Title: Delivered

Rating: PG (K+)

Reason: Some gorish descriptions (but nothing explicit)

Summary: A desperate rescue that cost almost an entire SG team... And all to bring back the one person Daniel needed to see most.

Pairing: Daniel/Vala

Categories: Action/Adventure, Angst, Romance, AU

Note: This goes AU after Beachhead.

Delivered

Extradite

Every day the stack of reports got taller and taller. And every time a report was read and removed from the pile, Daniel's hopes sank lower and lower, further and further away.

The reports were everything from across the galaxy concerning the Ori. Every time a Prior was spotted spouting his jargon, every time an off-world team found out something new, a report landed on top of the stack on Daniel Jackson's desk.

He clung to a fading shard of hope that all of this knowledge would somehow help him confirm Vala was alive in Ori territory, and that somehow the data would aid him in rescuing her. But instead of every report bringing new hope and new light to optimism's fading self, it diminished his fading sanguinity. After every one, things just seemed that much more hopeless.

One last unread report sat on his desk, both begging to be read and asking to be banished directly to a trash can.

It's just going to tell you there's no hope, a faint voice in Daniel's head whispered.

Eventually, with a sigh, he reached out and opened it up. His eyes quickly skimmed the headings, taking in the information with a mere glance.

Filed by: Colonel Marla Jameson, leader of SG-6 & Major Christopher Grouper, 2IC of SG-6

Location: P48-0696

Time received: 10:38 MST

A peek at a clock confirmed for Daniel that the report was just over four hours old, meaning it had probably landed on his desk while he was away at lunch. The most recent report, then.

The report's message itself was very brief.

A Prior has come through the Stargate and threatened the people here. We are going to take action. This will not continue.

Just another Prior sighting then. Daniel started to toss it right into his trash—

Wait, did it say that they were going to "take action"?

Immediately, he stopped.

The off-world teams were all under orders to leave the Priors alone after the whole incident with the Ori beachhead. The SGC as a whole thought it just too dangerous and risky. The only exception to the orders was in personal defense, and from the report's sound that wasn't the case.

But Daniel re-read it and it still held the same message: we are going to take action.

That would put SG-6 against orders and Marla Jameson—leader of SG-6 and co-filer of the report—was anything but insubordinate.

Frowning, Daniel scooped up the report and started making his way towards General Landry's office.

Just then, wailing alarms went off and lights began flashing all down the hallway.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" echoed Sergeant Harriman's voice in response.

Reflexively, Daniel's step quickened as he changed course for the control room. He got there just after General Landry himself, who was breathing a little hard, as if he'd come running.

"What is it?" the General asked.

"Unknown address," Harriman observed, looking at his screen. "We're getting a signal sir… It appears to be Colonel Jameson's—of SG-6."

"Jameson…" Landry said. "Where is she supposed to be?"

"P48-0696."

Ignoring the fact that it was Daniel and not Harriman that answered his question, Landry looked up to the metal barricade stretched across the Gate's opening. "Well, what's the problem, Sergeant?"

"Well, sir, the code is a little… garbled," Harriman replied, tapping away at his computer. "Still readable as Jameson's, but the frequencies are a tad off, sir."

"An imitation?" suggested Daniel.

"It's possible."

Landry's struggle was obvious, but he ordered the soldiers in the Gateroom to stand ready and nodded to Sergeant Harriman. "Open the iris."

At Harriman's command, the metal glided open and the rippling blue wormhole surface appeared. For a long, suspended moment, nothing happened.

Then suddenly, a running woman in a ripped SG uniform came through the Gate shouting at the top of her lungs. "Close the iris!" she cried. "Close the iris!"

Harriman slapped a hand across the button and smoothly, the metal iris closed. But not before some odd energy bolt came flying through, rushing into the wall. The metal of the wall buckled inward around the impact, but remained mostly intact.

Daniel was already heading down to the Gateroom with Landry on his heels.

When the men got into the wide Gateroom, the woman who'd come through the Gate turned towards them from where she knelt gasping for air. A huge gash crossed her face on one side from hairline to ear, pouring out blood down her face. Matching her ripped and bloody clothing, the other side was scratched and scathed, but identifiable.

"Colonel Jameson," Landry gruffly identified aloud. "What in the galaxy happened to you?"

"Later, sir," she replied, voice broken around her gasps for breath. "First, med team."

As she struggled to her feet and turned towards the medics—who were already running in at Harriman's call—Daniel abruptly realized that Jameson cradled something large in her arms. It looked almost like a body bag, being made from the standard green canvas. The cloth was ripped, scorched and bloody, to match Jameson's new motif…

And as the female commander gently and carefully laid the "bag" down on the medics' stretcher, Daniel was astounded to see that it wasn't a bag at all, but a person twisted about and wrapped up in the standard issue survival blanket. And with a heart-wrenching shock as he followed the stretcher and medics—including those hurrying Jameson along—that marred as she was, the person lying on the stretcher was Vala Mal Doran.