You Can't Always Get What You Want, Part 3
Continued from Part 2. Originally published as "But if you Try Sometimes".
SUMMARY: It’s still 2995 B.C. in Ancient Egypt, a wonderful year for rebellious uprisings. So why does Daniel feel like he’s missing something really important? As more of his past (future?) gets dragged into the light, he withdraws further from the “new” Jack, Sam and Teal’c. At least, as far as they’ll let him.
CATEGORY: Drama, angst, some humor as always
TIME: post-Season 8
SPOILERS: Pretty much anything through the end of S8, plus BABYLON from Season 9, which was kind enough to fit in and add some stuff to my existing story
WARNINGS: Cliff-hanger ending. Darker than the first part with mild violence. Please note the opinions expressed by Daniel Jackson regarding himself do not necessarily reflect those of the author. Sorry, but he chose to engage in a lot of psychological self-whumping and fought off all my efforts to stop him.
RATING: PG-13
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Thanks once again to my most excellent beta, Redbyrd, particularly for help on time travel stuff, and a much-needed fresh perspective.
“Nothing?” Jack frowned.
“There is no indication the Jaffa have made any attempt to escape,” Teal’c confirmed in his precise, factual sort of way.
“Planning something?” Jack suggested.
“Possibly,” Teal’c nodded.
“You don’t think so?” He was trying to get an assessment here. They’d had nineteen Jaffa stuffed away in a homemade prison ever since the day said Jaffa had cornered Jack and Sam in the puddle jumper, and Danny’s people had cornered them in return. That meant for eight days, the Jaffa had been down there, unarmed, getting food in little wooden bowls Jack didn’t think they could use to make tools for escape.
Teal’c looked thoughtful. “I have known Jaffa, imprisoned by an enemy Goa’uld, to accept their fate without question, believing their god will come for them.”
Jack shook his head. “Maybe. I just don’t like it.” Off Teal’c’s puzzled look - the one where the eyes narrowed a micromillimeter - he explained, “It doesn’t feel right to me.”
Teal’c nodded. “The surveillance devices Dr. Carter installed are providing constant visual representations of the room in which the Jaffa are being held.”
That was true. Jack had brought a little of everything with him from Earth, and Sam had figured a way to rig a primitive little video surveillance camera planted way up in the ceiling where it could see everything. Daniel had the natives watching the video feed like hawks around the clock - not too difficult considering they were lining up for a look at the magic technology. At first, the Jaffa had made some attempts to penetrate the door. Then, after seeing the second door beyond it when someone brought them food, they seemed to have given up. But how could anybody just give up trying to escape a prison?
Iraq, taunted a nasty little voice in his head.
Okay, but he’d waited a lot longer than eight days to give up, and under much more dire circumstances. Maybe Danny’s bluff had worked after all: telling them the door was wired to some C-4, and if they tried to open it from their side, the blast would bring the whole room down on them like a ton of bricks. The guy definitely had a dark side. “I guess if they try anything, we’ll know about it,” Jack finally shrugged.
The sun was almost down, the cold was setting in, and most of the natives had gone into their tents for the night. Across the encampment, Sam was talking to Katep - probably about staff weapons and Goa’uld shock grenades, a passion for Goa’uld weapons having apparently replaced her passion for Danny, which she’d given up rather abruptly yesterday morning after some weird dream.
A movement to the left caught Jack’s attention, and he saw Danny coming out of the surveillance tent, followed closely by a young woman. That young woman. “Teal’c, who-”
“Her name is Nepthuis,” Teal’c supplied with a little tiny smile. “She and several others have recently returned from a journey to the village outside Ra’s palace, where they purchased supplies for this community.”
Jack processed that one. “Shopping trip.” Danny finished talking to the girl and headed toward the meet ‘n’ eat tent. Nepth… Nepthiuius? Nepthuis - that was it - headed off toward some other tent. “Teal’c, has Daniel seemed any different to you the past couple of days?”
Teal’c blinked at him. “Different?”
A couple of days ago, they’d decided to overthrow Ra, then blow this popsicle stand and go to the distant future where they couldn’t affect the timeline they knew. He’d thought at the time Danny was starting to warm up to them. Letting go of the comparisons between them and his real team. But since then… “Distant,” he finally said. “Withdrawn.”
Teal’c tilted his chin, considering. “Perhaps he is unhappy about leaving this place.”
Maybe. But Jack’s gut told him it was something else. Something deeper. Something that might or might not have figured into the guy dying four times. “I gotta go do something,” he said, heading for the meet ‘n’ eat tent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You know, you can’t get me drunk on this stuff,” Daniel sighed, despairing of subtlety, because he no longer had any doubt that was Jack’s intention as they sat in the main tent hours after everyone else had gone to bed, drinking weak Egyptian beer. He’d probably planned the whole evening around it: eat dinner, discuss battle plans, get Daniel drunk so I can find out how to be his even-better-best-friend than the old Jack, floss teeth with twig, go to bed.
“Then what are you worried about?” Jack shrugged easily.
Sometimes Daniel looked at this man and wondered if somehow he’d been sent here by the real Jack, to haunt him. “Not worried.”
“Good.” Ghost Jack took another swallow of his own beer, then frowned thoughtfully. “So… how exactly did we meet?”
Daniel decided to be difficult. “You showed up in your little time travel ship with Sam and Teal’c-”
“I meant the other me,” he growled.
“Oh.” He added a confused blink for effect. “Didn’t we cover that?”
“No, we covered the fact that you miss chocolate and coffee with a passion that borders on obscene, and one of the four times you died was on the Knock-Knock planet-”
“Nox.”
“Whatever. One down, three to go.”
“I’m not going to tell you,” Daniel said quietly but firmly. “I wish I’d never mentioned it to Sam.”
“But you did.”
“Moment of weakness?”
“You? Weakness?”
Daniel blinked at him, completely taken aback. What did he mean by that?
Jack rolled his eyes. “Fine. How did you and the other me meet?”
Daniel took another little sip of beer and considered just how much he was willing to share, given that Jack’s sole motivation in getting to know him was to one-up the other Jack who’d been his friend for all those years. So far, Ghost Jack’s little fishing expedition had caught him a lot of guppies and a few red herrings, but he was refining his questions, and he was a trained interrogator. Soon Daniel would have to abandon the word games and either answer, refuse to answer, or lie. “They brought me in to decipher the symbols on the gate, and we did cover this.”
Jack ignored the bait. “And I was there?”
“Yep.”
“At Cheyenne Mountain.”
“Yep.”
“I was stationed there months after my son died.”
Oh, yeah, he was good. Master of the guilt factor. “Yes,” Daniel drawled reluctantly.
“I didn’t retire?”
Daniel sighed, and wondered if this was how a dolphin felt as it struggled in a tuna net. “No, you did retire. General West reactivated you.”
“Months after my son died.”
Daniel nodded soberly.
Jack looked skeptical. “You’re saying the Air Force reactivated me even fewer months after…” he trailed off, and when Daniel looked up to see why he’d paused, Jack pointed his index finger at his temple, like a gun.
Daniel frowned. He couldn’t be referring to Charlie’s accident, with a gesture that casual. He had to mean his own suicidal state of mind. But what did he mean by even fewer months after? “Well, that’s just it,” Daniel hazarded. “It wasn’t any ‘months after’. You still were.”
Jack frowned. “Were…?”
“…suicidal,” he finished softly. “That’s why he picked you. Why you went. It was supposed to be a suicide mission.”
Jack’s frown cleared, and he shook his head. “I don’t mean the overall feeling, Daniel, I mean the event itself. The…” He shrugged, apparently feeling he’d made himself clear.
And… he had. Suddenly, understanding hit Daniel like a cold, leveling tidal wave, and it was perfectly obvious what Jack meant. What Jack had done without the Stargate program there to do it for him. Daniel whispered in an oddly calm voice, “You shot yourself.”
Jack nodded his head once, impatiently. Still not aware he’d revealed something Daniel hadn’t known.
Daniel’s mind raced even as his heart seemed to skid to an accusing halt, wanting to un-know what it had just learned. “When… exactly? In your timeline?”
Jack looked at him, the first hint of suspicion coloring his expression. “Mid-October. Ninety-six.”
Daniel stared at him. “Right before your birthday.” Oh, god. Of course. That was when the Jack in Daniel’s timeline had been reactivated and brought to Cheyenne Mountain. When the Jack in Daniel’s timeline had wished he were dead… but he’d always said he never could have gone through with it. Did this mean he could have?
Wasn’t that exactly the choice he’d made in Ba’al’s fortress? Assuming Daniel had jigsawed the scattered bits of that memory back together the right way. Assuming they were memory. They’d never discussed if Daniel had even been there.
But he was being selfish, worrying how this affected his own long-buried past. In front of him sat a man, a good man… a man who would have been his best friend under other circumstances… sharing a horribly personal secret under the assumption Daniel already knew. He wrestled for a moment with whether this Jack really needed to know he’d just given something away, but Daniel’s fundamental disapproval of secrecy won. “Jack… in my timeline-”
“Guys!” came Sam’s voice as she burst into the tent. “There’s something in the sky.”
Daniel had to tear his gaze away from Jack, but Jack seemed glad of the distraction. “What are you doing up?” he asked her.
She frowned. “I heard something. What are you doing up?”
Jack hoisted his bowl of beer in response.
She rolled her eyes. “Come on!” She beckoned them to follow and ran back out of the tent.
“Jack,” Daniel began, not quite knowing what he was going to say, but feeling the need to say something.
“Sam’s waiting,” Jack said with a fairly hostile smirk as he jogged past Daniel toward the outside.
Daniel understood. Jack had figured out he’d inadvertently revealed something, and now he needed a little distance. Worse, he probably saw it as yet another way he paled in comparison to the real Jack, and that was in no small part Daniel’s fault. Unbelievably, he’d forgotten how sensitive the man was to any implication of his inadequacies, real or imagined. He turned to follow.
Sam was standing a few yards from the tent, pointing to the northern night sky, where twinkling lights on a dark shape rose up slowly through blowing sand. It took Daniel a minute to convince himself of what he was seeing.
In a tone of awe, Jack murmured, “Holy shit.”
“Yep,” Sam agreed.
“Is that what I think it is?” Jack asked Daniel.
“Yep,” Daniel confirmed, still confused. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is Ra’s spaceship.” He made a fluttery, rising gesture with his hand. “Taking off into the sky. Leaving Earth. Kind of anti-climactic, isn’t it?” He was babbling to cover his utter consternation. This didn’t make any sense.
Sam frowned indignantly as she kept watching the ship rise through the atmosphere. “We didn’t get to rebel!”
Um - down, girl.
“Is that it?” Jack asked. “We bury the gate, and we’re all done?”
Daniel looked at him thoughtfully. “There was an uprising in my timeline. I suppose it’s possible the ‘uprising’ was nothing more than the ancient Egyptians burying the gate while he was offworld. But he’s got a ship - he doesn’t need the gate. There has to be something else.”
“Like what?” Jack wondered.
Daniel shook his head slowly, turning away as Ra’s ship faded into the stars. “Something that would make him never want to come back. I’ve always wondered what. I assumed it was the lack of naquadah, and the fact that-”
“Daniel,” came Teal’c’s voice out of Jack’s chest, freaking Daniel out momentarily, until he realized what it was. Oh. Duh.
“O’Neill here,” Jack said, tipping his head to speak into the radio he’d attached to his robe. “Daniel’s with me. What did you want?”
“The leader of the Jaffa wishes to speak with you,” Teal’c’s voice announced over the radio.
Daniel frowned, leaned a bit closer to Jack’s shoulder and raised his voice. “You-me, you-Jack or you-all-of-us?”
There was a slight pause, then Teal’c said, “He claims to have valuable information, and asked specifically to be taken to our leader, Daniel.”
Never expected to be on this end of that cliche.
Jack raised his eyebrows at Daniel. Then he frowned. “Yeah, but he doesn’t know who that is, does he?”
“No, Jack,” Daniel said quickly. “I think I need to handle this.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a trick.”
“Maybe, but it’s also diplomacy,” Daniel countered firmly, then remembered this Jack didn’t know anything about his skills in that area. “I know how to talk to them. And what’s he going to do to me through the cell door?”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “You want a list?”
“Perhaps we should all accompany you,” Teal’c added over the radio.
Jack sighed, relaxing his stance slightly. “Okay, we’ll be there in a few.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It was heading toward Casseopia,” Jack said with a shrug.
Daniel gave him a strange look and said to Teal’c, “And that’s really all we know, and possibly a bit more.”
“I see,” Teal’c responded.
Sam couldn’t see Teal’c’s reaction to the news of Ra’s departure. He wore desert robes and a sort of turban around his forehead to hide the brand that marked him as the first prime of Apophis, which she guessed was information they didn’t want the imprisoned Jaffa to have. He led the three of them into the last tent in the settlement, then down through the trapdoor within to the tunnel beneath the surface, lit by candles in sconces.
They arrived at the first heavy formed-stone door at the tunnel’s end, and Teal’c pulled it back to reveal a small antechamber with a matching door at the end. He pulled the second door back to reveal a lighter, inner door made of tightly woven rushes, like the baskets and sandals people made here, except for a few gaps through which they could watch the Jaffa or pass food. The Jaffa were unarmed, and their armor had been removed, too. But that didn’t stop Colonel Paranoia from hoisting his rifle at the opening, just to remind them any attempt to rush the door would be met with deadly force.
Sam scooted into the corner by Teal’c, where she could see everyone’s faces. She felt childish, but her heart was beating fast and she was shaking with anticipation. It wasn’t that she failed to grasp the gravity of the situation. She just couldn’t help feeling excited about it, too.
Daniel took a look at the Jaffa on the other side, frowned slightly, then crossed his arms, the pose in combination with the robes suddenly reminding her of Ben Kenobi. “Okay, here I am,” he said through the rope door. “Which one of you asked to see me?”
“I am Em’loc,” said a tall, wiry Jaffa with the same brownish coloring as the rest of the Egyptians and an eye emblem on his forehead. He approached the door slowly with his hands outstretched and empty. “I wish to offer you information in exchange for our freedom.”
Daniel kept his expression inscrutable. “And how do I know this isn’t a trick?”
Em’loc straightened to his full height, which was pretty close to Teal’c’s. “I offer my word as a Jaffa.”
Daniel smiled slightly. “You are a loyal servant of Ra. I’m not sure you’d consider it dishonorable to lie to me to serve his best interests.”
Em’loc glanced down thoughtfully, then looked around at the other Jaffa. “You speak wisely. However… I am not loyal to Ra. We are not loyal to Ra.”
“You’re not?” Daniel glanced at Teal’c.
“We were among the Jaffa of another Goa’uld,” Em’loc replied, “until Ra captured us in battle and forced us into his service. Now he intends to rid himself of the service of the Jaffa.”
Teal’c narrowed his eyes slightly, which Sam took to mean he was skeptical of Em’loc’s claim.
“Ra has no use for future generations of Goa’uld,” Em’loc continued. “He has incorporated increasing numbers of human slaves into his service to replace us. But replacing us is not enough. He intends to destroy us, that none of the symbiotes we carry shall survive to compete with him for dominion.”
Daniel glanced over at Teal’c and did a double-take when he saw the skeptical expression. “No, this is…” he glanced at Em’loc, mindful of his audience. “I am aware that, at the time of Ra’s death many years from now, his warrior servants will be mere humans in Jaffa armor.”
Em’loc stared at Daniel with a disturbed expression.
“Is this the information you wanted to exchange?” Daniel asked him, getting back to business.
Em’loc shook his head. “No. There is more.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “You do realize I’m going to have to hear it in order to decide whether it’s worth your freedom or not.”
Damn, he’s good.
Em’loc glanced at the other Jaffa, then nodded. “You have treated us honorably. I will comply, in hopes that you will keep to our bargain.”
“Which is… what, exactly?”
“If you find the information we provide helpful, you will set us free, and we will neither divulge your plans nor harm you in any way until next we face you in battle.”
Daniel looked at Teal’c, then Jack, then Sam in turn. Jack tilted his head thoughtfully, and Daniel seemed to make a decision. “If the information is helpful, we will set you free. Without your weapons, of course.”
Em’loc inclined his head in agreement. “You must know if you succeed in overthrowing Ra, another Goa’uld will take his place. Your wisest course of action would be to ally yourselves with a more benevolent god.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes. “What Goa’uld would feel benevolent toward us after we prove we can overthrow Ra?”
Em’loc smiled faintly. “Perhaps one that you assist in overthrowing Ra.”
Oooookay. It made sense, but did this guy really think they’d trade one master for another? The whole point was… and then she noticed Daniel’s face as he stared at Em’loc. The expression was subtle enough that the Jaffa probably didn’t notice, but she thought Daniel looked like he’d just had a shock.
Very softly, he asked, “What god did you have in mind?”
Em’loc gave him a mocking smile in response. Sam replayed everything Em’loc had said so far, and concluded that Daniel knew something she didn’t. From the looks on their faces, Jack and Teal’c were also in the dark.
“You’re not loyal to Ra,” Daniel muttered, like he was reciting a list. “Our wisest course of action would be to ally ourselves with another Goa’uld. You want to be freed, even though Ra would kill you in dishonor if you returned to him.” He grimaced. “You are talking about a planned attack, aren’t you?”
Sam felt a chill. Another Goa’uld was coming to fight Ra? And they were going to be caught in the middle of it?
Jack straightened beside Teal’c, his stance wary and alert, and the two of them exchanged a glance. If Daniel had guessed right…
Em’loc’s smile faded slightly. Daniel had guessed right.
“You’re already allied with some Goa’uld who’s promised you he’ll continue to use Jaffa armies,” Daniel continued. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then suddenly his expression turned indifferent. “And I know which one.”
Em’loc stared at him skeptically.
“Is he coming by ship, or is he already here on Earth?” Daniel demanded.
Em’loc narrowed his eyes slightly. “Will you release us for this information?”
“So you can run to your new master and tell him our plans?” Daniel countered. Then he smiled grimly. “Ah, so he is already here on Earth. Thank you.”
“Daniel?” Jack asked softly.
“Setesh,” Daniel announced. “They’ve allied themselves with Setesh - Seth - and he’s going to chase Ra off and take over Earth.” He drawled the last few words to emphasize the hidden message, which even Sam got: that was why Ra had taken off so suddenly. This wasn’t a future event: Seth had already taken over.
Again, the look on Em’loc’s face confirmed Daniel was right.
Em’loc took a deep breath. “If I tell you exactly when the assault is to take place and what method he will use, what would that information be worth to you?”
Some of the Jaffa behind Em’loc stirred and glanced at each other. Sam suspected Daniel had already forced Em’loc to reveal more information than he had intended.
When Daniel answered, his tone was strangely regretful. “Very little,” he said. “The assault of which you speak has already taken place.”
Em’loc stared at him as the other Jaffa looked stunned by the news. “You lie.”
“No,” Daniel replied, and shook his head. “Ra is gone. We didn’t have all the details, but with what you’ve told us…”
Why did he sound so sad? Almost… apologetic?
Em’loc recovered himself quickly. For a second, Sam thought he was furious, but then he just looked resigned. “Then why do you still detain us? Of what further use can we possibly be to you?”
Daniel spoke to Em’loc in a gentle voice, even though his face had turned to stone. “None. The truth is, even if we had freed you, it’s essential that we eliminate every symbiote in existence on this planet. I’m sorry.”
And finally she understood. Oh, my god.
Em’loc looked almost afraid for a second, then he glowered. “You are fools! You will never be without Goa’uld rule! We can take you to Setesh, offer you a choice, a genuine way to better your lot-”
Daniel backed away and gestured to Teal’c, who shut the heavy outer door on the rest of Em’loc’s shouting. He hid it well, but Sam thought Daniel looked devastated under all his stoicism. Now that she noticed it, Jack didn’t look happy either. Of course, who would? This wasn’t combat: this was slaughter.
Suddenly, she wondered if her father had ever had to do anything like this.
“Daniel,” Teal’c said softly. “I will carry out this task alone.”
“No!” Sam blurted angrily before she’d even known she had something to say. “Daniel, how can you do this? Weren’t you the one who said slaughtering them might affect the timeline? Can’t we just send them to some other planet?”
He turned to her with a look so full of remorse she felt a chill.
“We can’t send them anywhere there’s a gate,” Jack informed her quietly, “or they’ll go through to some Goa’uld homeworld or another and report what went on here, and then some other Goa’uld’ll come along and mess up the timeline. I’ve been thinking… the most likely reason why no other Goa’ulds came here after Ra was they didn’t realize he’d abandoned it.”
Daniel nodded his agreement, then spoke in a flat voice. “And even if we could maroon them somewhere without access to a gate, that would also mean no access to symbiotes. They’d all die within a few years, or worse, be taken over by their symbiotes, who would know how to build Goa’uld technology or enslave the local population… it’s a moot point, anyway, because I don’t know how to plot a course to a world off the gate network.”
“Do you know any worlds that might work?” Sam demanded. “Because maybe I could plot a course.”
Daniel shook his head. “Very few. And wouldn’t you need the whole SGC database to adjust for stellar drift?”
“Maybe not,” she insisted. “Maybe there’s something in the ship that could do it.” Okay, so it was a longer than long shot. They both knew it wasn’t going to work. But…
Jack put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see a sympathetic expression on his face. Nice gesture, but entirely inadequate if they were going to stand here and plan the murder of nineteen unarmed slaves. She felt sick.
“Dr. Carter,” Teal’c said gently, “the loss of Jaffa life is an inevitable effect of any effort to destroy the Goa’uld. I regret this as much as you do, but it cannot be avoided.”
“It was,” Daniel suddenly declared, his voice regaining a hint of its fire.
“What?” Sam asked, confused.
“It was avoided,” he said, darting his gaze among the three of them. “Somewhat. In the future, the Tok’ra developed a medication that replaced the symbiote in Jaffa physiology. Of course, it leaves them dependent on the medication, but the Tok’ra hoped to refine it eventually so that wouldn’t be the case. We tested it on a lot of the rebel Jaffa…” He broke off, his expression freezing.
“Rebel Jaffa?” Teal’c repeated curiously.
Daniel turned to gape at him. “Teal’c, that’s it!”
“What’s it?” Jack asked.
“What if this is how the earliest seeds of the Jaffa rebellion were sown?” Daniel asked Teal’c.
“To what rebellion do you refer?” Teal’c asked, clearly confused.
Daniel closed his eyes and put the tip of his forefinger against his lips for a second. “Okay, I know there’s no Jaffa rebellion in your timeline, because you’re the one who started it in ours. But before that, Bra’tac taught you the Goa’uld’s weren’t gods. He told you about - about ascending to a higher plane of existence, about Kheb…”
He froze again, staring this time at the wall.
Even Teal’c seemed to give up on him. He turned to Sam and Jack. “My former Jaffa master spoke upon his deathbed of a world where a Jaffa could travel at the end of his life in order to ascend. The Goa’uld forbid us from traveling to that world. Even the coordinates are lost to us.”
“No, they’re not,” Daniel said quietly.
Jack still looked as lost as Sam felt, but Teal’c stared at Daniel in shock. “You know the location of Kheb?”
“Yes!” Daniel replied. “How long ago did the legends begin? Do you know?”
Teal’c looked thoughtful. “The legend states that the first Jaffa came to Kheb several thousand years ago.”
“Under what circumstances?” Daniel pressed.
Teal’c’s frown deepened. “Having been abandoned by their god, they stole from him a tablet which described Kheb and what awaited them there.”
“That’s it!” Daniel repeated.
“Whoa, wait a second,” Jack interrupted, waving a hand between himself and Sam. “Clue us in here. Kheb? Ascend? Rebel Jaffa?”
“There’s an Ancient on Kheb,” Daniel explained rapidly, “… at least I think she’s there now. She’s a member of the race that built the Stargates, and she can help mortals ascend to a higher plane of existence. It’s… well, they’ll still die, but this is like… a hell of an afterlife.”
“You have been to Kheb?” Teal’c asked, his voice almost breaking. Sam looked up in surprise - he seemed to be on the verge of tears.
“Yes,” Daniel said gently.
“And you know this is possible?” Teal’c whispered. “This ascension?”
Daniel hesitated minutely before nodding. “Yes, I do.”
“Son of a bitch!” Jack suddenly hissed. They all turned to see him staring at Daniel. “Let me guess: this is one of the ones you wouldn’t tell me about.”
Daniel crossed his arms again, looking uncomfortable.
“You did it, didn’t you?”
Huh?
“Jack, this really isn’t about me. We have a decision to make here.”
And then Sam got it. “You… this is how you died four times?”
Daniel narrowed his eyes. “No, it’s not.”
Jack smirked at her. “Three. The fourth was these aliens that-”
“I didn’t ascend three times,” Daniel broke in impatiently.
“Twice?” Jack asked.
Daniel ignored him. “Getting back on topic, we can send these Jaffa to Kheb. It’s something they’ll want. It’s definitely a better alternative from my perspective on the issue. What do you say?”
Jack tilted his head to the side. “What’s to stop them from gating off this Kheb and going wherever they want?”
Daniel hesitated for just a second. “Oma.”
“Oh your what?”
“Oma Desala,” Daniel sighed. “She’s the Ancient who can help them ascend. I think I can… I think if I explain it to her, she’ll keep them there.”
“She can control nineteen Jaffa?” Jack asked skeptically.
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “You have no idea.”
“Daniel,” Sam broke in suddenly, “if they’re stuck on Kheb, how are they going to start the Jaffa rebellion?”
He looked thoughtful - for about a second. “They’re only stuck there in their mortal state.” He turned to Teal’c. “You guys had to get the idea of ascension from somewhere, right? Might as well have been ascended Jaffa spreading the word. Or if they embrace Oma’s teachings, she might let them leave to spread the word. I trust her judgment.”
Jack sighed heavily, looking very uncertain about all this.
“And how does this fit with the original timeline?” Sam asked gently.
Daniel regarded her for a second before answering. “You said time was sort of self-healing, right?”
She tilted her head. “Well, that’s one theory. And in light of the fact that you were able to travel to 1969 and back without noticing even the slightest change in the timeline, it seems like the dominant paradigm right now. I mean, if time is totally vulnerable to even the slightest shifts, you couldn’t have done that.”
He nodded. “So, it doesn’t have to match up exactly to the original timeline.”
Sam felt her eyes narrow. “I don’t know, Daniel. There’s obviously some limit to how much it can vary, and we don’t know what that is.”
Daniel’s eyebrows shot up and he opened his mouth to retort.
“Wait a second,” Jack interrupted, turning to her. “How does this rebellion we’re planning match up to the original timeline?”
Sam frowned. “I assume the ancient Egyptians rebelled on their own originally, and the fact that we’re around for it doesn’t really impact things that much.”
He turned to Daniel. “Why did you guys push for the rebellion four years ago? Did that match a date or something?”
“There is no exact date,” Daniel responded with a frown. “It was around 3,000 B.C. We pushed because the natives showed no sign of being prepared to do it themselves.”
“Exactly.” Jack turned back to Sam.
“Not following you,” she said.
“Maybe we started the rebellion in the original timeline, too.”
“We weren’t here,” she pointed out.
“So you assume.”
She was getting a headache.
“Wait a second,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “I never could figure this out when we went back in 1969, either. We got back because General Hammond sent a note to his younger self with the information we needed to plot a course home to 1999. In the original timeline, though, we should have just been sent back there and lost - there would have been no note.”
“Yes,” Sam responded, “but when he met you again, he would’ve known to write the note, and that would have essentially overwritten the version where you were stuck there forever.”
“There you go,” Jack said. “For all you know, in the original version, there was no rebellion, everyone lived as slaves for many, many years, and then eventually someone went back in time to correct everything, and that’s where the timeline Daniel lived through came from.”
Daniel was staring at him as strangely as she was… and yet, for all she knew, he could be right. She hated making decisions on practically no information.
“Well, there’s a loop somewhere, isn’t there?” Jack demanded impatiently. “Between 1969 and 1999, for example. A version where they didn’t get a note keeps getting looped over by a version where they did.”
Yep, Sam’s head was hurting, right on schedule.
“Like a Moebius strip,” Daniel breathed. “There’s a half-twist in the loop, so that if you travel along the edge, there’s really only one side. You have to come back to where you started… as long as you complete the journey.”
Now, they both stared at Daniel in confusion. Jack was the first to recover himself. “The bottom line is, for all we know, just capturing the Jaffa totally screwed everything up. So we go back to basing our decisions on what seems best for now instead of thinking about the future. Then we drop by the SGC in 2005 when all this is done, and see if everything’s back the way it was.”
“And if it’s not, we come back and try again,” Daniel added.
Sam shrugged. “I can’t argue with the fact that absolutely anything we do is a risk.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Keep in mind that the rebellion I started in your timeline led to Ra taking the Stargate with him, and yet a lot of things turned out remarkably similar.”
“Okay,” Jack said, clapping his hands together. “When are we going to do this? How are we going to do it? We can’t just stroll up to the Stargate and send ‘em through.”
Daniel’s eyes flitted thoughtfully for a moment. “We’ll have to keep them here until it’s over. Then I’ll go to Kheb and make sure Oma’s there and this is going to work. Then we can take them through the gate. Simple.”
“Sure,” Jack shook his head. “So what about Seth?”
Daniel sighed. “We need more intel. We’ve got a couple of hours before dawn. Let’s all get some sleep, and we’ll put something together in the morning.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jack kept thinking of the episode of South Park where the little fat kid kept saying the other kid had sand in his vagina, because that was pretty much how he felt right now. He had sand in so many places, he thought he might have to borrow some body parts he didn’t have just to account for it all.
He was stretched flat on his belly on the ridge overlooking Ra’s palace with Danny beside him, Teal’c to Danny’s other side, and Sam to Jack’s other side. He couldn’t help thinking: here they were, an exact duplicate of the infamous SG-1 they’d seen on the videotape. A museum quality reproduction. And to Danny, just as disappointing a fraud. Jack sensed that coming off him in waves. Daniel had thawed considerably, and they’d all come to some beneficial understandings, but it still hurt him to look at them. And somehow hurting him hurt Jack. He’d given up trying to understand why.
“Nothing yet,” Danny whispered, adjusting the focus on his field glasses again as he watched the palace.
As if on cue, “Daniel,” came Nepthuis’ high-pitched voice in a stage whisper over Danny’s radio.
Danny responded just as quietly. Nepthuis let out a stream of Egyptian and he listened carefully, occasionally responding. After a couple of minutes, he finished the conversation with what sounded like an order to the girl, and turned to the three expectant sets of eyes watching him.
“Apparently, Seth had a much harder time taking the palace than he prepared for,” he related. “Her understanding from the kitchen staff is that a lot of the Jaffa who’d sworn allegiance to him switched at the last moment and fought for Ra.”
“Because we captured nineteen of them?” Jack hazarded.
Danny nodded. “Possibly. She says many were killed, and it sounds like he hasn’t really established control over the palace yet.”
“That explains why he has not yet announced his victory and reign,” Teal’c remarked.
Danny nodded again. “Nepthuis only saw about thirty Jaffa and ten human slaves.”
“Thirty?” Jack echoed dubiously.
“She couldn’t believe it, either,” Daniel said. “So she talked to some people, looked around in some areas she really shouldn’t have wandered, and she’s pretty convinced that’s all he’s got. She was also told he came by gate, not ship.”
“Plus,” Sam put in, “why would Seth try to hide Jaffa in his own palace?”
Danny nodded his agreement. “It’s possible the nineteen we have were a third or a fourth of his forces. Maybe even more. Taking Ra down from the inside wouldn’t require as much manpower as a full-on assault.”
Jack nodded. It sounded too good to be true, but he couldn’t find the fly in the ointment. “Is Nepthuis on her way out?”
“Yeah,” Daniel replied grimly. “But she’s way deep in the palace. Jack, if she has trouble on the way out…”
Jack surveyed the palace for a second, taking note of the exits, the few guards, the lay of the land. Nepthuis had gone in under cover of delivering food supplies to the kitchen, but if she’d gone wandering elsewhere… “Daniel, if she makes it to the door, she’s home free.” He let what would happen if she didn’t make it to the door - and just how little there was they could do about it - go unspoken.
Danny looked down briefly, then turned a tense face back to watching the palace.
“Hey,” Jack asked, hoping to distract him, “how come Katep’s the only one you taught English to?”
Danny’s eyebrow twitched. “Because in my timeline, no one spoke English in ancient Egypt.”
“Ah. Good reason,” Jack approved.
“Thank you,” Danny returned dryly, just as Nepthuis emerged safely from the palace.
Teal’c and Jack repositioned their weapons, just in case the girl needed cover fire. She made it to the ridge without incident, and a few minutes later they were all getting cautiously to their feet and starting back down the other side.
Nepthuis stopped Danny for a second to hand him an object - some sort of thing that reminded Jack of a handheld computer. “What’s that?” he asked as Danny frowned at it.
Even as the group started to move back toward the settlement, Danny frowned at Nepthuis and admonished her in Egyptian. She looked half-heartedly chagrinned, but then she just beamed at him proudly. Danny finally shook his head, said something slightly warmer to her, and turned back to the device.
Just as Jack was about to repeat his question, Danny turned to him with an irate expression and said, “It’s a sort of Goa’uld handheld computer she stole from Seth’s quarters.”
Jack felt his eyebrows surge upwards.
“Yeah, I know,” Danny grumbled. “As soon as he realizes it’s gone…well, we just have to move quickly. Hopefully, it’ll tell us… well, hello.”
“What?” Sam piped up.
Danny nearly tripped, trying to walk while he read the device, and Nepthuis caught him by the elbow. That girl didn’t let anyone get between her and Daniel when she was around, Jack had noticed. “Um… it looks like Seth’s been doing research into the Ancients.”
“Is that good or bad?” Jack asked.
Danny frowned at him uncertainly. “Both. The last thing in the world we want is a Goa’uld with the power of the ancients. But that’s exactly what we ended up with in my timeline.”
“Seth?” Sam guessed with a frown.
“No,” Danny replied. “Seth lives out a nice long life hiding out on earth, creating religious cults for his own amusement but otherwise not really causing any trouble. Then we kill him. Anubis, on the other hand, somehow finds research on the Ancients and manages to ascend partway and wreak all sorts of galaxy-wide havoc.”
“You mentioned him on the tape,” Jack commented. “You guys took him out, right?”
“Not us,” Danny replied, still studying the device as they walked. “Oma.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Wait, I think I got it,” Dr. Carter said as she brought Teal’c’s staff weapon up, armed it, and fired into the dune.
“Very good,” he complimented.
She turned to him a calm face that failed to hide her excitement. “Yeah.”
He inclined his head. “You completed the task at an acceptable speed. You should practice more, and then I believe you will be ready.”
From her expression, Teal’c suspected she had hoped for higher praise. But he would not send a novice warrior into battle with a false sense of her abilities. She smiled briefly and began the drill again.
A few yards away, Daniel was instructing Nepthuis in the same manner with one of the staff weapons from their cache. She was young and lovely, with pale eyes, a gentle face and soft dark hair. She spoke softly to Daniel as he adjusted the position of her arm and shoulder with the weapon, and he laughed briefly in response. Teal’c realized he could not recall ever having seen Daniel Jackson smile before. Upon reflection, it was also the first time he had seen him touch another person.
He wondered again about the sketch he had seen in one of Daniel’s journals - the one which Nepthuis resembled, which Daniel had only identified sadly as someone I used to know.
To his other side, Teal’c saw Katep training two boys to use Earth rifles. Several other groups dotted the dunes, each being trained by an Egyptian who had been trained by Daniel. O’Neill walked from group to group, surveying all, offering criticisms and suggestions as he deemed necessary. He had been scowling all day long, and Daniel had explained that seeing such young people with weapons reminded O’Neill of what had happened to his son, but he would be “okay”.
Teal’c disliked the word “okay”, which he had never heard before meeting the Tau’ri. It meant “acceptable”, but Daniel’s explanation for the word’s origin - that it had begun as part of a slogan in a political power struggle for supremacy on one of Earth’s major nations - was entirely unacceptable, in Teal’c’s opinion. This was not how words should come into existence.
“Hey, Teal’c,” came O’Neill’s voice from beside him. “How’s it going?”
“It goes well, O’Neill,” Teal’c replied with a nod. “Dr. Carter is progressing.”
Dr. Carter aimed, armed and fired the staff weapon in demonstration.
“Nice,” O’Neill commented. He glanced to his side, then turned his entire body to that side to watch Daniel. He raised an eyebrow. “Well, well, well.”
Dr. Carter turned to follow O’Neill’s gaze. Daniel had put the staff weapon down on the ground. His gaze was directed toward Nepthuis’ midsection as she adjusted her skirt near her waist, on the side her body blocked from their view. Daniel spoke to her, then stepped forward and appeared to be helping her adjust the garment.
Sounding amused, Dr. Carter asked, “What’s he doing?”
Suddenly, Daniel dashed forward and grabbed the young woman’s hands, speaking animatedly. He smiled again, and she laughed, and then he backed away. He nodded, still staring at her hip. Finally, he patted her on the shoulder and walked over toward them.
As soon as he noticed them watching him, Daniel asked warily, “What?”
“What was that?” O’Neill asked.
“What was what?”
“You. What were you doing just now?”
Daniel frowned. “Training her on the staff weapon. Why, did I do something wro-”
“No, that bit at the end,” O’Neill clarified. “Where you were all like eh with the hands-” he gestured in poor imitation “-and she was like whuh with her skirt-” another gesture ensued.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “I was showing her how to carry a knife.”
O’Neill raised his eyebrows. “That is officially the worst excuse ever for getting your hands on a girl’s ass.”
Daniel bristled, looking deeply offended. Then he erased that expression, tilted his head and said, “It’s the way you taught me.”
O’Neill turned to Dr. Carter. “How do I keep walking right into those?”
She grinned. “Face it, Jack. In a battle of wits, you’re a sidearm, and he’s one of these big mamas.” She held up Teal’c’s staff weapon with a proud, affectionate smile.
“I thought you hated guns,” O’Neill remarked.
“Well, Earth guns, yeah, but these suckers are cool.”
Both Daniel and O’Neill stared at her.
“What?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” Daniel said quickly. “I gotta go count grenades.” He turned toward the encampment and started walking.
Dr. Carter’s expression became one of excitement. “Can I come with you?”
Daniel paused and turned back to her. “Um,” he responded, looking slightly disturbed. “Sure.”
Dr. Carter smiled and followed him with a distinct bounce in her step.
O’Neill watched them go. “She’s getting weird.”
“Indeed,” Teal’c agreed. “She is becoming a warrior.”
The expression on O’Neill’s face brought Teal’c great amusement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“This is better than I thought,” Daniel murmured as he stacked another four Jaffa shock grenades on the pile he’d made in the middle of the basement floor. “Of course, they’re only really useful right in front of your enemy. What we really need is a distraction. Something that’ll scare Seth into hiding. Something… maybe something to do with the Ancients.”
“Ancients,” Sam murmured, catching only the last word of whatever he was saying. She’d been doing that the whole time they’d been down here. Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed.
“You okay?” he asked, glancing at her as he straightened up from the pile of shock grenades.
Damn. “Yeah,” she said, dropping her eyes.
“What?” he asked, not buying it.
“I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?” He looked so sincere.
She pasted a stupid smile on her face. “Positive. Didn’t you say the ship has a hologram-projector?”
He crinkled his brow. “Yeah. Remember, I accidentally activated it and told you I was suddenly in the meeting tent and the ship at the same time?”
She blinked. “I thought you were speaking metaphorically. Um, but yeah… maybe we could use it somehow.”
He crinkled his brow. “You mean, like, one of us send a projection and tell him we’re an Ancient, and promise all sorts of greatness for him with just enough detail to make it believable, and tell him to make it happen, he has to go into hiding?”
She nodded after a second. “I was thinking ‘boo’, but your idea’s probably better.”
“He’s just freaky enough to buy it,” Daniel mused. “But we’d better make sure Katep’s team packs all the explosives, just in case it doesn’t work.”
Sam nodded, uncertain what to say to that. “Okay.”
Daniel turned to leave, then halted and turned back to her with a concerned frown. “You know, you can talk to me.”
She blinked. “About what?”
“You’ve been kind of distracted, and we’re going to be going into a battle in about five hours,” he pointed out.
“I will be very focused,” she assured him.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
He frowned at her some more. “Maybe if you’d just tell me what you were thinking about-”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No, it’s not that,” he said.
“Then what?”
“I just want to help.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Something’s stinky, and I’m not thinking it’s the guns.”
He stared at her. “Oh. See… I thought maybe you were worried about the possibility of having to kill.”
“You asked,” she pointed out defensively.
“Curiosity’s always been my downfall,” he agreed. “But I have some bad news for you: the stink isn’t me - it’s you.”
“Me?” she echoed disbelievingly. “I’ve only been two… three… okay, I’ve gone a few days without a shower. But I put on perfume.”
“Which is making it worse,” he informed her. “It just brings out the other smells more.” He shrugged at her dismayed expression. “Yeah, living here is pretty gross.”
She pulled her robe out from her chest and took a whiff of the air underneath it. “Ugh! Oh, I can’t believe… well, how come you don’t stink worse?”
“Worse?” he repeated, sounding indignant.
She advanced on him quickly and sniffed the air her advance had caused him to back out of. “Yeah, you… you don’t have that rank smell. You just smell like stale clothes.”
“Well, we do have water.” He crossed his arms. Oh, yeah, she’d definitely caused offense.
“Really?” she snapped. “Where? Nobody’s exactly offered me a place to bathe.”
“You don’t get a tub, Sam,” he sighed. “Just a basin of water. I’d show you how it works, but seeing as we’re going to be storming Ra’s palace in a few hours-
She glared. “I think I can figure out a bowl of water, Daniel.”
“I meant the sand part.”
“Sand?”
“It works best if you use sand first, then the water.”
Was he putting her on? “What about soap?”
He replied in a tone of strained patience, “Believe me, what passes for soap around here is worse than the sand. But it doesn’t matter, anyway, because we’ll be leaving forever in a few hours.”
She shook her head. “I brought my own.”
Daniel froze, eyes wide and alert.
Sam whipped her head around to look behind her. “What?” But there was nothing there. She turned back around… and realized he was looking at her. Okay, now, that was just scary. He looked like a starving man who’d just found the Garden of Eden, sized up Adam and decided he could take him.
“Soap?” he murmured roughly, like he’d just encountered a long-lost lover.
Sam felt her eyes narrow. “What happened to ‘it doesn’t matter, anyway’?”
He grunted irritably and gestured toward the rope ladder. “You can help Katep get the gear together. No, second thought, you’d better ask Jack.”
“I can-”
“Ask Jack.” He turned to face her, glowering her down.
“Where are you going to be?” she demanded to save face.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Where’s Daniel?” Jack asked as he and entered the main tent. Teal’c was still working with the Egyptians, but in Jack’s opinion they were about as trained as they were going to get, and zero hour was approaching. And the plan Sam had vaguely relayed - something about a hologram Nostradamusing Seth into hiding - made about as much sense as the lyrics to “Louie Louie” as retold by a five-year-old. He stopped short when he saw what Katep and the others were doing in the tent.
“We’re getting the gear together,” Sam announced proudly.
On the table, Jack saw some Goa’uld shock grenades, some Claymores, and even a few packs of C-4. And all around the walls… staff weapons for days. Unsure of the sort of response Emily Post would recommend for this situation, Jack opted for, “Cool…? Um, where’s Daniel?”
She hesitated ever so slightly, putting her hand on a nearby staff weapon. “’Around’, he said. Tending to last minute details. Whatever that means.”
Great. He left and stalked over to the last place he had to look: Daniel’s tent. As he approached, he heard noises from within. Among them, a zipping sound, followed by a soft mutter. “Daniel?”
There was a thud, and the tent wall shook slightly, like something had bumped it. “Jack?”
“You do know we have a Goa’uld to kill in about four hours?”
The response came in a completely light-hearted tone. “Can’t kill him. He was still around in my timeline.”
“Daniel!”
“Yes, Jack, I know the schedule. I made it, remember?”
“Oh, yes, I remember,” Jack retorted. “Sam’s assembling an army, Teal’c and I’ve got the Egyptians trained, and you’re in your tent. Anything else on your agenda for us, mon general?”
The tent flap opened, and Daniel stepped out with a defensive expression. He was wearing his camos again. “For your information, I was putting together what I’m going to say to Seth.”
“Yes, about that plan,” Jack remarked in a nice weather we’re having, isn’t it tone, “are you cracked?”
Daniel nodded, taking the comment in stride. “Possibly. But the only risk is that it won’t work. And if that happens, we do have a backup plan.”
Jack raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“C-4,” Daniel replied. “Come on, I’ll give you some more details while we walk.” He took off toward the patch of sand they’d nicknamed “the range”, where Teal’c was still training Egyptians.
As he followed, Jack realized suddenly that he’d altogether stopped thinking of him as Danny. Was it growing respect, or growing distance?
Continue to Part 4.