Chapter 2

Jack swam back up towards consciousness as if he were trying to reach the surface of a lake after diving deep, much deeper than any sane person would've done without the benefit of breathing equipment. He felt as though he couldn't hold on much longer, as if he would never reach the flicker of light dancing so tantalizingly above him. His lungs were burning, and he knew at any moment he would give up and let the dark, cold water drag him back down, down into the depths, spinning and tumbling head over heels until–

His eyes snapped open and he sat up, drawing a deep, ragged breath at the same time. The room did a somersault around his shoulders, and he quickly pulled up his knees and dropped his head down to rest on his kneecaps. He took slow, deep breaths, gulping the warm air while his senses gradually fell back into line.

He was sitting on some kind of cot in the corner of a dark room, a rough wool blanket pulled over his legs. He squinted and shook his head, trying to clear the last of the cobwebs away, and as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw Carter lying on a cot next to the adjacent wall, her jacket neatly folded and laid at her feet on top of her blanket. Neither Teal'c nor Daniel were anywhere to be seen.

His boots were on the floor next to the cot, so he reached down and stuffed his feet into them, his fingers lacing them up automatically. He noticed their weapons and other supplies had not been put in the room with them.

There was a door in the opposite wall, slightly ajar so that flickering light and the soft sound of voices spilled into the room. He crept quietly across the floor, pausing by Carter's bed just long enough to make sure she was just unconscious and not injured in any other way. A nudge and a calling of her name confirmed that she still seemed to be out cold, so he made his way to the door and pushed it open a bit further to get a look out into the hallway. As he was looking down the passage in one direction, the sound coming from the other direction of a woman clearing her throat made him whip around so fast his head throbbed in protest.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to sneak up on people like that?" he snapped as he rubbed at his temple. The young woman was smiling at him in what seemed like a friendly way, and he wasn't armed in any event, so he decided to play the situation casually, but still with caution. Of course, he could have easily overwhelmed her with sheer brute strength, but that just wouldn't be polite and might get him into a heap of trouble. He had no idea where he was, after all. The last thing he remembered was being shot with a sedative dart like some animal, and two of his team members, one of them critically injured, were now missing.

"My mother tells me a great many things, O'Neill, but that does not mean I always listen," she said, a look of amusement spreading across her face at his consternation at being called by name.

"How did you know my name?" he asked, raising his guard a notch.

She just quirked an eyebrow at him, pale blue eyes glittering under a sweep of curly auburn hair, and pointed at his chest. He looked down, confused, then feeling foolish as he recalled that his last name was printed over the pocket of his jacket in standard military style. "So you can read." He hadn't meant it to be an insult, but she certainly took it as one.

"Yes, and from time to time, I've even been known to write a word or two. But I usually manage to find better uses for that skill than writing my own name on my clothing, as if I might forget who I am." Her eyes flashed brightly and she lifted her chin defiantly, daring him to insinuate that she was ignorant again.

"All right, all right," he sighed, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. First things first. Establish that his team members were all accounted for, then move on to nice little pleasantries. "I guess I'm not thinking too clearly right now, but being knocked out kind of does that to a guy. Look, why don't you just tell me what happened to the other two people I came here with."

Her angry expression faded away at his question, and she looked down and brushed absently at the plain, dark gown she was wearing before lifting her eyes to stare at him with something akin to her former defiance, but mixed with a hint of concern. "The Jaffa is elsewhere, under guard, since we had no way of knowing what his intentions might be, whether you accompanied him willingly or were his prisoners."

"He's our friend, and his name is Teal'c," Jack replied, a bit annoyed she had gone to the trouble to refer to himself by name, but not "the Jaffa." He had to remind himself that for most people who encountered Teal'c's kind, "Jaffa" meant nothing but trouble and usually in very large amounts.

"Very well. Teal'c, then," the woman replied, drawing herself up and folding her hands loosely in front of her. "I will see to it that he is released and brought here as soon as he awakens, although that may not be for some time. It took three darts to bring him down, so the sedative may take a while to wear off. But I assure you he is unharmed."

"And, uh, Jackson?" he asked, prompting her by pointing to the area above his pocket.

"Yes, Jackson," she responded, her shoulders slumping slightly and her forehead creasing in a troubled expression. "The one who was wounded. He is…" Her voice trailed off and she seemed to reconsider her next words. Jack's heart skipped a beat, but he blew out a sharp breath of relief as she continued, "He is alive, but in very poor condition. Come. I will take you to him. Carter will also be brought to you when she awakens."

She turned and gestured for him to accompany her down the dimly lit hallway in the direction of the flickering light and the voices Jack had detected earlier. When he eyed her skeptically, she said with a hint of apology in her voice, "You are safe here, O'Neill. None of us wish you harm. My name is Brecca, and you are in the house of Shardova of Freyholm. You were brought here only a few hours ago by the T'loknae."

"Excuse me? The Ta-what-ay?" Jack asked, stumbling on the unfamiliar word. He was somewhat reassured by her forthcoming attitude, though, and let her lead him slowly down the hall as she continued to speak.

"The T'loknae. The Guardians of the Gate. They are the original inhabitants of this world, small, dark-furred creatures, vaguely human in shape, but their ways are very strange to us. They mostly keep to themselves, in the forest near the Stargate. When the Tok'Ra brought us here, they made a pact with the T'loknae to watch over the Stargate, should the Goa'uld attempt to follow us. When the T'loknae saw the Jaffa with you, they were no doubt afraid exactly this had happened. That may be why they attacked your Jackson as they did. Usually, if creatures come through the Stargate who are not known to them, the T'loknae use their darts and bring the strangers here to us, as they did with you and Carter and Teal'c. They are not usually violent."

She was obviously very troubled by this turn of events, and her brief explanation intrigued Jack immensely, immediately raising about a dozen questions in his mind, especially concerning her mention of the Tok'Ra. They had arrived at their destination, though, and answers would have to wait for later, maybe even for a return visit to this place. Right now, his first concern was Daniel and getting him back to Earth as quickly as possible.

The room Brecca brought Jack to was similar to the one he had awakened in, sparsely furnished with bare walls of wooden planking and smooth floors of dull gray flagstone, the one difference being a hearth where a small, bright fire was burning. Two women stood near the blaze, conversing in low, urgent tones, apparently having a heated debate of some sort. One was an older woman who bore a distinct familial resemblance to Brecca, but her auburn hair was wavy instead of curly, pulled back into a loose knot, and her face was a bit longer and finer of feature than Brecca's rounded face. The other was a wrinkled old woman with brightly flashing ice-blue eyes and gray hair tightly braided down her back. Both were dressed in simple, dark gowns like Brecca, making Jack feel as though they had stumbled into some kind of Amish community without the funny white hats, although that would be totally inconsistent with the usual time periods for transplanted Earth cultures. How he could use Daniel's input right now.

The two women paused in their conversation when Jack entered the room, but he ignored them and went directly over to the cot in the corner by the hearth where Daniel was lying. There was a blanket pulled up to his chin, but Jack could see that he was still shaking, although somewhat less violently than he had been back at the Stargate. His color hadn't improved, and now there were also dark circles under his eyes and his lips were dry and cracked. They'd taken his glasses off, and his hair was damp and pushed back away from his face so that he hardly looked like himself. The signs of pain flickering back and forth across his features further conspired to obscure the man Jack had gradually come to regard as family.

Brecca conferred briefly with the two other women, and although they were speaking so softly he couldn't make out most of what they said, he could tell from the tone of their voices that the old woman and Brecca were having a rather vehement disagreement with the woman Jack assumed was Brecca's mother. There was an abrupt silence, and the middle-aged woman turned and stormed out of the room with the old woman close on her heels. Brecca sighed in resignation, then turned and gestured for Jack to sit on one of the wooden stools at Daniel's bedside while she lowered herself to another, tucking her skirt under her knees as she sat. She pulled her long hair around her neck and draped it over one shoulder where it would not get in her way, then proceeded to wipe Daniel's face with a cloth dipped in a bowl of water smelling strongly of some kind of herbs.

"My mother and grandmother," she explained. "My mother is not happy about you and your friends being here, but my grandmother has reminded her that it is our duty to give aid to those in need." Her tone of voice made it clear that she agreed with her grandmother, but she didn't elaborate, becoming absorbed in her task for a moment. Although Daniel was clearly lost in a fog of delirium, his head jerking fitfully against the pillow and an occasional word or moan escaping from his lips, he seemed to respond to her touch, leaning towards her hand and briefly becoming quiet.

"Sha're?" he whispered, his eyebrows first lifting, then drawing together in a frown as the inevitable signs of pain crept back into his face.

Brecca looked at Jack questioningly. "Sha're?" she repeated. "He keeps saying that word over and over. Is it a name?"

"His wife. She was taken by the Goa'uld," Jack answered simply. A pained expression crossed Brecca's face, but then she swallowed, nodded and went back to tending Daniel.

"Look, I don't mean to be rude," Jack continued, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, "but as you can see, he's obviously in very bad shape. We can help him if we can just get him back through the 'Gate to our own world."

"I'm afraid that's not possible," she answered, pausing in her ministrations and folding her hands in her lap, the wet cloth still clutched between her fingers.

"Why not?" Jack snapped, sitting up straighter.

"Are we prisoners here?" That was Carter's voice, and Jack turned to see her standing in the doorway, the old woman standing by her side for a moment before turning and departing again.

"No, no. Nothing like that. Come. Sit, and I'll explain," Brecca said in a reassuring voice, waving Carter towards another stool. "You are free to go whenever you want and wherever you want, but you will not be able to go through the Stargate until midday tomorrow at the earliest."

"We weren't able to reactivate it after we arrived here. Is it damaged somehow?" Carter asked as she hooked one foot around the offered stool and sat down.

"No, there is nothing wrong with it. It simply needs to recharge. It takes its power from the sun."

"Those tiles Daniel was wondering about," Carter said as her eyes opened wide in realization. "He pointed them out when we first arrived. They must be solar cells of some sort."

"Yes, that is what the Tok'Ra called them," Brecca said, nodding. The name caused Carter to glance sharply at Jack, a look which did not go unnoticed by Brecca. "You know of the Tok'Ra?"

"Yes, we've… heard of them," Jack responded slowly, not wanting to say anything more until he had a better idea of exactly what kind of situation they had gotten themselves into this time. "Go on."

"As I told O'Neill earlier, the Tok'Ra freed us from the rule of the Goa'uld and brought us here to this refuge. The T'loknae protect us," and here she inserted a brief explanation of who the T'loknae were for Carter's benefit. "The other means of defense that we have is built into the Stargate itself. It can only be activated for a few minutes at a time, and it takes a full day at the very least before it can be activated again. In this way the Tok'Ra made it impossible for large numbers of Goa'uld to come through the Stargate together. The few that might make it through at one time can be easily dealt with by the T'loknae, although there have not been any Goa'uld here in a very long time. In fact, you are the first outsiders to come here in my entire lifetime, other then the Tok'Ra who visit us from time to time."

"Great," Jack muttered. "No Goa'uld armies, but no rescue for Daniel either."

"Daniel?" Brecca asked, obviously somewhat confused. "Daniel… Jackson?" She gestured towards the cot.

"Yes, that's Daniel. Daniel Jackson is his full name."

"Ah. I see." She paused, reaching over to push a sweat-soaked strand of hair off Daniel's forehead. "We are doing what we can for him, but the poison is strange, one we have never encountered before." Her hand drifted down and she pulled a corner of the blanket from Daniel's shoulder. They had removed his jacket and shirt in order to tend him more easily, Brecca explained in a detached, business-like manner.

Her removal of the blanket from the right side of Daniel's chest revealed pale skin bruised to dark purple immediately around the wound and streaked with red across his chest and up onto his shoulder. There was a poultice of some kind covering the wound itself, which Carter leaned over to investigate more closely, but she almost immediately coughed and jerked back.

"It draws the poison," Brecca stated simply.

"It probably draws flies too," Carter replied sarcastically as she covered her mouth and nose with one hand, her eyes watering slightly.

Brecca shrugged. The smell obviously didn't bother her, or she simply saw it as an unpleasant necessity. "There are men trying to find the T'loknae who did this in hopes there is an antidote to the poison, but as I said, the T'loknae keep to themselves, and it is very difficult to communicate in any event. We have not been able to learn much of their language, and they have never attempted to speak to us in ours. It's a very limited alliance, obviously."

Brecca pulled the blanket back up over Daniel, then laid the back of her hand against his cheek. This time he twitched away from her touch. "He grows hot, and then cold, hot and cold, back and forth. Sometimes he is still and quiet, other times he shivers, other times he tosses and moans and speaks in a language I have never heard." She was staring down at Daniel's pale face and it seemed for a moment that she had almost forgotten Carter and Jack were there. "The poultice does not seem to be doing much good, and I fear he will not survive until the morning. We have sent for Trieste, but she has gone to one of the outlying villages. She may not return here in time."

Jack swallowed and looked at Carter, who was not doing a very good job of hiding her distress at Brecca's opinion. The glimmer in her eyes was probably not entirely the effect of smelly folk remedies. Carter wouldn't cry, though. She was tough. She was strong. Jack had seen her go though much worse than this, and she always managed to hold together. This time would be no different. They would be fine. They would all be fine, damn it. There simply wasn't any other option.

"This Trieste – she's a healer of some kind?" Carter asked, a bit of a quiver in her voice.

"Yes." Brecca nodded. "She has… methods at her disposal that are… very unusual, to say the least." She seemed reluctant to say more, so Jack decided not to pursue the matter. Either Trieste would be able to help, or she wouldn't. Actually, he felt so desperate at the moment he'd probably be willing to try chanting and burning incense if someone suggested it would do some good.

They sat quietly for a few moments, the only sounds the crackling of the fire in the hearth and a few muttered words and fragments of words from Daniel as he struggled in the grip of the toxin that had invaded his body. It had been a long time since Jack had felt so helpless, since his son had died… He let that thought drift away. It wouldn't do any good to be dwelling on thoughts of death.

Brecca finally broke the silence by drawing a deep breath and slowly pulling herself to her feet. "It should be about time for the evening meal. Would you like to join us?" The offer was half-hearted, obligatory. She seemed to be taking Daniel's plight as seriously as his friends despite the fact that she had never so much as laid eyes on him before this day. This reassured Jack that they had at least one ally here who truly believed in the "give aid to those in need" principle. Either that, or she was simply – well, "smitten" would be the right word. She wouldn't be the first. At the moment, though, Daniel was hardly displaying his usual personality or appearance in any way, shape or form, and he looked like such complete and utter crap that Jack couldn't imagine any woman being in the least bit attracted to him. Some women were strange, though. Some women were actually drawn to the wounded and suffering like moths to a candle flame.

Brecca's dinner invitation was obviously addressed to both Carter and himself, but Jack answered for both of them. "No, thank you. I'd think we'd rather stay here with Daniel." He had absolutely no intention of leaving his friend's side until he either he was better or– No. He absolutely refused to even consider that possibility. They would just have to hope that this Trieste arrived soon and that her healing ability was as advertised.

Brecca nodded her understanding and told them she would send some food for them to eat there at Daniel's bedside. Her offer and Jack's brief nod of acceptance were simply matters of form, though. He knew he wouldn't be able to get down a single bite, and he suspected Carter wouldn't either.

Just as Brecca was about to leave, though, Carter stopped her. "Brecca, wait." She stood up and looked back and forth between Jack and the young woman as she spoke. "If I could talk to some of your people, maybe take a look around your village… There's a lot we know about the Stargate. We might be able to get it activated before tomorrow."

Of course! Jack wanted to bang his head against the nearest wall. That knock-out dart really must have addled their wits if neither one of them had thought of this before now. If Carter could find something, anything, that she could jury-rig as a power source to free up the rings of the Stargate to allow manual input of the address for Earth… They had done it before, they could do it again. What they had seen of this place so far didn't provide much encouragement that large power sources would just be laying about in the street, but Carter was resourceful. If there was anything here that could be used to activate the 'Gate, she would find it.

Brecca nodded. "Yes, that can be arranged, although you should be careful of what you say. There are those who would be very upset at the idea of reactivating the Stargate prematurely."

Brecca seemed a bit uneasy at the idea herself, but Jack thought he could also detect a spark of curiosity there. "Go," he told Carter. "I'll stay with Daniel." He wasn't sure what he could do here, but he felt one of them should stay. To be perfectly honest with himself, he didn't hold out very high hopes that Carter would find anything of use judging from the low- or even no-tech appearance of this society, but he couldn't let the possibility go unexplored. Maybe he would see if they had some incense on hand, after all.