Title: Separation Anxiety
Category: action/adventure; angst; HC
Author:ELG
Author Page: ELG
Spoiler: The First Ones tag Season 4
Summary: When Daniel is kidnapped by an Unas, Jack risks everything to get him back. Meanwhile Sam is faced with the burden of command and has a life and death decision to make. (S4) [Printed in Gateways #4]
Notes: released from zine Gateways 4
Rating: R violence; language
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.  

Click to see collage created by Bri

Jack O'Neill yawned as he turned to Carter. "You know I really don't go a lot on this 'Don't call us, we'll call you' stuff from the Tok'ra. Not to mention the way they bone us every other mission."

Carter sighed resignedly. She did wish her CO would stop acting as though she was automatically on the side of the Tok'ra. There was always a note of accusation in his voice when he mentioned them to her. And yes, admittedly, they had only got to know the Tok'ra in the first place because of her, and yes, her father was now one of them, and yes, she supposed she was almost part Tok'ra herself these days. But that didn't mean she enjoyed being summoned to strange planets on what was meant to be her day off to have meetings for reasons that apparently couldn't be mentioned.

"I mean who do they think is going to tap into a communication between wherever they are and Earth anyway? I don't think Apophis is going to be out there monitoring every damned signal that goes zipping through the ether." The man pulled off his forage cap and ran a hand through his short gray hair. The breeze snatched at it and he pulled his cap back on again, slumping against the black stone pillar at his back with boredom radiating from every pore.

Carter sighed again. They were sitting on the base of an alien monolith on a dull grayish planet, and had been for over an hour now. She'd had to listen to a recital of the Tok'ra's crimes against the SGC for most of that time. Teal'c was walking the perimeter and she envied him the job; apart from anything else he was getting only the muted version of Colonel O'Neill's list of complaints. They'd been told the meeting would take place by the towering black stone pillar but as yet there was no sign of the Tok'ra. Daniel had examined the monolith on their first arrival on the planet but hadn't found any inscriptions.

Daniel, of course, had managed to get out of earshot of the Colonel within minutes by heading straight for the ruined temple which stood close to the Stargate. Teal'c had gone with him at first to check it out, but having declared it empty and consequently safe was now walking a triangular path meaning he could keep the Stargate, the temple, and the monolith in sight at all times.

"I mean how about that business with those armbands…"

Carter groaned inwardly. It was all right for Daniel, he was having a wonderful time videotaping inscriptions. All he got was the Colonel barking 'Daniel? You still there?' in his ear every ten minutes. And not being military he could get away with saying 'Jack, where else would I be?' in his best long-suffering tone. He could also retaliate by telling the man what he thought the inscriptions in the temple might mean and how Jack really ought to come and take a look at them until his CO was actually glad to say, 'Have to go now, Daniel. I'll check in again in fifteen minutes…'

"Yes, sir, I know."

"I'd trust that Anise about as far as I could throw Teal'c."

The Jaffa who had passed within earshot, paused and turned his head. His expression was forbidding and O'Neill gave him an apologetic grimace. "It's just a saying, Teal'c. I'm attempting to illustrate how little I trust her."

"So you have mentioned, O'Neill, more than once."

Carter shot him a sideways glance. "Way more than once actually, sir."

The man tapped his earpiece. "Daniel? Daniel! You still there?"

Carter listened to the crackle of Daniel's voice coming through on the intercom: "Jack, you asked me that two minutes ago. How am I supposed to concentrate on this inscription if you keep interrupting me?"

"Well, don't wander off."

"I never wander off."

"And don't – touch anything."

"Can I touch the video-camera? Because it might be a little difficult for me to film these inscriptions if I can't."

O'Neill narrowed his eyes. "Don't make me come down there, Daniel."

"Just tell me when the Tok'ra arrive. Until then how about if I call you if and when I need you and you don't call me at all?"

Carter had to bite her lip to hide a smile as O'Neill stabbed the intercom button irritably. "Like he's never wandered off before," he muttered. "And stop smirking, Carter."

"Yes, sir." Carter met Teal'c's eye and the Jaffa gave her a glimmer of his own rare smile before returning to his pacing of the perimeter.

***

Daniel put a hand up to the back of his neck and tried to crick it back into place. This temple was fascinating but he'd already got through three tapes and he still had two walls left to film. This was a language he didn't recognize but he thought it bore enough of a resemblance to the script the Ancients used that he might be able to make an attempt at a translation. Of course, he'd only get a few days to play with it and then it would be passed onto someone else; well, wrenched out of his hands more likely, probably by a strong tug from Jack as the man gave him the 'you knew SG-1 was a field unit when you signed up for this' lecture. Then Jack would probably offer him a candy bar in compensation and insist on taking him home to watch another tedious hockey game. Some other academic somewhere who didn’t even know where this information had come from would get to play with the language of the unknown cousins of the Ancients, while Daniel got to go through the Stargate and visit new worlds…

Actually it didn't sound too bad when he put it like that. There were definitely worse ways to make a living. And if he made enough of a fuss about giving this language up to some other archaeologist, he might get a candy bar and a cup of Starbucks coffee out of Jack. Or a bag of those imported chocolate walnut cookies. And he'd have copies of everything so he could go on working on translating this language when Jack wasn't looking. The guy had to sleep sometime.

He heard the sound of something heavy on the stone steps behind him and turned his head. "Teal'c, do you know what these
sym- ?"

The words died in his throat as he stared at the creature two feet from him. Its harsh breathing sounded very loud in the stillness, the stone walls of the temple picking up every menacing exhalation. It stood around seven feet tall, which meant it loomed a foot over him. It was clothed in metal and leather, a form of armor protecting its loins and left shoulder. From its wide studded belt dangled a mace, a sword, a whip, and a length of chain. Its gauntlets also seemed to be made of metal, but there was a great deal of its scaly gray-green skin on display. For a second of insane optimism, Daniel thought it was the Unas who he thought of as 'Chaka'. The Unas he had managed to communicate with, the one who had shown compassion to its prisoner, and in the end had risked its own life to defend him. Then, as this undeniably different Unas' eyes glowed gold at him, Daniel simultaneously grabbed for his sidearm and opened his mouth to yell for help.

The floor slammed into him so hard he thought there must have been an earthquake. He hovered on the brink of consciousness for a second, then as the world began to come back into focus fingers seized his collar and yanked him to his feet. Although badly shaken and with his head ringing like a cracked bell from the backhand which had sent him reeling, Daniel made to shout for help again. The creature immediately slammed him against the wall of the temple, cutting his forehead against the stone, before dragging him up the steps towards the light. He felt something torn from his shoulder, something else from his hip, the sound of cloth rending...

Although clinging to consciousness by a fingernail, Daniel tried to reach for his radio but his fingers scrabbled across only the ragged cloth of his jacket and he realized it was the intercom that had been ripped from his shoulder. The world kept swimming in and out of focus alarmingly but he recognized that blue stone circle without any difficulty. A wonderful way to travel when you were with your teammates exploring brave new worlds, but not at all something you wanted to be dragged through alone as the prisoner of a Goa'ulded Unas.

Clawed fingers were slamming down onto the DHD. Through the blood trickling into his eye from that cut on his head he could see the symbols lighting up. He'd better remember them, no, that wouldn't help, he'd be wherever the Unas was taking him. It was one of the others who needed to see them, remember them…

"Ja-!" Brutal fingers clamped around his throat and squeezed. As he struggled for breath he thought despairingly of how Jack and Sam and Teal'c were so damned close, if he could just –

The Stargate engaged, sending out a waterspout of light. As the Unas dragged him into the blue shimmering, he thought he heard someone shout out his name just as lack of oxygen dragged him into darkness.

***

"Daniel!" As O'Neill ran flat out for the Stargate the blue light vanished, dissolving into a few wisps of what looked like smoke. Swearing horribly, he spun around and ran back to the DHD, those symbols burned into his memory like a brand. He slammed his hand down onto the first, the second, the third –

"O'Neill!"

"Not now!" O'Neill held up a warning hand, slamming the next four symbols into the DHD. As he hit the seventh and the wormhole engaged he turned to Teal'c and Carter who were looking around the scene in confusion. "An Unas took Daniel."

"Again?" Carter stared at him in disbelief. "Do you think it was the same one? Perhaps it needed Daniel's help and – "

"Not unless it's gained six inches and a hundred pounds in a few weeks and been taken over by a Goa'uld. Its eyes glowed. I saw them." O'Neill checked the clip of his P-90 as he was speaking. "I'm going after him. You go back to base, tell Hammond what went down here, get reinforcements then come after us."

Carter pulled her notebook out of her vest pocket and quickly sketched in the symbols. As she was drawing them she said, "Sir, do you think that's wise? That Unas could be going anywhere. He could be 'gateing underwater for all we know. There could be a hundred serpent guards on the other side of that wormhole just waiting to –"

O'Neill held up a hand. "Don't want to hear it. Okay?"

"Major Carter is correct, O'Neill. Would it not be make more sense for you to return to the SGC and for me to go in pursuit of Daniel Jackson – "

"Not a snowball's chance in hell." O'Neill held out his jacket for their inspection. "Do the words 'Colonel' ring any bells here? As in 'team leader'? As in 'guy who gets to give the damned orders'? Anyone?"

"Sir, I'm just saying – "

"I know what you're saying." O'Neill turned and looked at her. "That it would make more sense for us all to go back home, send a MALP through, do a proper recon, assess the threat and prepare accordingly. If Hammond was here that's what he'd insist we did. But he isn't here and I'm going. I can think of a dozen different reasons off the top of my head why an Unas might want to grab Daniel and at the moment 'to eat him' is the least scary. Sometimes you need lots of forward planning, and sometimes all you need is a little bit of luck and a well-placed bullet. Now you and Teal'c go back to the SGC and bring help. Lots of help."

He was aware of Teal'c opening his mouth to explain all the reasons why it would make a lot more sense for him to go after the Unas. As he sprinted towards the wormhole, O'Neill was very aware of those reasons himself: a staff weapon had proven to be effective against an Unas in the past; an P-90 had not. Teal'c was a lot stronger than O'Neill was. Teal'c was a lot better at tracking than he was. As O'Neill threw himself into the blue light, O'Neill knew everything the Jaffa hadn’t had a chance to say was correct, but he was still the right man to go. Yes, they were a team and yes they all looked out for one another, but in his bones O'Neill just knew that on this trip he was the only person who might be able to get Daniel back.

***

Daniel was jolted back into consciousness by a clawed foot in the ribs He woke with a gasp of pain to find the Unas wasn't a particularly bad dream he'd been having but an unpleasant reality. Seconds later he was hauled to his feet by a vicious yank on the chain around his waist. His wrists were encased by metal cuffs and chained together as well. For the moment his ankles were free but he could see the chilling glint of more chain at the Unas' waist.

"Can we talk about this?" he enquired.

The way the Unas yanked on the chain so hard he ended up on his knees, told him the answer to that question was almost certainly 'no'. As it dragged him up by the hair and shoved him forward, he got his first glance at their surroundings. They were on a world where the air tasted of sulfur, the sky almost hidden by a dark cloudbank. As he coughed, Daniel felt his lungs burning and remembered staggering through the gate to find himself on a planet where the air was filled with volcanic ash. This was like a cross between the old version of Tollana and Nem's planet. Wonderful: primordial soup with an undercurrent of impending cataclysm. It seemed to be evening here even though it had been morning on that other world. The light was fading, the sun burning low and red. There might be two more hours of daylight but it didn't look as though there would be much more than that.

As he looked to his left he had reason to be grateful the Unas had him on a chain because that was a steep drop. There were some trees and scrub jutting out from the limestone cliff but it was mostly just perpendicular rock with a river a long way below. The brown water looked sluggish and appeared to be steaming. It gave the impression it was so rich in base elements it was on the point of evolving into something else but he wouldn't have wanted to drink a cup of it.

The 'trees' were mostly giant ferns plus some species he didn't recognize which bore enormous palmate leaves. He got the impression this was an old world. No, make that a new world. A place that was probably pretty much like earth a few billion years ago. A place without mammals. A planet where a Doctor of Archaeology born smack bang in the middle of 1965 was never really going to feel at home.

Having found nothing to like about the planet they were on, Daniel turned his attention to his captor.

The first Unas he'd seen had been dead but it had still looked pretty impressive. He'd asked Teal'c about the Unas later and found the creature fascinating as the possible source for a number of earth mythologies and monsters. The resemblance to the 'demons' of early Christian teachings had been unmistakable. Scaly, horned, with those terrible fangs, clawed feet, and glowing eyes, no wonder they'd been perceived as servants of the devil. They had clearly visited earth at some point and left long shadows in men's race memories. The second one he'd met had, basically, scared the shit out of him. It had been a servant of Sokar and been intent on dragging them all off to hell to be used as hosts. He'd seen that one take several hits with a staff weapon and still keep coming.

The third had been the one he thought of as 'Chaka' although, if he was honest, he still had no idea if that was his name; a juvenile Unas without a Goa'uld inside it. A completely different species from the one looming over him at the moment. The original Unas, the ones who had not been taken as hosts, were something Daniel had realized very quickly could be reasoned with; communicated with; creatures with their own morality, even their own integrity. Chaka had saved Daniel from the alpha male who would have ripped him to pieces, then invited Daniel to join his tribe. But he had a feeling this Goa'ulded Unas had entirely different plans for him.

It was difficult to look at an Unas and not find your heart beating at about twice its normal speed but as on a previous occasion when he had woken up to find himself the prisoner of an Unas, Daniel tried to remind himself this was just another sentient life form. Its resemblance to a gargoyle escaped from the pit of hell was just…coincidental. "Look, I really think we got off on the wrong foot." Daniel gave it his best ingratiating smile. "My name's Daniel Jackson, I'm a peaceful explorer from the planet – "

The 'clunk' of the Stargate beginning to light up, alerted both of them. The Unas seized him by the hair again, yanking him back.

Jack! Daniel thought, heart leaping in relief. It must have been Jack I heard. He saw the symbols. He darted a quick look at the Unas' clothing and saw no sign of any weaponry that would match Jack's machine-gun. Yes, these things took a lot of killing, but Jack had a hell of a lot of bullets with him. Hand to hand, an Unas could pull Jack's head off and use it for a football, but at a distance the advantage was all with his teammate.

The Unas seemed to come to the same decision, beginning to drag Daniel back towards the gate. Daniel winced as he saw the chevrons lighting up, five, six…that 'waterspout' was going to be billowing out to greet them any second. He thought of Teal'c shoving those Horus guards into the vapor on Abydos, those boots they'd found on Hadante, the ones with the smoking feet still inside them…At the last second the Unas dragged him over to the side of the Stargate. The blue light billowed, beautiful and strange, but too damned close for Daniel's liking. He sucked in his chest and swallowed hard. The Unas had hold of him by the collar with its left hand while with its right it was reaching for its mace. Daniel looked at that heavy spiked ball on a chain and winced; Jack might have a thick head but if that made contact it was going to crack his skull like an egg –

As the figure came through the 'gate, Daniel was already throwing himself at the Unas' right hand while yelling, "Jack, look out!"

At the sound of Daniel's warning shout, O'Neill jerked his head out of the way. He saw something that looked like a bowling ball with attitude sail an inch past his left eye. He staggered off-balance, teetered sickeningly on the top of the steps then went base over apex down each stone stair, 'ouching' as they slammed him in the rear, back, head and knees. He rolled automatically as he finally hit softer ground, bringing up his P-90 in time to see the Unas backhand Daniel viciously across the face, knocking him hard into the ring of the gate. Daniel hit the metal ridge and crumpled, knees buckling, clearly barely conscious.

"Son of a bitch!" O'Neill hissed. He leveled his weapon on the Unas but the creature turned on Daniel with a snarl, grabbing him by the back of the jacket before he hit the ground and yanking him up and in front of itself. "Shit…" O'Neill might have risked squeezing off a shot with a sidearm but a P-90 really wasn't a pinpoint accuracy weapon. He held up the P-90. "Okay, let's negotiate shall we? You let Daniel go, I won't turn you into a sieve. How does that sound?"

As the Unas began to advance on him, still holding Daniel in front of itself as a human shield, O'Neill automatically backed up. He'd been grabbed by one of those guys before and he knew just how strong they were; one twist from those fingers and your head was on back to front. The one working for Sokar had damned near crushed his windpipe just making a point, and this one was pulling Daniel around like he was made of paper. Daniel was only barely conscious, looking sick from the last crack on the head, the blood trickling down his forehead from that cut appearing almost black against the pallor of his skin. O'Neill grimaced at the sight of him. Daniel had been in way better condition than this after a day and a night of being that juvey Unas' prisoner. This one had only had him for about ten minutes and he was already concussed.

"Talk to me, scaly," he said shortly. "You can't hide behind Daniel forever."

The Unas' eye glowed gold with anger. "You will pay for your insolence, human!" It had a voice which sounded like two cover-stones grating together. O'Neill wasn't surprised when Daniel flinched from that fetid breath against his cheek. O'Neill could smell the rancid meat stench of it from ten feet away.

He backed up again and saw Daniel's eyes widen. "Jack! Be careful - !"

O'Neill darted a glance over his shoulder and saw the cliff edge just in time. Three feet away and a whole lot of wind whistling around his ears. As he slammed on the brakes, the Unas made its move, one he certainly hadn't been expecting. It threw Daniel at him with all its strength.

Archaeologist tossing had never been an Olympic event that O'Neill was aware of, but as the impact of Daniel crashing into him sent them both spinning over the edge, he realized that if it was ever introduced the Unas would be a dead cert for the gold medal. As the solid ground he'd been standing on lurched into terrifying empty space, O'Neill saw the horror in Daniel's eyes, saw the younger man try to snatch him back, fingers clutching on air as he tried frantically to haul him to safety, and then Daniel was being jerked back onto solid land with whiplash violence and he was falling and falling.

"Jack! Jack!" Daniel hurled himself at the edge but the Unas yanked brutally at the chain around his waist, dragging him back across the ground.

Daniel tried to dig in his heels, reaching for some anchor on the earth, desperate to get back to that edge. But the Unas was so much stronger than he was that it just dragged him across the ground and then jerked him to his feet.

"Please!" Daniel attempted to struggle loose from its grip on his shoulder. "You don't understand. Jack's very valuable. Whoever sent you to get me would want him too. You'll be making a terrible mistake if you let him die. You have a sarcophagus, don’t you? You have to get the…the body, you have to get down there and find it and take it to a sarcophagus. The System Lords want Jack alive, damnit!"

"Be silent!" the creature snarled ominously.

"You have to listen to me –!"

Dangling from the side of the cliff by a tree root, every muscle in his body screaming a protest, the fingers of his left hand desperately scrabbling to try and find some purchase in the limestone as his toes reached equally frantically for some kind of ledge on which to rest his weight, O'Neill still flinched from the desperation in Daniel's voice.

His toe found something solid and he took some of the strain from his right arm with a sigh of relief. Risking a glance down he saw it was a narrow ledge. It didn't matter; it was enough. The tree whose root he was hanging onto leaned out far enough to obscure him but he made sure he pressed himself as flat to cliff face as possible. He hoped he was pretty much invisible from above but all the same the last thing he wanted right now was for the Unas to do what Daniel was telling it to.

"The System Lords want Jack alive. They want him more than they want me. He's valuable to them. You'll be making a terrible mistake if you don't get down there and find his body now."

"One more word from you, human…"

O'Neill closed his eyes and pressed himself even tighter into the cliff face. Let it go, Daniel. Let me go. I'm dead and gone and he isn't going to look for the body whatever you say. All he's going to do is hurt you.

"You have to listen to me! What's the matter with you, damnit, are you stupid? Jack is valuable , don't you get it? You have
to – !"

"Be silent!"

O'Neill winced at the sound of something that sounded suspiciously like the crack of a whip, immediately followed by the sound of Daniel crying out in pain. He grimaced in frustrated anger and sympathy as he heard two more blows, two more exclamations of pain. Son of a bitch, I will get you for that.

"Now move." The Unas' snarl promised that disobedience would be severely punished.

"You don't understand – " Daniel was gasping it in between snatched breaths, sounding as though he was talking through gritted teeth and O'Neill imagined him very white from the pain of whatever that bastard had just done to him, probably swaying a little, but stubborn as hell. "You're making a terrible – "

"Silence!" An ominous thud was followed by a softer impact: an unconscious body hitting the dirt.

Fucker! That was going to be one dead half a ton of gargoyle if Jack O'Neill had anything to do with it. O'Neill tried to dissolve into the wall of the cliff as he heard the Unas walk towards the edge, the clank-clank of a chain and the sound of something sliding across dirt telling him it was dragging Daniel behind it. Pick him up and carry him, you bastard. O'Neill made sure he ducked his head down so there was only the back of his head on display; his hair was a good camouflage color now; he was sure there were animals out there who would pay to get a respray to his brindle shade. As long as he stayed absolutely still there was a chance he wouldn't be seen through that concealing foliage. For a second as O'Neill clung to the cliff face he smelt the rancid meat stench again and knew the Unas was peering over the edge, looking for his broken body dashed against the rocks, or his drowned one being pulled downstream by the current. There was an endless pause in which he didn't even dare breathe let alone look up, and then it turned away. He heard the impact of its footsteps retreating, the clank of the chain it had Daniel on, the harsh grunt as it evidently swung its prisoner up onto its shoulder, and then its footsteps grew fainter.

He listened to their echoes for a long time; frozen to the cliff face, gripping the tree root so hard he had no feeling left in his palm. He had come much closer to death than he liked and the reaction was shuddering through him. He could feel the shaking going through every limb and there was no point trying to climb up until it lessened.

As some feeling finally returned to his fingers and his heartbeat slowed to something approaching normality, O'Neill shook the gray sweat from his forehead and pulled himself up higher. He closed his left hand on another tree root, dug his knee hard into the side of the cliff face and hauled himself up a painful six inches. As he reached for the trunk of the straggly tree, he couldn't help thinking that if he ever met up with Teal'c again the Jaffa would be entirely justified in telling O'Neill that he told him so.

***

Daniel was awoken by the ground slamming into his body. He flinched as a clawed foot sank into the ground by his head, giving him a close-up of three toes with filthy talons whose tips indented the earth. The whole damned planet seemed to shake with every move the Unas made and he could feel the vibrations jolting through him uncomfortably as it strode across the clearing. There was a burning pain across his back, a stabbing pain in his ribs, and a throbbing pain in his head. But worse than all of them was the ache of Jack's loss; that had probably started in his heart but it had spread out to every cell; a terrible wrongness that nothing and no one was ever going to put right.

The fact it was dark and cold, the stars distant points of pale light, the two moons all but obscured by storm clouds, seemed only fitting. There was a rustling all around him, a forest of primordial greenery. He suspected they had come a long way from the 'gate while he'd been unconscious.

When he'd thought Jack was going to be coming after him, he'd been full of ideas for ways he could escape. Now it didn't seem to matter. Numbness was beginning to leaden every limb and it couldn't reach his brain fast enough. Jack was dead because of him; body broken into pieces on the rocks, spine snapped, skull crushed. He thought of Jack lying there with his eyes open but unseeing, a spreading pool of blood coloring the jagged rocks crimson…

"Oh God…" Daniel put his manacled hands up to his face. He had to think, had to find a way to make this not be true. He had to persuade this creature to go back there and do something. He jerked his head up. "Look, the man you…killed today, his name is Jack O'Neill. He's wanted by the System Lords. He's worth a lot to them. Alive."

The Unas jerked its head around and he saw its eyes glow gold. "The slave called O'Neill is of no more value to the System Lords than you are."

Daniel swallowed. "So why did you take me?"

"I do not serve the System Lords."

Daniel realized he wasn't as indifferent to his fate as he'd thought. Death didn't seem to matter right now but being horribly tortured by someone who'd had personal experience of all Sokar's nastiest implements did. With his mind full of pictures of Jack lying there dead he really didn't care if Apophis killed him or not. But he did mind giving away the codes to earth or revealing the glyphs for the planet where the knowledge of the ancients was there for the taking. He kept his tone flat, trying not to betray how sick he was feeling. "You serve Apophis."

"Yes."

"How did you know where to find me?"

The Unas glanced at him contemptuously. "The spies of my Lord Apophis are everywhere."

Daniel grimaced. "Even with the Tok'ra?"

The Unas bared its pointed teeth in something that might have been a smile. "Even so."

Tanith had finally managed to get some news out that wasn't a lie the Tok'ra had told him. Apophis. Daniel knew he should be scared, knew he should be thinking too. Shouldn't just sit there, huddled and numb, indifferent to what became of him because what did anything matter if Jack was dead?

What was that he'd said to him this morning 'Don't call me, I'll call you?' Oh God, Jack, I'm sorry. Call me. Call me any damned thing you want to, just call me. He bowed his head so the Unas wouldn't see those traitorous tears trying to sting his eyes. I can't do this any more. I just can't. Sha're is dead because of me and now so are you and I can't do this any more.

Hey, you can never give up.

Daniel jerked his head up. It was only an echo of a memory and he knew that. He just wanted to hear Jack speak to him so much at the moment.

Mentally he was answering him: How about now?

Especially not now.

"What's the point, Jack?" he breathed it aloud. Even as he was saying it the answer was coming into his mind. The point was that Teal'c and Sam wouldn’t give up. Not while there was any chance he might be alive, they'd keep looking for him, which meant they were going to end up following him all the way to one of Apophis’s dungeons and inevitable death if he didn't come up with something soon. Jack was right. He didn't have the right to give up when his doing so might end up killing two more of his friends.

Daniel darted a glance across at the Unas. It was getting colder, the temperature dropping like a ship going down with all hands: not particularly fast but chillingly inevitable. His breath was a white vapor in the darkness. He wondered just how cold it got here. "Any chance of a fire?" he enquired. He lifted his hands to blow on his fingers, the chains clanking at him, the metal cuffs like ice against his skin, weighing on his chafed wrists painfully.

The Unas strode back to where he was sitting and Daniel tried not to flinch at the way the ground definitely trembled beneath its weight. It loomed over him ominously, a clawed finger reaching out to tilt up his chin; the talon pricking the skin. "You will speak only when spoken to," the creature grated.

Daniel swallowed but looked up at it defiantly. "I'm cold."

The Unas' lips were bared in what was undoubtedly a smile. Daniel saw the malicious glint in its eye as it said softly, "O'Neill is colder."

Daniel kicked up with all his strength, his booted heel slamming into what he certainly hoped was the creature's groin. Its roar of pain told him better than an anatomy diagram he had found his target. He had never known a rage like it. For the first time he understood what people meant about bloodlust because right now he wanted to see this creature's insides on the outside; he wanted to rip out its damned heart and swallow it while it watched him do it. He finally knew what a red mist in front of the eyes actually looked like. He threw himself at it and his fingers closed on metal. The sword. He jerked it out of the scabbard and stabbed down hard into scaly flesh. The creature roared again; the sound making the trees shake; rage and pain and disbelief. The angry swipe from its arm sent him flying through the air and he hit the ground hard on the edge of the clearing. As he rolled, Daniel realized there was no pull on the chain around his waist, it was trailing loose. The Unas had obviously only had it held in its hand, not secured to its belt. He was manacled but free. Grabbing at the chain to pull up some of the slack, Daniel turned and ran into the forest.

***

O'Neill wondered what Unas meat tasted like. Bitter, probably, perhaps a little like liver. When he was roasting that thing on a spit, he was going to have to remember to take a bite out of its carcass for future reference.

He knew if Daniel were here he'd been pointing out that the Unas wasn't the villain here; the Goa'uld was. The Unas was imprisoned inside its own body as much a victim of the symbiote inside it as any of the poor bastards it had captured and tortured over the centuries. Yeah right. Intellectually, O'Neill might know that was true, but in his guts it sure as hell felt as though it was an Unas which had just thrown him over a cliff, and it had certainly looked like it was an Unas slapping Daniel around for the exercise. If he had to think about the host it all got too damned complicated, so for now he was going to hate the Unas and the Goa'uld inside it, and if Daniel didn't like it he could give him the lecture when they met up again.

Wedged in a tree, secured to the trunk by lianas that would stop him making an unscheduled departure from this branch if he fell asleep but which he could slice through in an eye-blink if he needed to make a fast getaway, he chewed on a granola bar without tasting it. It was sustenance, he needed it; needed the energy, needed to stay strong. He would have eaten cardboard if it had contained the requisite amount of calories for him to get the job done.

He hadn't felt this focused since he'd stopped working for Special Ops. He was feeling that assassin's clarity when the world narrowed to your mission and nothing else. It was like whole parts of your brain shut down: the sections that dealt with doubt, for instance; the sections that dealt with all those tricky moral gray areas; the sections that dealt with fear; remorse; guilt. All gone like they'd never been. When you were in this frame of mind you thought about your objective and nothing else. In this instance: Find Daniel. Save Daniel. Kill whoever got between Jack O'Neill and him doing either of the first two. And perhaps because his brain wasn't having the bother of needing to power a conscience, every other sense was increased. He could hear, sense, and feel with his whole skin; every rustle; every howl; every shriek in the whole damned jungle was not just reaching his ears but being catalogued, sifted, analyzed in a way he hadn't known since he'd worn that Tok'ra armband. Some kind of bird. Some kind of animal. Something big. Something small. Nothing human. Not Daniel.

That was the point, after all. He couldn't hear Daniel and nothing else counted unless it was something big enough to be a threat in which case he would kill it. Nothing and no one was stopping him getting his teammate back and anything that tried was going to end up very dead.

Okay, his P-90 was at the bottom of the cliff right now along with his radio, but he had a knife and sidearm, and anyway this was a world covered in primordial forest. Where there were trees there were fallen branches, and where there were fallen branches there were skulls you could crack with one good swipe.

There were some enemies he could sympathize with. Most terrorists were freedom fighters to someone. People with causes. People with points of view you could understand even if you couldn't agree with them. But to him an Unas was just a big scaly flesh-eater with an evil parasite in its brain making it stronger and nastier than it would have been even by itself. An Unas was one of the few creatures in the galaxy that Daniel wasn't going to be able to get through to. Not again. Daniel had been lucky last time and happened to meet up with one young enough and unusual enough for him to make an impression on; but Daddy Unas certainly hadn't appreciated Junior bringing Daniel home to meet his folks. O'Neill hadn't needed to speak the lingo to see straight off that big Unas had been roaring about all the reasons why young Unas never ever got to play with their food. The way O'Neill saw it there had been a dozen Unas in that cave who'd seen Daniel as lunch and one who'd seen him as a possible ally. That might be the usual ratio, or, as O'Neill suspected, you could meet another hundred Unas and not find another one like that Chaka character. That wasn't going to stop Daniel trying to make friends though. And him trying to reason with a creature that couldn't be reasoned with, would inevitably get him hurt.

There were a few things that always tripped Jack O'Neill's switch: Cruelty to children; cruelty to dogs, and cruelty to his teammates. And cruelty to Daniel kind of tripped his child-batterer switch as well so any bastard hurting Daniel got a double dose of rage coming right at him. Right about now he just knew that Unas was ill-treating his teammate. He couldn't hear Daniel crying out, but all the same he knew it. Wherever they were, he thought Teal'c and Carter probably knew it too. Carter, being a scientist, would be telling herself it was just her imagination, that her mind was playing tricks on her, trying to deny it but sensing it all the same. Teal'c would be looking so damned scary the SG-team assigned to back him up would be afraid to sneeze in case he pulled their heads off their shoulders.

Maybe he couldn't follow Daniel's trail in the darkness, but as he turned the knife over in his hands, O'Neill could sense his teammate's presence. That was one of the things that had confused him so badly when Daniel had been left behind on Nem's world. His memory reminding him that Daniel was dead while some inner tracer kept bleeping softly to let him know Daniel was alive and in need of his help. There were different kinds of trails and although the fall of night had obscured those clawed footmarks in the earth, the ones sinking extra deep because of the weight of Daniel on the Unas' shoulder, that other trail was still burning bright in O'Neill's mind. The one that told him Daniel was in this forest.

What was it he'd said to Teal'c when the Jaffa had given himself up to save that Tok'ra? "We'll find you." And they would have done. They never would have rested until they'd found him. They were going to find Daniel too. And then they were going to make anyone who'd hurt him pay for what they'd done. Then they were going to go and have a little talk with the freakin' Tok'ra about their internal security.

O'Neill thrust his hunting knife deep into the trunk of the tree so the jutting handle could stop him slipping sideways and then pressed back against the ridged bark. His face set. He wasn't going to think about anything. This wasn't a mission where thinking was required. This was a mission where you acted first and then wiped the blood off your hands afterwards. Which suited him just fine. The way he was feeling round about now, he could definitely handle that.

***

It felt as though the inside of his chest was being heated by a blowtorch. Despite the chill of the night air, he was streaming with sweat. It was bad for you to sweat in winter, he remembered that. Remembered his mother telling him that was why he should only eat curry in the summer. Too many spices in the winter could give you pneumonia. The sweat pouring down his body in rivulets while he ran blindly through the freezing darkness of an alien forest, tripping, stumbling, welted by the spiteful lash of whip-thin twigs, all his bruises aching, the rents in his uniform letting in the bitter air to sear the cuts across his back, the weight of the chain he was carrying unbalancing him so he fell again and again was probably something else she would have advised against…

Daniel stumbled and landed on his knees. At least the ground was softer here. His body was heaving with exhaustion, lungs burning. The Unas would be able to hear him panting a mile away. All he wanted to do was lie down and give up but he couldn't. Sam and Teal'c would be trying to find him and they'd never stop until they succeeded. He had to make life easier for them, had to meet them halfway.

Jack's dead. Jack's dead. Jack's dead.

Daniel twisted his head away. He knew how to get through this. A reality like that couldn’t be lived with; it could only be lived around. A big chasm he had to find a way to edge past without looking into it. He'd done the same with his parents' death. Told himself they were just away for a while. Every time his mind tried to tell him otherwise, tried to make him remember the coverstone falling, his parents screaming, he made himself think about something else. He'd done the same when Sha're had been taken. Told himself not to think about what she was going through, how scared she must be, made himself focus on how wonderful it would feel when they were reunited again…

Jack falling, the horror on his face as he realized he was going to die, Daniel grabbing for him desperately, his fingers touching the back of Jack's hand and then the chain pulling tight, yanking him back with no second chance to grab Jack's outstretched fingers. Oh God, what if he hadn't been killed outright. What if he'd lain there, shattered and broken, in agony, dying slowly, screaming for help that didn't –

Daniel dragged some air into his lungs, tears stinging his face; he wiped at them furiously with the back of his hand. He couldn't do this. If he kept thinking like that he was going to get recaptured, and if he was recaptured Sam and Teal'c were going to get killed. Jack would have died for nothing if Daniel ended up a prisoner of Apophis.

"Damnit!" He made a determined effort to get up but his legs seemed to have turned to spaghetti. They weren't taking his weight. No. Not his legs. They were pushing, but the ground was giving way. The ground was up to his knees. That couldn’t be right, could it?

Daniel realized he was sinking. He reached for solid ground to pull himself back up and found there was none. When he touched the earth around him it sucked at his fingers like a newborn calf.

By the faint blue light of those distant stars he looked at his fingertips, dripping with muddy ooze. Quicksand. And he was sinking fast, the weight of the chain dragging him down. The ground was up to his thighs now. Sam and Teal'c were going to get themselves killed for nothing as well because he was going to be drowned right here, his burning chest fatally cooled by a lungful of mud. He closed his eyes trying to think what to do. Drowning felt good to him right now. If he was dead he was never again going to have to see the look in Jack's eyes as he fell to his death. Never going to have to wonder how long it had taken his best friend to die; never going to have to think about his skull shattering on those rocks, the blood spreading out, brains spattered all across the…

"Oh God…" If he struggled he'd only sink faster but he couldn't help trying to reach for a tree root, a trailing liana, something, anything. All he was getting were handfuls of mud and the movement was pushing him down into the ooze even faster. He could die here and never be haunted by another bad memory, or he could open his mouth and yell so loudly the Unas would hear him. The Unas which was undoubtedly going to beat the crap out of him and then some for what he'd just done to it…

At least he was no longer sweating. The quicksand was cold; clammy and moist just the way his foster brother had told him the hands of child molesters were. The ones who might be hiding under his bed. The perverts in the park who would get him because little boys with big blue eyes called Danny were exactly the kind they liked best. He'd never known what it was they did back then, but he'd known it was something bad. Sometimes there were would be half a report on the TV news before his foster parents hit the mute button or switched off the set completely: the ones where the newsreaders put on a solemn face and there would be a picture in the top right hand corner of a child in a school uniform smiling for extra pathos. His foster brother had always told him he had all the makings of a milk carton kid.

Christ, this was no time to start losing it…Daniel gave his head a shake to clear it, the movement making him slide in a little deeper, it was up to his chest now; the mud making triumphant sucking sounds as it welcomed him in. Time to review his options. Currently they seemed to be a dead heat between death by suffocation or recapture by an Unas he'd just kicked in the groin and then stabbed with its own sword. Death by suffocation sounded more inviting but this way there wouldn't even be a body for Sam and Teal'c to find. And they'd never stop looking. Never.

He remembered Jack saying once that at least he'd known with Charlie. That terrible as it had been and always would be at least he'd known what had happened to his son; to lose a child and never know, that would be the worst thing, the very worst thing of all.

They'd never find him and they'd never know. Teal'c would go after Apophis single-handed if he had to. He'd never give up until he was dead. And going after Apophis single-handed to look for a teammate who had died months before because he was too scared to go on living would get Teal'c tortured and killed, probably very horribly.

Hey, you can never give up.

"Shit!" The quicksand was at his throat now. Choiceless again. If he didn't yell now he wouldn't be able to open his mouth to do so. Daniel closed his eyes. Okay, Jack. I won't give up. But remind me again why I'm doing this after that son-of-a-bitch Goa'uld has done using me for a punch-bag.

"Over here!" Daniel yelled it as loud as he could. "I'm over here! Help me!" He struggled against the downward suction of the quicksand, scrabbling with his arms to try and keep his head up. "Over here!" He put his head back as far as he could get it, the slime filling his ears and muting his own shouts. "Help me!"

As the quicksand closed over his head he had a last glimpse of the stars. They seemed to be a long way away tonight and their light was very cold.

***

Jack woke up with a jolt, sidearm ready in his hand even as his eyes were opening. He waited, poised, listening. He'd heard something. Someone…

Daniel.

A dream. Just a dream.

Except it wasn't and he knew it. He'd been woken by the faint, far-off sound of a human being crying out in pain. Daniel crying out in pain.

He felt the anger spreading through him in a red wave, yet still keeping it from his face out of habit, even though there was no one to see the weakness he was betraying. Only a couple of hours until dawn. As soon as there was light enough to see by he would be able to follow his trail again. No point in thinking about what that Unas might be doing to his teammate round about now. It wouldn't have snatched him just to kill him so it had a vested interest in keeping Daniel alive. It would have been sent to fetch him for someone; hopefully someone who needed Daniel in one piece and able to think straight.

O'Neill remembered the casual brutality with which the Unas had backhanded Daniel into the gate. It was only luck his teammate's skull hadn't been fractured. Okay, someone who wasn't too fussy about the shape Daniel was in, but that damned lizard still had to pull its punches if it wanted to keep its prisoner alive and it would have to know that, right?

Thinking of how annoying Daniel could be and how strong that Unas was, O'Neill jammed the knife angrily back into the trunk of the tree. Two, three hours until it was light and then he could get back on its trail. Until then he was just going to keep telling himself that Unas was under orders to keep Daniel alive.

***

Daniel shivered violently, arms wrapped around his chest, desperately trying to warm himself in front of the fire. The sparks kept burning his skin, but he didn’t care. He had never been so cold. He couldn't stop shaking. Couldn't –

He flinched as the Unas loomed over him again. Daniel stared fixedly at his knees. He was dripping wet, water trickling down his face, running down his neck, dripping from his clothes to form little puddles all around him. There was a cuff around his left ankle, the chain from it secured to the Unas' metal belt, and he had on his boxer shorts, trousers, and t-shirt, but despite the near-zero temperature that was all he was wearing. That, and a whole load of bruises. Plus the five fresh welts across his back to go with the three it had given him earlier; the blood from those was still weeping slowly, the sting of them a constant reminder of what it was capable of doing to him.

Its clawed fingers closed in his hair and jerked his head back. He was careful not to meet its eyes. He wasn’t challenging it; he wasn't acknowledging it. It smiled malevolently. "Do you know what human flesh tastes like?"

Daniel moistened his lips. "Well, some of the tribes of New Guinea on my planet call it 'long pig' so I presume it tastes like pork."

The backhand slammed him into the ground. He gasped with the pain, hunching up his shoulder to try and ward off the next blow as the world spun alarmingly, his left cheekbone aching so much he wondered if it was broken.

"Speak only when you are spoken to," the Unas snarled at him.

Daniel opened his mouth to point out that it had spoken to him; it had asked him a question, all he'd done was answer it. He looked up at it and saw it was running the lash of its whip through its left hand while staring down at him with unpleasant promise in its eyes. If he answered it back he would definitely prove that he wasn't afraid of it. But then it would beat him again, meaning he would lose even more blood and energy than he had already. He closed his eyes and thought of all those insults he hadn't risen to back in High School and college. All those jocks who'd called him a geek or a dweeb or a chickenshit little faggot because they knew damned well there was nothing he could do about it except suck it up because they were so much bigger and stronger than he was.

"Where's an Ataneik armband when you need one?" Daniel murmured to himself.

The Unas grabbed him by the hair and jerked him back up again. "Nothing to say?" It demanded.

Daniel shook his head.

It ran a clawed finger down the side of his face. "When my Lord Apophis has done with you, I will ask for your remains. Your flesh looks tender. You would make me a fine feast."

I hope I choke you.Daniel fought the urge to say it aloud. Getting the shit kicked out of himself by an Unas was a hobby that had quickly palled. Near drowning in a nearby river hadn't been the most fun he'd ever had either. And when it had torn the vest and jacket from his back, then wrenched off his boots, he'd thought it was going to make good on its snarled threat to strip him naked then roast him on a spit.

He closed his eyes, remembering the fury in its eyes as it thundered through the forest towards him as he sank under the quicksand. It had yanked violently on the chain, roaring with anger as it did so, dragging him out of the mire only to throw him against the nearest tree. He'd hit the ground so hard he'd thought he'd broken every rib, then it had dragged him up only to knock him down again, and again, even the blows it was raining on him obviously not enough to alleviate its anger as it snatched the whip from its belt and began to beat him with that. He'd wrapped his arms around his head to try and protect his face from the whip, the leather thong cutting through his uniform as crisply as a knife through paper. Luckily for him, the Unas had evidently realized almost at once that if it flogged him as hard and as long as it wanted to it was going to kill him. It had shoved the implement back into its belt after only a few lashes before seizing him by his now torn, blood-stained and mud-caked jacket and dragging him to the nearest river.

It had taken pleasure in holding him under the icy torrent, the water filling his nose and throat, making him gasp, choke, and finally black out. He'd woken up on the bank; its foot slammed into his ribs making him cough up another lungful of water. That was when it had dragged him back to the clearing and ripped off his now sodden but no longer mud-caked jacket and vest before tearing off his boots. He'd been too dazed to fight it. Even when it threw his boots into the forest he only watched them go. He was so cold by that point he was just waiting for his fingers to start dropping off. The Unas had clearly enjoying watching him shiver convulsively, shock, pain, blood loss, near-suffocation followed by near-drowning, not to mention complete immersion in freezing water in the middle of a cold night all combining to make his temperature plummet.

He'd remembered Sam telling him the body worked hard to keep its core temperature the same. That you could hold someone in a bath of cold water and his internal heat would stay the same for a long time as the body put all its resources into maintaining life support for every internal organ. But telling himself that hadn't helped as the shudders jolted through him. She'd also told him dying of the cold wasn't a bad way to go. She'd had a long time to think about it when lost in Antarctica and she'd told herself then that there were worse ways to go than to slip into the death-sleep of hypothermia. At the time, Daniel had winced at the thought of losing her and Jack that way. And winced again at the thought of how desperate she must have been, knowing Jack was going to die, that she was going to use the last of her body heat to try and warm a corpse.

After the Unas had fastened the chain to his ankle, Daniel had curled up on the cold earth and waited for the warmth Sam had told him about, the one that enveloped you as the hypothermia wrapped you in its folds.

That was when the Unas had snarled, slapped him across the face to keep him awake, and started building a fire.

The warmth had actually made things worse; tugging him back towards life; making him aware of how much his back was stinging, his ribs were aching, his body was hurting; how terribly cold he was. The death-sleep had been much gentler. He was still cold now, but it was bearable; shudders tearing through him every couple of minutes now instead of every couple of seconds.

The Unas looked him over contemptuously as it walked around him, clearly intent on making sure Daniel was aware of just how defenseless he was.

"My Lord Apophis will make you tell him everything you know."

Daniel shivered as the water dripped down the back of his neck. He could feel each drop hurdling the cuts across his back. Another shudder tore through him. He needed to think. Needed to start making plans again. He had to presume the Unas was going to give him back his jacket at some point. It had thrown it and his vest down on the other side of the fire so it seemed to be intending to dry them off and return them to him. There was food in the vest pockets. He would need to eat something. Those waterproof packs would get a chance to prove how waterproof they really were yet again. He hoped he didn't have the macaroni and cheese again. He hated the macaroni and cheese. Sam swore there were six different flavors, she might even have said seven, but he only ever seemed to get macaroni and cheese or chicken with salsa and as they both tasted exactly the same he was never sure which was which. Sam said the beef stew tasted better but he never got the beef stew, he suspected Jack had given the people who allotted their MREs strict instructions to give him all the beef stew packets. Jack wouldn't eat the crackers even if you put strawberry jam on them. He said he'd rather eat cardboard. He always gave Daniel his crackers.

Daniel bent his head. By the firelight he could see the chain around his ankle glinting spitefully; it looked bronze but it was probably made of steel. He wondered if there were other Unas on this world, if the ones who didn’t have Goa'uld inside them were different from this one. This one was very large, its tusks were full grown, its teeth huge. A different genus from Chaka's kind. The Goa'uld inside this one would have naquada in its bloodstream; different genetic memories. Jack was dead. Jack was still dead, and nothing and no one could ever make that better again.

The Unas was telling him all the different methods Apophis had of extracting information but he didn't need to know about that. He'd find out for himself or he'd escape before he needed to know. Thinking about being tortured was not a profitable use of his time and resources.

"What are you thinking, human?"

Daniel froze as he felt the Unas' rancid breath as a heated blast against the back of his neck. He said quietly. "About your host."

He'd surprised it. It hadn't expected that. "What did you say?"

"I'm sorry I stabbed your host. I hope he understands that it was you I was trying to kill not him." Daniel ducked as that clawed hand swiped at the back of his head. He gritted his teeth. "I have no quarrel with the Unas, only with the Goa'uld."

The Unas grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked Daniel's head back. It stared at him intently and just for a second he thought he saw the flicker of a different consciousness in there. His own eyes widened in surprise. "Do you understand me?" he said breathlessly.

The Unas opened its mouth to speak and then there was a snarl of anger, the Unas' eyes glowed gold and Daniel was thrown to the ground again. "Fool," it hissed savagely. "Even if it could it would not help you."

Lying on his side, Daniel said quietly, "An Unas helped me once before. It even helped me against its own kind. Why wouldn't it help me against the creature who has imprisoned it?"

The Unas looked him over contemptuously. "You are pathetic, human. A feeble shivering slave. What use are you as an ally to anyone?"

Daniel gritted his teeth. The Unas had a point, he had to admit, but as this was the only plan he had he was going with it. Cautiously sitting up, he said, "I was wondering why the Goa'uld ever stopped using Unas for hosts and started using humans. It seems like an odd choice to make when the Unas are so much stronger than we are. They have much swifter reflexes. Better sense of smell. They're bigger, tougher, faster. Why did you stop taking them for hosts and start taking us instead?"

"They are animals."

He was trying not to look at it, but its face was very close to his, he could see every tusk, every tooth, feel its breath against his cheek. "But to you, so are we. We're all animals to you. So why pick one that is weaker and slower and less able to defend itself?" Another blast of hot breath against his neck. He tried not to shudder but determinedly kept on talking. "And so I thought that perhaps the reason why you stopped using the Unas for hosts was because they were too strong for you. Mentally. Because they could fight back."

A clawed forefinger traced a threatening line across his throat as the Unas spoke softly. "Be very careful what you say, human."

Daniel refused to look into its eyes. He stared past its ear at the star-pocked sky. "I was taken prisoner by an Unas once. A real Unas. Not a Goa'uld in a borrowed body. He showed me more compassion than any Goa'uld I've ever met, and he had more integrity than all the System Lords put together. I wonder what the Unas whose body you stole might have done for his race if you hadn't taken him for a host?"

It threw him to the ground again and he curled up instinctively but this time it didn't hit him. When he risked a look, its eyes were glowing gold. "Nothing of the host survives!"

"My brother-by-marriage was given back to us intact after being host to Klorel for three long years," Daniel retorted. "I gave last rites to Apophis’s host after four thousandyears. He still remembered his wife and children even though their bones were dust. Your host is still in there, and you know that better than anyone. Perhaps in the end he'll prove to be stronger than you are."

As it raised its hand he ducked, putting up an arm to shield itself. The show of fear seemed to satisfy it and it lowered its fist again, gaze flickering over him contemptuously. "Your lives are so short and pointless you should be grateful to us for ever selecting you for our use."

"Is your host grateful?" Daniel asked flatly. "Or did he have a tribe which needed him to keep them safe? Did he have a mate? Children? Do you know? Do you care?"

The Unas spoke softly. "One more word about my host and I will tear out your tongue and eat it in front of you."

Daniel opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering with the cold. After a long pause he said, "I'm cold and tired. I want to go to sleep."

It breathed on him again, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up in warning because there was something big, scaly, and terrifyingly strong kneeling behind him. He knew it was just trying to scare him, but unfortunately it was succeeding. It bent its head lower, pulled up his sodden t-shirt, then swiped its tongue along the length of one of the welts across his back. Its tongue was rougher than a cat's and very hot against the stinging cut. It sank its fingers into his hair and pulled his head right back so he couldn't avoid looking into its fanged face. When it ran its tongue across its lips he saw his own blood as a vivid splash of color. "You taste good, human." It released him contemptuously and Daniel turned his head away in disgust. After a pause it said, "If my host had his own will he would eat you, not save you. To his kind your kind are food and nothing more. I know his hunger. Your blood is as sweet to him as it is to me."

"So you're saying the Goa'uld is influenced by the host it adopts?" Daniel risked a look at the Unas. "If you were in a human host you wouldn't want to eat me but because you're in an Unas body you do? That means you don't have a fixed sense of your own identity; or even your own morality; you're subject to the appetites of your host?"

It snarled at him. "Be silent!"

Daniel ducked his head down again. He could feel a dozen questions tingling on his tongue but the sting of his welted back reminded him of the reasons why he wasn't going to voice them despite his burning curiosity.

After a long pause it stroked the back of its finger down his upper arm and breathed softly, "If I had taken a human host, creature, it would have mated with you by now. Keep talking and I might do so anyway."

Daniel couldn't stop another shudder rippling through him. He knew damned well it saw him as something so far down the food chain as to be barely sentient but that didn't mean it wouldn't fuck him just to express its contempt for his kind. Apophis wouldn't care what it did to him and they both knew it.

"Can I have the rest of my clothes?" He didn't look at it as he spoke.

The earth shook as it strode back to the fire. The jacket hit him in a wet slap of steaming cotton. He could still feel the Unas' tongue sliding across his skin, the creature smacking its lips over the flavor of his blood. He squeezed out his jacket but it was running with water despite being almost too hot to touch. He rang out the corner of his t-shirt too and it made another silver puddle in the earth beside him. His pants were still so wet they looked black instead of green. The jacket might be soaking but at least it was warm.

He remembered his mother telling him to never wear wet clothes. That he'd catch a chill if he did. Remembered Jack making him and Sam change into dry socks after they'd walked through some muddy terrain on an uninhabited world. They had both stared at him in disbelief while he looked at them stolidly, saying, "Why do you think you have spare socks in your packs? Because wet feet give you pneumonia."

Sam saying, "Actually, sir, pneumonia is a virus and you can only catch it from – "

Jack holding up his hand. "Don’t want to hear it, Carter, and what's more I'm not going to. Just one of the privileges of rank. Now set a good example and change out of the wet socks before Daniel starts yapping at me as well."

Daniel looked down at his still-dripping t-shirt, his sodden trousers, his steaming jacket. Jack would freak if he saw him wearing these clothes. But Jack was dead and would never know. While the Unas was still savoring the taste of his blood, smiling at him through the campfire as it deliberately ran its tongue around its lips again as though he was a rare steak it was going to be eating very soon. Daniel decided the less of his bare skin on display the better.

The jacket was unnaturally heavy with the water still clogging it and his fingers were clumsy with the cold. As with his t-shirt the back of it had all those diagonal cuts across it, making it look as if something large had clawed him. His back probably looked like that too. When he moved, the wet cotton of his t-shirt chafed every welt. "Can I have my vest?" Daniel looked across at the Unas. He kept his head low so he didn't look like he was challenging it, face blank, neither submissive nor defiant, tone neutral.

It snarled at him. It had taken something from a pouch at its belt and was eating it. Raw meat, Daniel presumed. He realized it hadn't just been trying to frighten him; the taste of his blood had obviously made it hungry. He gritted his teeth. "I need my vest. It has my food in it." It gave him a glance of contempt and ripped off another chunk of meat.

Daniel felt his stomach cramp with emptiness. As he pulled his sodden jacket over his sodden t-shirt, he looked into the fire so as not to make eye contact. "I need my vest and my boots."

"No."

He set his jaw. "I can't go around barefoot, I'll slow you up."

It was over beside him in a couple of strides. "You will not." The warning in its eyes needed no explanation.

Daniel darted a glance of longing at his vest. There was food in there and he was so damned hungry. He tried again. "I need something to eat."

"No." There was satisfaction in its voice. It snapped the cuffs closed around his wrists and fastened them to a chain which it tied to its belt. It was clearly intending to make him pay for his attempted escape in every way it could think of as well as thwarting any future efforts. Daniel thought of Chaka again. He remembered the young Unas snatching that primitive Goa'uld from the air and snapping it in half with an efficiency only Teal'c might have matched. Smearing the dead symbiote's blood on Daniel's face as a warning; pointing out how close he'd come to being turned into a Goa'uld with his foolish foray into the symbiote-filled river. Chaka hadn't found it necessary to punish him to drive the message home. But then Chaka hadn't had a snake in his head telling him Daniel was less than the dust beneath his feet.

The Unas grabbed a handful of Daniel's hair again, pulling his head back. "You can starve." It released him roughly, yanking his hair again as it did so. Daniel pulled his head away, wishing for a staff weapon; even better wishing for Teal'c carrying a staff weapon, and Sam, and…

Jack's gone, okay? He's gone and he's never coming back. Get used to it, Jackson.

He probably would get pneumonia. Which suited him fine. That would thwart Apophis very nicely. Pneumonia was a kind way to die. His grandmother had died of pneumonia and he remembered his mother had told him she hadn't suffered at all. With any luck Jack would still be kicking his heels in some holding cell in heaven, demanding to see the management because he'd already been to hell once and he was damned sure he wasn't going there again, and if he didn't have a reservation they'd damned well better recheck their bookings…Jack could tell Daniel 'I told you so' about the wearing wet clothes. Jack would enjoy that.

Daniel lay down on his right side gingerly. He'd hit the tree with his left side when the Unas threw him at it. His right ribs were only lightly bruised. He could sleep like this. He curled up as small as he could in his steaming clothes, trying not to think about how much his back was stinging, how cold he was still. How dead Jack was.

He was so exhausted he was asleep even before he'd finished flinching.

***

Teal'c was pacing up and down the 'gateroom while SG-3 and SG-4 watched him anxiously. General Hammond was also keeping a wary eye on him. He knew very well that Teal'c's patience was almost at breaking point. He'd had to be very firm earlier when telling Teal'c and Carter they had to wait for some back-up, that he would not authorize the two of them setting off in pursuit until they had at least one and preferably two teams in support. Word had been sent to any off-world team that was contactable and they would be back within a few hours. And yes, Teal'c, Major Carter, that was an order.

By the time SG-3 and SG-4 had returned to assist – ironically within minutes of one another – three hours had passed and the MALP had confirmed nightfall on the planet of destination.

That was the point when he'd almost had a stand-up fight with two of his favorite SGC members right there in the 'gateroom. Both Teal'c and Carter had looked on the point of rebelling as he'd explain to them why he couldn't authorize sending a team through the gate to a planet at night; not when their only hope of finding Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson was to follow their trail. Something it would be impossible to do in the darkness. Carter and Teal'c had both argued they needed to start immediately, this second, now , sir! But he'd explained his reasons to them again, very patiently. What if they missed something in the darkness? What if they obscured a vital clue? They were going to have to work through what would feel like night to them on a hostile planet, possibly filled with Unas. They needed to be ready for whatever this mission could throw at them. They owed it to Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson to be in the best possible shape.

What he hadn't told them was that he wasn't sending any one else to that world until he got some reply from the Tok'ra about what the hell they'd been playing at luring his people into what had every appearance of a trap. The answer had come back an hour before daylight on that other world. They were sorry. Tanith had got word to Apophis of the scheduled meeting between Kora and SG-1. Kora had arrived early only to be attacked by the Unas and had barely managed to stagger back through the 'gate. He'd been unable to travel to Vorash as he had not wanted the Unas to see the glyphs for that destination, so had traveled to Tollana instead. He'd collapsed on Tollana before he could communicate what had happened, remaining unconscious for several hours. By the time he had awoken and told the Tollan what had happened, and they had communicated the news to the Tok'ra, the Tok'ra had already received Hammond's message asking for clarification.

The Tok'ra High Council could only offer their apologies, hope that the SGC were able to retrieve Doctor Jackson soon, and to inform them that they had good reason to believe Apophis was en route for the destination planet to which Doctor Jackson had been taken. They would strongly advise not allowing Doctor Jackson or Colonel O'Neill to fall into Apophis’s hands were it avoidable. Tok'ra operatives working within his ranks could confirm that neither were favorites of Apophis. The Tok'ra High Council hoped that they and the SGCcould reschedule their meeting very soon.

There were times when Hammond knew that if Jacob Carter hadn't been one of them he would seriously have contemplated breaking off all relations with the damned Tok'ra…

Now Teal'c looked enquiringly at General Hammond. "Is it not time yet?"

Hammond glanced across at the MALP reading; five minutes to daylight. It was close enough. He nodded and the technician began to dial up.

Carter came into the room a little out of breath, two metallic objects glinting in her hand. Teal'c looked between the Goa'uld technology she was carrying and then raised an eyebrow at her in enquiry. Carter held them out so the general could see them, "I hope it's okay, sir. I asked to take these."

Hammond looked at the golden ribbon device and then at the healing device before turning to her for an explanation. Carter shrugged, "I don't know why I – it's just. Apophis must be very strong now. He has Sokar's army as well as the remnants of his own. I think we might need every advantage just to have a chance against him."

"And the healing device?" Hammond pressed.

Carter slipped it into her pack as though she was a little ashamed of it. She didn't look at him as said, "Colonel O'Neill said an Unas took Daniel. There's quite a – disparity between the weight and strength of an Unas and a human being, and they're not the most even-tempered creatures in the world."

Hammond winced and then nodded hastily. "Quite so, Major. I get your point." He met her gaze and saw the stricken look in her blue eyes. He put his hand on her shoulder. "It would only go to the trouble of kidnapping Dr Jackson if it needed him alive."

"But it clearly has no use for O'Neill," Teal'c put in crisply. "And he was in close pursuit. As he has not returned with Daniel Jackson we must presume he was unsuccessful in his attempt to rescue him. That suggests the Unas may have wounded or killed him." There was a hint of accusation in his tone and General Hammond sighed. It sometimes felt as if it were a full-time job stopping Teal'c from risking his neck against impossible odds.

The wormhole engaged with a rush of air and Carter and Teal'c both turned towards the ramp in obvious relief.

"Bring them back," Hammond said quietly. He didn't add 'alive' because he wasn't sure that was possible. As Teal'c had pointed out, if O'Neill had been successful he would have returned by now; but he could be buried on his home world even so.

Teal'c inclined his head and by the grimness of his expression, Hammond knew the Jaffa was also expecting the worst. He had never known Carter ask to take either of their pieces of Goa'uld technology on a mission before; the fact she had elected to take both this time seemed a better indication of her state of mind than even the way she was thrumming quietly with tension.

"God speed," Hammond murmured and then they were stepping into the blue light and lost to him. As always a part of him felt as though it went with them; the larger part of himself left behind to watch and worry envying it that freedom.

***

Daniel awoke to a dim pearl-gray light. His clothes were still damp and he was chilled to the bone. Nothing less than total exhaustion would have enabled him to sleep and he realized he was still shaking with tiredness, or possibly the cold. He tried to find something that wasn't hopeless in his current situation. He was the prisoner of a creature that disliked and despised him, which was considerably stronger than he was, and had no compunction about torturing or maiming him in the process of delivering him to a Goa'uld who hated him and would enjoy watching him suffer.

Daniel grimaced. "Well, that's a quite a down side, I must admit." On the plus side Teal'c and Sam were bound to be on his trail and would hopefully catch up with him before the Unas reached its current destination.

The Unas. Daniel looked across at the sleeping creature. It had the end of the chain from his ankle cuff and the chain from the cuffs around his wrists attached to its belt so there was no way that he could run off. Even if that hadn't been the case he wasn't sure he would have tried it. There was a limit to how many lickings this particular linguist could take and still keep on ticking, and he'd already been thrown around quite enough for one trip. He wondered if he'd imagined that second earlier when he'd looked into the eyes of that Unas and seen, not a Goa'uld, but a different mind entirely. If it wasn't for his meeting with Chaka it would never have occurred to him to try to communicate with the Unas itself. They were monsters who fed on human flesh, after all. But he couldn't forget those cave drawings, or the clear evidence of a moral code which Chaka had displayed when Daniel had been the young Unas' prisoner. It had allowed him to drink and it had fed him. Nor had it hurt him for trying to escape, it had only shown him why going into the water was a bad thing to do. He was sure that every Unas had at least as strong a sense of its own identity as any human. Including the one that Goa'uld was currently using as a host.

Cautiously, Daniel got to his knees. The Unas didn't move. He crawled across to where it was lying, trying not to put his knee down on any dry twigs as he did so. Seeing his vest lying within reach, he stretched out a hand and found a chocolate bar in its waterproof bag. He slipped it into his jacket pocket and then cautiously crawled a little closer to the Unas. It was breathing deeply and evenly, and just for a second he thought about trying to stab it again but then he thought of how sensible that would be when he was connected to it by ten feet of chain. It had shaken off his last attack within half an hour, and getting beaten to a pulp really didn't seem like the best possible way to go. Anyway, he couldn't forget he was dealing with two consciousnesses here, and one of them was as much a victim of the Goa'uld as he was.

Daniel moistened his lips then leant across and carefully sketched out the glyphs for Cimmeria. As he drew the last one, a scaly hand shot out and caught his wrist. Flinching in anticipation, he darted a quick look at the Unas. To his surprise there was no rage in those yellow eyes, just comprehension. Daniel's own eyes widened. He pointed to the glyphs and whispered rapidly, "Thor's Hammer can kill the Goa'uld inside you and leave you unharmed."

The Unas let go of his wrist then it jerked its head savagely at the place where Daniel had been lying. As he hesitantly began to back up, its clawed hand shot out and obliterated the glyphs. A second later there was a roar of rage and Daniel flattened to the ground.

He winced as the Unas leapt to its feet and strode over to where he was lying. "What are you doing?" it hissed.

He glanced up and saw its eyes briefly glow gold. He swallowed and averted his gaze. "I'm cold. I wanted to light the fire again."

"No!" It grabbed him by the back of the jacket and hauled him up. "No fire!"

"Please." He pressed his elbows against his sides to try to stop the shivering. "I'm freezing." Behind it he could see one of the glyphs the Unas hadn't obliterated before the Goa'uld within it had awoken again. He quickly looked at the fire instead of the ground. "My clothes are still wet –"

Too late. He tried not to flinch as it abruptly wheeled around and stared at the ground where it had been sleeping. It crouched down and examined the soil and Daniel stayed still, keeping his head lowered, body language as unthreatening as he could make it. He wondered if there were things the host could keep from the Goa'uld or if when it awoke it automatically knew everything. No, Kendra had said she could mislead her Goa'uld. It hadn't been aware of her deception when she had worked to lure it to Cimmeria. That meant –

That low snarl of comprehension and rage went right through him and Daniel shuddered. The Unas turned on him furiously. "What is this?"

Daniel kept his head down. "What?"

It strode across to where he was crouching, grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the clearing. He landed hard on his knees, the scuffed soil and remaining glyph clearly visible. Daniel looked up at it, jaw set. "What?" he repeated.

"This!" It stabbed a clawed forefinger at the ground.

Daniel shrugged. "I have no idea. I was sleeping over there. It must be something your host wrote. Perhaps he was trying to tell you he wants to go home."

It recoiled. "Nothing of the host survives!"

Daniel met its gaze. "We both know that isn't true. That's just something you tell yourselves so you don't have to feel guilty – " He broke off as it grabbed him by the back of the jacket and yanked him to his feet. It unfastened the chain from around its belt and yanked on it savagely, jerking him forward by the wrists.

"I have to eat something." Daniel pulled back on the chain, heart beating faster as he realized he wasn't going to be punished for having written out the coordinates for Cimmeria. He wondered if this Goa'uld suffered from blackouts from time to time, if it was indeed in a constant battle with its host. The Unas mind had seemed to be much simpler than a human's; that might make it stronger. It might have a much better sense of its own identity because of it. After all, a human child brought up by wolves could permanently lose abilities which appeared to be instinctive in children raised by humans. Some anthropologists had suggested this proved that humans had no instinctive sense of their own species, that almost everything they did from the earliest age was copied, not inherent. But people brought up dogs in their homes every day and yet even puppies bottle-fed by human beings from birth still knew that they were dogs. Perhaps a human mind was easier to control simply because it was so complex it didn't have the same overwhelming sense of self of a less evolved species?

The Unas bared its teeth at him but Daniel dug in his toes. "Look, if you want me to walk another twenty miles today you have to let me eat something. I have my own food, I just need you to untie my hands so I can eat it. It's right there in my vest." He jerked his head at the vest at his feet. In reply it snatched up the vest and began to go through the pockets. When it came across an item of food it threw it onto the floor.

Daniel tried not to flinch as it stamped on the last of his MREs, kicked dirt over them then ripped his vest in two before throwing it across the clearing. "I see you don't subscribe to the 'coals of fire' theory. You know 'If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt –'"

It yanked savagely on the chain around his wrists, jerking him forward and snarling, "Move…"

As he was dragged away from the clearing, Daniel tried to think about Teal'c and Sam being hot on his trail. About the possible act of communication that had just taken place between himself and the Unas host. About anything other than how cold, exhausted and hungry he was before setting out. About how Jack was still dead and never ever coming back.

***

"Teal'c!"

The Jaffa had been examining the tracks on the ground, the unpleasant truth of what he was reading beginning to impress itself upon him in a way too insistent to ignore when Major Carter's shout reached him.

He looked up and saw her lying on the ground, peering over the cliff edge, the almost over-keen young new leader of SG-3, Captain Frobisher, with his hand gripping her ankle tightly to stop her going over.

Teal'c was there in a moment, being careful as he joined her not to tread on any of the tracks.

She glanced up at him, face white and set and he saw the despair in her eyes. "Look."

Teal'c lay down next to her and followed her pointing finger. The fact her hand was trembling a little told him what to look for but the sight of that P-90 swinging slowly in the morning breeze, snagged on a branch only ten feet above the steaming torrent and jutting rocks, still made his heart turn over. "O'Neill's gun," he said it quietly.

Carter nodded. "It makes sense." Her voice was very taut. "The Unas would have known one of us might follow. He would have been waiting."

Teal'c said quietly, "The Unas appeared to struggle with someone by this cliff edge; someone was pulled back from the edge, and then dragged across the ground for some distance. Then the Unas left here, carrying something heavy."

"Daniel." Carter swallowed hard. "It must have knocked him unconscious. He would have tried to stop it throwing the Colonel – " She bit her lip, collecting herself. "We need to go after him quickly. It could have got a long way ahead of us by now. Daniel might be hurt."

"There was some blood, but not enough to suggest a deep wound," Teal'c reassured her.

She wriggled back from the edge and got to her feet. She turned to SG-3 and said tersely, "Send word to General Hammond, tell him we believe Colonel O'Neill to be dead and his body unrecoverable at this time. Tell him we've found a trail and we're going after Daniel. Then send the MALP back through and come after us." As she turned, she looked at Teal'c. "It could have broken every bone in his body and Daniel would still hardly have bled at all."

He returned her gaze steadily. "You think Daniel Jackson is injured?"

She took off her cap and then ran her fingers through her hair. "Apophis might need Daniel alive but he won't care what condition he was in. If he did he would never have sent an Unas to collect him. He wants the Harcesis, but more than that, I think he wants Daniel to suffer and I don't think that Unas was under orders to take good care of him."

Teal'c nodded gravely. "I concur." He glanced back at the cliff edge. "Should we not leave Captain Frobisher and his men to search for the…body?"

He admired the way she didn't flinch, turning determinedly to look at the tracks the Unas had left, deep clawed indentations in the soft ground, still clearly visible despite the passage of hours. "The Colonel would want us to save Daniel from Apophis a lot more than he'd want us to give him a proper burial, Teal'c. It seems to me the best thing we can do for him right now is to carry out his wishes."

As she shouldered her P-90 and led the way, Teal'c nodded sadly. His own grief at the thought of O'Neill's death was a sharp ache that he suspected would take many years to fade, but he knew Major Carter was right. The best they could do for O'Neill now was to save Daniel Jackson from the Unas who had killed their friend.

***

O'Neill crouched down by the fire and waved his hand over the top of it. Cold. Not even an ember smoldering. He took a moment to catch his breath, to get himself focused, calm. He wasn't the world's greatest tracker, not up there with Bra'tac or Teal'c, but he could work out this was where the Unas had made camp for the night. The clearing was only thinly surrounded by trees on the eastern side, it lay at the edge of the jungle and beyond it was what looked like a salt plain topped by a thin crust of pale soil, the kind which left tracks you could see for miles. He would make much better time across that terrain then he had in the jungle. If it hadn't been for the extreme size and weight of the Unas and the careless way it tore the lower branches from the trees as it strode through the undergrowth he would never have been able to track it through all those ferns and tree roots. But those tracks were clear and easy to read. With any luck they would lead not just him but Carter and Teal'c straight to Daniel as well.

He looked up from the fire, gaze raking the circle of earth for more clues. Luckily, the Unas seemed to have made no attempt to hide their tracks. He could see that was the place, right there, where those specks of blood were, where Daniel had spent the night. He seemed to have curled up tight in a ball, like a child would. The way people did when they were cold and hurting. O'Neill rested his hand in that slight depression in the earth and his fingertips came away damp. Not with blood, although his heart gave a painful lurch as he felt the wetness of the soil. Definitely not blood, just water. But it hadn’t rained in the night, had it? Daniel had been wet then. Very wet to make the ground so damp even all these hours later. So there might have been more blood and the water had soaked some of it away.

O'Neill ran his fingers across the soil, tracing the blurred line of what looked like a rattler but which he realized must be the mark the chain had left. He grimaced, the rage spiking a little higher. No one did that to one of his team. No one had the right to chain up and beat up on a friend of his. And they definitely never ever got to whip someone under Jack O'Neill's command, however damned much that someone might talk. And he couldn't think of any good reason why Daniel should have been huddled up, soaking wet, on a freezing cold night either.

The tracks were a little confusing. There were a number going around the campfire, several showing clawed feet where the Unas seemed to have gone over to where Daniel was then walked away again. It also seemed to have walked around him several times. Daniel's footprints were easy to identify because they looked small beside those of the Unas'; but half of them showed him wearing boots and half showed him in bare feet. As the bare foot ones headed off to the east across that salt plain O'Neill presumed Daniel had come to this clearing wearing his boots then left it without them.

"What? Did the damned thing eat his boots?" O'Neill looked around the clearing in confusion. They were made of leather so perhaps the Unas had snacked on his teammate's footwear? Better that than taking a bite out of Daniel, but wouldn't the Unas have eaten the granola bar Daniel had been carrying before it ate his boots? Of course, the creatures were strange and might prefer chewing on toughened hide that presumably tasted of boot polish rather than an Air Force energy bar but it still seemed a little unlikely. Why else would it have taken Daniel's boots?

To stop him running away.

Yes, that made sense. It would slow you up to be bootless in this terrain; the ground was full of sharp stones that would cut the feet of the unwary.

But he'd only do that if Daniel had run away once already.

O'Neill winced and looked back at the place where Daniel had curled up. Yes, those rust-colored stains were clearly blood. Not pools of it though, thank goodness, more like…stripes.

"Oh crap," he hissed it shortly as he remembered the whip in the creature's belt; the sound of that lash snapping when Daniel was trying to persuade it to retrieve his body from the bottom of the cliff.

That was when his gaze fell on that shredded vest and O'Neill felt his heart turn over. He snatched up the ripped material and scanned it for clues, scared all he was going to find were lots and lots of pointers that Daniel had been killed and eaten here. But even though the claw marks across it made him feel sick, at least there was very little blood. If the Unas had decided to rip Daniel open there would have been a lot of blood. That was something. But when he examined the discarded vest more closely he found little else to like. Not the fact it was still dripping wet or that some of the slashes across the back of it looked as though they could have been made by a whip. Telling himself that a vest, a jacket, and a t-shirt would have provided Daniel with at least some protection from that lash didn't make him feel a whole lot better.  But when he went through the pockets and found that anything edible had been taken he did feel slightly less panic-stricken. If the Unas was bothering to carry food for Daniel it was obviously intending to keep him alive. Even if that was only alive until he was handed over to Apophis it was something.

He straightened up with a new purpose. Daniel had clearly had a rough night and that Unas was overdue for burial but while there was life there was hope, right? The main thing was that his teammate had walked out of here on his own two feet, not in pieces inside an Unas' digestive system.

It was as he passed the fire again that he saw the pile of scuffed earth and bent to examine it. What he found made his heart sink. A day's rations. That was all Arris Bock had said Daniel was worth. As he picked up the stamped on granola bar, the cracker that was now just so many crumbs, and the flattened MRE, O'Neill realized that the Unas didn't think Daniel was worth even that much. The son-of-a-bitch hadn't collected up those rations to keep Daniel alive on the journey, he'd trodden them into the soil while Daniel watched and went hungry.

As he headed off after the two sets of footsteps – those of the Unas sinking a full inch deeper into the ground than Daniel's – he was mentally checking the medical supplies he was carrying. Enough to do some on the spot doctoring anyway, and he had plenty of Tylenol with him. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should go and take a look for Daniel's boots, but then he looked at the dense trees, thought about how far the Unas could have thrown them and gave up that idea with a shrug. Daniel could manage being barefoot, he might not be able to manage being a prisoner of that Unas for very much longer. O'Neill had just found some pretty compelling evidence that Daniel's captor had already beaten him and had every intention of starving him, which meant he needed to get Daniel away from that sadistic son-of-a-snake. And soon.

***

Daniel was walking as slowly as he could without making it too obvious. The coughing was something he didn't need to put on, and the slumped shoulders, the foot-dragging dejection that wasn't exactly difficult to fake either. The Unas had the chain back around his waist and his hands cuffed together; the chains were so heavy it wasn't hard to pretend to be weighed down by them. He had only risked one glance over his shoulder but the view had been promising; the salt flat stretching out in all directions with their footsteps the only marker for miles. A tracker far less able than Teal'c would be able to follow a trail like that.

"Faster!" The Unas yanked impatiently at the chain around his waist and Daniel stumbled on purpose. He had to play it quite carefully because the creature had a short fuse and a long whip, but even a Goa'uld as spiteful as this one could work out that damaging him further was only going to make him move even more slowly than he was already. So far it was restricting itself to vicious tugs and snarled threats, both of which he was tuning out. He didn't want to think about where they were going and what was likely to happen to him when they got there. And he didn't want to think about Jack lying dead at the bottom of that cliff. Sam and Teal'c will have found the body. They'll have taken him home….

Daniel had grown to dislike change. Very few of the changes in his life had come about for a good reason even if they had ultimately led on to good things. For a while, when he'd been on Abydos he'd had a different philosophy. After all, getting kicked out of academia and ridiculed by all his colleagues had led to him being invited to join the Stargate program. Sometimes bad things turned into good things. Catherine might have approached him because of his skills as a linguist but the fact he was such an obvious loser with nowhere to go had probably clinched her making that offer; and not just because he would be less likely to turn her down. He knew when someone felt sorry for him and Catherine still couldn't talk about the way his lecture had gone without getting tense with anger.

He didn't have any anger left for his colleagues any more. He hadn't been much more understanding with Nick's theories than they'd been about his, after all. And getting kicked out of academia had led to him going through the Stargate and meeting Sha're. That year on Abydos had been the least complicated in his life. He'd only known that kind of simplicity when on digs before. Jack was always saying he thought too much, and sometimes even Daniel got worn out by all the activity in his own brain. Digging for clues to lost civilizations had always been a healing process to him; something so simple it couldn't be screwed up by anyone. Life on Abydos had been the same. Enough new things for him to learn to keep him interested. A people whose lifestyle both fascinated and seduced him. And Sha're. For the first time in his life he'd had nothing to wish for. But even then the depth of his contentment had frightened him sometimes. Experience had taught him that kind of happiness always had to be paid for.

He'd been right about that.

"Move!" The Unas grabbed him by the collar and threw him forward. Daniel could have stayed on his feet if he'd made an effort but decided not to. He crashed onto his knees, hand hanging, breathing heavily. The coughs that tore through him weren't faked, though, and he gave himself up to them. The Unas dug its fingers into the rips in his jacket, pulling him up by a handful of it. "You will make haste…" It snarled it at him softly and Daniel was aware of its fingers straying towards its whip.

He looked at it sideways. "I could have walked faster in my boots." He grunted with pain as it cuffed him around the back of the head and then shoved him forward. This time he made the effort to stay on his feet. He was learning the limits of its patience the hard way and knew when it was going to start hitting him with things that hurt. Flashing it a resentful sideways look, he trudged across the salt flat at as slow a pace as he dared.

***

Carter was very glad of Teal'c's company but she thought she could probably have followed this trail by herself. The Unas clearly hadn't been worried about pursuit and its considerable weight meant it left deep footprints even in the forest. She noticed the unfamiliar plant life in passing; so much of their medicine on Earth came from the rainforest and they had barely scratched the surface of it yet. Every one of these huge fern-like trees could hold the cure to some disease earth doctors had been struggling with for years. She would report that to General Hammond on their return and he would make a note of it and tell her they would try to send a team with botanical experience through at a later date.

The Stargate program was in its infancy and sometimes it really showed. She wasn't the only one who got frustrated by the way they would glimpse new elements, new chemicals, new life forms, and then be in too much of a hurry to really stay and analyze them. Daniel had been complaining about that for years. Languages they'd discovered but not translated yet. Entire systems of counting, writing, measuring time, they would uncover, film, file a report on, and then never get a chance to investigate. She and Daniel kept telling each other they'd do this when they retired. Sit there and write all the books they didn't have time for while they were in the middle of exploring new worlds. On the last count she reckoned she would have to live to be about six hundred just to make a start on all the projects she wanted to do.

She missed those damned armbands sometimes. Even though they'd made them all act like idiots, she had been able to get so much done. If she'd only had another day or so she could have finished her book on Wormhole Physics. She'd tried to work on her laptop while they were waiting in their not-quite-a-lock-up but the Colonel could never bear anyone to work when he was around; Daniel hadn't even been able to read that book he had with him at his increased speed because the Colonel hadn't shut up for long enough. She'd managed to blot him out for a little longer with the skill of long practice but the hunger had been too insistent to let her concentrate on anything even as fascinating as her chapter on the probable causes of known fluctuations in the event horizon. She and Daniel and the Colonel had…

The Daniel who was now the prisoner of a vicious monster ten times as strong as he was which was taking him to be tortured by a Goa'uld who was known to hate him.

The Colonel who was now lying dead downstream somewhere.

They were never going to get the Colonel back in any shape or form and she didn't hold out much hope for ever getting the Daniel she knew back again either. Not if he'd had to watch Jack O'Neill die in front of him and been unable to stop his murder. She remembered what it had done to her to see Daniel die in front of her and not be able to stop it, and she was a trained soldier. And that was leaving aside what it would do to him to be the prisoner of Apophis again.

"Major Carter!"

The excitement in Teal'c's voice surprised her. She couldn't imagine getting excited about anything ever again right now. Even getting Daniel back wasn't going to be cause for excitement, only relief.

"Major Carter!"

She had never heard Teal'c sound so pleased. Carter turned and hurried along the path. She caught a glimpse of a flat expanse through the thin screen of trees on the far side of the clearing, but her gaze went at once to the fire. They must have made camp here for the night. Teal'c's hand closed on her arm and stopped her. "Be careful of the tracks."

She followed his pointing finger and nodded. "Yes, of course."

She could see them for herself now, the deep indentations of the Unas tracks, and then human feet, she recognized the track their boots made. Teal'c was looking at her like a parent waiting for a child to give a recital. She returned his look of enquiry then looked back at the tracks. Yes, she could see that Daniel had walked out of his here on his own two feet so he must have been well enough to do that. That was certainly good news although not quite good enough to explain the relief in Teal'c's eyes. Perhaps Teal'c had been expecting the Unas to eat Daniel and had just been keeping his fears from her?

"Do you see?" Teal'c pressed.

"I see footprints for the Unas and Daniel."

"And?"

She looked around the clearing and then walked the perimeter, being careful not to disturb any of the tracks. She found the indentation in the ground and sank down next to it, reaching out to touch the earth as though she could somehow touch Daniel. "He slept here?" Daniel was six foot in his socks and she knew that, but it looked such a shallow depression for him to have made in the soil, so vulnerable. She stroked the air where he had been lying, wincing inwardly as she thought of how miserable he must have been feeling, seeing the Colonel plummet to his death right in front of him. Or perhaps Daniel had been unconscious. Perhaps the Unas had knocked him out and he didn't know about the Colonel. She'd like to think that was true, except, of course, when they caught up with him he'd ask her where 'Jack' was and she'd have to tell him….

This was even worse than the last time. They'd found him in that Unas cave relatively unhurt and her relief had been so overwhelming she'd wondered why the Colonel still looked so tense. It wasn't that she'd forgotten about Rothman or Hawkins and the others, it was just that her anxiety for Daniel had smothered everything else so completely nothing else had seemed very real. She'd said it reassuringly, "Sir, he's fine."

Daniel had still been gazing after that Unas and she'd known they were never going to really know what had happened between them. It was something Daniel wasn't going to be able to explain or they weren't going to be able to comprehend. But only Daniel could have been dragged off by a vicious predator which had captured him for the sole purpose of killing him, and have managed to turn his captor into his 'friend'. Daniel had never learned how to play the victim and please God she hoped he never did. But her words to the Colonel had snapped Daniel out of his reverie and he'd turned to them with a smile saying, "Yes, I am. And very glad to see you guys although I have to say I think you could have – " That was when his expression had changed. He'd obviously read something in the Colonel's face that she hadn't because he'd reached out and touched his arm saying, "What is it, Jack…?"

Carter pushed her hair back from her face. Looking at that miserable scrape of earth where he'd clearly been curled up trying to get warm, she felt something twist inside her. "Oh, Daniel." She picked up a handful of the soil. "We're going to get you back soon, I promise."

"Major Carter."

She glanced up at Teal'c and he was looking down at her with his gentlest expression. "Teal'c?"

He beckoned to her and she followed him, being careful to tread where he trod and to avoid disturbing the tracks. "Daniel Jackson did indeed sleep here. But that was on the second time he came to this clearing. On the first occasion he came from this direction." Teal'c pointed back towards the forest they had just emerged from. "He was carried by the Unas. It set him down here. He sat here for some time. There was a struggle during which the Unas was injured."

"The Unas?" Carter could hardly stop her disbelief showing.

Teal'c pointed to the green stains on the earth. "This is the blood of the Unas. It followed Daniel Jackson into the forest. When it returned it came from this direction and was dragging Daniel Jackson behind it, you see?"

And now he had pointed it out to her she could see and wondered how she had failed to see before, the deep indentations of the Unas' clawed feet and the scuffmarks as the side of Daniel's booted feet were dragged along the ground. Every few paces there was a boot mark where Daniel had managed to get a foot on the floor, but he had clearly been dragged quickly and violently. She imagined the Unas holding him by the jacket and jerking him along.

"It was angry." She felt a little sick. "Because he wounded it, presumably."

Teal'c nodded. "Daniel Jackson is a very courageous warrior. He would not submit easily."

She thought of how the Colonel always tried to divert attention away from them; so aware of the vulnerabilities of each of his team members, her gender, Teal'c's position as a traitor to the Goa'uld, Daniel's lack of skills as a soldier; always trying to get the bad guy to focus on him instead, the smartass remarks it had taken her so long to work out the reason for. She'd spent a long time wondering why the Colonel didn't just learn to keep his mouth shut….

She looked at where Teal'c was pointing. A depression in the earth with two deeper hollows; she was starting to see what Teal'c could see now: an elbow and a knee. Daniel had hit the ground hard, been thrown down with considerable force. She imagined him taking a moment to snatch his breath, looking up at that monstrous creature and trying to disguise his fear.

"We should have gone with the Colonel," she said abruptly. "We should have disobeyed his order and gone straight after him. If there had been three of us we could have got Daniel back, we could have stopped Colonel O'Neill being…"

Teal'c took her by the elbow gently and led her away from those tracks towards the tracks leading from the clearing to the salt flats. They at least were clear and undisguised; the Unas tracks, and beside the Unas the booted feet of someone wearing SGC issue footwear. Teal'c was looking at her as if he was waiting for something.

She pointed to them, unsure what he wanted from her. "The Unas and Daniel. I see it. It clearly didn't hurt him too badly because he's walking out pretty well."

"Daniel Jackson was barefoot when he left this clearing. These are his footprints."

She looked down at them, a little dazed. Yes, she could see them now, although the other two prints were so much clearer; the Unas' a dark indentation in the soil, the boot prints crisp and ridged, the barefoot prints were paler and less noticeable beside them.

"The Unas must have removed his footwear to prevent Daniel Jackson from escaping." Teal'c turned to SG-3, who were standing around awkwardly, trying not to tread on any tracks and yet clearly mystified as to why. "If you search the surrounding area you may find them. They will be useful to Daniel Jackson when we retrieve him."

She admired Teal'c's confidence and it was contagious. Already she found herself thinking in terms of 'when' they were going to find Daniel as opposed to 'if'.

She stared back at the tracks, wondering why her brain was working so slowly today. So the Unas had set off once with Daniel in bare feet and once with him wearing his boots? No, that didn't make any sense. Nothing made any sense. How could she have let the Colonel go after Daniel alone? What, she could disobey a direct order from a general about not leaving the base to go and eat steak but she couldn't disobey an order given by a man who'd just had a teammate kidnapped and wasn't thinking straight? What the hell had she been thinking?

"Major Carter," Teal'c was being very patient with her today, which she appreciated. She was usually much quicker than this but her brain seemed sluggish today. "These are not the footprints of Daniel Jackson. These are the footprints of Colonel O'Neill."

"What?" she stared up at him and then gazed fixedly at them, trying to make it true, but, God, she couldn't let herself even start to think that if it wasn't true because at least she was numb at the moment whereas if she allowed herself to hope and then…. "The Colonel's dead." Her voice sounded muffled but she said it stolidly. It was a reality she hated but it was the truth and she needed to get used to it. People died. It happened. Her mother. Martouf. Colonel O'Neill. They just died and you couldn't do anything about it. You got on with your life. You didn’t whine about it. Good soldiers didn't.

"O'Neill's boots are a size larger than those of Daniel Jackson. His stride is slightly longer. These are the tracks of Colonel O'Neill."

"Sir?"

She turned her head towards the marine who was speaking to Teal'c but her gaze didn't want to leave those tracks. Because Teal'c was right. She'd seen those tracks a hundred times herself. Walked behind the Colonel and seen the way he planted each foot so straight and firmly into the ground. Daniel didn’t walk like that; Daniel wandered; he looked up and around and down, and consequently stumbled or slid a little. Daniel's tracks were always slightly erratic. The Colonel's were crisp. Only the Colonel walked like this.

"We found them, sir."

As the young marine put the boots into Teal'c's hands, clearly torn between pride at having found what he'd been told to look for and anxiety because he didn't know what they signified and hoped it wasn't anything bad, Carter thought of how many times Teal'c had told them not to call him 'sir'. In the end she'd murmured to both him and Daniel that soldiers liked to have some kind of rank to call people by, it would make life easier for the airmen if they would just put up with being called 'sir'.

Teal'c was looking at her; clearly concerned that if she still didn't understand what he was telling her there was something seriously amiss with her brain. She smiled at him. Her face reacting a little slowly because it hadn't thought it was going to be smiling ever again. "The Colonel didn't go over the cliff, only his gun did."

"Or he did fall over the cliff but managed to pull himself back up to safety." Teal'c was knotting the laces of Daniel's boots together. They were caked with mud, a yellowish mud that looked as though sawdust had been dissolved in it.

"Quicksand." She frowned in recognition, rubbing a finger over the caked mud. "Daniel must have run into some quicksand. We met up with this stuff on P3J-741, you can never get it out of your clothes, remember?"

"I remember." Teal'c was taking the pack from his back. He put the mud-caked boots into it with the same reverence Daniel might have shown in securing an artifact. "Daniel Jackson must have run into an area of quicksand when escaping from the Unas. That would explain why it was able to recapture him."

Just for a minute Carter wondered if Teal'c knew that Daniel could no more outrun an Unas than he could arm wrestle a grizzly bear, and that even if he had never run into any quicksand it would undoubtedly have recaptured him, but then she smiled to herself. Of course he knew; the protective part of his brain knew perfectly well that Daniel's escape plan had been doomed from the start; but the loyal part of Teal'c's brain was doing the speaking at the moment, and she loved him for it.

"The Colonel's alive." She hadn't meant to say that. She'd been going to say something coherent and useful about how much of a start the Unas must have and could Teal'c estimate its walking speed but that was what had come out.

Teal'c squeezed her shoulder gently. "Both Daniel Jackson and Colonel O'Neill are alive, Major Carter, and O'Neill is some hours ahead of us. He may have already been able to retrieve Daniel Jackson."

"Not without a weapon." She shouldered her P-90, unable to stop that silly grin breaking out. "Although that might not stop him trying. We'd better pick up the pace."

Teal'c smiled back. "Indeed, Major Carter."

***

Daniel ached all over; he felt as though someone was stabbing him in the left lung every time he breathed in, his feet were so sore every pace felt as though he was being slashed across the soles with a burning knife, and he was exhausted. The salt flats had given way to first more jungle, then sulfur pits and hot springs; the air tainted by ammonia so strong it made the eyes sting; the sky darkened by streaks of bilious yellow and threatening red. Far away to the west he saw what looked like a volcano erupting. This was very emphatically not a planet that gave him a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

It was when the Unas had forced him across a field of old lava flow that the glassy rock had torn at his feet like a cheese grater to the skin. After that he didn't need to pretend to limp and the angry yanks on the chain at his wrists became more frequent and even less patient than before. It had been a great relief to get back onto soft earth again but by then the damage had been done and every step felt as if he were treading on hot coals.

As the afternoon faded into early evening, Daniel was hobbling at a snail's pace and the pain in his left lung now jabbed him all the way up to the shoulder with every breath. The Unas turned on him furiously. "You will hurry!"

"I can't." Daniel sank down onto the ground and cradled his bleeding right foot in his cuffed hands. "I just – I can't. You should have let me keep my damned boots!" He glared up at it defiantly.

It raised a hand to strike him and then lowered it again, eyes glowing gold as it stared at him. It jerked on the chain lightly and then nodded at his vest and jacket. "Bind them. Now."

Daniel looked down at his clothes and realized what it was suggesting. He gritted his teeth. "I think I may be getting pleurisy. If I take off my t-shirt I'm probably not going to survive the night."

"Do it!"

He shrugged and held out his hands to be uncuffed. The Unas had removed the ankle chain earlier. If it took off the one around his wrists technically he would be unbound. Of course practically it wouldn't do him any good because his feet were too sore for him to outrun anything that could move faster than a sloth, but at least it would be nice not to have cuffs chafing at his skin for a few minutes.

He remembered Jack undoing the rope around his wrists with uncharacteristic gentleness after hustling him out of the Unas cave in double quick time. Daniel had been trying to tell him how the fact that Chaka had defeated the alpha male meant that his will would hold sway at least until he was challenged, and they were therefore safe from any attack from that particular tribe. Jack hadn't really been listening.

"Yeah, right. Well, as the next really big Unas that challenges your pal might not have a whole load of bullets in him, I think we'll just try to put as much distance between us and them as possible. Hold still."

Daniel hadn't really minded the rope as much as Jack seemed to. He'd got used to it by then. He'd actually been surprised by how much it hurt when Jack very carefully unwound the rope from his wrists to reveal that rubbed raw skin. "Oh Jeez," Jack had hissed it in annoyance.

"He actually treated me very well." Daniel knew he must have sounded defensive because the look Jack shot him as he was slapping on that bandage had spoken volumes.

"Do you know what I went through, thinking you were - ?" Jack had shaken his head then said quietly, "Daniel, a lot of people died because that Unas decided it liked the look of you. I'm not blaming it for doing what it has to do, and I'm grateful it didn't eat you, but you can't expect me to want to go and shake him by the – claw."

They'd been out of the cave by then and it had been good to breathe fresh air again, although the realization of how exhausted he was and how far it was back to the 'gate had left him feeling a little dismayed. That was probably why it had taken so long for Jack's words to penetrate. He'd turned to him in shock. "People died? Who died? How? I was afraid Loder – "

"He was the only one killed by the Unas."

Realization had hit him then. "The symbiotes in the river? Oh my God, Hawkins? He was making a water run just before…"

Jack had been looking at him so oddly. "You went to the river? You drank from it?"

"Yes. I didn't understand why the Unas insisted I used my hands to drink. I was just looking for a way to escape, it was only when I was actually swimming that I realized it was a symbiote coming for me." He'd looked up and seen the horror in Jack's eyes. "It didn't get me. I swam back to shore."

"They were capable of propelling themselves through the air at considerable speed some distance from the water's edge."

He'd looked up to see the same grim expression on Teal'c's face that Jack was wearing on his. He gazed between them in surprise and then saw Sam looking so tense as well. "Tell me about it," he said it slowly. "I thought it had me for sure. But – Chaka grabbed it. He wasn't very pleased with me." He'd turned his head so they could see the symbiote blood the Unas had smeared across his cheek. "The Unas eat them. Roasted symbiote head is apparently an Unas delicacy. Remind me to tell Apophis that next time I see him. I should have taken a bite of the one I was offered when I had the chance but it did look truly disgusting."

That was when they'd all started digging food out of their vests for him.

Daniel's stomach rumbled at the memory, the sulfur fumes catching at his throat to remind him he was on this world now. The Unas snapped at him. "Be quick."

Daniel looked down at his wrists and saw they were uncuffed. "Fine. I'll take off my t-shirt, get double pneumonia and die. That suits me fine, actually. I wasn't exactly raring to meet up with Apophis again anyway."

"Your God has a sarcophagus," the Unas told him softly. "He can revive you."

Even the word 'sarcophagus' still made Daniel flinch. For nothing and no one was he getting back inside one of those things. But then he realized how easy it would be for Apophis to make him talk. All he had to do was throw him back into a sarcophagus a couple of dozen times. Or put a Goa'uld inside him. Either way Daniel would cease to be Daniel and become someone who would probably be happy to share everything he knew with the new God of the Underworld. He set his jaw, except that wasn't going to happen. He wasn't going to let that happen.

He unzipped his jacket. "He's not my god. He's not anyone's god. He's what you are: a parasite inside a – "

"Be silent…" This time it said it very softly, its breath a furnace blast of rotten meat against his left ear. The way all the hairs on the back of his neck elected to stand on end at the venom in its hiss told him better than a telegram how dangerous it was right now. As Apophis had a sarcophagus the creature didn’t even have to keep him alive. It could break every bone in his body if it wanted to. One by one.

Daniel reminded himself that discretion was the better part of valor; silence was golden, and physical pain, as Jack might have said, really sucked. He pulled the t-shirt over his head gingerly, wincing as the action opened up the welts across his back, and then tried to rip it up to use as a bandage. After three failed attempts, the Unas snatched it from, contemptuously tore it in two and then threw it back at him so it hit him in the face. Daniel bit down his retort and leant forward, carefully brushing the fragments of grit from underneath his left foot before binding it up with one of the pieces of t-shirt. It was surprising how much better it began to feel at once. He bandaged the other foot and then exhaled with the relief of it.

As he straightened back up, the Unas wound a chain around his waist and fastened it. Daniel decided he could live with that. His ankle and his wrists were both getting very bruised from those cuffs; the chain around the waist wasn't something he exactly welcomed but it was less painful than the other options.

"Move!" The chain yanked him up and he'd taken a pace before he could stop himself. It didn't hurt anything like as much as it had. He could do this. Daniel took another pace and that foot didn't burn when it touched the ground either. He grabbed his jacket and began to pull it on while walking after the Unas. He wondered if he had any Tylenol left and began hunting around in his jacket pockets then stopped as he remembered Jack wincing that morning and rubbing his temples. "Goddamned Tok'ra always give me a buzzing pain in the head."

He remembered throwing him the pack of aspirin and Jack catching them one-handed. Jack flicking off the lid and tossing down two tablets dry, holding up the container to throw them back, Daniel saying, "Keep them. If the Tok'ra are as much trouble as last time you might need them…."

Daniel ducked his head so the Unas wouldn't see his expression. Every time he thought about Jack being dead it hurt so much he could hardly breathe, but at least that pain was so all consuming it blotted out everything else. It suddenly occurred to him that Apophis had done his worst now. Sha're was dead and so was Jack. Apophis couldn't hurt him any worse than he already had unless he put a gun to Sam and Teal'c's heads and threatened to pull the trigger. And somehow he thought it a lot more likely Sam and Teal'c would be doing the shooting. When they arrived to rescue him they were going to want blood.

Daniel lifted his head again and looked at the Unas' back with hatred. He hoped it had hurt the Goa'uld inside it like hell when he'd stabbed it. It had burrowed into the host's brain, so he hoped that meant it felt everything the host felt.

It yanked on the chain impatiently. "Hurry!"

Deliberately slowing down even more and coughing pointedly in its direction, Daniel lowered his head, pretending to be absorbed in zipping up his jacket as he murmured, "Screw you," into his chest.

***

O'Neill's heart sank as he saw the cooled lava flow spreading in front of him for a mile. Some volcano had clearly blown its top with a vengeance a few years back and this glassy rock was still a dark scar across the land. This must have been the Mount St Helens of UnasWorld when it had gone up.

He'd known sooner or later his luck was going to give out. Teal'c had an annoying habit of always being right about everything, and that stuff about being a better tracker than O'Neill was had come echoing right down the wormhole after him. He'd known sooner or later it was going to turn around and bite him in the ass. The Unas clearly weighed a lot, but even it wasn't heavy enough to leave any imprint on this kind of surface.

O'Neill shrugged and stepped out onto the slippery rock. He'd just have to get across it and then try to pick up the trail on the other side. The land beyond looked more promising. Of course the Unas might have decided to head up the lava flow or down it; it might know there were people following and be intent on leaving no tracks. No point in thinking about that, just think about –

Footprints. The unmistakable imprint of bare feet, but how the hell…? O'Neill crouched down and touched the print gingerly. It was dry but when he scraped at it with a fingernail it came off in rust-colored flakes. Blood. Christ, of course, Daniel was barefoot and this was like walking on ground glass.

"Mother-fu-!" O'Neill felt the anger fade into realization. The Unas had screwed up, big time. It had thrown Daniel's boots away for spite – payback because Daniel had tried to make a run for it. And now it was going to get its just reward for being a bullying son-of-a-rattler. He was going to show it what happened to big lizards who ill-treated his teammates. Come to that he was going to show it what happened to big lizards who tried to throw Jack O'Neill off very high places onto very sharp rocks, because he really didn't go a bundle on them either. And he was going to be able to show it because it had dragged Daniel barefoot across a piece of rock that cut like razorblades.

He darted forward and there was another print and another one. Pity and anger tried to elbow their way into his psyche but he trod them down. He needed to have tunnel vision here; Black Ops myopia: Don't think about the big issues, just think about the next step. These were markers, that was all, they told him which way to go. It didn't matter how they'd been made; all that mattered was that they were saving him a lot of time his enemy was really going to regret giving him on a plate. Don't think about Daniel until he was found and there was something he could do for him; just think about the creature that had taken him.

"Coming for you, scaly," O'Neill said softly. "And by the time you know I'm there it's already going to be too late."

***

Carter closed her eyes, trying to blot out the thunderous sound of rain hammering onto foliage above her head and the trees groaning as they were bent by the force of the wind, just hoping that when she opened them again the storm would magically have passed.

It had appeared without warning. One second they had been following the clear trail left by the Unas, Daniel, and the Colonel, and the next it was as if they had been sucked into the middle of a tornado. Every bad 'Dorothy' joke the Colonel had ever made coming back to haunt her with a vengeance. The ferocity of the rain had been so intense visibility had been reduced to almost zero. She and Teal'c had exchanged a despairing glance, then she'd tersely given the order to Frobisher and Gregson to get their men undercover of the trees.

They had been making such good progress too. The trail left across the salt flats had been clear enough for a child to follow, and even in the next area of vegetation, the Unas' massive size had left ample evidence of the path it had taken. She had just finished scanning the glassy-looking terrain up ahead and been in the act of passing the field glasses to Teal'c for his opinion, when the tempest had enveloped them all.

Now they had been forced to spend an hour watching the storm obliterate the trail they had been following; diagonal spears of rain washing out the deep marks of the Unas, the booted strides of the Colonel, and those shallower barefoot markings from Daniel. The only consolation was that a storm which had appeared so suddenly and was being driven on the gusts of such a ferocious wind would probably blow itself out or on very fast. But it would still leave them without a trail to follow.

She tried not to let the frustration overwhelm her as she thought of how much time they'd managed to make up. Daniel had clearly been dragging his heels because they'd been gaining with every mile. And she certainly hadn't felt any lack of keenness on the part of their companions. If anything SG-3 and SG-4 were too keen. Frobisher was like a terrier after a rat. She knew the type. Young, ambitious, determined to succeed. Wanting to be a hero so much it hurt. The Colonel was clearly who Frobisher wanted to be when he grew up.

Oh boy, she knew the signs all to embarrassingly well, because she had been that Air Force Captain. She'd had the Colonel up on a pedestal once as well. She wasn't sure if she was the first or the last of SG-1 to take him down and dust him off. Probably, somewhere in the middle, she suspected. Teal'c had almost certainly stopped hero-worshipping 'O'Neill' a long time ago, while, although he would have denied it with his last breath, she suspected Daniel never quite had. He might argue with the man, criticize him, and on occasion be downright rude to him, but it was the way teenagers acted with their fathers; for all the arguments and complaints, there was still that lingering belief the man could do anything if he put his mind to it, including leaping the occasional tall building with a single bound. Carter took off her forage cap and ran a hand through her sopping hair. Although, given the state of the Colonel's knees, it would probably take a couple of bounds these days. But she couldn't even say Daniel was deluding himself because if anything could make the Colonel start hurdling any passing skyscrapers it was Daniel being in danger and in need of his protection.

She wasn't as bad – she really wasn't, damnit. She could recognize that Daniel had a knack for making friends out of enemies unsurpassed in the annals of the SGC, and she could also see what the Colonel did seem to miss sometimes – that Daniel was six foot of fit young adult male who had been on a first contact team for four years now and was really quite competent in the field, even if he wasn't, and please god never would be, a soldier. But that didn't mean she didn’t worry. It was okay as long as she was doing something. Then she felt full of confidence that they would get Daniel and the Colonel back safe and sound before nightfall. But enforced inactivity while she had to stand here and listen to the rain obliterating all traces of her teammates was just torture.

Carter counted to ten slowly in her mind. One – two – three. When she opened her eyes, the storm was going to be gone, there was going to be blue sky, no rain, and she was going to fix in her mind's eye the direction in which those footsteps had been heading, straight for that glassy dark area three clicks away. Four – five – six. They were going to pick up the Unas' trail again. They were going to get Daniel back before anything bad happened to him. Seven – eight –

"Major Carter?"

As Teal'c's words registered she realized what else she could hear. Silence. She opened her eyes to a world still dripping, but a patch of blue sky already being ushered in behind the departing clouds. Shafts of sunlight were appearing from between steel gray strato-cumulus, making prisms of the raindrops teetering on the brink of the foliage above her like reluctant suicides. There was no sign of the trail they'd been following of course, but there was a rainbow arcing away in the right direction.

"Okay, move out." Carter waved the others forward, peering through her field glasses to see where the rainbow seemed to be leading them. Towards that glassy black rock to which the trail had definitely led before.

"Well, just call me Dorothy," she murmured.

"Major?" Gregson gave her a shocked look and she felt a tinge of impatience with him. How did Daniel put up with going off with all those other SG teams all the time? He couldn't really enjoy it. You had to waste so much time in pointless explanations when you were constantly with people who didn't know you. She really wanted Daniel and the Colonel back. She wouldn't even object to them bitching and sniping at each other just as long as she knew they were both safe.

But at least the rainbow was still leading them in the right direction, and although it was breezy and cold, and all their clothes were sodden, the storm had definitely passed.

As Teal'c strode past her, he briefly rested his hand on her shoulder and gave her a glimpse of that rare but utterly devastating smile of his. "We appear to still be in Kansas, Major Carter."

She grinned back at him, hope definitely replacing despair now, and this time when she saw Gregson gazing at them in confusion, she didn't even mind.

***

The settlement stank. He'd thought the stench from the sulfur pits and the release of noxious chemicals from the bubbling springs of hot mud which spat at them in passing was the worst smell he'd have to deal with on this world. But this was worse. The ammonia was so strong it made his eyes water, and the smell of Unas was overpowering.

As the Unases looked up from the corpse they were feeding on and began to approach him, he realized that the only thing scarier than a bad tempered Unas with a Goa'uld inside it, was a whole bunch of bad-tempered Unas with no Goa'uld inside them who were clearly as hungry as hell.

These were very clearly not of the same sub-species as Chaka's kind. They had different shaped faces, less expressive, definitely less intelligent. They wore no clothing and had no wrist or neck protectors, suggesting that there were no larval Goa'uld on this planet or that these Unas had not evolved to the point where they could make such things.

He suspected these were outcast from any kind of tribal system; the equivalent of a dog pack without a clear leader, forced to exist by scavenging instead of hunting. They seemed to have no focus, no rituals, no dignity. The fact they were all youngish males made the outcast theory seem even more likely.

Daniel stubbed his toe on something and looked down automatically, recoiling in horror as he realized it was a human thighbone he'd just stepped on. "Oh God…" There was a building up ahead, a black tower, similar enough to the one in which Ernest had been sheltering for all those years in his exile to make Daniel wonder if they had both been built by the Ancients.

"Ag-Nan –"

Daniel recoiled as an Unas scrambled up the bank to where he was being dragged along, mouth open, drool already showing at the sides of its mouth. It reached for him and he sidestepped quickly, jarring his sore feet. He presumed 'Ag-Nan' was 'food' in the language of these Unas. A variant on the 'eat' he had translated 'nan' as in Chaka's tongue. Did the slightly more complex language he was hearing here suggest that what he was seeing with these scavenger Unas was a more evolved sub-species, descendents of those Unas who had grasped 'gate travel and escaped from the Goa'uld, now regressing to primitive behavior?

"Ag-Nan – !"

Daniel looked in vain for any intelligence in those yellow eyes. The Unas was licking its lips hungrily as it gazed at him.

"No." His captor swung its mace at the approaching Unas with casual brutality, the Unas it had struck snarling at its attacker furiously as it picked itself up off the ground but not actually daring to retaliate.

Daniel looked around at the Unas who were watching them walk past. They lined the bank, gazing up at him and his captor. There was a mixture of hunger as they looked at him, and fear as they looked at the Unas yanking on his chain. Daniel glanced between them. "They're afraid of you."

"Yes." The Unas said it with great satisfaction.

"Because you're a Goa'uld. That makes you stronger than they are? And smarter too, I presume?"

"Be silent."

Daniel thought of those cave drawings in Chaka's cave. The swiftness with which the young Unas had grasped what he was talking about as he tried to decipher the pictograms. By contrast, these Unas seemed to be little more than animals. They were clearly not allowed in the tower itself but had gathered to feed on something near the base of the hill on which it stood. They were tearing flesh from a corpse with flies buzzing around it; some kind of animal Daniel couldn't recognize from the little flesh remaining on its bones, but which could have been a kind of primitive rhinoceros. The smell of dead animal and live Unas made him gag and he put a hand up to his face.

"Do you have a name?" Looking between these other Unas, the ones watching him so hungrily and the one in charge of him, Daniel realized he should have been asking a lot more intelligent questions about the Unas social structure on this world.

"It is not your concern."

"Well, then what about your host? The Unas itself, does it have a name? What kind of – ?"

He staggered as the Unas hit him, only a glancing blow to the head but one which made his already aching cheekbone start to throb all over again. He straightened back up, gritting his teeth as he looked up at the creature with dislike. It yanked on the chain again, pulling him forward and he stumbled and then regained his balance. "Or I could be quiet," he murmured.

He looked over his shoulder at the Unases and realized this was a problem he hadn't thought about. Sam and Teal'c were going to have to get past these creatures. It was hard to look anywhere else and turning your back on animals who clearly wanted to turn you into smorgasbord seemed a little careless anyway. He thought he'd just walk backwards for a while, try and count some reptilian heads.

There were at least a dozen of them and as long as they were prowling around outside, the tower he was being taken to was almost as well guarded as if there were Jaffa with staff weapons in place. The Unases were worryingly strong, and hungry enough that they might not be put off even by P-90s. Anyone following his trail who didn't have a lot of weaponry with him, not to mention a lot of company, was going to get dismembered. Reminding himself that Sam and Teal'c would probably have at least one SG-unit with them, Daniel turned back towards the Unas. It picked that moment to give a particularly vicious jerk on the chain around his waist. "Move!"

Daniel fell onto his knees, wincing as the impact jolted through his bruised ribs. Coughs burned a hole from his lungs to his left shoulder, like an electric shock which followed every paroxysm.

"Get up! Move!" It grabbed him by the hair and dragged him up before all but throwing him at the doorway. As Daniel slammed into the studded wood, he looked over his shoulder again and saw the other Unases had crept closer. He made a mental note that if he somehow managed to get out of the prison into which the Unas was intending to put him, he should find another way back to the Stargate.

As he caught his breath, he looked at the Unas sideways, the shade of Jack O'Neill spurring him on. "If you're influenced by your host in what you eat and – mate with, that suggests almost a - biological connection to it, doesn't it? So, are any of these guys relatives of yours? You know, Cousin Florence? Uncle Bob…?"

As the door opened, the Unas grabbed him by the back of the jacket and picked him up off the ground. It slammed him into the first wall it came to apparently for the exercise. Daniel tried to stifle his cry of pain, not wanting to give the creature who had killed Jack the satisfaction of hearing him yelp even as solid rock bruised already aching ribs. The door was slammed shut behind him, blocking out the light and a solid metal bar pushed into place. Remembering the disappointment in the hungry eyes of the Unas who had just had the door slammed in its face, Daniel felt like a steak on the inside of a meat safe.

Still holding him by the back of the jacket, its fingers digging through the rips in the cloth so that its claws left fresh scratches across his welted back, the Unas hauled him down the corridor. Daniel had a brief glimpse of what looked like only medieval level technology. The burning torches were few and far between, their flame faint and blue. He couldn't see any inscriptions of markings on the wall, just glossy black rock. A moment later, another door was opened and he was hauled through the open doorway, his bare feet banging on the steps he was dragged down.

The chamber looked like it had been hollowed out of the rock. It was huge, freezing cold, the walls running with slime. As the Unas dragged Daniel across the vast dungeon, Daniel got only brief glimpses of the bones lying scattered around the place, but most of them looked human. He was thrown down in a corner, landing on his right side hard enough to knock the rest of the breath from his body. He tried to drag some oxygen back into his lungs without sobbing at the agony of inhaling. The stabbing pain in his left lung was now being kept company by a sharp ache in his ribcage and a couple of dozen bruises all of which were now throbbing in unison.

The Unas undid the chain around his waist then closed the cuff back over Daniel's ankle, securing the end to a ring in the wall. Daniel didn't think it was chance that the creature had picked the dampest coldest corner of the huge chamber in which to chain him up. The Unas tugged on the chain, baring its teeth in satisfaction as it held firm. It grabbed Daniel by the hair again and jerked his head back, looking him over with malicious pleasure. "My lord will send for you soon. Then you will betray the Tau'ri."

"Don't bank on it," Daniel told him flatly.

The backhand knocked his head against the wall and he tasted blood. He licked it from his lower lip and gazed up at the Goa'uld without making any attempt to hide his loathing for it. "Kal shaka Mel," he breathed hoarsely.

He saw it raise its hand again. There was barely time to register the pain before white lights exploded then dissolved into nothingness.

***

O'Neill held his breath. The creature had stopped in mid-stride and was scenting the air. If the wind changed… His fingers curled so tightly around the branch in his right hand his knuckles turned white. The Unas turned and looked directly at the bush behind which he was sheltering. He stayed absolutely still and the moment hung in suspension; he felt like he had when he'd been dangling from that tree root.

His sidearm was calling to him like a lover, but he was too far from that tower place and there were too many Unas around. If he had to kill this one he was going to need to do it in absolute silence or else the dozen who were rooting around in the dusky evening – fighting over shinbones and snarling at one another – were going to realize there was a better food source around than a week-old dead stegosaurus. He wondered if they had cannibal tendencies. He'd been told that if you killed or wounded a shark you could get away while the other sharks ate it; that might well be Unas behavior too but on the other hand they were all scales and green blood while he was, in his – admittedly subjective – opinion, a damned sight more appetizing.

He tested the weight of his knife in his hand but then thought about how much killing these things took. Even if he cut its throat it might still be able to get out a yell loud enough for the others to hear. He raised the branch he'd found instead; there was a lot of weight there, a dense hardwood which would hopefully be strong enough to crack even an Unas skull.

The Unas raised its head, sniffing determinedly. O'Neill watched its body stiffen and knew it had picked up his scent. Then it turned away, casually, as though it had lost interest. He knew that move. He used that move. It was supposed to make the guy with his finger on the trigger relax a fatal fraction as he sagged with relief. Well, not this time, lizardguts.

As the Unas lunged at him, O'Neill was already swinging the tree branch. As it arced through the air he had a sudden memory of a hockey stick on a perfect trajectory to smash the window of Hammond's car; the glass shattering all around him as the impact of the blow sent his sunglasses flying. All that suppressed rage he hadn't even known he had –

He blinked as the Unas hit the dirt without a sound; the left side of its skull completely caved in; green blood and gray matter oozing from a jagged hole to spatter across his boot. O'Neill recoiled in disgust, wiping his boot off on the ground. He looked at the corpse for a second, still a little taken aback by his own efficiency. He didn't know whether to be impressed by or frightened of himself. But he had clearly channeled his anger very effectively there, that was one very dead lump of lizard meat.

Remembering belatedly that there might be a Goa'uld inside it, he backed up hastily. No way was one of those snaky sons-of-bitches picking him for a new host. He glanced back at the tower. The other Unas were still squabbling over that picked-clean corpse. One down, about ten left to go. Daniel was obviously in that tower somewhere but knocking on the front door was going to be a little tricky given that the road to it was in full view of all those starving Unas. He was going to have to make a wide right and come around to the tower from the back, hoping there was more than just the one way in. Of course there might well be transportation rings in the building and the Unas who had kidnapped Daniel might have already taken his prisoner to wherever Apophis was but –

No. Short distances only, right? He'd been told that enough times by Carter over the years. So, unless there was a 'gate in the tower – which there couldn't be or else the Unas wouldn't have bothered hiking all the way across country to go and pick Daniel up – it was going to have to use the rings to take Daniel somewhere close by, or Apophis was going to have to come through the 'gate and walk here, or else put a ship down somewhere, or else use the rings on a ship… Lots of possibilities but most of them involving a ship being up there somewhere, which there wasn't. He'd stood underneath Goa'uld motherships before and the atmosphere was always trying to spit them out; they were so damned big and ugly even the sky crackled all around them. So, there was probably a ship coming but it wasn't here yet, and therefore Daniel was still in the tower. Probably not in the best of shape – O'Neill gritted his teeth over that – but hopefully alive.

O'Neill realized he had already covered a hundred yards while he'd been thinking it through. He also realized the club he was still carrying was liberally spattered with Unas blood and brains. He thought about wiping it off and then shrugged. Maybe it would give the next lizard pause for thought. As he hugged the tree-line, the dusk descending right on cue to help disguise his progress, O'Neill wondered what kind of condition Daniel was going to be in. How they'd ever make it back to the Stargate if Daniel had a broken leg or two. Gritting his teeth, he decided that it didn't matter. If Daniel had broken legs, broken ribs, and a fractured skull, O'Neill was still going to get him home. One way or another.

***

Carter looked up at the night sky and thought she might as well just tell Captain Gregson she would be taking his watch, and Teal'c's watch, and every other damned watch, because sleep was not an option right now. Rationally, she knew that all the things which had gone wrong with this nightmare of a mission had not been her fault. But the fact remained she now had half her team ten miles away, nightfall had trip-wired them before they'd caught up with Daniel and the Colonel, and for all she knew Apophis had already collected one or both of her missing teammates.

Ironically, when they'd been going after Daniel the last time an Unas had captured him, she'd been able to sleep, because the ultimate responsibility wasn't hers. Teal'c was in charge of the tracking, and the Colonel was in charge of the operation. Her job was to back them up. That meant being in the best condition possible to do the task required and making sure she performed the duties of a second in command as well any anyone could do. The Colonel had been thinking about getting Daniel back to the exclusion of almost everything else, so she'd made it her job to assess just how exhausted their support team was and when everyone needed to get some rest for maximum efficiency, then quietly bring it to the Colonel's attention. To back up Teal'c when he spotted the danger of the symbiotes in the water; to back up the both of them when they went into that cave after Daniel and his scaly new friend.

Now she was in the Colonel's position and she just wanted to keep going, even though they couldn't read the trail, even though Teal'c had picked up a number of Unas tracks suggesting there were a significant number of them on this planet and they would have the advantage in the dark. Daniel was a prisoner of that thing, en route for being handed over to Apophis, and the Colonel couldn't be trusted not to take some fairly insane risks to retrieve him.

It had been Gregson who'd pointed out to her and Teal'c that they could barely see their hands in front of their faces and might it not be a good idea to break for the night? Her first instinct had been to snap at him that they stopped only when she said so, but when she'd turned around and realized how dark it was and how exhausted Gregson's men looked, she'd realized the man was right. They had to stop.

Now she took off her forage cap and ran a hand through her hair, trying not to despair even though she felt like it. Perhaps she'd made wrong decisions. They were all soaking wet but she'd said boots on, and no fire. The Unas who'd taken Daniel prisoner had made a fire so that suggested Unas weren't afraid of fire, while the report from Frobisher had certainly suggested there were hungry Unas around in numbers. SG-4 were now shivering resentfully on the other side of the camp, no doubt all about to go down with pneumonia just to make her look bad. Perhaps she'd made wrong decisions at every damned turn and that was why nothing was going right and –

"Major Carter."

Again there was that comforting touch on her shoulder. She looked up to find Teal'c proffering a mug of something hot. He had that look on his face the Colonel got when Daniel had let himself get over tired and tetchy as a toddler; a combination of firm and wary: You so are going to eat/drink/sleep the way I told you to; but I'm ready to jump the hell out of your way if you start biting my head off.

What, Teal'c thought she was as pissy as Daniel when a translation wasn't going well and he hadn't had enough caffeine? She didn't know whether to be indignant or gratified by the comparison. People certainly did tend to skip out of Daniel's way when he was in that mood, so perhaps that was why there was no one from SG-4 within ten feet of her.

"Thanks." She managed a smile. Although she only took the first sip out of politeness the hot soup did warm her at once and she realized belatedly how hungry she was.

"Colonel O'Neill will not allow Apophis to take Daniel Jackson from this world."

She had to admire the calm confidence with which he said it, but looking at the Jaffa by the starlight she was sure she detected something in those brown eyes that looked suspiciously like anxiety.

"I'm sure he'll do everything humanly possible to prevent it, yes." But he's only one man. "It's just lucky I'm not superstitious or I'd be convinced this damned mission was jinxed."

He touched her shoulder gently again. "We have not been fortunate, but perhaps that means only that our luck is about to change?"

She managed a wry smile. "Well, we're certainly due some." It wasn't enough that they'd had that freak storm obliterate the trail they were following and waste so much time, they'd then lost hours over that damned lava flow. She doubted the Colonel had been able to leave them any kind of sign to follow on such a glassy surface anyway, but the rain had done a thorough job of washing out any tracks there might have been. She'd had to split her forces up into three teams and send them to scout in each direction in turn to see if they could pick up any sign of a trail. Finding Unas tracks in three of the four compass points had meant considerable time had to be wasted while they tried to find human boot or footprints to prove which was the Unas trail they were meant to be following. She was sure it wasn't coincidence that the correct trail had proven to be the one that could only be found after a hike of several miles across rock and shale. Luckily that was the one she and Teal'c had followed, and they'd managed to rendezvous with the rest of SG-4 as well, but SG-3 were now ten miles in the opposite direction, fooled by human footprints into following a trail which had led to a deserted settlement. The bloodstains on the walls, not to mention the Unas prints all over the place had led them to the conclusion that any human settlers there might once have been had ended up as lunch for the Unas.

Frobisher had radioed her a warning about the Unas population and she'd heard the disappointment in his voice when she told him they and SG-4 were on the right trail. She'd felt her burgeoning dislike for him crank up another notch as she had further confirmation he was perceiving this mission as an opportunity to shine, and quite possibly to outshine someone of a different gender and a higher rank, rather than the life and death rescue it was. She was starting to suspect that to him Daniel was just a finishing line he wanted to be the first to reach.

She realized her eyes were heavy but her mind was still turning furiously. All her instincts were screaming at her to keep moving because her teammates needed her, right now, but her commonsense was reminding her that even if she and Teal'c were prepared to risk their lives blundering blindly in the darkness, or sending out a beacon for any passing Unas by using their flashlights, she didn't have the right to risk the lives of SG-4.

"We will find them."

She glanced up at Teal'c, not really surprised any more that they could all read each other's minds.

"What if Apophis has them?" She hadn't meant to blurt that out. She'd been intending to give a decisive nod and an 'I know we will' but somehow those words had escaped instead.

"Then we will retrieve them from Apophis either with or without the assistance of the Tok'ra, and then we will make Apophis pay for any harm he might have done them."

The huskiness of Teal'c's voice rang every warning bell she possessed. One look at his face was all the confirmation she needed and she reached out to touch his arm. "Teal'c, you do know we can't go after Apophis unless he has Daniel and the Colonel?"

He took a step back from her and didn't answer.

"Teal'c?"

"He has lived too long."

"Agreed." She kept her voice steady. "But Daniel and the Colonel haven't lived anything like long enough yet. This planet is crawling with hungry Unas, and as far as we know they don't have any weapons. Even if we're looking at a best case scenario here and the Colonel's managed to rescue Daniel, he still has to get them both back to the Stargate. Something he's much more likely to do with us to help him." Mentally she was thinking I know he may have fooled you for a while there, Teal'c. I know he may have made you believe he was a god when he wasn't. I know you did things when you served him you're going to have to live with for the rest of your life. I know he tried to brainwash your son. And I know it's his fault you had to kill Sha're, but Apophis still isn't our first priority here.

As Teal'c turned to look at her she saw that revenge light flicker and then die in his eyes; his shoulders slumping a little in resignation. She wondered how it felt to have the need to avenge the dead constantly gnawing at you. Every breath Cronos took an insult to his dead father. Every breath Tanith took a spit in the eye of Shau'nac' shade. Every breath Apophis took fingernails scraped down the blackboard of Teal'c's soul.

Teal'c sighed and closed his eyes. "You do not know how it feels to…"

"No, I don't." Carter said it firmly, then sighed. "But I know someone who does, Teal'c. Jolinar didn't have exactly warm fuzzy feelings about Sokar, or Bynarr – " she couldn’t entirely suppress a shudder as she said his name, going on quickly, "or Cronos, or just about any other System Lord you care to name. I know you've lived with what the Goa'uld have done for a hundred years, but sometimes when I wake up I remember what it's like to live with it for over a thousand…"

She saw his compassion for her wipe out the resentment in an instant. He touched her shoulder gently. "You should sleep."

"Later."

"O'Neill would…"

"Well the Colonel's not here, right now, so he can't tell me what to do." She realized she sounded like a teenager, something Teal'c's quick smile of amusement confirmed, but could see the humor in the situation too clearly herself to feel more than a twinge of resentment. She grinned herself. "Okay, if I get tired, I'll call you."

He inclined his head. "Feel free to do so, Major Carter." A minute later he was sitting with his back to one of the primordial looking trees, meditating on things she probably didn't want to know about. There were times when she knew there were things about both Teal'c and the Colonel that she probably didn't want to know. Things they'd done. Things they were capable of doing. But she still knew they were good men. She also knew that she couldn't bear to lose them. Not any of them. Teammates were people you were loyal to, relied upon, would die for; but they weren't supposed to become your family, surely? You were supposed to have another life and other people you spent time with. You weren't supposed to hang out in your free time with the people you went on missions with. And you definitely weren't supposed to become so insanely emotionally attached to these people that you started to hyperventilate just thinking about losing any of them.

"Good grief," she shook her head in self-disgust as she took another sip of soup. There were worrying signs that she might be starting to turn into Colonel O'Neill. If she wasn't careful, the next time another SG team put in to borrow him, she'd start asking Daniel if he really needed to go on that anthropological mission to P3X-whatever-it's-called-why-don't-we-give-these-damned-planets-a-name-anyway, and telling him there were better ways for him to spend his weekends that messing about with old ruins….

Except, of course, these days the Colonel wouldn't admit that he worried about Daniel when he was out of his sight, and Daniel wouldn't admit that he needed the Colonel's protection, or actually quite liked knowing he was cared about either. In fact there were times in recent weeks when she'd wanted to bang both their heads together so hard they resounded like the Lutine Bell.

Other SGC teams had always made bids to borrow Daniel. There was a serious anthropologist shortage in the SGC, and the best was good enough for anyone. Every time SG-1 were on official downtime, some other SG team would swoop like wolves on a caribou carcass and ask to borrow Daniel. The answer always given to that question in the past had been either 'No' or 'maybe'. The Colonel would tell Daniel that SG-5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10 or 11 wanted to borrow him but there were sound tactical reasons that had nothing to do with anyone worrying about Daniel's health and safety why this wasn't a good idea, and Daniel would shrug and then agree not to go. Unless it was something so fascinating he started questioning the Colonel's data and every now and then the Colonel would have to fold and let Daniel go play with another team for a while. But he never liked it, and he always worried. In the past that had been quite amusing. Recently, it had become anything but amusing, because recently the Colonel had just been passing those requests straight onto Daniel and leaving it entirely up to him whether he wanted to go or not, and Daniel had been agreeing to every one of them. As far as she could recall, Daniel was booked up to go with SG-5 on one mission, SG-6 on another, and had indicated a willingness to go and help SG-8 on a third.

To the outside observer it all seemed perfectly reasonable. Colonel O'Neill was finally admitting his archaeologist was all grown-up now and could take perfectly good care of himself. The guy had stopped treating Doctor Jackson like a son substitute and had learned to let go. Except she knew damned well the Colonel worried just as much about Daniel as he'd ever done, he'd just got a little better at hiding it, and a lot worse about admitting that if any harm came to Daniel it would pretty much kill him.

She thought the appendix might be at least partially to blame. She was perfectly willing to admit it had scared the hell out of her too. None of them had seen it coming and it could have killed Daniel faster and a lot less cleanly than a Goa'uld staff weapon blast. When the Colonel had decided to go on leave instead of staying by Daniel's bedside she'd been a little surprised, and when he'd asked her to go fishing with him instead, she'd been flattered and touched. It was only a couple of months later that she'd wondered if it was his flight reflex which had been engaged. Daniel had nearly died one time too many and it had scared the Colonel so badly he'd decided to back off and protect himself from going through that particular hell again, so he'd bailed on his best friend. Worse, from her viewpoint, she had a feeling she'd helped the Colonel to bail on his best friend. It had taken her a couple of months to realize that she was being used. Not intentionally, and not in a bad way. But the Colonel spending lots of time with her because he enjoyed her company was wonderful and made her feel like an equal at last. The Colonel spending lots of time with her because he was trying to distance himself from Daniel so it wouldn't hurt so much if he died, was not wonderful, and made her feel as if she'd been conned into being party to a deception.

The only reason she wasn't angrier with the Colonel than she was, was because she didn't think he'd been deceiving anyone as much as he'd been kidding himself. He'd got to the stage where if he lost any one of them it would pretty much destroy him. He'd made himself look it in the eye where she was concerned and she thought he'd worked through it. Now he needed to do the same thing with Daniel. Accept it would rip him to pieces; accept that every time they went on a mission it was a possibility; accept that he couldn't keep them all hanging around the SGC where it was safe indefinitely; accept that trying to pretend he didn't mind Daniel going off with other teams was hurting Daniel's feelings and making him more and more inclined to keep accepting those offers to go off with other teams, despite the fact it left him under the protection of comparative strangers.

The last request had come via General Hammond at a briefing session. She remembered she'd been sitting next to Teal'c, and the Colonel and Daniel had been sitting next to each other, unconsciously echoing one another's body language but blissfully unaware of the fact. "Oh and by the way, Colonel, Doctor Jackson…" Hammond had passed the form across the table so it ended up exactly midway between them. "SG-5 have put in a request to borrow Doctor Jackson for their forthcoming mission. Apparently the MALP readings showed some interesting writing on the walls that looked like it could be in a Goa'uld dialect. SG-1 don't have anything scheduled for that time, but…"

Carter had known what the 'but' was. Hammond looking between the two of them uneasily, waiting for them to act the way they usually did.

They'd both got that closed-off look on their faces she was starting to get to know much too well. The Colonel had shrugged, "Well, if we're not doing anything and SG-5 need Daniel to go translate stuff for them, who am I to stand in their way?"

She'd seen Daniel get that mulish look on his face that reminded her of her brother when he'd been a teenager. "Thank you, General, it sounds fascinating."

Hammond had looked between them again before directing his attention to Daniel. "I have reminded the other teams that you are permanently assigned to SG-1, have a full workload of your own, and are not a floating specialist to be borrowed from a central pool."

Daniel had just smiled. "Really, it's fine, sir. I'd like to go. I know the SGC is short-staffed at the moment, until you can get a replacement for… Until you bring in another archaeologist."

Carter had winced at the way Daniel had veered away from mentioning Rothman's name. That was something else no one was saying. That the reason the SGC was short-staffed, and Daniel was being sought out by other SG teams all the time was because they were now an archaeologist short and there was no one who'd yet been cleared to take up the slack. Making it indirectly Colonel O'Neill's fault that Daniel hadn't had a break in far too long. If you wanted to look at the way, which she somehow thought the Colonel probably would the mood he was in. Making Daniel running off to play with other teams not just an annoyance to him, but something of a rebuke as well.

Hammond had looked at Daniel with a frown of concern denting his forehead. "Just make sure you get enough time off in between missions. And that means time 'off'. Not time in your office working on translations. I'd really like to see you take a vacation at some point this year."

Daniel had looked rather bewildered by that concept. "I had nine days off when Jack and the others were off-world."

Hammond's sigh of exasperation had been downright paternal. "Doctor Jackson, you were recuperating from a major operation. That does not count as 'leave'. I'm not going to prevent you going on this mission with SG-5 if you want to do so as I suspect it is much more likely to be successful if you're with them than if you're not, but I do want you to have a think about your workload." As he said the latter, he'd shot Colonel O'Neill a glance which Carter had read plainly as 'I shouldn't need to be saying this. You should already have done this.'

The Colonel had looked as mulish as Daniel before having the grace to appear a little guilty.

Looking between the two of them, Daniel determinedly not looking at the man to his left, chin resolute, a smile fixed on his face as though his heart was overflowing with happiness at the thought of going off world with SG-5, while his eyes betrayed anger and hurt; the Colonel also doing a very good impression of someone whose body language was attempting to convey indifference while clearly showing rejection, she'd found herself wondering how clever men could be so darned dumb sometimes.

She'd come very close to accusing them of behaving like a pair of second graders, but had realized in time that was unfair. To second graders. Seven year olds had the honesty to actually say to one another 'Don't you want to be my best friend any more?' Apparently adult males between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five did not. But she still wished they would –

A twig snapped behind her.

She was already diving and rolling as the Unas lunged. "Teal'c!" She yelled the warning as she caught a glimpse of a huge shape lumbering out of the trees towards her teammate, then was firing as she hit the ground, the clearing dazzled by an accompanying stutter of light, the Unas roaring with pain as at least some of her bullets found its target. She was aware of SG-4 also shooting from the other side of the camp, the bright flash of Teal'c's staff weapon. She could hear more gunfire, Teal'c calling to her anxiously. Gregson issuing a stream of orders to his men, but they were all in the background; her immediate present consisted of Unas claws, teeth, and malevolent yellow eyes. It lunged at her again, spattering her with greenish blood and she jammed her P-90 between its chest and her throat, firing at point blank range. For a crowded second she was gazing into its eyes as she pumped the trigger, the meat on its breath reminding her of the stench of Netu, then she was rolling out from under its body as it crashed to the ground.

The next one was on her before she could reload. Its first swipe knocked the P-90 out of her hands. As she lunged to retrieve the weapon, it seized her ankle and yanked her away before she could grab the gun back again. Snatching her knife from its sheath she reached up and drove it into what she certainly hoped was its heart. As it fell, something roared in fury, grabbed her by the back of her jacket and threw her against a tree. For a second she was back in Egypt being hurled against a wall by Osiris' ribbon device; then her body stopped flinching in anticipation, and juddered with pain as the tree trunk slammed into her back. Her fall was broken by the body of the dead Unas onto which she rebounded, the handle of her knife still jutting from its chest missing her eye by an inch. Dazed with the double impact, she barely had time to flinch from its oozing warmth beneath her before the enraged Unas dug its claws into her back. The pain sharpened her mind in an instant and she yanked the knife out of the dead Unas, stabbing backwards, aiming as low and dirty as she could. As the Unas screamed in pain and fury, she dived for her P-90, snatching it up, rolling and then coming up firing, just the way they taught you, and she had never been more grateful for basic training than now. Even so it kept on coming.

Still firing, she staggered to her feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see another Unas lurking in the foliage, but this one seemed warier than the others. She just hoped to hell it stayed where it was because she was very aware of how outnumbered they were and how her adrenaline was going to run out in a few minutes, leaving her with the reaction to how close she'd just come to dying.

The Unas she'd wounded was still coming. It was like someone on PCP, too blinded with rage to notice the bullets she was putting into it. She looked around for somewhere to fall back to, and realized there was nowhere that wasn't taken up with SG-4 fighting off two Unas apiece. She rammed in another clip as it ran at her, roaring furiously.

Flame suddenly flared from its chest. The staff weapon blast in the back stopping it where her bullets hadn't. She saw the brief shock register in its eyes and then its knees buckled and it collapsed slowly, like a house of cards; dead before it hit the ground. She found herself left gazing at Teal'c over its corpse. He was swaying but upright, the right arm of his jacket ripped half off to reveal a bleeding wound, more blood trickling down from a cut over his eye.

"Thanks, Teal'c."

He found her a weary smile from somewhere. "You are welcome, Major Carter."

She looked around to assess how SG-4 were doing and saw that the other Unas all appeared to be in retreat. Their sullen yellow gaze flickering from the Unas she and Teal'c had just killed between them to the humans who had resisted their attack with such ferocity.

"Hold your fire!" She was relieved that her voice didn't shake because she could feel the reaction setting in right along with the pain from her wounds starting to throb. "Let them go."

Gregson looked across at her. "What if they come back?"

"I doubt that they will." She was pulling the medical kit from her vest as she walked towards Teal'c. "And if they're alive they can tell their friends that we're too dangerous to eat." Or gather reinforcements. Yes, she knew it was a gamble, but you didn't gun down an enemy in retreat, particularly when it had no weaponry except teeth and claws. Although, wincing from that ache across her shoulders, she had to admit that sometimes teeth and claws still made for very effective weapons.

"You okay, Teal'c?" She put out a hand to steady him just as his own hand closed on her elbow to help hold her up.

"I am fine. Are you?"

She nodded. They gave each other an exhausted smile, and then he was gently peeling back her vest to look at her scored back, while she was easing his jacket away from the bite wound on his arm to bind it up. As she tended to his wounds while he dabbed antiseptic on hers, it occurred to her that they probably looked like two monkeys checking each other for fleas.

She checked her watch as she tied up the last bandage and realized with a sense of disbelief that it was only a quarter of an hour since she'd decided she was never going to be able to sleep again. It felt as if an hour at least had passed. She also realized that sleeping was definitely not going to be a problem now. She had never felt so exhausted.

Carter twisted her head round to squint at her back and saw it was now neatly bandaged, each wound smothered in antiseptic cream which, judging by the hellish way it had stung, was probably doing a good job of killing any possible infection from those meat-tainted talons. "Thanks, Teal'c." She patted him gently on the shoulder. "Janet should make you an honorary orderly."

He flexed his right arm and then nodded his head graciously. "Thank you, Major Carter. I will commend you to Doctor Fraiser most highly also."

Looking across at Gregson she saw that he was doing a good job of making sure his men's wounds were tended to. A few of them had bites but none of them seemed too badly hurt. Not enough to slow them down when they moved off in the morning anyway. She issued the orders for who was on watch automatically, leadened with tiredness as she strode wearily back to where she had been sitting before.

Thinking of the Unas she had seen lurking in the bushes, she had her P-90 raised in readiness as she approached the tree against which she'd been resting, so focused on scanning the bushes for a concealed predator that it took her a moment to perceive the obvious.

"No…" She sank to her knees, then crawled towards the bushes, pulling foliage aside in the hope of finding what she was seeking.

"Major Carter?"

"Major?"

She looked up to find both Teal'c and Gregson looking down at her anxiously. She suddenly felt the full weight of the burden of command; and it was as if there was a boulder pressing on her shoulders. "It took my pack. It must have smelt the food in there. I had chocolate for… I thought Daniel would want chocolate when we…" She blinked hard, voice savage: "It took my pack, Teal'c!"

"Major Carter." Teal'c's voice was soothing as he sank down next to her and rested his hand on her shoulder, being careful not to touch the place where the Unas claws had raked her.

She turned to him, lowering her voice so Gregson wouldn't hear how close to despair she was feeling. "I had the healing device in there. The only one we have. If we go on without it, when we find Daniel he might be too…badly hurt for us to save without it. And if we go after the Unas who took it, by the time we get it back, Daniel might be Apophis’s prisoner." Part of her wanted to add I don't know what to do, Teal'c. Tell me what to do. He was a hundred years old. He'd been leading Jaffa to countless victories on nameless battlefields for forty years before she was even born. He could make this decision for her then if it was the wrong one and Daniel died because of it, it wouldn't be her responsibility.

Carter tried not to think about Daniel huddled in a dungeon somewhere, bleeding to death slowly from internal wounds the hand device could have healed; or on his knees before Apophis, a torturer applying that terrible device to the back of his neck so the pain would blast agonizingly into every nerve in his body. Her fault. Her fault. All her fault. She closed her eyes and abruptly Teal'c was stepping through the Stargate into the SGC for the second time in his life, dressed as first prime of Apophis, yet their ally now. His gaze going to her, offering her his staff weapon, a symbol of his loyalty to the SGC, but more than that, a symbol of his respect for her as a fellow warrior as well.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. "We go after the hand device at first light. Can you track the one who took it?"

"I can."

"But, Major…" Gregson began.

"Major Carter has made her decision." There was more than a hint of warning in Teal'c's voice.

Gregson nodded. "Understood." He turned and headed back to where his men were taking up their positions again, relaying her orders as he did so in crisp clear tones.

She darted Teal'c a glance, trying to see whether he agreed with her decision or not, but his face was unreadable. She settled herself back down by the tree gingerly, wincing as her back touched the trunk. She thought of that indentation in the ground. Daniel huddled up like a child, wet, and cold, and hurting.

Teal'c said quietly. "Colonel O'Neill will retrieve Daniel Jackson from the Unas if it is humanly possible for him to do so. Our task is to ensure their safe return to the SGC."

"If Apophis gets his hands on them…"

Teal'c's face was impassive. "He has the means to restore Daniel Jackson and O'Neill to life and health however much harm the Unas may have done them. And I doubt that he would kill them unless I was present to witness their deaths."

She nodded slowly. It wasn't pleasant to contemplate, but it made sense. If Apophis took Daniel prisoner he would live. If she could get to him in time and had the hand device to heal him, he would live. He would only die if they rescued a Daniel too badly injured to get back to the 'gate and Janet's medical care, and didn't have the means to heal him themselves. But it was still terrible to contemplate yet another delay, and this time an avoidable one, in catching up with their missing teammates.

As she closed her eyes and let herself swallow dive straight into the sleep she so badly needed, Carter wondered if this was one of those no-win situations where whichever decision she made it would always turn out to be the wrong one. Years from now she might look back on this moment and realize this had been the instant when she had delivered Daniel and the Colonel to Apophis and lingering death, when had she only kept going she might have saved them.

Sleep enveloped her thirty seconds after she closed her eyes.

The nightmares began less than a minute later.

***

Daniel woke up in the dark. For an instant he wondered if that last blow to the head had left him blind and he spent a few seconds blinking hard while trying not to panic. Then he realized he could see some light, dim, bluish, something glistening; water shining on the walls. Of course, the Unas had left him in the slimiest corner of the chamber, that was the kind of…person it was. His face hurt. Actually his body hurt too. Breathing hurt. Come to think of it, most of him seemed to hurt.

Jack's dead…

God, that really hurt. Everything else was a hangnail compared with that. His eyes were adjusting to the light now and he could see that there was a low door by the wall to which he was chained. By the bluish evening light filtering through the gap between the frame and the door he realized it must be an outside wall. That was good, right? A door was a weakness and a door to the outside world was a double weakness. It didn't even look that strong. It was barred with iron bolts and hinges but the wood looked breakable. One blast from a staff weapon and that door was definitely history and even without a staff weapon, Teal'c could probably…

A jagged claw spiked through the gap between the door and the jamb and Daniel froze. The Unas sniffed at the gap in the door, inhaling his scent. Evidently, liking the smell of him, it began to tear at the door with redoubled force.

Daniel silently shuffled backwards on his seat but then was pulled up short by the cuff around his ankle. About fifteen feet of chain preventing him from escaping. He tugged hard and neither the ring in the wall nor the cuff around his anklebone shifted a fraction, he just scraped off a little more of his own skin.

"This isn't good," Daniel murmured.

He flinched as the wood splintered; those claws ripping through it with frightening efficiency. He guessed this was one of those occasions where a door to the outside world being a weakness wasn't such a good thing.

The Unas was trying to move quietly, clearly not wanting to share its prize when it got hold of it. Daniel could just imagine what a choice feast he must seem to a hungry Unas used to having to fight its way through toughened hide to get to any meat. He was a ready-roasted bar snack by comparison. Its claws shredded the wood like paper; sparks glowing like fireflies as its talons furrowed the steel hinges. It pressed its eye to a gap in the door and he saw it licking its lips in anticipation before tearing at the door with redoubled vigor.

He thought about yelling for help. It was almost impossible not to yell for help when there was a hungry Unas en route to dice and slice him while he was still alive, but the alternative wasn't much better. Apophis was on his way and there was no sign of Sam and Teal'c… As Daniel hesitated, the Unas gave a low snarl of triumph and tore its way through the last of the door. Its clawed hand around his throat stifled his yell for help before it reached the outside air. It was instinctive to kick out hard but his bare feet didn't have the same impact as his booted ones had done and although it staggered backwards a couple of paces its grip barely slackened. It slammed him up against the wall in retaliation and he gasped with the pain as the action opened up the cuts across his back. Its fingers were tightening around his throat, he was going to black out. That was good, Daniel thought, that meant he would at least be unconscious when it started to eat him.

As it made to drag him away from the broken doorway it was stopped by the chain. It yanked at him again angrily, its grip slipping from his windpipe. Daniel met its gaze and saw deep-set eyes full of hunger and malevolence, but there was a rudimentary intelligence there as well. "Break the damned chain," he said hoarsely.

It snarled at him but did reach across and seize the chain, yanking it straight out of the wall. It skittered across the floor like a silver snake, clanking triumphantly. The Unas lifted him up by the throat and shoved him against the wall, jaws opening as it lunged towards his jugular.

It was instinctive to bring up his right arm to fend it off. As its jaws sank into his forearm something hit it so hard it had to open its mouth to roar with pain, dropping him in the process. As Daniel crashed onto the dungeon floor he saw the Unas wheel around in fury and something shadowy hit it again. There was a hissing sound in his ears and the pain in his arm from where it had bitten him was making him feel so sick the whole cavern was spinning. He heard a disgusting noise; the sound of something sharp ripping into flesh and hot green liquid spattered him; a cry was cut off into a gurgle and more of the warm wetness splashed across his face. As he sank into unconsciousness, he heard Jack saying his name and realized it was true what they told you about heaven; you really did meet up with absent friends there.

***

"Daniel?" O'Neill hissed it urgently as he knelt over his unconscious teammate. He could hear the unhealthy sound of Daniel's lungs from here. Pneumonia probably. He raised the younger man's head, the light was too dim to see much but he was pretty sure those were bruises marking both cheekbones, his forehead and jaw and his cut mouth; and those dark streaks had to be the Unas blood smeared all over him. At least he could do something about that. He dug an antiseptic gauze out of his vest and wiped the blood off carefully, cupping Daniel's head in his left hand. He could do some proper doctoring later when he'd got them both to safety. "Daniel? Come on, wake up, now. We gotta go."

Daniel's eyelashes fluttered and he opened his eyes. "Jack?"

"The one and only. Can you walk? We've got to get out of this place before any more of Mister Scaly's friends decide they want you for a starter."

Daniel looked around in confusion. "Is this heaven?" He blinked in disbelief as he noticed the water running down the walls, wrinkling his nose at the pungent scent of Unas. "We got sent to hell? What did we do?"

O'Neill took Daniel by the shoulders and gave him a little shake. "We're in a damned dungeon in Lizard Castle, and the Snake God is probably on his way to come and pick you up. Now, we need to get out of here and I mean ten minutes ago."

"Oh." Daniel stumbled to his feet, grabbing at O'Neill's arm to hold himself up. When he felt the cloth under his fingertips he stared at it in disbelief, then reached out carefully with his right hand to touch the man's face. "You're warm? I thought ghosts were cold?"

"I'm not a ghost but I might not be able to say that for much longer if we don't get the hell out of here. Now – work with me, will you?" O'Neill looked at Daniel anxiously. His teammate really wasn't looking very with it at all, and he was so dazed he could well be concussed. Remembering that cute little habit Unas had of throwing their prisoners around for the exercise, O'Neill thought it would probably be more of a surprise if Daniel wasn't concussed. He looped Daniel's arm around his neck and put his other arm around his shoulders.

"Ow!" Daniel hissed with pain and O'Neill twisted his head round, gritting his teeth as he saw the diagonal scoring across Daniel's jacket.

"Sorry. Only way to get you out of here. Just hang in there, okay?" He began to half support, half-haul Daniel towards the broken doorway. Daniel was clearly trying to be cooperative but with the slight reservation of being so dazed he wasn't sure what was going on, and having it fixed in his head that one or both of them was dead.

He said conversationally, "You might not know you're dead. Ghosts don't, apparently. You were coming to rescue me so you might have just kept coming. That would be very like you."

"No talking." O'Neill hissed it in his ear as they ducked under the broken door and out into the night. It was cold and he felt Daniel shiver as the night air touched his skin. Daniel flinched as his feet touched the ground and O'Neill wished he were strong enough to pick him up and carry him. Teal'c, of course, could have just swung Daniel over his shoulder, but he really didn't think his knees could take it for more than the shortest distance. He tugged Daniel in the direction of the trees, the chain around Daniel's ankle snaking along behind them. They were sitting ducks out here in the open but if they could get to the trees they might be able to find somewhere to hide.

Daniel was still murmuring something into his ear. "But you shouldn't be able to touch me unless I'm dead too. Which would make sense because that Unas was just going to kill me, but I don’t seem to have any bits missing…" Daniel peered down at himself, flexing his fingers experimentally. He turned his head and looked at O'Neill curiously. "Did you see a bright light or anything? I didn't."

O'Neill hauled Daniel behind a tree and clasped a hand over his mouth. "No. Talking," he breathed.

He could see Daniel was just bursting to say 'But, Jack…' and gave him his best quelling glare. Daniel subsided with a sigh that warmed his palm. O'Neill peered around the tree, trying to see what the other Unas were doing. One of them was moving towards the edge of the fortress. It might pick up their trail, or it might start eating its relative while it was still warm. He decided not to take any chances. He tightened his grip around Daniel's waist, whispering, "Listen, I know you're tired and hurting right now, but we have to get to somewhere we can hide out for the night. Can you walk a bit further?"

Daniel nodded and O'Neill took his hand from his mouth and stroked some of his blood-spattered hair back from his bruised forehead. "You going to be okay?"

Daniel looked at him intently. "Well, none of this is really happening, is it? So it doesn't make any difference. I know you're dead."

O'Neill winced at the look in his eyes. "No, Daniel. I'm alive."

"You can't be. You went over the cliff. I'm just dreaming this, aren't I?"

The look on Daniel's face made O'Neill feel like someone was tearing out his insides. Oh Danny, don't look like that. O'Neill put his arms around Daniel, hugging him gingerly out of concern for his ribcage and scored back; then breathed it into his left ear. "I'm alive, Daniel, I swear, I grabbed a tree root and hung on until the lizard was gone. I've been right behind you all the way."

He barely caught him as Daniel's knees abruptly buckled, the shock of realization obviously hitting the man like a punch to the solar plexus. O'Neill managed to lower him to the ground before sinking down next to him. Daniel gasped into his neck, "I thought you were dead. I saw you die. I thought you were dead."

"I know." O'Neill hugged him tighter. "It sucks. I know. But I'm alive and you're alive and if it's all the same to you I'd really like to keep it that way." He rubbed his cheek against Daniel's so the other man could feel the warmth of his skin and the rasp of his stubble. "I'm alive, okay?"

Daniel slowly pulled out of his grip to get a better look at him and O'Neill saw a heartbreaking smile light up his face. "Okay." Daniel breathed in deeply and O'Neill was touched to realize the younger man was trying to inhale his scent. Daniel blinked in surprise. "You smell awful, Jack."

"So do you," O'Neill assured him as he got to his feet. "In fact you smell like an Unas just died on you." He hauled Daniel up and put his arm back around his waist. Daniel flinched when he touched him, but he schooled himself to ignore it. He suspected Daniel had some cracked ribs as well as those whip marks across his back but for the moment he was going to pretend ignorance of them and his bleeding feet because otherwise he wasn't going to be able to make himself spend the next hour dragging Daniel through this forest to get him to high ground. And if they hung around here they were going to get killed.

He spoke gently, "Just a bit further, Daniel, I swear, and then you can get some rest, okay?"

Daniel nodded. "Okay."

O'Neill just caught a glimpse of Daniel's smile. Daniel turned his head away to hide it but O'Neill knew there was the biggest silliest grin on the face of Dr Daniel Jackson right now. Daniel wasn't even feeling the pain in his lungs every time he breathed in, or the ache in his rubs, or the stinging across his back, or the burning of his bleeding feet; all Daniel was feeling was a big warm glow because Jack O'Neill wasn't dead.

O'Neill tightened his grip on him, wondering if Daniel had any idea how shit-scared he had been when that creature had taken him; what a relief it was to have found him alive and in one piece. Being Daniel probably not. As he helped Daniel to limp up a rough animal track between the trees, O'Neill suddenly realized Daniel wasn't the only one with a silly smile on his face.

***

O'Neill ducked down to look under that low outcrop of rock without much enthusiasm and then realized he'd hit paydirt. He had to practically lie flat to get underneath the overhang but once inside his flashlight revealed a cave, concealed from the outside world, the entrance screened by trees. Even better, the cave wasn't a dead end, there was a way through beyond. O'Neill strode across to an opening in the back of the cave and shone his flashlight through the man-sized gap to reveal a larger, dryer and warmer cavern beyond. As he switched it off, the relief washed through him that finally he had found them somewhere safe to hide out for the night.

He ducked back under the rock and looked around for his injured teammate. Daniel was sitting at the base of a tree, nursing one foot and trying to muffle a cough with his jacket.

O'Neill went over to him and held out a hand. "Apparently they have a vacancy. Do you want the ensuite or the room with a view?"

"Can I go to sleep?" Daniel reached up to grab O'Neill's hand and the older man hauled him up. Daniel clutched at his ribs, hissing with pain as his feet touched the ground.

O'Neill winced in sympathy. "As soon as I've checked you out."

Daniel looked at him sideways. "For what?"

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "For any damage you might have sustained in transit. I'm not convinced that Unas read the manual right on the proper care and transportation of archaeologists."

"Well, if he did, it was the same one Apophis’s serpent guards all have a copy of."

O'Neill ducked under the overhang, wincing as his knees sent a twanging protest to his nervous system but Daniel got down flat and crawled under. O'Neill helped him up the other side but there was a lot of resistance from Daniel as O'Neill tried to get him back on his feet and it was like trying to lift a sack of potatoes. Grunting with exertion, O'Neill looped Daniel's left arm around his neck, hauled him upright and then switched on his flashlight. He let the blue light lick over the entrance to the next chamber. "That's the Honeymoon Suite."

"Can I have the left side of the bed?" Daniel stifled a yawn which turned into a cough, both of them instinctively looking over their shoulders towards the gray twilight seeping in beneath the overhang as the rasping sound of those coughs hung in the air. Daniel winced apologetically. "Sorry."

"That's all right, just don't do it again." O'Neill helped him limp up into the next chamber, the chain trailing from Daniel's ankle clanking dismally across the rock floor like an accompanying dirge. The 'doorway' was low and O'Neill quickly put a hand to the back of Daniel's head, gently pushing it down before he brained himself on the rock.

He managed to find a corner that looked dry and reasonably comfortable and sat Daniel down in it. Then he propped the flashlight up on a rock so it shone on his patient and began getting out the medical equipment.

It was his first proper look at Daniel and it made the anger soar inside him like a firework rocketing towards the sky. Daniel's uniform was so shredded it looked like he had been dragged through a barbed wire fence and it was so filthy it was difficult to tell what its original color had been. Daniel's left cheekbone was marked by a cut and a vicious-looking bruise, as was his forehead. He also had bruises on his jaw and a cut across his mouth. It was obvious the Unas had been knocking him around without troubling to pull its punches.

Daniel wrinkled his nose at the bandages, lint and antiseptic O'Neill was pulling from his vest pockets. "Can't I just go to sleep?"

O'Neill gave him his sternest look. "We can do this the easy way or the Doc Fraiser way. Take your pick."

Daniel sighed resignedly. "If I can't go to sleep yet can I have some Tylenol?"

"You can have lots of Tylenol." O'Neill set up the cooking stove with the skill of long practice then tore open an MRE with his teeth. "But first I need to get some glucose and some liquid inside you."

Daniel looked at his preparations without enthusiasm. "Not that orange gloppy stuff?"

"The same. And you need to take off your jacket."

Daniel pulled a face but did begin to unzip it, although even that movement made him wince. O'Neill watched him covertly as he poured water into the orange crystals and stirred it with the handle of his knife. "Ribs?"

Daniel met his gaze. "Think they're just bruised."

"Does it hurt when you breathe in?"

Daniel grimaced apologetically. "Actually it hurts pretty much all the time."

"I'll strap them up for you, believe me that really helps. Okay, now drink this." O'Neill put the juice in Daniel's left hand and three Tylenol in his right, noticing as he did so how filthy and bruised Daniel's hands were; there were raw places around his wrist where the cuffs had been left on too long. The anger sparked again, but he only said, "Drink all of it and don't even think about arguing."

"I thought we weren't doing it Janet's way," Daniel muttered as he swallowed the Tylenol and then washed them down with the orange juice, pulling a face at the extreme sweetness of it as he did so. "God that stuff is disgusting. Why do they put so much damned sugar in it?"

"To give you energy and to keep you mean in the field. Now eat this."

Daniel took the rather squashed-looking cookie, examined it for a second and then chewed on it. His hunger evidently woke up with the first mouthful as he tore at it with his teeth, swallowing quickly as he clearly realized he was ravenous. O'Neill put a pan of water on to heat up, hoping they could find a stream to replenish the water bottle tomorrow. He would save the boiled water after they'd used it but a lot was going to evaporate as he warmed up an MRE. But his first look at Daniel had told him getting some hot food inside him was a priority. "Don't suppose the lizard gave you anything to eat or drink, did he?" he enquired conversationally as he dropped the foil packet into the water.

"As far as it was concerned I was something you ate not something you fed." Daniel swallowed the last of the cookie and licked the crumbs from his palm before trying to take off his jacket, hissing audibly as he tried to get out of it.

O'Neill leant across to help him, easing his arm out of the ripped sleeve gently. He peeled the jacket from Daniel's back, grimacing as it disturbed the half-scabbed wounds across his shoulders. He gritted his teeth as he looked at the whip marks, eight or nine of them, vivid slashes across Daniel's previously smooth skin. It took him a moment before he could trust his voice. "You and Mister Scaly really didn't hit it off, did you?"

Daniel looked over his shoulder at him, wincing as the movement disturbed the welts. "Hey, it wasn't me it threw off a cliff."

O'Neill couldn't find a quip from anywhere he was so enraged by the sight of those cuts across Daniel's back, not to mention the bruises all over his ribs, shoulders and spine where he had clearly been dragged around and slammed into hard surfaces at every opportunity. Gritting his teeth, O'Neill poured some of the hot water into a mug and dropped the MRE into the rest. As Daniel reached up to run a hand through his hair, O'Neill noticed the wound on his left arm for the first time. "Did the son-of-a-bitch bite you?" He took Daniel's arm and examined it carefully, grimacing at the depth of the teeth marks and the bruising spreading out from it. "Ouch. That had to hurt."

"Well, I think getting my throat ripped out would probably have hurt more." Daniel blinked at him. "Oh and – thanks for that, by the way – you know, the saving my life bit. I should probably have said that before but as I thought we were both dead it didn't seem appropriate."

O'Neill saw a shudder wash through Daniel despite his attempt at a smile and realized what it must have done to him to think he was dead. He'd been trying not to think about that, just like he'd been trying not to think about how out of his mind with worry he'd been since the Unas had abducted Daniel. Or about the probably bad command decision he'd made in going after him. Logically, he knew it hadn't been a good idea. He'd jeopardized the safety of the rest of his team by leaving them two men short and without a leader. Which wasn't to say he didn't have every faith in Carter because he did, but she wasn't a Colonel and she didn't have the same kind of experience in the field making command decisions that he did. So, going after Daniel by himself had probably been the wrong decision. But if he hadn't gone after Daniel, Daniel would have had his throat ripped out by that Unas and would now only be a pile of bones that lizard was in the process of stripping clean. Those shades of gray seemed to be spreading further with every mission. The truth was the four of them had got so damned hung up on each other that logically they should all have been reassigned to different units where they weren't so concerned about the safety of people who had long since stopped being teammates and started being family that they couldn't be trusted to do the right thing. But what was the right thing anyway?

He met Daniel's gaze and realized Daniel was way ahead of him here. Daniel had never had to wrestle with the military mindset so he'd always known O'Neill, Carter and Teal'c were his friends and that it would damned near kill him if something happened to them. The rest of them had been finding that out the hard way since their first mission. For the first time O'Neill thought about what kind of a time Daniel must have had while the rest of them were off saving the world. "That must have sucked."

Daniel blinked at him. "What?"

"Waiting for Carter and Teal'c and me to get back."

"Yes. It did."

O'Neill gave him an apologetic wince. "How about if we promise not to leave you behind again?"

"You already did promise me that." Daniel reminded him quietly. "Once after Nem's world and once after…" Daniel broke off and O'Neill knew he must have that look on his face again. The one that had made Daniel said they didn't ever need to talk about what had happened on Apophis’s ship. The one where O'Neill got a picture in his head of Daniel lying there with half his chest blown away, and then got another picture of Daniel dragging his bleeding body down the corridor in the kind of pain he didn't even want to think about; and then got another picture of Daniel blowing up in a fireball while they survived.

O'Neill rallied with an effort, reaching for the antiseptic and a bandage. "Well, no running off to play with any more Unas either, okay? I've told you about that before." He concentrated on dabbing antiseptic into the bite mark on Daniel's arm, focusing all his attention on getting every bit of dirt out of the wound, checking how deep the puncture marks went, trying to assess how much tendon damage there might be, and then ensuring he had the bandage just tight enough to support the weakened arm but not so tight it would make it start to swell. The displacement activity worked and he was relieved to see his fingers weren't showing even the slightest tremor by the time he'd finished.

Daniel sitting there quietly and letting him do it was the only indication that they both knew about the struggle going on inside him. As he tied off the bandage he said briskly, "Okay, time to do your back now. I bet that's a treat you've been looking forward to."

"Oh eagerly," Daniel groaned but did obediently turn away so O'Neill could see to his wounds.

O'Neill dipped a cloth into the water, added a splash of liquid antiseptic and began to gently clean the first welt. He was very aware of Daniel trying not to hiss too loudly as the antiseptic stung each open cut, but could feel him flinch as he cleaned each stripe. After four of them, O'Neill decided Daniel probably needed something to take his mind off things and snatched the MRE out of the hot water, dropping it into Daniel's lap. "Eat."

"Have you got one?"

The question made O'Neill blink in surprise. He realized he was hungry too. "Good point." He handed Daniel a plastic fork then dug another MRE out of his vest pocket and dropped it into the water. As he tipped some more antiseptic onto the cloth and began to clean out the next welt he thought it was just as well Daniel couldn't see his face. He didn't like anyone knowing how much it burned him up inside that someone had done this to one of his team, not even the person it had been done to.

"Hah!" Daniel sounded unusually triumphant for someone who was having antiseptic dabbed onto an open cut. "I knew you had all the beef stew rations."

"Privilege of rank." O'Neill dipped the cloth back in the now pink-stained water. "You can't make command decisions on macaroni and cheese." He reached up and pushed Daniel's head forward a little so he could get to highest welt. "Did it do this to you because you tried to escape?"

Daniel nodded; shoveling beef stew into his mouth rapidly as he did so. "Actually I think that was only half the reason. I think it was being kicked in the groin which really ticked it off. Not to mention me stabbing it with its own sword. Apparently Unas get a little testy when you do that to him."

O'Neill leaned around him to see his face. Daniel was swallowing beef stew but he wasn't smiling. "You kicked it in the…privates? Why? It wasn't – you know – putting the moves on you, was it?"

Daniel spat a mouthful of beef stew onto the floor and O'Neill was relieved to see him grinning. "Uh – no. It definitely saw me as food, not recreation. Wrong host for screwing me apparently."

Their eyes met. "It told you that?"

"Made a point of it."

"Nice guy." O'Neill realized he was squeezing the antibiotic cream so hard it was in danger of cracking and collected himself. "So, why did you kick him? Not that I'm suggesting that wasn't a wonderful escape plan, but given the fact it could outrun you even when you don't have a chain around your ankle I'm not sure it was the best idea you've ever had."

"Oh – this from the man who thought rolling down a hill was a good escape plan?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Well, mine would have worked too if it wasn't for the damned quicksand."

O'Neill looked at the mud on Daniel's jacket with dawning realization. There wasn't an inch of the cloth that wasn't smeared with the stuff. "You must have been pretty deep in that quicksand."

Daniel shoveled some more beef stew into his mouth, swallowing the hot food gratefully before answering. "Yes. I was. That's why I yelled for it to come and help me. Which it did. But it wasn't in the best of tempers."

O'Neill grimaced, bending his head to look at Daniel's left side. That was a lot of bruising. He fingered his ribs very gently and Daniel hissed in pain. "Damn, think you've cracked a couple there, Dannyboy. Let's see if I can't make you a bit more comfortable." He reached for the ointment and smoothed some carefully into each welt, hoping the cream would take off some of the sting of the antiseptic, then pulled out a bandage. "Lift up your arms."

"I'm eating," Daniel protested through a mouthful of stew.

"Well, eat faster."

Daniel shoveled in the last three spoonfuls rapidly before reluctantly complying. O'Neill reached round from behind him and put the end of the bandage in the center of Daniel's chest. "Put your finger on that."

"You said I had to lift up my arms." Daniel grumbled as he put his finger on the bandage, trying to keep his elbow up so O'Neill could reach underneath his arm. O'Neill wound the bandage around his torso, pulling it as tight as he dared to try to give his ribs some support.

After he'd used up two bandages binding up Daniel's ribs, he tied off the end and sat back to look at his handiwork. Although he said it himself he thought that was a pretty good piece of doctoring. Daniel's torso was completely swathed in bandages and his welted back was now clean and hopefully free of infection underneath them. "How does that feel?"

Daniel looked down at himself and frowned. "Like I'm half man half mummy."

"Oh, stop your whining." O'Neill moved around in front of him and reached for another cloth, emptying out the lukewarm bloodstained water from the mug and splashing some more hot water into it from around the MRE. He dipped the cloth into the water, added antiseptic and then put his left hand to Daniel's right cheek to stop him flinching away. "This is going to sting a little but you'll –"

"Ow!"

"…thank me for it later."

Daniel's reproachful look was at full beam but O'Neill only shrugged. "You get an infection in that cut it's going to scar. You want to keep your looks, don't you?"

"I want to go to sleep."

"In a minute." Despite Daniel's fidgeting and complaining, O'Neill gently cleaned all the grime from his face and dabbed antiseptic onto each cut and bruise. "Fraiser really earns her money with you, doesn't she?" he murmured as Daniel tried to pull his head away. "As a patient, you're a pain in the ass."

"Well, as a doctor, you…" Daniel looked down at his ribs. "Well, okay you're not that bad."

"Thank you." O'Neill looked at the shadows under Daniel's eyes and then at the dirty black wrappings half-unwound from Daniel's feet. "I really ought to take a look at your…"

"They're fine." Daniel didn't even attempt to sound like he wasn't lying. "Couldn't be better. Please let me go to sleep now?"

O'Neill tossed the cloth back into the water and snagged his own MRE out of the boiling water, quickly switching off the stove to conserve what was left. "Have you had enough to eat or do you want some of this one?"

"I want to go to sleep."

Daniel sounded so much like a five year-old that O'Neill couldn't repress his smile. "Okay. Need a bedtime story or do you think you'll be okay?"

"I think I can manage." Daniel eased himself back into his jacket. Seeing Jack's vest, he reached across and pulled it over to use as a pillow, curling up on his right side gingerly, coughing as soon as he lay down.

O'Neill winced. "I think you'd better have one of those shots."

Daniel groaned. "Jack you suck at giving injections. Teal'c does it much better than you do."

"Teal'c isn't here." O'Neill dug out the broad spectrum antibiotic. Janet had made these up for them especially; five doses with disposable needles. One a day, enough to keep someone alive for theoretically as far as they would ever be from the 'gate. He knelt down next to his patient. "Show me some skin."

Daniel reluctantly held out his left arm and O'Neill pushed up the sleeve, noticing the few specks of blood that had already seeped through the bandage he'd put on and bruises from where Daniel had been grabbed by the Unas marking every few inches of the soft flesh. "You look like a junkie with really bad aim. And don't tell me if this hurts, I don't want to know."

"Ow!"

"I said not to tell me." O'Neill depressed the plunger and then gingerly withdrew the needle, automatically putting the cap back on the end of it before tossing it into the corner. "That should help with the chest infection."

Daniel pulled down his sleeve and put his head back on the vest. "Please, tell me I can go to sleep now?"

O'Neill leant over him to look at his bruised face, very aware of the liquid sound of his lungs as he did so. He wanted to have a go at getting that ankle cuff undone or at least the chain broken off and he really wanted to do some work on Daniel's cut feet but one glance told him Daniel was utterly exhausted and the shadows under his eyes looked terrible. He felt the familiar tight rage at the Unas flare up and then die down again as he reached across to feel Daniel's forehead. It was a little hot but he hoped the penicillin would do something about that. He stroked Daniel's hair back from his forehead with his thumb and said softly, "You can go to sleep now."

When his only answer was the sound of Daniel's breathing, he realized Daniel hadn't waited for permission this time. O'Neill took off his own jacket and laid it over the sleeping man. "Night, Daniel."

He couldn't tell if Daniel was awake or dreaming when he murmured back drowsily, "Night, Jack."

We sound like the damned Waltons. O'Neill couldn't entirely repress a grin at the thought. He positioned himself with his back to the wall, MRE in hand as he dug a plastic fork into his own portion of beef stew. Only then did he allow himself to let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for a long time. He'd got Daniel back, alive and in one piece – this was good. The Unas had kicked the crap out of Daniel – this was bad. Daniel had what seemed to be three cracked ribs and an infection in his left lung, both of which were combining to make even breathing in and out and pretty painful exercise – this was also bad. Apophis was coming and they were a long way from the gate with a whole bunch of Unas between them and the only route they both knew home – this wasn't exactly good news either. And the Unas who'd captured Daniel was probably already tearing apart the planet looking for him – this could not be described as anything other than bad. Except –

O'Neill pulled out his sidearm, checked his clip and then jammed it back in again. Except that Jack O'Neill had an appointment with that Unas, and that Unas had an appointment with hell, and one or more likely several of these bullets had an appointment with some lizard vital organs. That was definitely good.

***

Daniel woke up and had no idea where he was. Images and memories all jostled for his attention; a kaleidoscope of strange dreams still turning unnerving circles in his mind. Captured by an Unas. Chaka? He was in a cave; he could sense the hollow feel to the air. No. Not Chaka. A different Unas, one with a Goa'uld inside it. It was throwing him at Jack; the cliff; Jack was falling. God. Jack!

"Jack…?"

"I'm right here." The flashlight beam was aimed carefully so as not to dazzle him.

Daniel's heart was still hammering in his chest and he put a shaky hand up to his face. "Thought you – "

"I know." Jack's tone was uncharacteristically gentle. "You okay?"

He looked over at the man, those long legs, the gray hair. Jack was so familiar there were days Daniel didn't even notice he was there; he was just like an extension of his own body; the only surprise was if he turned around and the man wasn't standing by his shoulder. Losing Jack had been like losing half of himself. He bit his lip. "I'm fine."

"Here." Jack leant across and handed him a cup, taking Daniel's other wrist and dropping three tablets into his hand at the same time. "We need to try and keep your temperature down. Get you back to the 'gate as soon as possible."

Still remembering Jack falling off the cliff it took Daniel a moment to collect himself. He quickly swallowed the aspirin and then downed the orange drink, wincing at the sweetness. "Do we have more water? Is there enough for you?"

"I fetched some more in the night."

Daniel saw the way Jack grimaced as he said it. "Did you run into an Unas?"

"No. But the way you kept screaming my name in your sleep might have taken some explaining if there had been any guys from SG-6 around."

Jack's face was so expressionless it took Daniel a moment to realize he'd just made a joke. "Ha ha," he retorted.

Jack shrugged. "Wasn't funny at the time, Daniel. I was a hundred yards away filling the water container. I thought every damned Unas on the planet was going to be eating you before I could get back here."

Daniel handed back the cup. "Sorry."

"Don't be. I just wish I'd got it on tape. SG-6 would have been damned impressed. Seven times in a night is pretty good going for someone my age."

"I kept dreaming about – "

"I know." Jack squeezed his shoulder gently. "And believe me I've made a note to self about not getting thrown off any more cliffs by big stinky monsters in front of you in the future."

"Thank you." Daniel sat up straighter. "I appreciate it."

Jack set up the stove as he was talking. "And if you could make a note about not getting yourself kidnapped by any more big stinky monsters, I'd appreciate that too. Once was just about acceptable but twice is definitely pushing it."

Daniel remembered being in the infirmary, totally dazed by exhaustion. Janet asking him questions which he couldn't work out how to answer because Robert was dead. Hawkins. Loder. Everyone. Jack had been forced to shoot – Taken by a Goa'uld. Daniel had spent hours convincing Jack and General Hammond Robert really would be an asset to the SGC, that he was actually a brilliant archaeologist, he just didn't have too many people skills. That he deserved to be told about the Stargate. That they could trust him. He'd thought he was doing him such a favor; the most fascinating job in the world, hell, in the whole galaxy; and a regular paycheck to boot. He'd tried to tell him about the danger but it probably hadn't seemed very real to him. And Robert hadn't really hit it off with the soldiers. Daniel hadn't been able to convince him they weren't the enemy; that they were just people. To Robert they'd been every school bully who'd ever picked on him.

"Daniel - ?"

He glanced up to see Jack's face; that look in his eyes, and winced. Hating himself for putting it there. "There was nothing else you could do." He said it breathlessly.

Jack grimaced. "Fraiser was asking you about headaches."

He tried to concentrate on her. She was looking at him so anxiously, so was Sam, so was Teal'c. He looked down at his wrists, at the raw places the rope had left. "Shouldn't you put me through an MRI?"

He saw that look Janet and Jack exchanged, the anxiety. She turned back to him very gently. "Daniel, we've already done that. Don't you remember?"

He shook his head. "Not really. Where are the – bodies?"

"We buried them on the planet, Daniel." That was Sam. "Except for Loder. SG-2 brought him back."

"What about Robert's parents? Has anyone told them yet?" He realized they would have to be lied to. They couldn't ever have their son's body back because it had an alien symbiote inside it, as well has being riddled by machine gun bullets. Bullets from Jack's P-90.

"Daniel look this way for me, will you?" He'd flinched from the penlight.

"Is he going to be okay?" That was Jack again; voice drained of everything.

Janet had turned away to talk to him. Daniel had heard the occasional word "…totally exhausted…suffering from shock…quite an ordeal…"

"He didn't ill treat me." He wasn't sure why he felt it necessary to tell them that but it seemed important.

Jack gritting his teeth. "So you keep saying."

Janet murmuring, "Colonel, apart from those abrasions to his wrists, a few blisters and bruises, and the cut on his face, Daniel does seem to be unharmed…"

"He came this close to being lunch, Doc." That was when Jack had switched on the tape. Daniel had felt in his pocket for it automatically even though he could see it there in Jack's hand. He hadn't noticed the man taking it from him.

"Ka! Ka!"

The fear and pain in his voice was unmistakable and he flinched from it, putting his hands up to his face. Sam put her arms around him, rubbing his back and looking across at Jack with something approaching accusation on his face. Daniel lifted his head in time to see that grim expression flicker across Jack's face as he ran the tape back and played it again. Jack said tautly. "It smeared his blood on the wall and it drew it out for him on the rock. He knew what was waiting for him in that cave."

Janet took the tape-recorder from Jack's hands. "I'll give him something for the shock, Colonel."

Looking up at Jack, Daniel had thought that perhaps the older man needed the injection Janet was preparing even more than he did.

"Daniel…?" He started as he found himself back in a cave with Jack waving a hand in front of his eyes.

"Sorry. What?"

"You okay?"

"Yes. Are you?" Daniel looked at him anxiously. Sam had told him she'd never seen Jack so buttoned down and tense as when they'd been looking for him. At least he'd had some company then, he'd been doing this alone. It was a pity he hadn't had Sam and Teal'c to –

Daniel's eyes widened. "Sam and Teal'c."

"I know." Jack reached across and handed him a granola bar.

"No, but Apophis is coming. There are Unas all over the – "

"I know ." Jack said it firmly. "Now eat your breakfast."

"Have you got your radio?"

"No." Jack didn't meet his gaze. "It went over the cliff."

"Then how can we warn them - ?"

"They should have picked up my trail by now. Teal'c will work out I've probably already got you out of there. They'll fall back and observe the structure from a safe distance."

Daniel had taken a bite of the granola bar and started chewing before realization hit him. "No, they won't. Teal'c will assume the Unas got you too and we're both prisoners in there."

"Even if he does, Teal'c's got a staff weapon and at least one SGC back-up unit, hopefully two, all heavily armed. All those Unas have are teeth and claws. You're the one who said they were sentient beings. That means they're smart enough not to try attacking men with guns."

"But Apophis is coming!"

Jack met his gaze. "Well, the mood I imagine Teal'c is in right now, Apophis had better pray he doesn't meet up with him, or the galaxy is going to be a snake less. Daniel, we're talking about trained soldiers who know what they're doing. You're wounded and weaponless. Right now getting you home alive is my first priority."

"But – !"

Jack leaned across and began to unwind the t-shirt from Daniel's feet. "Step into the real world for a minute, will you? Well, limp into it anyway. You can barely walk, you have three cracked ribs and having listened to the horrible noise your lungs were making all night I'm pretty sure you have pneumonia. No offense, but you are not much use to anyone at the moment. Teal'c's a smart guy. If he sees that dead Unas and the broken chain he'll do the math."

"Jack, we can't just…"

Jack sighed heavily. "I'm working on it, okay? Trust me."

Daniel darted him a quick look and decided that Jack had a plan but either wasn't sure it was a good one or thought Daniel was going to argue about it. As if, on both counts. Daniel took another bite on the granola bar. "So, what are your plans for the day?"

Jack finished unwinding the t-shirt from his feet and grimaced at the state of them. "Getting you back home in one piece is still top of my To Do list, so any assistance from you would be appreciated."

"What kind of assistance?"

"Well, not yelling the place down when I put antiseptic on these cuts would be start."

Twenty minutes later, O'Neill sat back and looked at his handiwork. "I never knew Teal'c had been teaching you so many new swear words, Daniel."

Daniel glowered at him. "You enjoyed that."

O'Neill pulled two pairs of socks out of his pack. "That's your imagination. And you try digging grit out of the bottom of someone's feet while he's wriggling, see how good you are it." He was actually feeling pretty pleased with the patch-up job he'd done on Daniel. It was a long time since he'd had to do any doctoring in the field, as that was usually Carter or Daniel's task. He'd thought he'd be a little rusty so he was impressed by the bandaging job he'd done on both Daniel's ribs and his feet. Daniel was slightly less impressed, admittedly, but then having bits of glassy rock dug out from the sensitive flesh of the soles of your feet by even the sterilized tip of a knife probably wasn't too enjoyable however well it was done. But he'd got every sliver of grit out and had bathed the wounds in hot water then sluiced them thoroughly with disinfectant. Daniel had called him a lot of what he was sure were very bad words while he'd been doing it, but he'd just taken that as a compliment to his thoroughness. And he'd managed to swathe both feet in bandages before reusing the ripped t-shirt to make some extra padding, which was going to make walking a whole lot easier for Daniel on the return trip than it had been coming out.

"I am never bitching about Janet again."

"Oh, stop complaining." O'Neill pulled the first pair of socks over Daniel's bandaged feet. He added the second pair, then got up and offered Daniel a hand. "Try walking around."

Daniel did so, tentatively at first and then stepped out with more confidence, the chain skittering after him as he did so. He gave O'Neill a look of surprised approval. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." O'Neill had spent a lot of time trying to bend one of the links of that chain during the night but it had proven as unbreakable as the ankle cuff was unpickable. He tested the weight of it now, looking at the heavy links with dislike. "I think you're going to have to live with this damned thing until we can get you back to base or Teal'c catches up with us and we can get him to blast it with his staff."

"Why can't we just wait for Teal'c? Then we could warn him and there would be safety in numbers."

"Because we don't know if he's coming." O'Neill saw by the look in Daniel's eyes that it had never occurred to the younger man even for a minute that Teal'c might not get there. Daniel was staring at him as open-mouthed as though he'd just said something blasphemous.

"Look, we both know he'll do everything humanly possible to catch up with you but it rained after I'd crossed that lava flow which means the tracks I followed wouldn't have been there by the time he reached it. Which means he might have gone the wrong way or he might have lost a lot of time trying to find your trail. He could be a long way behind us. He could have run into Apophis already. He could have run into some other Unas."

He could be dead. He wasn't going to think that. Teal'c and Carter were both fine and they were probably only a few hours behind them but there were no guarantees and Daniel's breathing had got worse even in the few minutes they'd been standing here. As Daniel still looked unconvinced, O'Neill grimaced. "Daniel, you have pneumonia. That isn't good. You're already going to have to spend one more night in the open. I really don't want to make it two. If we hang around here too long waiting for Teal'c you might not be well enough to make the journey back to the 'gate. Now, I don't like this any more than you do, but I just don't see any other way."

There was a pause before Daniel shrugged helplessly. "Okay. What do I do with this?"

O'Neill helped him to wind the chain around his leg and then hooked it through his belt loop. It was heavy, unbalancing and annoying, but letting it trail behind Daniel seemed like an even worse option. "Why the hell couldn't he have just used a rope like that other Unas?" he muttered as he tried to secure it.

"Chaka's tribe didn't seem to have discovered metal. They were at a Stone Age level of development, not Bronze or Iron Age. And anyway it isn't an Unas that took me prisoner this time, Jack, it’s a Goa'uld. It just happens to be using an Unas for a host."

"Yeah, whatever." O'Neill knew they were going to have this conversation at some point but if they could put it off for as long as possible that would suit him fine. He quickly refilled his pack, pulled it onto his shoulders and then picked up the object he'd been working on all night as he kept watch over Daniel. He knew his own energy levels must be getting low by now. He'd had two nights of fitful dozing and they had a long trek back to the gate. Daniel's feet were going to feel a lot better for the first few hours but then he was going to start hobbling again so they needed to make as good a time as possible while they could. But, anyway he did the math, by the time they got to the second half of their journey that Unas would probably be on their trail and they would be in worse shape for defending themselves. He was just hoping that by then Teal'c and Carter would be on their six and closing fast.

"What is that?"

Trust Daniel not to miss it. Resisting the urge to say, 'Never you mind', O'Neill held out a hand to steady him. "You okay? You ready to move on?"

"Yes. Fine. What is it?"

O'Neill ducked under the overhang and then waited for Daniel to scramble out after him. In the sunlight he knew Daniel would get it at once. He'd helped him make one of these on the Nox world after all.

"Oh."

He didn't know if this was the stupidest idea he'd ever had or not and Daniel's expression wasn't helping him much. O'Neill grimaced. "It's just an idea."

Daniel shrugged. "Well, an extra weapon is always good, right?" Although he was clearly trying to be positive he said it as though he didn’t really believe it and O'Neill couldn't blame him for that. In Daniel's experience chocolate, words, or simply an unmistakable willingness to communicate even with the most hostile captor had proven more useful than any weapons. O'Neill, however, had found weapons usually worked best for him.

He pulled a notebook out of his vest pocket, ignoring the way Daniel looked more surprised by the fact he had a notebook than the fact he'd spent the hours of darkness whittling a bow and a quiver of arrows. As he wrote the note quickly, he said with a shrug, "We might get lucky. You never know."

"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"

O'Neill glanced across at his incredulous teammate. "What, you don’t think it'll work?"

Daniel limped over to the edge of the rise on which the caves were concealed, trying to get a look at the castle. "It's a long way off."

O'Neill shrugged. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." He didn't add that he'd been out once this morning and had already found the only place where it might conceivably be possible and even then it was a long shot in every sense of the word. Nor did he mention the hours he'd spent debating as to whether or not he should wait for the Unas to come out of the castle and try to take it out before it could come after them, or just make a run for the 'gate. Except it wouldn't be a run, of course, it would be a long haul which was probably going to turn into a hobble in Daniel's case. His preference was definitely to stand and fight, and, if he'd only had himself to think about, he would have dug in, waited for Teal'c to turn up and then tried to take out both the Unas and Apophis, but he'd spent a lot of the night listening to Daniel's lungs bubbling and he wasn't sure how long his teammate had before the infection in his left lung spread into his right. Getting Daniel home as fast as possible felt like the only sane plan right now. He couldn't risk Daniel dying of pneumonia because O'Neill wanted revenge.

"Can I see?" Daniel took the note from O'Neill's fingers before he could stop him. He immediately looked at him in shock. "You can't send this."

"Oh, here we go."

"Jack, it isn’t the Unas who – "

"I know. He's just a host. It’s the Goa'uld inside him etcetera etcetera. Read my lips, Daniel: I don't care. I know the one who took you for that little hike across the Unas homeworld was a fun guy to meet, but generally they are just huge vicious monsters who eat people like you and me. And the Unas who has been slapping you around for the past couple of days is a huge vicious monster with a particularly sadistic Goa'uld in its head, so excuse me if I don't think it's a any great loss to the galaxy if Teal'c turns him into toast."

Daniel tore up the note and tossed the bits on the ground. "No."

O'Neill looked at the stubborn set to his jaw and then pointed to the pieces of paper. "Now that's just littering."

"Tell Teal'c I'm alive and well, that Apophis is coming, and he should get the hell out of there. Tell him not to kill the Unas that took me prisoner, or any other Unas. They're as much victims of the Goa'uld as we are."

"We don't eat them."

Daniel returned his gaze levelly. "Only because we're not as hungry as they are."

O'Neill looked at him for a long moment. "You know if anyone had told me four years ago that you just got more annoying with longer acquaintance I never would have believed it."

"Well, if anyone had told me that after all the times I have been so damned right and you have been so damned wrong that you still wouldn't ever listen to anything I have to say, I wouldn't have believed that."

They glared at each other and then O'Neill shrugged and scribbled another note before putting it in one of the plastic bags in which their MREs came and attaching it to the arrow before Daniel could look at it. "Okay, I've told Teal'c you don't want him killing any Unas. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic."

As O'Neill had feared, Daniel's feet were only pain free for the first mile or so then he started to limp again, and his lungs were sounding dreadful. Despite the chill air, Daniel was running with sweat and when O'Neill put a hand to his forehead his skin felt hot to the touch. "Okay, time for liquid refreshment and penicillin."

When Daniel just slumped down at the base of a tree without arguing, O'Neill grimaced. "Do you want to roll your – "

Daniel tugged up his sleeve without a word and held out his arm. O'Neill grimaced again. When Daniel wasn't bitching about him sticking a needle in his vein, he was definitely struggling. He mixed him up some more of the orange drink and gave him another three Tylenol to take with it, then quickly unwrapped the bandage from Daniel's arm to check out the bite mark. It looked painful and there was a lot of bruising spreading out from it, but no swelling and no raised veins. "That's looking fine." He turned the bandage over and used the clean side, retying it expertly before preparing another injection. As he depressed the needle he said conversationally, "How are the feet feeling?"

"Okay." The way Daniel avoided his eye when answering told O'Neill all he needed to know.

He withdrew the needle carefully, hearing the liquid sound of Daniel's lungs as he did so, when he raised his head their eyes met. Daniel gave him an apologetic wince. "Sorry."

"For what?"

"Getting grabbed in the first place."

Jack sat back, putting the cap back on the needle before tossing it into the bushes. "Yes, that was damned careless of you. What were you thinking?"

Daniel rolled his eyes at him. "I'm just saying that I realize this hasn't been a fun trip for you either."

"What? You don't think I'm enjoying this? I love chasing over alien worlds for kidnapped teammates. It's one of my favorite hobbies. Right up there with the Superbowl. Did Scaly Joe happen to mention what Apophis wanted with you?"

Daniel shrugged. "I'm presuming the usual, you know – the codes to Earth, glyphs for the world where you got the knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into your brain, the destination of the Tok'ra. All that kind of thing."

"Not the child?"

Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know where Sha're's son is any more than Apophis does."

"We know that but Apophis might not, and he might just keep right on asking you even if you don't know."

Daniel wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Jack, if Apophis should ever get hold of Teal'c, he is going to – "

"I know." O'Neill definitely didn’t want to hear anyone using the 'T' word in relation to one of his teammates. "But it's not going to happen."

"He might not treat you or me very well but with Teal'c he'd – "

"I know." O'Neill interrupted him firmly. "Can you walk?"

Daniel looked so weary at the thought of getting to his feet that O'Neill did wonder briefly if they could do this. The Stargate felt a long way off to him so he could imagine how distant it seemed to Daniel. O'Neill straightened up and held out a hand. "Okay?" He hated having to push but there was nothing else for it, Daniel was going to have to walk on feet that hurt and breathe using lungs that were full of infection, that was just the way it was. What was it his grandmother had always said? What can’t be cured must be endured. Daniel sighed resignedly, reached up to take the proffered hand and Jack hauled him to his feet briskly.

Daniel winced at the scene. The other Unas had dragged the corpse of their fellow out to the front of the castle and were fighting each other off it. He was sure Chaka's tribe weren't cannibals; these were clearly a sub-species whose behavior had degenerated over time until they were almost a different race. He doubted any of these Unas could be reasoned with.

He and Jack were standing on a high clearing, which gave them a clear view of the castle across the tops of the trees. Looking across at that castle, Daniel darted a quick glance at Jack and wondered if he was serious. It was miles away. A guy would have to be Robin Hood to hit the front door at this distance. However, Jack, was stringing the bow, and apparently getting his eye in for letting that arrow fly so presumably he was serious. Daniel moistened his lips. "Won't the other Unas just pull the arrow of out of the door?"

"Good point." Jack tossed the arrow with the note attached onto the ground, set another one to the string, pulled it back and let fly.

Daniel watched in disbelief as the arrow flew straight for the pack of Unas still feeding off the corpse of the one Jack had killed. It hit one of them in the arm, causing it to howl in pain and leap back from the corpse. Jack sent another arrow flying into the pack which this time only hit the corpse. The injured Unas tore the arrow from its arm with another yell of furious disbelief, looking around savagely for its attacker. The other Unas were already eyeing it up hungrily, clearly wondering if it was badly wounded enough to be able to defend itself.

"Jack, you can't – "

"Watch me."

Daniel saw two more arrows fly into the pack, hitting them indiscriminately. "Jack!"

"Teal'c and Carter's lives are on the line here, Daniel. Not to mention yours and mine." Jack strung the bow again and this time the arrow sailed straight and true for the front door, the tip burying itself in the hard wood, the white note waving as the arrow reverberated from the impact.

The Unas were too preoccupied with the arrows that had struck them or their fellows to notice the one that had just hissed over their heads. With snarls of fear or anger they were seeking shelter in the ditches around the muddy settlement.

As Daniel opened his mouth to protest, Jack held up a warning finger. "Don't start with me, Daniel. Those Unas are nasty, vicious slavering monsters who would have eaten you alive. And they still might eat you alive if we can't get you home, so don't start yapping at me, just be quiet and start limping towards the Stargate."

"Well, when you put it so nicely, how can I possibly refuse?" Daniel muttered.

***

Carter looked around the jungle with dislike. The trail seemed never-ending and for the most part had been going the wrong way. It also kept veering from one direction to the next, and without Teal'c to guide them they would never have been able to follow it. She presumed the Unas was following some prey which was probably following a scent of its own or trying to throw off its pursuer, but either way she wished it would take a break and let them catch up with it.

They did at least now seem to be moving back towards the direction Daniel and the Colonel had been headed in when they'd last seen their trail, but, of course, there was nothing to say their missing teammates were not now heading in a completely different direction…. And in the meantime she was getting seriously concerned by how long it was since she had heard from Frobisher and his team.

Nor did Gregson seem to be entirely convinced that she knew what she was doing. He had mentioned more than once that they could be chasing this Unas all over the planet for days without getting close to it and in the meantime what about Apophis and Doctor Jackson? He really did seem to be motivated only by concern for Colonel O'Neill and Daniel, for which she didn't blame him, but she could have done without him chipping away at her confidence when she was already becoming more and more convinced that she had made the wrong decision, was heading in the wrong direction, and that Daniel and the Colonel might end up paying with their lives for her poor judgment.

"Major Carter…?"

She snatched at her radio eagerly. "Yes, Frobisher. Reading you loud and clear." Where the hell have you been? "What is your position?"

"We found a structure. Very similar to the one you described in Colonel O'Neill's mission report on Ernest Littlefield's planet. We entered the structure and…"

Carter listened to the report in silence. There were a few facts that leapt out at her, such as the fact that Frobisher seemed to have decided to maintain radio silence even though he could have called her earlier. That he had led his team into the building without contacting her for her order first. That he was trying, in subtle ways, to show that as far as he was concerned this was an operation they were both running, rather than one under her command.

"Why didn't you contact me before entering the structure, Captain?"

There was a pause before he said. "I tried to do so, Major, but I couldn't get a signal. I think the building may have been blocking it."

Or you wanted to give the impression to your men, and perhaps to yourself, that every decision was yours to make?

"Was there any sign of Daniel and Colonel O'Neill?"

"Yes."

He made her wait an extra beat, while she felt the tension mount. Alive or dead, damnit? Alive or dead?

"We found a cell in which Doctor Jackson appeared to have been imprisoned.  We found some pieces of cloth which appeared to come from his jacket. The outside door had been forced by what seemed to be an Unas. There was a considerable amount of Unas blood on the floor and some human blood on the wall…"

She felt so cold she wondered if she was ever going to be warm again. Only Teal'c's hand on her shoulder made her realize how rigid she'd gone. She found her voice with difficulty. "What about Colonel O'Neill?"

"Well, there was a club there. It appeared to have been used to kill an Unas. It seems unlikely it would have been used by Doctor Jackson…"

Was that contempt in his voice? She could feel the anger building. Daniel took out three serpent guards single-handed, took a blast from a staff weapon, wouldn't let the Colonel take him with us in case he prevented us completing our mission, dragged himself to a sarcophagus, then had the brains to remember the symbols for the beta site from a different universe, and dial it up with ten seconds to spare before the ship he was on exploded all around him. Then he 'gated home and got Hammond to send out a rescue shuttle for us, without which we would all be dead now. Ever done that, Frobisher? No, I didn't freakin' think so!

She was astonished by how steady her voice sounded. "More to the point, Captain, it seems unlikely that the Unas would have left a club around where Daniel could reach it, given that Daniel was his prisoner and is perfectly capable of wrapping a blunt instrument around someone's head." As am I if I have to take much more of your crap, Frobisher. And I clearly have been spending waaaay too much time with Colonel O'Neill… "So it does seem more likely that the Colonel got there in time."

At the sound of gunfire, she jerked her head away from the radio. "What was that?"

"Just finishing off the last of the Unas, Major. There were a few still skulking around. We need to be able to search this building without interference."

Oh, you are such perfect material for a first contact team. "Negative on that, Captain." She ground the words out without trying to sound as if she was talking through gritted teeth. "Don't attack them unless they attack you."

There was a burst of more gunfire in the background, which although she knew it was nothing of the kind, sounded like a direct act of defiance. "Are you reading me, Frobisher?"

"Yes, Major, but I have to say I think we should…" "Captain…!"

She heard the shout down the radio.

Frobisher spoke rapidly. "Just a minute, Major."

She closed her eyes, praying that it wasn't Daniel or the Colonel's body they'd found, that they weren't dead, please don't let them be dead.

Frobisher sounded breathless. "We've found something. Phelan just noticed it in the door. It's an arrow, Major. It's got a note attached from Colonel O'Neill."

"What?" She had a sudden image of Colonel O'Neill as Errol Flynn, dressed in Lincoln green and with a dead deer slung over his back. She gave her head a shake. "Are you sure?"

"He says he and Doctor Jackson are heading back for the Stargate. That Apophis is coming and we should get the hell out of his way. That we should kill any Unas who get in our way."

There was a note of not very well concealed triumph in that last statement. Carter thought that probably spoke more about the condition Daniel had been in when the Colonel found him than what was now his considered policy on treating sentient species. She exchanged a look with Teal'c, putting her hand over the radio. "Sounds as if the Colonel was pissed."

"Daniel Jackson was probably ill-treated by the Unas." Teal'c nodded.

She flicked the switch back on. "Does he mention how Daniel was?"

"He said he was alive, Major, and if they're heading back for the Stargate I presume he was able to walk."

I don't want presumptions, Frobisher, I want to get the information from you about exactly what Colonel O'Neill said without it being like pulling teeth. "Thank you, Captain. I can make my own presumptions. What were the exact contents of Colonel O'Neill's note?"

There was a pause before Frobisher said, "Just what I told you, Major. They're both alive and heading back towards the Stargate. Apophis is on his way. That we should not engage with him or his Jaffa unless unavoidable. That we should do what we have to do to get back to the Stargate alive ourselves."

She felt her irritation rise. She hadn't had to deal with this sort of attitude since her first mission, where the Colonel and Kawalsky had both treated her as if she was fresh out of the academy. Withholding information and failing to check with her before proceeding might be the kind of actions that gave Frobisher the illusion of power, but they were also the kind of action that got people killed. She was definitely going to have a word with Frobisher once they were back in the SGC, presuming the guy didn't get himself and his team killed getting back to the SGC.

She met Teal'c's gaze and could read in those dark eyes that Teal'c also thought Frobisher was overdue for a staff weapon blast where it hurt. "Understood, Captain," she said crisply. "I suggest you head for the Stargate and see if you can pick up Colonel O'Neill and Daniel's trail. We'll hope to meet you there. If you see Apophis, do not engage. Repeat. Do not engage." Even as she said it she didn't trust him not to try to do something dumb which he thought would be impressive.

"Major?" She turned to find Gregson at her elbow. The man was looking at her in baffled confusion. "You're going to let SG-4 go back to the Stargate alone?"

"We're going to rendezvous with them at the Stargate just as soon as we've recovered the hand device the Unas stole from us." Carter said it levelly, refusing to get draw into a debate by turning to Teal'c, who was examining the ground carefully. "Can you see the trail?"

"Indeed, Major Carter." He straightened back up, staff weapon in hand. "And we are now very close behind."

Her heart lifted for the first time in hours but she tried to keep the relief from her face. "Thanks, Teal'c." She gestured ahead. "Fall out, everyone. Gregson you've got our six." As she followed Teal'c along the thin trail she wondered how her voice could sound so confident when her heart was so full of doubt….

***

O'Neill glared at the primordial tangle of dripping greenery they'd both struggled through forty-eight hours before. Well, peachy. After a day's nightmare trek, Daniel stumbling along wincing every time the coughs he couldn't suppress tortured his cracked ribs, and O'Neill like a cat on hot bricks waiting for a hungry Unas to jump out on them from behind every bush, they were back in the jungle again. A place he'd hated with a passion the first time he'd had to struggle through it.

He had so had better days. Walking away from teammates who were walking towards trouble never sat right with him. Nor did bullying an injured teammate along on bandaged feet when he had cracked ribs and pneumonia exactly fill him with joy either.

It was a weird thing about Daniel and injuries; that boy could whine like a five year old over a stubbed toe, but picked himself up from being ribbon-deviced like it happened every day. Well, it probably did feel like it happened every day to Daniel sometimes, it certainly happened often enough. But as long as Daniel was complaining, O'Neill knew he was probably okay. The trouble was, Daniel hadn't complained once all day. Which meant Daniel wasn't okay, and there had been nothing he could do about it except drag him along even faster to get him home sooner.

He darted a glance at him then winced at what he saw. Daniel had his head down and was limping doggedly. He was conscious but not fully aware. He was probably doing something Jaffa-fied that Teal'c had taught him so he could rise above the pain. Because one look at the white set look to his face told O'Neill that there was definitely a lot of pain to rise above. Every step was clearing sending an ache stabbing up through the soles of those bleeding feet, reverberating through those cracked ribs and then daggering into his shoulder as the pleurisy bit deeper.

He wondered if Daniel had any idea how much it had hurt to keep telling him to pick up the pace a little, Dannyboy, 'cause we have to cover ten clicks by nightfall. To not call for rest breaks, because if Daniel stopped, O'Neill very much doubted he was going to be able to get him moving again. To play the hardass colonel when all he wanted to be right now was a supportive friend. Probably not. Daniel knew a lot of things about him, but he very much doubted Daniel knew how fond he was of him. The only good thing you could say about all the times when Daniel had scared the shit out of him getting injured or lost or stolen, was that Daniel never tended to be around and conscious at the time when O'Neill was making an idiot of himself freaking out about it. Except on Klorel's ship, of course. Although even then, he wasn't sure. Daniel had been in so much pain; desperately trying to be brave when the shock of his wound and the realization that he was dying had probably been dominating his thoughts. Had he even registered that leaving him there had ripped O'Neill's heart straight out of his chest?

Daniel stumbled and O'Neill automatically shot out a hand to grab his elbow. "Okay?" He tried to keep his voice light and encouraging but he could hear the ache of anxiety in it.

Daniel didn't look at him, the effort of raising his head obviously too much. He just nodded. "Fine."

O'Neill grimaced. One thing he could pretty much guarantee was that if Daniel was telling him he was fine, he was anything but. Still, if he was honest, he'd never expected him to get this far today without O'Neill having to bodily carry him. Daniel's stubbornness might have driven O'Neill to near screaming point in the past, but it could also work for them. One thing about Daniel was that he almost never gave up.

Which was damned lucky for both of them because his fear had been that Daniel might just give up and lie down, like the time he'd collapsed back on Abydos, when the combination of having been killed, revived, seen people die, then their dramatic escape from Ra's guards into a sandstorm had caught up with him all at once. O'Neill remembered calling his name and crouching down next to him only to discover that not only was Daniel out for the count but that O'Neill didn't have the strength to carry him. He'd curled up next to that defenseless figure, trying to shield him with his body from the worst of the sandstorm, wondering why it mattered so much that 'Jackson' shouldn't die when death was something O'Neill still welcomed for himself. He remembered that mixture of child and adult Daniel had been then; someone who knew so damned much about some things he made O'Neill feel eight years old, and yet so damned little about others, that it had taken his breath away.

He supposed that still hadn't changed. There were still all these yawning inequalities between them: age, strength, knowledge…knowledge. His commonsense against Daniel's intellect. Hard to know which was the most useful sometimes. Daniel's curiosity had outweighed his sense of self-preservation by a generous margin back in those days. Come to think of it, it probably still did. When he remembered that 'Jackson' with his mop of dark gold hair and weird mixture of total confidence, trust, and innocence, in that rent-a-dweeb wrapping, he felt the old emotions stir again: irritation and affection warring with one another in equal parts. Sometimes he missed that guy he'd barely known at all, whom he'd left behind on Abydos and thought about over and over again, wondering if he'd done the right thing to leave him there. Still not sure, until he'd seen Daniel so happy with Sha're, if he'd abandoned him or covered for him back there. He wondered if Daniel ever missed the O'Neill he'd first met. Probably not, come to think of it. That guy had been a jerk of the first order. But at least that O'Neill had never done him any harm.

"Hey." He forced a smile, trying to sound reassuring as he tightened his grip on Daniel's elbow to steady him. "How are you doing?"

"Fine."

Shit, two 'fine's in two minutes, that wasn't good.

"Well, I think we need to rest for the night."

"No, we should keep going." Daniel trudged on doggedly. "We need to make better time."

O'Neill winced again. Okay, Daniel was at that too tired to even be aware of his surroundings point, but that just meant he needed to be aware for both of them. Night was coming in fast now so they were going to have to find somewhere to shelter, either by climbing a tree or sheltering in the undergrowth. But at least his sense of direction hadn't let him down. The stars were growing brighter in a bruised indigo sky as the sunlight faded, showing him the right patterns to suggest they had traveled twenty odd miles that day and were heading what he thought of as 'southeast' towards the Stargate. It was lucky Daniel hadn't been doing this by himself, of course, as Daniel had trouble with compass points even on planets that had a magnetic north. He could tell you the history of the compass – whether you wanted him to or not – and knew all about Chinese magicians, lodestones, and something very tedious to do with jade miners, but he couldn't work out where north, south, east, or west were unless you told him.

It wasn't that O'Neill hadn't tried. He'd got Daniel up extra early and driven him up to Cheyenne mountain so he could watch the sunrise and fix in his mind which direction was east. Then on their next journey there he'd confidently asked him where north was, only to have Daniel give him one of those 'duh' looks that gave him the appearance of a mentally retarded ten year old. "What?"

"North. Where's north?"

Daniel looked at him in bewilderment. "Don't you know?"

"I'm asking you." He could feel himself going into parent-from-hell mode with Daniel sometimes and had to rein back. "What's that rhyme your girlfriend from college taught you? The one to remind you about the compass points?"

Daniel blinked at him in confusion. " 'Never Eat Shredded Wheat'?"

"Right." O'Neill took a deep breath, ignoring the airmen on guard who were patiently waiting for them to head for the main gate. "So, if the sun rises in the east, and the east is…?"

It had taken about ten minutes as he recalled for Daniel to dig out of the dim dark recesses of his consciousness where he had been standing when the sun had come up, which direction it had come up in, where that meant the other directions were in relation to east, and, finally, where north was. By that point, O'Neill had been clinging to his will to live only by a fingertip. He'd intended to follow that lesson up with little reminders where they went into town but the time when he'd tried it over pizza had been too horrendous to consider repeating.

"Daniel?"

"What?"

"Where's north?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Daniel!"

"There is no need to yell, O'Neill."

"I'm not yelling. I'm just speaking very…clearly."

"Sir, I thought we were off-duty."

"He can do this, Carter. Daniel…?"

"I don't know."

"Well, where's Cheyenne Mountain from here?"

"I don't know."

"We just drove from there!"

"Okay, um…that way."

"No."

"That way?"

"No."

"That way…?"

"Oh, for crying out loud, Daniel, just eat your freakin' pizza!"

What was extra ironic was that the one thing other people just assumed Daniel would know about was where north was and what the constellations looked like. After all, they would reason, the guy was an archaeologist. He'd spent all those years on archaeological digs contemplating the cosmos; sitting around campfires staring up at the stars; getting in touch with nature. Right? To which O'Neill could only answer: Wrong! Daniel knew how to burn camel dung to make campfires, and eat anything a local offered him without hurling. The boy was also a natural at putting up tents and digging up dead stuff. But the only reason he knew where north was in Egypt was because apparently all the pyramids pointed North, or had a clear line of sight that way, or something weird. Actually taking a bearing from the stars or the sun so he could work out where he was in relation to them, didn't seem to have ever occurred to Daniel as a possibility. O'Neill guessed that when you were Daniel and you could talk to anyone and assumed that anyone would be quite happy to talk to you, you didn't bother learning things like that, you just learned how to ask "Where is here?" and "How do I get to there?" in three hundred different languages instead.

He darted another look at his companion. Daniel still had his head down, eyes half closed, and was trudging along the way he did when he was exhausted, dogged but not entirely with it.

O'Neill tried to keep his voice matter of fact, the concern hidden. "Daniel, we need to stop for the night."

Daniel looked up in surprise. "What?" He stared around at the fading light in obvious confusion. "When did it get so dark?"

O'Neill grimaced. "Guess time really does fly when you're having fun."

"We should keep going."

As Daniel made to keep trudging onwards, O'Neill reached out and caught his arm. "No."

"Sam and Teal'c…"

"We're not rescuing them, remember? They're rescuing us." O'Neill barely restrained an urge to wave his hand in front of Daniel's eyes. "We need to rest now." You need to rest now. He tightened his grip on Daniel's arm. "Daniel?"

Daniel gave him one of those raised eyebrows, slightly impatient looks. "What?"

"We're stopping for the night."

"Why?"

"Because I say so."

Daniel shrugged. "Okay. Where?"

O'Neill looked up at the nearest tree then looked back at Daniel. It was debatable whether or not he could get Daniel up there in his present exhausted and befuddled state anyway, but even if he could he very much doubted he could keep him up there without tying him to the tree, and rope wasn't something he had with him. He turned instead to a mass of sprouting vegetation with huge palmate leaves. When he bent his head to look under it, there was a clear space in the center of the bush with dry ground to lie upon. "In here."

Daniel peered at the bush without enthusiasm. "Is that safe?"

"Yes." O'Neill lied without a flicker of hesitation. Nowhere was safe but this was no less safe than anywhere else, and if Daniel didn't sleep he was never going to make it back to the Stargate tomorrow. He raised the lower branches. "In you go."

Daniel darted him one of those sideways looks which suggested he thought O'Neill was probably wrong about something, but then did obligingly get down on his hands and knees and crawl in there.

O'Neill nodded. "That boy really needs to get pneumonia more often. He is so much easier to manage." Taking a last look around to see if there were any predators within view, he ducked down and slid in next to Daniel. O'Neill took the bow and arrows from his shoulder and put them on the ground.

It was snug inside their leafy teepee, the leaves they were sitting on were dry and after O'Neill had reached up and snapped off a few inconvenient whippy lower branches, they had plenty of headroom while being completely enclosed by protective greenery. Daniel's coughs were something of a give away though. As the paroxysms tore into him and echoed through the undergrowth, Daniel wrapped an arm around his ribs and winced. "Sorry."

"Time for another lovely shot." O'Neill realized he needn't have bothered trying to make it sound like a treat as Daniel just wearily proffered his arm. He had to switch the flashlight on as there were some things he wasn't prepared to do by touch alone, and jabbing a needle into someone's flesh was one of them. He handed Daniel the flashlight and told him to shine it on his arm; the blue white circle of light wavering noticeably as Daniel did so. Daniel winced as the needle went in and O'Neill grimaced, rubbing his thumb over the place afterwards as though he could wipe the pain away as well. As he took the flashlight back from Daniel, he stole a look at his face. Daniel looked…rough. Unshaven, horrendous shadows under his eyes and he already seemed to have lost a lot of weight. Christ, how did Daniel do that, manage to look about twelve years old despite the stubble on his jaw? He reminded himself quickly that Daniel always did that when he was ill: went downhill faster than a kid with the croup, but he bounced back just as fast. It was amazing how different Daniel always looked after a shower, a shave, a hot meal, and a good night's sleep.

"Jack…" Daniel winced from the light and held up a hand to ward it off.

O'Neill lowered it quickly. "Sorry." He checked Daniel's dressings quickly. Concentrating on his feet as they were taking the brunt of the ill treatment, unwrapping the t-shirt, then the bandages, cleaning the wounds out again and using liberal doses of the remaining antibiotic cream to try to take the sting out of any infection. Checking his arm showed no raised veins, and his back didn't seem infected either, but his chest sounded as if it was full of liquid, and his cough was harsh and rasping.

"You're doing fine." He punctuated the lie with what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but Daniel just gave him a look of weary disbelief. Clearly not having the energy to ask why O'Neill was wasting both their time with obvious untruths but certainly as aware of O'Neill was of how far from 'fine' he was doing.

O'Neill grimaced. "Well, okay, your lungs sound like crap, but your wounds aren't infected."

Daniel closed his eyes and leant his head against the trunk of the bush under which they were sheltering. "Good."

Seeing how ill his teammate looked, O'Neill gritted his teeth. This was one of those occasions when it didn’t do any good to know that Daniel was too ill to go on because he was going to have to go on whether he was capable of it or not. O'Neill reminded himself that rest could make a lot of difference and that he'd seen soldiers much sicker than this manage to keep going. Daniel might not be a soldier but he was unbelievably stubborn and had come through worse in his time. He needed to focus on that and not the shadows under his friend's eyes.

When he switched off the light, O'Neill closed his eyes to speed up the adjustment to darkness, the imprint of the beam dancing on the inside of his eyelids. He knew he ought to give Daniel an allotted task. It was what you did with the wounded; you had to keep them busy; keep them occupied; make sure they didn’t dwell on the pain they were in, or how badly they were injured, as well as marshalling your forces. So what he ought to do was tell Daniel to take the first watch, then curl up next to him and get four hours of the sleep he so desperately needed. And maybe if it had been Carter or Teal'c he would have done, just as they would have done it to him – had done it to him in Carter's case when she'd taken care of him straight out of the manual in Antarctica by letting him think he was being useful boiling water and chipping at ice. But with Daniel he just couldn't. Not when he wasn't whining.

"You should get some sleep."

O'Neill looked at Daniel's just visible profile in shock. "What?"

"You must be tired. I'm not. You should sleep."

"Daniel, you're exhausted."

"I can't sleep." There was a warning note in Daniel's voice; more than warning, panic just behind it.

O'Neill moistened his lips. "Bad dreams aren't going to kill you. Being too tired to reach the Stargate before that Unas catches up with us, just might."

"I can't. Not yet."

The pleading note got to him and he winced again. Damnit, Daniel, when did you learn to do that to me?

"Jack, please, I'll wake you in four hours."

He reached out and touched his face. Daniel started a little from the contact but then waited without flinching away as O'Neill laid a hand across Daniel's forehead. O'Neill felt the heat almost burn his skin and gritted his teeth. "Do you feel hot or cold?"

"Both."

O'Neill undid his jacket and moved in closer. He felt Daniel start again as he put his arm around him, and the movement stabbed at him. Daniel had been so physically comfortable with him once. Daniel, the boy who was so bad at touching, was always okay about being touched by him, but now he was flinching away from him. It felt like a rejection. Worse, it felt like a rebuke. Had he neglected their friendship so much in recent months that Daniel was surprised by contact now? "We need to keep warm." He said it gently.

"Hurts." The word was gasped out and he felt muscles tense away from him.

"Okay, I'll come round the other side." He did so, determined that they were going to get through this night warm and touching, not shivering and separate. Now sitting on Daniel's right side, he put his left arm around him and pulled him in against his body. Again, there was a wince, a rigidity of resistance which hurt like hell.

"Danny…"

"It hurts." It was a protest and an apology wrapped up in one. He saw Daniel dart him a quick sideways look, pleading with him not to get angry.

"I know." O'Neill tightened his grip, then reached up to ruffle that short hair, before gently easing Daniel's head in under his chin. "I know it does." He had to remind himself about the whip cuts across Daniel's back, the cracked ribs on his left side, but they still didn't feel like the reason Daniel was flinching away from him. That seemed more to do with all those times he hadn't met his gaze, touched his arm, or said 'Don't go off with that other team, stay here with us.' And why? Because…?

Because you nearly fuckin' died on me one too many times, Daniel!

Oh he'd cut off so well too, hadn't he? When that Unas had taken Daniel the first time, he'd been so okay about the prospect of losing him. Just as pushing the button on him when he'd been on that ship of Lotan's hadn't hurt at all. Yeah right. Inside there was still so much anger about the ways Daniel kept scaring him. How could he be so inconsiderate? So thoughtless? Alone of anyone in the SGC, Daniel knew what it had done to him to lose Charlie. How nearly it had killed him. But he still went out there tap-dancing over piranha pools and bear pits as if he had no family who would care if he died. As if O'Neill wouldn't be utterly destroyed by the loss of him.

Daniel was still rigid, still resisting him. Resisting the comfort he offered as well. O'Neill could feel his determination not to give way to it; the warmth and security he was offering. Why, damnit? He'd always accepted it before.

Because he doesn't trust you not to take it away again.

Oh yeah. He knew how you could get used to being cold when you were cold all the time, but how unbearable it was to go from a heated room to the bleak midwinter without any warning.

Like when a kid's parents were killed and in the blink of an eye he went from loved and wanted to orphaned and surplus to everyone's requirements. But it wasn't all one way. Perhaps he'd withdrawn from Daniel but he'd done it in self defense after Daniel had withdrawn from him.

He dug a granola bar out of his pocket and tore off the waterproofing, taking a bite then offering it to Daniel.

"Not hungry."

"You have to keep your strength up."

He felt a sigh warm his fingers and then Daniel wearily bit a chunk off the end of the bar, chewing without enthusiasm. O'Neill patted his arm in encouragement and this time Daniel nestled against him a little more comfortably. "Try to get some sleep," O'Neill breathed it softly.

"No." Immediately the body resting against his was rigid again, resistant and hostile. "You sleep."

Daniel, you're burning up, you've got a freakin' fever, you need your sleep. O'Neill closed his eyes. But he needed his sleep too. And any predators would probably be out later so this would in all likelihood be the safest part of the night for Daniel to be keeping watch anyway. "Okay. Wake me in two hours."

"Three."

He could feel stubbornness in every line of Daniel's refusal to just slump against him. He could sympathize. Daniel had spent too long being dragged around on the end of a chain and he didn't want to be a victim any more. He wanted to be a grown-up kick ass bona fide contributor on their journey home. And he didn't want to sleep because of the nightmares.

"Okay, three." O'Neill took the sidearm out of his holster and handed it over, then he ruffled his hair again, very gently, trying to make the action as respectfully affectionate as he could. "Wake me then, Daniel. I'm trusting you."

Daniel nodded and O'Neill let his eyes close. He needed this sleep. A minute before he would have said sleep was impossible but now he realized his body was clamoring for it, desperate for it. As he drifted into slumber he guessed that he'd spoken no more than the truth. He did trust Daniel. Even beat up and feverish he trusted him enough to sleep when Daniel was keeping guard. He just wasn't sure any longer if Daniel still trusted him.

***

Daniel wondered how you could be this close to a human being you cared so much about – probably more than any living person on any planet these days – and still feel so cut off from them. His relief at getting Jack back was still overwhelming but it was tempered by other regrets. Was this going to keep happening? Jack almost dying on him, until one day he died for real? In the good old-bad old days when he'd been a different Daniel he'd always woken up saying Jack's name; partly because if Jack was there with him then things couldn't possibly be as bad, but also because he needed to know the guy was still alive. All these years later it now seemed as if that hadn't changed anything like as much as he'd hoped.

In the gaps in between he'd tell himself he was just as fond of Sam as he was of Jack. He couldn't pretend he was as fond of Teal'c. There was too much history between them; too many conflicting emotions: anger, respect, affection, guilt. The staff weapon flaring – Hear me, my Daniel – His subconscious – or had it been Sha're all the time? – making him confront how it would feel to deny Teal'c his forgiveness – making him look into the eyes of a Teal'c he had rejected. How could he have so many hidden pockets of hostility, bubbling away like hot springs, towards someone who would give his life for him? How could he care so deeply for someone who had murdered the woman he loved? But whenever Jack's life was hanging in the balance, Daniel would get one of those terrible reminders that losing Jack meant losing pretty much everything that made his life bearable.

He had to wean himself off this insane dependence on the man, and Jack's unjust withdrawal from him – the man acting as if he was punishing him for something, even though neither of them seemed too clear about what it was Daniel had done – had seemed to be the perfect opportunity. He would make a life for himself within the SGC but separate from Jack. They would be teammates and friends, of course. They would work together the way they always had. But there was no need for them to socialize after hours. No need for them to confide in one another. No need for Jack to be the be all and end all of his existence. There were other SG teams and many of them were much more sympathetic to his archaeological interests than SG-1. It was slowly dawning on him, that although to Jack he might be a substandard soldier the man had covered for and protected all these years, to some of the other team leaders, he was an above average anthropologist whom they considered it a privilege to borrow.

It was pleasant to be sought after and wanted. Much more pleasant than being closed out or dismissed. He didn't know what it was he'd done to make Jack withdraw from him. Been too slow about forgiving him for that business with Maybourne? Argued with him one too many times? But whatever it was, he felt Jack should have known he hadn't meant it, and to punish him for it was petty.

But he acknowledged that they'd both been petty. He'd been tactless and Jack hadn't exactly been Mister Diplomatic himself. He'd lost some of his faith in Jack's judgment and Jack had noticed and resented it. He'd resented it right back because what, their friendship was dependent on Daniel always agreeing with him now? There had been a lot of small slights over the last few months, and he acknowledged that they'd gone both ways. He didn't mind Jack pressing the button for that explosive device. He'd had an emotional and moral obligation to the Enkarans. He hadn't had one to the Gadmeer. The Enkaran had been living breathing people Jack had promised to take to a place of safety and if he did nothing they were going to die. Daniel had no problem whatsoever with Jack doing what he felt was necessary to save those people. Had he put the life of one friend over the lives of all those refugees when he honestly believed it was the only way to save them, he would have thought the worst of him. He didn't even have a problem with Jack's willingness to annihilate the Gadmeer. As far as Jack was concerned they were a bunch of freeze-dried aliens, with no consciousness, no ability to feel pain, no means of being hurt by what he was being forced to do to save the Enkaran. The loss of their culture, of their civilization, just didn't have the resonance for Jack that it had for Daniel. Daniel accepted all of that. He accepted that there were differences between them. He liked the differences between them.

What he couldn't accept was that it was all right for Jack to withdraw from him emotionally and physically because he was so twisted up inside about having pressed that damned button. Nor did he think Jack's refusal to discuss it was either right or fair. How could you tell someone you understood and you forgave if they wouldn't let you get half way through a sentence? But, of course, he had realized quite quickly that Jack didn't want his forgiveness, Jack wanted his apology. He wanted Daniel to say how sorry he was for putting Jack through such a hellish experience and how he would never do it again. Because being right wasn't important, what was important was not upsetting Jack. And if he did upset Jack, well, Jack reserved the right to back away from him until such a time as Daniel had learned his lesson and stopped being scary. And in the meantime he was happy to play best friends with Sam and Teal'c instead, so there, Daniel, so freakin' there.

Daniel sighed heavily. Even in sleep, Jack's arm was around him protectively. He could smell the man's sour sweat-tainted scent and it was still sweeter to him than orange blossom. Jack had slumped against him as he slid deeper into his dreams, his unshaven jaw rasping against Daniel's face when he moved, his gray hair prickling against Daniel's own brown strands. They were sharing body heat; exchanging warmth. Jack had followed him through hostile terrain and battled hungry Unas to save him. But he'd done that before. Come after him when Chaka had taken him; damned near died; had to kill Robert…there was nothing Jack wouldn't do to save Daniel from harm, but if they couldn't hold a conversation afterwards which helped repair their friendship, then what did it signify?

Daniel put a hand up to his aching head. He could feel the fever trying to take hold. The penicillin was helping but it was fighting a losing battle; delirium waiting just around the corner to wrap him in a deranged, sweaty embrace. Except that couldn't happen. Not yet. The antibiotics were damned well going to have to keep the infection at bay for long enough for them to get back to the Stargate, or else they were never getting back to the Stargate, because with those knees there was no way in hell Jack could carry him. Teal'c could, of course, but Teal'c and Sam might be…

They're alive. We're all alive and we're all staying that way.

He closed his eyes and saw the blue puddle of the event horizon. Jack standing there implacable and a little impatient, beckoning him to come. He remembered not knowing who he was, just knowing he was connected to these people. The big guy with the muscles and the tattoo, who told him to go away so savagely. He'd felt defiant then. Refusing to show fear because you couldn't show fear in a place like this and anyway, he knew he was right, damnit. This 'Tor' character had said they were friends and he'd been right. Now he was denying it, but this time he was wrong. Daniel just had to make him see sense. Him and that guy who was always hanging around with the blonde woman, Thera. They were important to him, both of them, he knew that. He just had to make them realize it too.

God, it hurt that Jack had remembered Sam and hadn't remembered him. Although perhaps it was just the Air Force connection. Either way it seemed as if he was always out of sight out of mind, for Jack. Like the way Jack had greeted Skaara first and not known what to say to him. The way he'd been happy to acknowledge 'Thera' as a friend, but had tried to beat the crap out of him. So was that how it had always been? Did Sam make him feel good about himself, and Daniel made him feel challenged, threatened, irritated? To the outside observer, to a Makepeace or a Maybourne, he supposed it could seem like that. But he'd thought they had a connection that went far deeper than any surface ideological disagreements. He'd thought he and Jack had a depth of friendship neither one of them had ever known before and probably would never know again. But what if it had been one way all the time?

Except Jack had proven over and over that it wasn't one way. He'd been there for Daniel more than anyone else had ever been there for Daniel and more, Daniel suspected, than Jack O'Neill had ever been there for anyone else either. Perhaps that was the problem? Perhaps Jack thought all he did was give and all Daniel did was take? That when the chips had been down, Daniel had blamed him for doing the right thing, and then when, on Euronda, he'd been trying to do what he was damned well under orders to do, and orders which, in any case, were in place to protect people like Daniel from people like Apophis, turning up, wiping him out, or making him a Goa'uld, Daniel had argued with him in public and undermined his authority in front of total strangers. Perhaps he'd hurt Jack as much as Jack had hurt him. Because he couldn't pretend to himself any longer, Jack had hurt him.

He knew it was insane but there had been times in the last few months when he'd known exactly how it felt to be the partner of someone who was having an affair. There was the same sense of a secure position suddenly not seeming so secure; of a partner who had previously been considerate and affectionate, suddenly being cool and dismissive. There were times recently when it had felt as if Jack was downright cheating on him with Sam and Teal'c in the friendship stakes.

"Daniel…!"

Daniel jolted with the shock of Jack's shout then clasped a hand across Jack's mouth, stubble prickling Daniel's palm. "Sshh, Jack. It's just a bad dream." He whispered it soothingly, but the eyes that looked into his were no longer shocked and confused. He always forgot the way Jack went from sleeping to waking in the blink of an eye and with barely a stumble.

Daniel removed his hand quickly. "Are you okay?"

Immediately, a calloused palm was pressed against his forehead. "Shit, you’re burning up. What time is it?"

"I'm not sure. I don't feel so bad."

"Well, you should be sure. How many hours was I asleep?"

"About ten min- " Daniel looked at his watch and blinked in confusion as he saw the time. "Um – three and a half – "

"Damnit, Daniel, I told you to wake me after three hours!"

"It went by so fast."

Even by the dim bluish starlight trickling through the foliage, he saw the exasperation in Jack's eyes turn so quickly into concern. A hand was pressed against his forehead again. "You need to get some sleep."

The words were gentle. Too gentle. With his temperature raging and thoughts of all those recent rejections so fresh in his memory, Daniel felt tears prick his eyelids. "I don't want to."

"I know. But we're not going to get home alive unless you sleep tonight, Daniel, so…please…?"

That obviously wasn't one way either. He seemed to be no better at saying 'no' to Jack when Jack said 'please' to him than Jack was any good at turning him down when he used that particular plea.

He slumped against the man in defeat, giving way to the exhaustion that had been clamoring for his attention for so long. "Okay."

The sidearm was taken from his fingers while a hand gently patted his shoulder.

"I'm alive, and I'm right here, and I'm not going to let any freakin' Unas hurt either one of us."

He wasn't sure if Jack had said the words aloud or not, or if that was just what his body language said as he pulled Daniel in tighter against his own warm strength, he just knew it was enough to send him to sleep with a relieved smile on his face.

***

Carter knew Gregson was looking at her as if she was insane. She knew all of SG-4 were probably making circling motions at their temples and shaking their heads behind her back. She'd spent a day taking them in the wrong direction, and now she was refusing to stop, even though they were having to stumble along by flashlight, advertising their presence to any Unas in the neighborhood, and Teal'c had already told her he could not be certain of following the trail in the darkness. She couldn't stop for the night now. Not with nothing gained except to put more distance between herself and Daniel and the Colonel than there probably had been that morning.

"Major Carter…"

It was a whisper from Teal'c but she caught the excitement in it and immediately signaled for everyone to freeze and douse their flashlights.

Teal'c was crouched low, using a bush to screen them from something. Now he beckoned to her, and she sank down next to him. Very carefully he parted two strands of foliage so she could see through.

Her heart began to beat so fast she wondered their quarry couldn't hear it. Because there it was at last, no longer just a trail they were following, but a living, breathing, half-grown male Unas with her precious pack on its back. It had killed what seemed to be some kind of antelope and was eating it in a small clearing. It was clearly nervous about having its prey taken away as it kept darting glances over its shoulder. If the wind changed and it scented them it would undoubtedly take off again.

She turned to Gregson and pointed to her eyes, then indicated so clearly that she hoped even airmen who thought she had taken leave of her senses could understand it, that she wanted them to fall out and surround the clearing.

She was relieved by Gregson's quick, decisive nod, and the signals he made to his men. She was even more relieved when they disappeared into the foliage without so much as the crackle of a leaf underfoot. The darkness which could have caused them to lose the trail was an advantage here.

She looked at Teal'c, whispering, "On three…"

As he waited for her to mouth the numbers she remembered that time they'd been battling against Hathor when he hadn't waited for her order but had just gone in his own time, clearly prepared to show her respect in public, but not to let her run a military operation when their comrades were in peril. Now he waited for her mark and then nodded.

They stepped into the clearing together, flashlights on full beam. The Unas took one look at them and leapt up, turning to bolt but then freezing as Gregson and his men stepped out of the foliage at the same time, guns pointed unwaveringly on its chest, flashlights dazzling it. It wheeled around and she saw the fear in its eyes, reminding her again that it was probably young and undoubtedly scared.

"Hold your fire!" she said it clearly, and then held up a hand, looking directly at the Unas. "We won't hurt you if you give me back what you stole from me." She pointed to her back and then at the pack it was carrying. "Give it back to me and you can go."

It clearly didn't understand her speech, gazing wildly between them, while turning around in panic.

Carter advanced slowly towards it. She held up her gun. "Look, I'm not going to kill you. I just want my pack." She pointed a finger at the ragged looking pack on its back.

This time it seemed to have a glimmering of understanding, twisting its head round to look at what it was carrying. It made an inarticulate cross between a growl and a wail, then snatched at the pack, throwing it on the ground beside her. It darted another panic-stricken look between the soldiers and Teal'c, and she thought about the last thing it had seen: them shooting its relatives full of holes.

She pulled the pack towards herself, trying to move slowly and carefully when all her instincts were screaming at her to grab it and run. When she saw the metallic shimmer of the hand device her heart gave a leap and then pause, but then she saw the amber circle of the healing device and closed her eyes in relief. She clutched the pack to her chest like a recovered child for a moment, before nodding to the Unas. "Thank you. You can go now. We won't hurt you." She backed up towards the edge of the clearing, holding up one hand in supplication the way she'd seen Daniel do all those times, then nodding to SG-4 to fall back and let it pass. It looked around at them all wildly again, and then as she beckoned to them to move away, turned and fled into the forest.

She gripped the pack tighter, wiping her brow. "Okay. Now we're back to where we were twenty four hours ago."

"Except we're seventeen clicks west of the Stargate now, Major." There wasn't any reproach in Gregson's voice. He really did seem to be just supplying the information.

"I know." She looked around at them all, raising her voice. "Look, I know we're all tired, but I think we need to press on. As Captain Gregson has pointed out, we've got a lot of ground to make up. Daniel and the Colonel are going to be a way ahead of us, but it's unlikely they've made it back to the Stargate yet." Not given Daniel's likely physical condition. "Apophis or the Unas will probably make for the Stargate too, so they might need some help when they get there. By my calculations, we can't get there if we stop for the night."

SG-4 exchanged a glance then one of them murmured something in Gregson's ear. He turned back to her and nodded. "Whatever you say, Major."

She was so grateful for his unexpected support she could have hugged him. She resisted the urge and just nodded back. "Thank you. I'm sure Colonel O'Neill will appreciate it…in his own way. Teal'c? " She turned to her teammate. "The quickest route to the Stargate from here?"

He glanced up at the stars that were just visible through the leafy canopy and then indicated a trail leading off to the right. "This would appear to be the most direct route, Major Carter."

"Okay then, Teal'c – you take point." She glanced at Gregson as she swung the tattered pack onto her back. "Have you got our six?"

He nodded. "Yes, Major."

Following Teal'c into the jungle, the beams from their flashlights turning the blackness to a funnel of blue-white, she felt the anxiety close in again, like the rustling in the bushes. The feeling that Daniel and the Colonel needed her now. She couldn't explain that to anyone except perhaps Teal'c. Even though it wasn't logical or even sane, she could feel the threads between themselves and their missing teammates getting pulled tighter and tighter. Instinct whispering in her ear to hurry up or she wouldn't get there in time.

As she opened her mouth to tell Teal'c to pick up the pace a little, she realized he was already striding on ahead, long legs covering the ground at more than his usual speed. For the first time she realized he felt it too; that inner voice calling to him as well, saying their friends needed them. She knew that if, when they got back to the Stargate, they found Daniel and the Colonel were safely back in the SGC being looked after by Janet, she was going to feel a little foolish for dragging SG-4 all over the planet to collect a lost hand device, and then making them tramp through the night without a break. But until she had it proven to her that this feeling was just irrational hysteria, she was going to take it as a warning alarm and heed its ring.

And given by the way Teal'c was striding out ahead of her, she guessed she wasn't the only member of SG-1, suffering from separation anxiety.

"The team that works together, goes gradually insane together," she murmured under her breath. But she increased her pace to catch up with Teal'c all the same.

***

He came up from the depths of too many bad dreams; chains wrapped around his ankles; the coverstone falling…Sha're!…the sarcophagus…had to take her to the sarcophagus…Wait for me, Jack…Wait for me…Jack! Falling!…Jack! Wait! You said you'd wait…! Jack! He opened his eyes to unleavened darkness. Blind while seeing. Dreaming or waking. How could he tell?

"Jack!"

"Daniel, it's okay, it's okay. I'm here. Shssh. Shssh…"

That couldn't be Jack's voice. Jack never spoke to him like that. Not that gentle. Not since… Someone was rocking him in their arms, tiny motions, but slow and soothing. Warm breath against his ear.

"'S'okay, Daniel." He knew that smell. Eau de Jack O'Neill. Knew that touch too, and that voice. So Jack was alive. That much obviously had just been a nightmare.

"Sha're…?" He knew but he had to hear it again, even though it hurt so much, anything was better than the confused time between sleeping and waiting when he remembered getting her back from the dead.

"She's gone." There was that gentle tone again. He'd forgotten Jack could sound like that. There was a pause before the man added. "It was her time."

"It wasn't!" He tried to pull away from that grip. "It wasn't her time. She should have…"

"Yes, it was."

"No! Teal'c should have… I should have…"

"Shssh." Warm fingers cupped the back of his head, pulling his face in against that sweat-scented comfort called Jack O'Neill. "It gets better. Apparently the first ten years are the hardest."

Daniel couldn't tell if that was a sob or a laugh but it had come from his own throat so that was probably a good sign.

"Everything hurts." He gasped out the truth of it as breathing in stabbed straight through him.

"I know."

"I don't mean metaphorically, Jack, I mean…" Daniel winced and tried to sit up. "I mean everything…hurts."

Something was put into his hand, tablets, while the man spoke evenly. "That's because you have a couple of cracked ribs and you've been trying to cough round them for the last couple of days, meaning you've probably pulled every muscle between your neck and your pelvis. But as soon as we get you back I promise Janet Fraiser is going to give you the happy shot to end all happy shots."

"Okay." Daniel liked the sound of that happy shot. Even the infirmary sounded really good to him right now. A nice comfortable bed. No walking. Sleep.

A hand touched his face, fingers clumsy then there was a palm across his forehead. "That's not so bad. You were kind of…delirious back there for a while."

"I was?" He didn't remember being delirious.

"I gave you another shot. I don't think I'm supposed to give you two in twelve hours but I didn't know what else to do. Seems to have got your temperature down anyway."

Daniel realized he felt decidedly woozy. As if he'd just drunk a quart of Skaara's moonshine. He felt a pang of homesickness for Abydos so acute it hurt. He must have been dreaming about it. He didn't usually remember the details when he woke up but the song the wind made upon the sand would linger with him. "How long until Kasuf opens the gate?"

"What?"

There was some light stealing through the leaves now, the darkness was no longer so impenetrable and he could just make out Jack's puzzled frown.

"I want to go home. Just for a visit."

He couldn't understand the expression on Jack's face. As if Daniel had slapped him. Daniel frowned in confusion. "What?"

"Aren't we home to you yet?"

He felt more bewildered than before. "What?"

"Never mind."

Daniel gave his head a shake, trying to clear some of the cottonwool inside it. "I didn't say 'home'. I said 'Abydos'."

"You said 'home'."

"I didn't."

"It doesn't matter. Can you walk?"

Daniel found that he had been deposited, carefully but firmly, on his rear, on the leaf mould. He was no longer being rocked soothingly in Jack's protective arms. Of course not. He was no longer dreaming and delirious. Daniel raised his voice to explain:

"And even if I did said it, it was just because I was dreaming about the past. I love my work. I love the SGC." I love Sam. I'm very fond of Janet and General Hammond, and I even kind of love you, you miserable son of a bitch, although I have to say you make it pretty difficult at times. And there's probably a part of me that damned near loves Teal'c as well. But those people were my family, Jack. I saw them every day. They were my life. Just like you, Sam, and Teal'c are my life now. Would you want me to forget you so quickly?

When that got no response, he tried again. "I just want to see Skaara. See how he is. It's been nearly a year."

"I know." Jack's most non-committal tone.

"You must want to see him too."

Jack had already ducked out from under the greenery. Daniel had to scramble after him. He blinked from the pink-tinted dawn, while Jack pulled on his sunglasses, despite the fact there was as yet barely any sun to be shielded from. Daniel realized this wasn't to protect his eyes from the non-existent glare. This was to shut Daniel out. "Jack?"

"What?" There was a hint of impatience there. The man was doing soldierly things, checking his sidearm, taking some kind of bearing.

"Skaara would want to see both of us."

Jack shrugged. "Okay."

"You should get him another lighter."

The man gave him a look of impatience. "Daniel, he's not a kid any more. He's all grown up now. Not to mention the fact he spent three years being host to a Goa'uld. He knows stuff you and I don't even want to think about. He'll probably be married. Have a kid of his own. That's what happens. What? You don't think I think about stuff like that?"

Daniel wasn't sure where this exasperation was coming from. He only knew he was the cause of it although he wasn't sure exactly why. He felt annoyance flare up inside him, the angry retort spring to his lips. What, we can't grow up now? All your goddamned son substitutes have to stay children forever or else we're betraying you in some way? What the hell do you want from me, Jack? But just this once, he thought he'd swallow the angry words instead. He brushed the creases out of his jacket awkwardly then nodded. "You're right. He probably is married by now. I still think of him as my…little brother. We should…" He ran a hand through his hair. "We should get moving."

He saw Jack grimace, darting him a quick glance, apology and concern poorly masked. "Can you manage this?"

Daniel felt the cough welling up inside him, knowing it would tear a path right up through his chest, make every rib, every muscle ache all the way to his fingertips; felt his feet flinch from the ground beneath them; like walking on hot coals with the first pace. He shrugged resignedly. "No. But what choice do we have."

As he determinedly led the way into the jungle, Jack caught his arm, touch and voice gentle again, not a hint of mockery. "It's this way, Daniel. That's the way we came."

He was turned ninety degrees, then Jack was leading the way into another identical tangle of dark greenery. Just for a second, Daniel quailed. He couldn’t do this, not another day of this. Coughing and limping, every step hurting him in six different places at once. He was too tired. He could just sit down and wait for Jack to come back with Janet and –

And what if that Goa'uld was waiting for them by the Stargate? What if it threw Jack over the cliff and this time there wasn't a tree root to hang onto?

Daniel limped after the older man at double speed, coughs tearing through him as he inhaled the chilly morning air.

Jack wheeled around to look at him in surprise. "Steady. There's no rush. We can make this."

"I know." He tried to sound confident and it must have worked because he saw the flicker of relief in Jack's eyes.

"Because we always do, right?"

Daniel nodded. "Absolutely."

"SG-1, the team that always makes it home."

"Oh yeah." Daniel tripped over a fallen root and then regained his footing, wincing as the burning pain in the soles of his feet got worse. "That's definitely us."

Jack patted his arm lightly. "You buying any of this?"

Daniel gave him the flicker of a smile. "Not for one minute."

"Me neither. Let's just make it because it will really piss off Apophis if we do."

Daniel wondered how long it was since they'd done this. Grinned at one another as if nothing and no one else existed for them. "Sounds like a plan to me."

Jack gave him another little squeeze on the arm and then moved back in front so he could clear a path for them. Still feeling that friendly pressure on his arm, thinking of that smile, Daniel suddenly didn't feel quite so exhausted. They'd overcome the impossible plenty of times before. They just had to do it again.

***

Carter checked her watch. Not quick enough, nothing like quick enough.

"Major Carter."

She caught up with Teal'c in a few swift strides. The trail they'd been following had luckily been taking them in the direction of the Stargate. Narrow though it was, it was infinitely easier than trying to hack a path through the jungle. Her fear had been that it would veer off in the wrong direction and she would have to debate whether to stay on it, and hope that it looped back the way they wanted to go, or strike off by themselves and try forging a path in the right direction.

As Teal'c pulled back the foliage so she could see what lay ahead she realized this was something she hadn't banked on.

It could have been the Everglades. Although the trees weren't mangroves they were certainly similar enough, and there was the same murky greenish water, waist high judging by the branch Teal'c was prodding experimentally into its depths. The place smelt of bad eggs and there was a bird cawing at them contemptuously from a low branch.

Carter wrinkled her nose. "Lovely."

Teal'c indicated a diagonal path across the swamp. "That is the direction of the Stargate."

Gregson caught up with them and pulled a face. "How far does this swamp stretch?"

Teal'c glanced at him. "It does appear to extend for a considerable distance."

"So if we start trying to go around it we could lose hours." And we're so close now. Carter took off her forage cap and ran a hand through her hair. "It's not that deep. We could wade across it."

"There could be alligators in there. Piranhas."

Gregson gave the airman who'd spoken a look of annoyance. "And Doctor Jackson and Colonel O'Neill could need our help, right, Major?"

Carter was more grateful for the support than she cared to admit. "Exactly." She nodded to Gregson. "Let Teal'c and I get twenty feet in. If we haven’t been bitten by anything by that point. You follow."

As Gregson nodded, the airman next to him shook his head in disbelief. "Major, what if the water is made of acid or something?"

Carter took a deep breath and stepped into the water; it was cold and smelt even worse this close up. She gasped as it soaked all the way up to her thighs. With an effort she kept her voice even. "Well, Teal'c and I will be sure to give you some indication, Triggs. As a rule of thumb, if we start screaming blue murder, don't come into the water."

She gasped again as she took another step and the water gurgled around her waist. When she looked down at the brownish green depths, she saw things moving in the water that definitely didn't look like fish. The smell was revolting. She put a hand up to her mouth. "Well, isn't this fun?"

"It could hardly be more pleasurable." Teal'c reached down, snatched at something, and then pulled it out of the water. It wriggled in his grip. Blood-bloated with glistening black skin, but not a Goa'uld symbiote.

Carter pulled a face. "Leeches. How nice."

Teal'c threw it away into the water. "I do not like this mission."

"It’s not going to make my top ten either." Carter splashed at a leech that was swimming towards her. "Join the SGC. Visit new worlds. Meet new cultures. Wade through foul-smelling swamps. Get eaten alive by leeches. Funny they don't put the last bit on the recruitment posters."

"We must tell General Hammond to correct that omission on our return." Teal'c ripped another one from his thigh and hurled it away.

Realizing she and Teal'c were at least twenty-five feet into the water now, Carter turned and beckoned to Gregson. "Come on in, the water's lovely, Captain."

"You wouldn't be lying to me, would you, Major?"

She saw him wrinkle his nose as he led his men into the swamp behind her. Triggs was making gagging noises as the sulfur fumes got to him.

She looked across at the tall Jaffa. "If we get back and the Colonel makes some wisecrack about never having been in trouble for a minute, I may have to kill him."

Teal'c batted another leech away, face grim. He narrowed his eyes as he took a bearing to ensure they were still heading in the right direction, before giving her a brief glimpse of his rare smile. "And I may have to assist you."

Smiling back, Carter took another gulp of fetid air and then waded deeper into the swamp, the 'v' mark they left behind, barely disturbing the sluggish surface of the water.

***

O'Neill didn't think he'd ever been so pleased to see a Stargate. At the moment it was still a tiny blue-gray ring in the distance but it was there, and they were heading for it. There had been plenty of times during the day's trek when he'd never thought they'd see it again, but now there was even a shaft of sunlight breaking through the cloud cover like some celestial finger pointing them in the direction of the way home.

Of course, he could also see that damned cliff the Unas had tossed him over, but he was just going to concentrate on the Stargate and the DHD that were both calling to him like mom's home cooking round about now.

The sound of Daniel's chain clanking behind them had stopped being an annoyance and was just something he was used to now, like the bow jolting on his shoulder. No way in hell was he stopping to wind it back around Daniel's leg again because they'd got into a comfortable rhythm now where they could move forward without Daniel having to be fully conscious. He had Daniel's right arm around his neck and his left arm around Daniel's waist. Daniel was leaning into him heavily, eyes closed, face turned into O'Neill's neck, feet moving forward but very reliant on O'Neill for support and forward propulsion. O'Neill was just grateful he was still upright.

"Daniel…?" he said it quietly, aware that Daniel was pretty much sleepwalking.

"Yes." Daniel said it drowsily, not bothering to open his eyes.

"I can see the Stargate."

"That's nice."

"It's only about a mile away."

"Good." Daniel coughed, his body reverberating with each paroxysm that tore through him.

O'Neill grimaced, tightening his grip. "Happy shot, remember?"

"We can get a radio. Find out about Sam and Teal'c…"

He ducked his head to try to see Daniel's face and got confirmation that although Daniel was walking and talking his eyes were still firmly closed.

"I'll do that as soon as I've got you to the infirmary."

"You're too tired."

"Hey, I don't get tired until all my team are home, remember?"

Daniel snickered into his neck. "You sound like a real soldier, Jack."

O'Neill tightened his grip. "I am a real soldier, damnit."

"I know. But s'okay, I won't hold it against you…"

O'Neill shook his head. "Sometimes your mind really does move in mysterious ways, Dannyboy."

Daniel stumbled and he tightened his grip on him reflexively.

"I hate this chain."

"Siler's going to take it off as soon as I get you home." He ducked his head to look at Daniel's gray-washed unshaven face. "Nice clean sheets. No chain, and you can sleep and sleep and sleep. Okay?"

Daniel nodded, still without opening his eyes. "Okay." He moistened his dry lips. "How much further?"

"Not much more." O'Neill looked across at the Stargate and it was definitely a little closer, which was good news as his muscles were aching from the effort of holding Daniel up and moving him forward. He was starting to feel his own bruises now: falling down those stairs bruises; muscles pulled when he went over that cliff; a dozen little knocks and tears caused by heading through a jungle with his gaze firmly fixed on tracks that had no compunction about leading him into places that would trip, scratch, and bruise him.

Hammond wasn't going to be happy about those welts across Daniel's back. Actually, O'Neill wasn't too happy about them himself. Until this mission, Daniel hadn't sustained a lot of scar tissue from being a member of the SGC, admittedly mostly because he had always been so badly hurt in the past that whoever had damaged him had been forced to toss him into a sarcophagus if they wanted to keep him around for conversation… But apart from that scar on his thigh from the time Makepeace had rescued him from Hathor, Daniel was more or less physically unmarked by his four years working for the SGC. O'Neill had been rather hoping to keep it that way. Quite apart from the fact he was fond of Daniel, it made a good rebuttal when people were throwing the 'Jackson's in the infirmary again…?' stuff in his face.

"Didn't your anthropologist bust his leg the last trip out, Ferretti? Mine didn't."

"Heard about your linguist getting his skull fractured on PX1-619, Griff. Tough break. Daniel? He's fine, thanks."

So, okay, Daniel got grabbed by alien weirdos more than anyone else. Ra. The Touched. Nem. Hathor. Shyla, the hormonal princess. Chaka, the friendly Unas. But they usually handed him back more or less how they'd found him. Okay, not the Touched, they'd beaten the crap out of him. And okay, Hathor had definitely touched as well as looked, and for all he knew Shyla had done the same. What Daniel had done to him by aliens who grabbed him was something O'Neill made a point of never discussing. As Daniel had still gone bouncing up to the next bunch of locals with a smile on his face after they'd gotten him back from the Touched he'd presumed that at least one of those worst case scenarios which had zipped through his mind when Teal'c had told him Daniel was lost on the dark side of that planet, hadn't happened. With Hathor, he'd had to face the fact it must have done because she wasn't the type to obtain DNA from a blood sample if she could get it by…other means. He was still a little pissed that she'd only thought he was good for turning into a Jaffa whereas Dannyboy was the one whose genes she'd wanted. What the hell did Daniel have that he didn't? Apart from a whole bunch of allergies and big blue eyes. And what was it with women and big blue eyes anyway? What was wrong with brown eyes?

"Jack, you're rambling…"

Daniel mumbled it into his neck.

O'Neill jerked his eyes open, shocked to find there had been two of them sleep walking back towards the Stargate. "No, I'm not."

"You are. You were talking about Hathor. She's dead, isn't she? Tell me she's dead."

"She's dead. Deep frozen. Popsicled. Definitely an ex-goddess, and oh so not just pining for the fjords."

"And I thought I was delirious…" Daniel sighed it wearily.

"Please tell me you've heard of Monty Python?"

"Kind of."

O'Neill rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Where the hell were you in the 1970s anyway?"

"In Egypt. In London. In America. In care. In limbo. In sane."

O'Neill tightened his grip automatically.

"That's a good thing about the quantum mirror." Daniel murmured it indistinctly, his breath tickling O'Neill's neck. "I know my parents must still be alive in at least one reality. I wonder how that me grew up."

"Probably much too well-adjusted to ever be a friend of mine, Daniel." O'Neill blinked hard as the Stargate swam in and out of focus. He realized Daniel was right about how tired he was. He was exhausted.

"Are we friends?"

"Daniel!" He was more shocked and hurt than he could disguise, stopping dead on the hillside. "How the hell can you ask me that?"

Daniel raised his head, focusing on him blearily. "I was starting to think we were just teammates these days. Sometimes recently it didn't even feel as if we were that."

O'Neill set his jaw. "That's just your temperature talking."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is. You're feverish and you're probably in serious withdrawal because it's too many days since you had any caffeine."

"If you say so." Daniel slumped back against him but O'Neill didn't think there was any capitulation in the action, just exhaustion.

He moved them both forward again, still stinging from that last sentence. "I can't believe you asked me that."

"I'm delirious, remember. I'm not responsible for what I say."

"I damned near bust a gut getting you back from that Unas. Do you think I'd do that for anyone?"

"Yes, Jack, I do." Daniel said it quietly. "You're a good man."

"So I'm a good man, but I'm not a good friend?"

"You're the best friend I've ever had. But then I haven't had that many so I don't have too much data for comparison. But, recently, I just didn't feel as if…" Daniel shrugged wearily against him. "You know."

"No, I don't know!" O'Neill shook his head in disbelief. "So, I'm a little…preoccupied for a few weeks and suddenly you don't know if we're friends any more? Christ, Daniel what do you want from me?"

"Right now, I want you stop yelling in my ear. I have a headache." The coughs tore into him again, stifling anything else he might have been about to say and damping out O'Neill's indignation.

He winced. "You're right, we shouldn't talk about this now."

"We'll never talk about this." Daniel sighed it into his neck. "We never do."

"This conversation isn't over!"

"Oh you're right, Daniel, it's never over with you. It's always the same damned thing!"

"We talk about stuff." He darted the man slumped against him an uncertain look. "Sometimes."

"Yep," Daniel muttered it indistinctly into his jacket. "Sometimes we do. Mostly, we don't."

"What you never heard of 'show don't tell'?"

He could hear the hurt in his voice, so he presumed Daniel could too. "What if there's no tell and no show though, Jack?"

O'Neill took a deep breath. "I'm sorry that I'm not perfect, okay? I'm sorry if you thought I always did the right thing for the right reasons, and was never wrong. Sometimes I'm just human. Sometimes I screw up. Sometimes I screw up big time. But so do you. I think we've known each other long enough that you could cut me a little slack."

"Fine. I'm sorry that I don't always agree with you. I'm sorry that I thought we were equals who could disagree sometimes without you getting the hump about it. And I'm sorry you can't save me from everything that might possibly injure me. But it isn't my fault that we're both human and you're not Superman."

There was a long pause before O'Neill answered. "Who told you I wasn't Superman?"

Daniel looked up at him warily. "I went through your locker when you were on Edora, Jack. There was no costume."

"I could keep it at home. You know there's a telephone box just over the street."

He saw that flickering smile from Daniel. The one that said the guy didn't want to be amused by him, was fighting it every step of the way, but just couldn't help himself.

O'Neill felt his indignation overlaid by affection. They'd been going through a bad patch, recently, he admitted that. Sometimes that happened in relationships. You worked at fixing the problem, or you let it deteriorate the point where no repair kit on Earth was going to heal the rift. Well, he'd already been through Plan B, and it sucked. There were some things that were worth fighting for, or, hell, even having long boring conversations for, and his friendship with Daniel was definitely one of them.

"As soon as you're well again, I swear we'll talk."

Daniel sighed into his neck. "No, we won't, Jack. But thanks for the thought. This might do it anyway."

"Do what?"

Daniel mumbled it indistinctly. "You needed to save me all by yourself. You just did."

O'Neill felt his indignation warring with his suspicion that Daniel might be right. Was he resentful because bad things had happened to Daniel which he hadn't been able to avert? Maybe that was why Daniel was less pissy with him than he'd been before. Because Daniel and Carter had managed to save him and Teal'c when they'd be marooned in the 'cold of space' on that death glider. They'd gone all out to get Jacob, and Jacob had gone all out to come and pick them up in that tel'tak. Daniel had been the first one he'd seen on that ship. Pulling the mask from his face, joy shining on Daniel's because 'Jack' was okay. Perhaps that was what he needed. To be the one to pull Daniel from the brink. To have it confirmed that he could save him when no one else could. He'd hoped that might happen in that padded cell. Had been kidding himself the sight of him might be enough; his voice the one that would reach Daniel and help him back to sanity. It hadn't happened, and he'd been shocked by his own surprise. He remembered Sara telling him that he was someone who needed to be needed more than anyone else she'd ever met and he hadn't been able to dispute it. Was part of his annoyance with Daniel a fear that he might not be so needed any more?

"You didn't leave me any message." It was out before he could call it back.

"What?" Daniel blearily lifted his head. "When?"

He'd said too much to stop now. O'Neill grimaced in embarrassment. "When you were talking into that tape thing when you were that juvey Unas' prisoner. You didn't say my name."

"It might not have been you who found it."

"You thought there would be someone else leading the rescue mission?" He couldn't stop his indignation showing. "What, did you think I would have some important letters to write or something?"

"No. I just…I don't even remember what I said, Jack…I always thought it would be you and Sam and Teal'c who would catch up with me. That was who I was thinking of, I just didn't say your names, that's all. But it might not have been you who found the tape recorder. It could have been Hawkins, or Loder, or…Robert."

You used to say my name when you woke up after being grabbed by some nasty. It used to be the first thing you said. The first thing you needed to know to make yourself feel better was that I was there. When did that stop?

"You were the one who wanted me to be a team player."

"And so?"

"And so the SGC is the team I'm playing for, isn't it?"

No, damnit, you're on my team! Mine!

"Yes." The word came out thick and unconvincing. And damnit he wasn't going to lie. "Or rather…no. If you followed sports you'd know that it doesn't work quite like that."

"How come?"

"Well, there are…league tables. You're on team SG-1, part of the SGC league, from which players get selected from time to time to represent their country against other countries. In this case their species against other species…the Goa'uld. But the team you're on is still SG-1."

"Oh. That analogy doesn't really work, does it?"

"No, it doesn't." There was a pause before O'Neill added. "But you're still on team SG-1, not just team SGC."

"I don't think Hammond thinks of it like that. I think he thinks of us more as a…pool of available players, and…"

"Daniel don't even attempt to use a sports analogy against me, okay? You have no idea what you're talking about and we both know it."

"I don't have to go with SG-5 if you don't want me to, it's just that…"

"It's fine. You want to look around some defunct Goa'uld pleasure palace, you go right ahead. We might learn something useful from it."

"So, you don't mind?"

O'Neill waited before answering. After a pause, he said, "I mind you not getting enough down time in between missions. I don't want to stop you doing the things you enjoy but I wish the SGC would pick up the pace a little on getting clearance for Rothman's replacement. At the moment you seem to be doing two people's jobs. As long as it's a temporary situation, I'm okay about it, but if this goes on too long, I'm going to feel as if we're not getting as much of your time as we should be." He hadn't said half of what he meant, he realized. He'd had the perfect opportunity to tell Daniel he was important and he was missed and he'd blown it. He sighed. "And okay, I don't like going on missions without you, Daniel. It's just…not as much fun when you're not around."

Daniel opened his eyes again and O'Neill could see they were bloodshot but that the person behind them was definitely compos mentis. "Are you saying you miss me?"

O'Neill grimaced. "A little."

"I miss you too."

For a moment they held each other's gaze and then Daniel looked away, trying to shrug. "Not that I miss you bitching and complaining all the time I'm looking at the artifacts…"

"Well, I don't miss you wandering off to look at statues or arguing with me all the time…"

"Well, that's okay then."

"Okay." O'Neill caught Daniel as he stumbled, tightening his grip. When he looked up the Stargate was so close he bet even Daniel could make out all the symbols on it. "Hey…look up. We got 'gate."

Daniel jerked his head up. "At last."

They stumbled over the rough ground, O'Neill feeling Daniel instinctively shrinking away from the cliff edge. He decided that tree line which might be concealing predators was definitely looking less unpleasant than the sheer drop with which he'd already had an unwanted close encounter. My mutual consent they both veered to their left, Daniel already murmuring glyphs under his breath as his gaze focused on the DHD.

It came out of the trees so fast he barely had a second's warning. The ground shook, then he jerked his head round to see a ton of enraged Unas hurling itself at them. He shoved Daniel away as hard as he could, hoping it would come for him instead, snatching for his sidearm as he did so. As he made to squeeze off a shot, the Unas grabbed his wrist and twisted. O'Neill yelled but held onto the gun. The Unas' clawed fingers closed over his, tearing them loose from the weapon. Its superior strength was too much even for his determination not to let go and the sidearm was wrenched from his hand and hurled thirty feet away. The Unas' jaws opened and he saw its eyes glare gold with fury, then he jerked up his left arm to ward off its lunge. His elbow reverberated from the impact with its jaw, and it snarled, backhanding him across the face.

He felt something torn from his back, the clatter of sticks hitting the ground, then the sound of wood snapping. Then it hit him again, the other side of the face this time, so hard he was amazed his neck didn't break. He was knocked backwards several staggering steps, the world misting gray as his senses swooped. When he got some focus back, he saw Daniel scrambling to his feet, looking very defenseless behind that looming monster, and the Unas advancing on him across the scattered remnants of his broken arrows and a bow which had been snapped in two. From having three possible kinds of weapons with which to defend them he now had one and he frankly wasn't feeling too confident of his abilities to take on a furious adult Unas with a hunting knife.

"Dial the gate, Daniel!" He yelled it at him as he cast around for some kind of club to hit the son of a bitch with. "Do it!" He tried to keep his attention focused on the Unas moving in on him with what was unmistakably murder in its eyes, but he needed to know Daniel was safe. He pulled out his knife and gripped it tightly. It was the wrong kind of weapon for both this situation and this enemy, but it was all he had. As he blinked to clear the sweat from his eyes, he noticed the elaborate armband the Unas was wearing. All metal and jeweled the same as… As that Jackal-god imposter who'd done Ra's dirty work for him. The one O'Neill had decapitated back on Ra's ship. The one who'd been able to control the ring mechanism. The damned Unas was intending to rendezvous with Apophis, to deliver the goods to his lord, master, and god, just as soon as he'd got his claws back on Daniel again.

Except that so wasn't going to happen.

O'Neill saw Daniel take an uncertain step towards the DHD and then stop. He was very aware of how close the cliff edge was. The damned gargoyle was backing him towards it. Daniel was looking around for the sidearm now, but O'Neill couldn't see where it had landed either.

"Dial the gate!" he yelled it again, then tried to sidestep as the Unas rushed him.

As he flinched in anticipation of the impact, knife ready in the hope of at least taking it down with him, it staggered to the right, just missing him. After the couple of days he'd had, O'Neill reckoned Daniel barely went a hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet, but as he'd flung himself at it with everything he had, it was still enough to knock the Unas off course.

O'Neill dived, hoping to get in a killing blow with the knife, but it slammed him with its right arm, knocking him within inches of the ledge and severely winding him, then turned its attention onto a half-stunned Daniel.

"No!" O'Neill might not be able to breathe properly but he could see the look in its eyes and no way in hell was he letting it get to its target. He did the same as Daniel, flung himself at it blindly and hoped to knock it off course. As it went down, he had his knife and was already plunging it down.

It grabbed his wrist an inch before the blade made contact and for a second he stared into malevolent gold glowing eyes. Then the pain in his wrist sent licks of white fire down every tendon as its fingers closed, tightened, twisted, and abruptly the knife was out of his hand and being flicked twenty feet away. The Unas kicked him double-footed in the midriff and he somersaulted backwards, over and over, snatching at tufts of grass that pulled loose treacherously in his fingers. He grabbed hold of a small bush as his legs went over the cliff edge, hanging on desperately. Ironically, as he was swinging over the drop, he saw the weapon he'd wanted earlier; a branch hidden by the long grass but now on his eye level, and thick enough to crack even an Unas skull. As he tried to pull himself back up, the Unas turned on Daniel who was scrambling to his feet.

"Jack!"

"Daniel, get the hell out of here!" He yelled it hoarsely, the toes of his boots scrabbling against the cliff face as the Unas advanced on Daniel while Daniel started to stumble forward to help him. "Daniel!"

As he yelled the name again, the Unas grabbed Daniel by the back of his jacket, jerked him off his feet and then threw him down hard onto the ground. Daniel's cry of pain cut right through him.

"Get off him, you son-of-a-bitch!"

O'Neill tried to get a purchase as he felt the bush bending and creaking with his weight. The Unas picked Daniel up and then threw him down again, eliciting another cry. When the Unas picked him up for a third time, O'Neill could see the terrible pallor of the younger man's face.

"Don't…"

The Unas tossed Daniel contemptuously on the ground again. Daniel hit the ground limply, this time, as if he was made of sawdust. O'Neill closed his eyes.

When he opened them it was advancing on him. He got one leg up over the side of the cliff as it stamped on his already injured left hand.

"Jeesus!"

He couldn't help snatching his fingers away, even though that left him swinging perilously only by one hand.

The Unas bared its teeth in a snarl of contempt and then abruptly bent down, seized the bush he was hanging onto and ripped it out of the ground. O'Neill was jerked up a foot as he hung onto what was now the very base of an uprooted shrub, soil sprinkling his face from the exposed roots. Even though he knew the Unas was about to toss the whole bush over the cliff, he couldn't seem to make his fingers let go, and even if he did, there was nothing else to hang onto.

The branch hit the Unas so hard it staggered. The second blow made it let go of the bush and O'Neill dropped like a cable car whose wire had been cut, then jolted to a stop. He cried out as pain lanced through his tormented left wrist; his whole body swinging from it. He jerked his head up in shock to see a hand gripping his wrist, then looked up higher to see Daniel with blood running down his face and a desperate look in his eyes. "Let go of the bush, Jack."

He did so at once, feeling sick and dizzy as he watched the shrub spiraling down towards the mud-colored river.

O'Neill felt himself lurch lower and saw Daniel's chest was now over the edge of the cliff. His eyes widened in horror as he realized Daniel had just grabbed him instinctively, that he wasn't holding onto anything except grass.

"Let go of me."

"No!"

He'd never seen Daniel look so desperate. The younger man had hold of his wrist so tightly O'Neill thought his grip probably couldn't have been broken with a hammer. He was lying flat on the top of the cliff but O'Neill's weight was dragging him inexorably over the edge.

"Daniel, listen to me, you have to let go of me, or we're both going over."

"No." Daniel closed his eyes. "No, I won't."

"Danny…" He tried to keep his voice soothing, despite the way he could feel them slipping further down millimeter by millimeter. "I might make it. I might hit a bush or something on the way down. This way we both die for sure."

Daniel jerked his eyes open; they looked huge, and the expression in them was despairing, but absolutely certain. "I won't let go this time."

"Daniel, please. Please…" He felt another lurch as the grassDaniel had been clinging too obviously came out of the ground; their downward motion temporarily arrested as Daniel obviously grabbed another handful of something. "Let go of me!"

"I can't."

O'Neill looked into Daniel's eyes and saw it was true. Daniel couldn't let him go, even though it was going to kill both of them. He just couldn't.

As the next clump of grass was torn up from the earth, O'Neill felt that thin resistance give, felt them both lurch forward into space. He wondered if he'd break Daniel's fall enough to save him, or just enough that it would take Daniel longer to die. He hoped it was quick for both of them.

"I'm sorry, Jack…"

As Daniel went over the edge, O'Neill felt the younger man's grip tighten on his wrist, as though Daniel had determined that even if they were going to die, they were going to die together.

For a second they were falling and then as abruptly they were stopped. The jolt was so violent, it whiplashed straight through him, and Daniel clutched at him convulsively, grabbing O'Neill's jacket with his free hand while still clinging obsessively to his wrist.

O'Neill swung backwards and forwards in the sunlight, having no idea why their plummet towards oblivion had been arrested, and seeing from the shocked look in Daniel's eyes that he was as confused as O'Neill was.

There was a long pause while they both swung like a trapeze act then Daniel said breathlessly, "My chain must have caught on something. Climb up me."

"What?"

"Climb up me, damnit!" Daniel glared at him. "It's the only way."

O'Neill opened his mouth to point out that it might be snagged on something that was strong enough to take Daniel's weight but wouldn't take both of them for long enough for him to climb up, that if Daniel just did what he was damned well told and let him go then maybe at least one of them would be saved.

That was when Daniel began to be hauled upwards, and as he was still clinging to O'Neill like grim death, O'Neill was hauled up with him.

"What the…?"

Something had grabbed the chain around Daniel's ankle and was pulling them up by it. But was it Carter or Apophis’s Jaffa? O'Neill realized that whoever it was, as long as they weren't going to toss him over the cliff, he was going to be moderately pleased to see them. Daniel was still hanging onto him with all his might, despite being hauled up backwards by one ankle, clearly terrified he might drop him.

He saw Daniel have the sense to twist over onto his side as he was hauled up over the sharp edge of the cliff, scraping his thigh, but at least leaving him able to father children in the future. Daniel was dragged further away from the drop, pulling O'Neill after him as he continued to hang on grimly. O'Neill tried to hunch up as he was hauled up over the edge, but still got a jolt to the groin that made his eyes water. Then he was lying on his side on solid ground, panting and shaking as the reaction went through him, with Daniel lying on his other side, facing him, eyes closed but still clutching onto the front of his jacket and holding tight to his wrist.

"Daniel…?" he said it quietly in between pants.

Daniel opened his eyes. "Yes?"

"I think you can let me go now."

Daniel looked unconvinced.

O'Neill moistened his lips. "I think you're cutting off the circulation to my hand."

"Oh." Daniel slowly relaxed his grip and O'Neill got the feeling back in his wrist in a rush. Pain throbbed through what seemed to be a broken finger.

"Wow. Hell of a grip there, Daniel." He lifted his head cautiously. "Who helped us?"

The 'thud' of a heavy footsteps, then the clawed foot that sank into the ground just by his eye, made O'Neill roll over quickly, grabbing Daniel and pulling him with him, reaching for that club the second they were out of grabbing range.

"Wait, Jack. Wait!"

He turned to Daniel in disbelief and saw the younger man's gaze was fixed on the Unas. O'Neill had been trying not to look that way, because much as he liked to tell himself he didn't spook easily, he now had to admit if only to himself that Unas scared the shit out of him. Now he looked up at the looming creature, taking in the scales, the claws, the fangs, the whip at its belt, the chain clanking at its waist. Nope, definitely didn't look better in close-up even when it wasn't actually engaged in trying to throw him over a cliff.

Daniel said breathlessly, "Is it you?"

The Unas nodded slowly.

Daniel swallowed. "Thank you." He got up onto his knees and moved his hands out from his chest towards the Unas. "We're very grateful."

"Who are you talking to?" O'Neill breathed.

"The Unas."

"The Unas who just tried to kill us?"

"That was the Goa'uld." Daniel was still looking at the Unas. He pointed to his head and then to the DHD. "Do you remember? The signs?" He pointed to the 'gate. "Do you remember the signs for Cimmeria? Thor's hammer will kill the Goa'uld inside you. Do you understand?"

It nodded again, and turned towards the DHD. Daniel got to his feet, swaying so badly, O'Neill had to leap up to steady him. He looked at the blood trickling down Daniel's face and winced, then looked around for the club. He picked it up and tested the weight of it in his hand. As he did so, he caught sight of something metallic glinting at him: his sidearm nestling smugly in the long grass. He tossed the club and snatched up the sidearm instead, cocking it in readiness.

Daniel looked at him in surprise. "Jack?"

O'Neill shook his head in disbelief. "Daniel, grateful as I am to your new friend, if the snake in his head puts in another appearance…?"

Daniel sighed. "Okay, but I think it must have got knocked out when I hit him. The same way it happens with a zat blast. I guess a blow to the head concusses the Goa'uld for a bit the same way it would with a human."

"Yeah…" O'Neill winced, licked his thumb and wiped some of the blood that was trying to trickle into Daniel's left eye. "Talking of concussion…"

"I'm fine." Daniel said it automatically.

O'Neill nodded. "Yeah, right. 'Fine' in the 'has double pneumonia, pleurisy, and quite possibly a fractured skull' sense?"

Daniel collected himself and looked at him. "Yes, that would be the one."

"Okay, well, nothing to worry about there then." O'Neill looked back at the Unas which was planting its taloned hands on the DHD with ponderous slowness. "What's it doing?"

"Going to Cimmeria to get deGoulded." Daniel shook his head. "And you say I don't keep up on current events."

"Well, could it hurry it up a little, I have a barely alive archaeologist to get home."

Daniel looked around. "Where?"

O'Neill saw that flickering little smile again and grinned himself, holstering the sidearm. "Sometimes, Daniel, you're really quite…"

"Colonel O'Neill!"

That was when everything seemed to go into slow motion. O'Neill jerked his head round in time to see Frobisher and his men fifteen feet away with P-90s at the ready. Frobisher was gesturing to him to get out of the way as he leveled his gun on the Unas and there was both determination and satisfaction in his eyes. The look of a hunter who had finally caught up with his prey.

He saw Daniel jerk his head round, eyes widen in realization, and then he was throwing himself in front of the Unas shouting "No!"

"Hold your fire!" O'Neill yelled it as he tried to grab Daniel back, but it was too late. He knew it was too late even as he was diving.

There was the percussion of bullets, a roar from the Unas, he saw Daniel's body jolted by multiple impacts and then Daniel was on the ground and O'Neill was scrambling over there, screaming at Frobisher to hold his goddamn fire. He flung himself down on the ground beside Daniel and raised him up, holding him in his arms as he tried to check for injuries. The dozen holes in his chest and abdomen, all pumping blood, told their own story.

In the eerie silence that always follows a calamity Daniel's breathing sounded very loud. He looked up at O'Neill in shock. O'Neill felt his guts turn over as he saw the unmistakable signs of someone dying fast. "Damnit, Daniel…"

The shock in Daniel's blue eyes became apology as he evidently read the realization in the man's eyes.

"Sorry, Jack."

He could hear one of Frobisher's men yelling at him. Heard the 'thunk' as Frobisher dropped his gun.

O'Neill glanced up at the Unas. It was gazing down at Daniel in confusion. It had been nicked by a couple of bullets, O'Neill noticed it automatically, greenish blood oozing from its shoulder and one thigh.

The sudden burst of blue light from the Stargate made them both flinch and then it turned to look at the shimmering event horizon.

O'Neill jerked his head at it. "Go. Just go. There's nothing you can do for him except kill that freakin' snake in your head."

The Unas took a last look at Daniel who tried to give it a reassuring smile. The effect of which was rather spoiled by the blood that welled up in his mouth.

O'Neill raised his voice. "Just get the hell out of here so we can dial for home."

As the Unas strode into the wormhole, he was aware of Frobisher babbling an apology, another soldier asking if they were just going to let the Unas go. One of them, Phelan, more with it than the rest, kneeling by him, pulling a medikit from his vest and trying to apply pads to each of Daniel's wounds. O'Neill stroked Daniel's hair back from his forehead. "Hang in there, Daniel, please."

Daniel coughed blood onto his hands. "Sorry, Jack. I don't think even Janet can fix this."

"Why did he do it? Why did he do it?" Frobisher was staring at Daniel in disbelief; hands shaking, all his aplomb vanished.

O'Neill snarled at Frobisher with ill-concealed loathing, "Because that Unas had just saved our lives!" He looked back down at Daniel, trying to find a smile for him. "And because that's what Daniel does."

The blue light vanished and O'Neill nodded urgently to the soldier standing watching them. "Dial it up now!" He tightened his grip on Daniel, bending his head to speak directly into the man's ear. "We're going to take you home, Daniel. Soft bed, clean sheets, all the things I promised you."

"It wasn't anyone's fault, Jack, it was just…one of those things." Daniel gave him a weary smile.

"Colonel O'Neill told me to kill the Unas!" Frobisher gasped it out incoherently. He threw the note at them as if it was burning his fingers and it fluttered down to land on Daniel's blood soaked chest.

O'Neill's heart lurched as his own handwriting condemned him: 'Daniel says don't go killing any Unas. I say go ahead and pull the trigger.'

He saw Daniel wince then meet his gaze. "You know, everything's going kind of dark, so I can't read it anyway. But unless it says 'Shoot Daniel because he annoys the crap out of me' I forgive you, okay." He closed his eyes. "And now I really have to go to sleep."

"No!" O'Neill lifted him up higher in his arms. "Daniel, no! Wake up! Stay with me." He slapped Daniel's face lightly. "Stay with me, damnit!"

Daniel's eyes opened and he winced in pain. "I'm cold and everything really hurts, Jack. Just let me close my eyes for a…"

"No!" Jack tightened his grip on him. "Don't close your eyes. Stay awake and keep talking. Come on, usually I can't get you to shut up so don't make today the exception." He twisted his head round, "Damnit, Corporal, can't you dial any faster?"

"Janet can't fix this and we both know it."

Looking down at the blood pumping over his hands, O'Neill knew Daniel was right but he couldn't believe it. Not Daniel. Not like this. Daniel dying the last time the same way he'd died the first time: trying to save the life of someone else. Except this time there was no Ra and no sarcophagus to bring him back.

"Why don't the freakin' Tok'ra have a sarcophagus?"

"Because it steals your soul…" Daniel said it drowsily, head beginning to droop.

O'Neill pulled him up higher, slapping his face again. "Daniel! Daniel!"

The crackling in the sky above him made his skin prickle in remembrance. He knew that feeling; as if the air had just been charged with a live current. Something dangerous. Something wrong.

The rings dropped in a flash of light, then whisked back up again, leaving behind the robe-draped figure of Apophis, the air around him shimmering as he activated his personal defense shield around himself and his accompanying half a dozen Jaffa.

Frobisher's men were firing before O'Neill could yell at them to stop.

"Hold your fire! You're just wasting bullets."  O'Neill shouted.

The Goa'uld's face was almost healed, he noted, and he no longer seemed the same person as that posturing exile in Netu. He was composed, powerful. He made O'Neill's skin twitch with loathing while setting off every warning radar he possessed. If Apophis had gained no humility from his time as a prisoner to Sokar, he seemed to have gained wisdom. He looked at O'Neill with amused contempt. Then he lowered the defense shield, his Jaffa immediately stepping forward to encircle him, staff weapons pointed unwaveringly at the airmen who were pointing their P-90s equally unwaveringly at them. A classic Mexican stand-off.

Apophis looked around imperiously, calling out to O'Neill as if he was one of his slaves: "Where is my servant?"

O'Neill glared at the snake god with loathing. "Gone."

The Goa'uld's eyes glowed gold with annoyance. "Where?"

He jerked his head at the cliff. "Where you're very welcome to follow."

"Why was the Stargate activated?" Apophis was watching him narrowly.

O'Neill felt that pretty much confirmed the plan must have been for the Unas to grab Daniel then ring himself up to the ship which Apophis had obviously flown over here in readiness to collect his cargo. O'Neill was presumably supposed to be captured as well, or else tossed over any convenient cliffs if he wouldn't come quietly. Sweet. Then Apophis had detected the gate being activated and gotten suspicious.

He felt Daniel cough, body weakened by blood loss, felt the blood spatter the back of his hands, warm and wet. He didn't look down, keeping his gaze fastened on Apophis, but very aware both of Daniel dying in his arms, and the way that idiot doing the dialing had hit seven symbols at least but nothing was happening. "None of your damned business. Corporal…!" He barked the word out and the young airmen gave him a hunted look over his shoulder.

"Sorry, Colonel. I think I misdialed."

"Dial again, damnit!"

As Apophis took a step forward Frobisher's men did the same, their guns promising what would happen if he took another pace. He glanced at them in contempt. "Your weapons are pitiful."

O'Neill's throat was so dry with grief he could barely speak but he forced the words out, harsh and dead as he could make them. "What do you want?"

Apophis’s voice was a confident purr: "It is what you want, O'Neill."

"I want the space you're occupying. Keep dialing, Corporal!"

"Do you not want your friend to live?"

O'Neill's heart gave another lurch as he realized that more than anything in the world right now, he wanted Daniel to live. He looked down at Daniel's ghost white pallor and blood soaked clothing. His voice came out thick and muffled. "What do you think?"

"I can save him." Apophis said it without mockery or even a hint of gloating. He was matter of fact. "You know that I can."

"Why would you want to?" O'Neill stalled desperately, heart beating at twice normal speed as he began to suspect the deal Apophis might be offering.

"Because he is useful to me and because you would pay a high price to get him back alive."

"Do you think I'd give Daniel to you?"

"To save his life, when there was no other hope for him. Yes." Apophis’s eyes glowed briefly. "Give him to me, O'Neill. I can save him. You can only watch him die."

"No." O'Neill automatically tightened his grip on the dying man in his arms. "You'd torture him."

Apophis had never looked more confident. "Not if you cooperate. You may come with him if you like. I give you my word I will put him in a sarcophagus and restore him to life. I will not mistreat him as long as you are helpful."

Just for a second, the insane urge to give way to temptation almost over came him. He knew what Apophis was truly offering: a chance to betray the Tok'ra, to betray the SGC, perhaps even to be turned into Goa'uld. For a split second almost any sacrifice seemed worth it to save Daniel's life but then sanity reasserted itself. O'Neill jerked his head up and held up his sidearm, fingers so steady no one would ever had known he'd had a moments doubt. "Not a chance in hell. Now get out of here before I put a bullet straight through your double-crossing snake throat."

"He will die."

O'Neill felt a hand close around his heart and squeeze so hard he could barely breathe, but he tried to meet the Goa'uld's eyes unflinchingly, despite the way his hand gave that tell-tale tremor. He felt as he if he was the one dying inside, but aloud all he said was: "It happens."

He didn't understand what Apophis snarled in Goa'uld to his Jaffa but he got that the guy wasn't happy. He also got that he was gone as light flared then faded and he heard the sound of the rings whisking their worst enemy and his serpent guard away again. He closed his eyes, trying to control his urge to rock Daniel in his arms and sob like a baby. Now he really had killed him. All that effort just to feel Daniel die in his arms. The comeback kid who wouldn't be coming back this time because his best friend had just condemned him to death.

As he raised his head he could feel tears stinging his eyes. He tried to divert his frustration and grief into yelling at the airman who was dialing. "Hurry it up, damnit! He can ring us up onto his goddamned ship now he knows where we are!" It didn't help. Nothing helped. Nothing ever would help him get over this.

"Colonel?"

"O'Neill?"

"Oh my god, Daniel…?"

O'Neill jerked his eyes open as Teal'c loomed over them like a one Jaffa eclipse and Carter crashed down on her knees beside him. "What happened?"

O'Neill tried to regain control. "Daniel got between Frobisher's gun and the Unas. We're taking him home."

She was fumbling in the tattered remnants of her pack. "Janet can't fix this, sir."

"I know." He bent his head to breathe in the scent of Daniel's hair, the same way he'd done with Charlie. "I know she can't."

Carter's hand on his arm made him start, and he looked into intent blue eyes. "But I can." She pulled something out of the pack and he saw her hand was shaking as she slipped it on.

He recognized the healing device and hope flared agonizingly. "Can you…?"

"Yes." She said it through gritted teeth. "I can." She stood up and raised the healing device, closing her eyes while he willed her to manage it with every fiber in his body. Please, Carter, please. Be able to do this. Bring him back…

Still with her eyes closed, she stretched out her hand. There was an agonizing moment of…nothingness, then abruptly light was glowing on Daniel's forehead before she pulled the beam down his body. O'Neill felt Daniel arch in his arms and tried to support him while keeping out of the way of the beam. He saw the sweat standing out on Carter's forehead, the effort of concentration that looked as if it was sucking all the blood from her veins, and then Daniel arched again, and his eyes snapped open.

He gasped like someone who'd been held under water. "Oh God…"

"No, just Carter doing her…Jolinar thing."

Daniel twisted his head round to look at him in disbelief, and then looked down at himself, holding up his blood stained hands before picking tentatively at his blood-soaked jacket. "It doesn't… Nothing hurts…"

O'Neill bent his head and buried his face in Daniel's neck, rocking him triumphantly this time as he squeezed him tighter. "Yes! Lazarus Jackson does it again!" He inhaled the scent of a living breathing, sweaty, unshaven, and blood-spattered Daniel Jackson and it was very sweet indeed. When he collected himself and looked up, Teal'c was smiling at them benevolently, and Carter had tears of relief in her eyes.

He found a smile for her. "You did good, Major."

She crouched down and held out a hand to Daniel. He reached out and clasped it. "Thanks, Sam. Owe you a big one."

She gave him a weary smile. "No trouble at all, Daniel."

O'Neill took in her ripped and mud-stained clothing, the burrs in her hair, holes in her pants, and what seemed to be sucker marks on her skin. When he glanced up at Teal'c he saw the Jaffa was in similar condition while SG-4 all looked as if they'd been dragged through a bush backwards. "Looks that way."

"No, really, sir, we were in the neighborhood."

He looked at Gregson who was pulling thorns out of his palm with his teeth. "So, you strolled it, basically?"

"Oh yeah," she nodded. "We were never worried for a minute, were we, Teal'c?"

"Indeed, Major Carter. We could hardly have been less concerned."

He held up a warning finger. "You know, Carter, sometimes you are so like Jacob it's positively scary."

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Never say that to me again when I have a loaded gun in my arms, Colonel. I mean it."

When the scene was bathed in blue as the Stargate whooshed and then shimmered, light rippling over all of them, it took them all by surprise. As Daniel made to get up, O'Neill automatically tightened his grip. "You're not moving until Janet says you can."

"But, Jack, I'm…"

"Don't argue with me, Daniel." He twisted his head round. "Teal'c?"

The Jaffa was there at once. They picked Daniel up between them, O'Neill swearing as pressure was put on his throbbing finger. He hoisted Daniel higher up into his arms as Teal'c took his feet.

"But, Jack, I'm…"

"Are you arguing with me, Daniel?"

He looked at him in fond exasperation and Daniel tilted his head back, doing that pursed mouth, small boy thing, that O'Neill would never have admitted except under torture was actually kind of cute.

"No-o." Daniel said it in the tone more usually accompanied by a 'yes'. "I'm just saying that as Sam used the healing device on me I'm actually probably in better shape than…"

"That sounds like arguing to me. In fact that sounds like rank insubordination deserving the cessation of all chocolate rations until further notice."

"Jack!"

He inhaled Daniel's scent again as he started to carry him towards the Stargate. Yep, sweaty, unshaven, downright smelly archaeologist, currently reeking of blood and shock, but living, breathing, and even arguing. Who needed lilies when a guy had that?

"Tell Fraiser we're on our way, Carter."

"I'll make sure Janet knows you're coming, sir." Carter was waving the stunned Frobisher forwards, herding a confused SG-4 with a few hand signals. Frobisher was stumbling, and Phelan had to go back and retrieve his gun for him.

O'Neill nodded to Gregson as he passed with SG-3 in tow. "Good work, Captain. Thanks for getting here."

Gregson gave him a lopsided grin, reaching out to pat Daniel very gently on the shoulder. "Like Major Carter said, sir, it was a piece of cake."

Carter leant across to say something to Gregson and the man nodded, waving his team on through the gate as he did so.

O'Neill let Gregson head into the wormhole in front of him and then nodded to Teal'c. Daniel was being quiet now but it was obviously an effort for him, and O'Neill reckoned there was a lot of talking still to come from this particular patient. He looked at Carter enquiringly where she was standing to one side of the 'gate. "Didn't I give you an order?"

"I delegated." She held his gaze. "Gregson is bringing Janet up to speed, sir."

"And you are?"

She returned his gaze levelly. "Not leaving this damned planet until I know you and Daniel are safely through that wormhole, Colonel."

O'Neill opened his mouth to object and then noted again her ragged, leech-sucked, and mud-stained appearance. He nodded. "Understood, Major. We're on our way. But if you're not ten paces behind us I'm coming back for you."

She nodded. "Don't worry, sir. I'll be right behind you."

Teal'c stepped backwards into the wormhole, the Jaffa and then Daniel's feet disappearing into the liquid blueness. O'Neill took one last inhalation of the sulfur-laden air, then stepped into the wormhole. A millisecond later, he and Daniel were being sucked into a funnel of light.

***

"…So, have you got everything?" Standing by the side of Daniel's curtained-off bed in the infirmary, O'Neill looked at Janet Fraiser impatiently. "Daniel's got three cracked ribs on his left side. He's got double pneumonia, at least. I've been giving him Tetracycline injections twice a day for it but it's not really holding the infection. There are about eight open welts across his back and shoulders. He's got an Unas bite on his left arm, oh yes, a lot of pulled muscles and bruises, and his feet were pretty badly cut. I tried cleaning them out with antibiotic cream but…" He stared at her in perplexity, as she simply stood there politely waiting for him to finish instead of diving back into that curtained off bed and starting to fix Daniel up like she was supposed to. "Sorry, are you hearing me?"

Fraiser moistened her lips, giving him an apologetic smile. "Um. No, he doesn't, Colonel."

"What?"

She pulled back the curtain to reveal Daniel lying on an infirmary bed looking sheepish, grubby, but remarkably healthy. "He doesn't have any of the injuries you mentioned. I can see that he did have because of the blood on his bandages. But as Major Carter used the healing device on him, he's actually in –"

"Better shape than you are," Daniel finished for her. He gave O'Neill a bright smile. "Janet says I can go home as soon as Siler's got this chain off."

"No way." O'Neill turned on her in disbelief. "The guy was this close to being dead. No way can he go home."

"Colonel, there's nothing wrong with Daniel except that he needs a hot shower and some sleep. And he can get that at home just as well as he can here."

"That Unas used him for a volleyball!" <