FIC: Wandering Blind, Part 3 (Stargate SG-1)

[katie_m]

She knew, Jack thought, with a sudden rush of sympathy. He squashed it quickly, in case she was still acting, but really--he'd had moments like that, when his whole world had turned on its side, and if she was faking that look in her eyes she was a hell of an actress.

"I know," Daniel said, very gently. "They look like humans, but they aren't." Not entirely true, Jack thought, but complicated was probably not a good way to go at this point.

"And the gas... it doesn't kill people anymore?"

Daniel smiled a little and shook his head. "No. Not anymore."

Tracey nodded to herself, still not meeting their eyes. "Shesar said we had to take the treatment. It's... he said he stretched it as far as it could go, but that's why... because if it wasn't one of you, it would have to be one of us."

"You were going to kill us," Carter said.

"Not you. Not for a while. Men go first, Shesar says that we don't need so many men to repopulate... and besides, men are bigger, so they..." She swallowed, hard. "For the treatment. He uses... there's a special protein, he said, in the brain, so... oh, God, I'm going to throw up."

One thing Jack could say about Tracey: She was good to her word.

***

They cleaned her up and gave her some water and let her loose--Jack with a cheery waggle of the zat in her direction, because there was "sympathetic" and then there was "stupid." That got a glare out of Daniel, which, well, whatever. He should just be glad Jack wasn't rubbing in a good I-told-you-so about the zombie thing.

Tracey answered the rest of their questions tonelessly but without hesitation: One Goa'uld and about fifty people, counting children, all settled down happily on the Carnival Conquest. Tracey and Barb were expected back by midnight, interlopers in tow. Yes, there would be people watching for them, which would make safely reaching their own little boat difficult. No, no one was likely to come looking until they were late. Yes, there were more weapons on board the Conquest; no, they weren't carried as a matter of course.

"Jack," Daniel said, and Jack just knew. He couldn't even bitch, really. He'd been thinking the same damn thing.

Carter grimaced, obviously also following his train of thought. "I don't know, Daniel. The numbers aren't exactly in our favor."

"We'd have the element of surprise, though. Tracey walks us in, we take out Shesar, then work our way through the rest of them--"

"--all of whom are brainwashed, upset at us for killing their god, and capable of arming themselves." Carter shook her head. "I see why you want to do this, really I do. I just don't think it's a good idea."

"Tracey," Jack said. The other two looked at him sharply, and Tracey finally brought her head up as well, looking back at him. "How would it usually work, you bringing people back? Would Shesar be in the middle of a crowd, or alone?"

"I'm not going to help you kill any more of my friends," Tracey said, picking at the laces of her sneakers, her whole body tense. She looked like she'd be happy to crawl right back into the wall if only it weren't solid. "No matter what they--it's not their fault, and I won't help you kill them."

"The goal here," Jack said, "is to kill the bad guy. I don't get off on killing victims. If it's doable, then we could help your friends. If you get on board with that idea right now, maybe that'll happen. Otherwise, we walk. Your call."

Carter was radiating disapproval, but then she'd always liked poking holes in ideas that weren't hers. Besides, skepticism was good; Carter had a great mind for that, so long as she stayed objective. Tracey looked at Jack, evaluating, then turned to Daniel "Promise me he's telling the truth," she said, and why she thought Daniel was any more trustworthy than he was, considering he'd actually personally shot her--well, okay, admittedly not dead. Jack could see how that would make a difference.

Daniel attempted a reassuring smile, nodding earnestly. "Tracey, I promise you that we are the good guys here. Okay? We are very, very sorry that your friend died. I don't know if we can help the rest of your friends, but we'd like to hear more about the situation, so we can know whether it's even possible."

Tracey closed her eyes and rested her forehead on one hand, thumb stroking her eyebrow, face screwed up in what almost looked like a parody of the agony of decision-making. When she spoke, though, she sounded--not confident, that was too much. Like a woman who wasn't planning to turn back. "I can get you alone with him, so long as he can't read my mind or anything...?" Jack shook his head. "Okay. So we'd just have to act, right? If you can do it, I can." A hint of bravado crept into her voice, along with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. "Hey, I played Gertrude when we did Hamlet my senior year in high school. Everyone said I was great."

***

They didn't have to sneak around, going in, which was a nice change. Carter'd been pissy for a while; Jack knew her better than to think she was afraid, precisely, but apparently the cost-benefit ratios she was working out in her head weren't giving her the same answer as Daniel's and Jack's own. Not to mention she'd already had kind of a long day, what with the zatting and the being held hostage and the zatting again.

Daniel had gotten halfway into a sentence about if-you're-not-up-to-it before she'd pretty much bitten his head off.

Jack actually wasn't all that worried about the operation, as such. Which probably wasn't very smart, but fuck it, one Goa'uld. And not even a real Goa'uld, with Jaffa and crap, just some guy--thing--snake, whatever, playing cult leader for fun and profit. If everything went according to plan, the three of them could take him, easy.

Not that things usually went to plan. But it was going to work, dammit. This was his job, this was exactly what he was supposed to be doing, and Carter and her "if this were Teal'c's idea you'd bitch about Jaffa revenge things" could just go... jump in the lake.

Damn, he sounded like a twelve-year-old.

The sun was down, and the moon not yet up, so it was slow going back down the streets to the river. They'd left most of their stuff back in the al'kesh with Barb's body, which Jack quite frankly would have disintegrated if Tracey hadn't put her foot down about it. Bad enough the woman had wanted to carry a corpse back to the Conquest; given a different situation Jack would've sympathized with her desire not to leave her dead friend alone, but seriously, what was she, nuts?

Of course, he was the guy following her into a snake's den. Which was probably a bad idea, but dammit, just one win. It was doable, plenty doable, so long as Tracey was on the up and up, and their combined gut feelings said that she was. Which had to count for something, right?

Behind him, Daniel stumbled and swore out loud. "Daniel," Jack said, "so help me, if you fall down and break something..."

"I'm fine. Stubbed toe."

"Well, just--be careful." Jack shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket, feeling cold worm its way under his shirt through the metal of the zat where it was tucked in his waistband. He'd have killed for a holster, but there was just no way that was going to look anything but ridiculously suspicious. Carter had the other zat, and Daniel the Beretta, which put him at a disadvantage but he was going to have to suck it up because Carter was a better shot. With luck they wouldn't get into a situation where they needed to be using real bullets anyway, and Daniel could play Good Cop with the wacky post-zombified people.

Crap, they were going to be up all night dealing with this, weren't they?

Tracey picked up a flashlight left by the entrance to the cruise terminal and clicked it on as she led them inside, illuminating the occasional sign pointing the way to customs or check-in, along with posters advertising the sunny Caribbean. They hadn't looked in here on their way into the city, but even if they had, Jack didn't think they would've noticed much of anything; footprints, maybe, but there were no signs of habitation, just the usual detritus of New Orleans' death throes.

The sound of their footsteps echoed off of the walls, but other than that it was dead quiet. Tracey obviously knew the way; they passed through a set of doors, then another, and then back out into the night air. There was a gangway directly ahead, angling slightly up into the ship; no light, though. Not that they'd seen any coming in that first night, and Tracey had said that was intentional, but... light would've been nice.

Metal rattled under their feet as they climbed up and in, passing out of the chill of the evening air and into the stale-smelling interior of the ship. There was still no one else to be seen, but Tracey was moving confidently, down the narrow, door-lined hall to an emergency staircase. It was a long climb up, and when she finally stopped they were all a little out of breath. "This is the living level; Shesar's on the next level up, but we're supposed to take the center stairs to get there. No one should get in our way."

"Okay," Jack said. Tracey took a deep breath, and didn't move. They all waited. Jack leaned forward, trying to keep the tension out of his voice. "Tracey? We good here?"

She squeezed her hands into fists, then shook them out. "I'm okay. You're all ready?"
Daniel laid a hand on her shoulder. "Just get us in and get out of the way. We'll take care of everything from there."

Tracey nodded repeatedly, took another deep breath, and opened the door.

The new floor looked pretty much like the old floor, though it was a lot brighter; lanterns hung at regular intervals all the way down to the central atrium, lighting the whole scene with the soft flicker of candlelight. Fire hazard, Jack thought automatically; he'd spent too much time on spaceships to feel comfortable with the combination of any ship and open flame.

A tall, lanky figure appeared at the other end of the hall just as Carter quietly closed the door behind them. "Tracey!" he said, hurrying toward them. "You're back! I was--" he looked around and lowered his voice-- "worried. Faithless, I know, but Lord Shesar said it was a test for you and Barb, so..." He trailed off, shrugging and rolling his eyes at himself. "But you're welcome here," he said to Jack and the others. "I'm Jimmy, Jimmy Johnson, just like the coach except football was never my sport so please, don't ask me about it. It's good to meet you. Where's Barb?"

Jack was a little taken aback by this rush of words, but Tracey seemed to know the guy, anyway. "She's not here," she said, a little hurriedly. "Jimmy, we really need to get up to see Lord Shesar, so--"

"Well, you're in luck because they've already called us to treatment, so you--" he pointed at Jack and Carter and Daniel in turn--"will get to meet everyone at once. Everyone's going to be real glad to see you. Though Barb had better hurry, she'll miss treatment, and we don't want that, do we?"

Jack was ridiculously tempted to try to get through to the guy using logic--hell, how exactly did he think Jack had survived a night in the city, anyway?--but thought better of it pretty fast. Logic, unfortunately, was almost never the answer. Besides, this 'everyone' thing sounded like it needed immediate attention. "Tracey," he said, trying to sound pleasantly brainwashed rather than seriously irritated, "I thought we were going to get the honor of a private audience with Lord Shesar."

She brought her arms up to wrap them around herself, looking back at him wide-eyed. "Everyone will be there. At the treatment, everyone goes, I'm sorry, I should have thought of that, it's late enough..."

"Jimmy," Carter interrupted, "are you the only person left down here?"

He nodded, said "Yeah, I'm pretty su--" and Carter shot him once with the zat. Tracey flinched and twisted away, holding up one hand as if to ward away the electricity, but Jack managed to step forward quickly enough to break Jimmy's fall, blinking away the afterimage of lightning. Daniel had a door to one of the side rooms open by the time Jimmy hit the floor--that was one of the nice things about cults, Jack reflected, they didn't usually go in for locking their doors so much--and he and Jack pulled Jimmy inside, Tracey dragged after them by Carter's hand on her sweater.

The door closed behind them, and they were left in a pitch-black room, cramped and smelling a bit of close human habitation. "The flashlight, Tracey?" Jack said, trying to stay patient. She muttered an apology and turned it on, illuminating two single beds, a sink, a ceiling-mounted television. The door to the tiny bathroom was propped open with a pair of boots, and Jack could see a line strung up from shower to toilet, with socks and underwear hanging over it to dry. It was a cramped space for five adults; Daniel was all the way onto a halfheartedly made bed, his feet pulled up out of the way of where Jack had laid Jimmy out between the two beds. Jack reached one hand wordlessly back over his shoulder, and after a moment someone placed the flashlight into it. He shone the light on Jimmy's face, feeling the slight tremor in the fallen man's limbs. Crap, he wasn't going to be down for long. "Tracey," he ordered. "Get up here and give your friend here a familiar face to work with, will you?"

She tried to squeeze forward, but couldn't fit until Jack climbed up onto the empty bed, holding the flashlight in one hand and the zat in the other. The light wobbled wildly around the room before settling back onto Jimmy's face, just as his eyes opened. He flinched and closed them again, bringing up his hands to shield his face. When he tried to sit up, he was prevented by Tracey's weight where she straddled his legs. "It's okay, Jimmy," she said. "I promise it's okay. Just wait for a second and let me explain--"

"Jesus," Jimmy said, a prayer more than an oath. "Oh, Jesus, forgive me for what I did--"

"Not you," Tracey said, a little desperately--trying to convince herself, too, Jack guessed. "It wasn't your fault, there was a drug. Wasn't there?" she asked, looked up at Daniel.

He opened his mouth to reply, but Jimmy got there first. "It doesn't matter," he said, simply, and after that he was quiet, all the ebullience from the hallway gone.

"Okay, yeah, we've got no time for this," Jack said. "Jimmy, did anyone see us coming in? They know how many people to expect?"

He shook his head. "Latasha said she'd seen a light in the terminal, through the window, Latasha was on watch up on the deck so she would've seen the light. But she didn't say anything about numbers. I didn't ask, but she didn't say."

"Okay." Jack grabbed his hand and pulled; Tracey stumbled backward as Jimmy staggered to his feet, a little unsteady still. "Here's what's going to happen. You and I and Tracey here are going up to the big shindig. Carter, Daniel, you go to Shesar's room, wait there, take him out when--are they going to be able to get in there? He gonna bring the party back to his bedroom?"

"No, sir. I mean, yes--" Jimmy stuttered to a halt, closing his eyes in an effort to bring his brain back on-line; Tracey laid one hand on his arm to keep him quiet and answered Jack herself.

"It won't be locked. No one locks their doors here, we're family--" She tripped over that word, almost imperceptibly, then soldiered on. "I've been to see him plenty of times, gone to his room to fetch things during the treatment, it's never been locked. So you should be able to get in pretty easily. But he might bring a couple of people back with him, after. That, that happens sometimes. If he wants."

"Couple of people as in two happy groupies, or couple of people as in a dozen armed guards?"

Tracey's face tightened in anger. Well, tough cookies; he was not in any kind of a mood to watch his vocabulary. "Just two, maybe three, unarmed. There could be sex, yes, though why you think that would be any of your business--"

Whatever. "Fine, that works. Where's his room?"

"One more level up," Jimmy said. "You'll have to take the central stairs, the back ones are blocked off, remember when we did that, Tracey? So you should wait until everyone's out of the halls, I guess, there are stragglers sometimes but I think I was pretty much the last, they'll be wondering where I am now. We have to go, what if--should I go with you? I can show you the way, it's just up those stairs and down the hall to the right, all the way, last room on the left. 9206. But I can show you. Maybe I should--"

God, he was worse than Daniel at his most overcaffeinated. "No. You and I and Tracey are going up to make an appearance, because we don't want to make anybody suspicious. Carter, you got where you're going?"

She nodded, out at the very edge of the area lit by the flashlight. "Wait a while--ten minutes?" she asked, to nods from Jimmy and Tracey. "Up the main staircase, down the hall to the right, all the way, number 9206. But--"

"Jack, you shouldn't go in there." That was Daniel, speaking with real urgency, but Carter was nodding along. "There's no reason for you to go. Tracey can just go in and tell them that we got away."

"I'm not sending these two in there alone," Jack said, hoping that Carter and Daniel were getting the we don't really know these people well enough to trust them message along with the these people need someone to look after them. "No discussion, no democracy, that's an order. Jimmy, you saw me and Tracey coming up the hall, walked up with us to the big fiesta, don't know any more than that. Tracey, Carter and Daniel got away and Barb was killed--don't start with me, Carter, we are staying as close to the truth as possible here tonight--but I'm here as a new devoted follower of everybody's favorite snakehead Jesus."

Daniel reached out to grab Jack by the sleeve, and seriously, it was awfully crowded in there. "And when they decide to shoot you in the head for being involved in Barb's death?"

"I shoot them first and run like hell. Which reminds me, trade me the Beretta. Easier to explain than a zat." When Daniel made no move to comply, Jack just stuffed his zat into Daniel's empty pocket--pocket, Jesus, next time they went anywhere he was insisting on some kind of holster, conspicuous or not--and snitched his handgun from the other. "I'll come down to the snake's room soon as I can after we're done upstairs, we can work out from there. Be careful, don't be stupid, don't get dead. Tracey, Jimmy, let's go."

"Jack--"

"Let him go," Carter said, squeezing out of the way to let the three of them pass. Daniel stared at her for a moment, incredulous, then opened his hand and released Jack's sleeve.

"Fine," he said. "But I'm telling you right now, this is a bad decision."

Jack poked Jimmy in the back, hurrying him toward the door. "Yeah, well, you can tell me you told me so later." He slapped the flashlight into Carter's hand on the way out the door, closing it carefully behind them and looking both ways down the hall--empty. Good.

Jimmy was stopped again, looking at him. Jesus, was Jack going to have to drag him the whole way? "You military?" he asked.

"Was, yeah," Jack said. "Listen, we're in a little bit of a hurry here so..."

The guy just kept on rolling. "Me too. Four years in the Army, back in the eighties. Closest I ever came to combat was a bar fight in Wiesbaden. You?"

"Closer than that." Jack settled the Beretta in his waistband and tugged his jacket down over it. Long enough, thankfully. He was about two seconds from the pushing stage, but Jimmy just smiled, something much thinner than the beaming grin he'd greeted Tracey with a few minutes before. "Good," he said, and turned to go as Tracey echoed "Yeah. Good."

***

They went right back down the stairs they'd come up, single-file, following the glow of Jimmy's penlight. Tracey and Jimmy were silent, so Jack was too, following them through an empty, chandeliered restaurant into what had once been the ship's galley without comment. The furniture had been stripped from the restaurant--burned, Jack figured--but the galley was intact and still in use, judging by the faint scent of... rosemary. The kitchen smelled like rosemary.

Jack had never liked rosemary much.

They came out into another restaurant--less fancy, with wall sconces rather than chandeliers, and booths lining the walls. Past two sweeping staircases, past the information desk and a row of idled elevators, and Jack could hear voices now, coming from up ahead. Artificial light was shining out of a set of wide double doors, propped open so that as Jack approached he could see all the way down to the stage at the front of what was, according to the sign above the door, the Toulouse-Lautrec Lounge.

The Toulouse-Lautrec Lounge was... awful. Just really, really bad, all sparkly red sequins and inexplicable lighted windmills, and Jack was not at all surprised that a Goa'uld would take to it. The snake in question--or so he assumed--was standing on the stage, highlighted by a spotlight; the rest of the room was dim in comparison, but he could see the shadows and hear the rustling that meant people. Two kids were up on stage with Shesar, who placed something into their mouths like a priest offering the Host, resting his hands on each of their heads in turn. Jack kept a smile on his face and his hands off the Beretta, but only just.

As the kids backed away, Shesar raised his head, unhurried, like he'd just been waiting for the right moment to acknowledge the new arrivals. "Tracey," he said, smooth and warm and human. If not for the zats and the fake religion and the evil brain-eating, Jack might have doubted for a moment. "Welcome home. We were worried for you."

Tracey looked nervous, Jack thought, and if he was noticing it after knowing her for a few hours... well, at least she was reporting a failure to her prophet. A little twitchyness wouldn't be that unusual, so long as Jimmy didn't crack on him too. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be late, but... there was... an accident, Lord. A fight. I'm sorry. Barbara's dead." Her voice trembled a little; all to the good in that case, though. After all, her friend was dead. Looking sad about it wasn't going to be a problem.

Shesar turned his head and looked at Jack, still slow and easy. A human couldn't have seen a damn thing in the audience, not with the lighting the way it was, but Jack was pretty sure Shesar could see Jack as well as if they'd been standing outside at noon. "Come forward, child."

Happy zombie, Jack thought. Happy zombie, happy zombie, happy zombie... He let his smile widen a little--like the snake knew what he usually looked like, right?--and walked down the aisle to the stage, putting a little bounce in his step. Or should he be acting guilty? Well, too late now.

Shesar put up one hand to stop him as he reached the stage, and Jack was left standing there, looking up, his head at ankle-level to the snake. At least it didn't look like he was armed; Shesar had gone the skintight fashion route, black from head to toe, with intricate patterns picked out in silver thread. Way over the top, but that wasn't exactly new, and there weren't any unnatural bulges that indicated a weapon. He looked down, without crouching or letting Jack come any closer. "Did you cause the death of my daughter Barbara?"

The crowd at Jack's back was silent. Watching Shesar for direction, hopefully. Well, hopefully so long as Shesar's direction wasn't 'kill the infidel.' Jack schooled his features to shame and bowed his head. "I didn't know. I thought she was going to hurt me. I'm sorry." The butt of the gun pressed against the small of his back; he wouldn't be able to get it out as quickly as he'd like if he needed it, and getting up onto the stage and away from the crowd would be a problem. Dammit, whose idea had this been, anyway?

Oh, right.

Shesar was silent. After a decent interval, Jack looked up again, straight into Shesar's face, doing his damnedest to look like a supplicant. Just let me eat the freaking brains so we can get this over with and get you back to your bedroom and dead. "Please," he dared, hating the sound of the word in his mouth. "Forgive me? I didn't get that she was just, uh, you know... trying to help."

There was a murmuring from behind him now, an angry noise that made Jack's shoulderblades itch. Shesar held up one hand, and the room fell silent again. "I understand," he said, nothing but sugar and honey in his voice. "You are all flawed; it is a condition of humanity, and all of the sisters and brothers in this room were once as blind as you. But it is mine to forgive, and I do. You are welcome here. So it is." He spread his arms wide, and the response came back from the room: So it is.

Thank God for stupid aliens.

"What is your name, child?"

"Jack," Jack said, because really, common name, right?

"Jack," Shesar repeated. "Well then, Jack, come here to me and I will grant you the sacrament and the treatment." There was an altar in the middle of the stage, with a cabinet underneath, and Shesar went to get something out of it; more nish'ta for the sacrament thingie, probably. Tracey had told them it was normally a two-step process.

The snake was about an inch from having a plumber's crack issue, the way he was bending over, but whatever. Presumably once you were zombified, it didn't matter so much if your messiah was sticking his ass in your face. The stairs were at the sides of the stage, so Jack had to walk down in front of the people who'd gotten the front-row seats; a couple of guys, mostly women and kids, including a couple who were young enough that they'd just better not be Harcesis.

As he reached the stairs, Shesar stood and turned and smiled out at his worshipers again. "Peter, Berto, join us." Two men got up and moved for the stairs; biggish guys, both of them, and that was a bad sign. Shit. Jack very carefully did not glance at Tracey, and didn't reach back to take out his gun, no matter how badly he wanted to.

"My Lord?" Jack said, as politely as he could, stopping just out of arm's reach. Peter and Berto flanked him; one went to kneel, but Shesar shook his head slightly.

"Jack," he said, still so gentle. "Where are your companions?"

"Companions?" Jack asked, still a little hopeful he could bluff this one out. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, and damn Jimmy's bad intel anyway.

"When you entered the ship there were four--" and Jack went for his gun, fast, trying to get out from between the goons. He just barely managed to get a hand on it before they tackled him, pulled his hand free again, and sent the gun clattering to the floor. Jack struggled briefly, but there was no point. Hell. Hell, shit, fuck, damn, and why had he never gotten Daniel to teach him how to swear in Goa'uld, anyway? This was exactly the kind of situation where extra swear words would be useful.

He managed to get his head turned toward the audience, but the spotlight was still on the stage and he couldn't see what was going on at first. It came clear soon enough, though; Tracey being dragged down the central aisle, a dark woman on her right arm and Jimmy on her left. "Tie them," Shesar said; there was some fumbling around before something adequate was found, belts again, and really, Tracey must be pretty tired of this by now.

The two of them were shoved to their knees in front of Shesar, whose face was a parody of mingled sympathy and sorrow. Tracey was breathing real fast--scared, probably, which was smart of her if not necessarily helpful. Well, she'd been defiant before when she was scared, and with luck she would be again. At this point, anything that gave Carter and Daniel time was a good thing.

"The others ran away," she said, a little shakily. "There were three, like we were told, Lord, but the other two ran away--"

"Your sister Latasha saw four of you enter the ship," Shesar said, implacable.

"No, that's impossible, because the other two ran away."

Well, at least she wasn't getting creative. That was good, Jack figured. How long had it been since they'd left Daniel and Carter? Long enough for them to have left the room they were in, for sure. Long enough for them to make it to Shesar's room, he didn't know. Time to throw up a little chaff. "Yeah, you know, you gotta work on your recruitment pitch there. The whole gun-and-drug thing, it's just not--"

The blow from behind rocked him sideways, hard enough to stumble into Tracey, nearly knocking her over. "Okay," he said, once he'd gotten his breath back, "case in point, because OW."

He expected another smack for his trouble, but Shesar ignored him, still focused on Tracey. "You are telling a lie, Tracey. You know that lying isn't allowed, don't you?"

"I'm not lying," she near-whispered. "I'm telling the truth. They ran away."

Shesar squatted down and stroked his hand down Tracey's hair, slipping it underneath to grab hold of her neck from behind. "Where is your weapon, Tracey? You know you're not supposed to leave it lying around."

"Barb had it--"

"And why didn't you bring her home?"

"They, uh, the other two, they took the zat'nikatel, that's how Barb died so there wasn't a body-"

"You're lying." Shesar brought his hand around to the front of her throat, tightening it just a little when she tried to pull back. "You're lying, and you are no daughter of mine." He raised his voice a little, without looking away from Tracey, trapped there on her knees. "Leatta."

A female voice from the seats, older, harsh-sounding after Shesar's. "My Lord?"

"I want ten people to arm themselves and search the ship for the other two. See to it."

Damn it. Not yet. Jack raised his voice to match Shesar's, hoping to stall them for a little while longer. "You're wasting your time, folks. They never came onto the ship in the first place. Chickened out back in the terminal, the little weasels."

"Go, Leatta," Shesar said, without even glancing at Jack. He tightened his hand a little more, squeezing a gasp out of Tracey. "You know what has to happen now, child."

Tracey was white-faced and shaking and Jack was pretty sure he could guess at the shape of what was coming. Still, she had some guts; she got as far as "Leatta, don't--" before Shesar bounced her skull off of the floor. She shrieked, curling in on herself as her legs worked to propel her away from Shesar. Her goon caught her and held her as she gasped out, "He's lying, about the death, he--"

"Silence her," Shesar said, and her goon rolled her over onto her stomach, clapping one hand over her mouth. And Jack knew there wasn't any point, their audience wouldn't really be able to hear a word they were saying, but still--"The city's safe, no one needs treatment, and Shesar isn't a holy man, he's a goddamn alien serial killer," he shouted, squinting into the spotlight.

Utter silence from the room. Shesar deigned to glance at Jack. "My children know better than to believe a stranger, particularly one who has already confessed to murder. We regret that you were able to turn Tracey from the light. She will be missed, but at least her body will contribute to her people's survival. So it is," he added, almost as an afterthought, and the room echoed back the phrase.

Her body? Oh, that didn't sound good at all. "So I'm the bad guy here, right?" Jack said. It was hot under the lights; he could feel sweat in the small of his back, between his wrists and the leather of the bindings. "Talk to me, then. You're scared a couple of people were trying to come in and break up your stupid cult? We've got bigger plans than that, stuff we didn't tell your little groupie."

"Do you now," Shesar said. His voice was amused, but his gaze had sharpened. One of the good points of the Goa'uld; implied megalomania got a consistent response. "Sadie, Jacqueline, go to my rooms and fetch my tools for the sacrifice. Be careful, there may be evildoers on the loose." He paused, then smiled. "Michael, child, come up here and fetch me a knife from the altar."

Michael was maybe eight; he had to rummage in the cabinet for a while before he found and pulled out a simple chef's knife, showing it to Shesar. "Is this one okay, Lord?"

"It is." Shesar smiled. "You're a good boy, Michael."

Shesar reached out his hand for the knife; Michael looked down, a little bashfully. "I could use it for you. If you wanted."

Jack seriously thought he might vomit. The kid was so earnest, so hopeful, so damn ready to take a knife to someone for Shesar. And this is why Nancy told us to Just Say No, he thought. Inhale one time and next thing you know you're murdering people on the say-so of an alien in spandex.

"Not yet. But you can sit up here to watch, if you'd like. Won't that be fun, Jack?"

Jack looked at the knife--no point in looking away now, it'd still be there no matter what he did--and said, very calmly, "You people are assholes, you know that?"

"Shut up," the man behind him said, shaking him a little.

"Peter," Shesar said. "I appreciate the thought, but it's not necessary. Sticks and stones, after all. Now, Jack. Why are you here?"

"Hey, whatever happened to saying please?"

"I don't feel a need to be polite to murderers."

The kid, sitting cross-legged off toward the edge of the stage, nodded approvingly, clearly thinking that this was an excellent rule, one well worth following. Really, it was the support for old-fashioned family values that Jack had always appreciated about the Goa'uld. Also the hypocrisy. "Must make talking to yourself in the shower fun," Jack replied.

Shesar tapped the point of his knife idly against his lips. "You aren't as amusing as you think you are, you know, and I'm ready to move along to the less pleasant part of this conversation if you are."

One of Jack's feet was going to sleep; he shifted his weight, trying to bring it back to life, and got yanked upright by his buddy Peter for his trouble. "Okay, how about this? Promise to let us go and I'll tell you everything."

"Certainly," Shesar said, flipping the knife back down so it pointed toward the ground and taking a few steps back to lean against the cabinet. Jack was sure he didn't mean a word of it, but at least he was listening and not cutting, right? Oh, hell, now he had to come up with a story. A long story. With embellishments, and filigree, and extensive digressions.

Really, this was more Daniel's department.

"Well, this sure as hell wasn't my idea," Jack said, mind racing. "What, I'm gonna come all the way from Colorado for my health?" Shesar's face was blank. Oh, for... 'Colorado' didn't mean a damn thing to him. "I came from the chappa'ai? You might have heard of it?."

He sounded like what he was, an Earthling speaking the interstellar version of Spanglish, but he'd gotten Shesar's attention at least. The Goa'uld narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "You're Tau'ri," he said. "You're from this world."

"Doesn't mean I can't see which side my bread is buttered on. Listen, you sure you want to have this conversation in front of them?" He jerked his head toward the audience. If he could get them to retire to Shesar's rooms, just a few of them...

"I appreciate your concern, but my children are... extremely trustworthy." Shesar sounded mildly amused, if anything. Jack wondered idly whether actually yanking the symbiote out of his head and waving it under people's noses would even do any good. At least the occasional Jaffa had been subject to reason, dammit. "Please continue. You came from the chappa'ai?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I was sent by--" shit shit shit what was her name--"Igneous, chasing a rumor that you were down here."

"Ignasa sent you," Shesar said, doubtfully. He wasn't rejecting the idea out of hand, at least; good. Ignasa. Ignasa, that was it. Her name had showed up on the radio a lot, back in the al'kesh. It sounded like she was powerful enough to make Shesar... nervous enough to kill them. Okay, slight adjustment in plan.

"Sure did. I've been with her pretty much since she arrived. But you know, I'm not out to die for her here, so if you've got an offer to make..."

"I can be merciful," Shesar said. "To the repentant."

Jack squinted up at him. "So are we talking so long, have a nice life mercy, or...?"

"That very much depends on how useful you are," Shesar said, with a careless shrug and a bright smile. "My choice. Trust me or don't, it makes very little difference. For that matter, we could wait until Tracey has been properly punished, since I know she has nothing to share with me."

Fine. Have your weak point. "Hey, look, I'm not in charge here. Tracey talked to my boss alone this afternoon, and I have no idea what they said to each other. For all I know there's some special plan for the local girl. They don't tell me anything."

"Lord." That was the other one, Berto, who still had a tight hold on Tracey. "Lord, forgive me, but I don't think they're telling the truth. I think--" He paused, nervous, but Shesar just waited patiently. He had more self-control than most of the snakes Jack had known, he had to give him that much. Berto took a deep breath. "I think they're trying to take advantage of you, Lord. I mean, he had a gun. Why did he have a gun, if not to hurt someone?"

"Really, Berto," Shesar said, fondly paternal. "Do you think I can't tell the difference between the truth and a lie?"

Well, let's hope you're open to possibilities, Jack thought.

The ensuing conversation... well, it wasn't fun, but Jack had had worse. Much worse. For a good long while he just got to make shit up, with the occasional prompt; stories about Ignasa and her Stargate and the really spiffy new palace she was building, with gold! And a swimming pool! And peacocks! And then the knife was waved in his general direction, so his plot to use Dickens' paid-by-the-word philosophy of description to buy time had to be abandoned.

Killed a few minutes, though. Plus, he thought the peacocks had really added something to the story, a little liveliness, some color.

Jack was kind of hoping Tracey would try an apology at some point--probably wouldn't help, but you never knew, the snakes had some weird blind spots sometimes--but when Shesar turned to her, she fumbled and stuttered and eventually told a story that was uncomfortably close to the truth. Still, one motivation for killing Shesar or another, it hardly mattered at this point; if Tracey wanted to talk like Jack had betrayed her, fine, so long as everyone kept talking. She'd learned too much truth for one day, Jack figured; she was overflowing with it, and the audience was rumbling, and Shesar was starting to look serious about the knife again which meant Jack was going to have to come up with a new way to distract him, at which point the problem was solved for him by a zat blast from backstage.

Damn, Jack wished he'd thought of that.

The first shot took Berto down; Jack tried to twist out of the way but still ended up under Peter, who was lunging to put himself between Shesar and danger. Peter managed to scramble up to his feet, stepping on Jack in the process with what felt like a big-ass boot. There was a lot of noise, zat fire and shouting from the crowd, and Jack had just managed to get himself back up onto his knees when he was knocked over again by someone climbing onto the stage. His head hit the wood floor, hard, and he was still gasping for air when more hands appeared, and feet, and fuck, it was a big stage, did everyone in the world have to come right up over his part of it?

Then there was gunfire--shit, someone had gotten hold of the Beretta, but the zat was still going, he thought there were two zats going, though he couldn't tell for sure. People had finally stopped stepping on him, so he uncurled a little and opened his eyes. He couldn't quite get his vision to clear, but it looked like the doors at the far end of the room were just swinging closed--oh, good, hopefully at least some of the audience had run out, though then they'd be bringing in the people Shesar had sent hunting and they'd be armed, hell, they were gonna have to get out of this room.

Jack got himself up onto one knee just as someone grabbed his arms from behind, and oh no, he was not going to be dropped on his head anymore tonight. He threw his weight backward, to the sound of a startled oof. A familiar, feminine oof. Oh. Carter. Oops.

"Warn a guy, will you?" Jack said, rolling off of her and, finally, back onto his feet. There were maybe a dozen new people down on the stage; good thing the crowd hadn't all decided it was a good idea to run toward the gunfire. Carter had hold of his arm again, not stopping to get him loose, just pulling him firmly offstage like he was a vaudevillian gone sour, and where the hell was Daniel?

"Jack," Carter said, speaking rather like she thought he had a head injury which, well, he had to admit things were still a little blurry. "We need to hole up somewhere safe, just for now. People are going to start waking up, and we shouldn't be here."

"Shesar," he said, and where was Daniel? He and Carter were the only two people standing on the stage. "Daniel?" he said, just as Carter said "Dead," and then hurriedly continued, "Shesar, not Daniel. Daniel and Jimmy are with Tracey. Please, Jack, we have to go."

Okay. Shesar was dead, Carter and Daniel were all right, Tracey was--well, he hadn't actually clarified whether she was okay, but Daniel could handle that. No one was shooting at them. So, that was pretty much the Toulouse-Lautrec Lounge departure checklist, then. Time to go. Except, shit, that wasn't everything after all. "Someone's going to have to stay here and explain to these people--"

"I'm going to do that." That was Jimmy, and oh, good, Daniel with him, supporting Tracey between them. Her they'd taken the time to cut loose, Jack noted, a little jealously. On the other hand, she was bleeding pretty good from her shoulder--Berto must've cut her on his way to the floor--and she was clearly not putting any weight on her right foot. She looked a little shocky, but not like she was going to drop dead any second, which Jack took as a win. She even managed a slight smile, until Jimmy slipped out from under the arm with the shoulder wound and made her gasp. He flapped his hands at them, urging them in an unspecified away-from-the-stage direction. "You remember where I showed you? I'll come and get you when it's safe, so don't come out until I show up because--"

Carter cut him off. "I'm staying here to back you up. Daniel, take Jack and Tracey, go back to wardrobe, sit tight until I come get you."

"Sam, you shouldn't stay alone--"

She rounded on him, angry. "I wouldn't have to if you'd covered Jack like I told you to, because then his eyes wouldn't be pointing in different directions and he'd be able to stay, wouldn't he? Go, will you? They'll be coming around soon."

Jack kind of expected Daniel to snap back--and hey, what was that about his eyes, anyway? His eyes were fine. Okay, still, things a little blurry, but a guy in his fifties couldn't have a blurry-vision day or two? She didn't give Daniel shit for his eyesight and huh, speaking of Daniel, he'd kind of expected him to snap back at Carter, but he didn't. Just tipped his head back a little, eyes very wide, then shifted Tracey's weight more firmly onto his shoulder. "I'll be back," he said, and he turned and left the stage, yanking firmly on Jack's sleeve on the way by when he didn't move quickly enough.

The non-public areas of the ship didn't go in so much for the faux gold leaf and other decorative objects; the hall was cramped and a little dingy, with messages scribbled on the walls in magic marker. "ANGIE 1999, Love you all!" "Sore feet? Dance faster. Power outage? Dance louder. Sinking ship? Dance like Esther!" Which sounded a little bitter, actually. What was up with that? Hadn't they ever heard of the magic of show business?

The three of them ended up in wardrobe, which was surprisingly untouched, considering that there had been a Goa'uld running the place and he must have gotten the black-and-silver outfit from somewhere. It was cramped, clearly only meant for storage, and Daniel had to shove one of the racks out of the way before he could lower Tracey to the floor. Jack really kind of wanted to sit down again too, but for one thing he knew he should stay on his feet, just in case, and for another there weren't any chairs anyway, so he leaned against the wall instead.

Daniel carefully peeled Tracey's shirt away from the wound, where Berto had cut deep into the muscle running from neck to shoulder, curving from the very edge of her throat back to the back of her neck. It was bleeding pretty good, but she wiggled her fingers on command, so Daniel just had her hold a shirt to it while he finally got around to cutting Jack loose.

"Ow," Jack said, on general principles.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Daniel tossed the belt across the room and came around the Jack's front, taking him firmly by the chin and squinting at him. Jack yanked his head out of Daniel's hands, which ow for real this time, he had hit his head, hadn't he? "Headache," he said. "Several boot-shaped bruises. I'll be fine. Tracey?"

"I fell off the stage," she gasped, managing to put a thread of amusement into her voice. "There's a successful acting debut for you, huh?" Daniel reached down to move the foot she'd been favoring, and she sucked in air, pulling away from him. "Don't! Just... don't. I think it might be broken."

Daniel paused. "Okay, well, that's not something I can do anything about, actually, so..." He turned back to Jack. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Fine. Give me the damn gun, I'm going to--" He pushed off from the wall, wavered a little, then leaned back. "--lean here for a minute. Daniel, please tell me that the floor's doing that because we're on a ship."

"The floor isn't doing anything. How hard did you hit your head, anyway?" He probed at Jack's skull, making him flinch. "You aren't bleeding."

"Carter needs--"

"Sam will be fine," Daniel said, and hell, now he'd broken out the talking-to-a-guy-with-a-head-wound voice too. "She'll stay out of sight, and Jimmy will talk them down."

"And then everyone will go do room-to-room looking for people who are armed and know they're coming? Plus, will you stop it with acting like my brains are leaking out my ears? It's a headache, not an aneurysm."

"Headache can be a symptom of aneurysm, actually."

It was a halfhearted comeback, Daniel's mouth set on autopilot while his attention went to the door. He frowned at it, flexing his hand around the zat. The door was obstinately quiet. Tracey craned her neck around to try to see the cut on her back, which was just about as successful as it would be for most people who didn't have the neck musculature of owls. Jack, moving carefully, knelt down next to her and laid his hand over hers, putting some pressure on the part of the wound she hadn't been able to reach; she flinched, but thanked him anyway. "Is it bad?"

"Nah," Jack said. "Clean it out real good, slap on a little Neosporin, maybe a couple stitches, you'll be fine. Bleeding's slowing down. I think the shirt's a loss, though."

Daniel dropped his chin to his chest, let out a dissatisfied noise, and then whipped around to face Jack, producing the Beretta from God-knew-where. He held it out to Jack, butt-first, then waggled it when Jack paused for a moment. "I'm going back up to the stage," Daniel said. "As you said to me not so very long ago, if anything comes through that door that isn't me, shoot them. Okay, isn't me or Sam. Or--you know, just use your better judgment. It's four feet away, it's not like you're going to miss." He smiled, closed-lipped and humorless, and walked out the door before Jack had gotten his brains together to respond, closing it firmly behind himself.

Jack stared at the door for a while, talking to himself firmly about Carter's competence, and Daniel's, and his own wobbliness.

Tracey cleared her throat.

"Listen, I know I'm not a professional, but... should we lock the door?"

***

By the time Jack was unscrambled enough to realize how scrambled he'd been before, Carter and Daniel had reappeared, followed by an older woman with reddened eyes and a confident manner that was only a little undercut by the tremble in her voice. They'd had to take a couple of people down again with the zats, Carter said, but most of them seemed to have gotten the picture once Jimmy had opened the back of Shesar's neck with the chef's knife the snake had meant for Tracey and Jack himself.

The older woman was medical somehow, Jack wasn't clear on the details; anyway, she knelt down and took Tracey in hand like she knew what she was doing, and so Jack was just as happy to leave her to it and attend to the more important issue of not being left in a closet during the necessary sweep of the rest of the ship. He accomplished this task by pushing right between Daniel and Carter and out into the hall, trusting that neither of them would actually tackle him. Once he got to the stage, he figured it'd be easy; talk like you're in charge and an awful lot of people will believe it, even if you're looking a little battered, and Carter at least still had some instincts that told her to fellow his lead.

Daniel made a little noise about whether Jack was really up to this, but shut up after a quelling glare from Jack and a sharp "Jack knows what he's doing, Daniel," from Carter. They were spatting about something again, Jack figured; Daniel's choice to take out Tracey's guard first? Well, whatever. There would be time for arguments and logic later.

Jimmy looked up sharply from scrubbing the last of Shesar's blood off of his hands when they came out, asking "Tracey, is she okay?" with an anxious note in his voice.

"She's gonna be fine," Jack said, glancing at the wreck that had been made of Shesar's host and away to the people left in the theater. About half of them looked like they might be up for something above and beyond huddling in a ball and whimpering, which gave them, what, one to four odds, in a maze of a ship...

...or they could just give the all-clear and wait for the rest of the Conquest's residents to come to them.

"All right, people listen up!" Jack said, clapping his hands together sharply. "Here's what we're going to do."

Jimmy volunteered to go and call people back, but that was a no-go, in case someone had seen him joining in with the shooting. In the end, Jimmy recommended a heavy-set black woman who Jack hadn't met and whose name he gave up as a bad job at this point, and Berto, who wouldn't quite meet Jack's eyes, volunteered. Jack wasn't in love with that idea, frankly, but Berto seemed less shaken than most and he knew how to handle a zat. Jack just hoped that he wouldn't miss the henchman thing enough to screw around with the plan.

In the end, it went surprisingly smoothly. Leatta, God bless her, had told everyone she could round up to go to ground in the library and not let any strangers in, which made dragging everyone back to the Lounge unnecessary and made the shooting portion of the program a lot easier--like fish in a barrel, Berto said later, emotionlessly. Leatta herself had her guard up, insisting that she'd trust no one's word but Shesar's, and more to the point, that she wasn't going to be exposing her back to anyone else anytime soon. In the end, they had to lead her into Shesar's suite, where Carter was waiting next to the door to brain her with a heavy wooden walking stick she'd gotten from one of the older women who'd gone down in the first wave. So when the full ship's complement reassembled in the Lounge, they were shocked and occasionally bleeding, but not dead, which Jack figured was a win.

Unfortunately, once they were all back together again he lost his grip on the crowd. It started with the late, lamented--well, not by Jack--Barb. Tracey insisted that someone go back for her body right away, which Jack thought maybe ought to wait until they were a little more confident that no one was secretly planning to shoot anyone else in the back. Unfortunately, no one seemed to be all that interested in what he thought, up to and including Daniel, who promptly volunteered to go along.

"I think they've got it, Daniel," Jack said, because was he nuts?

Daniel bent down to tighten his shoelaces without looking up. "Someone's got to get our things too," he said. "Easier to do it in one trip, don't you think?"

"I'll come with you," Carter said, with a glance toward Jack. At least someone still had a healthy sense of paranoia.

Daniel shook his head. "No," he said, "I'm fine. Latasha? Ready to go?"

"Yeah," one of the younger women in the crowd said. Jack ignored her. "You're making my headache worse," he told Daniel, irritated. He kinda wished he were lying about that, but he had whacked himself pretty good back there, and then there'd been stress and arguing and a lot of shouting, none of which had made things any better.

Daniel gave him the don't be an idiot, Jack, look. "So take something," he said. "Or, I don't know, go lie down."

"Daniel--"

"Jack, don't you think we owe them this?" Daniel asked. And actually, no, Jack didn't think they owed anyone much of anything at this point, but he knew a battle not worth fighting when he saw one and so he shrugged, said "come straight back to our boat afterwards, you hear?" let it go.

So Daniel left, and there they were, Jack and Carter and Tracey and Jimmy and Leatta and all the other people who'd just woken up from a particularly nasty two-year dream to an even nastier, if more honest, reality. It was a little awkward, frankly. What with the decor and all, it was kind of like going to the prom at a strange high school, except with even more emotional trauma and a broken bone or two. Well, and the dead body sprawled on the stage.

As Jimmy tried to calm the crowd, Jack started to notice a lot of glances, and some sidling, and damn, his head still hurt. He should have remembered this part, where sometimes people didn't serenade you with "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" and name their children after you. Sometimes the ones who weren't curled sobbing in a corner looked at you out of the corners of their eyes and whispered to each other, and even though Carter had gotten her zat back, Jack was feeling unpleasantly outnumbered.

"Look," Jack said once Jimmy stopped to breathe, projecting his voice to reach as much of the crowd as possible. "You're a little freaked out right now, and I get that. So why don't my friend and I get out of your hair while you do your thing, and then we can get together again, say tomorrow, maybe have some dinner or--"

"You did this," a woman shouted. "You've come in here and killed us all--"

"That was a lie," Jimmy said, obviously trying to sound soothing. "I explained that to you, that that was a lie--"

"--and how do we know that? Even the Devil tells the truth sometimes, I was here at the beginning, I saw Raymond die--"

"Look, Angie, we know he had powers, he could have faked that too--"

"And you're just going to take their word for it?" Angie had been standing in the aisle, but now she scrambled her way up onto the stage, grunting a little with the exertion. She was short enough that it was a difficult climb, and Jimmy made an abortive attempt to help her up, cut short by an expletive from her. She got to her feet on her own and advanced on Jimmy, who had to have at least a foot on her if not more. Still, he was backing up. "Years we survived, during the dying and after everyone was dead, and you're going to tell me Shesar had nothing to do with it?"

Carter stepped forward, which was a bad idea, Jack thought, but he forgot, sometimes, that she didn't always look to him before she jumped these days. She spread out her hands, appealing to logic, to sanity--a very Daniel kind of move, actually. "I don't know enough to say why you survived initially, but I promise you, the gas--the substance that was killing people--is gone. I've been in the city for more than two days, and I feel--"

"And why the fuck am I supposed to listen to you?" Angie asked, soft and venomous.

"Angie," Tracey called, from where she'd been settled in the front row of seats.

"What do you all think?" Angie said, turning to the rest of the crowd. "You going to trust these strangers?"

Jack reached out and snagged Carter by the elbow, drawing her backwards toward the steps up onto the stage. "Yeah, I see your point. So we'll just be going..."

"Angie!" Tracey shouted, with just the slightest of slurs in her voice--someone had dug up a bottle of vodka that she'd been more than happy to accept as painkiller. "Are you going to call me a liar, too? Because it's been more than a day for me, too, and I'm fine."

"I believe you, Tracey," Berto said, quiet, but firm. He'd settled himself onto the edge of the stage as soon as the roundup had finished, and had spent the time since then staring at his hands, alone. "I don't care about these strangers, but I believe you, and I believe Jimmy. And even if I didn't, that thing--Shesar--that was wrong. That wasn't right. I'd rather be dead."

From there, it was all over but the shouting.

Jack and Carter, on Tracey's suggestion, skipped out on the mass debrief. "I think we need a little time to ourselves to work this out," she said, and hey, Jack was all for privacy. So they went back to the houseboat and, after a brief but spirited debate over whether 'nasty knock on the head plus bruises' was more deserving of sleep than 'zatted twice in the past eighteen hours,' flipped for it. Carter won, the cheater--Jack wasn't sure how she'd cheated at coin-flipping, but clearly she had--and so Jack crawled into bed and didn't wake again until Carter shook him a little before noon.

"Daniel went back up to explain things to them," she said. "I offered to go with him, but he said we weren't invited, so..." She shrugged. "I think it'll be all right; he said they seemed to have calmed down, and it's not surprising that they'd want more answers now that they've had a little time to come to terms with what happened."

"You didn't want to know what I thought?" Jack said, a little blearily.

"Well, you were asleep. And Daniel was going to go one way or another. Honestly, Jack, I don't think there's anything to worry about. You know Daniel. He'll be fine."

Jack scrubbed clumsily at his face, then pushed himself to his feet before he could think better of it. Coin or no coin, it was Carter's turn to sleep now. Still... "Right, because Daniel never gets himself into trouble."

As it turned out, it was well into evening by the time Daniel finally got back. The sunset slanting through the windows had turned the whole world pink, it seemed, walls and floor and people and all, but Jack couldn't appreciate the effect because he was itching to go back onto the Conquest after his missing man. So he was very glad to see that Daniel looked basically all right, no new missing limbs or bruises; apparently he'd read this bunch of people correctly.

"Couple people hung themselves in one of the rooms," Daniel said, voice flat. "Tracey said she wasn't surprised, wouldn't say anything else. They did something to family, probably. Other than that, people are coping pretty well, considering." He leaned back against the door, arms folded, gaze unfocused.

Carter looked at Jack, a little uncertainly. Jack looked right back at Carter, who could get on working things out with Daniel any time now, thanks. She still looked unsure, but when she walked over to Daniel he let her take his hand. "You must be tired," she said. "There's fish if you want it, which Jack only pretended to be able to identify but neither of us are dead yet, so..."

"Sure," Daniel said, without much interest. "Cold fish is my favorite."

"Well, if you hadn't run off to play with your new friends you could've had it right out of the pan like me and Carter." Jack had put out his pole as much as an excuse to sit out and stare at the Conquest as anything, and actually he'd been a little pissed off when he caught something; neither he nor Carter had been in much of a mood to cook, and dammit, it was times like these when he missed delivery. Pizza, maybe. Or sesame chicken. Mmm, sesame chicken. They'd filled up on peanuts in lieu of eating Daniel's piece--it wasn't a very big fish--and so Jack dug out the bag again and waggled it in his direction. "Peanuts?"

"Yeah, okay," Daniel said. "Actually..." He moved away from the door, leaving Carter behind, and practically snatched the peanuts out of Jack's hand, crowding him against the counter as he reached around for a fork. "I'm just going to take this outside." Fork obtained, he balanced his booty on the plate with the last lonely chunk of fish, heading for the exit.

Carter stepped in front of the door. "Or, you could stay in here with us. I'll even turn on the heat."

Daniel pulled up short, looking down at her. "Um, no."

She didn't say anything, but Jack was pretty sure Carter was ready for backup. "Seriously, just give in now, sit down, and tell the woman how your day was, huh? Trust me, it's easier that way."

"Butt out, Jack," Daniel snapped, without turning around.

"Daniel--" Now Carter's gaze did dart to Jack, over Daniel's shoulder, before she brought her attention back to the man in front of her and dropped her voice low enough that Jack couldn't understand her. Her eyes were wide and blue and Jack thought her tone was at least a little apologetic, so it was a relief when Daniel nodded and said, "I know. It's okay. I'll be back later."

"I'd like to know what's bothering you," Carter said, a little tightly. "I'd like to help."

"You can't," Daniel said. "It isn't yours. Sam, I just--can't be in here right now." He sounded frustrated, and his hands were starting to move, enough so that Jack expected peanuts to fly at any moment. "I'm sorry, but you are exactly the person who needs to leave me alone right now."

For a few moments longer, she stood her ground, looking up at him, but eventually she stepped aside and walked back into the living area without looking back. Her eyes were down, her face set, and she didn't meet Jack's eyes, even once Daniel left, sliding the door closed behind him.

After a little while they heard his footsteps echo through the boat from a few feet above them.

And Jack totally got the whole go-hide-out-on-the-roof thing, he did, but... "Carter? You planning to take care of this?"

Part 4