The rocking motion jolts him into awareness. Around him, people are speaking in a foreign language. Through the windows, a city rushes by. There's a screen he can't read but something that looks like words and maybe times is displayed.

Across from him a woman holds a baby. He looks at her intently. Does he know her? His scrutiny makes her uncomfortable; she meets his eyes momentarily, then shifts them away and holds her baby closer.

There are two young men talking a mile a minute. One breaks into a raucous laugh that makes other, old men, look up from newspapers and scowl.

Outside, the cityscape is still whizzing by. A chime sounds, a voice comes over a loudspeaker, and the cityscape starts to slow. The view is replaced by concrete. A station. He's on a train.

When the train stops at a platform he pushes his way off the train with all the other people. Better off than on, until he figures out where he is. He follows the throng of people who also exited the train. He doesn't know which way to go but he figures the people will lead him back into daylight. A few twists and turns, a single flight of stairs and the hot sun hits his face.

More signs he can't read - why can't he read them? - but people moving in every direction. It's familiar even if he can't quite place it. He knows it's commuting, but he can't quite figure out where he is. There's a quick flash in his mind of something similar in a different place but it's gone before he can focus on it.

Near him, two people exchange introductions, names and smiles. Which makes him think of his name. Except...he can't. He doesn't know his name? That can't be right. So he thinks harder. Nope, not there. Okay, okay, no name, no location, it's not good.

Most of the people he got off the train with seem to be going right, towards the taller buildings. He goes right, too.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He walks up and down the alleys between the tall buildings waiting for something to look familiar. Nothing really does. It just looks like a city, though he can't recall any specific city, even this one. Aside from the train, how did he get here? Why is he here?

He stops a man who doesn't look in too big a hurry. "Which city is this?" he asks but the man just shakes his head and raises his hands in the universal signal for 'I don't understand you.' He's at least a little relieved that some sort of communication is possible. He finds something that looks like a coffee shop and sticks his hands in his pockets, nothing. No money. No coffee. But... he's not even sure if he really wanted the coffee anyway. It smells pretty good, though. He leaves.

People are walking in every direction so he doesn't try to go with any flow, he just keeps walking hoping something will look familiar, even vaguely. Most people appear like they're heading somewhere in particular. He starts to follow a woman in a suit, someone who looks like she's going to an office. She steps into a tall, glass building. He goes in, too. He's confronted by a bank of elevators, but he has no destination in mind. He walks back out.

There's a man in a red uniform across the street. He waits until other people cross and walks across with the flow. He must look confused, because the man in the uniform puts a hand out and stops him. The Uniform says something like, "Helman post sound grocery sidewalk." He just shakes his head. What does that even mean? Uniform tries again, "Lo tau'ri?"

"Tau'ri?" he says, excited because he recognizes the word.

"Mak?" the uniform tries.

He shakes his head. Damn. He doesn't understand that either.

Once more the uniform tries, "What is wrong?"

Finally! "Where am I?"

"This is Levpow. Are you okay, sir?"

He shakes his head, "I don't know how I got here."

"Where are you supposed to be?"

"I don't know."

The uniform moves them out of the flow of traffic to stand next to a brick-ish building. "What is your name?"

He tries again to think of his name, he tries hard, but finally has to admit, "I don't know."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He's been brought to a police station, he thinks. There are lots of men and women in red uniforms, like the man he found on the street. There's a lot of hustle and bustle and several people in street clothes sit next to desks and in chairs against one wall.

He's directed to sit down next to a desk. So he does, a little relieved to be somewhere he's supposed to be, somewhere by invitation.

"Do you have identification?" the policeman asks.

He pats his pockets looking for, anything really. "I don't think so."

"What is this, around your neck?" The policeman reaches out and lifts a silver chain away from his chest. There are words embossed on it. "O'Neill," the policeman reads, "Johnathan J." and then a number.

O'Neill Jonathan J. It sounds familiar. "I'm O'Neill," he says, trying it on for size. Yes, that's definitely right. A sense of euphoria passes over him. "Yeah. I'm O'Neill." It conjures up a flash of something in his eyes. An angled face, grey hair, brown eyes. It's him. It's him!

"Okay, O'Neill," the policeman says, "we'll see if we can find out where you belong."

Some searching turns up nothing. Apparently he doesn't live in this city, or in any of the surrounding areas. He has no home, no real identification, there's not much they can do for him.

"I'll take you Matra. She will be able to help," the policeman decides.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Matra runs a sort of halfway house but has no other tenants. "You are O'Neill," she says and it makes him want to collapse with relief that someone says it with such surety, and then he realizes she's only been repeating what she's been told.

"Yeah," he says, a little less sure, but it still sounds right so he sticks with it.

"I have seen this before," she says. "You have taken the drugs. Probably the farmisha. I have seen this before," she says again.

Maybe that's what's happened. He took the farmisha and now he has no idea who he is. It happens, apparently.

"You will sleep in the green room," she says and leads him up a narrow set of stairs and into a small, puke-green room that feels like something is still wrong.

"You don't know me?" he asks even though he's sure he already knows the answer.

"I know you have no place to go. But you'll sleep here, in the green room."

She leaves him there, alone. The policeman has long since left him in the care of Matra but she seems unimpressed by his predicament. But, then, she's seen this before.

A couple of hours later she calls up the staircase that it's time for dinner. She serves things he's unfamiliar with and he tastes it all until he finds a sort of pea dish that agrees with his taste buds.

When dinner is over, he goes back to the green room where he sits alone and turns the metal tags with his name over and over in his hands. He memorizes the numbers and reads the words 'O'Neill, Jonathan J.' over and over again until they sound less like a good idea and more like his name.