Diplomacy (20/27)
Title: Diplomacy ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5a-- 5b Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10 Chapter11a-- 11b Chapter12 Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14a-- 14b Chapter15a-- 15b Chapter16 Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19 Chapter20 Chapter21 Chapter22 Chapter23 Chapter24 Chapter25 Chapter26 Epilogue
XXXXX
Gods, Part I
XXXXX
16 February 1999; SGC, Earth; 1030 hrs
"Close the iris!" Jack called as he backed out of the Stargate and onto the ramp. "Everyone down!"
The iris began to close, and he threw himself to the floor in time to avoid a last energy blast that made it through before it could shut completely. A few thumps sounded against the shield, but the shiny, new titanium-trinium iris held. It was a nice piece of work--Area 51 was good for some things after all. Jack pushed himself to his feet and watched until the wormhole disengaged.
"Colonel?" General Hammond asked.
In answer, Jack turned to Teal'c, who was not-so-gently lifting their prisoner down from over his shoulders and onto a gurney, where Dr. Fraiser and her nurses were already beginning to fuss over him.
"General," he said, "Apophis. Apophis...General Hammond."
Hammond looked down at the Goa'uld who had caused the whole Stargate program to restart, not to mention had tried to attack Earth, and scowled. "We've met."
"Cal mah," Apophis said weakly. "Cal mah!"
"He is requesting sanctuary," Teal'c explained, his eyes bright with a satisfaction that Jack had to admit was a little frightening.
His gaze snapping up to Jack, Hammond asked cautiously, "Why?"
"I think some rival Goa'uld just kicked his ass," Jack said. Okay, so he was a little satisfied, too, not least because he'd had a hand in bringing the son of a bitch low enough to get his snaky ass kicked.
"There were several other death gliders in pursuit when we took him prisoner, sir," Carter added, her hands still on her weapon, though she wasn't bothering to try looking menacing, the way Teal'c was doing without prompting. Apophis wasn't going anywhere on his own anytime soon.
"I demand sanctuary!" Apophis cried again.
Hammond leaned over the gurney so that his glowering expression was very clear. "You're not in a position to demand anything, sir," he said. "Lock him up."
"Sir, he's badly injured," Fraiser protested, already beginning to set up an IV while a nurse did the same on the other side. "He is not going to be any good to you at all unless we get him to the OR, right now."
Jack glanced up and froze, only vaguely hearing Hammond's response. Makepeace was observing through the control room window, but Daniel had edged in for a look, too, and as Jack watched, he pushed his glasses onto his face and squinted at them, his eyes flicking from SG-1 to the man on the gurney.
'Apophis?' Daniel mouthed incredulously, his eyes pinned on Jack. Jack looked over to see Fraiser's people dragging the Goa'uld away and nodded, some of the triumphant feeling dimming as he remembered just why it was that they hated Apophis so much.
'Stay there,' Jack mouthed back, pointing a finger for emphasis. Daniel crossed his arms, which didn't bode well, but he knew better than to interfere before the situation was secure. The problem in situations like this, though, wasn't whether Daniel knew the rules but rather whether he would respect them.
"We'll debrief at 1100 hours," Hammond said, snapping Jack back to attention.
He checked his watch. That gave them just enough time to change and get dumped into the MRI, then, but not much else. "Yes, sir," Jack said, adding, "General, could we have the SFs make sure nonessential personnel stay out of the infirmary while the prisoner's in there?"
There weren't many non-essential personnel who would be willing--or brazen enough-- to try walking into an infirmary holding Apophis. Hammond looked behind himself in time to see Daniel turn abruptly and walk determinedly out of the control room. He nodded to one of the security team. "Airman?"
"Yes, sir," the man said, then quickly left the room.
"Colonel O'Neill, you'll talk to Apophis once he's awake. Find out what he wants and what he knows."
When Jack turned to his teammates, Teal'c was smiling. And not the friendly, polite face he gave Carter when she babbled about something complicated that no one cared to listen to, but a real, actual smirk of some feeling that probably wasn't completely healthy, but damn if Jack wasn't feeling it, too. "Looks like we caught ourselves a snake," he said.
It was a good day.
XXXXX
16 February 1999; SGC, Earth; 1530 hrs
"He says he was running from someone called Sokar," Jack said once he had talked to Apophis and they were gathered around the briefing room. "Oh, and he wants a new host."
"That won't help him," Fraiser said, shaking her head. "The injuries to the host are almost certainly fatal, but the symbiote itself is badly injured, as well. I have no way of treating that."
"Not that we would've given him one either way," he said, wondering why exactly it was that they were worried about treating Apophis, anyway.
"I'm aware of that, sir. I'm just pointing out that Apophis is dying in there, no matter what anyone tries to do about it. I'm not sure anything short of a sarcophagus could save him now."
"And who's Sokar?" Carter asked, turning to Teal'c. "Another System Lord?"
Teal'c inclined his head. "He was once the ruler of the System Lords."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Why is it that every time we meet a new System Lord, he's supposed to be bigger and badder than all the ones we've met before?"
"He is their ruler no longer," Teal'c told him. "An alliance of Goa'uld defeated him many centuries ago. Apophis and Ra were among his conquerors. Apophis himself believed him dead."
Nasty surprise, Jack thought.
"Maybe we should call Dr. Rothman down here," Carter suggested, "in case he or Daniel knows something else about Sokar."
"I'll call Dr. Rothman," General Hammond said, standing to reach for the phone. "I'd like to keep Mr. Jackson out of this if possible, given his history."
"Of course, sir," she said, nodding agreement.
Jack glanced at the monitor that watched Apophis, almost expecting to see Daniel sneaking in to...to do what? Take his revenge on Apophis?
Not that Daniel would do anything drastic. Probably. Still, while Jack thought Daniel had gotten over his parents' deaths as much as someone could get over something like that, dealing with grief wasn't the same as coming face-to-face with the murderer. Daniel's opinions on the Goa'uld in general ranged from 'evil' to 'reviled,' but Apophis was personal, a class of his own. And then there were Skaara and Sha'uri and Shifu, added to the attacks on both Earth and Abydos, and damn, there were more than just a few reasons to keep Daniel away from their prisoner.
On the monitor, Dr. Fraiser opened the door to step out of the isolation room, and Jack could glimpse a familiar, sullen figure just outside in the hallway.
"Daniel's planted himself right outside the isolation room," Jack told his team as the general called Rothman. "I walked past him on my way in and out, and he's still there. Wouldn't move. He's not really trying to get in, even. I don't know what he's waiting for."
"He is waiting for Apophis to die," Teal'c suggested matter-of-factly. "As are we." Carter gave him a look that wasn't shocked so much as disturbed, but Rothman walked in before she could say anything in return.
"You, uh, asked about Sokar?" Rothman said as soon as he was in earshot.
"Heard of him?" Jack said.
"Yeah, sure. Sokar represented the act of separating the...the soul from the body, sort of, in the simplest terms. He was sometimes associated with Osiris, a god of death, especially in later periods."
Apophis was literally being chased by Death. Now that was a little funny. "So, he was their Grim Reaper."
"Uh...no. Well, kind of...but not with a sinister connotation. It was like...the releasing of the soul after death, a necessary part of the process. I mean, there were periods during which he was feared more than revered, like any deity, but without knowing more of the situation, it's hard to say just what this Goa'uld is like."
"I have an idea," Jack said. "The Goa'uld kills a bunch of people and then says their god 'released their souls.'"
Rothman considered, then conceded, "Yeah, that's probably it in this case."
"And last time, it took an entire Goa'uld alliance to bring him down?" Hammond said.
"Indeed," Teal'c confirmed.
"What does that mean for us now?"
"Unscheduled off-world activation!" Harriman called through the PA.
"Ah, geez," Jack groaned, then rose and led the way out to watch the Stargate.
XXXXX
By the time SG-1, Rothman, and Hammond walked back into the briefing room with the Tok'ra Martouf in tow, Daniel was waiting there for them, his arms folded over his chest. "Apophis is awake again," he told them, his voice toneless and his whole bearing stiff and unmoving, completely still the way Jack sometimes wished he would just stand still and stop fidgeting for two minutes, kid, except that now, it was getting disconcerting.
"What were you doing in his room?" Jack demanded as the Tok'ra sat.
"I wasn't in his room. I was outside, as before, but I can still hear." Daniel's arms curled tighter. "He has been calling for his queen."
And Daniel should be mad now, or freaked, or vengefully happy or something, not standing still and speaking in English so careful it was like the way he'd been when he'd first arrived on Earth, before he'd decided it was okay to talk faster than other people could hear and understand.
"You have captured Apophis's mate, also?" Martouf asked with increased interest, looking to Carter more than to Jack or Hammond. "Perhaps Sokar--"
"No," Carter answered. "We have no more idea where Amaunet is than Apophis does. He must be getting delirious if he thinks otherwise."
"That was my point," Daniel said. "He's quickly becoming incoherent."
"Daniel, uh, why don't you wait for me in the office," Rothman said. Jack suppressed a wince, knowing there was going to be an argument but really hoping it wouldn't happen now...
"I just want to tell you that if you're looking for information from Apophis, General, you should hurry before he loses what's left of his mind," Daniel said.
"No," Martouf said. "You must return Apophis to that planet immediately."
Jack felt his eyebrows shoot up. Hell, no.
"Thank you, Mr. Jackson," the general said. "Wait outside."
Daniel impossibly stiffened even more, looking from the Tok'ra to Teal'c and then to Jack and Hammond. Usually, he listened when it was the general speaking, but this time it took another sharp command from Teal'c before he turned and walked out. Rothman winced, looking worried, then glanced at Jack and slowly sat down as well. Jack suspected that it hadn't been any order that convinced Daniel to leave, but rather the gleeful look on Teal'c's face that assured everyone that Apophis wouldn't be getting off easily if he had anything to say about it, and that...that was a sobering thought.
When Daniel was out of sight, Hammond said, "He's not wrong. There is quite a bit of information we could get from Apophis while he's in our custody."
"Our operatives aboard Sokar's vessel witnessed you leave the crash site and enter the Stargate," Martouf argued reasonably. "There is no doubt Sokar also knows that Apophis is in your hands. If not Sokar, then there are many other Goa'uld who would readily attack Earth to retrieve Apophis."
"We need to know what would happen if we turned him over," Hammond countered.
Martouf turned his head slightly, a wrinkle appearing between his brows as he looked from one face to another in confusion. "What does it matter to you? He is your enemy."
"Just answer the question," Jack said.
"He will likely be executed," Martouf said.
"Eventually," Carter added, looking haunted, and Jack remembered what she had said about being tortured slowly toward death as Jolinar. "Right?"
"Yes, but...surely it is a fate he justly deserves."
Hammond folded his hands on the table. "I'm afraid we can't let him go just yet. In the short time he has remaining, we may yet learn information that could help us defend ourselves."
Martouf's head lowered, and when it lifted again, his eyes glowed.
"He has taken advantage of your weakness," Lantash said, his voice almost a growl compared to Martouf's milder demeanor.
Carter looked taken aback at the sudden shift, but she retorted, "We don't consider what we did a sign of weakness."
"Then you are fools," Lantash retorted harshly, apparently not as indulgent of her silly Tau'ri ways as his host was. "You have tipped the balance of power among the Goa'uld and, in doing so, entered a battle that you are ill-equipped to fight. Turn him over to Sokar now, and you might be spared."
Jack crossed his arms. "We went through a lot of trouble to bring Apophis low enough to get snatched up by Sokar. We didn't do it to help Sokar pick up where Apophis left off."
"Why don't you comprehend the danger you are in?" Lantash barked. "The Tok'ra cannot defend you from the Goa'uld, and you cannot expect us to."
"We don't," Jack snapped. He wasn't expecting much of anything from the Tok'ra right now, much less anything helpful.
The Tok'ra's head dipped again, and Martouf resurfaced, looking a little embarrassed at the outburst. "Forgive Lantash. He is very passionate. We would not force you to take action, but if we cannot convince you of the danger...may we see him?"
When they arrived at where Apophis was being kept, Daniel was still in front of the isolation room, leaning against the opposite wall and staring at the door that separated him from Apophis. "Daniel," Jack sighed.
"I haven't gone in," he answered, far too evenly for Jack's liking.
Keeping an eye on him, Jack nodded at the SF standing on guard. The door was held open, and Carter entered the ward first, followed by Martouf and Teal'c. As Jack tried to enter, too, Daniel moved to block his path. "Apophis has to know where Skaara is," he said in a low voice, and up close, Jack could see the tightness around his eyes, the way he was clenching his fists so hard that his fingers would be aching later. "You have to ask him, Jack."
"Daniel," Jack said again.
"Amaunet!" Apophis cried from inside the isolation unit. "Kel Amaunet? Amaunet, tal ma!"
Daniel inhaled sharply.
Rothman eyed him uneasily and told Jack, "You don't need me in there, Colonel. It's getting a little crowded--why don't I stay out here."
Jack nodded and began to feel a little less satisfied about their catch. Should've shot him when we found him, he thought, then firmly moved Daniel aside and walked past them, hoping their prisoner was almost dead.
"Apophis," Martouf was saying when he reached the Goa'uld's bedside. "Hear me."
"Amaunet," Apophis moaned. "Tal ma..."
"What's he saying?" Jack asked.
Martouf glanced at him. "He is calling for his love."
"His love," Jack scoffed. Martouf gave him an intense stare that might have been a glare if Martouf hadn't already established himself as the calm one in the host/symbiote relationship. What? Apophis was a snake. As if that bastard loved anything except his power.
Carter, he noticed, fidgeted, glanced at Martouf, and then looked away instead of adding her own comment. "We won't get anything lucid from him in this condition, sir," she observed instead, refocusing on the issue at hand.
"I'll give him some morphine," Fraiser said, reaching for a syringe.
"Amaunet," Apophis said again, almost a whisper, clearly fading.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open, pupils blown wide, his expression one of terror even more than of pain. "Sidjemu-wi. Sidjemu-wi!"
Jack straightened. "That's a...human voice."
"Shi-rawh-tai," the man on the bed called.
"What's he saying?"
From the door Rothman called, "That's a dialect of Ancient Egyptian, Colonel, not Goa'uld."
"It is a human slave language," Martouf added.
"Oh, God," Carter breathed. "Is that the host?"
"Shi-rawh-tai!"
If Carter had been badly shaken after a few days as a host to a not-really-bad symbiote... 'Oh, God' was right. How long had this guy been host to Apophis?
Jack hurriedly beckoned to Rothman. "Talk to him--say something."
"Wh--I...I don't..." Rothman stammered. He took a few steps into the isolation room, and Jack could now see clearly that Daniel was still standing there, and if he had looked upset before to hear his parents' murderer calling for the lover who had taken over his sister, that was nothing compared to the expression on his face now. "I don't know what to say, Colonel; I mean, what do you say to someone who..."
Apophis and his host passed out. Jack was relieved, and then ashamed to realize it was mostly because that made it easier for them, not just for the man on the table.
"Ay naturu," Daniel's voice came from where he stood at the door, staring at Apophis and not seeming to notice the SFs who were carefully blocking his way.
"He's not going to be awake for a while," Fraiser pointed out. "Everyone give me some space, please."
Martouf was discussing something with Carter as they walked out, so Jack stayed just long enough to make sure Teal'c was actually walking away from Apophis and then stepped out in time to see Daniel lean back against the wall. "He's out cold for now," Jack said to Rothman. "If he wakes up--"
"He's scared," Daniel murmured. "Apophis has probably never let him take control over his own body before. For...for thousands of years." He shuddered. "Gods, can you imagine?"
"Daniel," Jack warned, "I don't want you going in there."
"What if he wakes up again?"
"We'll talk to him. I'll try to ask about Skaara, if I can."
"And if it's the host?" Daniel said. "He's scared, Jack. He's dying."
"I hate to say it," Jack pointed out, "but dying is probably a kindness, kid."
"Not like this," Daniel insisted, shaking his head fiercely, his façade of composure fading into something bordering on panic. "Not somewhere he doesn't recognize, thousands of, of...miles or planets away from his home, where no one can take his name and...Jack, he's not...the host is innocent. At least let me talk to him. Or Robert, or someone. You can't let him die like this."
An alarm sounded. "Unscheduled off-world activation!"
"Dammit," Jack swore.
"Go, Colonel," Rothman said. "We'll be in our office."
"But Robert," Daniel started. "We can't just leave him--"
"I said, let's go," Rothman ordered, snapping at Daniel like a boss in charge instead of a senior colleague for perhaps the first time Jack could remember seeing. "They'll get us if they need us."
And because Daniel had been trained over the last couple of years to respond to direct orders from a superior--whether or not he chose to obey--and because people defaulted to conditioning in situations of extreme stress, he clenched his fists in frustration and looked like he wanted to argue again but instead turned toward the elevator. Jack gave Rothman a grateful nod and hurried to the control room, just in time to hear Sokar's ultimatum.
XXXXX
16 February 1999; SGC, Earth; 1900 hrs
The archaeology office rarely felt awkward. Boring, sure, and often buzzing with mutters in various incomprehensible languages, but not awkward. Rothman was clicking through something on his computer, but Jack thought he could be pretty sure Daniel wasn't actually reading the book on his desk, since he wasn't even looking at it. Rothman flicked occasional glances toward Daniel, who didn't seem to notice, and there was none of the usual debate or casual discussion floating across the space between them.
The office was nice and cool, though, which was, in itself, a huge improvement over how it was downstairs. How the hell Sokar expected them to send Apophis back without being able to dial out was beyond him, but hey, who ever said the Goa'uld were reasonable?
When they didn't seem to have noticed his approach, Jack paused at the door and cleared his throat. Two pairs of eyes snapped immediately to him.
"The President's ordered all medical treatment to stop," Jack said, knowing he didn't need to clarify that he was talking about Apophis. "We're sending him back."
"You're sending him back," Daniel repeated.
Jack watched him pick up a pen, uncap it, and then cap it again and roll it restlessly between his fingers. Uncap, cap, uncap... "Yeah. We can't take the safety risk of keeping him here."
"You're sending him back to be tortured to death by Sokar," Daniel said. Rothman grimaced and scratched his head, dividing his attention between the two of them.
"Not exactly," Jack said. "We expect he'll die soon, here, before he goes back." Daniel put the pen down and went back to staring at the desk. "In the meantime, I just wanted to tell you both to stay away from the 'gate room no matter what. Sokar's been knocking at our door."
'Knocking' wasn't really the right word. 'Blasting' was more like it, and unless Carter pulled something miraculous out of her sleeve, the iris would melt within the hour, and the base would be swarming with Sokar's Jaffa.
"Someone needs to say the words for him," Daniel said out of the blue.
Jack frowned. "What?"
"Funeral rites," Rothman said. "For the host."
Looking from one to the other, not sure if they thought he was insane or if he thought they were insane, Jack said, "There's not much time. Sokar means business."
"I don't need much time," Daniel said. "It won't take long. Nothing at all compared to how long that man has carried Apophis, Jack."
Suddenly, Jack felt the way he had in those first days of the Stargate Program, when Daniel had told Teal'c that it wasn't his fault, that the Jaffa were slaves to a false god, even as he had cringed from the man who had kidnapped him. "And you want to do that for him?"
"I have seen the rites performed many times on Abydos," Daniel said, folding his hands under his arms like he thought he could hide how nervous he was. "If he only has a short time left, I think we should make him as comfortable as we can. He has suffered enough."
Whether or not Daniel could say the words wasn't the issue. Whether he could do it to Apophis's face...
"I think we should," Rothman added.
Jack gave him an incredulous look, tilting his head a scant inch toward Daniel as he said, "Dr. Rothman, I don't think that's a good idea." Daniel had unfolded his arms and was focused intently on fiddling with his damn pen again and didn't seem to notice the unspoken words.
But Rothman was quite possibly an idiot, despite his degree that said otherwise, and said, "Colonel, I agree with Daniel on this."
Then Daniel chose that moment to look up at him, and saying 'no' to him right now would only mean 'I don't think you're strong enough for this,' and maybe Jack wasn't sure he was, but...
Hell. Chances were Sokar would overrun this base in about a half an hour, anyway, if that iris didn't hold against his attack, and if that happened, those who weren't killed right away would get taken out by the self-destruct. They might as well get someone's last rites done, and if it would make Daniel happier, why the hell not.
Jack sighed. "I'm going with you," he said finally. At this point, he'd only be in the way in the control room, anyway. He wasn't the only one who knew how to set the self-destruct. "If it's Apophis who's in control, you're to stay away from him." Not that the dying man strapped to a bed could actually do very much, but the worst attacks weren't always the physical ones.
Rothman stood and picked up an odd little statue, explaining, clearly for Jack's benefit, "This is a funerary statue." He lifted it, looking unsure whether to hold onto it or hand it over. "Look, I can do the rites for him, Daniel."
"I'll do it." Daniel reached out and took it, then hesitated. "Would you come with me, though?" he asked, not meeting Rothman's eyes. "Just in case...in case the Egyptian way is not the same as the Abydonian way. Or something."
"Yeah," the archaeologist said immediately. "Sure."
Jack decided Rothman was only a little bit of an idiot.
...x...
Teal'c was leaning over Apophis when they arrived. Jack couldn't hear what the Jaffa was saying, but he thought he could make a pretty good guess when Apophis screamed, "Shol'va, kree!"
Jack caught the eye of a nurse standing uncertainly at the edge of the room and told her, "Call us if the host surfaces."
She bit her lip, staring at Teal'c's taunting smile, and said, "Yes, sir."
"Close the door," Jack ordered the airman outside, partly because he didn't want either Daniel or Dr. Rothman actually facing Apophis and mostly because he didn't want Daniel to see just how one of his friends and mentors was handling the situation. Jack didn't really blame Teal'c, and he knew Fraiser would step in if Teal'c went as far as physically hurting the Goa'uld, but it wasn't really something Daniel should be emulating, either. "Apophis's control has been kind of on and off," he explained to them. "We'll wait until the host comes back."
"How long will he survive?" Daniel asked. "I thought you said Sokar was becoming impatient."
"And how are we even in contact with Sokar, anyway?" Rothman added.
"Sokar's sent a fancy transmission through the wormhole," Jack said. "Says he'll kill us all if we don't give Apophis back."
"And that's why we're handing him over," Daniel said flatly.
Jack stuck his hands in his pockets and bit back his irritation at the implication that they were doing this just because it was easier, or without thinking about what it meant for the person getting handed over. "Not to alarm you guys or anything, but we're getting shot at through the wormhole by a particle beam, and it's getting awfully hot down in the 'gate room. It's all they can do to keep the iris from melting and keep everyone from cooking alive until we can get Sokar to take a break from trying to kill us."
Rothman blinked. "Uh...he's trying to roast us to death?" He adjusted his jacket nervously. "Is it getting hot around here?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "That's your imagination, Doctor. And the iris will probably give before you start feeling the heat from here." Because, of course, that would be so much better.
"Maybe I'm wrong," the archaeologist pressed, "but if he's sending a particle beam through at us, how are we supposed to send anything to him?"
"You know, oddly enough, we did notice that little problem." Jack suspected Sokar wouldn't be heartbroken to lose Apophis as his prize if he managed to invade Earth instead.
"Well, that's true in reverse, too--Sokar can't keep attacking us if we dial out to him," Daniel said.
"Only if he disengages first," Rothman pointed out unhappily, "which I'm guessing he won't."
"It doesn't even matter if he does," Jack said, seeing no reason to hide it now that their chances for survival were dwindling with every minute Sokar kept up his attack. "The wormhole already closed once, just before I went to find you two, and he just redialed and started it all again."
Daniel and Rothman looked at each other. Jack imagined they were trying to will a theory into being by the force of their combined brainwaves. "Maybe he stopped because there was a time limit for wormholes to be held open," Rothman suggested. "It needs too much power or something."
"Yeah, that's what Carter said when Sokar's wormhole closed, but by then it was too late to try dialing before he dialed in again--a lot faster than we could do anything about it. He stopped after thirty-eight minutes last time, so assuming that's the limit, we've probably got another good...more than twenty minutes before we can try again." He decided not to mention that Carter thought it would be their first and only shot, because the iris wouldn't hold another thirty-eight minutes if they failed this time.
"Did anyone try to talk to him?" Daniel asked. "By...radio or something. Radio transmissions can go both ways through a wormhole."
Jack paused for a second, wondering why no one had mentioned that before, but then shook his head. "He's shooting a particle beam at us, kid. I'm not sure diplomacy's the answer this time."
"Well, it might work. It depends on how badly he wants Apophis," Rothman said. "Offer him Apophis. Threaten him with the auto-destruct if he gets through the iris."
"Yes, and if he's been hiding so long, he can't afford to suffer that much damage to his army," Daniel agreed. "Tell him he doesn't want to start fighting on another front with the Tau'ri, and if we auto-destruct, we'll take Apophis with us."
"You might as well try, and if it doesn't work, just try dialing out after thirty-eight minutes like you were going to do anyway. If he stops long enough for us to establish a wormhole, it'll buy us some time, at least. Or, you know," Rothman added pointedly, "we could just wait until we all start to bake in our juices."
Jack opened his mouth to object before realizing it wasn't an unreasonable idea. "Huh," he said.
The door opened. Teal'c walked out first to reveal the nurse behind him. "Sir?" she said. "I think...I'm not sure if that's the host, but..."
"Sidjemu-wi!"
Daniel craned his head over the nurse's shoulder and called back, "Khanmis, sidjemu-tje! Jack, it's him. He keeps asking for someone to hear him." Jack nodded at the men blocking the door, and Daniel squeezed past them to hurry to Apophis's bedside.
"Teal'c," Jack said, "go to the control room and tell them to try sending a message to Sokar by radio transmission. Call his bluff. Tell him that he might beat us, but not without hurting himself a lot, and we'll surrender Apophis if he'll stop his attack. The second we get a chance, dial out and keep the wormhole open until we can send Apophis through." Teal'c scowled back into the room, where Daniel was bending low over the bed, and Jack added, "Now, Teal'c. It won't be long before he's dead."
Teal'c inclined his head slightly and turned toward the control room.
Jack held out a hand to stop Rothman before the man could enter and, quietly, asked, "Why the hell are you behind this? Do you not understand Daniel's history with Apophis?"
Rothman glanced once inside and dropped his voice, too. "Yeah, I get it. Do you understand how important this is to him?"
"Look, fine, he was raised that way, whatever. But I honestly don't think he believes in--"
"This isn't about that," Rothman said. "Daniel believes that man deserves a little...comfort before his death after millennia of torture, and so do I. You didn't see how upset he was upstairs; if I didn't think he needed this, I would've come here and done the rites myself. So, uh...are we leaving him alone in there or what?"
Jack looked to where Daniel was placing the statue down on the bed, then nodded curtly. "Fine."
Apophis's host was staring at Daniel when they went inside, words tumbling out now with a sort of desperation as the Abydon listened.
"What are they saying?" Jack asked quietly. Daniel glanced up, but Rothman began explain quietly, so he turned back to the host.
"It's, uh...introductions, more or less. His name is Khotep; he's was a scribe at the temple of Amun at Karnak. And now..." The archaeologist winced. "He says that it's been an unending nightmare, and he hoped to see his wife and children when he awoke."
"But now he awakens only to...die again," Daniel finished as the host trailed off. Jack suppressed a grimace and forced his gaze to remain steady when Daniel looked up at him, then back down.
The clicking of Fraiser's shoes on the floor announced her arrival, but even that seemed quiet and muted. She glanced up at Jack, taking in the scene, then focused back on Apophis's host.
Daniel licked his lips. "Ar ko-me di-ya tuw qu-ris yam-yakh-cle," he said softly, the hard words surprisingly gentle and flowing.
Jack realized with a start that he had almost never heard Daniel speak his native tongue aloud since he'd arrived on Earth, or at least not like this, rhythmic and almost song-like despite the harsh sounds of the words. It was almost like that Goa'uld lullaby he used to say to Shifu, and Jack recognized this was something similar, another lullaby but for a different sort of sleep. Then he wondered just how important customs like this were to Abydons, how many times Daniel had heard this ritual, and what he had thought of being trapped on Earth last year instead of beside his parents' grave. Sometimes, Jack knew, it wasn't just about souls and faiths and afterlives, but about conclusions.
"He said that we'll do the rites," Rothman was saying.
The host--the scribe--nodded very slightly. Daniel straightened, but before he could start, the scribe's body jerked once, and his eyes glowed bright.
"Help me," Apophis begged.
Daniel's expression darkened, the transformation so sudden that Jack didn't have time to speak at all before Daniel leaned over Apophis and answered with a cold, "Never. Shal nok, orak."
Apophis's eyes fixed on him, burning with desperate intensity. "I know you. I once thought you could be host to my son." Daniel's face twisted with revulsion.
"Not a chance," Jack said sharply, circling around to the other side of the bed so he could grab Daniel and pull him out before this got any uglier, as if it possibly could. "No host."
"Dan'yel," Apophis said hoarsely. "Brother to my son, Klorel."
"Where is he?" Daniel said, his arm stiff, resisting Jack's attempts to move him away. Despite the waning light in Apophis's eyes, he leaned close again to say, "Tell me. Where is Skaara?"
Apophis drew in several ragged breaths. "I am afraid," the Goa'uld whispered, his eyes glowing again before they began to dim. Jack still had a hand on Daniel's shoulder, so he felt the flinch when the alarm on one of the monitors began to screech.
"Hold it," Fraiser said sharply, peering at the screen. She pulled her hands out of her pockets and reached toward the patient, clearly itching to do something, but, bound by her orders, she settled with laying a gentle hand on the dying man's face.
Apophis gasped once, and then--
"The Goa'uld is dead," Fraiser said, watching the monitor, "but...the host is still alive."
The scribe turned his head slowly until his dull eyes faced them.
Daniel seemed frozen. He stared at a point somewhere between the scribe and the statue, blinking.
Rothman stepped closer to the bed and instructed, "Translate for me, Daniel, all right?"
Daniel nodded jerkily and, though Jack could still see the tension in his body, he calmed a little with a task to perform. He didn't take his eyes from the scribe as Rothman started, his words lacking the flowing quality that Daniel's had, but solid and sure nonetheless. "Anen-yak ipat su-wee-tai softou."
"Your soul will be returned to the temple of Karnak with honor," Daniel said.
"Miy-yak hee-ma-ta mai-si-tak. Hiy-yak han-vy-sun, hei-hu hei-hu."
Jack felt another tiny flinch under his hand, and then Daniel moved a step away from him and said steadily, "You will see your wife and children again and rejoice with them forever."
Rothman nodded. "Yet-yau tau-ti ki-pum ni fadet u-ra-eyu. In yaf ki-yak a ku-mayi."
Daniel moved the statue into the scribe's line of sight. "This funerary statue will take your last breath and carry your soul back to Egypt."
As if he had been waiting for the words, the scribe rolled his head toward the statue. His eyes were bright--not with unnatural, Goa'uld light, but with pain and emotion--and Jack couldn't tell whether he was staring at the statue or at the person holding it. Daniel stepped back to let the scribe see the figure that was to take his soul.
The scribe's eyes glazed over. He took a final, rattling gasp.
The alarm on the second monitor sounded, shrill and grating in the silence. Fraiser reached up quietly and turned it off. To Jack's surprise, it was Daniel who gently closed the man's eyes and drew the edge of the sheet over his face, then lowered himself to his knees at the bedside.
"Uh," Rothman said. "What are you--"
"Give me a couple of minutes," Daniel said, his voice more confident now and distracted in the way that meant he wasn't waiting for an answer and was going to take the couple of minutes whether they were given to him or not. His hand was steady now, though, as he held it up to tell them to wait.
Jack stared at him, incredulous. This time, Rothman and Dr. Fraiser did as well, because that was the kind of thing people said when a loved one died and they needed a little more time to grieve, not what people were supposed to say when they'd just finished a ritual for a stranger. Not just any stranger, either, but a man whose face Jack knew for a fact had featured in Daniel's nightmares for months and maybe still did.
Teal'c appeared suddenly in the doorway. "Sokar has ceased his attack long enough for us to create an outgoing wormhole. We must..." He stopped.
This had been a mistake.
"Daniel," Jack started carefully, "it's--"
"One minute," Daniel said again. "We promised him dignity."
Jack glanced at Rothman, who also seemed lost. Obviously, this hadn't been part of the plan. Teal'c's eyes held a sort of horrified confusion. He reached out and tugged the corner of the shroud off, as if to see just whose body his chal'ti was kneeling to. Daniel watched him in return but didn't move to explain or stop him. The Jaffa's expression stiffened as he saw his former master's face, but the triumph that Jack had been expecting to see there was almost lost in a wave of uncertainty.
Fraiser firmly took the sheet from Teal'c and covered the face again. Teal'c moved away and let her.
"Didu'we hur tapai Khotep sesh n'ipat," Daniel said, his head lowered as if in prayer.
"He says...that he's speaking on behalf of the scribe of the temple of Karnak," Rothman said, blinking.
"Ne didu'we gurakh, ne ir iwe."
Rothman wrinkled his forehead. "I think this is part of the soul's judgment before the gods of the dead. And it's Nagadan Abydonian, not the scribe's dialect. This must be..."
"Anakh sapu shure'i seidei nu'tei yurinaf shesheru'nu."
"...adapted from the Abydonian funeral ceremony. 'I have spoken no lies; I have done no misdeeds. I was once possessed by a, uh...a demon...'"
The sound of boots at the doorway made Jack look up to see General Hammond beginning to walk in, followed by Carter and Martouf. "The wormhole is--" He broke off, his expression morphing into surprise as Daniel continued his recital.
"Yuwa yu seidei pro'if manuten na'neiwei yasfei."
"It's like...last rites, sir," Rothman explained quietly. Carter's eyes were wide, and then she lowered them slightly, though Jack couldn't have said whether it was in respect or confusion. Martouf was standing with his mouth slightly open, his expression uncomprehending, and for some reason, all Jack could think of at the moment was that he would have thought the guy would have just a little more sympathy for the host.
Ignoring them, Daniel continued to stare blankly at the covering over the scribe, as if he could see through it to the body beneath, and finished, "Di'ya piratei asaku yeru."
After a pause, he rose to his feet, raised his hands before himself in the formal Abydonian gesture, and bowed to the scribe's body. Without another word and without acknowledging any of the new arrivals in the room, he walked away toward the door.
"Should, uh...?" Rothman said, jerking his head toward Daniel.
Daniel paused at the door and said, "You should take care of the body." He walked out and didn't look back.
The general watched him leave, then asked sharply, "Was that...?"
"It's practically out of the Book of the Dead," Rothman answered. "He was speaking for the host's soul, asking the gods to find him clean of evil, now that he is no longer possessed by the demon who used him to commit crimes."
"I shouldn't've let him come in here," Jack said stepping back to give some distance as Fraiser and a nurse began to undo the straps that held the scribe's body to the bed. Teal'c stepped forward to help. Fraiser looked up at him suspiciously, but the Jaffa only nodded solemnly and began to wrap the body respectfully in the shroud himself.
Rothman shook his head, looking a little unsettled himself. "He would've felt worse if we let the host die without at least...you know...or I wouldn't've even suggested letting him come and do this. It really was very important to him."
Still not convinced, Jack crossed his arms. "Maybe." And maybe this was one of the times they should have decided what was best for the fifteen-year-old in their charge.
Hammond sighed, looking in the direction Daniel had gone. "The wormhole won't stay open forever," he said as Teal'c easily lifted the scribe's covered body in his arms. "But afterward, once this is over, I'd appreciate it if one of you could..."
"Got it, sir," Jack said.
XXXXX
16 February 1999; SGC, Earth; 2100 hrs
Jack stopped outside Daniel's quarters. He reached for the doorknob, then stopped and rapped his knuckles twice against the closed door instead. When no one answered, he slowly swung the door open.
The lights were on. Daniel sat at one end of his bed, dressed as if about to go to sleep, despite the relatively early hour. He was reading something, sitting on top of his pillow, and didn't look up as he said, "I thought a closed door meant not to enter without permission."
"Well, it wasn't locked," Jack said.
He looked around the interior, noting how different it was from Daniel's room in Jack's house. That room was...not neat so much as bare, with a few sets of civilian clothes in the closet and not much else besides the things Daniel carried around with him between base and house. Jack rarely had cause to enter Daniel's quarters here at the SGC, but it was where he kept his slowly accumulated possessions and was, if not quite messy, then at least carelessly lived-in. A BDU jacket was slung casually over the back of a chair, and one shoe lay on its side while its partner was barely visible from under the bed. The bed was made, barely, with a few folders and notebooks tossed onto the covers at the foot of the bed and a set of dog tags hanging from the bedpost.
The dresser's surface was being used as a sort of bookshelf, not for textbooks or dictionaries, but rather for what looked like a collection of haphazardly-stacked second-hand literature. There was an old copy of Hamlet on top with a bookmark inside, and when Jack lifted the frayed cover, he found 'S. CARTER' printed in black pen. Rothman's name was on the side of some other book that appeared to be written in Greek. Hagman's name was on a copy of something in Cyrillic writing, though there was a dictionary next to that one.
Daniel stayed where he was seated and watched him move through the room, not commenting until Jack saw a small, closed box sitting separate from all the rest.
"Don't," Daniel said then. There were journals on top of the box, and Claire Jackson's clay sculpture of Ra stood next to it; Jack could guess what kind of things were probably in it, and he didn't touch it. "Why did you knock if you were going to come in anyway?"
"To...be polite," Jack said.
Daniel frowned at him. "Right."
Jack sat down on the edge of Daniel's bed and turned to look at him, focusing in on the binder on his legs. "What are you doing?"
"Is there a problem?"
Swallowing a sarcastic reply on the tip of his tongue, Jack said instead, "Just wondering. That's, ah, where you store all your articles from the archaeology journals, isn't it?"
Daniel shrugged and shut the binder, bringing his knees toward himself so that the cover was pressed against his chest. "I didn't realize you paid any attention to that kind of thing. Academic journals."
There was a hint of challenge to the words, phrased and said so that it wasn't really an insult but could be taken as one if he so chose. "I don't," Jack said, "but the binder says 'Arch. Journals,' and it's in your chicken scratch."
"If you can see that, then you didn't really need to ask," he reasoned, still calm, though his fingers tightened possessively on the binder. Daniel was rarely calm when he was all right--excited, curious, amused, nervous, annoyed, sullen...that was fine. Calm...not so fine, especially when his knuckles were turning white from how hard he was gripping the damn binder. "Is there a problem, Jack?" he repeated.
"I don't know," Jack said. "You tell me."
"Then, no."
Okay, so that didn't work the way he'd been going for. "Do you want--"
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"What were you going to say?"
Jack bit the inside of his cheek, because, okay, he didn't really know. "What are you doing, Daniel?" he said again.
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "Reading an article," he said, like he didn't realize Jack wasn't just talking about what damned article he was reading, even though of course he realized it; playing with words was his specialty. "And this is my room. What are you doing here?"
"You did a brave thing today," Jack tried.
Daniel's lips pressed together into a thin line. Seeing a flicker of irritation in his eyes, Jack started to speak, then hesitated, not sure whether he should be trying to offer comfort or trying to goad Daniel into shattering the blank expression that had to be hiding a lot of not-blank thoughts.
Before he could decide on a course of action, Daniel said, "I hope that people here don't think it strange to try to give an innocent person some comfort in the moment of his death."
Jack suppressed a flicker of annoyance himself. "You know that's not--"
"Then what did you mean?" Daniel interrupted sharply.
"I meant that it wasn't an easy thing to do, and you've got a right to be a little...confused."
"Do I have the right not to be confused, as well?"
Jack really wished he were a more articulate man as he said, "You have a right to feel whatever you want to feel."
Daniel nodded. "Seriously, Jack, did you need something?"
The problem about trying to tread carefully around a subject was that it was so easy to let the whole conversation descend into a battle of words and semantics, and Jack remembered how Daniel had tried--with no small amount of success--to talk circles around him even before he'd gotten used to speaking English all the time. And by now, somewhere along the way, Daniel had learned the art of asking questions with no good answers until the conversation was firmly in his control, and this conversation was quickly headed that way, too.
"Rothman's worried," Jack said, knowing it was the wrong thing to say even as he said it.
"About what?"
"He...dammit, Daniel. You know what I mean."
"I'll keep that in mind the next time I see him, then," Daniel said, neutrally but with an edge. "I'm just trying to read."
"Daniel--"
"Jack, I'm off-duty," Daniel interrupted. "So are you. So is Robert and almost anyone else who might need me for anything. Unless you're looking for something, I would really like to finish this article. You might want to check on how Teal'c is dealing with Apophis's death."
Jack sighed in frustration, because he'd tried that, too. Teal'c was refusing to come out of his room, and Carter was working in her lab and babbling about particle beam technology anytime someone mentioned the word 'host.' And he'd held off and given Daniel space for an hour, just to let things cool off or...or something, and it was looking not-really-okay to him. "Well, then...just let me know when you're ready to get off this base."
"You don't have to wait for me, Jack. I have some notes I'd like to finish tonight."
"Well, I'm not leaving you here on your own."
Daniel narrowed his eyes. "What exactly is it that you think I'll do on my own that's different from any other night?"
"Read your eyes to dea--" Jack broke off.
Daniel twitched slightly, but he said, "Unless I've done something wrong, there's no reason I shouldn't be allowed to remain here and read if I want. I mean, is there?"
And there it was--whatever Jack tried to do now to make him talk or make sure he didn't spend the night brooding by himself over an archaeology article would be thrown back like it was meant as a punishment. "You want me to go away?" he said finally.
Daniel tapped a finger lightly against the edge of his binder. "Please."
Jack stood, knowing he was literally hovering over Daniel now but not wanting to leave him here when he was...something. Upset or...whatever he was. It was unnerving not to be able to tell. "Rothman's not the only one who's worried," he said instead of leaving.
"Daniel--"
"Jack--"
The words tripped over each other, and both stopped. "You first," Jack said.
There was another long pause. "You should go home," Daniel finally said. "It's late."
"Well, nah, it's not that late," Jack replied, then lied, "I was going to stick around base for a while, anyway."
"No, you weren't," Daniel said, because they knew each other too well for that by now.
"Just to make sure Sokar's not coming back."
"Do you think Sokar's coming back?"
With a dead Apophis to revive and torture to death over and over...probably not. "Never hurts to be careful."
"Jack, just. Go home."
"If you're allowed to stay here and...read, then I can stick around, too."
Daniel stretched his legs out in the place that Jack had vacated and said, "Then please close the door on your way out."
When Jack pulled the door open, he looked back once to see Daniel back to reading. All of a sudden, he noticed Daniel wasn't wearing his glasses and was actually staring at a point just beyond the binder, and, therefore, probably not actually reading the tiny print in those journals. Blue eyes came up again, asking him what he was still doing there in the doorway.
With a sigh, Jack quietly closed the door behind him and moved down the hall to Teal'c's room.
This time, his knock was answered by a forceful, "Do not enter."
Jack grimaced but backed off. He looked downward, imagining he could see Carter through the floor as she typed her way through a gazillion projects, and resigned himself to a long night of checking on one and then the other and then the other. He wandered toward his own office to hole up for a few minutes while he figured out just what the hell he was supposed to do with his kids.
From the next chapter (" Gods, Part II"):
"You normally do not experience such difficulty, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, watching him but still not deigning to reprimand him for all the idiotic mistakes he was making or for anything else, and by all the gods true and false, why wasn't he?
"I know," Daniel snapped, and then, "Why aren't you angry?"