What Dreams May Come - 3/21
Warnings and summary are here: Chapter One
The previous chapters can be found here: What Dreams May Come
- = - = -
Chapter Three
- = - = -
Jack walked through the door and into the large inner chamber of the temple. He shook his head and stifled a laugh. Daniel hadn't really moved since Jack had left, except for the fact that he was standing on his toes on an overturned altar.
"Daniel?"
"Hm? Oh, hey, Jack."
"Daniel, what exactly are you doing?"
"I'm trying to figure out what this says, actually." Daniel brushed his hands on his pants and jumped to the floor. "I know I've seen that symbol before-pretty recently, in fact. I just can't remember what it represents."
Daniel swatted at the air next to his ear again, his expression one of extreme irritation.
Jack leaned his shoulder against the large door frame and glanced around at the rest of the glyphs that covered the walls. "Can you read the rest of it?"
"Most of it, yes. There's one section of the same writing that's on the obelisk outside-the writing from Ernest's planet. I can't read that, of course, but I can read the rest of it."
"Okay. So what does it say?"
Daniel swatted at the air once more, and then pointed up at the words as he translated. "Okay, well, it's another warning. ‘Beware the god … that's the name I can't decipher … who shall sure-ly steal away your immortal soul.' "
"That doesn't sound fun."
"No. Right now, I'm thinking it's a simplistic explanation of being taken as a host. A little further in … right here," Daniel explained as he pointed out a different section of the writings. "This describes this … being … as the 'Possessor of Souls.' And that passage over there …" Daniel motioned with his arm toward the other side of the room. "… calls him the 'Thief of the Spirit.' "
After every three or four words, Daniel batted at the air or ducked his head. After his speech was delivered, Jack rolled his eyes and finally made mention of the odd behavior.
"Daniel, what are you doing?"
"What?" Daniel ducked quickly to the side and swatted at the air yet again. He turned back to Jack with an expression of understanding on his face. "Oh, that! There's an insect of some sort in here, and it keeps buzzing around my head. It's too small for me to see, but I can hear it." Daniel batted out again and turned to Jack with an exasperated look on his face. "It's starting to get really annoying."
Jack smiled in amusement and turned back to the original topic. "Okay, so I take it the locals didn't like this guy much."
"Would you?" Daniel looked around the room and gestured toward the walls around them. "There are hundreds of stories on these walls, and every single one of them seems to be about Goa'uld possession."
Jack gripped his gun a bit tighter and rubbed his eyes as he moved closer to Daniel. "Doesn't that seem like an awful lot of possessions for just one snakehead?"
"Yes, it does. I'm wondering if maybe there weren't multiple Goa'uld here, and the people just thought they were all the same being because of their eyes."
Jack tilted his head slightly. "I thought these guys didn't like to share planets."
"With the exception of Earth, you're right. We're pretty sure that Ra and Apophis were both on Earth at the same time. And from what I learned from Nem, it seems that Belos …" Daniel's voice trailed off and he snapped his fingers. "That's it!"
Jack looked at him in confusion. "What's what?"
"Belos."
"Bellows?"
"No, Belos."
"Huh?"
"The name," Daniel explained as he pointed out the symbol again. "It's Belos."
"Nem's Belos?"
"Yes."
"Killed-Omaroca-Belos?"
"Yes."
"Here?"
Daniel bit down a laugh and nodded. "It would seem so, Jack, yes."
Jack glanced around the temple and noted the growing shadows with a newfound apprehension. "Okay, well, do you think that maybe we should be …?"
"Hundreds of stories, Jack. I brought a lantern with me, and besides," Daniel continued with a wry smile, "I haven't been afraid of the dark since I was seven."
"Hey now," Jack protested. He lifted Daniel's pack from the temple floor and slung it across his shoulder. "I was Special Ops, remember? The dark is afraid of me."
"Jack, what are you doing? I can't leave now; I've got too much work to do."
"Nope. Not tonight you don't. Ah!" Jack raised one finger and stopped further objections before they could be raised. "I'm not afraid of the dark. But … dark temples filled with stories about spirit thieves and soul stealers and Goa'uld who kill nice fish-people do make me a little nervous. So humor me, Dr. Jackson. You're done until morning." His decision made, Jack turned and walked toward the door.
There was no response.
"Daniel?" Jack turned back around and found Daniel staring intently at the first section of writing he had shown him. "Daniel, did you hear a word I just said?"
Daniel glanced at Jack over his shoulder and turned back to the wall. "Jack? What's that?"
Jack turned his attention to the wall Daniel was focused on. He noticed immediately that one of the symbols, the one Daniel had identified as Belos, had begun to glow with an unearthly blue light.
"That … is not good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that's probably bad. Come on, Daniel, we're outta here."
Jack felt an overwhelming urge to physically remove Daniel from the room, and he acted on it. He reached out and grabbed Daniel's arm as the archeologist slowly backed away from the wall.
The symbol flashed.
"Oh, crap!"
Suddenly, both men found themselves engulfed in a beam of light that emanated from the sym-bol.
Jack tried to back away, jump to the side, lift his weapon, but his muscles would not respond to his attempts to move. He couldn't so much as twitch a finger. His heart began to pound and his head began to throb. He felt dizzy, lightheaded, and vaguely disconnected from his body, all at the same time. Nausea washed over him as he stood frozen, trapped in and paralyzed by the pulsating blue beam.
"Colonel?" Sam's voice floated in from the outer hall.
"Daniel Jackson? Are you within?"
"Sam! Teal'c! Don't come in here!" Daniel shouted.
"Daniel?" Sam's calm response to Daniel's warning took Jack by surprise. "Did you see something come in here?"
"God, Sam, stay out of here!"
"It was the strangest thing," Sam continued. Her voice was growing louder and clearer and Jack knew that she was approaching the door. "It was a cloud or a shadow of some sort. It went right through the wall."
Confused by Sam's lack of reaction to Daniel's frantic shouts and dismayed that she continued to approach the room, Jack tried a different approach. "Captain, you will not enter this room! That is an order!"
"It seemed to be moving with purpose …" Sam kept talking, but her words were drowned out by a loud sigh and Daniel's voice.
"Why isn't she listening to us?"
"How should I know?" Jack asked.
"Um …" Daniel's voice was suddenly hesitant. "I didn't say that out loud."
As Jack considered the implications of Daniel's statement, he made several sudden realizations.
The first thing Jack noticed was that his eyes were closed, but he knew that Daniel's were open. He could feel the position of his eyelids and knew that they were closed; yet he could still see the door. He stared at it in anticipation of Sam and Teal'c's arrival. Though it confused him and he had no idea why it was happening, he knew that the only way he could be doing that was if he were somehow seeing through Daniel's eyes.
Jack then realized that his right hand was still wrapped securely around Daniel's left arm. He also felt, in a strangely distant way, that someone was grasping his left arm, though he knew that he and Daniel were the only two people in the room. So, not just seeing through Daniel's eyes, but feeling everything the other man felt, as though the two people they were had ceased to exist, and they had become the same person.
The darkness that had plagued Jack's vision throughout the day had returned and seemed to be growing worse. The entire room seemed to be bathed in shadows. In addition, he had begun to hear a buzzing noise, as though there were an insect hovering right beside his ear. The sound was growing in both intensity and volume, and his head began to pound and throb incessantly. Daniel had been right when he'd said the buzzing was more than a little annoying.
"Jack?"
"Daniel?"
"I can hear you," Daniel said.
"And I can hear you," Jack answered back.
Both men watched through Daniel's eyes as Sam and Teal'c walked through the door. Two minds and two voices spoke a single thought in unison.
"But they can't hear us."
"O'Neill!"
"Daniel!"
They saw Sam and Teal'c focus immediately on the glyph that was the source of the beam. They saw them raise their weapons. The buzzing in their ears grew louder and more insistent, and they both somehow knew that shooting the glyph was a bad idea. They cried out together, a warning that only they heard.
"No!"
For a fraction of a second, it seemed to have worked. Sam hesitated, darting glances back and forth between the two men trapped in the beam and the glyph it emanated from. When she locked eyes with Daniel, Jack thought that she had heard them. When she moved to lower her weapon, Daniel thought that they had managed to get through to her. Their relief did not last long.
"Captain Carter!" Teal'c said. "We must release them."
Sam and Teal'c fired as one.
Again, the buzzing intensified.
The bullets from Sam's gun bounced off of the wall and ricocheted around the room wildly. Jack felt searing bolts of pain tear through his left shoulder and right leg and a cry of agony pierced his mind. Jack felt another white-hot pain shoot down the side of his head, and his groan mixed with Daniel's scream.
The buzzing grew frantic.
The beam's reaction to the energy from Teal'c's staff weapon was entirely different. At first, it seemed that the wall had completely absorbed the blast. For the briefest of seconds, the beam seemed to be shrinking. Just as Jack thought that he and Daniel were about to be released, the beam pulsed again, more forcefully than before. To Jack, it felt as though every nerve in his body was on fire and he was burning from the inside out. Another scream echoed in his mind, and he knew that Daniel had felt the same thing.
The fact that these cries seemed to echo back at him made Jack think that he was hearing them both in his mind and with his ears. One look at Sam and Teal'c, at their wide eyes and faces suddenly devoid of color, confirmed Jack's belief. His and Daniel's screams had been real, and Sam and Teal'c had heard them.
"Oh, God," Sam gasped. "We've got to get them out of there. Teal'c, grab him!"
The men's ability to communicate with their teammates vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Both of their protests echoed in Jack's mind, but neither Sam nor Teal'c heard them. Jack felt Sam's hands wrap around his arms, and he knew that Teal'c had grasped Daniel's.
"We've got you!" Jack heard Sam say. "Colonel, I've got you."
"Daniel Jackson, I am here."
Jack's heart sank in unison with Daniel's as they both realized that the beam had imprisoned Sam and Teal'c along with them.
Then it was gone.
Jack opened his eyes to find himself staring directly into Sam's. His nerves were screaming in agony, his leg and shoulder burned, and his head ached. He blinked slowly, and the shadows that blurred his vision seemed to grow even larger as he felt himself sliding toward unconsciousness.
Jack didn't realize that he was still holding Daniel's arm until he felt the younger man fall away from him. He released his hold just barely in time to keep from being pulled over. The pain he felt from his seared nerves lessened considerably, and the pain in his shoulder and leg disappeared entirely.
"Daniel?" That was all Jack managed to say before the room went black and he felt himself falling to the floor.
- = - = -
"Oh, God," the other gasped.
Aynad turned toward him in anger. "Explain how this has made the situation better! You nearly killed them!"
The other closed his eyes and took a long, shaking breath. "They're alive."
"He is weakened!" Aynad spat. "You were not strong enough to resist the demon god, and you were undamaged!"
The other did not open his eyes, but tilted his head as though he were concentrating on a distant memory.
"You have managed to alter the situation, my friend, but only to make it worse. Soon, you will be gone, and he will take your place."
A faint smile appeared on the other's lips. "No, Belos can't touch him."
"How do you know this?"
The blue eyes opened again, and the smile widened. "It worked," the other replied simply. "He won't know how to separate them. He'll have to figure that out, and that will give them the time they need to get back through the gate." He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in mild surprise. "It worked."
Aynad shook his head sadly. "My friend, it cannot have worked in the way you believe it has."
"Why do you say that?"
"If the demon god is prevented from taking him, then you will cease to exist."
"I know that," the other replied. "I don't care if I don't exist. They will-that's what's important."
"Then you must understand that they are not yet safe."
Silence and confusion were the only responses.
Aynad stepped forward and placed a comforting hand on his companion's arm. "Daniel, you are still here."
Daniel's arms fell to his sides. He closed his eyes and sighed as the meaning of Aynad's words sank in.
He was the eleventh Daniel Jackson who had fallen to Belos. He was the eleventh Daniel Jack-son who had stood, helpless, disconnected from his own body, unable to stop the monster that had possessed him, as Belos used that body to slaughter his friends. He was the eleventh Daniel Jackson who had watched Belos walk through the stargate, hidden behind the face of an archeol-ogist, straight to an unsuspecting Earth. He was the tenth Daniel Jackson to be caught up in a time loop that Aynad had started, a loop that the first Daniel Jackson had begged him to create, a loop that would restart every time Daniel failed to protect his friends and save himself.
He was the first Daniel Jackson who had thought, had truly believed, that he would be able to stop it. He'd been so convinced that he knew how to do it, so certain that blending the four members of SG1 was the key to saving them all.
But Aynad was right. If his plan had worked the way he'd thought it would, he wouldn't be standing there. If the twelfth Daniel Jackson survived, then the eleventh Daniel Jackson would cease to exist - that's the way things had to be. The fact that he hadn't vanished could mean only one thing.
The twelfth Daniel Jackson was still in very real danger.
Daniel opened his eyes again and looked directly at Aynad. He refused to admit that he'd failed completely; he couldn't give up. He'd sworn to his Jack, as he'd watched him die, that he'd never let it happen again. His current failure was only a temporary set-back, nothing more. He could still succeed. He had to.
He would be the last Daniel Jackson to watch SG1 die by his own hands, no matter how far he had to go.
He took a deep breath and let a small smile play at the corners of his mouth. "Well then, as Jack would say, it's time for Plan B."
"What is Plan B?" Aynad asked.
"I need you to do something you've never done before, Aynad. Daniel needs to know exactly happened to you - and to me."
- = - = -
His first indication that consciousness had returned was the pain. His head throbbed in perfect time with his heartbeat. He still felt as if every nerve in his body was on fire, but at least it had abated somewhat; what had been a raging inferno had dulled to a steady smolder.
He felt hands pressing against his head and tried to turn away. Even that small movement caused enough pain to pull a moan from his lips.
"Colonel?" Sam's concerned voice rang in his ears and echoed loudly through the pounding in his brain. "Sir, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Captain," Jack gasped.
"Sir, can you tell me if you're in pain?"
"You could say that, yeah."
"Where, sir?"
"Everywhere, Carter."
He heard her sigh; he knew he wasn't being the most cooperative of patients.
"My head feels like half of it got blown off, and my nerves feel like someone's fried them up for dinner. Other than that, I'm fine."
"Can you open your eyes?"
Jack hadn't realized that his eyes were still closed until that moment. He opened them immediately, and regretted it just as quickly. He slammed them shut again with a groan. "Okay, that hurts."
"Try opening them slowly, sir."
"Oh, that'll hurt too. It'll just hurt … slowly." With a great effort, Jack forced his eyes open again. He blinked rapidly until they adjusted to the fading sunlight that shone through the open roof above him. "Ow."
Sam's concerned face appeared in front of him. "Colonel, can you see me?"
"My, what big eyes you have," he answered weakly.
Jack smiled as Sam visibly relaxed, but she tensed up again almost immediately.
"Sir, about your head …"
"Don't sweat it, Carter," he interrupted. "That thing had us, and you tried to take it out. I'd have done the same thing."
"I must apologize as well, O'Neill." Teal'c's voice came from somewhere off to his right. Jack thought that turning his head to find him would be a bad idea. "I did not anticipate the energy from my staff weapon being turned against you."
"Not a problem, Teal'c," Jack returned as he leaned his head back against the pack that pillowed it. "No way you could have known."
Jack looked around slowly without moving his head. He needed to assure himself that his entire team was still in one piece. Sam was still kneeling at his side. Teal'c he knew was somewhere close, to his right. Daniel was …
"Where's Daniel?" Jack demanded. He sat up quickly, groaned, and grasped his head in pain. Sam grabbed his arms and pushed him back down.
"Colonel, stay still. You shouldn't be moving around just yet."
"Where's Daniel?" he repeated, more insistent. Jack couldn't explain the urgency of his need to know where Daniel was; he only knew that it was vital that he find out. "He's hurt worse than I am …"
Sam looked surprised at the declaration, but only nodded slowly in response.
"So where is he? Daniel!"
"Daniel Jackson is here, O'Neill," Teal'c answered calmly. "He has not yet regained consciousness."
Jack turned his attention to Sam and locked eyes with her. "Give it to me."
Sam sighed and the guilt returned to her face. "He got hit twice, sir. Once in the left shoulder, and once in the right thigh. Both are through and through."
Jack nodded slowly. He had known about those wounds. He had actually felt them. But he saw something more in Sam's eyes-something that said that there was more to the story.
"And?"
"And, sir, it's very possible that the bullet that grazed your head had already been through his shoulder. So its velocity had been decreased by …"
"So if Daniel hadn't been in the way, I would have gotten half of my head blown off?"
"Very possibly, sir."
"Damn," Jack muttered. "I owe him big time for that one."
The look that crossed Sam's face told Jack that he owed Daniel for more than slowing a bullet down.
"What?"
"He was standing in front of you, sir. He was closer to the source of the beam. When it directed that staff blast at you …"
"He got more of it than I did." Jack spoke the words with certainty; he'd known that too. The second he'd released Daniel's arm, the pain he'd felt had more than halved.
Sam nodded. "That's the way it looked, sir. That's why I told Teal'c to grab him …"
"Hey!" Jack interrupted. "That thing grabbed the two of you too! Are you guys okay?"
"We are well, O'Neill."
"We weren't in it long, sir. If I had to guess, I'd say no more than thirty seconds. We lost consciousness not long after you and Daniel did, but we woke up sooner."
"How long?" Jack asked. His headache had eased somewhat, and he risked turning his head to look from Sam to Teal'c.
"I awakened within two minutes, O'Neill. Captain Carter awoke no more than three minutes lat-er."
"Okay, so how long have we been here?" Jack moved his head slowly as he looked around. He realized, for the first time, that they were still inside the temple. "And why are we still here?"
"It took you half an hour to wake up, sir. Daniel's still unconscious. We risked moving you both out of the room, but I couldn't have carried either one of you, and Teal'c couldn't carry both of you. And we weren't about to leave either one of you here, sir."
"Good call, Captain," Jack said with a small nod of approval. "Wait until one of us wakes up, and carry the other if we need to." Jack turned his head until he could see Daniel.
Daniel was lying on the floor four feet away with his head propped up on a backpack, just as Jack was. Jack searched the pale face for signs of waking. He found none.
"We're gonna need to," he announced.
"We should wait a few more minutes, sir. You need a chance to rest before you try to walk, and he might wake up by then."
"I'm good, Captain," Jack said. He rolled slightly to his left, pressed his hands against the floor, and pushed himself to his knees. The movement caused his stomach to lurch in protest, and Jack let his head sag toward his chest.
"Colonel!"
"O'Neill!"
Jack looked up at his worried friends with a small smile. "It's just a headache and a little possible nerve damage," he said. "No biggie." Jack pushed himself to his feet and forced himself to walk the few steps to Daniel's side. It wasn't that he didn't trust Carter's evaluation, but something in-side his mind told him it was imperative that he find out for himself. He had to touch him, to make absolutely certain that he was still there.
As soon as he was close enough, Jack reached out and placed his hand on Daniel's arm. He sat down carefully and glanced across at Teal'c, who knelt protectively at Daniel's side. He nodded once and then turned his full attention to Daniel.
Sam had opened the seam of his black T-shirt to bandage both the entrance and exit wounds on his left shoulder. His right pant leg was similarly ripped, and his thigh was wrapped in a generous amount of gauze. Both bandages showed evidence of blood seepage.
Daniel was pale, and when Jack pressed his hand to Daniel's forehead, he found the skin cool to the touch and slightly clammy. He grasped Daniel's wrist and felt a pulse that was steady and only a little slower than normal.
Jack's first instinct was to gather his team up and get them the hell off of the planet immediately. Daniel needed medical attention-in fact, all four of them did. They'd all been trapped in the beam, and he knew that taking chances with alien technology was a bad idea. However, the few seconds that he'd managed to stay on his feet had brought him to the conclusion that it would be several more minutes before he could even start to contemplate the journey.
Jack turned his attention to the two mobile members of his team.
"You two seem to be moving around pretty well," he observed of Sam and Teal'c.
"Captain Carter and I appear to have suffered no ill effects from the alien beam."
"None?"
Sam shook her head slowly.
"Nothing?"
Teal'c shook his head almost regretfully.
"Not even a teeny tiny little headache?"
"Not even a hint of one, Colonel."
"So everything that's wrong with Daniel and me … ?"
"We caused, sir," Sam interrupted softly. She lowered her head in shame. "I'm sorry, Colonel. If I'd known …"
"Hey! What'd I tell you? I'd have done the same thing. In fact … I'm going to make it a standing team order. Whenever any of us gets caught in some weird alien beam, the rest of us will shoot it." Jack looked again from Sam to Teal'c. "Got that?"
"How many alien beams can there be in the galaxy, sir?"
"In fact, Captain Carter, there may be many. Had we attempted to destroy Thor's Hammer when it first probed Daniel Jackson …"
"Okay, Teal'c, I'll give you that. But …"
"That blue crystal thingy definitely had a beam of some sort," Jack added.
"All right, so two …"
"The being Nem was an alien, and he also possessed a beam."
"Oh yeah. Big honkin' alien beam there."
"Okay, okay, I get the point." Sam rolled her eyes and raised her hands in surrender. "If we see any more alien beams, we shoot them."
Jack smiled. "Good girl, Carter."
The previous chapters can be found here: What Dreams May Come
- = - = -
Chapter Three
- = - = -
Jack walked through the door and into the large inner chamber of the temple. He shook his head and stifled a laugh. Daniel hadn't really moved since Jack had left, except for the fact that he was standing on his toes on an overturned altar.
"Daniel?"
"Hm? Oh, hey, Jack."
"Daniel, what exactly are you doing?"
"I'm trying to figure out what this says, actually." Daniel brushed his hands on his pants and jumped to the floor. "I know I've seen that symbol before-pretty recently, in fact. I just can't remember what it represents."
Daniel swatted at the air next to his ear again, his expression one of extreme irritation.
Jack leaned his shoulder against the large door frame and glanced around at the rest of the glyphs that covered the walls. "Can you read the rest of it?"
"Most of it, yes. There's one section of the same writing that's on the obelisk outside-the writing from Ernest's planet. I can't read that, of course, but I can read the rest of it."
"Okay. So what does it say?"
Daniel swatted at the air once more, and then pointed up at the words as he translated. "Okay, well, it's another warning. ‘Beware the god … that's the name I can't decipher … who shall sure-ly steal away your immortal soul.' "
"That doesn't sound fun."
"No. Right now, I'm thinking it's a simplistic explanation of being taken as a host. A little further in … right here," Daniel explained as he pointed out a different section of the writings. "This describes this … being … as the 'Possessor of Souls.' And that passage over there …" Daniel motioned with his arm toward the other side of the room. "… calls him the 'Thief of the Spirit.' "
After every three or four words, Daniel batted at the air or ducked his head. After his speech was delivered, Jack rolled his eyes and finally made mention of the odd behavior.
"Daniel, what are you doing?"
"What?" Daniel ducked quickly to the side and swatted at the air yet again. He turned back to Jack with an expression of understanding on his face. "Oh, that! There's an insect of some sort in here, and it keeps buzzing around my head. It's too small for me to see, but I can hear it." Daniel batted out again and turned to Jack with an exasperated look on his face. "It's starting to get really annoying."
Jack smiled in amusement and turned back to the original topic. "Okay, so I take it the locals didn't like this guy much."
"Would you?" Daniel looked around the room and gestured toward the walls around them. "There are hundreds of stories on these walls, and every single one of them seems to be about Goa'uld possession."
Jack gripped his gun a bit tighter and rubbed his eyes as he moved closer to Daniel. "Doesn't that seem like an awful lot of possessions for just one snakehead?"
"Yes, it does. I'm wondering if maybe there weren't multiple Goa'uld here, and the people just thought they were all the same being because of their eyes."
Jack tilted his head slightly. "I thought these guys didn't like to share planets."
"With the exception of Earth, you're right. We're pretty sure that Ra and Apophis were both on Earth at the same time. And from what I learned from Nem, it seems that Belos …" Daniel's voice trailed off and he snapped his fingers. "That's it!"
Jack looked at him in confusion. "What's what?"
"Belos."
"Bellows?"
"No, Belos."
"Huh?"
"The name," Daniel explained as he pointed out the symbol again. "It's Belos."
"Nem's Belos?"
"Yes."
"Killed-Omaroca-Belos?"
"Yes."
"Here?"
Daniel bit down a laugh and nodded. "It would seem so, Jack, yes."
Jack glanced around the temple and noted the growing shadows with a newfound apprehension. "Okay, well, do you think that maybe we should be …?"
"Hundreds of stories, Jack. I brought a lantern with me, and besides," Daniel continued with a wry smile, "I haven't been afraid of the dark since I was seven."
"Hey now," Jack protested. He lifted Daniel's pack from the temple floor and slung it across his shoulder. "I was Special Ops, remember? The dark is afraid of me."
"Jack, what are you doing? I can't leave now; I've got too much work to do."
"Nope. Not tonight you don't. Ah!" Jack raised one finger and stopped further objections before they could be raised. "I'm not afraid of the dark. But … dark temples filled with stories about spirit thieves and soul stealers and Goa'uld who kill nice fish-people do make me a little nervous. So humor me, Dr. Jackson. You're done until morning." His decision made, Jack turned and walked toward the door.
There was no response.
"Daniel?" Jack turned back around and found Daniel staring intently at the first section of writing he had shown him. "Daniel, did you hear a word I just said?"
Daniel glanced at Jack over his shoulder and turned back to the wall. "Jack? What's that?"
Jack turned his attention to the wall Daniel was focused on. He noticed immediately that one of the symbols, the one Daniel had identified as Belos, had begun to glow with an unearthly blue light.
"That … is not good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that's probably bad. Come on, Daniel, we're outta here."
Jack felt an overwhelming urge to physically remove Daniel from the room, and he acted on it. He reached out and grabbed Daniel's arm as the archeologist slowly backed away from the wall.
The symbol flashed.
"Oh, crap!"
Suddenly, both men found themselves engulfed in a beam of light that emanated from the sym-bol.
Jack tried to back away, jump to the side, lift his weapon, but his muscles would not respond to his attempts to move. He couldn't so much as twitch a finger. His heart began to pound and his head began to throb. He felt dizzy, lightheaded, and vaguely disconnected from his body, all at the same time. Nausea washed over him as he stood frozen, trapped in and paralyzed by the pulsating blue beam.
"Colonel?" Sam's voice floated in from the outer hall.
"Daniel Jackson? Are you within?"
"Sam! Teal'c! Don't come in here!" Daniel shouted.
"Daniel?" Sam's calm response to Daniel's warning took Jack by surprise. "Did you see something come in here?"
"God, Sam, stay out of here!"
"It was the strangest thing," Sam continued. Her voice was growing louder and clearer and Jack knew that she was approaching the door. "It was a cloud or a shadow of some sort. It went right through the wall."
Confused by Sam's lack of reaction to Daniel's frantic shouts and dismayed that she continued to approach the room, Jack tried a different approach. "Captain, you will not enter this room! That is an order!"
"It seemed to be moving with purpose …" Sam kept talking, but her words were drowned out by a loud sigh and Daniel's voice.
"Why isn't she listening to us?"
"How should I know?" Jack asked.
"Um …" Daniel's voice was suddenly hesitant. "I didn't say that out loud."
As Jack considered the implications of Daniel's statement, he made several sudden realizations.
The first thing Jack noticed was that his eyes were closed, but he knew that Daniel's were open. He could feel the position of his eyelids and knew that they were closed; yet he could still see the door. He stared at it in anticipation of Sam and Teal'c's arrival. Though it confused him and he had no idea why it was happening, he knew that the only way he could be doing that was if he were somehow seeing through Daniel's eyes.
Jack then realized that his right hand was still wrapped securely around Daniel's left arm. He also felt, in a strangely distant way, that someone was grasping his left arm, though he knew that he and Daniel were the only two people in the room. So, not just seeing through Daniel's eyes, but feeling everything the other man felt, as though the two people they were had ceased to exist, and they had become the same person.
The darkness that had plagued Jack's vision throughout the day had returned and seemed to be growing worse. The entire room seemed to be bathed in shadows. In addition, he had begun to hear a buzzing noise, as though there were an insect hovering right beside his ear. The sound was growing in both intensity and volume, and his head began to pound and throb incessantly. Daniel had been right when he'd said the buzzing was more than a little annoying.
"Jack?"
"Daniel?"
"I can hear you," Daniel said.
"And I can hear you," Jack answered back.
Both men watched through Daniel's eyes as Sam and Teal'c walked through the door. Two minds and two voices spoke a single thought in unison.
"But they can't hear us."
"O'Neill!"
"Daniel!"
They saw Sam and Teal'c focus immediately on the glyph that was the source of the beam. They saw them raise their weapons. The buzzing in their ears grew louder and more insistent, and they both somehow knew that shooting the glyph was a bad idea. They cried out together, a warning that only they heard.
"No!"
For a fraction of a second, it seemed to have worked. Sam hesitated, darting glances back and forth between the two men trapped in the beam and the glyph it emanated from. When she locked eyes with Daniel, Jack thought that she had heard them. When she moved to lower her weapon, Daniel thought that they had managed to get through to her. Their relief did not last long.
"Captain Carter!" Teal'c said. "We must release them."
Sam and Teal'c fired as one.
Again, the buzzing intensified.
The bullets from Sam's gun bounced off of the wall and ricocheted around the room wildly. Jack felt searing bolts of pain tear through his left shoulder and right leg and a cry of agony pierced his mind. Jack felt another white-hot pain shoot down the side of his head, and his groan mixed with Daniel's scream.
The buzzing grew frantic.
The beam's reaction to the energy from Teal'c's staff weapon was entirely different. At first, it seemed that the wall had completely absorbed the blast. For the briefest of seconds, the beam seemed to be shrinking. Just as Jack thought that he and Daniel were about to be released, the beam pulsed again, more forcefully than before. To Jack, it felt as though every nerve in his body was on fire and he was burning from the inside out. Another scream echoed in his mind, and he knew that Daniel had felt the same thing.
The fact that these cries seemed to echo back at him made Jack think that he was hearing them both in his mind and with his ears. One look at Sam and Teal'c, at their wide eyes and faces suddenly devoid of color, confirmed Jack's belief. His and Daniel's screams had been real, and Sam and Teal'c had heard them.
"Oh, God," Sam gasped. "We've got to get them out of there. Teal'c, grab him!"
The men's ability to communicate with their teammates vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Both of their protests echoed in Jack's mind, but neither Sam nor Teal'c heard them. Jack felt Sam's hands wrap around his arms, and he knew that Teal'c had grasped Daniel's.
"We've got you!" Jack heard Sam say. "Colonel, I've got you."
"Daniel Jackson, I am here."
Jack's heart sank in unison with Daniel's as they both realized that the beam had imprisoned Sam and Teal'c along with them.
Then it was gone.
Jack opened his eyes to find himself staring directly into Sam's. His nerves were screaming in agony, his leg and shoulder burned, and his head ached. He blinked slowly, and the shadows that blurred his vision seemed to grow even larger as he felt himself sliding toward unconsciousness.
Jack didn't realize that he was still holding Daniel's arm until he felt the younger man fall away from him. He released his hold just barely in time to keep from being pulled over. The pain he felt from his seared nerves lessened considerably, and the pain in his shoulder and leg disappeared entirely.
"Daniel?" That was all Jack managed to say before the room went black and he felt himself falling to the floor.
- = - = -
"Oh, God," the other gasped.
Aynad turned toward him in anger. "Explain how this has made the situation better! You nearly killed them!"
The other closed his eyes and took a long, shaking breath. "They're alive."
"He is weakened!" Aynad spat. "You were not strong enough to resist the demon god, and you were undamaged!"
The other did not open his eyes, but tilted his head as though he were concentrating on a distant memory.
"You have managed to alter the situation, my friend, but only to make it worse. Soon, you will be gone, and he will take your place."
A faint smile appeared on the other's lips. "No, Belos can't touch him."
"How do you know this?"
The blue eyes opened again, and the smile widened. "It worked," the other replied simply. "He won't know how to separate them. He'll have to figure that out, and that will give them the time they need to get back through the gate." He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in mild surprise. "It worked."
Aynad shook his head sadly. "My friend, it cannot have worked in the way you believe it has."
"Why do you say that?"
"If the demon god is prevented from taking him, then you will cease to exist."
"I know that," the other replied. "I don't care if I don't exist. They will-that's what's important."
"Then you must understand that they are not yet safe."
Silence and confusion were the only responses.
Aynad stepped forward and placed a comforting hand on his companion's arm. "Daniel, you are still here."
Daniel's arms fell to his sides. He closed his eyes and sighed as the meaning of Aynad's words sank in.
He was the eleventh Daniel Jackson who had fallen to Belos. He was the eleventh Daniel Jack-son who had stood, helpless, disconnected from his own body, unable to stop the monster that had possessed him, as Belos used that body to slaughter his friends. He was the eleventh Daniel Jackson who had watched Belos walk through the stargate, hidden behind the face of an archeol-ogist, straight to an unsuspecting Earth. He was the tenth Daniel Jackson to be caught up in a time loop that Aynad had started, a loop that the first Daniel Jackson had begged him to create, a loop that would restart every time Daniel failed to protect his friends and save himself.
He was the first Daniel Jackson who had thought, had truly believed, that he would be able to stop it. He'd been so convinced that he knew how to do it, so certain that blending the four members of SG1 was the key to saving them all.
But Aynad was right. If his plan had worked the way he'd thought it would, he wouldn't be standing there. If the twelfth Daniel Jackson survived, then the eleventh Daniel Jackson would cease to exist - that's the way things had to be. The fact that he hadn't vanished could mean only one thing.
The twelfth Daniel Jackson was still in very real danger.
Daniel opened his eyes again and looked directly at Aynad. He refused to admit that he'd failed completely; he couldn't give up. He'd sworn to his Jack, as he'd watched him die, that he'd never let it happen again. His current failure was only a temporary set-back, nothing more. He could still succeed. He had to.
He would be the last Daniel Jackson to watch SG1 die by his own hands, no matter how far he had to go.
He took a deep breath and let a small smile play at the corners of his mouth. "Well then, as Jack would say, it's time for Plan B."
"What is Plan B?" Aynad asked.
"I need you to do something you've never done before, Aynad. Daniel needs to know exactly happened to you - and to me."
- = - = -
His first indication that consciousness had returned was the pain. His head throbbed in perfect time with his heartbeat. He still felt as if every nerve in his body was on fire, but at least it had abated somewhat; what had been a raging inferno had dulled to a steady smolder.
He felt hands pressing against his head and tried to turn away. Even that small movement caused enough pain to pull a moan from his lips.
"Colonel?" Sam's concerned voice rang in his ears and echoed loudly through the pounding in his brain. "Sir, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Captain," Jack gasped.
"Sir, can you tell me if you're in pain?"
"You could say that, yeah."
"Where, sir?"
"Everywhere, Carter."
He heard her sigh; he knew he wasn't being the most cooperative of patients.
"My head feels like half of it got blown off, and my nerves feel like someone's fried them up for dinner. Other than that, I'm fine."
"Can you open your eyes?"
Jack hadn't realized that his eyes were still closed until that moment. He opened them immediately, and regretted it just as quickly. He slammed them shut again with a groan. "Okay, that hurts."
"Try opening them slowly, sir."
"Oh, that'll hurt too. It'll just hurt … slowly." With a great effort, Jack forced his eyes open again. He blinked rapidly until they adjusted to the fading sunlight that shone through the open roof above him. "Ow."
Sam's concerned face appeared in front of him. "Colonel, can you see me?"
"My, what big eyes you have," he answered weakly.
Jack smiled as Sam visibly relaxed, but she tensed up again almost immediately.
"Sir, about your head …"
"Don't sweat it, Carter," he interrupted. "That thing had us, and you tried to take it out. I'd have done the same thing."
"I must apologize as well, O'Neill." Teal'c's voice came from somewhere off to his right. Jack thought that turning his head to find him would be a bad idea. "I did not anticipate the energy from my staff weapon being turned against you."
"Not a problem, Teal'c," Jack returned as he leaned his head back against the pack that pillowed it. "No way you could have known."
Jack looked around slowly without moving his head. He needed to assure himself that his entire team was still in one piece. Sam was still kneeling at his side. Teal'c he knew was somewhere close, to his right. Daniel was …
"Where's Daniel?" Jack demanded. He sat up quickly, groaned, and grasped his head in pain. Sam grabbed his arms and pushed him back down.
"Colonel, stay still. You shouldn't be moving around just yet."
"Where's Daniel?" he repeated, more insistent. Jack couldn't explain the urgency of his need to know where Daniel was; he only knew that it was vital that he find out. "He's hurt worse than I am …"
Sam looked surprised at the declaration, but only nodded slowly in response.
"So where is he? Daniel!"
"Daniel Jackson is here, O'Neill," Teal'c answered calmly. "He has not yet regained consciousness."
Jack turned his attention to Sam and locked eyes with her. "Give it to me."
Sam sighed and the guilt returned to her face. "He got hit twice, sir. Once in the left shoulder, and once in the right thigh. Both are through and through."
Jack nodded slowly. He had known about those wounds. He had actually felt them. But he saw something more in Sam's eyes-something that said that there was more to the story.
"And?"
"And, sir, it's very possible that the bullet that grazed your head had already been through his shoulder. So its velocity had been decreased by …"
"So if Daniel hadn't been in the way, I would have gotten half of my head blown off?"
"Very possibly, sir."
"Damn," Jack muttered. "I owe him big time for that one."
The look that crossed Sam's face told Jack that he owed Daniel for more than slowing a bullet down.
"What?"
"He was standing in front of you, sir. He was closer to the source of the beam. When it directed that staff blast at you …"
"He got more of it than I did." Jack spoke the words with certainty; he'd known that too. The second he'd released Daniel's arm, the pain he'd felt had more than halved.
Sam nodded. "That's the way it looked, sir. That's why I told Teal'c to grab him …"
"Hey!" Jack interrupted. "That thing grabbed the two of you too! Are you guys okay?"
"We are well, O'Neill."
"We weren't in it long, sir. If I had to guess, I'd say no more than thirty seconds. We lost consciousness not long after you and Daniel did, but we woke up sooner."
"How long?" Jack asked. His headache had eased somewhat, and he risked turning his head to look from Sam to Teal'c.
"I awakened within two minutes, O'Neill. Captain Carter awoke no more than three minutes lat-er."
"Okay, so how long have we been here?" Jack moved his head slowly as he looked around. He realized, for the first time, that they were still inside the temple. "And why are we still here?"
"It took you half an hour to wake up, sir. Daniel's still unconscious. We risked moving you both out of the room, but I couldn't have carried either one of you, and Teal'c couldn't carry both of you. And we weren't about to leave either one of you here, sir."
"Good call, Captain," Jack said with a small nod of approval. "Wait until one of us wakes up, and carry the other if we need to." Jack turned his head until he could see Daniel.
Daniel was lying on the floor four feet away with his head propped up on a backpack, just as Jack was. Jack searched the pale face for signs of waking. He found none.
"We're gonna need to," he announced.
"We should wait a few more minutes, sir. You need a chance to rest before you try to walk, and he might wake up by then."
"I'm good, Captain," Jack said. He rolled slightly to his left, pressed his hands against the floor, and pushed himself to his knees. The movement caused his stomach to lurch in protest, and Jack let his head sag toward his chest.
"Colonel!"
"O'Neill!"
Jack looked up at his worried friends with a small smile. "It's just a headache and a little possible nerve damage," he said. "No biggie." Jack pushed himself to his feet and forced himself to walk the few steps to Daniel's side. It wasn't that he didn't trust Carter's evaluation, but something in-side his mind told him it was imperative that he find out for himself. He had to touch him, to make absolutely certain that he was still there.
As soon as he was close enough, Jack reached out and placed his hand on Daniel's arm. He sat down carefully and glanced across at Teal'c, who knelt protectively at Daniel's side. He nodded once and then turned his full attention to Daniel.
Sam had opened the seam of his black T-shirt to bandage both the entrance and exit wounds on his left shoulder. His right pant leg was similarly ripped, and his thigh was wrapped in a generous amount of gauze. Both bandages showed evidence of blood seepage.
Daniel was pale, and when Jack pressed his hand to Daniel's forehead, he found the skin cool to the touch and slightly clammy. He grasped Daniel's wrist and felt a pulse that was steady and only a little slower than normal.
Jack's first instinct was to gather his team up and get them the hell off of the planet immediately. Daniel needed medical attention-in fact, all four of them did. They'd all been trapped in the beam, and he knew that taking chances with alien technology was a bad idea. However, the few seconds that he'd managed to stay on his feet had brought him to the conclusion that it would be several more minutes before he could even start to contemplate the journey.
Jack turned his attention to the two mobile members of his team.
"You two seem to be moving around pretty well," he observed of Sam and Teal'c.
"Captain Carter and I appear to have suffered no ill effects from the alien beam."
"None?"
Sam shook her head slowly.
"Nothing?"
Teal'c shook his head almost regretfully.
"Not even a teeny tiny little headache?"
"Not even a hint of one, Colonel."
"So everything that's wrong with Daniel and me … ?"
"We caused, sir," Sam interrupted softly. She lowered her head in shame. "I'm sorry, Colonel. If I'd known …"
"Hey! What'd I tell you? I'd have done the same thing. In fact … I'm going to make it a standing team order. Whenever any of us gets caught in some weird alien beam, the rest of us will shoot it." Jack looked again from Sam to Teal'c. "Got that?"
"How many alien beams can there be in the galaxy, sir?"
"In fact, Captain Carter, there may be many. Had we attempted to destroy Thor's Hammer when it first probed Daniel Jackson …"
"Okay, Teal'c, I'll give you that. But …"
"That blue crystal thingy definitely had a beam of some sort," Jack added.
"All right, so two …"
"The being Nem was an alien, and he also possessed a beam."
"Oh yeah. Big honkin' alien beam there."
"Okay, okay, I get the point." Sam rolled her eyes and raised her hands in surrender. "If we see any more alien beams, we shoot them."
Jack smiled. "Good girl, Carter."