Diplomacy (26/27)
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
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Unity, Part II
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26 April 1999; SGC, Earth; 1730 hrs
It looked exactly like Daniel, right down to the way it was once again slouching against the wall, though it sat far too still to be the real deal.
"Jack," Not-Daniel said.
"That's Colonel O'Neill to you," Jack said curtly. Not-Daniel tilted his head but didn't argue.
"You are angry," it said, sounding puzzled.
"Y'think?" Jack told it, expecting an eye-roll. He received a curious look instead.
"What is your purpose here?" Teal'c demanded.
"I am looking for my family," it said, eager and almost childlike in a way that made it sound even younger than Daniel. "Can you take me to them?"
"That's enough!" Jack said, and if it was hard to keep his voice sharp when it looked at him with Daniel's wounded expression, the memory of a frantic real-Daniel trying to wake him up off-world was pretty good incentive. "Why did you attack us and come here?"
It looked down at its knees. "We did not intend to hurt you. We attempted only to return your greeting."
"We?"
"You saw us in another form--you call us 'crystals.'"
Jack blinked. He turned to Teal'c and Rothman. "Did he just say--"
"He did, O'Neill," Teal'c confirmed.
"Ah," Jack said.
There was an odd moment in which Jack realized that they had, in fact, been attacked by homicidal crystals because Daniel tried to talk to them. It was close enough, anyway, that he could needle Daniel about it for the next several months, at least. It might have been funny, except the supposedly innocent Not-Daniel was still not looking so innocent, given that he was looking for a couple of people with snakes in their heads.
"Why are you here?" Rothman asked.
There was a long silence. Not-Daniel stood, unfolding with a poise that the real Daniel hadn't yet grown into, but didn't answer. Jack couldn't tell if it was thinking or just not answering.
Teal'c stepped forward and growled, "You will answer the question."
"He is not here," it said, then wrinkled its brow.
Jack folded his arms. "Who?"
"Skaara."
"Ah...no."
"I thought I would find him and Sha'uri if I went through the chaapa'ai."
"Well," Jack said, his confusion growing as he began to suspect that the being really believed what it was saying or was a much better actor than any crystal should be, "you thought wrong."
"But I cannot return to Abydos until I have found them," it said earnestly, then frowned, as if remembering something. "I did find them. But I lost Shifu."
"You've never been to Abydos," Jack said, choosing to ignore the rest for now and focus on the one thing that made some kind of almost-sense to him.
Not-Daniel gave him a tiny shrug, both shoulders moving minutely, mechanically. "I have not been to Abydos. But he has. He would return, but he cannot yet. I was only trying to find them for him, because I wished to heal his hurt."
Jack caught Teal'c's eye, surprised by the blunt statement and then surprised at how much it surprised him. "You have a funny way of showing how much you care," he told it.
"We did not understand your injuries," it said. "We looked into your minds to seek the source of your pain, but your deepest pain did not reside in your physical forms. I thought that if I could find his family, it would make him well again."
There wasn't much he could say to that.
"I must go through the Stargate," it said abruptly.
"Why?" Rothman spoke up.
"If I remain here, my energy will disintegrate. I have already stayed too long. I must return."
Jack turned to Teal'c, and then to the archaeologist. "'Energy will disintegrate?' How does energy disintegrate? What's that mean?"
"You mean you'll die?" Rothman asked it.
Not-Daniel backed away a few steps until he hit a wall and slid down to a sitting position again. "I could hurt you. I do not wish to hurt you."
"Well, then...just don't," Jack said. "What do you mean--" Not-Daniel moaned, curling into himself. "Daniel?" he said before he could stop himself.
Electricity began to crackle through the being.
"Back, back!" Jack ordered, pushing Rothman into the farthest corner. "What the hell?"
XXXXX
26 April 1999; SGC, Earth; 1730 hrs
"...I know for certain that these crystals were deliberately destroyed," Sam said as they walked quickly toward her lab. "Teal'c and I suspect Jaffa staff weapons, but we can't be certain."
"Then that planet was attacked by the Goa'uld at some point," Daniel summarized.
"Probably."
"There's just no reason to destroy them all like that unless it was to deprive the people of some resource, or even just to prove a point to them, yes?" he said. "So that means those crystals were definitely of importance to the people of that planet. Jack and I were looking at a few intact crystals just before we were hit by...whoever it was, but when we woke up, some of them were missing. Clearly, those crystals are worth more than we believed. I think if we find out what they are, we'll know exactly what's going on."
Sam glanced at him once and didn't answer.
When the pause became unnerving, he said feebly, "But that's just what I think."
"No, yeah," she said, shaking her head. "You're right. It's just that the whole time after we got back, I was waiting for you to say something like that. I can't believe..." She shook her head again and rubbed the back of her neck. "I can't believe we left you two out there, Daniel. We should've known better."
"Yes, you should have," Daniel told her, because it stung more than a little that two of his closest friends had been fooled. Then he felt bad when she winced. "I mean. Did they act so much like us?"
As they entered the lab, she grimaced. "Well, not exactly, but we thought you and the colonel were...uh...sulking at each other, and Teal'c and I really didn't want to get in the middle of it. So, about this crystal," she said, then hurried toward her laptop.
Daniel frowned, feeling like he'd just been insulted--but Jack had been, too, so hah--but he followed Sam to the bench without further argument.
"This is the one I brought back," Sam explained. "It's damaged, but not so much that I couldn't piece it together. I've been continuously recording the energy readings for the last few hours. I'm gonna go over this data, but feel free to look around." She sat down before her computer, studying what she'd been working on before.
Daniel leaned in close. "It's odd. I keep thinking that I see something..." Flickering, maybe? Not exactly a light inside the crystal, nor movement, but something between the two. "Hello?" he said to it tentatively.
A strange, mild feeling washed over him, and then a face appeared in the stone.
"Ay!" He leapt back, heart pounding.
"What?" Sam said, standing up quickly and putting a hand on his shoulder.
"It's...it, it...uh, just..." Daniel pointed at the crystal, and then he laughed, finally realizing. "Sam, that's exactly what happened on P3X-562! I leaned in to look at one of them, and I said 'hi,' and then something hit us!"
"So you did it again? Daniel!" Sam pulled him around to look at his eyes.
"Well, I didn't know it was--Sam, get off; it didn't do anything this time, but--but...look!"
She looked at the crystal just in time to see the face shrinking back into nothingness and gasped. "Holy--!"
"It was me, Sam!" Daniel said excitedly. "See, it was imitating my face, and I felt something...I don't know, scanning me, maybe, but nothing like before, on the planet, so maybe that thing could imitate people, too, but it was stronger, or not as damaged, so it could make complete copies but it also hit us harder. Right?"
Sam stared at the crystal a little longer, and then looked back at him. "What?"
"Sam," Daniel complained, because she'd untangled sentences more convoluted than that before.
"Okay, I get it," she said, tapping a finger absently as she thought. "You're saying that the other 'Daniel' and 'Colonel O'Neill' we brought back were actually...simulacra created by the crystal you found? And if it could make complete electronic copies of us...well, the body's practically just a mass of electric signals, and we can probably be made to perceive the signals as what we expect to see. That's why it can imitate our actions or maybe even copy our thoughts."
Daniel heard 'copy' and shrugged off the rest as over his head but probably right. "Let's try it again. Maybe it can talk to us."
"No, no, no, I don't think so," she said, stepping in front of him as he was about to turn toward it again. He sighed, thinking she was being cautious, even though he'd just shown that it didn't hurt, but then she turned slightly and grinned at him. "My turn."
Sam bent over the crystal, hesitated, then said, "Hello?"
Even expecting it, they both still jumped as Sam's face appeared in the glistening blue stone, as if it had been carved from crystal, which it basically was, except for the carving part. "Hello," the crystal replied, and then, "Help us."
"Oh my God," Sam breathed, sharing a look with Daniel as he gestured for her to continue and tried not to bounce on the balls of his feet. They were talking to sentient alien crystals! "What are you?"
"Unity," the crystal said. "Energy. You would describe me thus."
"You asked for help," she said. "Why did you wait until now?"
The crystal that called its race Unity moved slightly, like it was swinging to face her. "Fear."
"Of what?" Daniel asked.
"Oh, of course," Sam said, understanding. "The Goa'uld. We thought it looked like the crystals had been destroyed by Goa'uld weapons."
"And we're human, so we look like Goa'uld hosts," Daniel said.
"Yes," the crystal said. "The Goa'uld came to our planet long ago. We were not afraid then, but when one of them touched us as you did, he was destroyed by our energy."
Daniel shivered, realizing for the first time that he and Jack could have suffered much worse than a few hours of unconsciousness and a headache. Realizing that... "Oh, gods," he said. "If the crystals were destroyed by Goa'uld weapons, and the crystals are actually life forms...those pits we found were actually some...some sort of..."
"Mass grave," Sam finished grimly, and Daniel's excitement dimmed.
"I must return," the Unity crystal said. "If I remain here, my energy will disintegrate."
"Disintegrate..." Sam repeated. Her eyes widened. "You mean...decay? Like..."
"I can no longer sustain this form," the crystal said, and then collapsed back into its previous shape.
"What?" Daniel asked Sam, but she was already walking back to her computer to look through whatever had been recorded there. "'Decay like...' what?"
"Uh oh," she said. "This crystal has been emitting ionizing particle radiation."
"What? They didn't test for radiation when you brought it back?"
"It's not constant, and not at dangerous levels, but if this crystal is emitting that, and your doppelgangers are more advanced forms of this energy..."
"Uh oh," Daniel echoed. "Is that dangerous?"
"This one, probably not," she said, her eyes narrowing, and he could almost see the visible shift from scientist doing research to soldier on a mission. "But with a greater dose...yes."
"Jack and Teal'c went to--"
"Yeah, I know," she said, snapping an order to someone in the back to get the Unity crystal transported to Isolation Two before she started walking out, talking to Daniel over her shoulder until he caught up to her. "And that's not the biggest problem; at least the other 'Daniel' is locked up somewhere. The other 'O'Neill,' on the other hand, could cause a lot of damage if he isn't found soon. Oh, hold on," she added, then ran back into her lab and came back out with something in her hand. "For radiation," she explained, showing him the sensor.
They reached the holding cell where Unity-Daniel was being kept. Sam nodded to the airman at the door, and when it opened, a choked scream issued from within.
Both of them darted in, just in time to see a crackle of electricity fade from Unity-Daniel's body as it huddled on the floor. It twitched again and lay still.
"Sir!" Sam said.
Robert was against the far wall, with Jack standing in front of him like a shield, while Teal'c hovered at the other end of the small cell and looked like he was wishing he'd brought a weapon. "Carter," Jack said. "I'm thinking we shouldn't be in here."
Daniel looked at his simulacrum again, which seemed to have fallen unconscious. Or whatever the equivalent was. Could a crystal be unconscious? "He was yelling," he said. "Is he hurt?"
"Sounded like it was gonna explode or something," Robert said, easing out from behind Jack. "It said it would hurt us when its energy started to decay..."
"Not explode," Sam interrupted. "It's talking about the radiation. As it deteriorates, it's emitting nuclear radiation. We need to bring all of the crystal life forms back to P3X-562--especially him and the fake 'O'Neill'--before someone's exposed to too much."
"Radiation?" Jack repeated.
She adjusted the meter in her hand. "Yes, sir. Levels look okay for now, but they'll go up again, I guarantee it."
"Peachy. Keep an eye on that, Captain. Did you two figure out what's going on?"
"We still don't understand why they came here and pretended to be us," Daniel said, "but we've communicated with one of the crystals in the lab."
Sam nodded. "Colonel, they were scared of us, because we look like the Goa'uld. They're victims, not the aggressors; their race was destroyed by the Goa'uld."
"Their race...of crystals?"
"Yes, sir, they seem to exist normally in that form," Sam said.
Jack only sighed, but his expression said, Of course they do.
"Well, apparently, they were trying to make up for hurting you guys," Robert explained, looking nervously at the simulacrum. "They actually seem to be trying very hard not to hurt anyone. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have been able to distinguish emotional from physical pain."
Daniel found his gaze drawn to Jack's. "Emotional from... That's why he was...asking about--"
"It," Jack corrected him, then said, "Yeah."
Unity-Daniel stirred, flopping slowly onto his back and blinking at the ceiling. Daniel pushed down the feeling of how odd it was to see himself like that, especially when it wasn't really himself, then knelt next to it. He reached out, then stopped halfway to the being's carotid artery, because it wasn't really there, was it, not the way it was for humans.
"Daniel, radiation is dangerous," Jack said sharply.
"It's not going to kill me," Daniel returned. "Sam said it's okay for now." The being's eyes turned toward him silently. "Hello?"
"You've got to stop doing that," Jack muttered, but it was halfhearted and he didn't make a move to stop anything, so Daniel ignored him.
"You have come to destroy me," Unity-Daniel said, scooting away from Daniel's reaching hand until it was scrunched against the wall.
"No, no," Daniel assured it, hands raised unthreateningly. "We know it was a...a misunderstanding. The Goa'uld are our enemy, too. We're going to help you get back home." He paused, realizing that no one had actually said that, and turned back. "We are, right?"
"Yeah, we will," Sam told him, while Jack looked like he'd very much like to get the aliens out of the base in whatever way he could.
"I only wished to help you," Unity-Daniel said.
"Um. Okay," Daniel said, knowing there had been some confusion but not quite understanding how anything was supposed to have been helped by doing this. "That's okay. It's better for everyone if you get home. So we're looking for the other being who came with you, but maybe we can send you through first until he's found."
"The other is still on this world."
"Yes, but we'll send him through as soon as--"
"I cannot leave while the other is still in danger."
Daniel frowned, realizing how alien and how alive these beings were all at once, beings that could feel fear and remorse and regret, and perhaps solidarity, too, despite being so different.
"In that case," Sam said, "you'll have to stay in a shielded isolation room until then or someone will be hurt."
Unity-Daniel met his eyes, then said, "I do not wish to hurt you. I will be isolated."
Taking that as agreement, Daniel stood and reached a hand down to it, but when the other hand grasped his forearm, something shivered through him again, and it was suddenly Skaara who rose to his feet.
"Dan'yel," Skaara's voice said.
"Whoa," Robert said as Daniel stumbled a few steps back.
"It's not him," Jack said immediately. "Daniel, that's not--"
"I know," Daniel said, staring at Skaara's warm, wide smile that could twitch into a smirk whenever he had a trick ready to play. "I know it's... um," he said, deliberately not looking into his brother's eyes. "You should...go to...uh..."
"Follow Airman Thomas," Jack interrupted, pulling Daniel aside to make room for Unity-Skaara to leave. The being looked at Jack and then smiled at Daniel again before making his way out.
"Iso Two," Sam told them as they left, and then the cramped holding cell sank back into uncomfortable silence.
"Well..." Daniel said when he couldn't stand it anymore. "So where's the other one?"
"General Hammond will know," Jack said and began to lead them all out, exchanging a glance with Teal'c that Daniel had learned to interpret as the 'stand guard and don't let Daniel touch anything' look. "They must've found him somewhere by now. Then we can get this damn day over with."
Robert caught up to Daniel just after they left the cell, however, and asked, "Who was that?"
"Skaara," he answered, hands in his pockets and eyes fixed on the briefing room ahead. "That's what he looks like, anyway."
"Oh," Robert said.
They reached the general just before another airman reported that the other 'O'Neill' was nowhere on the base.
"He left?" the general demanded, scowling. "Then he could be anywhere."
"Actually," Sam said, sounding uncomfortable, "I've been thinking. The beings said they were trying to heal some...perceived pain in each of you, and I saw it rifling through a box at your locker, sir. He was looking at a photograph."
Charlie, Daniel realized, because he'd glimpsed that box before, too. He turned to Jack with a sinking feeling, but Jack was already making his way to the nearest telephone and dialing.
"Come on," he muttered into the receiver. "Come on, Sara, pick up..."
A few seconds later, Jack slammed the receiver back down. "We've got to go after it."
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26 April 1999; SGC, Earth; 1930 hrs
"Where do you think you're going?" Jack asked.
Daniel looked up as he approached. "I'm not going with you to find the other crystal, Jack. I'm going to speak with the being in isolation here and see what we can learn about their experiences. They're making sure the radiation levels are safe first, so I'm just waiting for them to say it's okay. I want to start as soon as possible, before it gets too dangerous."
Jack gave him a sharp look. "The general told you to interrogate it?"
"He didn't ask me to. Everyone's content just sending them back. But I want to learn more about their race, and the general agreed to let me." It was unlikely, anyway, that the general would let him go with SG-1 to help deal with confused Tau'ri civilians and one confused P3X-562 being.
"And you're not doing this because it looks like your brother."
"No. Just...gathering information about an alien race. And Jack..."
"Daniel?"
He hesitated, then said carefully, "It can change shape, yeah? They think they're helping, but if it went looking for your wi--for Sara O'Neill, and...the box Sam saw it looking through... Just--I just mean, it might not look like Jack O'Neill anymore."
Jack stared at him, his expression unreadable so that Daniel couldn't tell if he had heard the 'Charlie' that Daniel was afraid to voice aloud, or, if he had heard it, what he was thinking now. Sam and Teal'c came around the corner then, and Jack finally nodded. "Yeah, I got it. Carter, the general?"
"He's on the phone with the local police, sir," Sam said. "They're checking Ms. O'Neill's house."
When General Hammond arrived, he took a quick look over all of them and said, "No one's at your wife's house, but one of the local hospitals admitted a J. O'Neill less than an hour ago."
"That's about when he would've start to break down," Sam said as Jack nodded and stepped into the elevator.x
"Be careful, SG-1," the general warned. "I'll notify the hospital and local officials while you're on your way. Good luck." The elevator doors closed and they began their ascent to the surface. The general turned to Daniel and warned, "If you want to talk to it, the electricity in that isolation room has been cut off to reduce damage. The radiation's still fine for now, but leave immediately if it becomes dangerous."
XXXXX
Daniel wished the being would take some other form. He supposed it probably didn't understand how emotions worked for humans, so it wasn't its fault, but it was unnerving, nonetheless, to see Skaara's body when he knew it was only an illusion. At least its mannerisms weren't quite right--Skaara was laughter and passion and movement, not this stillness that Unity was. He almost wanted to turn off his flashlight, but he supposed the technician in there with him, monitoring radiation levels, wouldn't appreciate being plunged into pitch blackness with a radioactive alien organism.
"Were there once many of your kind on your planet?" Daniel asked.
Unity seemed to think before saying, "It is impossible to quantify as you would count us. We are energy."
Of course. They called themselves 'Unity,' after all. "You mean that you're not separate entities, but rather one continuous life form?"
"We are distinct entities," it said, "but we are not separate."
"You're connected? Aware of each other, even?"
Unity tilted its head. "Yes."
(Telepathic?) Daniel scribbled into his notepad, like he wasn't talking to someone who was dying, or close to it, in whatever sense death applied to it. (Aware of each other but consider each other distinct entities.)
Electricity crackled through Unity again, and it curled around itself as the technician tensed and looked at the energy readings on his handheld sensor. Daniel winced, wanting to do something--to comfort, maybe--but was stopped by the knowledge that his touch would only hurt himself and probably would not help at all.
When Unity stilled again, panting softly--(did it have lungs? Was it acting the way it thought it should, based on human expectation?)--Daniel crouched next to him and carefully touched his arm, almost surprised that it felt like skin and not stone. A jolt made him snatch his hand back, but it was no worse than the tiny shock of touching a metal railing sometimes, and when he tried again, nothing happened.
Unity looked up at him and said, in Abydonian, "I do not wish to hurt you."
"Mr. Jackson," the technician said, motioning him back. Reluctantly, Daniel let go and shuffled a few steps backward until he was sitting against the wall, separated from Unity by an arm's length.
"Let us take you back," Daniel told it, seeing no reason to force it to speak in English if it didn't want to. It was taking the language from his brain, presumably, so it really didn't matter at all.
"No. There is still another of us on your planet."s
"They are looking for the other now. We will take him back also."
Unity shook its head. "I cannot leave while he is still in danger."
Daniel leaned back, thinking. No one was to be left behind. Were its motivations its own, or were they the motivations of the person whose mind it had scanned? Did the crystals that made up Unity--what they had taken to be no more than inanimate objects--hold ideals and principles similar to those of humans?
"Why do you exist now in this form?" he asked. "Do you normally exist as crystals? How do you choose a form to take?"
"I believed I could heal your--"
"Yes, you said that. You wanted to heal us," Daniel interrupted, but a tiny part of him was disappointed that this alien creature was showing him his brother, who was alive and could still be saved, instead of his parents, whom he would never otherwise see again. Did that mean he no longer grieved them, despite the ache that had never quite gone away? Had he somehow left his parents behind? A strange feeling washed over him again, and he recognized it, now--it was the energy of Unity, how they read through a person's mind and thoughts to be able to mimic them. "Stop that," he said sharply.
Immediately, the feeling stopped, and Unity tilted its head at him again. "You regret your actions. There was nothing you could do for Claire and Mel. You are uncertain about the others. Skaara, Sha'uri."
Daniel furrowed his brow. "What could I have done for them?"
But there were, of course, things he could have done differently when he'd seen his brother and sister last. On Klorel's hatak, he could have acted faster and used his zat'nik'tel on Skaara, perhaps even saved him despite the destruction of the ships, brought him to Earth until Thor's Hammer was rebuilt. He could have made decisions faster, walked faster, held tighter, fought harder when they'd found Sha'uri on Abydos.
Unity watched him, and Daniel wondered uneasily whether it could see into his mind all the time, even when he didn't feel it happening.
He picked up his pen again and determinedly wrote, (Can access thoughts/memories. Not all at once? Of only one person? Repeatedly scans subject's mind. For confirmation? To refine conclusions?).
"You cannot change what happened to them," Unity told him calmly, "just as I cannot change the fate that befell my people. I wished to help you see that."
Daniel cleared his throat and switched languages again, because this was gathering information that might be useful to the SGC, not seeking answers for himself, and maybe it would be easier if he stuck with the Tau'ri tongue.
"How long ago did the Goa'uld go to your planet?" Daniel asked.
As if responding to his cue (and of course that was what it was doing; it had looked into his mind, after all, and spoke and acted based on what it had observed from human behavior and from his neural systems), Unity answered in English, "I do not know how to express that quantity."
"Well...how many...uh, revolutions around the sun? Or perhaps, how many..." generations, he almost said, but how would they correlate a crystal's generation to Tau'ri years?
"A long time," Unity said. "We do not perceive as you do."
"Right. I understand. Do you know which Goa'uld it was?"
"His mind was destroyed when we touched him with our energy," Unity said.
Daniel grimaced, but scribbled (male Goa'uld?) even though it barely narrowed the possibilities at all, and Goa'uld could take hosts of either gender. Then he added, (assuming that Unity perceives gender as we do). "I'm sorry for your people's loss," he offered. "But you do not die, not the same way that we do. Yes?"
"Yes. Physical death does not have the same meaning for us."
"Then, when the Jaffa attempted to destroy you," Daniel said, thinking of Sam's cracked crystal that had still been imbued with some sort of life even though it had been found in pieces, "they did not truly succeed?"
Unity blinked. "They are not gone forever," he said, and the whispering brush swept again across his mind. "Nor are those you have lost gone."
"Please stop doing that," Daniel said again, raising his free hand. His thoughts and the losses therein were his own. The technician took a step forward, but Daniel shook his head and held up a hand to say no intervention was needed.
"Are you not happy to see your brother again?" Unity said, smiling Skaara's smile the way he smiled in Daniel's memories. "Your protector?"
Gods, yes. And no. Of course, yes, but not.
Unity reached out tentatively and touched Skaara's band around Daniel's wrist. Daniel jumped up and backed away, raising his hands defensively in front of himself. "Don't. That's...that's, uh...personal boundaries, and...our culture doesn't like that. Without permission. Just, don't."
And it was only then that he realized that Skaara might still be alive, but this part that the Unity being imitated was gone forever. If Skaara could be saved, would he smile again, as easily and as fully? Would he remember what had been done using his body? And Skaara, who had shielded him from children who looked oddly at the foreign little boy with light hair, the brother who dragged him inside before a sandstorm hit the village...
There was so much more to fear now than jeers and storms, and Skaara couldn't be Daniel's protector anymore, not that way. For all he knew, the brother he had once known might be as good as--
Unity gasped and Daniel took another step back in alarm when electricity suffused him. This time, it was beginning to look more like lightning than a simple static shock.
"Radiation levels are rising," the technician said. "It's too dangerous to stay any longer."
"We'll take you back. Soon," Daniel promised loudly over the sound of muffled cries, then reluctantly left the room again, wincing. "Hold on."
XXXXX
26 April 1999; P3X-562; 2100 hrs
When they stepped back onto P3X-562, the bit of Unity who looked like Skaara sighed and raised its face to the sun, like it was really Skaara returning to his desert home on Abydos. Then Daniel saw Jack watching the Charlie simulacrum do the same, and the illusion faded quickly.
The wormhole closed behind them. The Unity they had brought back seemed content to remain as they currently were, now that they were back on the planet and there was no more danger of being torn apart by Earth's electromagnetic field. Daniel half-expected them to walk away, back to where they'd taken human form, and leave him and Jack to turn around immediately to return to Earth.
"You may stay if you want," Unity-Charlie said.
"You are welcome here," Unity-Skaara added.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Jack answered, not looking away from his son's face. Daniel tried to imagine that face with a baseball cap over it, the hand in Jack's hand holding a wooden bat, like that photo of Charlie in Jack's house. Neither of them moved to turn and redial the DHD, however, and Jack conceded, "We've got an hour before the general starts to yell at someone. We'll walk you back."
Unity-Charlie wormed a hand into Jack's. Jack paused, his gaze shifting from the boy's face to their entwined hands, then grasped it firmly, gently, tightly. A hand on Daniel's shoulder reminded him of Unity-Skaara, and for a moment, he wanted to pull away, but there was a possibility that this might be the last time he'd feel it, even if it was fake. Maybe he could pretend, just for a few minutes.
He and Jack didn't speak on the way back to the pit, and the Unity didn't try to make them.
It wasn't long before they'd reached the place again, following their tracks until they could see the indentations where they'd been thrown into the sand.
"Thank you," both Unity-beings said simultaneously, and Daniel was reminded yet again of how far they were from human. It didn't stop him from clutching Skaara's hand one more time, feeling the familiar calluses on his hand that he knew had probably already faded on the real Skaara, the one who hadn't been molded from Daniel's memory. Jack hadn't let go yet, either.
It was the being that looked like Skaara who spoke first. It turned to Jack and said, "O'Neill."
"What?" Jack said, partly wary and partly not really caring or paying attention anymore.
There was a pause, and Daniel thought maybe it was thinking, trying to pull out a memory of how Skaara would have spoken with Jack O'Neill, besides knowing the legendary name, but he knew there wasn't much to find in either of their memories. As if acknowledging that, Unity-Skaara only bowed to Jack, clapped Daniel on the shoulder, and withdrew, waiting for the other to follow.
Unity-Charlie didn't speak at all, but looked up at Jack with serious eyes that didn't fit a little boy's face, but maybe they did, and Daniel just didn't know--hadn't known--Charlie to be able to judge. All he knew was that the solemn figure looking up at Jack didn't look like the one who Jack said had loved to laugh and play. Because he wasn't Charlie O'Neill, just like the Unity-Skaara wasn't actually Skaara. The sooner they stopped wearing those faces, the easier it would be to remember that fact.
Jack slowly let go of Unity-Charlie's hand. Unity-Skaara took his place, holding Unity-Charlie's hand in his own. "We should let them..." he started.
"Wait," Daniel blurted, but he didn't have anything to say. Charlie's eyes turned to him for a moment, and Skaara's, too, and he took a deliberate step back, level with Jack as the other two watched them, hand-in-hand. "Right. Yes. Sorry. You should..." He could only gesture toward the partially damaged crystals around them, since there wasn't a proper verb that described the action of turning from a humanoid simulacrum back into a crystal.
"Go on," Jack said.
The beings walked together back to their starting place and, in a dizzying blur, they disappeared and left only two blue crystals behind.
"Huh," Jack said, staring.
"Yeah," Daniel agreed. "Do we...really have an hour before we need to go back?"
It took a few more seconds, but finally, Jack turned to him. "Yeah. Wanna stick around for a while? If we go back, we'll just have reports to write. Doc'll want to run tests to make sure we didn't get fried too much." He hesitated, then said, "I mean, unless you don't feel well..."
"Let's stay a little bit," Daniel interrupted, because he could stand a small, lingering headache if it meant they didn't have to go back and face reality yet, and he let Jack's hand clasp his shoulder and lead him back toward the Stargate. He took a seat in the sand, leaning back against the rim of the Stargate, and this time, Jack sat, too, on the other side. He thought the sun should be setting, just to fit their mood, if nothing else, which was ridiculous and a bit stupid, but the way it burned bright from overhead made the crystals glitter too much to ignore.
"You learn anything?" Jack asked.
"About their race?"
Jack shrugged. "Sure."
"Their perception of the world is very different from ours," Daniel said. "It wasn't able to tell me how long ago they were attacked or by whom. But their race isn't really dead so much as...damaged, I think; they don't seem to experience death the same way humans do."
And then he winced, because wasn't that like saying the crystals weren't dead, not the way Charlie was?
"He wasn't really like that," Jack said, slipping on sunglasses against the glare and leaving his eyes completely hidden. "What you saw today, that wasn't...him. My kid. Could never get him to be serious if we tried."
"No, I never imagined he was like that," Daniel said, pulling his legs toward himself and resting his head sideways on his knees, so he could see Jack. He wished he could say something like that about Skaara, but, for all he knew, Skaara truly was always serious now. "You said Charlie liked playing games?"
"He loved playing," Jack said. "Baseball, especially."
"I guessed that." From a photo in the house, from the way Jack looked at Rya'c when he laughed holding a baseball bat, from the way Jack sometimes saw a baseball game on the television, checked the score, and flipped away to settle on a hockey game instead, but always, always knew how the Chicago Cubs were faring against other teams. "How is...Sara O'Neill?" Daniel asked, not really sure what to call her. Had she kept Jack's name? Was there a term for a former spouse?
Jack made a face. "She'll be okay. She's strong. Little shaken. That hospital we went to...it was where we brought him when he...you know. At the end."
"Oh," Daniel said, and was glad this time that he couldn't say anything like that about Skaara, because at least Skaara--and Sha'uri, and Shifu--was still alive. Charlie, named for free men, was dead; Skaara, named for a field of dead, was alive but not free. He tried to read Jack's expression but couldn't for the sunglasses. "You miss him."
"Oh, yeah," Jack said quietly.
"It's okay," Daniel said, which didn't mean anything, really, but it made Jack give him a half-smile anyway.
"We'll find him," Jack said, and it wasn't Charlie anymore. "Them."
Daniel pursed his lips. "Mm."
"We will."
Jack didn't say things he didn't mean. Daniel had come to realize, however, that sincerity didn't mean it was true or that it would really happen. But he'd also realized that sometimes it was necessary to say it and to believe it, because they all needed something to fight for. Without that, it would be all too easy for everything to become meaningless, no matter how much they fought or translated or studied.
A war was fought by and for and against multitudes, and they needed a few faces, at least, that meant something more, to keep their friends and allies and enemies from becoming faceless masses. SG personnel were deployed as teams, and they protected each other and complemented each other, but they also grounded each other, reminded each other of why they were fighting and why they had to--why they would--win.
"I know we will," Daniel said.
"If you want to go back to Abydos," Jack said abruptly, "you're not obligated to stay until we find them, you know. We'll keep looking, even if you're not at the SGC. I'll keep looking. That's a promise."
He frowned, trying to process that statement that seemed to have come out of nowhere. "What?" he asked, bewildered and a little indignant as he straightened to stare properly. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I talked to the...crystal guy when it still looked like you," Jack said. "It said you wanted to go home, but that you couldn't because you were still looking for Skaara and Sha'uri."
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "It...it said that?"
"Yep."
He considered the words carefully, examining motivations that he hadn't reexamined in a long time. "It used to be like that," he admitted. It still was, to some extent, but it wasn't as clear anymore. He'd become an adult at the SGC and found his place there. He had lived in Nagada as his parents' son, a student, but still a child, and he wasn't sure who or what he would be if he went back now. "But even when we find them, and I go back...they won't be the same. Abydos isn't the same, and I'm not, either. I'm not expecting that anymore."
"No, it won't be the same, but you still love the place, Daniel. You can go back if you want."
"Well, it's not that simple. If it were, wouldn't you go back to be with your former wife, then?" he asked. He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, because it sounded harsh, even cruel, even though he hadn't meant it to.
Jack stared at him through darkened lenses.
"Sorry," Daniel said. "I didn't mean for it to sound so...but it's not that simple, is it? Going back?"
"It was a different life," Jack acknowledged for both of them.
"Yes." He thought that over a second longer and asked, "Would you change it?"
"Can't," Jack said succinctly.
"If you could?"
"Can't change what happened," Jack repeated.
"I know, Jack, but..." He stopped. "Okay."
"Don't think too much about 'what if,' Daniel," Jack told him seriously. "It is what it is."
Daniel nodded, not in agreement so much in acceptance of that viewpoint. It was probably good advice, but he couldn't not think about it, about what the consequences might have been if the Abydos 'gate had never been unburied, if so many things hadn't happened.
"Jinx," Daniel said suddenly. Jack looked at him sideways, and Daniel gave him a small smile to show he was mostly joking. "We have the strangest missions together."
Jack snorted. "Well, they end okay." He squinted upward, then said, "Days must be long on this planet. Why won't the damn sun just set, already? Ruins the mood."
Daniel laughed softly at the repetition of his own sentiments. "It's nighttime back home," he pointed out.
"Yeah." Jack stood with an exaggerated groan. "All right. Time to face the music. Dial it up, Daniel; let's go home."
Next chapter: Epilogue ("Stories")