I Dreamed of Abydos Last Night
Part 3
Chapter 14
Ida Galaxy, aboard the Asgard vessel Leidang One
Teal'c watched Major Carter as she talked to the Asgard ship's captain they had both come to despise. She clutched the side of the table she stood behind, weariness and tension at war in her expression. She'd lost weight, and there were deep shadows around her eyes. Their kidnapping—for it was nothing less than a kidnapping—the endless battle with the replicators, the race to help the Asgard find the weapon they needed, the constant pleading with Captain Tyr and the others, the worry for O'Neill and Earth—all these things had taken a toll on them both.
Teal'c, too, had to admit to exhaustion. After the first five weeks his supply of Tretonin had finally run out, and the synthesized version the Asgard had come up with had never felt quite right to him. He tired more quickly, and his reflexes seemed slower. Or perhaps he chafed against months of virtual captivity while he and Major Carter fought repeated replicator incursions into this ship and the others that journeyed with it, while Major Carter spent endless hours with the Asgard scientists studying the translated Ancient text from the Antarctica post and attempting to deconstruct a device found there that they had all suspected was related to the weapon they sought. The irony was, Teal'c thought now, he and Major Carter would have done all these things gladly if they had been asked.
They had not been.
"We've finished the weapon," Sam was saying. "What more do you want from us? Teal'c and I have fought against the replicator incursions in these three ships, day after day for months. You don't need us any more. We had a deal. You bring us to Thor or you take us home now and help Colonel O'Neill.
"The weapon has yet to be tested, but should it prove effective, I am afraid we still will not be able to let you go home."
Teal'c stood up straighter than he had been and swore. "What is the meaning of this? What prevents you from honoring your commitment?"
Tyr looked at Teal'c calmly. They both knew that should Teal'c threaten the much smaller being, a touch of the console before him could trap Teal'c in a force field or otherwise render him helpless. "The High Council would frown on our treatment of you, I am afraid, although we all know it was necessary to our survival as a race. They have time and again put abstract ideals ahead of reality. I believe this time would be no different. We are not willing to accept the punishment that would most certainly occur."
Sam made a strangled sound of frustration and slammed her hand down on the table.
"Have you so little honor, Captain Tyr, that you would sacrifice us to your cause before yourselves?" Teal'c said, almost with disbelief despite having long since become aware of Tyr's lack of character.
"We believe that we can better serve the Asgard people if we are free to act as we have been. The prototype weapon is evidence of that."
Sam, voicing Teal'c's earlier thoughts, sighed in exasperation. "You didn't have to kidnap us to get our help, Tyr. Do you honestly believe that either Teal'c or I would have helped you if we didn't believe that it was the right thing to do? Do you think we would have done the same for anyone? For the Goa'uld?"
Tyr gave one slow nod of his head. "Perhaps other methods may have succeeded as well, but I am afraid that is irrelevant now. You will not be mistreated..."
A beeping sound came from the console, and Tyr turned his attention to the message coming through. "Commander Thor has arrived. We will now discover if our weapon will be effective. Major Carter and Teal'c, I am transferring you to your quarters until..."
A blue light flashed and Thor appeared on the bridge. "That will not be necessary, Captain Tyr. Major Carter and Teal'c, on behalf of the Asgard High Council, I apologize for the actions of Captain Tyr and offer our deepest gratitude for what we now realize were your efforts on our behalf.
Teal'c, who quickly recovered from his surprise, nodded gravely. Sam stared for a moment before she managed, "Thor!" Then she almost sagged with relief.
"Captain Tyr," Thor said, "we have tested the weapon against a replicator incursion on one of our vessels, and it has proved successful. We have created larger versions of the weapon capable of broadcasting a disruption wave over large segments of the galaxy. I have transferred one such version to your ship. When and if the replicators are eradicated, you will answer to the Council for your methods.
Tyr walked from behind the console. "My methods, Commander Thor?" he sputtered. "It is those methods that have resulted in our salvation!"
Thor responded icily, "Captain Tyr, you may save your arguments for the High Council. Right now you must transmit the coordinates I have sent you to your sister ships. This assault on the replicators must be carried out with the utmost precision. Major Carter, Teal'c, I assume you would like to leave this vessel and return with me while we carry out what we hope will be the final battle for the Ida Galaxy."
"Yes, please, Thor. I can't believe you've finally come. Once you've used the weapon, we need to return to Earth as soon as possible. Colonel O'Neill needs your help."
A look passed across Thor's face that Teal'c could not interpret, although he had over time learned to see the nuances of expression in the alien visage. Then Thor turned and gave what could only be described as a glare in Tyr's direction. Tyr busied himself with the console.
"Major Carter, we will indeed return you to Earth as soon as we are able, and I will immediately transmit the information that you and Teal'c are safe. I would return you now, but I believe that my presence is still necessary here—if you will consent to waiting until the battle is successfully won.
Teal'c and Sam both nodded. "Of course, Thor," Sam said. "We will see the battle through, but..."
Thor, uncharacteristically, cut her off. "That is well. The weapon is very powerful, but the replicators have infiltrated the far reaches of our galaxy, and we must ascertain that not one survives. In the meantime, I'm afraid we have much to discuss. We must depart now."
As the blue light enveloped them, Sam and Teal'c looked at each with consternation at the ominous tone of the Asgard supreme commander's words. It could only mean one thing. All was not well on Earth.
SGC, Control Room, two days later
Walter tapped the headphones and eyed the console again, not ready to believe the message that was being transmitted from the team now stationed at the most remote SGC outpost: Byliason.
"Repeat your message, please," he said.
The other two men in the room, Sergeant Humprheys and Hank Golden, a civilian consultant running a diagnostic on some of the systems, stopped what they were doing, sensing that something big was happening.
As Walter listened, an large smile appeared on his face. "Hold, please, for General Landry," he said. He rose and went to the phone on the wall and picked it up. "General Landry," he said, when the head of the SGC answered the phone himself, "we've received a message from Byliason that I believe you would like to hear yourself... Yes, sir."
Walter went and sat back at his station and looked back and up toward the general's office to see him coming around and down the steps.
"Walter," Humphreys whispered impatiently. "What the hell is it?"
Walter just shook his head and grinned at the former college football linebacker leaning over him, unfazed by the man's bulk.
Landry came into the room. "Go ahead," he said. "Put them through."
The sound of static and feedback they'd become used to from Byliason transmissions came through first, and then a tinny voice. "General Landry, sir, this is Captain Arssinian. We have received a signal from Commander Thor, sir. It reads, 'Major Carter and Teal'c are safe and aboard the Daniel Jackson. We will return to Earth within two of your weeks.' Over.
There was a stunned silence in the Control Room, and Walter's grin grew even broader. Then Humphreys whispered, "Holy sh**," forgetting the general standing not three feet away, and Golden, who'd worked with Carter on a dozen projects in the past, fell back into his chair as if his legs wouldn't hold him.
"Well I'll be damned," Landry said, and he started to smile as well. "Well, I'll be damned," he repeated. Then he leaned into the mike: "Transmission received, Captain. Good work. Expect a little something extra in your paycheck."
"Yes, sir," Arssinian said, and Walter could tell the veteran SGC captain was smiling as well. "Thank you, sir."
Then Landry turned to his aide, who was hovering at the top of the staircase. "Airman," he bellowed, "get me George Hammond on the line now!"
Brazilian rainforest, Upper Xingu Dig 17
Daniel didn't forget his promise to Elena that he would stay for as long as he could, but the night of the day Rava was found, he packed a bag to keep under his cot, with a change of clothes, food, water, a knife, bandages, rope, a small first-aid kit, pretty much whatever he could reproduce from the gear he would bring off-world. And he started to spend the time he should have spent months ago planning an escape route: a small boat down the river, disappearing into the rainforest, the transport trucks out of the mining and lumber camps...
He needed to be ready. And for the first time, he found that he was restless, as if stepping in front of the guns had reminded him that there were still Goa'uld in the universe, that there was something else he should be doing, was meant to do. And he started to have the dream again, of Sam and Teal'c calling out his name. He wondered if, after all these months, they had made their way home or if they were still stranded light years away. He wondered if there was a way to find out.
But then he thought, suddenly, of how he'd once had everything, and how his restlessness, his inability to accept life as it was, had destroyed that life and taken Sha're's.
And he remembered, again, Hammond telling him it would be a long time, perhaps forever, before he could stop running and he felt again the hands on his head as he waited for the blond killer to snap his neck, and he knew his chance of returning to the SGC, of helping to find Sam and Teal'c, of even finding anything out about Sam and Teal'c, was as remote as it was the day he left Colorado Springs. No, if he left here—when he left here—it would only to be to find another place to hide.
He wasn't ready to be that alone again. He wasn't ready to start over. He wasn't ready to leave Elena.
So Daniel tried to let himself just be for a little while longer. He worked in the ditches, sometimes still losing himself in the painstaking, meticulous process of excavation; he sat with the others in the evening, Elena close by his side throwing in the occasional lazy comment, listening to the students talk about everything from history to astronomy to where they hoped to go next to popular films he'd never heard of to the meals they'd have as soon as they left. He went for walks in the rainforest when the weather was too threatening to work, trying to commit the sounds, smells and sights to memory, spotting a tiny but brilliantly colored poison dart frog or a spider monkey and her baby jumping from tree to tree high in the canopy. And at night he and Elena would lie, tangled together, unwilling to let go, knowing their days together were numbered.
In the meantime, on the surface, everything went on as before. Manoel and Elena were thrilled with the progress of the dig. The surface they had discovered in Section 17 was almost certainly the remains of a major roadway, and they had uncovered a trove of cooking elements and even what looked like children's toys in Sections 4 and 6.
The German girls left and another Brazilian student arrived. Evones shot another snake.
The Kaipo men continued to show up to work, first offering solemn apologies for their suspicions and then, to everyone's relief, acting as if their brothers had not just threatened the lives of the rest of the people in the camp. And then the children came back, perhaps more wary of the foreigners now, and much more careful, but still managing to brighten everyone's day with their antics. Even Manoel, who grouched whenever they appeared, seemed secretly pleased that they felt safe enough to be there.
Daniel felt himself settling in, relaxing just a little. Even Saunders seemed to be glaring at him less. He'd gone to Altamira for his monthly R&R and returned calmer somehow. And the fact that nothing terrible had occurred upon his return, no police, no men with guns, no one coming to haul Daniel away, had been a good sign: maybe the man was letting go.
And one day Rava, almost two weeks after that horrible night, had returned, holding her father's hand, walking gingerly, looking sad but unafraid. Daniel had gone to talk to the man, and he had said that his daughter had asked to come, and he wondered if they could sit in the kitchen for a while so that Rava could watch the other children play. Daniel had said of course, and had walked them to the kitchen. He'd washed the dirt from his hands and prepared a plate of cookies, fruit and bread for them—he knew the Kaipo would never have a guest without providing food—and poured some sweet tea for Rava and coffee for himself and her father. When he sat down, Rava smiled at him and said, quietly, so he could barely hear her over the sound of the generator, "Olá, Jacques." Daniel smiled back. "Hello, little one," he replied in Portuguese and then in Kaipo. "I am glad to see you here." She smiled again, shyly, and her father nodded at him. They sat companionably for a while, Rava's father—Iriho, he said to call him—asking about what they'd found on the dig and Rava occasionally giggling at the other children or exclaiming at one thing or another.
Then Jens had appeared before them, looking both hesitant and determined. Rava had smiled up at him, but Jens seemed afraid to smile back, and her smile faded.
Daniel looked questioningly at Iriho, who just shrugged, so he said, "Jens, why don't you join us? I'm sure Rava would like that."
Jens bent his long form onto the bench across from them and looked nervously from Iriho to Rava.
"Jacques, I wanted to explain to her father," he started to say in English, which he was more comfortable speaking than Portuguese.
"I don't think there's anything to explain, Jens," Daniel said.
"Still," Jens said.
Daniel turned to Iriho and said a few words, and the man nodded.
"Rava and I were talking about all the plants in the rainforest that can help people—it's a subject that fascinates me—and she offered to show me the ones she knew. There was nothing, I mean, you know there was nothing wrong about it."
Daniel said, "We know, Jens. and then translated as best he could for Rava's father.
Jens continued, talking faster. "I asked her to show me more later and promised her a sweet; I meant another day, Jacques. I never imagined she would come back out at night. She speaks so little Portuguese and only a few words of English... I don't know how..." Jens stopped, the distress evident in his voice.
Before Daniel could translate, Iriho started to speak. When he was done, Daniel turned to Jens. "He says that he knows you are not to blame, Jens. He said Rava told him you were very nice and very tall and liked to talk about plants and she knows you would never harm her."
Jens let out a breath in relief, and Rava, who had listened to her father's words, smiled up at him and held out a cookie. "Bis-kit?" she said.
Jens finally let himself smile at his young friend. "Yes, Rava," he said in English, "very good, that's a biscuit. And thank you!" Then he popped the whole thing in his mouth and chewed enthusiastically, causing Rava to giggle appreciatively.
Daniel and Iriho had laughed as well, and he felt Elena's hands on his shoulders and he could feel her laughing too, and then four of the Kaipo boys had run up demanding cookies also, one of them clambering onto Daniel's lap, and for a moment Daniel had the strangest sense of belonging, of family.
He heard someone clear his throat behind him, and he turned, still smiling, expecting to see Manoel impatiently waiting for them all to return to work. But it wasn't Manoel, it was Saunders, looking grim.
"Perrault," he said. "I need to talk to you. Now."
The smile fell from Daniel's face and his heart plummeted.
Just like that, it was over.
Chapter 15
Daniel, his arm still wrapped around the small boy on his lap, turned toward Saunders, who was at Elena's side. Elena was looking at Saunders with her eyebrows raised, her expression telegraphing both irritation and curiosity.
"Is there such an need to be rude, Mr. Saunders?" she said, addressing him in English, since that was how he spoke to Daniel. "And what business do you have with Jacques?"
Daniel plastered a smile on his face and reached back to squeeze one of Elena's hands, which were still on his shoulders. "It's all right, Elena," he said. "You didn't hire Reggie for his manners, right Reggie?"
Saunders gave his own false smile. "That's right. I didn't mean to be rude. There's just something I need to discuss with Perrault here."
Daniel felt dread creeping up his spine. "No, problem, Reggie," he said, trying to maintain his casual tone. He let go of Elena's hand and lifted the boy gently off his lap. Jens continued to goof around with the other children, oblivious to the drama taking place before them. "Excuse me, please," Daniel said in Kaipo to Iriho, whose eyes moved alertly back and forth between Daniel and Saunders, understanding the tension if not the words, and then Daniel rose, letting Elena's hands slide off his shoulders.
"Jacques?" Elena said, and he knew she wasn't fooled by his false cheerfulness. He smiled at her anyway, a real smile thanking her for caring. "I won't be long," he said in Portuguese.
Daniel and Saunders moved away to stand between the kitchen and the lab. With the generator going, they knew no one would be able to hear what they had to say. Out from the protection of the kitchen roof, the sun beat down on their heads, and Daniel felt a drop of sweat roll down his back.
"Look, Perrault," Saunders spoke in almost a rush of words, "I was mad about you grabbing my gun that morning. I thought you could have gotten all of us killed. And I really began to think that you might be dangerous, that you were hiding too much..." Saunders stopped, as if waiting for Daniel to admit he was right, but Daniel stayed quiet. Jack would be proud, the thought flitted through his mind and was gone.
Saunders cleared his throat. "Anyway," he said, "I was just watching you there, with the Kaipo kids, and Elena beaming like that, that Danish kid laughing, and even you looking... happy, I guess..."
Saunders's words petered out again, and Daniel finally said, "What is it you're trying to say, Reggie?"
"I was wrong," Saunders said, bluntly. "All right? I know I was wrong. My ego was bruised, and I wanted to be right, but I know I wasn't. You're not dangerous, at least not to the people here, and if it wasn't for you, I'd probably be dead right now."
Daniel let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Is that all this was, an apology? He wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry, he'd been that scared. "Reggie," he started to say, to tell him it was O.K., but Saunders wasn't done.
"So I did something, and I think maybe I shouldn't have. Because I realized after I did it that maybe you weren't just hiding from the past, like most of us, but maybe you were actually hiding. And if you are, then what right did I have to mess that up?"
Daniel felt his heart sink again. "What exactly did you do, Reggie?" he asked.
Saunders looked away from Daniel's face and then back again. "I had a friend run your fingerprints. I haven't heard back yet, but..."
Daniel had the strange sensation of everything coming to a stop. The sound of the generator faded to nothing, a pair of blue and yellow macaws was suspended in midair, Charles and Ana, on their way to the kitchen froze midstep. Only Saunders's mouth kept moving, his words low and garbled. Then everything sped up again, and Daniel blinked. He realized he hadn't been breathing, and took in a lungful of humid air and blew it out slowly.
"When?" he said, his voice sounding flat and strange to his own ears.
"Three days ago, right before I left Altamira," Saunders said.
Three days? Daniel felt another flash of fear, terror, really if he'd admit that to himself. But maybe the people who hid him had purged his fingerprints from the computer databases; he thought it could be done; Sam would have been able to do it.
He forced his voice to take the same steady, inflectionless tone as before and asked, "Anything else?"
"Yeah," Saunders admitted. "I had him query government agencies for someone with a military background, who was also an archaeologist and a..." he stumbled over the phrase, "a guy who's good with languages."
Daniel closed his eyes. Almost without thinking, he let the word slip out: "Linguist," he whispered, his voice barely audible above the sound of the generator.
"Yeah," Saunders said. "That's it."
Saunders, watching Perrault closely as he told him what he had done, saw first fear in the archaeologist's eyes, then defeat. The man nodded at him almost as if he were in a daze, then looked toward where Elena was standing. Elena, who had been watching also, took a step in their direction and then stopped, seeing something, Saunders thought, in Perrault's eyes. Elena's own eyes widened, and she shook her head, and Perrault's face seemed almost to crumple. Crap, Reggie thought. Crap, I really screwed up here.
Then Perrault turned back to Saunders, his features already a blank, and said, his voice still steady but a little hoarse, "Thank you for telling me, Reggie. I have to go." He started to walk away, toward his tent, but then stopped and his shoulders slumped as if with some new realization. "You need to warn your friend, Reggie," he said, not looking back. "It may already be too late if they've found him. I'm sorry."
Saunders stared after Perrault as walked away. Jesus, he thought. Jesus. Had he just gotten his friend in Altamira killed? Hanson was a good guy, had gotten him this job. What the hell had he stepped into? He watched as Perrault ducked into his tent, and he watched Elena follow him in. A few moments later Perrault came out with a fully loaded pack, Elena still behind him. She grabbed Perrault's arm, and he stopped and looked down at her. Saunders couldn't hear what they were saying, but he knew they were arguing. Jacques dropped his pack, suddenly, then reached up and took Elena's face lightly between his hands. Elena started to pull away, but instead just put her hands on his arms and listened to whatever he had to say. Then she pushed his arms down and stepped back. She was shouting, now, and Saunders could hear her.
"They're not enough, Jacques. Your fu**ing words aren't enough, not for this." Then she spun around and walked away.
The people in the kitchen, including Ana and Charles now, stopped what they were doing, and Saunders saw Manoel stand up from where he was working at the site and look in their direction.
Perrault ignored them all, watching Elena's back until she disappeared over the rise toward the river. He continued to stare in her direction even after she was out of sight, and Saunders had to look away from the expression on his face, the pain so close to the surface Saunders could almost feel it from where he stood. When Saunders looked back, Perrault had picked up his pack and thrown it over his shoulder and was headed in the other direction, past the dig and straight for the rainforest. Manoel yelled something to him as he went by, but Perrault just shook his head and kept walking. Saunders figured he'd never see the man again.
Suddenly, though, Perrault stopped and looked up into the sky as if searching for something, and then Saunders heard it too: the unmistakable staccato beat of a helicopter rotor.
Three days, Daniel thought. Three days. He'd stayed too long, and he knew it, and now... He ducked into his tent and grabbed his pack from under his cot. He heard someone come in behind him, and he knew it was her, but he didn't turn around. He went to shove his journal into the top of his pack, and the three photographs inside fluttered to the floor. He picked up two of them and turned to get the third, but Elena was faster. She stood up and ran her finger lightly over the picture of him as a little boy with his parents in Egypt. She looked at him then. "Is this your parents?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"And you?"
"Yes."
"May I see the others?"
Daniel silently handed over the photographs.
She stared at the picture of Sha're and looked up at Daniel, but didn't say anything. Then she pulled out the picture of Teal'c, Jack, Sam and Daniel standing together, arms around each other's shoulders.
"Who are they?" she asked.
"Friends," he said, simply.
"Did you run away from them too?" she asked, handing the pictures back.
Daniel turned his head away and slid the pictures back into the journal.
"Yes," he said, still not looking at her as he put the journal more carefully in his pack this time. Then he met her eyes. "Yes, I left them behind too."
"Is that what you do?" she asked.
"Yes," Daniel said, realizing that was now the truth, that that was whom he'd become. "I'm sorry."
He picked up the pack and walked past her, through the flap of the tent and outside. Elena followed again and grabbed him by the arm.
"Jacques, just like that? I'm sorry and then you're gone? One minute we're laughing together and the next minute you're saying goodbye? I can't believe you have to do this, Jacques. There must be another way, something we can fix!"
Daniel shook his head and pulled his arm away. He turned to face her. "No! This can't be fixed, Elena," he almost yelled, then lowered his voice again. "I have to leave now. I should never have stayed this long." He closed his eyes, thinking of all the lies he'd told to the people here and thinking again of Saunders's friend and what the men who were chasing Daniel would do to him, had likely already done to him. "I never should have come," he whispered.
"You, bastard," Elena said. "What we had here meant nothing to you?"
God, how could she think that? Daniel thought. Did she really not know how much he loved her?
He dropped his pack and put his hands to her face. She put her hands on his bare forearms as if to push him away, but she didn't. The warmth of her touch sent a tremor through him. "Elena," he said. "I would give anything, anything to stay here with you. You're everything I want, everything I've ever wanted."
He saw the tears in her eyes and then a flash of anger, and he wondered if when she looked at him now she saw the "idiota" who had betrayed her so many years before. She pushed his hands down and stepped away from him. "Damn you, Jacques, damn you and your pretty words," she said quietly, then started to yell: "Well, they're not enough, Jacques. Your fu**ing words aren't enough, not for this!"
Daniel stared after Elena as she stalked away. He'd known it was wrong from that first night, known that it would have to end like this, known it might tear her apart, tear both of them apart, but he'd let it happen. As he watched her head toward the Xingu, he closed his eyes to try and shut out the parade of faces of people he'd loved and lost. When he opened them again, Elena was gone. He picked up his pack and walked toward the rainforest with no idea at all of where he'd go from there. Manoel shouted to him, asking him where the hell he was going, but Daniel just shook his head and kept walking. With not a little self-disgust, he started his mantra, blocking out the stares of his friends, of the people who had trusted him, blocking out the vision of Elena disappearing over the rise. Don't think, keep moving, he'd started to repeat as he came to the first big trees. Don't think, keep moving.
And then he heard it, and he stopped. A helicopter. He turned and looked up, searching the cloudless blue sky, and he saw it, little more than a distant spot in the sky, heading their way. Daniel froze.
Every instinct he had said to run, to fade away into the forest before the dead-eyed men of his nightmares could find him. But...
Daniel looked back at the camp, at the Kaipo men and the children, at the students, at Manoel and Charles and at Saunders, who still seemed frozen in place, although now staring at the sky with the rest of them. He looked toward the rise where Elena had disappeared. What were the chances that whoever was in that copter would find him gone, ask their questions and leave without harming anyone? Or would they torture to find their answers? Consider everyone at the camp witnesses that had to be "eliminated"?
It could be a false alarm, he thought. It could have nothing to do with him. The smartest thing to do would be to hide, wait and see, act if he had to.
Daniel started at his thoughts then and shook his head in disgust. Would he have hidden, leaving his team in the open, and waited to see if whoever was coming through the Gate was hostile? Had he really come so far that he would sacrifice his friends to save himself? No, he knew exactly what he needed to do, had done it on too many "fubar" missions to pretend not to.
He stepped into the cover of the trees and put his pack where it couldn't be seen, then walked quickly back to the dig and over to Miacuro, who had returned to work just the day before. He and the other Kaipo men had already gotten out of the ditch they were working and were looking with the others at the helicopter as it grew closer. Daniel glanced up and thought that it was still too far away for anyone inside to make out any details of the camp.
"Miacuro," he said quietly in Kaipo, "I need your help. The men in that... helicóptero," he said, using the Portuguese word, having no idea if there even was a Kaipo word for helicopter, "...could be very dangerous men. I need you please to take your people and these students"—he pointed to Clara, Mateo and Drew, the last a big kid from Missouri who had arrived a few days before—"and hide them. I'll try to get the others to follow." Miacuro nodded and waved to Iriho, and the man took Rava's hand and spoke to the other boys and started walking toward them. The Kaipo's relationship with the Brazilian government and the private interests in the area had not always been friendly, and they knew trouble when they saw it.
Daniel turned toward the three students who still worked a little ways away, while glancing up curiously at him and at the helicopter. "You have to go with Miacuro," he said, shortly, in English. "The men in the helicopter may be dangerous. Go now."
"Oh, c'mon, Jacques," Drew said. "You can't be serious. What is this, a spy movie?"
"I don't have time to argue," Daniel said. "You have to go."
Clara and Mateo looked to Manoel, who was steps away, and Daniel said to him, "Manoel, they have to go. If the helicopter means what I think it means, they have to go now. You all do."
Manoel gave him a hard stare, and Daniel looked back, not blinking. Manoel shook his head in anger then, and turned toward the students. "Go with them," he barked, gesturing toward Miacuro and Riaolha, who stood at the forest's edge, waiting. The other Kaipo were already gone.
Mateo and Clara started walking, and Drew stared wide-eyed for a moment before jumping out of the ditch to join them. "I can't believe this," he said. "I didn't sign up for this shit!" But he followed the others. Daniel looked to Manoel. "You should go too," he said.
"I'm not leaving the dig!"
Daniel knew there was no time to argue. The sound of the helicopter was loud enough that it was almost drowning out the sound of the generator, and he looked up and swore. He could make out it's shape clearly now, and could even see that it had no markings, no call letters, nothing. Shit, oh, shit, Daniel thought, feeling the panic return.
"Then help me get the others!" he yelled, and started running toward the kitchen, where Charles, Ana and Jens stood gaping at him. There was no more time to get them all to the rainforest he knew, but maybe the Xingu? He looked in the direction of the river, trying to figure the best way for them to run, and saw Elena coming over the rise. "No!" he shouted at her, gesturing frantically. "Go back!" But Elena shook her head at him and kept coming.
He turned to Charles and the others. "Go, hide!" he started yelling, sounding he was sure like a madman. "Get to the river! Take Elena with you!" Jens, having so recently learned how quickly life can go to hell, looked at Daniel and then toward the other students, running now, into the rainforest. He said something to Charles and Ana and bolted for the river, running past Elena, who looked at him in confusion. Charles and Ana, though, started walking toward Daniel. He looked toward Saunders then, who still stood as if frozen to the spot, and shouted, "Reggie, get them the hell out of here!"
Saunders seemed to snap out of whatever dream state he was in and nodded once in Daniel's direction and started moving toward the kitchen. But then he stopped short and stared past Daniel toward the dig. Daniel, not wanting to know, turned to see what Saunders was staring at.
The helicopter was already on the ground, the force of the wind from the blades scattering dirt and tools around the site. Two men, wearing black BDUs without insignia and carrying MP5s, had already jumped out, and they were standing staring almost without expression as Manoel, his outrage that they had landed in the middle of his dig temporarily blinding him to the danger, screamed and gestured at them. One of the men, then, casually pointed his weapon at the ground and shot off a round. Manoel jumped back a step and stopped talking.
Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw Charles jump at the noise also and then, finally, pull Ana by the arm and take her toward the tents. The same man who had shot his weapon before, shot in the air then, and shook his head at Charles, who froze. Daniel felt, rather than saw, Elena behind him. He didn't look around, only said loudly enough to be heard over the motors, "Please don't move, Elena."
"But Manoel," she said. "He's..."
"Please," Daniel said again, and she stilled.
The pilot cut the engine then, and the rotor blades slowed. Two more men, also in black BDUs and armed, jumped from the helicopter and stepped forward, and one said something to Manoel. Manoel turned and started walking toward them, with the stiff gate of a man who has a weapon pointed at his back. Anger and fear played uncomfortably across his face. He walked past Daniel and Elena to the generator and switched it off, and the camp was suddenly, eerily, silent.
Daniel looked from Manuel back to the men at the helicopter, and saw that the man who had ordered Manoel to turn off the generator was looking straight at him. He met the man's eyes and stared back coolly, but the panic he was already feeling, the fear for himself and everyone at the camp, took a tighter hold on his chest.
He recognized those eyes, was unlikely ever to forget them, as they had starred in countless nightmares since he'd first seen them. It was the man who'd shot Jorgans in the chest, the man who had made it so clear to Daniel that his life was worth nothing.
The last, the only, thing Daniel had ever heard the man say, the words matching the coldness of the eyes, ran through Daniel's head now: "No final decision has been made regarding this target. You acted prematurely."
Daniel clenched his jaw, but otherwise didn't move.
Apparently a final decision had been made.
Chapter 16
For long minutes no one spoke, and the quiet left behind by the generator was broken only by the sounds of the rainforest—the whistling and chattering of the squirrel monkeys, the constant buzzing and chirping of the insects, the hooting of the birds. He heard Charles murmur something softly to Ana, and behind him and off to one side he became aware of Saunders cursing rhythmically under his breath, "Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it."
And then a loud, clear, cold voice, the one he'd tried in vain to forget, carried across the camp from the helicopter: "It's time for you to come with us, Dr. Jackson."
Daniel didn't move. It wasn't only fear. And it wasn't bravery or stubborness. He stood rooted to the spot because he didn't know what to do. Elena, Charles, Manoel, they were all so exposed; it would be so simple for the men with guns to open fire. He didn't know how to stop them.
Elena was standing so closely behind him he could feel her breath on the back of his neck.
"You?" she breathed.
He nodded, but kept his eyes forward.
"Now, see," Charles voice suddenly boomed out, making them all start. "This is all some terrible misunderstanding. There's no Dr. Jackson here." Did Charles really not know, Daniel wondered, or was that his decent friend's attempt to protect him?
The man in charge made no sign, however, that he'd heard Charles. He lifted his chin in Daniel's direction, and the two men who had first left the helicopter, one olive-skinned and stocky, the other short and thin-faced, started forward. Daniel then, not wanting the men with the guns any closer to the rest of the people in the camp—any closer to Elena—raised his hands in a placating gesture and called out, "It's all right. I'm coming."
"Jacques," Elena hissed. "You can't."
"I don't have a choice, Elena," he said quietly and, still not looking back but conscious of her eyes on him, started walking slowly toward the dig and the men who'd come for him. He saw Charles, off to the side, take a step in his direction, but Daniel shook his head and held one hand up, and Charles stopped, uncertainty and something else—maybe sorrow?—evident on his face.
Daniel continued on, trying to keep his gait steady, trying to stop his heart from thudding so painfully in his chest.
His slow pace belied the confusion of thoughts that moved in a jagged progression through his mind: visions of the carnage of his last night in Colorado Springs, the hopeless wish that his team would appear to save them, Jack's mutilated body on Thor's ship, the gaping unknown that was his future, the almost overwhelming desire to look back to Elena and let her know, at least with his eyes, how sorry he was. He tried to shut it all out, to concentrate instead on coming up with a plan, with anything, to stop what he was certain was about to happen. If the men started to shoot, if they turned their guns on Elena and Charles and the others, what could he do? Throw himself in front of the bullets?
Well... maybe, yes, he thought. The four men, in their confidence—and Daniel wished he could say it was overconfidence—had not fanned out and were, instead, standing side-by-side. In a few moments he'd be close enough to knock down at least two of them if they started to raise their weapons, maybe giving some of the others a chance to escape. If the gunmen had orders to take him alive, then they'd try not to shoot him; if they were here to kill him, well, then, it wouldn't make much of a difference.
As plans went, it was a woefully bad one, but it was all he had.
They men made no move with their weapons, though, so Daniel stopped within a few feet and waited, feet apart, arms slightly raised from his sides, ready, if he had to be, to make a move. Knowing where the orders would come from, Daniel took his first really good look at the man who had filled his nightmares. Short reddish-brown hair, fair skin, medium build, square face, thin lips, nothing remarkable, nothing that would make him stand out in a crowd—except for the cold, dead eyes. Daniel looked into those eyes now, hoping for some kind of sign of what was to come, but there was nothing there. Nothing.
"Hands behind your back, Dr. Jackson," the man said, staring straight back at Daniel.
Daniel felt the first tendril of panic wrap around his heart. He wasn't ready to be tied up, helpless. He couldn't help anyone with his hands, literally, tied behind his back.
"Wait," he started to say, "you don't have to..." He caught the slight nod of the head too late, and the stocky man was on him, twisting his arm behind his back and slamming him up against the side of the helicopter. The air left his lungs with a whoosh and his head bounced hard once against the overheated metal. He felt his legs folding at the same time as he heard Elena's voice shout, "Jacques!" and Manoel's cry of "Elena, no!"
Manoel's cry sent Daniel over the edge into panic. He got his legs under him and pushed back hard against the man who was still holding him, with his arm still twisted high on his back, against the helicopter. They both went down and Daniel rolled over fast enough to see the thin-faced man take aim toward the camp, toward Elena. He lunged halfway up, his legs still tangled in the stocky man's limbs and head-butted the thin man in the knees, causing him to fall backward as he shot, scattering bullets in the air. Daniel heard screams from behind him as he hit the ground face-first, and he rolled and twisted to see what was happening, kicking wildly as the first man tried to grab his legs.
Elena was on the ground, with Saunders on top of her, as if he'd tackled her from behind. Both had flung their arms over their heads at the sound of the submachine gun. Ana and Charles had ducked down into a squat and were covering their heads as well, and Manoel was on his knees, looking toward his sister.
Daniel felt himself being hauled roughly to his feet from behind, and realized it was the fourth man. He had only a vague impression of black skin and impressive strength before the thin-faced man stood up and, cursing, hit Daniel hard in the gut with his MP5. Daniel cried out and would have doubled over if he hadn't been held from behind. He felt the bile rise and vomited. The man cursed, stepped back and started to swing his weapon again. Daniel, still gagging, tried to brace himself for another blow, but then the dead-eyed man's voice came, harsh and unyielding: "Enough!
The thin-faced man stopped, his features still tight with anger. The stocky man struggled to his feet, and both men looked to their boss for orders.
"Kill them," he said, his voice once more controlled and emotionless.
Daniel, his arms still locked behind him by the big man, started to struggle. "Wait!" he coughed. He watched the men raise their weapons, and he saw Elena staring at him with tears in her eyes and Saunders, still half on top of her, start to reach for his weapon, with a look on his face that Daniel recognized from his years on the front lines, a look that said, If I'm going to die here, I'm damn well going to take some of you with me.
Still sick from the pain, Daniel searched frantically for the words that might stop what was about to happen, the second time in weeks he'd tried to throw words at bullets. But this was different. The Kaipo had been angry and afraid; these men were killers. "You want an international incident?" he shouted. "Is that what the people you work for want?"
The dead-eyed man raised his hand slightly, and the gunmen, whose fingers had already been on the triggers, stopped. "Shit," the stocky man said tensely, pointing his weapon at the sky. "Make up your mind!"
The man ignored him and looked to Daniel, who'd stopped struggling.
"These are important people here," Daniel said more quietly. "They have relatives, friends, people with money, people who will never stop looking for their killers. Others have come and gone; they'll remember me. They'll give a description. This will blow up in your bosses' faces."
The man said nothing, but he didn't order his people to start shooting either. So Daniel kept talking.
Saunders's hand was shaking as he pulled it slowly away from his gun. Shit. Shit. He'd seen the men squeezing the triggers and he'd been certain they were all dead. Shit. Before the helicopter had even landed, he'd watched Evones slip out of his tent and out toward the river, and he'd cursed him as a coward, but now he wished he had found a way to run too. Shit.
Elena made a sound, a half-sob, half-moan, and he shifted off her legs, moving slowly, trying not to draw the attention of the men who'd been ready to shoot and were still watching them. He didn't think she was hurt, but he couldn't do anything about it now anyway. He wondered briefly what the hell she thought she was doing, running toward the men like that, as if she could single-handedly pull Perrault to safety. He looked at Perrault now. The man still had his arms pinned behind his back by the muscle-bound guy with the sunglasses; Perrault was leaning forward slightly, as if he was hurting. He had blood streaming down his face from a cut on his head, his glasses were bent and hanging by one arm... and he was talking a mile a minute. Saunders couldn't hear what was being said, but he knew without a doubt what was happening: Perrault was talking for their lives.
Saunders didn't like their chances. He knew these men, or men like them. In his years in Afghanistan and Iraq he'd seen them all. The two thugs in the middle were hired hands, men drawn to violence and bloodshed, who would kill human beings as casually as if they were swatting flies, who would probably do it for fun. The man holding Perrault, on the other hand, was a professional; he did his job and did it well, a soldier still, fighting now only for the paycheck. Saunders suspected that with an offer of enough cash or an immediate threat to his life, the man would walk away from most assignments without looking back.
But not from this one.
Because Saunders didn't suspect, he knew, that all three men feared the man giving the orders, knew that crossing him would lead immediately, irrevocably, to their deaths. He'd seen it from the moment the man had jumped from the chopper, could see it in the deceptive ease of his movements, the way one hand stayed lightly on his weapon, the way his eyes seemed to take in everything yet show nothing. When one of his kind used to walk by in Afghanistan, all talk would stop, the soldiers, even the officers, would look away, pretend something else had caught their attention. These men were the true killers. Black ops, yes, but more. It was as if a piece of their souls were missing...
When Saunders had seen him, he'd known that Perrault was right: His friend in Altamira was already dead, and if it suited him, they would all follow, their lives as meaningless as if they had never existed at all.
What the hell had Perrault done, who or what had he been involved with, to bring this man down on him?
Saunders tensed as the man in question turned slightly, then made a strange motion with his hands still on his gun, as if to say to Perrault—or, no, what was the name he'd used?—Go ahead, be my guest. The big man released Perrault's arms then, and he stumbled and went to his knees. Saunders heard Elena's sharp intake of breath, but she didn't move. The big man reached for Perrault again, but Perrault shook his head and got himself, slowly and obviously painfully, to his feet. He blinked his eyes and reached up to straighten his glasses, the slight tremor of his hand visible across the camp.
Then he cleared his throat and began to speak. Elena rose to her knees and stared at him intently, but Perrault was looking everywhere, at everyone, except at her.
"Look," he said, sounding, against all odds, very much as Jacques always did, and Saunders couldn't even imagine the effort that must have taken. "I'm sorry for all this. You all know I'm not who I pretended to be, that I was hiding here. The truth is, I was involved with some very dangerous people and we did some very... bad things." Perrault closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was finding the words hard to say, then went on. "Some people would call us terrorists."
At that Elena, still on her knees, cried, "No, Jacques, no, you're still lying to us!" The men with the guns shifted slightly at that, and the head man turned and looked at her, his eyes narrowed slightly.
Saunders could see the flash of fear in Perrault's eyes, but he still didn't look at Elena. Instead, for a brief moment, he looked directly at Saunders, his eyes telegraphing a clear message. Saunders reached out and put a hand on Elena's shoulder. "Stop," he said quietly. "This isn't helping. You aren't helping him." Elena tried to shake his hand off, but he held her more tightly and hissed, "They'll use you to hurt him!" He felt Elena freeze then, and he slowly took his hand from her shoulder.
Perrault, in the meantime, kept talking. "No, no. I'm not lying," he was saying, "I wish I were. These men are just here to take me back for trial. If they appear a little... rough, it's because they know what I've done, what I'm capable of, and they had no way of knowing if you all were... terrorists... as well. It's their job not to take any chances. They're convinced now, though, that you know nothing of my past, that you're just more of my... victims. So you're going to be all right." And here Perrault, finally, looked at Elena for the first time. "You're going to be all right," he repeated, and turned his head toward the man in charge, waiting.
The man looked at the camp and gave a slight, impatient nod, then gestured to the black man, who pulled a pair of plastic cuffs from his pocket and grabbed one of Perrault's wrists, then the other. Perrault winced but otherwise didn't react. He gave once last look around the camp before he was turned and pushed toward the chopper. The big man jumped in and pulled Perrault after him, then the boss, and finally the last two men. The pilot, whom none of them had really gotten a look at, started the engine, and the rotor blades began to whirr.
"Meu Deus," Elena whispered, the pain and grief making her voice hoarse. "Meu Deus."
The helicopter lifted off slowly, then turned and gained speed, heading back in the direction it had come. They all watched, silently, until it was again just a speck in the sky. Then Ana started to sob, and Charles tried awkwardly to comfort her: "There, there," he said. "There, there. It's over now." Manoel stood and stared blankly at the torn-up dig site for a moment before turning and walking toward Elena. Elena knelt, frozen still, staring at the horizon.
Saunders, feeling sick to his stomach with relief and guilt and fear for the man he barely knew, tried to think of something to say to her, an apology or some words of comfort. But really, what was there to say?
Jacques Perrault was gone. None of them would ever see him again.
Chapter 17
Daniel watched through the open hatch of the helicopter, past the backs of the men in front of him, as the camp that he had called home for months disappeared from view. The terror he'd felt when he thought that his captors would open fire, that Elena would be lost, that Charles would never make it home to his family, had been followed by relief so overwhelming he'd thought he might pass out. They didn't shoot, he'd thought, almost in wonder. They didn't shoot. But now, as they flew out of sight, deeper and deeper over the Amazonian forest, he just felt numb, and so, so tired. It was over. Whatever it was he'd had there—love? a life?—it was over, and he didn't want to think anymore, not now. He knew the grief would come, and that the visions of the horrifying last moments at the camp would, eventually, replay themselves endlessly, joining the other nightmare reels that haunted his days and nights, and that he would ache for Elena, for her passion, for the sound of her voice, for the feel of her body wrapped around his... but for now exhaustion trumped everything else.
He shifted uncomfortably where he half sat, half lay against the wall of the helicopter. His gut burned where he'd been struck, and the plastic cuffs bit into his wrists. He thought the cut above his eye had stopped bleeding, but his head still throbbed there, echoing the rapid beat of the rotor blades. He suddenly felt sick again and leaned over farther and emptied what was left of the meager contents of his stomach.
The two men in front of him, the one who'd hit him and the stocky one, pulled away, and one of them muttered, "Jesus, that's disgusting," but no one turned to look at him. The big man leaned against the other side of the helicopter, looking out at the forest below them, and their boss sat leaning against the back of the empty copilot's seat, staring forward.
Daniel maneuvered himself, painfully, so he was sitting upright again, his knees drawn up almost to his chest, His throat was raw and he longed to clean the taste of blood and bile from his mouth. He knew if he had asked an enemy Jaffa for this, it most likely would have gained him only another punch or kick, but he thought, for some reason, he might have a chance for something so simple from these men, as cruel as they were.
He tried unsuccessfully to clear his throat, then croaked as loudly as he could, "May I have some water, please?"
None of the men moved, or gave any indication that they'd heard him, and Daniel considered asking again, more loudly, but realized it would do no good. To these men, short of vomiting down their backs, he had ceased to exist. Daniel sighed and watched the vivid blue of the sky fly by, and he wondered, almost idly, if wherever they were taking him he would see the sky again.
The pilot shouted something that Daniel couldn't hear, then, and the dead-eyed man leaned forward and said to the stocky man, "Take the cuffs off."
"Why bother to...?" the man started to reply, but stopped at the look in his boss's eyes. He pulled a pocket knife out, then swung his legs around so he was facing Daniel and barked, "Go ahead. Turn around." Daniel, tired as he was, just stared back. He knew that the order wasn't some act of kindness, not from the men who had just refused him water, and he figured that whatever the motive, it could not be good.
"Aw, the hell with it," the stocky man spat. He grabbed a fistful of Daniel's hair and cracked the back of his head against the side of the helicopter, then grabbed him by the arm and pulled him face-forward to the floor. This time Daniel's forehead hit. His glasses flew from his face, and he felt the cut open up again. "Son of a bitch!" Daniel found himself cursing once and then again as the knife cut roughly through the plastic and into his wrists. "Son of a bitch!" Once his arms were released, they fell almost uselessly to his sides, tingling from lack of circulation, and he clenched and unclenched his fists to try to get some feeling back. When he thought he could, he pushed himself up and got dizzily to his knees. No one spoke, but all three of the hired hands now were looking to their boss, a question in their eyes.
"Do it now," the man said. Daniel's eyes widened as realized for the first time that they never intended him to see the end of this trip. He'd known that death was one of the possibilities, was one of the better possibilities for his future, but this, now? They had searched for him for months, probably killed Saunders's friend, terrorized the people at the dig, just to kill him now? The anger he'd started to feel when he was being bashed around the chopper came back in full force. He'd had enough. He'd fu**ing had enough.
"You're just going to kill me here?" he shouted hoarsely to the man giving the orders. "You came all this way just to kill me? What's the point? What the hell is the point? What harm was I doing anyone? I was just... living. And now you're going to what, shoot me and toss my body?"
The cold eyes looked into his, and the man who had changed his life forever on that cool Colorado night so many months ago and was now about to end it, spoke to him directly for the first time since he'd called him by name at the camp.
"We weren't planning to shoot you first," he said. And then he smiled.
What? Daniel thought. What? He looked to the other men in the helicopter and met the eyes of the large black man, and the man held his gaze for a brief moment before he looked away. Daniel felt hands grab his arms on either side and start to pull him forward, and he looked out at the sky rushing by. Oh, hell, no! He put his feet down and pushed backward hard, and one of his arms came free, and he kicked out against the other man, the thin-faced one, catching him in the ribs. The man grunted in pain but didn't let go, then the stocky man grabbed his other arm again, and the two threw him onto his stomach and pushed him forward so his head hung out the opening of the chopper.
Far below, impossibly far below, the rainforest canopy showed its multitude of greens and the Amazon River glittered in the sun. "Oh, God," Daniel thought, not like this. He tried to twist away from the hands and kicked out again and got a hard punch to the kidney for his effort. Then suddenly, he felt his arms drop, and the big man grabbed the waist of his pants and hefted him forward so his torso was hanging out and pulling the rest of his body with him. In desperation Daniel grabbed the bottom edge of the hatch with his fingers, but his hands slipped off and he somersaulted out into the open sky. He was falling.
Daniel screamed as he plummeted toward the earth. He had time to think what a bad way this was to die and that he ought to know, and he had time to think, Please, let it be over. He watched the ground rushing toward him, and he closed his eyes, bracing himself, wondering if he would feel the pain or if death would be instantaneous.
His eyes still closed, he didn't see the flash of blue light.
He felt himself land, strangely, on his feet, then he lost his balance and, hands flailing, he fell backward against something geometrical and sharp, before hitting the ground hard on his side and rolling to his back. He kept his eyes closed and wondered if he was dead, even as his breath came in gasps and pain started radiating from his left arm.
"I am sorry, Dr. Jackson," a voice came close to his ear. "I did not compensate enough for your acceleration and angle. It is not often that I beam someone aboard under these particular circumstances."
Thor?
Daniel turned his head toward the voice and opened his eyes and stared uncomprehendingly into the concerned face of the Asgard supreme commander, mere inches from his own.
"Thor?" he gasped out loud this time, still trying to catch his breath. "Thor?" he said again. He tried to sit up, but the pain shot through his arm again and the rest of his body screamed in protest, and the room started to spin and tilt. "Aaaah," he moaned and fell back, closing his eyes again, still not sure if he was in some dream state between life and death.
He heard someone else come into the room, and felt Thor standing up. "I will move Dr. Jackson to the medical table. I am afraid he has been injured," Thor said.
"Daniel? My God, Daniel, what happened to you?" another voice said, and Daniel's eyes shot open. He struggled to sit up again, and this time he was successful. He looked toward the source of the voice, not ready to believe his ears, but there she was, there they both were. "Sam?" he said in barely more than a whisper. "Teal'c?"
Sam knelt beside him, and Teal'c turned to Thor and asked, in his familiar, comforting voice, "Was it not your intention, Thor, to speak to us once you discovered Daniel Jackson's location, before you beamed him aboard?"
"Based on the location at which I found Dr. Jackson," Thor replied, "I determined that haste was the wisest course of action."
Daniel had a sudden urge to laugh, but the way his head was pounding he knew it would hurt too much, so he bit it back. He knew now that none of this was real, nothing except the pain, but it was so nice to see them again, he didn't want the dream to end. The gang's all here, he thought, except one, but he had no doubt he'd make an appearance at any moment. He let dream Sam help him lie back down, then he smiled up at her.
"Where's Jack?" he asked.
Dream Sam's eyes widened then, and she sat back from him and put a hand over her mouth, then she leaned toward him again, tears starting to stream down her face. "Oh, Daniel," she said. "Daniel, I thought you knew..."
Daniel reached his right hand up to brush the tears from her cheek. "Sam," he said. "I'm sorry, Sam, I thought..." But he didn't know what he thought. Shouldn't Jack be here too? And maybe his parents? And why did everything still hurt so much? He closed his eyes again against the anvil hitting his head and the grating of bone against bone in his broken arm.
"Did not O'Neill perish in Antarctica, Daniel Jackson?" dream Teal'c said then, a hint of hope raising his voice.
Daniel felt the old pain in his chest again. "Jack's dead," he whispered. "Jack's still dead." He opened his eyes and looked to Teal'c, Sam and Thor. "But aren't we all dead?"
Teal'c came over then and knelt on his other side. He grasped Daniel's uninjured arm and looked him in the eye. "No, Daniel Jackson. We live. We have survived."
Daniel turned his head toward Sam, and she nodded and gave him a small smile, though she was still crying. They're real, he thought.
"Help me up," he said.
"No, Daniel. You're hurt. Wait until Thor takes care of you," Sam said.
"Please," Daniel said again. "Help me up."
Sam looked at Teal'c, and he nodded. They helped Daniel to his feet and stood with him, close to his side. He looked over at Thor, then back at Sam and Teal'c. He touched Sam's cheek again, then turned a little and put his hand flat to Teal'c's chest, and then he smiled. "You made it," he said. "I always knew... I told General Hammond. I told him, 'We're SG-1 and we're not that easy to kill.' " His voice hitched a little, and he repeated, still stunned, "You made it."
He swayed on his feet then, and Sam and Teal'c both reached to steady him.
Sam said then, "Daniel, you need to..." and Daniel nodded, weariness threatening to overcome him.
"Thor?" Sam said, and Daniel found himself on one of the long tables near the main console.
"This should only take a few moments, Dr. Jackson," Thor said, "but I believe you also require sleep to recover."
Daniel looked back at Sam and Teal'c and said, only half-joking, "You'll still be here when I wake up, won't you?"
Teal'c smiled at him as the clear partition slid into place over the table, and said, "Indeed we will, Daniel Jackson. You will not be alone."
Daniel felt tears sting his eyes at that as the Asgard sedative began to take effect. He wasn't alone. By some miracle, he had his family back. He smiled through the glass at his teammates, comforted beyond measure by their steady presence at his side. But the last vision he had, as he began to drift into his drug-induced sleep, was not of Sam and Teal'c or even of Jack; it was Elena's face he saw, staring up at him with grief-filled eyes, as he'd ripped their lives apart.
