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(continued from part 1)
When he steps through the Gate -- really alone at last -- he automatically looks behind him for Jack and Sam -- new world, a mission of sorts, it's a reflex. They aren't there, and their absence is like a physical blow.
At least now he knows what happened that day. The Goa'uld fleet must have appeared right on top of The Mountain and opened fire. The SGC and the Stargate was probably their first target.
He wonders how long it took for Earth to die. Hours? Days? Nothing they had on Earth could have made a dent in a Goa'uld ship in orbit. He and Jack had only managed to take out Ra on Abydos because they'd ringed the bomb up inside Ra's ship.
Would everything be better now if Jack had just moved his ass a little faster that day? If he were alive now? Could he have talked Teal'c out of his one-man (one-Jaffa) crusade? Probably, Daniel thinks miserably. It's hard not to feel as if he's responsible for Teal'c's death, too, though he tries. I should have tried harder to talk him out of it.
But he can't imagine what he would have said. He knows exactly what Jack would have said. 'There's a better way.' And for Jack, it would have worked.
It keeps coming back to Jack at the end of the world, and Daniel hates that, he won't live like that. He won't live in the past, in a world where the dead are alive. He tried it once, and it didn't work. When his parents died, he disavowed ghosts, and angels, and an unreal heaven of happy endings. If the world is bleak, then at least it's real.
He only hopes he can manage to live in reality.
#
The first planet has nothing but grass and trees. It takes him several hours to be sure of that, without a MALP to help him, but there's nothing anywhere within four hours' walk of the Gate. No sign of civilization at all.
It's still early. Afternoon. He goes on to the second planet on his list.
It's early morning there. By his watch, he left the Land of Light in the early morning, arrived on the first planet at its midday and left in its late afternoon; its days must be longer than Earth's. Now it's morning again, though by his watch, the day is drawing to a close. There's a village on the second planet. The people are primitive, as on so many worlds SG-1 has visited. Abducted-or-resettled, as usual, from somewhere in the Mediterranean/Fertile Crescent area; Greek this time, he thinks. There are only a few Northern European transplants that they've seen. No New World cultures at all. It can't be that they're too primitive, considering the level of civilization the Goa'uld allow their victims to achieve. The Goa'uld must have had some other selection criterion.
He gets the villagers to talk to him, asks the questions he's asked on a dozen worlds: do you know the Goa'uld? How long has it been since they've been here?
He's in the domain of the god Ares, apparently. Ares isn't here right now, but he'll be back in the time of the Red Moon. Ares takes his tribute in mined and refined naquaadah, and, every seventh year, he takes seven youths and seven maidens as additional tribute. They never return.
The refinery is primitive and life-destroying, its heat and gasses shortening lives. The mines are worse, but the people labor in them without complaint. It is all for the greater glory of the god Ares, Daniel is told.
The chief is happy to show him around, but Daniel's cautious questioning convinces him that there's no way he's going to be able to change their minds about Ares' divinity. He keeps trying, though, as tactfully as he can, until the chief, equally tactfully, suggests that it is time for him to leave.
By then it's local noon -- well into evening by his watch. He Gates back to PX8-925. Ghoulish, he supposes, to come here. But at least he knows it's safe. It's dusk when he arrives. He thinks of making camp at the foot of the Stargate, but he finds he can't bear to. He ends up going back to Jack's grave.
There's no point, really. Jack isn't here. But this grave is at least a destination, a fixed compass point in a universe that has lost all meaning, and he needs that. In a way, this is all that's left of Earth: a grave under alien stars.
Welcome home, the fiction of Jack says in his mind, and the voice he hears holds all Jack's tired bitterness. The Stargate Program was supposed to get the weapons to defeat the Goa'uld, and they failed. Weapons were always what Jack was after, though Daniel constantly told him that weapons had never saved a culture from destruction yet, though they'd destroyed many. And now Daniel is looking for weapons. He thinks that would amuse Jack greatly, if only Jack were alive to see it.
He's too tired to eat, but he makes coffee. It will be gone soon. He missed coffee on Abydos.
#
His dreams are unsettled. He's in the SGC. Jack is shouting at him, but Jack's voice is faint, and he can't hear. For some reason, Jack is yelling about dishes.
Accretion disk.
Suddenly Daniel is sitting upright, wide awake. Accretion disk.
SG-1 wasn't the only team offworld that day. He doesn't know where all the others were, but he knows where one was. P8X-987; a long-term mission for astronomical observation. The natives called the planet Hanka. He doesn't know why it took him this long to remember. Jack would have thought of this at once. He packs up quickly and hurries back to the Gate.
It's a few hours earlier on Hanka than it is on PX8-925. The sun is just rising as he walks down the steps of the Hankan Gate. He doesn't see the bodies at first. He smells them.
It's a charnel reek; too many bodies left unburied for too long. The scent of apocalypse, carried across fields ripe with unfamiliar grain. He advances down the road, peering carefully ahead of him. Goa'uld? he wonders, but there would be no reason for the Goa'uld to kill everyone this way. They'd just blow the place up.
Everyone he sees is dead, and as he stops to stare at the rotting and half-eaten bodies tumbled in ditches and across the road -- dead where they've fallen -- he realizes he won't find SG-7 alive. This looks like plague. Whatever killed SG-7 and the Hankans killed fast: he knows that because SG-7 didn't even have time to get back to the Gate; their bodies weren't there, or even a message warning people off. And suddenly he realizes that he needs to leave. Now. Every moment he stays increases his own chances of exposure to whatever killed the Hankans. He runs back to the Stargate and hurries through. On the other side he sits on the steps, shaking, and scrubs every inch of his exposed skin with anti-bacterial wipes.
If that's not enough, he's dead.
#
He makes coffee again -- this is the last. He tore open an MRE to get it, and realizes that he has no idea what's in the MRE, because he can no longer read the words printed on the wrapper. He closes his eyes and rubs at them angrily. Everybody on Earth is dead and he's crying because Amaunet broke his glasses.
But he'll never be able to read a book again.
Fortunately his distance vision is still good. That's something. The thought of being truly blind -- helpless -- is frightening.
He wants to move on, but he's been exposed to whatever killed the Hankans, and he won't risk carrying that with him. If he's been exposed, he'll start showing symptoms soon. A short period of isolation should tell him if he's safe. Or if he's going to die.
Nothing he can do about that one way or the other; Teal'c doesn’t even carry aspirin in his pack.
Think about something else.
There are -- there were -- over a dozen SG teams by now, and at least a third of them were usually offworld, some of them for days, even weeks, at a time. But he doesn't know which ones were offworld that day. There's no central rendezvous point out here, either. He supposes there should be. Before he can stop himself, Daniel thinks he should mention that to Jack the next time he sees him, and draws a long shuddering breath.
He can't fall apart now. Or yet. Or already. He's been alone before.
Not like this.
If there are other Teams out here, they're trapped, too. They've either stayed where they were, or tried to move on, depending on what Gate addresses they know. Barring a miracle, he'll never find them.
He stays on PX8-925 for another 24 hours. He doesn't develop any symptoms, though he's not sure he'd recognize any symptoms other than death. After that, he's pretty sure it's safe to move on.
If it's not -- if he's a carrier -- there's no way to know.
#
The next two planets on his list are deserted. No people, no sign that there were ever people here. It takes him most of a day to decide that, and even so, he has the nagging feeling he still might be missing something. There's no way to be absolutely certain without technology he no longer has, and -- even if he had it -- someone who could interpret the MALP's readings.
Sam.
But Sam is dead and Earth is gone and thinking about it is going to drive him as crazy as Teal'c was in the end.
He moves on.
On the next planet there are people at last; a village right at the base of the Gate. He meets a man called Hanno. Hanno asks him who he is, and why he's here. Daniel tells him he's an explorer traveling through the Stargate. Hanno tells him that the Goa'uld frequently come to his world to take slaves, but when they do, his people hide. Daniel is welcome to hide with them if the Goa'uld come while he is here. Daniel tells Hanno that the Goa'uld destroyed his homeworld while he was away.
Hanno is sorry, but he sounds neither shocked nor surprised. His village is a small one, and though he tells Daniel that there are other villages on this planet -- all clustered near the Stargate, of course -- the entire planetary population is undoubtedly less than that of Colorado Springs. But even if Hanno could imagine the billions of lives that have been lost in the destruction of Earth, it wouldn't impress him. Such obliteration is a fact of life in a galaxy dominated by the Goa'uld.
Daniel takes shelter with Hanno and his people for the night. Hanno tells Daniel about his father, killed by Jaffa in the service of a Goa'uld. He traces the Jaffa-mark for Daniel in the dust of the floor. Apophis. Daniel tells Hanno that his wife and her brother were taken to be used as hosts by Apophis. Hanno nods. They share a common bond.
He stays with Hanno's people for a day or two, but Hanno's people have no interest in rebellion. Hanno's people fight back in the only way they can: by hiding. It's not enough for Daniel. The next morning, he says his farewells.
At the DHD he hesitates before dialing the next address on his list, and dials Abydos instead.
No lock.
He breaths a deep sigh of --relief? --dismay? Relief, he decides, because if the Goa'uld had reached Abydos, the first thing they would have done would be to unbury the Stargate.
So Abydos is still safe.
There's still time.
He dials his next destination.
He steps through the Gate onto the sands of a rare desert world. The Stargate platform is half buried in sand as fine as sugar and as white as snow that stretches as far as the eye can see. The air shimmers in the heat; the temperature near the sand is at least 200 degrees and the sky is bleached to whiteness by a sun that seems blue-white -- not yellow -- in the sky. He looks around and steps quickly to the DHD to dial again. This place could kill him in an hour. Less.
Number Eight is P3X-989; a place that at least was inhabited once; Daniel steps through the Stargate into a room full of machines. He's barely begun to look around when he's knocked unconscious, and when he comes to, he's being held prisoner, gagged and adhered -- somehow -- to a table in a large room somewhere. It smells of dust and oil, and there's a distant sound of machinery.
His captor's name is Harlan; a fussy, funny, silly little man. Daniel would like him if Harlan weren't holding him prisoner. Harlan keeps assuring Daniel that he will let him go back through the Stargate soon, but he won't ungag him, so Daniel can't ask him any questions or find out why he's being treated this way. Harlan doesn't seem to mean to want to hurt him, but apparently Harlan doesn't realize that Daniel needs to eat and drink -- especially drink. And Daniel can't tell him, because Harlan won't ungag him.
Harlan holds him prisoner for three days.
No matter Harlan's intentions, Daniel is so weak by the time Harlan finally releases him that he can't even explain why he's here. He tries, but Harlan just hustles him back to the Stargate and shoves him through. Daniel rolls down the steps on the other side, colliding with his pack -- apparently Harlan sent that through first -- and it's only after he's gulped down most of the contents of his canteen that he realizes he's back on PX8-925. Daniel wonders how Harlan got the address, and why he didn't just send him back to the last place he'd been. Considering that it was the desert world, he's just as glad he didn't.
He has a blinding headache and wishes for aspirin. Coffee would help even more, but there isn't any. He's got dried meat and dried fruit and some cheese that Hanno gave him. When that runs out, he'd better hope he finds another village willing to feed him. He could go back to the Land of Light to resupply, or to Argos, or even Cimmeria, but if he went to Argos or Cimmeria he'd have to explain what had happened to Earth, and if he goes back to the Mykene, they'll just want him to stay.
Only as a last resort.
When he can get to his feet again, he dials back to P3X-989, but he can't get a lock, and after several tries, he gives up. Obviously Harlan doesn't want him to come back. He wonders why Harlan kept him for so long, in that case, and why he refused to talk to him. The place looked technologically advanced; he wishes Harlan would at least have answered some of his questions....
He stays for a few days on PX8-925, getting his strength back, even though his food supplies are now running dangerously low, before moving on to the next planet on his list. He spends too long there, just wandering among the trees, though it's empty like so many of the others, and he realizes that he's starting to despair. How long did SG-1 -- with the full resources of the SGC behind them -- spend on this same task? Looking for weapons, looking for allies. They found trading partners, a few useful medical plants. Information that gave them perspective on Earth's history. People who wouldn't talk to them: the Nox, the Asgard. Daniel finds himself looking at things from Jack's perspective now, and it's frustrating.
He could spend the rest of his life wandering from Stargate to Stargate and not even finding any people. The ones he's found so far are too cowed to fight back, or won't even talk to him. And who can blame them? The Goa'uld have done a good job of keeping the Galaxy beaten down around them.
They rebelled on Abydos, he reminds himself. Teal'c turned against Apophis.
Yes. Because Jack asked them to.
Jack is gone and you're left, he tells himself brutally, and even if this isn't his kind of fight at all, he's never backed down from a fight.
He just has to figure out what Jack would have done, and figure out if he can bring himself to do it. Because Jack wasn't always right, wasn't right even half the time. But if the Goa'uld are going to destroy Abydos next, Daniel can't bring himself to think that what he imagines Jack would want to do is wrong.
He forces himself to move on. Her next destination is the last of those he remembers SGC-designations for. The last of SG-1's projected missions. P3R-233.
#
When he steps through it's pitch-dark except for the light of the Stargate; another indoor place full of machines, like P3X-989, and this time, seeing that, Daniel backs up warily. He'd really rather talk first before somebody knocks him unconscious.
He realizes that when the wormhole disengages he'll be left in the dark, so he scrambles for his flashlight and barely gets it out before the Stargate shuts down. Then he sneezes violently, because the air is choked with dust.
He clutches the flashlight tightly, standing on the steps of the Gate platform for several minutes hoping nobody will attack him this time. Nobody comes. The air is soft and dead, making his throat dry and his eyes itch, and as he shines the light around the room, he sees that the smooth floor is treacherous with soft dust. There are no footprints. This place has been deserted for a very long time.
He steps away from the Stargate and starts to look around, feeling the same excitement he would have felt seeing this place in another lifetime. This place is an alien museum. They must have brought back things from everywhere.
He finds one room filled with the treasures of Ancient Earth. Whoever these people were, they visited Earth long ago, explorers like himself, and brought their finds back here for study. Maybe they've even studied the Goa'uld. He can learn from them. He'll keep dialing Abydos; if the Goa'uld don't come, the Abydans will unseal their Gate at the end of a year, just as he told them to, and he can go through.
Meanwhile, he'll have to go back to the Land of Light for supplies. He can tell Tuplo he's found something important to study beyond the Gate. He'll need torches and lanterns for when his flashlight runs out. And some way to take notes.
He feels excitement. Hope. He'll just take a quick look around here and then go. He picks up one of the items from the table -- a clay cone from Lagash -- and puts it down reluctantly. There will be time later to study them closely.
And these aren't the things he needs, he admits grudgingly to himself. Fascinating as they are -- and saddening, too; they're all that's left of Earth, preserved by chance by alien archaeologists -- they won't save the Abydans from the Goa'uld. He needs to find something that can.
But though he can identify everything else on the table -- all objects from ancient Near Eastern Earth cultures -- one of the items on the table doesn't fit. He picks it up curiously. It's a small gleaming object, bright and high-tech, and when he has it in his hand, it lights up.
And something over in the corner that he hadn't paid any attention to before lights up too. It looks like a mirror set into a chunk of rock. He holds the alien object in one hand and his flashlight in the other and walks over to it, peering at it nearsightedly.
It looks like a mirror. He can see the room behind him. He just can't see himself.
There's something else off about the reflection, though, besides the fact that he isn't in it. He tucks the flashlight under his arm and reaches out to touch the surface of the mirror curiously, then gasps in surprise -- dropping the flashlight -- as he receives a faint electrical shock. It runs up from his fingertips through his entire body. The whole room is suddenly brighter. He turns around in alarm.
Jack was always telling you not to touch things and he was right--
Then his mind stops working completely.
#
P3R-233. Another number, another day. He's tired of this. He ought to retire. He should have been court-martialed. He thinks so. Hammond doesn't.
There was nothing you could do, Jack.
Hammond's wrong.
They could have not gone to P3X-866 in the first place. They could have not believed that Daniel was dead. They could have not taken three days to figure out that their heads were being messed with and get back there to rescue him.
He will never, as long as he lives, forget the moment the alien fish guy walked up out of the water, carrying Daniel's body.
His dead body.
He'd wanted to kill the thing. Carter had stopped him.
They took Daniel's body home. Frasier has told O'Neill how Daniel died, but all he remembers about the report is that Daniel didn't drown. He's buried in Chicago, next to his parents. O'Neill's still here, going through the motions.
At least the second time they got a body to bury.
He's lost people under his command before. He's lost a child. This is somehow an unholy combination of the two and something worse. Daniel wasn't just another officer. Daniel wasn't just his friend. Daniel was their conscience -- not just his, not just SG-1's, but all of them. Hammond's. The SGC's. They'd taken their big alien toy out of the box and Daniel made it work and he'd never -- never -- stopped telling them what they ought to be doing with it.
Only now he has.
Because something they're never going to be able to figure out happened on a planet on the other side of the Galaxy and Daniel's dead. And the only thing that keeps O'Neill here -- it's not a good reason, he knows that -- is that nobody else will look for Sha're and Skaara if he doesn't.
If he finds Skaara, if he finds Sha're, it won't bring Daniel back. But it will be a better memorial than the flag O'Neill keeps on his mantle.
#
The Stargate on P3R-233 is inside some kind of museum. It's dark, and smells of dust. O'Neill looks around warily.
Teal'c says that the Goa'uld have been here, though not recently.
O'Neill tells Carter and Rothman to make a sweep. Rothman stumbles after Carter, snuffling at the dust. O'Neill grits his teeth. He doesn't like Rothman, even if the guy was Daniel's personal pet, but he's dammed if he'll ask for a replacement. As it is, they've been through six A/T specialists in the last three months -- Rothman is Lucky Number Seven -- due to transfers out. It's not that O'Neill asks to have them reassigned. They just decide they want to be somewhere else. He's sure Rothman will, too. Sooner or later. At least no one else has died.
Suddenly Teal'c gets a look at a piece of voodoo and announces -- looking as spooked as Teal'c ever does -- that they aren't safe here and have to leave at once. Something about 'Crush Me', which sounds Russian to O'Neill, and probably isn't.
Daniel would know.
And then Carter is shouting for him.
"Crush Me" or not, he and Teal'c are off in the direction of the sound as fast as they can go, weapons at the ready. It's easy enough to find. The only place in this whole damned sideshow where the lights are on.
They charge in and skid to a halt.
Carter and Rothman are there.
And so is Daniel.
Daniel stares at him and his face goes white. He reels back, looking as if he's about to faint, and for one crazy moment all O'Neill wants to do is catch him before he falls.
"You're dead," Daniel says.
#
"We walked in here to check it out and he..." Carter swallows hard. "He was standing here. Sir."
Daniel is out of uniform. He's wearing a blue scarf tied around his head -- no cap -- and his equipment vest is way too big. His uniform is dirty and a bit tattered and his boots are a mess. He isn't wearing his glasses.
No gun, either.
"Teal'c?" O'Neill says, and his voice is harsh, because it doesn't matter how much you want something, there are things you know you can't have. His MP5 is already pointed at ... it ... and he flicks the other hand, and Carter falls back behind him, pulling Rothman with her.
"I am uncertain, O'Neill," Teal'c says.
"Jack?" the thing says. "Sam?" Its voice holds a mixture of shock and disbelief, desperate hope and something on the edge of horror. It's him; in his bones O'Neill knows it's him; and for one sick instant he has the urge to empty the whole clip from the MP5 into it right now, because dead things should stay dead, not come walking up to you on alien planets three months after you've laid a wreath on their grave.
"What are you?" O'Neill asks, because that's his job.
Its eyes -- Daniel's eyes -- widen, as if that's the last question he -- it -- expected to hear. It raises a hand, as if the effort of speech is too much. It's holding something.
"Drop it," O'Neill says, jerking the barrel at him.
"You can't be... I know you can't be... Who are you?" the thing that looks like Daniel says, and it's still holding that thing in it's hand, waving it around as if it doesn't know it's holding it, just the way Daniel would. O'Neill cuts his eyes aside to Carter for an instant; she's rattled but she picks up her cue without hesitation -- good girl -- darting right in from the side and snatching it right out of its hand, in and out of range before the Daniel-thing has a chance to react. It flinches when she grabs the device, as if it hadn't noticed her moving. It looks as if it can't make up its mind whether to cower or fight; it's staring at all of them, but especially at him.
"I say again: what are you?" O'Neill says.
"I'm Daniel Jackson," the thing pretending to be Daniel repeats plaintively. It makes up its mind and takes a step forward, reaching out a hand. "I'm a peaceful explorer. I mean you no harm."
"Don't," O'Neill says, jerking his gunbarrel at ... it.
The thing recoils, looking shocked. "Who are you? Is this your planet? Why do you look like my friends?" His gaze moves past O'Neill, to Rothman, and O'Neill would swear that now the thing looks puzzled and just a little irritated.
O'Neill sets his jaw. "Carter, go dial up the Gate. Tell General Hammond we've run into a problem and we need a really quick answer."
Because P3R-233 isn't safe for human life.
#
He knows that Earth has been destroyed. He might not believe Amaunet, but he believes Teal'c.
He knows that Jack and Sam are dead. That Teal'c is gone, and probably dead.
That Robert is dead. And Robert was never a member of SG-1 anyway, so it's twice-baffling that if aliens are impersonating SG-1, they should make Robert a member of it. Obviously they're drawing on his memories somehow -- or he's hallucinating -- but why Robert?
This impersonation should be a first step to communication, but apparently it isn't. The Jack-alien won't talk to him, or let him talk. His hands are bound behind his back and he's taken to the Stargate, and Daniel thinks with resignation that he's simply going to be sent somewhere else again. Unwanted visitor. He asks them to let him dial -- at least he can go back to PX8-925 -- but all of them just look at him as if he's lost his mind. 'Robert' dials, and when Daniel sees the address he's dialing, he starts to struggle.
'Robert' is dialing Earth.
'Sam' sends an IDC code, and 'Teal'c' drags him through the event horizon.
On the other side, what he sees holds him still with shock. He's in the Gate Room of the SGC. It looks the way it did the day he left; pristine, untouched -- Walter's at the computers, even General Hammond is standing there at the foot of the ramp -- and that's when Daniel knows that something more bizarre and horrible is going on than having been captured by shapeshifting aliens, because he knows of no way to fake a Gate address, so this must be Earth. He's back on Earth, and it hasn't been destroyed. He tries to explain that this is impossible -- that Earth is gone -- but 'Jack' won't listen.
None of them will listen to him.
"What in the name of God is that, Colonel O'Neill?" General Hammond asks, only Daniel is pretty sure that the real General Hammond is dead.
"We don't know yet, General. We found it on P3R-233. It thinks it's Daniel."
"I am Daniel! I'm Daniel Jackson! I don't know who you are, but I'm Daniel Jackson!"
Armed SFs come up the ramp to meet them. They grab him by the arms and take him up to the Infirmary.
#
"Janet?" he says, stunned. He stopped struggling several levels ago, but the SFs haven't relaxed their death-grip. Daniel can't believe all that he's seeing: this is the SGC. If it's a copy -- as far as he can see -- it's exact.
Janet's eyes grow wide when she sees him. The captain of the security team makes his report: prisoner found by SG-1 on P3R-233, here for medical examination.
They cut the tie on his wrists. That's an improvement. But they don't move back.
"Janet, what's going on?" he asks. Surely she'll tell him; they've been friends for months.
"Dr. Jackson is dead," Janet says. Janet tries very hard to keep her voice even, but it shakes, and she won't meet his eyes.
"Dead?" he says. "I'm dead? Janet, you don't understand! You're dead, and Jack, and Sam, and General Hammond! I don't know about Teal'c -- he might be dead, I'm not sure -- but Robert is definitely dead, and Walter, oh, yeah, Walter is dead, and Sgt. Siler--"
She recoils; he reaches for her, just wanting to make her listen, but the SFs lunge for him again. He struggles furiously. He's angry and frightened and knows he's losing control, but he can't help it. Janet pushes up his sleeve and gets a needle into his arm quickly, taking blood. It hurts, and he yells.
"You're human," she says, surprised.
"Of course I'm human! I'm Daniel Jackson! Janet, you know me, listen to me! The Goa'uld came here, they destroyed Earth--"
"Whoever you are, you have to calm down right now," Janet says firmly. "We aren't going to hurt you. We just need to run a few tests. It will be easier if--"
"Who are you?" Daniel shouts, struggling harder. "You can't be Janet! Janet is dead! Sam and Jack are dead! I buried Jack myself! The Goa'uld destroyed Earth! Apophis and Amaunet! They destroyed it!"
"Corpsman, let's get some restraints over here," Janet says.
The SFs and two orderlies hold him down as a third one tries to force him into restraints, and that's the last thing he remembers.
#
When he wakes up, he's strapped to a bed in Isolation Medical. He can tell this even without his glasses because the walls are black. It's some kind of shielding material, Sam told him once. His mouth is dry from sedation.
He shifts restlessly, but there's no play in the restraints. He's strapped down as thoroughly as Kawalsky was; at least he's on his back. Do they think he's a Goa'uld?. They have to know he isn't by now. They've had time to do an MRI.
He realizes he's thinking as if this is the real Stargate Command. But it can't be.
There's someone in the room with him. Not any of the medical staff; it's a green blur instead of a white one. The figure approaches when he starts to struggle.
It's Jack.
The fake one.
"Welcome back," 'Jack' says. His voice is neutral. Daniel closes his eyes in frustration.
"So," 'Jack' says. "That planet? Where I'm ... buried?"
"It isn't you." Daniel's voice is hoarse. He opens his eyes again. 'Jack' holds a cup so he can drink through the straw. Ice water. After he's spent so long drinking from streams and pools on alien planets, it doesn't really taste like water at all; bland and denatured -- in all senses of the word -- with a hint of chlorine. But he's thirsty and his throat hurts. The cold is soothing.
"Where are my glasses?" Daniel asks next, because if they're going to pretend to be real, pretend to be his friends, they should at least give him his glasses.
"I was going to ask you the same thing."
"Amaunet broke them. And if you were who you're pretending to be, you'd know I have a spare pair in my office."
There's a pause. 'Jack' reaches for something that Daniel can't turn his head far enough to see, then he sees his glasses in 'Jack's' hands. Daniel feels a familiar presence settle -- awkwardly, not-quite-right -- onto his nose. He blinks. The world is once more in focus.
"Thanks," he says awkwardly.
It's disturbing on so many levels that the aliens have a pair of his glasses.
Actually, it's terrifying.
'Jack' looks as disturbed about the glasses as Daniel feels, and Daniel wonders why.
"This, ah, Amaunet?" 'Jack' asks, gesturing toward Daniel's glasses, and Daniel realizes he's going to be interrogated now. He wonders if any of this is actually real. If he's gone mad. If he's dead. If these people are -- somehow -- Goa'uld.
Maybe this is what the host experiences, trapped within their own mind. A horribly plausible fantasy of their former reality. Maybe this is why Sha're told Amaunet what she did.
But -- in that case -- shouldn't it be really plausible? Why are there so many things here that don't make sense? Why is everyone saying he's dead? Why is Robert on SG-1?
He doesn't really think 'Jack' is a Goa'uld or a fantasy created by one, actually. The Goa'uld aren't, from all he's seen, that big on subtlety. But even if it is, does it matter what he tells? Earth is gone, and if he's a host and these are fantasies a Goa'uld is creating, it's already over for him . Besides, the Goa'uld already know everything about the Stargate and its addresses -- and themselves -- that he does. And why would his Goa'uld -- if there is one -- bother with creating this illusion? Anything it wants to know, it could just rip out of his mind.
The restraints would make sense if he were crazy, though. But then, shouldn't they be telling him he's crazy instead of dead?
So... They aren't Goa'uld, and he isn't crazy. That's a start.
"Amaunet is Apophis's Queen. Apophis is a Goa'uld that we've fought before. I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I don't really think you can be Jack O'Neill. I wish you were. So that means you're a figment of my imagination, and I'm talking to myself." Or you're a really strange alien.
"Pretend I'm real," Jack says dryly. It sounds like Jack. It can't be Jack. Daniel sighs, and closes his eyes.
Maybe the last several weeks were just a really bad dream. Maybe he was on the steps that day, not Jack. Maybe he was badly hurt and has been in a coma. Maybe this is his first true awakening.
"The Goa'uld destroyed Earth and you died," Daniel says.
"Ah... not noticeably," Jack says.
"You said... Janet said I was dead." He stares up at Jack hoping for some clue to the truth. He sees nothing.
"You're human. Frasier says your DNA matches Daniel Jackson's. I don't know..." Jack's voice trails off.
Jack -- fantasy, hallucination, alien -- thinks he's dead too, Daniel realizes. That's frustrating.
"Tell me what you remember," Jack-not-Jack says.
"About you dying? The three of us -- you, me, Teal'c -- were offworld; it was our first mission after Oannes. Sam didn't go because she had to run a Gate diagnostic, but it wasn't something we had to cancel the mission for. The wormhole was still open when the SGC -- Earth -- was attacked by the Goa'uld and a blast of energy came through the Stargate. You were standing right in front of it. Teal'c and I were farther away. We tried dialing back to Earth, but we couldn't get a lock. We kept trying for weeks, but the Earth Stargate never responded." He stops.
"And yet, here I am. And Carter, and Teal'c."
"That's the really odd thing, because Teal'c and I buried you," Daniel says evenly.
"Yeah, well, we buried you, too," Jack says. He gets up and walks away and Daniel is alone again.
#
Janet comes in a few minutes later. She's all business and won't meet Daniel's eyes. Daniel doesn't push things.
Jack -- whatever Daniel was talking to sounded so much like Jack -- seemed so convinced he was dead.
Daniel has always trusted the evidence of his senses, but now they're telling him two sets of contradictory things. Jack is dead. Jack is alive. And only one can be real.
But he's come back from the dead. From real death twice, and false death -- at the hands of Nem -- once. And even if Jack could have done the same, Daniel's imagination fails at the idea that a whole planet could have managed the same trick.
There has to be another explanation.
He just doesn’t know what it is.
#
A few hours later he's moved from Isolation Medical to a holding cell. At least the restraints come off, though he's in cuffs until they get him to the cell. He's tired of being treated like a stranger, as a prisoner: if this is the SGC, and they recognize him, then they should stop treating him this way and talk to him. He's not some enemy alien. He's their friend, their colleague. He demands to see Jack, Sam, General Hammond. He gets no response from the guard on the door. Armed guards bring him meals. They won't speak to him.
Time passes.
#
Somewhere between breakfast and lunch on the third day, he's taken to an Interrogation Room. The upper walls are mirrored glass, and he knows there are probably people watching.
Jack -- or the thing pretending to be Jack -- walks in. He looks harassed.
"You want to go over it again?" he says.
Daniel simply puts his head down on his hands.
"I've told you everything I know. Why won't you talk to me? I'm Daniel Jackson. I don't know who you are, but I'm Daniel Jackson."
"Carter's got a theory," 'Jack' says.
Daniel looks up. "She isn't Sam," he says dully.
"Actually, she is. Well, Carter. And Teal'c's Teal'c, and I'm Jack O'Neill. And Carter thinks you're ... Daniel Jackson." 'Jack' sits down opposite him, looking as if he'd rather be anywhere else. "She says you have to tell us what happened on P3X-866."
Daniel searches the face of the man opposite him -- it's so hard not to think of him as Jack -- wondering if this is some kind of trick. He can't imagine why anybody would want to know about that.
"We named the planet Oannes," Daniel says slowly. "An alien called Nem -- blue skin, gills -- kidnapped me and held me for three days. He convinced you I was dead, but I wasn't. You broke his conditioning and came back for me. I'd been awake the whole time, trying to figure out what he wanted. He just wanted information about his mate, Omoroca. After I'd gotten some sleep, we all went out for sushi at that place down on... that place..."
He falters to a stop, because Jack is staring at him, and Daniel thinks that Jack is really seeing him for the first time. There's always that moment with Jack, when he starts to let you in. Not an easy man to know, Jack O'Neill, and Daniel realizes, listening to his own thoughts, that no matter how insane, how impossible it is, he believes that Jack is really Jack.
That Jack is not dead.
"We came back, and got your body," Jack says harshly.
Daniel feels the world revolve giddily around him and takes a deep breath. "That's not possible. Jack, I'm not dead."
"Neither am I."
Daniel drops his head into his hands. "I saw you die."
"Yeah." The word comes out on a long sigh.
"This mirror thing on 233," Jack says after a moment. "Carter says it's like a Stargate. Only it takes you sideways."
Daniel looks up. "I saw it. It was in the room with a lot of artifacts from Earth. You must have seen them. It was the only thing that didn't belong. There was... There was something on the table. I picked it up, and the ...mirror... lit up. I went over to it. I could see the room behind me; I just couldn't see myself. I touched it, and then I turned around, and Sam and Robert came in. And, ah, when did Robert join SG-1 anyway, if you don't mind my asking?"
Jack smiles. It isn't a real smile. "About three months after you died."
"You know," Daniel says cautiously, after a very long pause, "I might understand this better if Sam explained it."
#
(continued in part 3)
When he steps through the Gate -- really alone at last -- he automatically looks behind him for Jack and Sam -- new world, a mission of sorts, it's a reflex. They aren't there, and their absence is like a physical blow.
At least now he knows what happened that day. The Goa'uld fleet must have appeared right on top of The Mountain and opened fire. The SGC and the Stargate was probably their first target.
He wonders how long it took for Earth to die. Hours? Days? Nothing they had on Earth could have made a dent in a Goa'uld ship in orbit. He and Jack had only managed to take out Ra on Abydos because they'd ringed the bomb up inside Ra's ship.
Would everything be better now if Jack had just moved his ass a little faster that day? If he were alive now? Could he have talked Teal'c out of his one-man (one-Jaffa) crusade? Probably, Daniel thinks miserably. It's hard not to feel as if he's responsible for Teal'c's death, too, though he tries. I should have tried harder to talk him out of it.
But he can't imagine what he would have said. He knows exactly what Jack would have said. 'There's a better way.' And for Jack, it would have worked.
It keeps coming back to Jack at the end of the world, and Daniel hates that, he won't live like that. He won't live in the past, in a world where the dead are alive. He tried it once, and it didn't work. When his parents died, he disavowed ghosts, and angels, and an unreal heaven of happy endings. If the world is bleak, then at least it's real.
He only hopes he can manage to live in reality.
The first planet has nothing but grass and trees. It takes him several hours to be sure of that, without a MALP to help him, but there's nothing anywhere within four hours' walk of the Gate. No sign of civilization at all.
It's still early. Afternoon. He goes on to the second planet on his list.
It's early morning there. By his watch, he left the Land of Light in the early morning, arrived on the first planet at its midday and left in its late afternoon; its days must be longer than Earth's. Now it's morning again, though by his watch, the day is drawing to a close. There's a village on the second planet. The people are primitive, as on so many worlds SG-1 has visited. Abducted-or-resettled, as usual, from somewhere in the Mediterranean/Fertile Crescent area; Greek this time, he thinks. There are only a few Northern European transplants that they've seen. No New World cultures at all. It can't be that they're too primitive, considering the level of civilization the Goa'uld allow their victims to achieve. The Goa'uld must have had some other selection criterion.
He gets the villagers to talk to him, asks the questions he's asked on a dozen worlds: do you know the Goa'uld? How long has it been since they've been here?
He's in the domain of the god Ares, apparently. Ares isn't here right now, but he'll be back in the time of the Red Moon. Ares takes his tribute in mined and refined naquaadah, and, every seventh year, he takes seven youths and seven maidens as additional tribute. They never return.
The refinery is primitive and life-destroying, its heat and gasses shortening lives. The mines are worse, but the people labor in them without complaint. It is all for the greater glory of the god Ares, Daniel is told.
The chief is happy to show him around, but Daniel's cautious questioning convinces him that there's no way he's going to be able to change their minds about Ares' divinity. He keeps trying, though, as tactfully as he can, until the chief, equally tactfully, suggests that it is time for him to leave.
By then it's local noon -- well into evening by his watch. He Gates back to PX8-925. Ghoulish, he supposes, to come here. But at least he knows it's safe. It's dusk when he arrives. He thinks of making camp at the foot of the Stargate, but he finds he can't bear to. He ends up going back to Jack's grave.
There's no point, really. Jack isn't here. But this grave is at least a destination, a fixed compass point in a universe that has lost all meaning, and he needs that. In a way, this is all that's left of Earth: a grave under alien stars.
Welcome home, the fiction of Jack says in his mind, and the voice he hears holds all Jack's tired bitterness. The Stargate Program was supposed to get the weapons to defeat the Goa'uld, and they failed. Weapons were always what Jack was after, though Daniel constantly told him that weapons had never saved a culture from destruction yet, though they'd destroyed many. And now Daniel is looking for weapons. He thinks that would amuse Jack greatly, if only Jack were alive to see it.
He's too tired to eat, but he makes coffee. It will be gone soon. He missed coffee on Abydos.
His dreams are unsettled. He's in the SGC. Jack is shouting at him, but Jack's voice is faint, and he can't hear. For some reason, Jack is yelling about dishes.
Accretion disk.
Suddenly Daniel is sitting upright, wide awake. Accretion disk.
SG-1 wasn't the only team offworld that day. He doesn't know where all the others were, but he knows where one was. P8X-987; a long-term mission for astronomical observation. The natives called the planet Hanka. He doesn't know why it took him this long to remember. Jack would have thought of this at once. He packs up quickly and hurries back to the Gate.
It's a few hours earlier on Hanka than it is on PX8-925. The sun is just rising as he walks down the steps of the Hankan Gate. He doesn't see the bodies at first. He smells them.
It's a charnel reek; too many bodies left unburied for too long. The scent of apocalypse, carried across fields ripe with unfamiliar grain. He advances down the road, peering carefully ahead of him. Goa'uld? he wonders, but there would be no reason for the Goa'uld to kill everyone this way. They'd just blow the place up.
Everyone he sees is dead, and as he stops to stare at the rotting and half-eaten bodies tumbled in ditches and across the road -- dead where they've fallen -- he realizes he won't find SG-7 alive. This looks like plague. Whatever killed SG-7 and the Hankans killed fast: he knows that because SG-7 didn't even have time to get back to the Gate; their bodies weren't there, or even a message warning people off. And suddenly he realizes that he needs to leave. Now. Every moment he stays increases his own chances of exposure to whatever killed the Hankans. He runs back to the Stargate and hurries through. On the other side he sits on the steps, shaking, and scrubs every inch of his exposed skin with anti-bacterial wipes.
If that's not enough, he's dead.
He makes coffee again -- this is the last. He tore open an MRE to get it, and realizes that he has no idea what's in the MRE, because he can no longer read the words printed on the wrapper. He closes his eyes and rubs at them angrily. Everybody on Earth is dead and he's crying because Amaunet broke his glasses.
But he'll never be able to read a book again.
Fortunately his distance vision is still good. That's something. The thought of being truly blind -- helpless -- is frightening.
He wants to move on, but he's been exposed to whatever killed the Hankans, and he won't risk carrying that with him. If he's been exposed, he'll start showing symptoms soon. A short period of isolation should tell him if he's safe. Or if he's going to die.
Nothing he can do about that one way or the other; Teal'c doesn’t even carry aspirin in his pack.
Think about something else.
There are -- there were -- over a dozen SG teams by now, and at least a third of them were usually offworld, some of them for days, even weeks, at a time. But he doesn't know which ones were offworld that day. There's no central rendezvous point out here, either. He supposes there should be. Before he can stop himself, Daniel thinks he should mention that to Jack the next time he sees him, and draws a long shuddering breath.
He can't fall apart now. Or yet. Or already. He's been alone before.
Not like this.
If there are other Teams out here, they're trapped, too. They've either stayed where they were, or tried to move on, depending on what Gate addresses they know. Barring a miracle, he'll never find them.
He stays on PX8-925 for another 24 hours. He doesn't develop any symptoms, though he's not sure he'd recognize any symptoms other than death. After that, he's pretty sure it's safe to move on.
If it's not -- if he's a carrier -- there's no way to know.
The next two planets on his list are deserted. No people, no sign that there were ever people here. It takes him most of a day to decide that, and even so, he has the nagging feeling he still might be missing something. There's no way to be absolutely certain without technology he no longer has, and -- even if he had it -- someone who could interpret the MALP's readings.
Sam.
But Sam is dead and Earth is gone and thinking about it is going to drive him as crazy as Teal'c was in the end.
He moves on.
On the next planet there are people at last; a village right at the base of the Gate. He meets a man called Hanno. Hanno asks him who he is, and why he's here. Daniel tells him he's an explorer traveling through the Stargate. Hanno tells him that the Goa'uld frequently come to his world to take slaves, but when they do, his people hide. Daniel is welcome to hide with them if the Goa'uld come while he is here. Daniel tells Hanno that the Goa'uld destroyed his homeworld while he was away.
Hanno is sorry, but he sounds neither shocked nor surprised. His village is a small one, and though he tells Daniel that there are other villages on this planet -- all clustered near the Stargate, of course -- the entire planetary population is undoubtedly less than that of Colorado Springs. But even if Hanno could imagine the billions of lives that have been lost in the destruction of Earth, it wouldn't impress him. Such obliteration is a fact of life in a galaxy dominated by the Goa'uld.
Daniel takes shelter with Hanno and his people for the night. Hanno tells Daniel about his father, killed by Jaffa in the service of a Goa'uld. He traces the Jaffa-mark for Daniel in the dust of the floor. Apophis. Daniel tells Hanno that his wife and her brother were taken to be used as hosts by Apophis. Hanno nods. They share a common bond.
He stays with Hanno's people for a day or two, but Hanno's people have no interest in rebellion. Hanno's people fight back in the only way they can: by hiding. It's not enough for Daniel. The next morning, he says his farewells.
At the DHD he hesitates before dialing the next address on his list, and dials Abydos instead.
No lock.
He breaths a deep sigh of --relief? --dismay? Relief, he decides, because if the Goa'uld had reached Abydos, the first thing they would have done would be to unbury the Stargate.
So Abydos is still safe.
There's still time.
He dials his next destination.
He steps through the Gate onto the sands of a rare desert world. The Stargate platform is half buried in sand as fine as sugar and as white as snow that stretches as far as the eye can see. The air shimmers in the heat; the temperature near the sand is at least 200 degrees and the sky is bleached to whiteness by a sun that seems blue-white -- not yellow -- in the sky. He looks around and steps quickly to the DHD to dial again. This place could kill him in an hour. Less.
Number Eight is P3X-989; a place that at least was inhabited once; Daniel steps through the Stargate into a room full of machines. He's barely begun to look around when he's knocked unconscious, and when he comes to, he's being held prisoner, gagged and adhered -- somehow -- to a table in a large room somewhere. It smells of dust and oil, and there's a distant sound of machinery.
His captor's name is Harlan; a fussy, funny, silly little man. Daniel would like him if Harlan weren't holding him prisoner. Harlan keeps assuring Daniel that he will let him go back through the Stargate soon, but he won't ungag him, so Daniel can't ask him any questions or find out why he's being treated this way. Harlan doesn't seem to mean to want to hurt him, but apparently Harlan doesn't realize that Daniel needs to eat and drink -- especially drink. And Daniel can't tell him, because Harlan won't ungag him.
Harlan holds him prisoner for three days.
No matter Harlan's intentions, Daniel is so weak by the time Harlan finally releases him that he can't even explain why he's here. He tries, but Harlan just hustles him back to the Stargate and shoves him through. Daniel rolls down the steps on the other side, colliding with his pack -- apparently Harlan sent that through first -- and it's only after he's gulped down most of the contents of his canteen that he realizes he's back on PX8-925. Daniel wonders how Harlan got the address, and why he didn't just send him back to the last place he'd been. Considering that it was the desert world, he's just as glad he didn't.
He has a blinding headache and wishes for aspirin. Coffee would help even more, but there isn't any. He's got dried meat and dried fruit and some cheese that Hanno gave him. When that runs out, he'd better hope he finds another village willing to feed him. He could go back to the Land of Light to resupply, or to Argos, or even Cimmeria, but if he went to Argos or Cimmeria he'd have to explain what had happened to Earth, and if he goes back to the Mykene, they'll just want him to stay.
Only as a last resort.
When he can get to his feet again, he dials back to P3X-989, but he can't get a lock, and after several tries, he gives up. Obviously Harlan doesn't want him to come back. He wonders why Harlan kept him for so long, in that case, and why he refused to talk to him. The place looked technologically advanced; he wishes Harlan would at least have answered some of his questions....
He stays for a few days on PX8-925, getting his strength back, even though his food supplies are now running dangerously low, before moving on to the next planet on his list. He spends too long there, just wandering among the trees, though it's empty like so many of the others, and he realizes that he's starting to despair. How long did SG-1 -- with the full resources of the SGC behind them -- spend on this same task? Looking for weapons, looking for allies. They found trading partners, a few useful medical plants. Information that gave them perspective on Earth's history. People who wouldn't talk to them: the Nox, the Asgard. Daniel finds himself looking at things from Jack's perspective now, and it's frustrating.
He could spend the rest of his life wandering from Stargate to Stargate and not even finding any people. The ones he's found so far are too cowed to fight back, or won't even talk to him. And who can blame them? The Goa'uld have done a good job of keeping the Galaxy beaten down around them.
They rebelled on Abydos, he reminds himself. Teal'c turned against Apophis.
Yes. Because Jack asked them to.
Jack is gone and you're left, he tells himself brutally, and even if this isn't his kind of fight at all, he's never backed down from a fight.
He just has to figure out what Jack would have done, and figure out if he can bring himself to do it. Because Jack wasn't always right, wasn't right even half the time. But if the Goa'uld are going to destroy Abydos next, Daniel can't bring himself to think that what he imagines Jack would want to do is wrong.
He forces himself to move on. Her next destination is the last of those he remembers SGC-designations for. The last of SG-1's projected missions. P3R-233.
When he steps through it's pitch-dark except for the light of the Stargate; another indoor place full of machines, like P3X-989, and this time, seeing that, Daniel backs up warily. He'd really rather talk first before somebody knocks him unconscious.
He realizes that when the wormhole disengages he'll be left in the dark, so he scrambles for his flashlight and barely gets it out before the Stargate shuts down. Then he sneezes violently, because the air is choked with dust.
He clutches the flashlight tightly, standing on the steps of the Gate platform for several minutes hoping nobody will attack him this time. Nobody comes. The air is soft and dead, making his throat dry and his eyes itch, and as he shines the light around the room, he sees that the smooth floor is treacherous with soft dust. There are no footprints. This place has been deserted for a very long time.
He steps away from the Stargate and starts to look around, feeling the same excitement he would have felt seeing this place in another lifetime. This place is an alien museum. They must have brought back things from everywhere.
He finds one room filled with the treasures of Ancient Earth. Whoever these people were, they visited Earth long ago, explorers like himself, and brought their finds back here for study. Maybe they've even studied the Goa'uld. He can learn from them. He'll keep dialing Abydos; if the Goa'uld don't come, the Abydans will unseal their Gate at the end of a year, just as he told them to, and he can go through.
Meanwhile, he'll have to go back to the Land of Light for supplies. He can tell Tuplo he's found something important to study beyond the Gate. He'll need torches and lanterns for when his flashlight runs out. And some way to take notes.
He feels excitement. Hope. He'll just take a quick look around here and then go. He picks up one of the items from the table -- a clay cone from Lagash -- and puts it down reluctantly. There will be time later to study them closely.
And these aren't the things he needs, he admits grudgingly to himself. Fascinating as they are -- and saddening, too; they're all that's left of Earth, preserved by chance by alien archaeologists -- they won't save the Abydans from the Goa'uld. He needs to find something that can.
But though he can identify everything else on the table -- all objects from ancient Near Eastern Earth cultures -- one of the items on the table doesn't fit. He picks it up curiously. It's a small gleaming object, bright and high-tech, and when he has it in his hand, it lights up.
And something over in the corner that he hadn't paid any attention to before lights up too. It looks like a mirror set into a chunk of rock. He holds the alien object in one hand and his flashlight in the other and walks over to it, peering at it nearsightedly.
It looks like a mirror. He can see the room behind him. He just can't see himself.
There's something else off about the reflection, though, besides the fact that he isn't in it. He tucks the flashlight under his arm and reaches out to touch the surface of the mirror curiously, then gasps in surprise -- dropping the flashlight -- as he receives a faint electrical shock. It runs up from his fingertips through his entire body. The whole room is suddenly brighter. He turns around in alarm.
Jack was always telling you not to touch things and he was right--
Then his mind stops working completely.
P3R-233. Another number, another day. He's tired of this. He ought to retire. He should have been court-martialed. He thinks so. Hammond doesn't.
There was nothing you could do, Jack.
Hammond's wrong.
They could have not gone to P3X-866 in the first place. They could have not believed that Daniel was dead. They could have not taken three days to figure out that their heads were being messed with and get back there to rescue him.
He will never, as long as he lives, forget the moment the alien fish guy walked up out of the water, carrying Daniel's body.
His dead body.
He'd wanted to kill the thing. Carter had stopped him.
They took Daniel's body home. Frasier has told O'Neill how Daniel died, but all he remembers about the report is that Daniel didn't drown. He's buried in Chicago, next to his parents. O'Neill's still here, going through the motions.
At least the second time they got a body to bury.
He's lost people under his command before. He's lost a child. This is somehow an unholy combination of the two and something worse. Daniel wasn't just another officer. Daniel wasn't just his friend. Daniel was their conscience -- not just his, not just SG-1's, but all of them. Hammond's. The SGC's. They'd taken their big alien toy out of the box and Daniel made it work and he'd never -- never -- stopped telling them what they ought to be doing with it.
Only now he has.
Because something they're never going to be able to figure out happened on a planet on the other side of the Galaxy and Daniel's dead. And the only thing that keeps O'Neill here -- it's not a good reason, he knows that -- is that nobody else will look for Sha're and Skaara if he doesn't.
If he finds Skaara, if he finds Sha're, it won't bring Daniel back. But it will be a better memorial than the flag O'Neill keeps on his mantle.
The Stargate on P3R-233 is inside some kind of museum. It's dark, and smells of dust. O'Neill looks around warily.
Teal'c says that the Goa'uld have been here, though not recently.
O'Neill tells Carter and Rothman to make a sweep. Rothman stumbles after Carter, snuffling at the dust. O'Neill grits his teeth. He doesn't like Rothman, even if the guy was Daniel's personal pet, but he's dammed if he'll ask for a replacement. As it is, they've been through six A/T specialists in the last three months -- Rothman is Lucky Number Seven -- due to transfers out. It's not that O'Neill asks to have them reassigned. They just decide they want to be somewhere else. He's sure Rothman will, too. Sooner or later. At least no one else has died.
Suddenly Teal'c gets a look at a piece of voodoo and announces -- looking as spooked as Teal'c ever does -- that they aren't safe here and have to leave at once. Something about 'Crush Me', which sounds Russian to O'Neill, and probably isn't.
Daniel would know.
And then Carter is shouting for him.
"Crush Me" or not, he and Teal'c are off in the direction of the sound as fast as they can go, weapons at the ready. It's easy enough to find. The only place in this whole damned sideshow where the lights are on.
They charge in and skid to a halt.
Carter and Rothman are there.
And so is Daniel.
Daniel stares at him and his face goes white. He reels back, looking as if he's about to faint, and for one crazy moment all O'Neill wants to do is catch him before he falls.
"You're dead," Daniel says.
"We walked in here to check it out and he..." Carter swallows hard. "He was standing here. Sir."
Daniel is out of uniform. He's wearing a blue scarf tied around his head -- no cap -- and his equipment vest is way too big. His uniform is dirty and a bit tattered and his boots are a mess. He isn't wearing his glasses.
No gun, either.
"Teal'c?" O'Neill says, and his voice is harsh, because it doesn't matter how much you want something, there are things you know you can't have. His MP5 is already pointed at ... it ... and he flicks the other hand, and Carter falls back behind him, pulling Rothman with her.
"I am uncertain, O'Neill," Teal'c says.
"Jack?" the thing says. "Sam?" Its voice holds a mixture of shock and disbelief, desperate hope and something on the edge of horror. It's him; in his bones O'Neill knows it's him; and for one sick instant he has the urge to empty the whole clip from the MP5 into it right now, because dead things should stay dead, not come walking up to you on alien planets three months after you've laid a wreath on their grave.
"What are you?" O'Neill asks, because that's his job.
Its eyes -- Daniel's eyes -- widen, as if that's the last question he -- it -- expected to hear. It raises a hand, as if the effort of speech is too much. It's holding something.
"Drop it," O'Neill says, jerking the barrel at him.
"You can't be... I know you can't be... Who are you?" the thing that looks like Daniel says, and it's still holding that thing in it's hand, waving it around as if it doesn't know it's holding it, just the way Daniel would. O'Neill cuts his eyes aside to Carter for an instant; she's rattled but she picks up her cue without hesitation -- good girl -- darting right in from the side and snatching it right out of its hand, in and out of range before the Daniel-thing has a chance to react. It flinches when she grabs the device, as if it hadn't noticed her moving. It looks as if it can't make up its mind whether to cower or fight; it's staring at all of them, but especially at him.
"I say again: what are you?" O'Neill says.
"I'm Daniel Jackson," the thing pretending to be Daniel repeats plaintively. It makes up its mind and takes a step forward, reaching out a hand. "I'm a peaceful explorer. I mean you no harm."
"Don't," O'Neill says, jerking his gunbarrel at ... it.
The thing recoils, looking shocked. "Who are you? Is this your planet? Why do you look like my friends?" His gaze moves past O'Neill, to Rothman, and O'Neill would swear that now the thing looks puzzled and just a little irritated.
O'Neill sets his jaw. "Carter, go dial up the Gate. Tell General Hammond we've run into a problem and we need a really quick answer."
Because P3R-233 isn't safe for human life.
He knows that Earth has been destroyed. He might not believe Amaunet, but he believes Teal'c.
He knows that Jack and Sam are dead. That Teal'c is gone, and probably dead.
That Robert is dead. And Robert was never a member of SG-1 anyway, so it's twice-baffling that if aliens are impersonating SG-1, they should make Robert a member of it. Obviously they're drawing on his memories somehow -- or he's hallucinating -- but why Robert?
This impersonation should be a first step to communication, but apparently it isn't. The Jack-alien won't talk to him, or let him talk. His hands are bound behind his back and he's taken to the Stargate, and Daniel thinks with resignation that he's simply going to be sent somewhere else again. Unwanted visitor. He asks them to let him dial -- at least he can go back to PX8-925 -- but all of them just look at him as if he's lost his mind. 'Robert' dials, and when Daniel sees the address he's dialing, he starts to struggle.
'Robert' is dialing Earth.
'Sam' sends an IDC code, and 'Teal'c' drags him through the event horizon.
On the other side, what he sees holds him still with shock. He's in the Gate Room of the SGC. It looks the way it did the day he left; pristine, untouched -- Walter's at the computers, even General Hammond is standing there at the foot of the ramp -- and that's when Daniel knows that something more bizarre and horrible is going on than having been captured by shapeshifting aliens, because he knows of no way to fake a Gate address, so this must be Earth. He's back on Earth, and it hasn't been destroyed. He tries to explain that this is impossible -- that Earth is gone -- but 'Jack' won't listen.
None of them will listen to him.
"What in the name of God is that, Colonel O'Neill?" General Hammond asks, only Daniel is pretty sure that the real General Hammond is dead.
"We don't know yet, General. We found it on P3R-233. It thinks it's Daniel."
"I am Daniel! I'm Daniel Jackson! I don't know who you are, but I'm Daniel Jackson!"
Armed SFs come up the ramp to meet them. They grab him by the arms and take him up to the Infirmary.
"Janet?" he says, stunned. He stopped struggling several levels ago, but the SFs haven't relaxed their death-grip. Daniel can't believe all that he's seeing: this is the SGC. If it's a copy -- as far as he can see -- it's exact.
Janet's eyes grow wide when she sees him. The captain of the security team makes his report: prisoner found by SG-1 on P3R-233, here for medical examination.
They cut the tie on his wrists. That's an improvement. But they don't move back.
"Janet, what's going on?" he asks. Surely she'll tell him; they've been friends for months.
"Dr. Jackson is dead," Janet says. Janet tries very hard to keep her voice even, but it shakes, and she won't meet his eyes.
"Dead?" he says. "I'm dead? Janet, you don't understand! You're dead, and Jack, and Sam, and General Hammond! I don't know about Teal'c -- he might be dead, I'm not sure -- but Robert is definitely dead, and Walter, oh, yeah, Walter is dead, and Sgt. Siler--"
She recoils; he reaches for her, just wanting to make her listen, but the SFs lunge for him again. He struggles furiously. He's angry and frightened and knows he's losing control, but he can't help it. Janet pushes up his sleeve and gets a needle into his arm quickly, taking blood. It hurts, and he yells.
"You're human," she says, surprised.
"Of course I'm human! I'm Daniel Jackson! Janet, you know me, listen to me! The Goa'uld came here, they destroyed Earth--"
"Whoever you are, you have to calm down right now," Janet says firmly. "We aren't going to hurt you. We just need to run a few tests. It will be easier if--"
"Who are you?" Daniel shouts, struggling harder. "You can't be Janet! Janet is dead! Sam and Jack are dead! I buried Jack myself! The Goa'uld destroyed Earth! Apophis and Amaunet! They destroyed it!"
"Corpsman, let's get some restraints over here," Janet says.
The SFs and two orderlies hold him down as a third one tries to force him into restraints, and that's the last thing he remembers.
When he wakes up, he's strapped to a bed in Isolation Medical. He can tell this even without his glasses because the walls are black. It's some kind of shielding material, Sam told him once. His mouth is dry from sedation.
He shifts restlessly, but there's no play in the restraints. He's strapped down as thoroughly as Kawalsky was; at least he's on his back. Do they think he's a Goa'uld?. They have to know he isn't by now. They've had time to do an MRI.
He realizes he's thinking as if this is the real Stargate Command. But it can't be.
There's someone in the room with him. Not any of the medical staff; it's a green blur instead of a white one. The figure approaches when he starts to struggle.
It's Jack.
The fake one.
"Welcome back," 'Jack' says. His voice is neutral. Daniel closes his eyes in frustration.
"So," 'Jack' says. "That planet? Where I'm ... buried?"
"It isn't you." Daniel's voice is hoarse. He opens his eyes again. 'Jack' holds a cup so he can drink through the straw. Ice water. After he's spent so long drinking from streams and pools on alien planets, it doesn't really taste like water at all; bland and denatured -- in all senses of the word -- with a hint of chlorine. But he's thirsty and his throat hurts. The cold is soothing.
"Where are my glasses?" Daniel asks next, because if they're going to pretend to be real, pretend to be his friends, they should at least give him his glasses.
"I was going to ask you the same thing."
"Amaunet broke them. And if you were who you're pretending to be, you'd know I have a spare pair in my office."
There's a pause. 'Jack' reaches for something that Daniel can't turn his head far enough to see, then he sees his glasses in 'Jack's' hands. Daniel feels a familiar presence settle -- awkwardly, not-quite-right -- onto his nose. He blinks. The world is once more in focus.
"Thanks," he says awkwardly.
It's disturbing on so many levels that the aliens have a pair of his glasses.
Actually, it's terrifying.
'Jack' looks as disturbed about the glasses as Daniel feels, and Daniel wonders why.
"This, ah, Amaunet?" 'Jack' asks, gesturing toward Daniel's glasses, and Daniel realizes he's going to be interrogated now. He wonders if any of this is actually real. If he's gone mad. If he's dead. If these people are -- somehow -- Goa'uld.
Maybe this is what the host experiences, trapped within their own mind. A horribly plausible fantasy of their former reality. Maybe this is why Sha're told Amaunet what she did.
But -- in that case -- shouldn't it be really plausible? Why are there so many things here that don't make sense? Why is everyone saying he's dead? Why is Robert on SG-1?
He doesn't really think 'Jack' is a Goa'uld or a fantasy created by one, actually. The Goa'uld aren't, from all he's seen, that big on subtlety. But even if it is, does it matter what he tells? Earth is gone, and if he's a host and these are fantasies a Goa'uld is creating, it's already over for him . Besides, the Goa'uld already know everything about the Stargate and its addresses -- and themselves -- that he does. And why would his Goa'uld -- if there is one -- bother with creating this illusion? Anything it wants to know, it could just rip out of his mind.
The restraints would make sense if he were crazy, though. But then, shouldn't they be telling him he's crazy instead of dead?
So... They aren't Goa'uld, and he isn't crazy. That's a start.
"Amaunet is Apophis's Queen. Apophis is a Goa'uld that we've fought before. I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I don't really think you can be Jack O'Neill. I wish you were. So that means you're a figment of my imagination, and I'm talking to myself." Or you're a really strange alien.
"Pretend I'm real," Jack says dryly. It sounds like Jack. It can't be Jack. Daniel sighs, and closes his eyes.
Maybe the last several weeks were just a really bad dream. Maybe he was on the steps that day, not Jack. Maybe he was badly hurt and has been in a coma. Maybe this is his first true awakening.
"The Goa'uld destroyed Earth and you died," Daniel says.
"Ah... not noticeably," Jack says.
"You said... Janet said I was dead." He stares up at Jack hoping for some clue to the truth. He sees nothing.
"You're human. Frasier says your DNA matches Daniel Jackson's. I don't know..." Jack's voice trails off.
Jack -- fantasy, hallucination, alien -- thinks he's dead too, Daniel realizes. That's frustrating.
"Tell me what you remember," Jack-not-Jack says.
"About you dying? The three of us -- you, me, Teal'c -- were offworld; it was our first mission after Oannes. Sam didn't go because she had to run a Gate diagnostic, but it wasn't something we had to cancel the mission for. The wormhole was still open when the SGC -- Earth -- was attacked by the Goa'uld and a blast of energy came through the Stargate. You were standing right in front of it. Teal'c and I were farther away. We tried dialing back to Earth, but we couldn't get a lock. We kept trying for weeks, but the Earth Stargate never responded." He stops.
"And yet, here I am. And Carter, and Teal'c."
"That's the really odd thing, because Teal'c and I buried you," Daniel says evenly.
"Yeah, well, we buried you, too," Jack says. He gets up and walks away and Daniel is alone again.
Janet comes in a few minutes later. She's all business and won't meet Daniel's eyes. Daniel doesn't push things.
Jack -- whatever Daniel was talking to sounded so much like Jack -- seemed so convinced he was dead.
Daniel has always trusted the evidence of his senses, but now they're telling him two sets of contradictory things. Jack is dead. Jack is alive. And only one can be real.
But he's come back from the dead. From real death twice, and false death -- at the hands of Nem -- once. And even if Jack could have done the same, Daniel's imagination fails at the idea that a whole planet could have managed the same trick.
There has to be another explanation.
He just doesn’t know what it is.
A few hours later he's moved from Isolation Medical to a holding cell. At least the restraints come off, though he's in cuffs until they get him to the cell. He's tired of being treated like a stranger, as a prisoner: if this is the SGC, and they recognize him, then they should stop treating him this way and talk to him. He's not some enemy alien. He's their friend, their colleague. He demands to see Jack, Sam, General Hammond. He gets no response from the guard on the door. Armed guards bring him meals. They won't speak to him.
Time passes.
Somewhere between breakfast and lunch on the third day, he's taken to an Interrogation Room. The upper walls are mirrored glass, and he knows there are probably people watching.
Jack -- or the thing pretending to be Jack -- walks in. He looks harassed.
"You want to go over it again?" he says.
Daniel simply puts his head down on his hands.
"I've told you everything I know. Why won't you talk to me? I'm Daniel Jackson. I don't know who you are, but I'm Daniel Jackson."
"Carter's got a theory," 'Jack' says.
Daniel looks up. "She isn't Sam," he says dully.
"Actually, she is. Well, Carter. And Teal'c's Teal'c, and I'm Jack O'Neill. And Carter thinks you're ... Daniel Jackson." 'Jack' sits down opposite him, looking as if he'd rather be anywhere else. "She says you have to tell us what happened on P3X-866."
Daniel searches the face of the man opposite him -- it's so hard not to think of him as Jack -- wondering if this is some kind of trick. He can't imagine why anybody would want to know about that.
"We named the planet Oannes," Daniel says slowly. "An alien called Nem -- blue skin, gills -- kidnapped me and held me for three days. He convinced you I was dead, but I wasn't. You broke his conditioning and came back for me. I'd been awake the whole time, trying to figure out what he wanted. He just wanted information about his mate, Omoroca. After I'd gotten some sleep, we all went out for sushi at that place down on... that place..."
He falters to a stop, because Jack is staring at him, and Daniel thinks that Jack is really seeing him for the first time. There's always that moment with Jack, when he starts to let you in. Not an easy man to know, Jack O'Neill, and Daniel realizes, listening to his own thoughts, that no matter how insane, how impossible it is, he believes that Jack is really Jack.
That Jack is not dead.
"We came back, and got your body," Jack says harshly.
Daniel feels the world revolve giddily around him and takes a deep breath. "That's not possible. Jack, I'm not dead."
"Neither am I."
Daniel drops his head into his hands. "I saw you die."
"Yeah." The word comes out on a long sigh.
"This mirror thing on 233," Jack says after a moment. "Carter says it's like a Stargate. Only it takes you sideways."
Daniel looks up. "I saw it. It was in the room with a lot of artifacts from Earth. You must have seen them. It was the only thing that didn't belong. There was... There was something on the table. I picked it up, and the ...mirror... lit up. I went over to it. I could see the room behind me; I just couldn't see myself. I touched it, and then I turned around, and Sam and Robert came in. And, ah, when did Robert join SG-1 anyway, if you don't mind my asking?"
Jack smiles. It isn't a real smile. "About three months after you died."
"You know," Daniel says cautiously, after a very long pause, "I might understand this better if Sam explained it."
(continued in part 3)