IMPORTANT NOTE: When I post chapter 4 tomorrow, I will be changeing the title of this story to "Left Behind: SG-1". I was thinking about where this story would go later, and realized that 'Stargate Command' would not fit. It's about SG-1, so that seemed more appropriate.

So anyway, thank you so much for the response to this story! I'm so glad you all like the idea. This is going to be so much fun! I can't wait to hear what you think of this new chapter, and I hope all of you will continue to review, because it helps a whole lot. e-mail sever is still down, but I plan on trying to update most every day (because for some reason this story is just coming so fast. whee!) so just check back here. Thanks!

Chapter 3

The phone on the bedside table rang loudly, pulling Jack O'Neill out of a sound sleep. Grumbling to himself, he threw his arm out to land on top of the phone, and pulled the device to his ear while he glanced at the clock.

"Hello?"

"General O'Neill, sir?"

It was the voice of his assistant. The caller I.D. read the number of his offices at the Pentagon, but what the man was doing in the office at this hour was anyone's guess. The tone of the younger man's voice was urgent, stressed, and maybe even frightened, but Jack wasn't in a position to register all of that at the moment.

"This better be good, Baker. It's four in the morning."

"Uh, yes sir, I know sir—but this is an emergency."

"What kind of emergency?" Jack mumbled. "Did I forget to file my paperwork again?"

"Uhm, no sir, this is a lot bigger."

Jack slowly sat up, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "How much bigger? Alien attack kind of big?" he asked, finally starting to get awake enough to be seriously interested.

"We don't know, sir."

"Captain, what do you mean, you don't know?" Jack barked.

He could almost hear Baker cringing. "I mean no-one knows, general, but…" He trailed off and took a deep breath. "Millions of people are missing, sir."

"Missing?"

"They just vanished, right out of their clothes. They were there one minute and gone the next. I-I was here at the office because I couldn't sleep, and I saw it happen to someone. They were just poof, gone. I can't describe it any better then that."

The hand in his hair came down to his face. Jack swore quite colorfully, but even though it was quiet, Baker heard it.

"Sir?" he asked worriedly.

"How widespread is this?"

"All over, sir."

"As in over the U.S. or…."

He could hear Baker gulp. "No sir, as in worldwide."

Now, Jack was used to weird and impossible things happening, but…

"Who would do this? Who could do this? The Ori and all their ships and their crazy little soldiers are out of the picture; even Baal's gone now."

"We don't know, sir. That's why I called. We need you to come into the office, now."

Jack sighed. "Yeah, no kidding. I'll be there as fast as I can."

"Just be careful, general. The roads are a mess. People disappearing, leaving their cars unmanned…there are a lot of wrecks and downed power lines to watch out for."

"Thanks Baker…hey, what about the SGC? How hard hit was Colorado?"

"Uhm, not entirely sure, sir. Colorado lost just as many people as any other state, I guess. But a lot of phone lines are down or crowded too, and we haven't been able to contact Stargate Command yet."

Jack swallowed and nodded to no-one in particular. "All right. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Good luck, sir," Baker offered.

"Yeah…"

Daniel ran around to the back of the house, Cassie on his heels. He snatched up the hose from the ground and opened the back door, while Cassie turned the knob up as far as the pressure would go.

"What now?" she asked, looking a little concerned about the prospect of just barging in there.

"I'll go in and do what I can with this. If you want to help to, then get more water from the kitchen. It's here at the back of the house so that's not dangerous."

"Okay…" Cassie nodded.

Daniel nodded back and offered a reassuring smile before going in. There was no damage in the immediate area, not even any fire yet, but the smoke was thick. Covering his nose and mouth, he made his way to the living room at the front. Almost the entire living room and entryway were engulfed in flames, and now they were licking at the hallway. Quickly he turned the hose on at his end, and the water spewed from the end to water the flames.

Cassie ran in a moment or so later with a bucket and dumped it, then ran back for more. As Daniel used the hose, she did this three or four times before she seemed to realize that it wasn't doing much good. After the fourth time she dropped the bucket, grabbed a blanket that had gone unscathed, and started to beat out the flames that weren't to large to get near.

"Be careful!" Daniel called to her.

"I am!" was all she said.

It took a while, but finally the flames were out, leaving the room a black, smoldering wreck.

"So much for the living room," Daniel sighed, turning off the hose and dropping it where he was. Cassie dropped the now-scorched blanket she'd been using to smother the fire and sighed.

"Wow…no kidding. I'm really sorry about this."

Daniel shrugged and staggered back towards the kitchen; with the adrenaline gone, exhaustion took over. He was too tired to care much beyond being in shock. Cassie followed him, and made sure he sat down in one of the chairs at the small table there in the kitchen.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah…I'll be fine. Thanks for helping," he sighed. His elbows came up to rest on the table and let his head drop into them.

Cassie sat down in the next chair. "With…well, everything going on, it'll probably be while before you can get it fixed…what are you going to do until then?"

"Having a living room isn't mandatory…I can still stay here."

He couldn't see her with his eyes pressed into his hands, but he was pretty sure from the very teenage noise she made that she had rolled her eyes--which was strange, because she wasn't really a teenager anymore.

"No, you can't. Half the house is open to the elements. You'll either freeze to death or burn up--though the first is more likely. This is Colorado, remember?"

Daniel pulled in a deep breath and ended up coughing on the lingering smoke. He sat up again. "Well, we can't stay here tonight; we'll suffocate--that much I know for sure." He stood up. "I'd really like to get back to the SGC, but my car kind of got totaled…"

Cassie raised an eyebrow. "Well, I had to get here somehow."

Daniel stood blinking at her for several seconds before the meaning of that registered. "Oh. Right. That's good. Your car would be back at that house you were at, right? Back by the highway?"

She nodded, pulling a set of keys out of her pocket and showing them to him before putting them away again and standing.

"Good, then let's get out of here," he said, starting for the back door.

Cassie stopped him. "Not so fast, bucko. You need to let me see about that head first."

"Cassie, I'm fine," he protested.

Her hands went to her hips. "Look, I want to make sure everyone else is all right just as much as you do, but it won't help if you pass out on me before we even get back to my car, because no offense, but I can't carry or drag you."

Daniel looked at her for a moment, and almost smiled at the amount of Janet Fraiser that radiated from her adopted daughter.

"All right," he relented, sitting back down.

Cassie nodded. "Where's your first aid kit?"

"Under the sink in the bathroom in the hallway…I think."

She nodded and moved off to find it.

Dressed, but unshaven because he hadn't bothered to take the time, Jack stepped out of his apartment in Washington D.C. and was immediately faced with evidence of what had occurred. Right there, across the hallway, was a pile of clothing that had dropped in front of his neighbor's apartment door, next to the set of keys his neighbor had been about to let himself into his apartment with.

Jack stared for a moment, then shuddered and quickly walked to the elevator. But it only got worse once he was outside. Sirens, car horn, and the shouts of frightened people assaulted his ears as he pushed through the glass double front doors and walked out into the parking lot. Just from where he was he could see that the power in much of D.C. was down, and he could already spot numerous wrecks. On the horizon he could even see a plane that had gone down.

People disappearing had done this? And this was happening all over the world?

Jack climbed into his truck, started the engine and pulled out, but he could already see that it was going to be a long and tricky drive to get to the office. He pulled out his cell phone and started dialing Daniel's number, just in case it managed to get through.

"Ow."

Cassie sighed as she finished cleaning the wound on Daniel's forehead and grabbed some gauze and tape. "Sorry. You do learn a lot when you had a doctor for a mom, but it's kinda hard to see in here."

"It's okay, I understand." She taped the piece of gauze over the gash, then started packing up the first aid kit again. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," she smiled briefly. She closed the case. "We should probably take this with us; I've only got a tiny one in the car. You should probably bring some clothes with you too. If we can actually get to the SGC, there's no telling when you'll be able to get back here again."

"Good point," Daniel sighed, standing again. "I'll be right back." She nodded, and he retreated to his bedroom, where he grabbed a suitcase that was neither too big to carry or too small to be helpful, stuffed it with clothes he usually wore, and his regular toiletry items from his bathroom, then zipped it and went back out to the kitchen, where Cassie was waiting for him.

"Let's go," he announced. The phone ringing stopped him before he could get any farther. Cassie's eyes went wide.

"It actually works?"

"Go figure…" Daniel mussed, going over to it. It started to ring a second time, but then sputtered and went silent. He only caught a glance at the number, but recognized it immediately. "It's Jack!"

"It is?"

"Yes!" A moment later the phone sputtered to life again, but only got halfway through one ring before dying again--not even enough time for Daniel to grab for it. Apparently the connection wasn't working well enough. It had been Jack's cell phone number, and if this was all over, then there were probably a lot of cell towers down.

Daniel and Cassie waited in silence for another few minutes, but nothing happened. Daniel sighed, changed the answering machine message to tell anyone that happened to call that he was 'at work', and then told her that they'd better go. It wasn't going to work now.

But at least now he knew Jack was still here and alive. That helped a lot--now they just had to get back to Stargate Command to check on the others, and hope Jack could get a call through sometime soon.

He couldn't get through to Daniel's, or Carter's, or the SGC itself…nothing was working. His cell phone wasn't getting enough signal. Jack growled and frustration and threw it down on the seat, turning back to the snail-slow traffic on the road in front of him and promising himself that he would check on his friends the first chance he had at a land line that would get through to Colorado.

Cassie, who had insisted on driving because of Daniel's head, turned off the car radio--and he had no objection. He was sure she was just as disturbed as he was. According to reports, this event wasn't only in this area, or in the United States alone, but it was worldwide. In the blink of an eye, millions of people around the globe had vanished.

Daniel knew that rang a bell, and he even knew which bell…but he didn't want to believe it. He swallowed.

"Cassie…you said you'd known those people for a while, right? The ones you were babysitting for?"

She glanced over at him uneasily. "Yeah…why?"

"What were they like? I mean, what kind of people were they?"

"Why do you want to know?" she asked skeptically.

He sighed. "I'm not sure…I'm just looking for some answers."

Cassie looked at him for another long moment--which was quite all right since what traffic there was was almost at a standstill--then turned her eyes back to the road.

"They're really nice people. They're always very polite and generous, and seem to really care about me…I babysat for them a lot when they would go to church stuff…you know, that kind of people. I really enjoy…enjoyed working for them…" She trailed off as her voice choked. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay. We're all upset right now."

Cassie nodded wordlessly, but quickly found an excuse to change the subject when the line of cars snaking around the wrecks moved. "Thank you! Finally…"

Daniel slumped against the door more, unwanted thoughts swirling around in his mind. So the people that Cassie had known who had vanished were Christian…

The couple he'd lived with in one of many foster homes had been Christian. At the moment, he couldn't even remember their names, just that they'd made him come to church with them and their own two children. He hadn't really liked them then, because of that. He'd been too busy reading about the ancient gods and goddesses of Egypt and other dead civilizations to worry about whether there was a real one. He'd never really believed that there was, but then again it had never really mattered to him whether there was one or not. It hadn't been an issue.

He had an uneasy suspicion that he might have to re-evaluate that sooner rather than later.