FIC: Wandering Blind, Part 2 (Stargate SG-1)

[katie_m]

Steam billowed out of the tiny bathroom as soon as Daniel opened the door, along with a disgruntled "Hey!"

"Dinner," Daniel said shortly, and there was more conversation but Jack was distracted by... what was that noise? He abandoned the Carter extraction attempt for the rear deck, and yes, that was the sound of a trumpet floating up from downriver. Definitely a trumpet. Playing When the Saints Come Marching In. Badly. And suddenly Jack could see it, clear as day, some poor kid just growing his first mustache and his first zits, who'd been learning the trumpet before and now once a day had to listen to his mother telling him just because things have changed, that doesn't mean you get to stop practicing, Hubert.

Poor kid, stuck with a name like Hubert.

"I think a Hubert would play the tuba or the triangle or something like that," Daniel said later, sprawled across one of the beds. "I mean, if we're assuming that names should be determinative. Hubert's a dorky name, and cool kids play the trumpet."

"Cool kids aren't in the band, Daniel," Jack said with authority.

"Sure they are. Hey, Sam!" Daniel scootched himself forward a bit so he could see Carter at the sink. It was her night for dishes, and she was doing them without complaint, just like always. Carter very rarely complained about that kind of thing. It was one of the things Jack liked about her. "Can cool kids be in the band?"

Carter shook her head and put a little more elbow grease into pot-scrubbing. "God, no. What kind of high school did you go to, anyway?"

Daniel looked back and forth between Jack and Carter, mouth hanging open a little, then shut his mouth with a near-audible snap and shrugged. "An unusual one, apparently."

"This isn't the part where you tell us you were in the band, is it?" Jack asked, genuinely worried. He figured he probably would've known, but then Daniel had blindsided him before, and he had owned that piano...

"No," Carter said, wiping down the last plate and coming to sit next to Jack on the couch. "Daniel has depths of geekiness that you have not plumbed, but that's not one of them."

"Oh, like you have room to talk," Daniel said, and Jack really couldn't tell if he was kidding or not. When he glanced over at Carter, though, she just smiled a little sideways smile like Daniel was teasing and said "well, that's fair," so, hey, apparently it was all right.

They didn't get into Brewster until mid-afternoon, as it turned out, but at least everything came off of the boat faster than it'd gone on. The only real snag was having to use Stan-the-neighbor's dock, because Stan-the-neighbor's dock came complete with supervision from Stan-the-neighbor. Not that he helped any, but he did quite graciously take an interest in some of the bedding, along with trying to strike up a conversation with Carter about the condition of various engine parts.

Actually, he took enough of an interest in the boat that the three of them stayed onboard again that night. They killed the lights and pulled the shades to discourage visitors, and Carter, bless her, got the TV going once they found the spot where the power cord had been chewed through.

There wasn't any popcorn--Jack had to admit he was kind of disappointed they hadn't found any of the microwaveable stuff, what with them actually having access to a microwave--but Daniel broke out an unopened can of honey-roasted peanuts he'd found at the marina, and that was kind of the right idea, anyway. So that was good, and Daniel stopped bitching about having to watch Universal Soldier once they promised him they'd keep an eye out for a Blockbuster he could loot, and then things got a little awkward. Because the TV faced the bed, and they could have turned it, but Carter had already found her way under the ugly comforter and patted the bed next to her by the time Jack thought of it.

So Daniel ended up in the middle and Jack was on the edge and even making a point of leaving a gap between them, it was... weird. Awkward. The peanuts were in a bowl balanced on Daniel's stomach, and every now and then Jack's hand would meet someone else's--Carter's, which twice turned its scheduled withdrawal into a caress, or Daniel's, which would twitch a little in surprise and make Jack's scuttle back out of the bowl empty.

Carter wasn't the problem. Well, okay, Carter was kind of the problem, but that was status quo, nothing Jack wasn't already handling, and hey, wasn't that the perfect way to think about the situation? God. The worst thing was, if he'd actually said that to her he just knew she would've turned it into a come-on. Which... well, he liked handling Carter, and there hadn't been a peep of complaint out of Daniel, so they were good there. Apparently.

So no, Carter wasn't really the problem, other than the part where she wasn't waiting until she got him alone to mess with him. The problem was twofold. For one thing, Daniel fell asleep halfway through, and one of his socked feet flopped over to rest against Jack's, and it was warm and distracting and Jack had to admit that he was maybe just a little sorry that Daniel hadn't wanted more from Jack than what he'd gotten that first night.

He really didn't want to think too hard about that, though. Not like he hadn't handled a dick or two in his day, even before that night when he was pretty sure he'd gotten his hands on Daniel's, but the thing was, it had always been easy. Well, okay, easy in a terrifying he-could-lose-his-career kind of way, but that had kind of been why it was hot in the first place. Plus, simple. Straightforward. Daniel, on the other hand--complications out the wazoo, not even counting the Carter issue, and so, hell, when it came to tamping down inappropriate attraction Jack was a goddamn pro. No need to stir up trouble.

If it had just been the way Jack was feeling about ten times more aware of the guy's proximity than usual, that would've been fine. Easy to get around. But no, he had to look over and see Daniel's head on Carter's shoulder, the flickering light from the screen on his face and hers, and feel so damn jealous his teeth hurt. And not just of Daniel's right to have that part of Carter, either.

That was weird, and Jack's list of things he didn't think about was getting kind of long but he made a point of tacking that moment onto the end. Then he turned his attention back to Mr. Belgium--Belgium? Really?--and he knew it was a stupid movie, but he was easily distracted by stupidity so as it turned out he didn't mind at all.

***

They left early the next morning, the sound of the engine echoing off the river and disappearing into the fog. Carter drove until Jack got twitchy, and vice versa; Daniel seemed perfectly happy to leave them to it, and their shared boredom every time the other one got to drive kept them from trying to make him take a turn. Besides, while Jack knew Daniel understood basically how to handle a boat on the water--they'd made it down to that section of the training plan in the summer of '98, and no, Jack still didn't feel bad about having included beer as one of the required supplies--Daniel had never spent that much time on it, and certainly hadn't driven anything as big as what they were in now.

To be fair, none of them had, but if you could fly a death glider you could damn well drive a houseboat, as far as Jack was concerned. This was somewhat disproved when he scraped up the side pretty good maneuvering into the lock at the Jonesville Dam, but it wasn't like the boat sank or anything. The worst of it was the "I told you so" look on Carter's face, and she calmed down once she was sure they hadn't sprung a leak.

It was all pretty slow, and quiet, and actually, Jack was okay with that. He got up early one morning and caught a couple of nice bass, which was satisfying for everyone but the fish. They all watched Dennis Rodman's attempt to start a movie career by pairing up with good old Jean-Claude, and spent a good half hour trying to figure out how you could possibly end up with an entire video collection that was nothing but the complete works of one action star, a home-recorded copy of The Sound of Music, and The History of the Triple Crown. Daniel suggested that he'd gotten the Van Damme gift set; Jack and Carter felt fairly certain there was no Van Damme gift set, and if there had been, well, no wonder the world had ended.

There were probably crowds in which that joke would've been considered kind of offensive, but thankfully Jack wasn't in one of those.

It started raining the third day out from Brewster and refused to stop, a steady drenching that made navigation more difficult and going out to anchor or tie up a misery. It was gloomy, downbeat weather, and by the time they reached Baton Rouge they were all feeling it; Carter and Daniel were more snappish with each other than they'd been since those first few days after his arrival in Brewster, and after the second time Jack got his head bitten off for trying to smooth things over, he backed off and left them to their fun.

The city was grey and ghostly in the rain. They'd talked about stopping there on the way back, depending on how New Orleans went, but just then the place was a little too gothic for the thought of getting off the boat to appeal, so they ate dinner and bundled against the chill and played a few hands of pinochle, which Daniel had learned back in the mists of time on a dig in Syria or Libya or some other damn country that ended in a. It was the only card game in their repertoire that Daniel consistently won. Jack kind of suspected that this was because Daniel kept changing the rules, but they didn't play very often, and he didn't have any proof, so he usually just sucked it up and made sure to take extra-special pleasure in beating him at gin the next time they played.

Really, if he'd wanted to keep track of the rules he could have. But it was easier to just get Daniel to remind him, rather than wasting mental space on pinochle, and so when Daniel and Carter started in on the traditional scoring dispute he went to get the last of the rice from dinner while they hashed it out.

When he came back, they were looking at him.

"What?" he asked suspiciously, settling into his seat with a spoonful of pilaf halfway to his mouth.

"Did he tell us that we can't use the same queen in a marriage and a rope?" Carter asked.

"Hell if I know. Hey, actually, that's a pretty good hand you've got there--"

Carter shook her head impatiently. "The thing is, it's a better hand if it's scored as Daniel described it--"

"Hey!" Oh, that tone of voice set off alarms for sure. Daniel was pissed. "I described the scoring system correctly. Just because you weren't paying attention--Jack? Did I or did I not say you couldn't reuse cards the way that Sam wants to?"

Ah. Yes, that would be the alarms getting louder. Perhaps a flashing sign or two: Crazy people, crazy people. Jack very carefully put down his spoon, clearing the field of fire. "Look, if you say that's the rule--"

"That's not what he told us!" Carter said, and hey, she was pissed too. The hell? The traditional scoring dispute wasn't usually this snippy.

Jack snorted and pushed his chair back from the table, hoping for an escape. "It's pinochle, Carter. I don't feel that strongly about it. Besides, you think I was listening to him when he was blathering on about scoring?"

"Blath--never mind." Daniel was sitting back now too, arms crossed, face thunderous. "If people aren't going to listen to me while I explain the rules very clearly--" he aimed a glare in Carter's direction, letting it catch on Jack for a moment on its way there--"I really don't think it's my fault if they aren't aware of them. Don't you agree, Jack?"

"Oh, I think this is a two-person argument and I'm not in the middle of it. As a matter of fact, I'm going to go sit over there and pretend I'm not able to hear you from ten feet away. Have fun, kids." What he really wanted, in his heart of hearts, was to be able to just order them both to knock it the hell off, but somehow he doubted that would go over well. Or help. Dammit.

Carter reached out to grasp Jack's wrist, eyes a little anxious. "No, don't do that," she said. "Look, I'm sorry, you're right, this is a stupid thing to argue about. Just... sit down, I'll take the score the way Daniel wants it, we can move on."

"Oh, well, if Jack says--"

Jack pulled his arm lightly away from Carter's grip, then pulled a bit more forcefully. She frowned at her hand, as if she'd forgotten what she was doing with it, and then snatched it back into her lap, looking away. He sank back down into his chair slowly. "What Jack says is 'I can't believe you're actually having a serious argument about a hand of pinochle.' Also 'get a grip' and 'I would rather be spit on by a camel than sit here and referee your pissing contest.'"

"That's an... interesting comparison," Daniel said, after a brief pause.

"First thing I came up with. We gonna play cards here, or what?"

"Daniel, it's all right, I'll take the real score." Carter smiled at Daniel, then cut her eyes over toward Jack. He nodded approvingly.

A flash of something passed across Daniel's face, quickly controlled, as he collected the cards. "No, we can replay the hand. I'm not letting you decide later that I took unfair advantage of you."

Jack would probably have let Carter win at that point, but Daniel was either morally opposed to that sort of thing or just confused by it--Jack had never been quite sure--so that wasn't in the cards, no pun intended. So while the argument-smell lingered for a while, by the time Daniel triumphed, Jack figured that it was pretty much gone.

The weather broke briefly just as they tied up in New Orleans behind the Carnival Conquest, which was still patiently waiting for its next load of passengers, rising up out of the Mississippi like a skyscraper that had somehow gotten lost and wandered off for a swim. "See, now that's a big boat," Jack said, heartily impressed. Honestly, slipping in right behind it like they had made Jack feel a little bit like they were asking to be smushed--it did kind of loom over them--but if the thing had sat there for more than two years without coming loose, there was no reason to assume it was going to now.

He suggested they back up a little anyway. Not that there weren't other boats around if they had to replace this one, but he liked his boat, dammit.

They'd agreed to leave at seven-thirty the next morning. Jack set the alarm on his wristwatch in an attempt to hold them to that, but actually woke just before five to a--well, sort of a howl and a wail and a moan, all at once. It was pretty loud, but they were on the water, after all, and the doors were locked. So Jack thought poor puppy. Sucks to be him and rolled over and went back to sleep until the alarm beeped him out of pleasant dreams two hours later.

***

"It was a coyote," Daniel said for the third time, with that patient tone that meant he was feeling really, really impatient. "Or possibly a dog. But I'm guessing coyote."

"How do you know?" Jack asked from atop the hood of an abandoned Corvette. Nineteen eighty-two, he thought, and didn't look through the window to see whether or not the driver had made it out of the car before buying the farm.

"Well, for one thing, I know what coyotes sound like, and so do you. For another, zombies don't exist."

"Well, sure, that's what they say. They said the same thing about space aliens, and look where that got us." Jack gestured extravagantly over the edge of the elevated highway at the city below. There had been a fire at some point, and they'd figured it might be worth the trouble to get up above the surface streets. Even clogged with cars, the highway was proving to be an easier way to travel. Plus, if they gained some elevation hopefully they'd be able to get a good bead on the Superdome.

"That's completely different," Daniel said, sliding himself over the hood after Jack. "Space aliens are by definition located in space, and so it was entirely believable that they were out there somewhere--" he waved a hand at the overcast sky--"where we couldn't see them. Zombies, on the other hand, are earthbound. Someone would've noticed. I mean, I don't believe in Bigfoot either. Also, what do you mean 'they' said aliens didn't exist? I think you mean 'we,' white man."

Oh, can we please not have this conversation again. "You don't believe in Bigfoot?"

"No one believes in Bigfoot, Jack," Carter said from her perch atop a semi. Jack frowned a little. She could fall, he thought, and then wondered why he'd never thought like that back when getting shot at was part of her job. Well, other than the obvious, of course, and he wasn't thinking about that either because Daniel was standing right next to him wearing exactly the same frown.

Thinking was clearly not conducive to relationship management in this particular brave new world. Or anyway, it had better not be, because he was feeling like a damned old dog just at the moment. "I'm just saying, middle of the night, New Orleans, strange sounds, you've gotta be thinking zombies. Or possibly ghosts. Given those options who wants to go with coyotes? Boring."

Carter smiled, or anyway Jack decided to believe she did, because he couldn't really tell from where he was. "If you say--oh, yeah, look at that."

"You can see it?" Daniel rose up on his tiptoes--must have been unconscious, since the extra inch he was getting wasn't going to let him see past the permanent traffic jam anytime soon.

"Yeah. Hang on." Carter adjusted the binoculars she was holding, swept from left to right. "The stadium's still standing, but something made a big hole in the dome, Tony was right about that much." She put the binoculars away and lowered herself easily to the top of the cab.

Jack shifted his pack on his shoulders and took a deep breath. "So, still a chance we're gonna get more than beads out of this, huh?"

"Funny," Daniel said, straight-faced.

The Superdome was not, as it turned out, designed for drainage. Low spots were flooded with rainwater, and water had also worked its way into Jack's boots by the time they found their way through a back door and a maze of corridors to the field proper.

They came onto the field out of the tunnel that the players had used, back in the day. Jack could still remember watching the Patriots pull off a squeaker of a victory in this stadium; that Superbowl was the last time he'd had his whole team at his house before Kelowna. Daniel, who'd had a New Yorker's native disdain for Boston sports for as long as Jack had known him, had lost fifty bucks betting on St. Louis and skillfully avoided paying him off until after they all came home from Vis Uban.

Of course, not long after that it had all gone to hell. Might as well not have bothered nagging him about it, really.

Jack squelched his way to the mouth of the tunnel first, and when he said "Looks like we owe old Tony a beer," he was a little surprised to find that he didn't feel much of anything at all. The guy was right; it was an al'kesh that had crashed there. Ass-first, apparently, since the front half was mostly intact, nose resting on the thirty-yard line. Jack could see the remnants of something human-built, maybe an F-16, protruding from the thing's side. Good for you, he thought to its pilot, though again, they really might as well not have bothered.

"Oh! Look at her," Carter cooed from the space beside his right elbow, using the tone of voice that she reserved for babies, kittens, particularly desirable pieces of technology, and, just the one time, Jack's cock. He was pretty sure he would've found that deflating if he'd been able to rub two brain cells together at the time, but Daniel had been in the middle of...

Dammit. Bad combination of thoughts and road and he'd talked to himself about this already. No thinking.

"That thing is definitely not going to fly," Daniel said authoritatively

"No, probably not," Carter said, "but flying isn't everything."

They started in the back of the ship and worked forward. The engine room looked like a complete loss to Jack, though Carter made some hopeful noises and Jack didn't see any point in dragging her down out of the clouds just yet. The armory was intact but disappointingly empty--either it had been stripped sometime after the crash or there hadn't been anything there in the first place, since they'd apparently never planned a full-on ground assault anyway--but Daniel found a zat underneath a cot in the main barracks, so that was something.

Once they reached the pel'tac and determined that it was going to be a while before the radio was working, Jack went back outside, partly because it seemed like a good idea to keep an eye out just in case and partly because watching Carter dig into the guts of funky Goa'uld technology wasn't really his idea of a good time. Eventually, though, it started to rain yet again, coming down hard through the gash in the dome and drumming on the skin of the al'kesh, so Jack went inside to wait it out with Daniel and Carter.

He settled down against a golden bulkhead and laid out his boots and socks in the middle of the floor to dry, not far from the scattered skeletal remains of a Jaffa. Coyotes again, he thought, as he said, "I'm telling you, zombies. You see any brains left? No, because the zombies ate them."

This statement got a weary snort out of Daniel, which wasn't anywhere near the reaction Jack had hoped for; he was a little disappointed that Daniel wasn't bored enough to give him shit about the zombie fixation. Of course, Jack was pretty sure that Daniel was entertaining himself by looking at Carter's ass where it was sticking out from under the main console.

That could be projection, but he didn't think so.

"I'm surprised they didn't come after this thing," he said, trying another tack. "I mean, it's not like they didn't have access."

"For one al'kesh? Why bother?"

Jack shrugged. "Just seems like a waste."

"Yes, because if there's one thing that's true of the Goa'uld, it's that they're not wasteful." Oh yeah, that was sarcasm right there, but he could see Daniel smiling in the grey light from the windows, so hey, progress.

"Know-it-all," Jack said anyway, just to poke the guy.

Daniel smiled a little wider and nudged Jack with an elbow. "So you admit it."

"When I say all--whoa!" The lights flared to life, and Jack squeezed his eyes shut against the glare for a moment. "Carter?"

"Alternate power supply," she said, her voice muffled. "Is anything other than the lights working?"

"Uh..." Daniel was closer; he levered himself to his feet and pulled his sleeve down over his hand, brushing mouse droppings off of the console. "Wow. Yes. Engine's shot, we knew that... weapons are registering but not charged..."

"Probably not enough power," Carter said as she emerged.

"Right. Life support yes, not that we care... oh, hey, if we want to hit the self-destruct we can, though I'm going to vote no… and look at that. Communications yes."

"Huh," Jack said.

Three hours later, it was dark outside and still raining and Carter's shoulders were somewhere around her ears (stress level: Elevated). They'd found three ham radio frequencies (nice to hear, but nothing new), one channel that Daniel described as air traffic control (where for exactly he couldn't tell, what with the Goa'uld place names), and another one that Daniel listened to for a minute and a half, eyes narrowed, before declaring it to be religious broadcasting and moving on with an angry stab at the controls.

Anyway, at the three-hour mark Jack stopped trying to imagine a Goa'uld Tammy Faye Bakker, reached over Carter's shoulder, and hit the off switch. "We can finish up tomorrow," he said. "You're getting grumpy."

"Oh, I like how you think you can tell me what to do," she snapped. "It's cute. Sir."

She reached out to turn the thing back on and Jack caught her hand in his. "Fine. Let's practice a little democracy, then. Daniel?"

Daniel shrugged. "I don't tell her what to do. Besides, I don't really care at this point."

Oh, yeah, that was helpful. "You're the deciding vote. You have to care. And if you don't vote, you don't get to bitch later on when her head explodes, and I'm making you clean up the mess."

"Convince her yourself," Daniel said with a shrug, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor again without taking his eyes off of Carter. She shoved Jack's hand out of the way and flipped the switch he'd been protecting, bringing up the static again. Jack stared at her to no avail, and damn did he want to issue an order or two at this point, but for the first time he wasn't entirely sure where that would end. He'd win the battle, sure, but the war? Not that there was a war. He didn't think there was a war, anyway. If there was, it was the weirdest, most fraternization-prone war ever.

Carter, he thought, would have been a hot spy. Maybe she could do an accent. Not Russian, something else--Cuban, maybe. Not that Carter looked Cuban. She'd have to be, oh, a Nazi who'd fled to Cuba--no, that didn't make any sense, the Nazis and the Communists had never gotten along--

"GodDAMN it!" That was Carter, without any accent at all, slapping both hands hard against the console. She took a deep breath and then glanced up at him, looking a little embarrassed. "Sorry. It doesn't want to pick up some sets of channels, I'm going to have to go underneath and pull the crystals--" She stood up, running one hand through her hair, and motioned Jack away from the open panel he was blocking. "It'll work, I just need to get at it."

"How long, Carter?"

"The damage didn't look that bad," she said, which wasn't an answer as far as he could tell, but who knew, really? Maybe it was an answer. Or maybe the answer was in her tone, instead; she didn't sound like a happy Carter at all. Not that a problem she still thought she could fix ought to be throwing her, but no matter what she said about it being a longshot, she was pretty damn committed to the idea that this communicator was going to do them some good. If it didn't... "I might just need to re-tune the resonance on the tertiary crystal." She slid to her knees, pulling a tiny flashlight out of her pocket.

He was trying to figure out how to get her to take a break without getting snapped at when Daniel slipped between them and reached down to wrap his hand around hers where it was clutching the flashlight. "Sam. Maybe you should think about taking a break. Just... listen to yourself for a second, okay? You've been going for a long time, you haven't eaten, we're all tired, and if there's a signal it'll still be there tomorrow. You can fix things then, when you aren't cranky and likely to drop something."

After a moment, Carter pulled her hand free and turned the flashlight off with a gusty sigh. To Jack's considerable astonishment, she took a deep breath, let it out, and said, "You're right. I could eat, anyway." She rubbed at her neck, thumb digging into the base of her skull.

Daniel laid a hand on her shoulder and hit her with his most earnest look, his whole body brimming with sympathy. Damn, he was good. "Ah, neckrubs are free tonight for all physicists, you know."

With a smile, Carter rose up high enough on her knees to kiss him. "I knew that Ph.D would come in useful one of these days."

Dammit, Jack thought, as Daniel gave him a triumphant look while Sam's attention was elsewhere. Why couldn't I do that?

Because Daniel knows her better than you do, dumbass. Plus he's got more practice using bribery to get what he wants.

It was strangely intimate in the pel'tac, despite the harsh lighting; something about the humidity and the sound of the rain made the room feel smaller than it was, cut off from the world outside. Carter sat on her bedroll, forehead on her knees, and Daniel braced one of her shoulders with his left hand while digging into it with his right thumb.

Jack had never seen him do that before; hell, Daniel had rarely even touched her, before, though she'd been more hands-on with him after he descended, as if trying to pat him back into shape after his year away. Jack wondered idly whether he'd been as casually intimate with Sha're, and decided that the answer was probably yes. On the one hand, it was kind of nice to watch, filling the room with something warm and very calm. On the other hand, Carter was making happy noises that reminded Jack of that time when Daniel went, of all things, fishing, and while he knew that Daniel knew, and for that matter, he was pretty sure Carter had sent Daniel fishing for the afternoon… and there he went thinking again.

Jack missed their house. At least there they had walls. Walls helped.

He'd go take a walk, if only it weren't raining.

***

The sun came out around noon the next day, and less than fifteen minutes later Carter let out a whoop, sitting back in her seat and pointing at the console. "Got it," she said.

It sounded like the same static they'd been listening to for hours to Jack, but then he wasn't the one with a Tok'ra ghost in his head. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Listen." She clearly expected him to nod and agree, but really it just sounded like static. Apparently his skepticism was showing, because she said, "I'm not kidding. There's a pattern, if you pay attention."

"Anyone in particular?" Daniel reached out toward the console, but Carter pushed his hand away protectively.

"No, it's… wait… no. Just a repeater."

"Voicemail?" Jack suggested, and she smiled at him. Mood: Sunny. Much better.

"Essentially, yes. If there's anyone in-system, they aren't announcing themselves. But someone went to the trouble of planting a repeater; they wouldn't have needed it before."

"So the question, then, is who's checking the messages."

"We agreed--"

"Yeah, we did." Jack drummed his fingers on the back of Carter's chair. "Jolinar?"

"I think that's the best course of action. Leave her ID, extract the comm equipment from the console--which reminds me I'm going to need the blowtorch--and take it home with us."

"…hoping that nothing nasty follows…"

"Well, hopefully they aren't listening all that closely," Daniel said. "They wanted to destroy us, not occupy us long-term. So long as we don't look like we're going to start blowing things up again, why would it be worth the bother for them?"

"We know they tried to dig out the Stargate," Jack pointed out.

"Sure, but even if they set it up again, what are they going to do with it? Export ponderosa pine? Much more likely they'd take it off world for reuse."

"I don't want that thing in town," Jack said, waving one hand in the general direction of the console. "Take it up the river and leave it somewhere close enough to make it easier to check on, that's fine, but I'm thinking a little paranoia is healthy in this situation."

Carter deflated a little, then came back to life. "So you're saying "hey, Dad, can you come pick me up 'cause I missed my ride" is a little more detail than you think I should leave?"

"I think he'll figure that part out on his own," Jack said. "Twenty bucks says the repeater was his idea, anyway."

"God, I hope so." Carter sounded kind of worried, really, which was weird, but then Jack had always suspected Carter was a pessimist at heart. Daniel dropped a hand onto her shoulder and squeezed, gently; she didn't shrug him off, at least, which Jack figured was a good thing. "Look, this is going to take a while," she said. "Why don't you guys take a walk? Remember, Daniel, you promised Britzie a souvenir."

"Trying to get rid of us, Carter?" Jack said, mock-offended.

She smiled up at him. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Right. Well, we do need to hit a video store, so Daniel can stop bitching about the in-flight selection. Or, hey, here's an idea, we could work on checking out what might actually be useful, huh?"

"Well, I did promise Britzie, Jack," Daniel said mildly. "We can even pretend it's from you, too. Maybe then she'll stop calling you 'the old guy' behind your back."

In the end, they went to the French Quarter anyway, practicality be damned. It was a little out of their way, but what the hell, if you're going to come all the way to New Orleans, right?

Even before it had burned, Jack thought he would've been depressed by the neighborhood around the Superdome. He was particularly disappointed by City Hall, which was a big and boring (if mostly intact) box instead of something more appropriately gothic or romantic or whateveric, and what was New Orleans doing having regular boring architecture, instead of quaint little cobblestoned streets? Filled with drunken, shirtless co-eds, if at all possible.

Daniel gave him a look when he explained the part about the co-eds, but Jack felt confident that Daniel could've been brought around, if they'd ever visited the place Before. Just liquor him up and set him loose; hell, it probably would've been good for him. The idea of getting smashed and picking up women with Daniel was kind of a fun one, come to think of it. More-recent Daniel, short-haired and muscled and more settled in his body, earnestly discussing the architectural implications of the city's history with some poor overwhelmed college student--no, make it a grad student, the thought of picking up twenty-year-olds was just a little skeevy--but the earnestness would still work, that always worked for Daniel. He had the eyes for it, and the ability to focus on whatever he was doing. Whoever he was... and oh, hello, there's another way that trip could have gone.

So, Colonel, how was your vacation?

Well, General, the good news is we were perfect gentlemen with the ladies. But you know how it would've looked really suspicious for me to do New Orleans with Carter instead of Daniel? Well...

"I'm surprised it isn't flooded, actually," Daniel mused, shaking Jack back to attentiveness. "Isn't New Orleans actually below sea level? I mean, don't they have…" He waved one hand vaguely oceanward. "I don't know. Dams, or dikes, or something?"

"Something like that." A wall had come down in front of them, strewing bricks across the street; Jack pursed his lips, tapping the zat against his thigh, then shot the rubble to make a hole. Carter wouldn't approve of the waste, but then Carter had never really successfully convinced him that you could run out of power when it came to Goa'uld tech. "Ask Carter, she'd know. Or talk to someone who's actually from here. Wait, you didn't ask Tony about this?"

"I asked him if the city was still here, he said yes. He wasn't really up for discussing details of civil engineering, if he ever knew them. You know," he added, "if the entire city is this bad we may as well just head back."

"You're gonna let a collapsed building or two stop you? C'mon, we're in New Orleans. We should live it up while we're young."

Daniel stopped dead in his tracks. "Young?"

Jack offered up his very best cocky grin. "Okay, young at heart, anyway." Actually, the streets were opening up again; the fire hadn't swept the whole city after all. A couple of pigeons walked out of their way, grumbling to each other as they eyed the human invaders. Jack halfheartedly kicked a plastic Coke bottle in their direction, to absolutely no response beyond a pigeony glare.

"You pulled the wings off of flies when you were a kid, didn't you?" Thankfully Daniel sounded amused rather than scandalized, despite the fact that he showed no sign of providing vital anti-pigeon backup. Damn civilians. You could never really rely on them to have the proper instinctive understanding of important tactical maneuvers.

"No, only off of pigeons," Jack said. "If you'd grown up in Chicago you'd kick crap at them too. There was this one that lived where I grew up--this is God's own truth--that used to go after the neighborhood cats. Seriously, they were all terrified of the thing, they'd cross the street to stay away from it."

"And..." Daniel said, once it was clear no further elements of the story were forthcoming.

Jack shrugged, peering down a side street. All residential, looked like. Pretty, all wrought-iron balconies and crap--that was more like it!--but he wasn't in the mood to deal with residential. "And then eventually it dropped dead, and the cats got over it. The end."

"Wow." Daniel swerved away, detouring around the far side of a watery pothole, then rejoined Jack on the other side, hustling a little to catch up. "That's... a really interesting story, Jack."

"I'm just saying, pigeons are scarier than you think. You know they evolved from dinosaurs? It's true."

"National Geographic?"

"Oh yeah."

When Jack glanced over, he could see that Daniel had his Seriously, You're a Fruitcake face on, arched eyebrows and all, but that was okay. Jack had long since decided that he'd be a lot happier if he assumed that deep down, Daniel was actually amused when he looked like he was considering how best to ease Jack into a straitjacket. "Soooo... if we have the pigeon for dinner, it would be like... eating a stegosaurus, then."

Ha. Totally right about the amused. Lightest mood Daniel had been in since they'd left Brewster. "Absolutely. Hey, didn't a bunch of Russians eat freeze-dried mammoth one time?"

"Actually, that's a myth--they thought better of it. Presumably on 'it's a bad idea to eat anything older than your grandparents' grounds."

"You never eaten Russian cuisine, have you?"

"Oh, like you don't know I've been to Russia--"

"Well, I sure as hell didn't feed you borscht when we were there. Please don't tell me they talked you into going authentic the second time. Seriously, Daniel, you gotta eat at McDonalds like normal people."

Daniel snorted, then said, a little wistfully, "You know, I really miss their fries."

They wandered aimlessly for a while; despite Carter going on about how if they were lucky November would be shorts weather, there was enough of a chill in the wind that they went searching for the sun, tracing the shadows of rooftops on the road. With the sunshine it was refreshing rather than unpleasant, though, and if they'd been outside the kill zone it might have even been a nice walk.

Bourbon Street looked a little depressing--apparently a significant number of people had turned to alcohol in the face of certain doom, which Jack understood, despite being more of a continue-trying-to-escape-certain-doom kind of guy--so they drifted back down southward toward the river. At the end of the street, Jack stopped dead in front of the very last store. "Okay," he said, "this is where you should be getting souvenirs. C'mon, what healthy thirteen-year-old girl doesn't want wacky voodoo paraphernalia?"

Daniel frowned. "You know, I was kind of thinking, I don't know. A snowglobe or something."

Jack ignored him and went in, hesitating for a moment in the doorway to let his eyes adjust to the dimness inside. Scent lay over everything like a cloud; Daniel'd be blowing his nose inside of five minutes, Jack thought, but the other man still followed him in without hesitating. "So," Jack asked, holding up a small bottle, "what exactly do people use voodoo powder for anyway?"

"Well, voodoo is actually a religion, which is based in West African beliefs brought to the New World by slaves. There's something of a Catholic overlay in many forms--"

"Yeah, whatever. Can I turn someone into a zombie with this stuff?"

Daniel held out his hand for the bottle and peered at it very carefully, looking at it from several angles, his expression one of the utmost seriousness. He nodded thoughtfully. "Um, no. First of all, zombies don't exist. Also I think you'd probably want the Domination powder for that."

Jack let himself smirk, just a little. "Kinky."

"Or possibly the Black Arts… oh, hey, they have scented soaps. That might work."

They avoided the Egyptian section by mutual, silent consent--who wanted Hathor perfume anyway?--but the rest of the store was kinda fun, soaps and oils and Magical Ritual Body Glitter, which would've struck Jack as being a little inauthentic except for that time on -257 with the glittery magical ritual that had, thankfully, turned out not to include sex after all. Daniel went to smell one flower tincture and ended up sneezing helplessly into a hand that stunk of Rock Rose ("For Sudden Feelings of Fear, Terror, or Panicking," according to the label), so Jack kicked him out and filled the rest of the pack himself. Carter would like the smelly stuff, he thought. She'd always liked that kind of girly shit.

Daniel was sitting on the curb when he emerged, still a little watery-eyed. "All done?"

"Yeah." Jack offered Daniel a hand up, then leaned in and sniffed. "Nice."

"Don't start with me," Daniel muttered, rubbing the offending hand against his pants. "You want to head back, or…?"

The shadows were definitely getting longer. It probably was time to head back, see if Carter needed a hand. Besides, he wouldn't mind a break from the exciting mass grave atmosphere that was any urban core these days. "Yeah. Time to go."

***

If it'd been a bootprint, Jack wouldn't have noticed it. Should have, maybe--he wouldn't have argued the point--but the prints from their passage through the tunnel to the playing field were still there, and plenty of them, so he wasn't looking all that closely.

He did notice, though, because right there in the silt that'd been washed down into the tunnel's low point over the years was the very clear print of something that was not a boot at all. A sneaker, he thought, one of those ones with the nubbly sole that you used to be able to buy at Wal-Mart for five bucks a pair. If it'd been there when they'd come in he would've noticed; it wasn't his, or Daniel's, or Carter's. Which meant they had a visitor. Which was... not necessarily bad, but unsettling.

"Daniel, hold up there a minute," he said.

"What?"

"Footprint. Not ours."

"New?"

"Yeah," Jack said, then, "Daniel--" as he turned back and kept walking toward the tunnel's mouth.

Daniel stopped a good ten feet before he got there, thankfully, and kept his voice down when he came back. "Just wanted to see if anyone was outside the al'kesh and the answer is no." He looked a little worried, Jack thought; only sensible. "Only one?"

"Yeah, far as I can tell." Jack's lips tightened. Best-case scenario: They'd missed seeing the print coming in. Middle-case scenario: Non-violent local stopping by to chat. Worst-case scenario: Unfriendly local stopping by to pull shit he thought he could get away with one-on-one.

And of course Carter was armed, and not shy with a gun, but...

"I'm gonna go check it out. You stay here, wait for my signal."

"Uh, no." Daniel planted himself in the middle of the tunnel, giving every impression of being perfectly willing to block Jack's way physically if necessary.

Okay, things I don't have time for. "Daniel, think about this for a second, will you?"

"If there is a problem, you're going to want someone at your back."

"And if we're in an extra-special fun version of the worst-case scenario, there's someone sitting up in the stands above the exit there right now with a weapon. In which case I think that maybe someone should stay in here until we know the situation a little better. Whaddaya say?"

Daniel held his gaze for a moment--an old, familiar, challenging stare--then looked down, shifted his weight, and Daniel giving in was less familiar but always welcome. "You want me to get up into the stands?"

"No. Too much time to find a way up there, then too much trouble getting back down if you're needed," Jack said, moving Daniel from the section in his head marked "problem" to the one marked "asset (potential)" and leaving him there. He readied the zat--stupid design, they could build interstellar spaceships but they couldn't build a damn ray gun that didn't make noise when you turned it on, the dumbasses. If there was anyone listening, they'd've heard him and Daniel already anyway, though, so no harm done.

He paused in the mouth of the tunnel, Daniel about a foot behind him, and damn, he had better stay put like he'd promised. Jack just looked for a moment, doing his best to make out details in the dimness of the stadium. They'd closed the door of the al'kesh when they'd left, and it was still closed; no movement, nothing new on the field, nothing he could see in the stands.

With luck, he was just being paranoid. Still, he stayed close to the wall as he moved around to get a view of the rest of the stands, keeping half an eye on the al'kesh. Still no movement, and no one in the seats above the end zone where they'd entered either, or if there was someone there they were both patient and well-hidden. So, okay, fine. Gotta step out into the open eventually, and really, all the worry was probably unnecessary.

Probably.

When the door into the al'kesh slid open, he was pretty sure it wasn't.

Once Carter got invested in a project--and this whole trip had been her baby from the start--she didn't like to let it go until she was done. Also, she always, always, always cleaned up after herself. So Jack had figured he'd find her doing one of three things: still working (in which case he'd have to go annoy her to get so much as a hello), cleaning up and packing (ditto, as those were defined as part of Work in Carter's brain), or packed up and ready to go, in which case "hello" would've been swiftly followed by "I need you and Daniel to help me carry these large heavy objects." But there was none of that; just Carter, standing unsmiling in the doorway.

"Welcome back," she said, and the cheeriness Jack could hear in her voice was completely missing in her expression. Ah, shit. Someone close enough to hear her, then; good chance they could see him, too, and if they hadn't been armed she'd have laid them out on the Astroturf like a cat leaving bloody presents on the front mat. So, okay.

"Why thanks," he said expansively, holding the zat as unobtrusively as a big phallic raygun could be held. If they'd watched him come down the field, they'd know he was armed and suspicious. Might not have, though. Probably best to follow Carter's lead. "It's a great day for a walk. You shoulda come with!"

Two, Carter mouthed, confirming with two fingers of her left hand laid against the front of her jeans. "Well, you know me and exercise." She tapped her index finger once, then made a finger-gun briefly; one armed. Okay. She was using her left hand, so they wouldn't be on that side of her, which would mean that would be the way she'd go in order to get out of the line of fire. She'd have to come a good long step forward to clear the doorway; alternatively, go to the side while staying in the al'kesh, though there wasn't a lot of room... first things first. Give her some verbal cover, see if she can just step out.

Jack nodded slightly. "I do, I do. Which reminds me, I found this piano..." Carter wrinkled up her nose. Right. Piano. Because that made sense. What the fuck was he thinking, anyway? There wasn't something more reasonable that would take two people to move? Oh well, too late now. "...which you know I've been meaning to learn to play. Come give me a hand moving it, will you?"

"Sure," she said, and then she must've heard something because she was in the middle of turning back into the al'kesh when the zat fire hit her. Bad aim, Jack noted automatically, as Carter let out a kind of strangled yelp and fell out of his field of vision. He brought up his own zat and fired at the spot where his target had to be standing, a quick shot before ducking out of the way.

There was a cry from inside, followed by a thump; someone falling to the floor, hopefully. Jack fired into the airlock again, and looked very briefly around the edge of the door. Carter down in the doorway, not moving; nothing to be done about that right now. Another shape farther in, too low to have been hit by his second shot. Fine; he fired a killing shot, lower this time. Fucker shouldn't have messed with a professional, though why Carter hadn't... not now. Later.

Movement around the other end of the al'kesh. Jack nearly squeezed off a shot, before his eyes sent a message saying Daniel to his fingers. Lucky the message hadn't taken the long way around through his brain, Jack thought, God knew the way his day was going it would've gotten stuck. No point in being annoyed that Daniel hadn't waited for his signal, either; you had to assume he was going to show up once the shooting started.

Okay. One down, one to go, Carter's Beretta was unaccounted for but the one he'd put down had a zat--his mind twisted around that little fact for a second before putting it in the Worry About This Later pile--and Carter had said only one was armed, so hopefully the Beretta wasn't in play.

Still, worst-case scenario. Paranoia had been working for him so far.

Carter twitched a little, coming around. Good. "The one on the floor's dead, there's another one inside, Carter said unarmed but I don't know for sure. Get her clear and wait for me."

"Jack--"

"Get the zat from this one, too. Anything comes through that door that isn't me, shoot them." Jack didn't wait to see what Daniel did; concern for Carter would keep him where he was for a little while, at least. Check the hidden corners of the airlock; clear. Door into the rest of the ship was open; look left, step into the hall, sweep right. Nothing. Be easier with two people, but not good to give the second target extra time to get fancy, and he'd already been bitten in the ass once leaving someone alone today.

Room-by-room to the front, then; not much intact aft of here, and if #2 was back there he'd probably try to get out while Jack was up front, at which point Daniel could take care of him. The lights were still on; good, that meant he probably didn't know how to turn them off to make life harder for Jack. Besides, it made it a lot easier to close the door to the airlock.

The first storeroom was clear; so was the second, though the waiting containers of gas made him twitch. Dormitory, clear. Mess, clear--then zat fire from back toward the entrance, shit.

"Got her!" Daniel called, but Jack kept his zat up until he saw the body sprawled out on the floor of the airlock. Daniel was crouching next to--oh, yes, her, actually, one hand on her back, the other palm-out toward Jack. "Don't shoot. She's out."

Carter was on her feet, if still leaning against the doorframe; good. Conscious was good. "And we're going to do what with her exactly, Daniel?"

"Well, we aren't going to shoot her dead in cold blood," Daniel snapped, which... okay, he really kind of wanted to shoot her for fucking with Carter but Daniel was obviously going to make a thing out of it.

"She may not be a threat, Jack," Carter said.

He stared at her, disbelievingly. Damn, she had been hanging around with Daniel for too long.

"No, I know what you're thinking, but she tried to use something on me that looked a lot like nish'ta, so if she was dosed as well..." She trailed off, obviously expecting Jack to get the rest on his own, which for once he actually did.

Still, better safe than sorry. "Well, if no one minds maybe we can restrain her anyway, huh? Daniel, you did check her for weapons, right?"

"Yes, I checked, she's unarmed." He was using his best 'don't condescend to me, you nitwit,' voice, but he was also pulling his belt free as he spoke--not optimal, but better than nothing. Besides, she wasn't a very big girl. And he could always shoot her later, if he wanted. He left her to Daniel and stepped over the dead one--also a woman, huh--to get to Carter.

She was a little pale, but looked like she was bouncing back all right. "Sit down," he said. "We'll get you something to drink in a second. What happened? This is exactly the sort of situation for which we carry firearms."

"Hit me with the zat when I went outside to pee," Carter said, disgusted, as she slid down to the floor. "Then when I woke up they used the nish'ta, and I didn't pick up what it was fast enough--I think the one with the zat was worried I was faking. I tried to get clear before you got back, but--" She shrugged.

"Don't worry about it. You did good." Twice with the zat, then; she'd be shaky for a while. "You get any details about what they wanted?"

She shook her head, then winced. Jack knew all too well that it was never a good idea to slosh your brains around post-zatting. "Not really. It sounds like they saw us come in--they wanted me to help them get ahold of my 'two friends.' Other than that... this one started in with some God talk, but the dead one shut her up. Neither of them have a symbiote, but they're using Goa'uld weaponry, a Goa'uld drug, talking religion..."

"You think there's one of them here," Daniel said from across the way. He had #2's hands tied behind her and one of his own hands on her upper back, waiting for movement; judging by his expression, he badly wanted to be right where Jack was, but he had enough sense not to leave the prisoner unguarded. Good man.

"Pretty much." Carter smiled at him, a little wanly; it didn't seem to make Daniel feel any better. "Jack, if she wakes up clean we have to take her with us."

Jack looked back at #2. "Yeah. Well. We'll see."

***

The woman on the floor didn't come around as quickly as Carter had, but when she woke up she woke up fast, like she thought she was falling off of a cliff. She tried to squirm around onto her back, but Daniel leaned in enough to hold her down. "It's okay. We're not going to hurt you. Just relax." He didn't give an inch physically, but his voice was gentle, soothing, just the way he liked to make it sound when he got it into his head that someone needed saving. Which, hell, that might have to be nipped in the bud, because that was exactly the kind of thing that ended with 'dead' when it came to Daniel.

"What? No, I'm not--what are you doing?"

She sounded scared and confused, anyway, just like she should if she was coming down off of nish'ta. Daniel leaned in, voice still very calm. "We just need to make sure you're safe before we let you go, okay? What's the last thing you remember?"

"Safe from who?" she asked angrily, trying and failing to kick Daniel.

Jack walked over to her and knelt by her head, turning it so she could see him. "Well, the thing is, you just got done shooting one of my friends, so actually it's our safety that we're worried about. Why don't you go ahead and answer the man's question, before I decide to give you a thumbs-down?"

She tried to squirm backward, away from Jack; Daniel held her in position easily enough, but he didn't look happy. Jack grimaced and mentally backed up a step. "Okay, let's start with introductions, then. I'm Jack. This is Daniel, and the nice lady you shot earlier is Sam. You?"

"I didn't--" She licked her lips, eyes wide and a little wild. "Shoot? I wouldn't--I don't understand."

"Don't worry about it," Daniel said, shooting Jack a look. "Like Jack said, I'm Daniel. What's your name?"

"Tracey. Tracey Valero, and you have to let me go, you--" She stuttered to a stop, closing her eyes for a moment, and when she began again her voice was much more certain, with fear running just beneath the surface. "You don't understand. If we stay here we'll die, we don't have much time."

Shit. "You got friends on the way?"

"No, it's the death. It's been--what time is it? Is it night yet? I have to be back by midnight for treatment, and you've been here--you've been--" A look of confusion made its way onto Tracey's face and lodged there. "You've been here for more than a day. That doesn't... that doesn't make any sense. When was your last treatment?"

Jack glanced up at Daniel, but he clearly wasn't tracking this either. Carter appeared from behind him, laying a hand lightly on Jack's shoulder for support as she lowered herself back down to the ground. "We don't understand what you mean by treatment, Tracey," she said. "Are you sick?"

"No," Tracey said impatiently, "not so long as I keep up the treatment. You... really don't know what I'm talking about, do you? How are you even alive?"

Daniel loosened his grip on her a little, voice softening further. "Why wouldn't we be? The gas is gone, Tracey. I promise. I don't know how you think you're protecting yourself, but the cities are perfectly clean now. They have been for years."

"That's not true." Tracey tried to look up at Daniel, but couldn't twist enough, so settled for Jack instead. "It's not."

"Did you ever breathe the same gas that you tried to use on Sam?" Daniel asked. "That was supposed to make her more suggestible, right? Easier to handle?"

Tracey looked confused for a moment, then sucked in a sharp breath, and another, eyes closed. "Oh, God," she whispered, her hands clenching into fists where they rested in the small of her back. Jack clearly remembered the sudden shock of coming back to himself in Seth's compound; it had been a little overwhelming, even after just a few hours and having known ahead of time what was coming. If she'd been under for years...

Though Carter had picked up on her cues quickly enough to pretend to be under the influence. He had to keep in mind the possibility that Tracey was only pretending to be free of it.

With luck, Daniel would too. And Jack was a lucky guy, he knew that. The problem was, you could never tell from day to day whether the luck was going to be ridiculously good or ridiculously bad. So far, this day seemed to be running straight down the middle; bad luck to have wacky brainwashed attackers wandering into the Superdome, good luck that no one had taken any permanent damage from it. Which... didn't help him predict which way Daniel was going to jump. Damn. Well, he'd schedule in a five-minute meeting to pull him aside and smack him upside the head if necessary. That was always fun.

Oh, hell, he was going for her wrists.

"Daniel."

Daniel stilled, then looked over at Jack, his expression pleasantly inquiring. "Jack?"

"Whatcha doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

Jack lowered his voice, though really it wasn't like that would help much, given that the woman's ears were a foot and a half away from his mouth. "It looks like you're untying the nice lady who was shooting at us a couple of hours ago."

"Actually, it was the other one who was shooting."

"Daniel--" Jack scrubbed at his face, frustrated. Why did Daniel always have to pull this shit? Worse, why did Jack always want to fall for it? "Fine. Let's give democracy another shot, then. Carter? Care to be the tiebreaker?" You're on my side here, right, Carter? Please be on my side.

Carter looked a little squinty--headache, still, Jack guessed--but she sounded alert enough. "Give it a little longer, Daniel. We don't know what's going on yet."

"We won't know, either, not any better than we know right now. If you can't trust her enough to untie her now, what could you possibly learn over the next hour that'll help?" Daniel's hands were still on the belt; Jack grabbed hold of one wrist, and got a wide-eyed glare for his trouble.

The object of debate chose that moment to remind them all that she wasn't just an object, her voice quiet and more than a little challenging. "Barb isn't here. Why not?"

"She's dead," Jack said, because screw pussyfooting around. He looked Tracey straight in the eye; she drew back into herself, tucking her chin down, looking anywhere but back at Jack. "Assuming you mean the other woman who was here, she shot at me, and now she's dead."

Carter added hurriedly, "But it was self-protection. We don't want to hurt you, so long as we can be sure you aren't going to hurt us."

Tracey didn't meet any of their eyes, and her voice was shaking now, but judging by the anger underneath she wasn't interested in rolling over and showing her belly. "Hurt you? You killed Barb, and you're worried I'm going to hurt you?"

"Oh, for--sit her up. Dammit, Daniel, don't just sit there." Jack reached across and pushed ineffectively at Daniel's shoulder before giving up and grabbing Tracey under the arms himself, rolling her over and propping her up against the gold of the airlock wall. Carter grabbed hold of his arm; he pulled free, annoyed. "I'm not going to do anything to her, Carter. I just want some answers. And you," he said to Tracey, "if you try to kick me with that foot you're moving around I'll tie your legs, too. Now. Let's try another angle, shall we? Why did you attack Carter? Sam. Whatever, the woman you attacked."

"Shesar." Oh, yeah, she was pissed, which was fine with Jack so long as she kept talking. "Shesar makes the treatment. To make the treatment, he needs people. That's the price. Besides, you came into our city," she said, defiance building in her voice. "We have to keep ourselves safe first."

Daniel leaned in a little, crowding her. "Tracey, the gas--"

"What exactly do you mean by 'needs people'?" Jack asked, doing his best to pretend Daniel hadn't spoken at all.

Tracey looked down, clearly uncomfortable, and didn't answer. Daniel cleared his throat. "So, my turn now?"

Jack waited. Tracey didn't say a damn thing. Jack wondered, idly, whether he would've been better off not killing the other one after all. Maybe she would've been chattier. "Yeah, sure. Knock yourself out."

"Okay." Daniel poked him in the side; Jack looked at him blankly, then scrambled out of the way so that Daniel could sit himself down crosslegged right in front of Tracey's feet. She pulled her legs in a little closer to her chest, curling her toes away from him, gaze still fixed on the floor. "Tracey, what I'm going to do here is put our cards on the table. You tried to use a drug of some kind on Sam. We think we recognize it as a drug called nish'ta, which is used by the, uh..." He waved one hand around over his head, indicating the ruined al'kesh or the ruined city or the ruined planet, Jack couldn't quite tell which. "...the aliens who attacked us. It makes people very suggestible, so they'll do what they're told, even things that they might otherwise not do. If you get an electrical shock, that reverses the effects, so if this Shesar is one of the aliens and he used it on you, then you should be feeling... different just about now." He paused; Tracey grimaced a little, biting her lip, but said nothing. Daniel popped his eyebrows at her, to no effect. "Or... not..."

Tracey closed her eyes and said, very quietly, "I had a friend... she was rewiring one of the cabins, and she got a shock. Shesar said... she'd gone crazy, so we had to... Shesar said he was the Messiah. He saved our lives. He's not an alien, he doesn't look like... he looks like a person."

Part 3