder. "Uhh... no Oma?"

If desolation had a voice, it'd be Daniel's. "My fault." The rocking halted, and Daniel raised his head to look at Shifu. "I'm sorry." There was a sheen of moisture in his eyes, and his voice was so quiet that Jack had to strain to catch the words. "It's because of me. It has to be. This wasn't the first time she'd warned me, but I guess I didn't really understand. I figured... I thought -"

The thrumming was back, a low rumbling vibration, and Shifu let out a plaintive moan, his face all screwed up tighter than the threads on a sheet metal screw. Daniel jumped at the moan, like he'd just stuck his finger in a light socket or something, and twisted his hands together in his lap, whispering, "Oh God, Shifu, I am so very, very sorry." He swallowed hard, and blinked, and a single tear tracked down his face to hang on his jaw for a moment before running down his neck.

Jack looked back and forth between the two, coming to realise there was more going on here than he'd thought. Daniel trying to work the system in order to save his friends without too obviously pissing all over the rules, using a strategy that could have worked had it not been for the very same behaviour on the part of Quinn that had cost Daniel his life the first time around; Daniel ending up stepping over the line in the sky and having it out with his overseers only to get chucked back down to earth for his trouble; his not being allowed to re-ascend but being cruelly sentenced to once again go through the agonising death which had brought him to ascension in the first place - that was what Jack knew about to this point. But it was looking like what he knew so far was quite possibly just the tip of a submerged iceberg, and Jack was thinking that just like the Titanic ought to have done it'd be a damned good idea to steer way clear of it all.

He couldn't blithely navigate past the little tell-tale signs pointing the way toward the whole story, though. Even if finding out what all the wringing of hands and distressed rocking of bodies and those guilt-laced glances between Shifu and Daniel meant led straight to all hope crashing and burning big time, he had to go there, because there was far too much at stake to leave any questions unanswered. If there was any way at all to save Daniel, well, by God, he was going to fucking well find it.

Both Shifu and Daniel were morosely regarding their respective navels, and Jack had to bend way forward so he could get his head down low enough to turn his face and see either one of theirs. Daniel avoided him, turning away, but Shifu took a deep breath and made eye contact, and as Jack raised his head and shoulders slowly, Shifu's head followed him up. He wasn't all that surprised to see the kid's eyes brimmed with tears - Shifu's facial expression, his caved-in posture, and the uneven cadence of that low thrum all but screamed of suffering, and the kid was a quick study after all, so the appearance of all too human tears wasn't a shocker. Jack frowned, regarding Shifu thoughtfully as the kid stared back at him through dark eyes that looked like they were about to dissolve into themselves. It took him a minute to figure out just what he was seeing, but when understanding did come, the unpleasantness of it rocked Jack, and he jerked back slightly in surprise.

"Whoa." He leaned forward again, having another good look, and yes, he was right. Grief. He was seeing grief there, in Shifu, and it wasn't just for Daniel. It was more than that, went farther and deeper than being upset over Daniel's impending death. Jack understood that Shifu was grieving a loss that was as all-encompassing as any loss could get, and as the implications of that sunk in, he involuntarily let out a quiet, low, long whistle. "She's gone and not coming back, isn't she, Shifu?" he gently asked, and Shifu nodded miserably, the tears suddenly spilling over. He obviously didn't quite have the sobbing thing down quite right as yet, though, as the thrum momentarily blasted and then muted again a few times before fading back to baseline.

"Apparently they took her away. Because of me." Daniel was still looking away, staring intently downward toward where a floor ought to be, and his voice was dead flat, as close to a monotone as it could get. That worried Jack even more than Shifu's behaviour did, seeing as this was Daniel and to those who knew him Daniel was never really devoid of expression even when wearing his best, most well practised mask of inscrutability. With Daniel, Jack had learned the hard way that everything meant something, even when everything was apparently, visibly, nothing... and it was pretty clear to him that this particular bit of nothing meant Daniel was doing some pretty damn deep suffering.

Not acceptable. Bad enough they'd done this horrific thing to the guy; no way was Jack going to sit here and let Daniel accept any part of any blame for their astounding cruelty. "No." Firmly, Jack did his best to both try to elicit more information and state the obvious. "No, Daniel. If Oma was taken away, it's because of something she did, not you. You aren't responsible for her actions, or anything that may have happened to her. If anything even has."

He waited a beat for a response of some kind, but both Daniel and Shifu were making like statues. So, okay, not making an impression here. Not yet. "Oh, come on, Daniel. Really. You can't honestly believe you have that kind of influence with these... these..." About to call the Ascended as nasty a name as he could come up with, he thought better of it at the last minute and instead simply gestured in turn at the air around them and then at Daniel, as he pointed out, "Her, teacher... you, student. Remember? And hell, just look what they've done to you here. Any race that could be this freaking sadistic isn't open to any influence from you, to the good or the bad. You're not that important to them."

With an abrupt little motion that reminded Jack of the way small birds moved, Shifu jumped forward a pace, thrusting his head forward, his gaze going from Jack to Daniel and back again. A deep, concerned frown creased his forehead and his words sprang out just as briskly as his eyeballs darted back and forth. "What is this you speak of? What is it you mean by this?"

It seemed pretty straightforward to Jack, but he patiently repeated the gist of it anyway. "I mean, Shifu, that Oma, not Daniel, is responsible for Oma, and that he did nothing to deserve this shit they're shovelling. Daniel didn't do anything wrong."

"No, no. You talk of another matter." As Shifu waved a hand at him, there was an edge to his bearing and words that in a human Jack would certainly have interpreted as being impatient frustration. Shifu turned and concentrated solely upon Daniel. "He speaks of things he knows not of, Daniel, when it does not come to him to speak. Does he not know that the rightful man -"

Shifu shimmered, fading in and out, and Daniel slid off the bed to stand in front of the boy, placatingly reaching out to him. "Shifu..."

"No." The shimmer flicked on and off and then settled, and when Shifu was fully solid again there was a visibly exaggerated sharpness to him that made it all too clear he was angry. "No, Daniel. The rightful man considers it necessary that the matters he names may be spoken of appropriately. That in his words there may be nothing incorrect." Shifu transferred his antagonistic look to Jack. "You do not take care and do ill to Oma and to Daniel - and to yourself. You are not a rightful man."

Shifu turned his back on them and moved away, leaving Jack stunned over the outburst and feeling the rise of a certain edge of anger of his own accord. Yeah, sure, Jack could see that from Shifu's point of view he'd been bad-mouthing the home team, and he guessed it wasn't hard to understand that might be taken as personally insulting, but Jesus - just how goddamned ego-centric were these clowns, Shifu apparently included, anyway? How did anything Jack might have said about the ones who'd done this to Daniel compare on the scale of galactic badness to what they had actually done to Daniel? And taking Oma away - just who'd actually done that deed anyway, huh? Boy, this kid had a lot of nerve.

"Shifu," Daniel was moving to stand next to the boy, leaving both their backs turned to Jack. Daniel reached out to him again, and this time Shifu allowed the contact. "Please. Granted Jack is about as far from magnanimous as anyone could ever get, but just think about it for a minute. Yes, he's been rude and judgmental, but..."

"Hey! Wait just a cotton-picking minute. I'm hardly the problem here."

At his interruption, they both turned to look at Jack over their shoulders. As annoyed as he'd ever felt, he took the opportunity to be as precise as he could about rebutting Shifu's too bad so sad wounded feelings. "I'm un-rightness or whatever the hell you said, am I? Well, screw that. It's not me who picked Daniel up and turned him inside out for trying to save his team from a stupid and totally meaningless way to go."

On a roll, he jumped off the bed and took an aggressive step toward them, only slightly put off tempo when he didn't feel anything under his feet. "And... whoa... okay. And, so, hell, tell me, just what is it that makes the Ascended just so damned righteous a race? What? Is it that they have the gall to decide it's up to them to dictate who Daniel should care more about, or that they're arrogant and spiteful enough to decide what they're doing now is fair trade?" He pinned Shifu with his stare and his words. "It wasn't me, or Daniel, or anyone else other than your own kind who took Oma away, and it certainly wasn't me or anyone else other than them who decided that a fit punishment for the crime of compassion and loyalty was to be cast out and condemned to a drawn-out, excruciatingly painful death."

He ended it all with a forceful jab of his finger toward Shifu, sucking back and swallowing all the spit that had collected in his mouth as he'd spouted his ire out at top speed. Shifu recoiled, then recovered quickly to lean forward and point an accusing finger of his own, crying out, "Oh, so ready with the tongue! Oma has told me of this, of how boldness of speech and deceit are tools of the unprincipled, and now it is found that she is right!"

Jack readied himself to deliver the final volley - to tell Shifu in no uncertain terms that with Daniel dying here for God's sake, he didn't give a rat's ass about anything to do with Oma, or even Shifu himself for that matter, other than what might be useful to him in trying to save Daniel - but before he could do it Daniel moved to stand between them, arms outstretched to place a restraining hand on each of their chests, hollering at them both to stop it, to just damn well stop. The hand pressed against Jack's chest was shaking, and the miserable look on Daniel's face brought Jack back from the edge in a flash. He placed his own hand over Daniel's, giving himself a mental swift kick in the ass for having done just what he'd been about to lambaste Shifu for. Daniel was suffering. This wasn't about him or Shifu and their respective opinions on the Ascended, nor was it about Oma.

Taking a deep breath, gently squeezing the trembling fingers against his chest, Jack strove to sound as conciliatory as he could manage. "Okay. Daniel's right. We need to stop this. I'm willing to back up here if you are. Even if you aren't, for that matter." Shifu closed his eyes for a moment and then averted his face, the thrum which had risen in intensity during their renewed dispute slowly fading into the background. Jack took that as unspoken agreement, and tried to bring them back around to the central issue. "Look, there has to be something we can do, here. If Oma isn't an option, then Shifu, maybe you can go to the others, see if you can get them to change their minds about what they've done?"

Shifu stiffened and cast him an resentful glare, whispering, "Daniel has asked that this not continue between us," before falling silent and turning his head away again.

What? What'd he do now? Nothing, except try to find a way to help Daniel. The kid obviously wasn't willing to put aside the disagreement even though he was giving lip service to Daniel's wishes. Jack ground his teeth together to keep from commenting on Shifu's behaviour, and decided that making a concrete suggestion about Daniel's predicament was probably a better course of action than letting fly with the less helpful recommendation to Shifu that he had on the tip of his tongue. "Okay, look, what about just giving it a try - go, and ask them to at least rewind part of this. They can always spit him right back out again afterward, just minus the radiation damage."

"No. That's not possible," Daniel said, his fingers curling into a loose fist against Jack's chest. "It doesn't work that way. Remember? Remember what I already told you, when I came to try to help you before? Oma couldn't heal my radiation sickness, and the others can't either, even if they were willing to."

Shifu echoed, "Heal your radiation sickness? Your sickness from before you found your way to the Great Path?" It sounded to Jack like there was a question being asked that went farther than just that of the repetition, but Daniel didn't do any more than to simply nod in support of what he'd already said.

Dismissing Shifu for the moment, Daniel's words burned a hole into Jack's mind, sending him tunnelling through memories he'd done his best to bury as deeply as possible to come to rest in front of the image of him and Daniel in Ba'al's fortress and the sound of Daniel's voice telling him, I can't stop Ba'al from torturing you any more than Oma could heal my radiation sickness, but... I can help you ascend. Okay... okay, well, fine, so the Ass-ends weren't glowy floaty sarcophagi. He'd never intimated that he thought or even hoped they were; Daniel was missing the point here.

"They can't heal you, yeah, I got that. But that's not what I meant, Daniel. As I recall, you wanted to help me to ascend, right? To get me out that way."

Daniel nodded slowly, but there was nothing positive in the action. The corners of his mouth twitched as, in a voice raised an octave or two from his normal pitch, he said, "One cannot reach enlightenment by running from death." It was so obviously not an original Daniel statement that Jack raised a questioning eyebrow, and Daniel wryly filled him in. "Oma said that to me the first time around."

Oma! Argh. Oma, Oma, Oma. Jack was tired of hearing that name. "Look," he erupted, "You already passed the damned 'enlightenment' test. Gave up your burden, watered the flowers along the true path, and all that crap. Going glowy again isn't a matter of running from death; it's a matter of them fixing the wrong they did!"

Jack did his best to ignore the small, wordless cry of protest that came from Shifu. Daniel gave Shifu a slight shake of his head, and then turned his full attention back to Jack. "I understand what you're getting at, Jack, but you aren't understanding the situation. I don't know if they'd block me re-ascending if I was able and tried it, or not, and there's no way to find out, because even if they were willing to have me back, it wouldn't work. Not even if they sent me a gilt-edged invitation." He shrugged, the casual movement belied by the deep sadness on his face and in his voice "I can't re-ascend. At least, I sure can't right now, and seeing as now is the only time I have left..."

Jack dragged his free hand through his hair, frustrated. "Why not? Been there, done that already; second time should be a treat, no?"

Daniel closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "No."

"Why not?" Jack pressed. "Carter's invisible man did it. And Shifu here, " he jerked his head at the boy, "He pops in and out of corporealisation like shit sliding through a goose."

"Corporealisation, Jack?" Daniel said, the momentary twinkle in his eyes all too quickly giving way to seriousness as Shifu interrupted.

"Oma taught me this special skill so that I might more truly experience the Great Path, as my encounters before the time of my ascension were so limited. It is not one which is approved of or practised by the others." Shifu's tone and stance were mild enough - just passing on information, his overall posture implied - even while his eyes still burned with repressed objection.

Oh. Sooo... Jack looked at Daniel, who shook his head. "Nope. No can do, Jack. That's way beyond me."

Ah, well. But, really, how Shifu got his talents was basically off-topic, wasn't it? "Fine. But, you still haven't answered my question. If it has nothing to do with the others, then..." Jack spelled it out, carefully over-emphasising each individual word. "Why - can't - you - ascend - again?"

He almost screamed aloud in exasperation as Daniel waggled his head and started blathering, "Well, I didn't actually come right out and say it had nothing to do with the others, really. I said I didn't know if they would prevent it or not. I don't know; maybe even if I could, which I can't, I wouldn't be able to because they wouldn't let me, but really it's an academic question we'll never have and answer to because even if they would let me I -"

"Daniel!" Jack slid his hand to Daniel's wrist, and squeezed hard. Daniel's mouth snapped closed, his lips tightening into as thin a line as they ever would, and he tried to pull away. Tried hard. Jack wouldn't let him, though, hanging on tight and snapping out, "Enough! Why - can't - you - ascend?"

"Because!" The word exploded out of Daniel, and breathing heavily, he gave a mighty yank and twist and pulled his wrist out from Jack's grip. His face contorted in an ugly grimace, just as explosively as he'd yelled he hurled himself away from Jack, turning a full three-eighty, his fist slashing through the air. "Because! Because! You want to know why? Because I messed up, Jack. Is that what you wanted to hear? I can't go back because I screwed myself up. I picked the wrong path and got lost and now I can't find myself!"

Jack froze in place, stunned at what he was hearing and at the sight of Daniel standing there, his chest heaving and his eyes so full of pain that Jack felt the burn of it deep in his own gut. God. Oh, Daniel.

His voice much softer, subdued by bitter surrender and choked with self-recrimination, Daniel laid it out for him, his shoulders falling into a dejected slouch as he stared off into the nothingness at his feet. "I didn't understand, back then, even though I really truly thought I did. And now, knowing that I just don't know, well, those doubts make it impossible to go back. Oma was right - I can't go there just to get away from someplace else. Shifu and I tried it, and it only took a minute for us to realise just how impossible it is. I can't do it."

Jack remained silent as Daniel raised his head and paused momentarily, a far-away look in his eye. " I thought it was so great, Jack. And a lot of it was, you know? A lot of it was... was... oh, so unbelievable. Amazing. I went places and did things - hell, I was things - that words can't ever even begin to explain. Incredible things, beyond the comprehensible. I rode on stellar winds, and made clouds. I turned myself into fire, and ice. I joined with a tree, with a leaf - I was photosynthesis. I was electricity, and sound; I could experiment with touching and seeing and being almost anything I wanted that was allowed. God, Jack, do you know what it feels like to be red, or green? What it feels like to actually be part of the colour spectrum? Well, I do."

He turned his head and bravely met Jack's eyes, letting out a scathing laugh. "Yeah. I did and I was things, all right. And in the end, one of the most amazing things to me is that so much could amount to so little in the face of what I'd have to give up to keep it. You know, Jack, I learned something important from all this. I learned that unless you're really, really prepared to completely abandon all that you've ever been or believed in, just going ahead and dying once and for all is a much better choice than doing something that effectively amounts to killing who and what you are."

Jack remembered his own doubts, his own scepticism, when Daniel had come to help him deal with Ba'al's torture. To save his soul. Oh, Jesus, is that what Daniel was trying to say here? That he thought he'd not only lost his way, but lost his own soul? No, that was ridiculous. Even standing in front of him here, disillusioned and defeated, dying, Jack knew that even if Daniel didn't believe it, Daniel's soul was just as positive and strong a beacon as it always had been. Damn it! There had to be a way. There had to be. But he looked into Daniel's eyes and knew that if he was going to find it he needed to look elsewhere, because Daniel was all done in. Ascension was a no go, and Daniel firmly believed the others couldn't heal his radiation sickness.

He whirled on Shifu, trying again. "Go to them. They have to undo this. They made this happen; they can damn well find a way to fix it."

"No!" This time Shifu freely expressed his grief, and his protest. "Oh, Daniel," he cried, "Oma is taken away, and I do not know what to do. I do not know how to correct this error. This one," he pointed at Jack, "He claims to seek a resolution, but his anger defeats us all. When the mind is like stone, there is no discriminating, no truth, no justice, no answers."

"When the... my mind is like stone? Oh, come on!" Jack exclaimed. "Yeah, sure, and your people have real open minds, don't they? They're so loosey-goosey, go with the flow, that they can't stand the idea of someone making independent decisions and doing what they think is right, instead of what they're dictated to accept is right. Hell, Oma did her part with towing a hefty bag full of that party line, didn't she? And who knows what the hell they've done with her," he roared, stabbing a finger toward Daniel, "And they're killing Daniel!"

Shifu abruptly broke. Shattered into a thousand sharp-edged shafts of blinding light that stabbed off in all directions at once. A discordant shriek, a scream barely recognisable as speech, "Oma did not do this! The others did not do this!" was flung out into the nothingness along with the shards of his image.

Stabs of pain lancing his retinas, Jack threw an arm across his eyes. Daniel was yelling something. Jack heard his voice, but couldn't make out the words over the rolling, bone-bursting thunderclap that seemed to go on for far too long before it slowly abated and then disappeared. He cautiously uncovered his eyes, blinking against the multi-coloured spots in his field of vision, and squinted over to where Daniel knelt in front of Shifu, his hands on the boy's shoulders - Uhh, wait; didn't the kid just explode into bits? He saw it; the kid had blown up like one hell of a sonofabitch. Kablooeyboom. Hadn't he?

Daniel looked over his shoulder at Jack, then stood up and gently guided Shifu over to the bed, sat him down on it, and wearily sank down next to him. "Shifu," he softly asked, "Did you see? Were you there?" He nodded as Shifu miserably indicated that the answer was no. "Right. I didn't think so." Jack cautiously approached, and when Daniel indicated it was all right, levered himself up onto the bed next to Daniel, listening. "Oma was there. I wasn't aware of the others until it was too late, but I guess they were probably lurking in the background the whole time. I didn't sense you at all."

"From afar, I felt Oma go. I felt her distress. I tried to find her, and one of them told me of what happened, and that she was taken in judgement. Then I came to find you."

"Yes. So you told me before." Daniel took a deep breath, visibly forcing himself to carry on. "Taken in judgement. Ah, hell. I am so sorry, Shifu. I just didn't want my friends to die. I tried to avoid doing anything too obvious, but it didn't work out. Oma must have known the others were there watching, and she removed me so I wouldn't interfere more blatantly. But I broke away at the last second."

Shifu looked up at Daniel. "Or she let you go."

Daniel closed his eyes briefly. Beside him, Jack felt the tension in his body where their arms and thighs brushed one another's. "No. I'm sorry, Shifu, but no. She wasn't about to let me go. I had to fight my way free with everything I had." He paused as Shifu let out a quiet but firm murmur of dissent, and then carried on. "I was... uhm, worked up. Feeling pretty desperate. I did what I felt I had to do before she could take me again, which she certainly did. Then I was suddenly aware of the others, of their disapproval..."

"Yes. As the others said. You presented yourself to them." Shifu leaned forward to look past Daniel at Jack, and woodenly stated, "You cannot see what your ears are closed to. In hearing, see this: the others are not responsible for what has happened to Daniel. He presented himself."

What was that supposed to mean? Jack looked to Daniel for clarification, but Daniel seemed as confused as he was. "Presented yourself to them?" Jack muttered under his breath to Daniel, who shrugged him off with a warning glance.

Daniel turned to Shifu, asking, "I'm not sure what you mean. I stood up to them, yes. They condemned what I did, and I asserted myself. The next thing I knew, I was lying here... " He bounced slightly on the bed. "Hurting like hell. Listening to disconnected voices talking about me dying."

Daniel grimaced, a twist of his face that Jack recognised from pre-ascended years as meaning Daniel was doing his best to hold back from expressing painful emotions. Jack remembered sitting on his lofty perch on high looking down on Daniel in this bed, convincing himself Daniel wasn't aware, wasn't really even there anymore so it was okay he wasn't down there at his side, and wanted to shoot something. Preferably himself.

Shifu looked shocked. His eyes wide, he stared at Daniel. "You too are lost in confusion? No! You presented yourself!"

Daniel sat there for a moment, then stood up and paced away, leaving Shifu and Jack sitting on the bed. Jack frowned, and tried it with Shifu. "Presented himself. What does that mean?" Shifu opened his mouth as if to answer, but nothing came out. Instead, he sat there with his mouth half open in puzzled concentration, as if fishing for words that would not come.

Daniel paced back and stood in front of them, arms folded across his chest. "Presented myself. You mean when I stood up for myself, right?" He frowned deeply, gnawing on his lower lip as he looked at Shifu for confirmation that didn't seem to be coming. "Okay, all right - so, what did I do? They showed themselves to me, Oma had me, and I wrenched free again. I faced them and defended my actions. I made it clear why I'd done it, what was important to me; I asserted who I..."

Ohh, hang on. Jack saw the light of comprehension dawning in Daniel's eyes as he trailed off speaking. He watched warily as along with it a faint look of dread appeared on Daniel's face. Daniel stepped back, away from the bed, shaking his head and clasping himself tighter in his self-hug. "No. They were strong, overbearing. Reproachful. They denounced me, and there was nothing I could do about it other than simply protest. I was powerless compared to them."

Shifu climbed to his feet, still on the bed. "I did not know... and they, the others, do not realise -" He reached out, but Daniel quickly took a step backward. Shifu was crying, tears cascading down his cheeks, his lips trembling so that his voice shook. "That you, yourself, do not realise. Oh, dear Husband of my Mother... did Oma not teach you of this? That one's knowledge of the self is more powerful than any force? It is the ultimate weapon and the primary defence. It is the healer, and the very coming and the going."

"No," Daniel said, backing away, the dread Jack had seen in his eyes blooming into full-out horror. "No. No."

Jack stood, reaching out to grab Shifu's robe. His hissed warning to Shifu to stop whatever it was he was doing, to shut up, didn't come in time to prevent Shifu from sadly adding, "You travel to the distant mountain seeking knowledge, when the answer lies at your feet."

Daniel was looking distinctly unwell. His face white as a sheet and his skin beaded with sweat, he was breathing rapidly, irregularly, almost hyperventilating as he unwound from his hug and pressed his fists to his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. Jack read the accumulating signs and leaped forward just as Daniel started to wobble, so he was there to catch him when his knees actually buckled and he started to go down. Daniel let out a long, low noise as he folded, and as Jack neatly fielded him Daniel moaned, "God, oh God, please...no, it can't be... no..." and buried his face in the crook of Jack's shoulder.

He didn't stay there long. Within scant moments, Daniel had pushed away from him and scuttled backward, to come to rest against the wide-based support for the monitor stand by the head of the bed. He searched for Shifu, his eyes wildly scanning the not-room, a look that bordered on panic settling onto his face as he pulled himself up the metal stand until he could see in all directions. Jack stood and did a search of his own, only to come up empty. Damn. The kid had done a bunk on them. But he was still here, so didn't that mean Shifu still had to be around somewhere? Otherwise, he would have been pulled out of Daniel's mind as Shifu fled, right? Right. No way was he trapped here inside Daniel. Inside a dying man, his dark side pointed out, provoking a rush of self-involved alarm that he purposefully shoved aside as both unhelpful and vaguely disloyal. It wasn't possible, anyway. No way.

Daniel was clawing at the stand for support as he hoarsely called out for Shifu, and Jack barely managed to get over there in time to catch him under the arms and prevent him from going down again. He hauled him around the corner of the head of the bed, and getting little if any help from Daniel managed to manhandle him onto it, wondering why if they were essentially just self-awarenesses here did Daniel seem to weigh enough to be at least two - no, three; at least three - physically solid beings. Immediately on the heels of that thought came the question of why the hell was he even doing this? What was he, stupid? It wasn't as if there'd be a hard knock even if Daniel did crumble, seeing as there wasn't even a floor or anything to bash into. Which was still every bit as weird as it had been right from the start, and God please don't let him be trapped here in - Crap! Just shut up, Jack.

As soon as his butt hit the soft mattress, Daniel curled into a sloppy pseudo-lotus position and hunched forward, rocking slightly, whispering, "No, no, didn't know," and assorted approximations of the same, over and over again. At a loss as to how to help, or even as to with precisely what the help was needed, Jack awkwardly patted Daniel's back, and called out for Shifu to show himself, feeling a whole lot more desperate inside for the boy to materialise than he allowed to show outwardly. There was no joy, though, and so he just stayed put quietly, somewhat self-consciously rubbing Daniel's shoulder and every now and then grunting out a reassurance that he was there with him, and that it'd be okay, Danny, settle down now, it'd be okay. Whatever it was.

When the rocking stopped and Daniel scrubbed his hands over his face, taking a deep breath, Jack sat down next to him on the bed. The mattress bounced under him, and not knowing what else to do as Daniel pulled up the dangling edge of the sheet and wiped his damp hands and face on it, Jack feebly remarked, "So, Shifu's not answering. Good thing your mind is furnished, because I just might be here for a while. Can't say much for the interior design as a whole, but at least there's someplace to take a load off."

Daniel raised his head, frowning. "Well, don't look at me."

"What?" Uhh...

"Not mine," Daniel didn't really clarify. Well, Jack was pretty sure Daniel thought he'd just made it all clear, judging from the way Daniel lowered his head again as if there wasn't anything else to say, but actually Jack still didn't have a clue. He nudged him and flapped his hands in confusion, eyebrows raised, as Daniel looked back up at him.

"What?" Daniel asked, mimicking the hand-flapping, and then caught on. "Oh. I see. The bed - don't look at me, it's not mine."

Ah, yes. Yes, it was. Right down to the mess Jack had made of the sheets at the foot of the bed when he'd done his pitiful displacement routine. Daniel obviously sensed his confusion, because he sighed and explained. "Remember when I asked you to close your eyes and visualise yourself in your mind? Well, when I invoke my self-awareness, there isn't a hospital bed anywhere in the picture, Jack."

"You sure?" Well, Jack certainly didn't bring it with him, did he? Maybe it was Shifu's. Or maybe Jack didn't give a hoot where the damned bed came from. "Look, never mind. It doesn't matter, does it?"

Daniel reverted to hunching over to gaze down at his folded legs. He started picking at the fabric of his scrub pants over one knee, his long fingers restlessly plucking and releasing, plucking and releasing, plucking and releasing. "No," he said, his voice utterly dead-sounding, "No, it really doesn't."

Ah, damn. Jack grasped Daniel's wrist lightly, interrupting mid-pluck. "Daniel, we'll find a way. I'm still here with you, so that means Shifu must be somewhere around here too, right? Don't give up. Not yet."

Daniel quietly laughed, a short, small sound, the soft exhalation carrying a wealth of feeling, none of it positive. "You don't understand, Jack."

"Look, I know this sounds like a cliché, but what the hell - where there's still life, there's still hope, Daniel."

"No, there isn't," Daniel said flatly, giving Jack a level stare. "It's over, Jack. Finished. Shifu will show up eventually, when he's ready, and I'll have him send you back. There's nothing you or anyone else can do, so you may as well go home."

It was as if someone had landed a good one right to his solar plexus. What did Daniel think? That the minute it was clear there was nothing Jack could do to change the situation, he'd lose interest and wander off to greener pastures? Did Daniel really think that little of him? No. No, of course not. Looking at Daniel, at the way the guy was so clearly shrinking into nothing inside while mounting this cool facade on the outside, Jack knew it wasn't him that Daniel felt so little regard for. Still, it smarted to have been dismissed like that.

"What, Daniel? You think I'll be willing to just sign off on you, just like that?" Daniel's face coloured and he looked away, pulling his wrist out of Jack's hand. Jack pushed aside his own hurt feelings. Whatever revelation had taken place between Daniel and Shifu, apparently it had rocked Daniel's self-respect, and his will to fight, to the core. It was past time he found out just what it was Daniel was so sure he didn't understand - what it was that had Daniel so willing to just curl up and die. "Come on. You know me better than that. What's going on, Daniel? Talk to me. What's made you so sure we're at a dead end here?"

"I can't ascend, Jack, and the radiation sickness can't be healed. Even if the others wanted to, they couldn't help. Shifu was right. They aren't responsible."

"Don't absolve them so easily, Daniel. It won't wash. The others, Oma... don't you dare take on what -"

"Oh, Jack, stop. Just stop. You don't know what you're talking about. I did this. Me, not them. I thought... I... it was - God!" Daniel let out a bitter sound that was half sob, half snort of derision, and waved his hands in obvious frustration as words failed him. "Look at me. I can't even... I don't know how to - Wait. Okay, okay... Jack, the bed. Where do you think the bed came from? Why is it here?"

The bed? Who gave a flying fuck about the damned bed! But Daniel had gripped his arm and was looking at him so desperately earnestly, very clearly not only wanting him to play this game, but needing him to. He tried to clamp down on his impatience, but he knew it was leaking out all over the place as he carefully answered, "I have no idea where the bed came from, Daniel. Why don't you tell me?"

"Thank you. Go back to when we were talking about visualising ourselves. Remember how when you did it you understood better why this place..." Suddenly agitated, Daniel jumped up and gestured broadly, his arm moving in a wide, sweeping half-circle, "What this is, why it's like it is."

Jack nodded. "I got that one already. It's where your self-awareness, your self-image, exists; pretty boring place actually. No naked Anises in hot tubs anywhere in sight. Or beds. So?"

Daniel briefly interrupted his twitchiness. "Hot tubs? No. Never mind. I don't want to know." He started walking as he spoke, moving briskly, nervously, through the nothingness. "I know you didn't really see Anise. But you did see something other than just your own image, Jack. You had to have." He halted abruptly, snapping one finger out toward Jack. "Try it again."

What? Try what? Oh. The invoking thing. No, it wasn't necessary. He was pretty sure he understood what Daniel wanted from him here - when he'd done it earlier he'd conjured up an image of himself, but unlike Daniel's, it had an environment of sorts. He'd seen himself, what and who he believed he was, but also bits of where he was, which at that time was suspended in incomprehensible nothingness with Daniel, a bed, and some unpowered medical monitors which continued to flash and bleep away even though they weren't connected to anything. But, that wasn't where he'd been when Shifu had first snagged him; he'd been in the infirmary right next to Daniel's bed. This bed.

Okay, so, the bed was his. Shifu had pulled Jack's inner self into Daniel's, and because Jack's self-awareness carried with it some of the external world, a piece of that had come along with him. Good thing it was just a bed, he thought, not at all amused at the possibility that some of the less innocuous crap that was undoubtedly floating around inside him might just as easily have been manifested.

Fine. His bed. But he still didn't understand what that had to do with Daniel's situation. So his image of himself included some extraneous odds and sods taken from his surroundings and the things that were most important to him at whatever given time; so a few of those apparently had been so much an integral part of how he saw himself at the time that they apparently had become inseparable from his image of himself - so what? Argh. Daniel was waiting for him to figure this out, so he wouldn't have to go through the pain of having to explain in plain English to Jack whatever it was that so clearly was eating him up inside. Jack could understand his difficulty... after all, he'd been coiled up in some pretty tight knots himself, over superstitiously not voicing what they'd all noticed about Daniel's appearance - wow, see? He couldn't even come right out and name it plainly even now - despite the advanced stage of... of... of, oh holy shit!

Hoo boy. Eyes feeling like they were about to bug right out of their sockets, Jack felt his knees go weak. Shifu's words -  You presented yourself to them  ...  One's knowledge of the self is more powerful than any force...it is the very coming and the going  - and then Daniel's words -  I did this. Me, not them  - reverberated in his head, and nausea, bitter and sharp, rose to choke him. Feeling helpless, he met Daniel's eyes as he finally completely understood what it was Daniel was having so much trouble coping with.

Daniel whispered, "I didn't know. All I knew was that she told me my sickness couldn't be healed. I thought it was a permanent part of me, of the old corporeal me. I didn't know about... about..."

He ground to a halt, his voice growing too thick to continue, and Jack, numb with shock, feeling as if he was fading away, finished it off for him. "About the coming and the going. About how the descending thing works."

"I didn't know!" Daniel screamed out his anguish, his hands going up to his head as he doubled over. "She never taught me; she never told me!" All the air seemed to leave where they were in a rush, and Jack's breath caught in his chest, his vision starting to go black around the edges as Daniel pressed his fists to his head and screamed it once more, "She never told me!"

And then in the next millisecond all that was left, all Jack was aware of, was the sound of that scream frenetically echoing in his head, and a second later he wasn't even aware of that anymore.

Part Four
Crisis of Faith

Agh! Jack snapped awake abruptly, his eyes popping open, to find himself staring at a stained concrete surface some distance from him. What the...? It felt like he was horizontal, lying on something semi-soft and lumpy, and his arm hurt like a son of a gun again. And there was a -

He was out! He quickly sat up, and came a hair's breadth from bashing his forehead against Teal'c, who was standing beside the bed Jack was on and leaning forward just enough to be in the path of travel. Teal'c jerked back out of the way just in time, redundantly observing, "You are awake, O'Neill."

Well duh. Jack gathered his sore arm to him, noting the bandage wrapped around his palm and the puffy redness of his fingers. He was fully dressed except for a pair of missing boots, and was in the main infirmary. He looked around, from Teal'c's serious face to the bed he was on, to the adjacent beds and equipment, back up to the stained ceiling and then to the nearest wall. Walls... walls! Avast, matey, there be walls here! And where there were walls... leaping out of the bed, he stamped his stocking feet on the concrete under his feet, and took a step, curling his toes against the floor.

"How long was I out?" Daniel. He had to go there. "Daniel?"

Teal'c followed him, answering, "One-hundred fourteen minutes," and, "His situation is unchanged," as Jack dodged the efforts of a well-meaning but totally deluded nurse and darted out the doorway into the corridor. He jogged around the first bend, heading for the iso room, unmindful of the hardness of the concrete under his feet and the twang of pain that radiated from his hand on up his arm with each step.

Almost two hours. God. "How long until his next dose of meds?" He accelerated around the second bend, his desire to go to Daniel ratcheting upward into outright need as he realised they could be injecting more of that stuff any time now. Just yards from the door to the iso room a swirling greyish mass suddenly materialised right smack in front of him, and despite his best efforts, unable to dodge it or stop in time, he ended up running right through it, letting out a "Gah!" of surprise as he skidded and swerved into the wall of the corridor.

"Shifu!" Jack whirled around, jerking a fist toward the mostly unconsolidated figure which hovered in the middle of the corridor. "What the hell did you think you were doing? Get me back there, right now."

"Sir?" and an equally surprised-sounding, "Colonel?" came from behind him, and Jack glanced over his shoulder to see Carter and Fraiser standing at the door to the iso room, gaping at him and the wispy mass of grey and whitish tendrils surrounding the more substantial but as yet indistinct core Jack knew was Shifu.

He ignored the two women, and Teal'c, who, standing behind Shifu, was looking openly if not grimly curious. "I want to go back. Now!" he demanded, but the thing that was Shifu just pulsed faintly, the thready streaks of white surrounding the central mass undulating slightly as he floated there. Frustrated and feeling his anger mounting to the point he wouldn't be able to contain it for much longer, Jack looked up and down the corridor, and then turned on his heel, deciding he definitely needed some privacy for the things he that he would no doubt end up spouting out to the kid if Shifu didn't fucking well shape up and end this nonsense toot-sweet-veet, pardon his French.

"Teal'c, stay put. You, Cloudy, follow me," he commanded, and glancing behind him to be sure Shifu was doing just that, Jack stomped down the corridor past the iso room and the two dumbfounded women, and rounded the corner. He climbed the steps to the observation room and reached for the door handle. Shifu floated past him right through the steel door, and Jack irritably muttered, "Damned show-off," as he yanked the door open and virtually hurled himself inside.

He spared a quick look into the room below. He was sickened by the sight of Daniel lying there so deathly ill, so restless and obviously - obvious to him now... now that he knew Daniel was still aware of being Daniel - oh so obviously suffering. Rounding on Shifu, he waved his arms and yelled, "Just what the hell are you playing at? How dare you do that to him. Who the hell do you think you are?" In response, the thrum came back, and the outer wispy edges of Shifu started to expand, stretching outward as the grey core of the mass thinned out. Jack saw what was happening, and harshly slashed a hand right through the outer edge of the mass and through the noise. "Oh no you don't! Shut off the damned rumble, and don't you dare go anywhere. Daniel needs support, not fucking desertion - damn it, do the right thing here!"

A bright flash once again made Jack's vision white out, setting his eyes to burning, and he hollered, "No! Damn it, no," believing that, unbelievably, Shifu was an even bigger hypocrite and coward than he'd thought and had just taken off, never to return. But when he recovered enough to peer past the spots dancing in front of his eyes, Shifu was standing there right next to him. Not that insubstantial wraith that had been there before, but a visibly solid, undeniably flesh and bones, utterly miserable young boy standing there with eyes closed, huddled in a self-hug so closely mimicking the one Jack had seen Daniel in that the sight took away both Jack's breath and a large part of his resentment in one fell swoop.

The outer door to the room abruptly began to swing open, and Jack didn't hesitate even long enough to get an impression of who it was on the other side. He reached out and slammed it closed, then slapped the inner lock into place, hearing the 'oomph' and the clatter on the other side but not caring. The sound and movement roused Shifu, who opened his eyes and fixed Jack with a mournful look. "Do the right thing," Shifu said, his voice full of misery and plaintive uncertainty. "I do not know what that means, anymore." Tears wet his eyelashes.

Ah, crap. Despite his anger toward the Ascended, Jack's paternal instincts swelled to the point he just wanted to reach out and grab the kid in a crushing hug. That probably wasn't the best course of action, though, because really it was Daniel that was the central concern here and not any crisis of faith Shifu might be going through. Jack sank down into the closest chair, dragging his good hand across his face. Daniel. Get back to Daniel. "Shifu, about Daniel..." he began, intending to ask Shifu to go with him back to Daniel so they could right the wrong of having left him alone exactly at the very moment he most needed someone there with him - he didn't get anything else out other than the name, though, because Shifu, blinking furiously, interrupted him with a long stream of words that came out so fast Jack found himself instinctively leaning forward as if that'd help him follow it all.

"I have thought on this: Oma did not tell him, however she did not simply not tell him. Daniel is a good and wise learner. He seeks out the truth of things and finds and uses the fullness of the most basic of truths as foundation for advancing his knowing. Certainly your own correction of me was valid, friend Jack; learning does not reside in the teacher. But surely if the behaviour and language of the teacher be not in accordance with the truth of things, learning cannot be carried on to success."

"She lied to him," Jack promptly translated aloud.

Shifu's face twisted in pain at the bluntness of that, and he quietly amended, "He was misled."

"Why?" Jack swivelled the chair to look out the viewing window. Hammond had joined the others in the room below, sporting wide Band-Aids across his nose and forehead. He sighed, putting that aside for the time being, and swivelled the chair back around to face Shifu. "Why would she do that to him? Gee, could it be that both Momma Oma and your Ascended are not quite as benevolent as Oma tries to brainwash everyone into thinking?" He winced at the condescending way that came out, but for him it was the bald truth, so he didn't regret saying it.

Shifu ducked his head and started to turn away from him, but then straightened his shoulders and turned back, meeting Jack's eyes. He sniffed the last remnants of his tears away, composing himself, and said evenly, "It is not that simple." He then inclined his head slightly, the gesture clearly allowing that at least in some respects, on the surface, Jack's comment wasn't wholly rejected. "However, it has had its course, and it is needless to remonstrate on that any further. To dwell upon the how and why, upon behaviour and blame, is not helpful. The wise man puts aside that which leads to folly. "

Jack narrowed his eyes, sensing something in the unflinching stare of the boy that just didn't ring true. "Ohh, I think it's you who's lying, now..." he drawled, and sure enough, there it was, flashing into Shifu's eyes like a neon sign - pain, grief, betrayal. And more, none of it good. Jack pursed his lips and leaned forward, resting his arms on his thighs as he clasped his hands together and gazed at the floor. Okay, so this wasn't just a matter of Shifu questioning his faith in the Ascended and their teachings. Just how does one justify dismissing the grief and traumas of one person in favour of those of someone else, he wondered? What was he supposed to do here? Turn a blind eye to Shifu's losses and to his suffering, to the devastation not only of the boy's beliefs but of his very self-identity, in the name of supposedly helping Daniel to deal with Daniel's trauma? Would he even be helping Daniel if he pushed Shifu's pain aside and went back there to hover at Daniel's side? Or, would he just be helping himself? He didn't have a clue if it was even remotely possible to help someone deal with the knowledge they'd inadvertently but all too actually yanked themselves out of what was supposedly heaven right into a hellish, unavoidably excruciating death? Bugger. What a mess.

As much as he didn't want to admit it to himself, coming up with the answers to his own questions didn't exactly involve rocket-science, did it? Daniel was devastated, and dying, but Shifu was suffering too, and Daniel wouldn't want Shifu condemned to dismissal under any circumstances. Sighing deeply, the dice cast and coming up snake-eyes, Jack rose and went over to the window. He spread his hands on the glass, said a mental apology to Daniel, and even as it tore his heart into a million pieces, turned his back on the sight below. When he blinked back the sheen that momentarily obscured his vision, he could see Shifu was working hard to hang on to the cloak of false composure he'd struggled into, so Jack went right up to him and much to Shifu's surprise gathered the boy to him. "It's okay; it'll be okay" he told him as he held him, and because he couldn't tell it to Daniel, because for Daniel nothing was okay and never would be ever again, he made it more specific, "It's okay to cry. To dwell on whatever the hell you want to dwell on. To feel whatever you're feeling. It's okay."

Shifu - the scared and confused little boy part, not the too wise for his years, monkish student Oma had worked on molding him into - cried into his chest, jerkily confessing past tears and t-shirt, "I am afraid to be alone. The others only tolerate my presence if I do not transgress, but the master and the teacher only open the door... I must enter by myself. But I do not have the discretion; I am not like Oma and the others; even for all of Oma's teachings, I am little more than an infant." Shifu pulled his face free and looked out the observation window. "I believe Daniel knew this of me. He would come to me in the times of quiet and invite me to explore his Path with him, but Oma always knew, and interceded, teaching us that each must travel his own Path and learn in his own way."

Surprised to the extent he almost choked on his own spit, although what with all he'd learned today he really didn't know why he ought to be at all surprised, Jack asked, "Are you saying she prevented you two from spending time with each other?"

Shifu nodded. "In the times of quiet, when we could not feel Oma, he sometimes would seek me out. But Oma would always know when he was with me, and the time of quiet would end and he would have to leave. He very much wished that I would join him in his great search, and I wanted to, but Oma told us it was not for one man to determine the source or direction of another's learning." His face hardened, his eyes going cold. "Oma taught this, and many other things. Among them, she told me that he who has completely mastered one thing understands everything, even though he understands nothing."

Breaking free from Jack, he stiffly took hold of the robe he was wearing and pulled it off over his head, dropping it to the floor to stand there naked save for a pair of sandals on his feet. "I understand everything now," he cried. "And I understand nothing! I want this no more, but it is a part of me I cannot separate from, even though I make to remove it. I do not know what to do!"

Jack could only stand there silently as Shifu worked through his feelings of betrayal. "Oma taught that all roads eventually lead to the Great Path, but she chose what was and was not revealed to Daniel. In doing so she controlled his travels, even as she told us we must choose and follow our own paths, alone. Her false teaching has led to what has happened to Daniel. I recognise that deception, but I do not understand it!"

Jack was well aware that the people below were gaping up at the scene in the observation room. Raising his arm high, he held up a finger of caution he hoped Hammond would heed, as he tried to sort through what Shifu was telling him and distil it down to the bottom line. "So, she had you both on a short string, so you wouldn't do anything to jeopardise her cosy little club. Right? Shifu, how does that work? You're energy, for Christ sake. Can't you just go anywhere you want, do anything you want?"

"Oma watched over me as I travelled different roads, but she did not hinder me. The knowledge I sought was of no challenge to the others, and the tenets of proper conduct were well known to me. It was not until Daniel came..." Shifu stopped uncertainly, wringing his hands together. "In quiet times, I would watch Daniel from afar, so that Oma would not hear me so clearly. Daniel explored so widely, did so many things I would never have imagined, and I wanted to be with him, to learn from him. Oma began to bar my way, just as she barred Daniel's way from many of the worlds and the people he wished to visit."

Shit. Oma prevented Daniel from going places by way of more than just words of warning, apparently. Jack remembered the battle in the sky above as Daniel tried to save the team, and wondered how many times that might have played out prior to then. But then he realised that was highly unlikely to have been a very frequent part of her modus operandi, because Daniel wasn't one to be wrestled to the ground without standing up and refusing to take it. He'd have asserted himself right on out of there long before now if that'd been the case. He recalled Daniel prattling on - back when Jack was struggling to deal with being in that nothingness - and apologising about how he'd tried his best to keep track of the rest of them but that sometimes it had been impossible to do.

Shifu stared intently at his own hands, and stammered out, "Daniel struggled to understand the boundaries, but they contradicted his own. I felt Oma grow more and more concerned with each time he would manage to return to here, or to follow you on your travels. Oma had taught me it was best to deny a battle one was certain to lose, and I became afraid for Daniel... but I did nothing, as Oma also taught it is not our place to interfere in the path of any other."

"Shifu, it's not your fault. Teachers can be very powerful... and you had nothing to measure the knowledge and the rules she gave you up against. You get that, don't you?" Jack figured the pat reassurance was going to fall on deaf ears, and it did. Shifu knew it all anyway, no doubt, which only made it that much easier for the kid to let it pass by unremarked on. Jack felt pretty damned all-around useless as he glanced back down at Daniel.

Shifu allowed his own gaze to follow Jack's. "Oma said Daniel had not truly released his burden, and that is why he struggled so to stay within the boundaries of the others. But if his true nature is good, and his mind is open, then how can the beliefs and values which lead him to behave as he must, be burdens? If he chooses a road which for him leads to the Great Path, while respecting that of others and doing no harm to others, how can it be said his chosen path is a wrong one? Yet, it is the decision of the others that in transgressing their tenets, Daniel is in disrespect of others and his chosen path is invalid. How can that be so if, as Oma has taught, a man's chosen path is his alone to travel, and all roads lead to the Great Path?"

Blaauugh; dizzying. But seriously, Jack wondered, did the kid really want an answer to that question? Shifu shook his head in evident disgust and turned away from the glass, and Jack knew that was one more thing Shifu already had all figured out. Oma's Great Path was nothing more than just another cultural-religious dogma among the hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands for all Jack knew, of others out there on this and all the other inhabited planets and planes of existence in the universe. Shifu had been the perfect blank slate that Oma had written on, and then Daniel had come along with different standards and ideas, and shoved a tiny wedge of doubt into Shifu's door. Well, that door was now blown wide open courtesy of the illustrative sins of omission Oma had practised in an attempt to keep Daniel in line and from figuring out too much, too fast, about how to manipulate the rules to his own advantage.

She'd miscalculated, though. She'd withheld from Daniel the knowledge of just what was involved in re-taking human form, leaving him open to the explosive results of so strongly "presenting himself" to Oma and the others. Jack understood all too clearly that if a using a strong sense of the self was the key to descending, as Shifu had pretty much told them, then Daniel asserting his individuality and his right to self-determination in a blast of This-Is-Me, take it or leave it, open rebellion certainly was more than enough to inadvertently do the trick. Combine that with Oma implying to Daniel he was forever tainted with the incurable sickness that'd killed him, and it didn't take a genius to realise the stage was set for potential disaster. Like the good little metaphysical thinker Daniel was, he'd duly incorporated that little tidbit into his image of who and what he was.

Thankfully, Daniel's image of his outward self during his time ascended - his appearance, the human form he wore and presented to others as personifying himself - apparently had stayed just as it had been prior to Daniel suffering the radiation exposure... except for the colour co-ordinated cream sweater and slacks, of course. Jack wasn't too sure he intellectually understood how that all worked, but it didn't matter. On every other level than the intellectual, he knew for certain that even though Daniel had accepted Oma's inference about the state of his health should he ever decide he wanted to try doing what Shifu could do - had in fact accepted it so thoroughly that he'd re-created it without even knowing he was doing so - on the outside Daniel still visualised himself as appearing wholly intact, and Jack was grateful for that mercy.

Thinking about that, he turned to the window just in time to see Fraiser and the nurse move to Daniel's bedside. The nurse held two syringes, and as Jack watched she prepared to deliver the meds into the IV line. For reasons he couldn't rationally identify right then and there, he found himself bashing a fist against the glass, and then leaped for the intercom microphone, pressing the switch to activate it and yelling out, "No, wait! Don't give him that."

Everyone looked up at him and Shifu, and Fraiser's voice came through the system. "Colonel? Why? He needs something for pain, at the very least."

Why. Good question. It wasn't as if Shifu couldn't connect with Daniel through the drugs; Daniel didn't have to be alone, and he sure didn't have to be in pain to allow Jack to communicate with him. Shifu could easily enable that. Confused over his own motive for asking them to deny Daniel the medication, Jack stalled, looking at Shifu as if the source of his own mixed-up feelings was to be found within the boy.

"If you cannot find the answer within yourself, how can you think it may be found in another?" Shifu gently asked him, and then immediately grew controlled and distant. "Daniel has shown me far more than the others comprehend. He has shown me that a man can enlarge the principles which he follows, however those principles do not enlarge the man. It is said among what you call the Ascended that he who knows others is simply wise, but that he who knows himself is enlightened. Daniel is enlightened. I will be enlightened."

Shifu kicked off his sandals, and started to glow faintly around the edges. "Daniel's presence has illuminated a valuable lesson - to have faults and not acknowledge them, to have faults and not seek to reform them, this, indeed, should be pronounced as having faults. I know what it is I must do now." The glow intensified, and Shifu's form started to blend into it, thinning out and dissolving not into that greyish mass he'd been before, but this time into a blur of pure white laced with threads of pale amber.

As what Shifu had become rose into the air, Jack was filled with a complex mixture of both hope and inexplicable dread, and he urgently called out, "Wait! What are you going to do? Where are you going?"

Shifu's disembodied voice fell over him like a gentle spring rain. "Allow them to give Daniel the chemicals. Do not fear it will take him further from you. As you told me, all will be 'okay', Jack."

Part Five
No Place Like Bliss

I don't know where the saying "ignorance is bliss" originally comes from - Daniel might - but I've decided it's totally bogus. Not because in ignorance isn't a better place to be than most places where knowledge lurks ready to pounce and shred your world-view into bits, but because I'm really starting to believe there's no such thing as bliss.

I looked it up in the dictionary today, the word bliss - right after Fraiser had finished answering my question, in way far too much detail, about what she was going to do in the OR with that last stubborn abscess they were dealing with. Oh, Colonel, thank you for the interest, she gushed insincerely, and, well, you see, we have to make a transverse incision through the sub-cute-whatever layer and the muscle into the peri-something, she said, and retract the large intestine and then take the yadda yadda and stick it in the mucky-muck whooha and so on and so on. Complete with the visual aid of assorted surgical gestures I had no interest in being shown. Okay, so fine, I've been a bit insecure and it's translated into some overbearing behaviour in the infirmary, but I don't think I been so bad I deserved that.

See, I was better off in ignorance, I decided, after she'd walked away with that sadistic smirk on her face, and that reminded me of the old saying, which made me think about all the crap that's gone down in the last four days. And that got me thinking how I wished I was still ignorant of a lot of things, one real big one in particular, but that if I still was, bliss would be the last thing on my mind because Daniel would be permanently dead by now. And that would've been too high a price to pay for living in ignorance. Not that the price that's being paid for knowledge isn't way too high. It is, but it's out of my hands.

Anyway, so I went to Da... uhm, to Quinn's office and looked it up in the dictionary. Bliss. Apparently it's akin to the adjective blithe, did 'ya know? Don't ask me what it means when it says "akin to" though. I haven't a frigging clue, and no, I have no interest in looking it up in the dictionary.

Bliss. Complete happiness, it said. Paradise, heaven. Nirvana.

Nope. No such damned thing.

Do you want to know what that "great search" Daniel was on was for, the one Shifu mentioned in passing to me back up in the observation room, the one Shifu had wanted to join in on but wasn't allowed to? Not the equally as bogus as bliss Great Path, no, but Heaven. That's right, Heaven. With a capital 'H". You see, apparently in addition to feeling out the colour spectrum and being photosynthesis - what the hell kind of guy wants to try being photosynthesis, for Christ sake? Yeah, yeah, a Daniel kind of guy - Daniel spent a big chunk of his time as an Ascended on yet another quest. He's a great one for that, for quests.

He was looking for evidence of the afterlife. He says it is one of the ultimate questions facing mankind, after all, so it made sense to take advantage of his new abilities and state of being to try to answer that question. He'd never admit it, of course, but I think that rationale is a pile of shit. I think he was looking for his wife. Not to have her back, because I think he knew long before she even died that was impossible, but just to see if she was safe. If after having been at the mercy of the Goa'uld for so long she was finally really in a good place.

At the mercy of the Goa'uld. Damn. This is harder than I thought it'd be. I thought writing it out would be easier than actually sitting down and spitting it out, but hell, it might be more comfortable, yeah, but that doesn't mean it's in any way easy. The last thing Shifu did before he left was to ask me to wait until Daniel was truly well, and then to tell him everything. I balked, but Shifu thinks Daniel needs to know, for some reason I really don't understand. So far, he doesn't know much - just that he's alive, and with Jacob Carter hovering around the SGC Daniel's made some assumptions and we've all been quite thrilled to let him just go on believing whatever keeps him happy and focused on fighting the remnants of this thing.

He's still not feeling too shit hot, but with this operation to drain the last remaining abscess in his gut Fraiser is one hundred percent certain that in a few weeks he'll be swinging from the chandeliers at his welcome home party just like the rest of us primitive corporeal apes. Around the clock IV cocktails of assorted antibiotics, along with some sort of infusions into his abdomen and yucky stuff like that, have taken care of most of the problem, but this last sucker just wouldn't budge, so right now as I write this Daniel is under the knife going through what the good doctor so luridly described... and, eeww, I don't want to think about that anymore, thank you very much.

Okay, okay, I'm supposed to be writing this for Daniel, to let him know the truth of it... only, I can't seem to bring myself to write it to him - that just felt far too strange and kinda, well, feminine to tolerate when I tried it. "Dear Daniel, I'm really glad you're still alive and human again and all that crap, but I have something to tell you. You know how you thought Jacob swooped in at the last minute and blew his brains out his ears doing the healing thing? Well..."

Nope. That wasn't going to work for me at all. So it's down to this... just writing it all out to no-one in particular and everyone all at once. At least I'm going to give it a try; not sure how comprehensible it'll end up being, but I'll do my best. Shifu is out there somewhere paying a price that I can't help thinking is every bit as unacceptable as the one Daniel was going to pay for our lives. I owe the kid at least this much. I just can't help worrying, though, that in the end it'll turn out the price isn't just Shifu's to pay, but ours - Earth's, and all sorts of other planets full of people out there as well - and that Daniel will never forgive me for allowing it. Right. As if I ever had a choice.

But, if I'd had a choice, what would I have picked? Yeah. Daniel would be right to never forgive me, because I would have picked him. In a red hot second, without looking back. I'm looking back now, though, and worried as hell. And I think it's pretty much a given he still would be right to never forgive me.

Anyhoo, on with the story. Daniel had unwittingly provided Shifu with quite the life's little lesson when he decided that what he believed in was far more important to him that what he was told to believe in. That Daniel ended up spread-eagled on a plate of rotten grapes, basically sacrificed to the interests of others, as a result of Oma's less than open style of discretionary teaching was something Shifu couldn't help but recognise as not exactly an equitable thing to have happened. Turned the kid upside down, actually, and when you combine that with having to stand there and watch helplessly as Daniel came to understand just what had really happened... well, I don't think Shifu was able to reconcile Daniel's devastation and his taking the blame for his own situation with what Shifu finally understood about who the Ascended really were, and what the hell that mythical Great Path really was all about.

"I will be enlightened," he told me, and then he took off. Daniel was suffering, in a lot of pain, and Fraiser was ready and waiting with the meds that would numb his mind so he didn't realise quite so readily just how freakingly agonising it all was. I was greedy, though; I wanted him to see me before he went off to la-la-land. I tried to convince myself I wanted him to know he wasn't alone, but really what I wanted was to try to replace that last image of him I had stuck replaying over and over again in my mind - that one with him all bent over and screaming his shock and anguish out at beings who weren't even there, and wouldn't have given a shit even if they had've been.

He accommodated me. I went down there and leaned over the bed, and he recognised me, and he remembered sharing with me the nothing that was a big huge something after all. "Hope you're happy now you've got a floor," he forced out through a mouth that wasn't working so good. I answered him no, floors weren't the be all and end all I had always thought they were. I know he understood what I was trying to say, because in between desperate wheezes and groans he told me that my Anises and hot tubs were welcome in his nowhere anytime. He was outright lying, of course, whereas I hadn't been; we both knew that, but it was the thought that counted. I told Fraiser to go ahead, and she had that juice flowing down the line faster than I could even get the sentence out. Then Daniel asked about Shifu, if the boy was all right, and I waited a few beats before I answered - just long enough so that the words I used when I said the kid was just fine wouldn't sink in through the gathering fog in his mind. I didn't really outright lie to him if he didn't hear or understand what I said, did I? See? I told you - greedy.

Daniel steadily went downhill through the rest of that day, and into the night. When it got to the point Fraiser was delivering continuous high enough doses of morphine through the IV that his breathing was suppressed, she stuck a tube down his throat and put him on the ventilator. It was just a matter of waiting for his heart to finally fail, she said. He was a mess inside. It was irretrievable. I remember sitting there next to the bed listening to the sounds of all the equipment, and closing my eyes, willing myself to recover the images and sounds and experience of being with Daniel in his mind. In spurts, I did. I remembered him coaxing me to acceptance of the weirdness of that place, and I remembered his knee pressing into my thigh as we sat next to each other on my bed. Then I'd open my eyes and see him as he really was, and all I'd know was that he was like this because I'd seriously messed up. It was on my urging that he'd stepped over the line when Quinn had been too slow and stupid to react.

Carter and Teal'c were really burning to know what the hell had happened to me when I'd grabbed Shifu just before he'd disappeared down at Daniel's bedside. They knew better than to ask before I was ready for the question, though. Too bad Fraiser doesn't possess the same respect for my delicate sensitivities. I told them they knew more than I did - they'd seen me drop like a stone, completely unconscious. Did I dream, or anything like that, Fraiser wanted to know, and I told her that as far as I was concerned I was sitting in the iso room one minute, and in the next waking up to find someone had stolen my boots.

You know what? They don't need to know. And I don't need to tell anyone anything. And unless Daniel wants me to, I never will. It's private.

Jacob finally showed up. It seems those goons who tried to pull a fast one on Teal'c when he was out looking for the Tok'ra had big mouths, and word eventually got around to the Tok'ra that those stupid Tau'ri were looking for them. He tried the healing device about half a dozen times, but he said he was pretty sure he was barely able to put a dent in the damage. Fraiser's numbers and pretty pictures confirmed that. Jacob offered to keep trying, and I really didn't know what to say to that even though the whole lot of them were looking to me for an answer. In the end, Fraiser told him it was his call, and he called it a night.

It was getting on toward dawn - well past five in the morning - when the air in the room seemed to thin out and spark with static electricity for a few seconds. I jumped up, looking around, and Teal'c immediately went over and clamped a hand over the night nurse's mouth. The Shifu that appeared wasn't the same boy who had left. He was taller - almost as tall as Carter now - and older-looking by a good five years or so, and his dark, expressive eyes weren't quite the same almond shape as before. And he wasn't naked anymore, which was a good thing. I'd stashed his robe and sandals in a bag near the doorway, just in case he came back, but they wouldn't have fit him anymore even if he hadn't have been wearing that sleek black thing he had on. Shifu obviously doesn't need his old clothing - I still haven't figured out how his clothes could pop back and forth from energy to corporeal-human, and I guess I'll never know, but who the hell really cares anyway? - so I guess maybe after Daniel reads all this, if he wants the robe and sandals he can have them.

Shifu stood there for a few moments, quietly giving me and Carter the once over, and then did the same to Teal'c who still had the nurse in a face-lock, and to Fraiser who was asleep on a pile of spare linen on the floor over by the far wall. He gave Jacob a longer look, then walked over to the bed and stared down at Daniel. He reached out and touched a finger to Daniel's throat, then dragged the finger up onto his jaw. I was feeling pretty antsy at this point; there was something really very wrong over and above Daniel being at death's door, and so when Shifu's finger continued on up to stroke along the side of the ET tube in Daniel's mouth, I reached out to grab his wrist. He let me. No jerking away, no sparks, no pain, no nothing.

We met each other's eyes over Daniel's head, and I knew. I don't know how, but I just did. And it hurt just as much as it shocked me. I whispered to him, my throat feeling as raw as my nerves, "So. You're back. Are you enlightened?"

His eyes flashed bright white as he simply said, in the deep timbre of the Goa'uld, "Very."

Daniel... this part is just for you, you hear? If you ever show this thing to anyone else, you white this part out first, you got that? I have a big gun, and if I find out anyone other than you knows about this I won't hesitate to use it. Shifu's eyes flashed and his voice did the snake-thing, and -  I wet my pants. Just a little. Leaked a bit. Actually, it was more like just a drip. Hardly even a drip. Oh, shut up, Daniel.

Anyway, Carter breathed out, "Hoooly..." and I'm pretty sure it was Dad who finished it off with a drawn out, "Haaannah."

A clatter of heels on concrete told me Teal'c had released the nurse, and then he was there at my side, challenging Shifu. "What are your intentions? Be aware, I will not allow you to do harm to anyone in this facility."

Oh, Teal'c. Loyal, but oh so stupid. How are you going to stop him, I was thinking, and apparently Shifu was thinking the exact same thing, because he simply nodded, and there was a faint crackling sound and a low flash of light and suddenly the front of Teal'c's t-shirt was smouldering. I have to be honest here, I really did think we were all going to be toast right then and there. As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as a good Goa'uld - except maybe for Jacob, and even with him there's been moments I've wanted to throttle him - and a full-fledged, non-Tok'ra Goa'uld with all the powers of an ascended being is not something I'm ashamed to admit scares the piss out of me. Ahh, Daniel - shut up.

I was wrong. Then. I don't know about now, several days later, and I sure as hell don't know about what the future holds. But back then, Shifu smiled one of the saddest smiles I have ever seen, and twisted his hand around so that my grip on his wrist turned into a mutual hold. "One of Oma's most favourite teachings was that the true nature of a man is decided in the battle between the conscious and the subconscious. That is overly simplistic. One reflection shows in every mirror; in every mirror, the one reflection. But there are many features which make up the face looking into the mirror."

He looked down at Daniel, and softly said, "My true nature will be decided by the balance of good or evil in the conscious decisions I make."

Damned if he didn't lean forward and kiss Daniel on the forehead. For a moment, he was the young, innocent, malleable boy who'd stood naked in front of me asking for nothing but a chance to understand what had gone wrong. I was this close... this close... to screwing up my reputation with Dad by bursting into a tear, but hey, I can suck it back with the best of them. Carter didn't do so good, but just like before her crying was pretty half-assed. I'm going to have to corner her one of these days and let her know that if she can't manage to actually do a proper job of the weeping thing maybe she ought to go take lessons from the pansies in Central Supply. They're always sobbing about something or another over each requisition I send up there.

Of course, we don't get off that easy, right? Unheard of. Fraiser had woken, and she came over and gently advised Shifu that Daniel was beyond any help now; it was just a matter of a few hours or so and he'd be gone. She ended up in a heap on the floor about six feet across the room for her trouble. I tried to stop it the second I felt the tingle on my arm under Shifu's grip, but there was nothing I could do. All the lights flared and the snakey-sirens blared, and blammo, she was sent flying.

Shifu seemed just as shocked as the rest of us. He pulled away from me and staggered back, bumping into the bedside table. "I am sorry, sorry..." He stopped mumbling it only when the whole table tipped and went over with crash. That was when he saw the healing device Jacob had left there. He picked it up, said, "I know how this works, now..."

Aaaand... the rest is history? Well, yeah, it is, actually, but there are just a few pretty important bits I haven't covered yet that I guess Shifu intended I pass on to Daniel.

Like, that whatever he did to the healing device when he picked it up and went into that rapid upscension-downscension mode, it just about fried Daniel's head when Jacob gave it a try. Yeah, Danny - that's what the sore red skin and the chunk of missing hair at the front is all about. Good thing Jacob could use the new and improved, higher, faster, stronger hand device to mostly heal the charred hole in your forehead. It wasn't pretty, I gotta tell you. Took Jacob a few test tries on his own forearm before he was able to keep the temperature down to a non-lethal steaming hot. By the way - the thing doesn't work anymore. It literally burned itself out on the fourth pass, taking about eight hundred layers of skin on the palm of Jacob's hand right along with it. Good thing the only body part he hadn't more or less taken care of yet was your... okay, no, don't look. I'm lying. Everything's fine.

The other problem with it was that although Shifu had a damn good grasp of human anatomy and cell structure, he didn't know dick-all about microbiology. Fraiser says that's why the sepsis from the radiation sickness wasn't taken care of very well. Sorry about all the pain and fever and incessant puking and, well, that other problem - which by the way Fraiser thinks is from all the antibiotics - but hey, it's a damn sight better than dying, right?

I guess another thing he wanted me to let you know about - although I personally don't see anything to be gained from you angsting over it, which we all know you'll do ad nauseaum - is that the reason Jacob was handling the healing device was that Shifu had a spot of trouble managing to do that balance thing with good and evil. He used his ascended powers to somehow enhance and reprogram the healing device to heal stuff in you that Jacob said it'd never been strong enough to handle before, but in Shifu's hands it was a lot more than a healing device.

No, no, relax. Breathe, Daniel. He didn't actually use it against anyone. He's got far more powerful stuff than that in his arsenal anyway, doesn't he? But he admitted that the temptation was there, and the strength of it worried him. And hey! Lookee here... do you realise what's happening here? Take a close look. See? I'm talking to you, Daniel, straight to you, rather than to some unidentified audience-at-large.

Geez. Maybe I ought to stop now, before I turn into a girl.

No, wait... there's two more things. One of them's a couple of messages from Shifu. He asked me tell you not to feel badly. Whatever happens, whatever his true nature turns out to be, he wanted me to be sure you understood it was his choice to do what he did. He said you've done him a great favour by teaching him what Oma left out of the curriculum. He told me to tell you - wait; I wrote it down. It's that Zen crap, and it's long; no way was I going to remember unless I wrote it out. Just let me find it.

Okay, here it is: "Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening. To see what is wrong and not want to right it is want of character; to see what is right and not to do it is want of courage." He said it was a lesson the others preached but hadn't learned, but that you taught him the true meaning of. So, well, good for you, Daniel.

I did say there was two things left, right? So, I guess that means I'm going to have to be all girly here for just a bit longer, because this one's from me. I just, well, I want to thank you. Thank you for putting up with me being so pushy these last three days. Oh, the date is on the top of this letter, in case you didn't already see it - so you'll know just what three days I'm talking about. But I guess you'd know that anyway, because it's not everyday that you fight your way back from overwhelming infection after having died the year before and then having come back only to find yourself dying of the same thing all over again.

Anyway, thank you for a lot of things. For having enough faith in my respect for you to lie here and in between pukes fill me in on what you were doing when you were ascended - although while the looking for the afterlife is okay, I still really, really don't get that thing you told me before; that photosynthesis thing. And thanks for respecting me enough that you really did think, back in Ba'al's fortress, I was a good enough person to join that short line at the supermarket. Even though you were so wrong on so many levels that I'm going to hold it over your head for a hell of a long time to come.

Lastly, thanks for the memories. I'll never take floors and walls for granted ever again.

Wait. There's one more thing. You remember you told me why you couldn't re-ascend? You said it was because you made a mistake and got lost, and you couldn't find yourself. Well, you know what they say, Buddy. In the tall grass, no bull can hide. All right, so taken as a whole that makes absolutely no sense at all... but the second part is true. You are so full of shit, Daniel. Don't even try to hide it from me; I know the truth. I've been freaking inside you, haven't I?

Yeah, maybe you made a mistake, but being willing to have faith and trust in others without them having to earn it first is hardly a criminal error. It's just plain stupid, is all. And you were so far from being lost that you ought to rent your version of 'lost' out at gas stations. You damn well know exactly who and what you are. You wouldn't have been able to fling yourself out of Assendedom if you didn't. You just couldn't bring yourself to admit I was right and you were wrong about what Oma's crowd is, and whether or not we fit in there.

So cut the crap, Daniel. If you don't misrepresent yourself to me, well, I'll try not to do the same to you. In private, anyway. In public, I promise to be the same son of a bitch asshole I've always been. And I'd love it if you'd do the same, you annoying royal pain in the butt.

Oh yeah? Try saying that again when you're not flat on your back under the protection of Fraiser.

Geek.

Shut up, Daniel.

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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