Okidoki, here's chapter four. Please let me know what you think; reviews are very helpful, and I would never be able to write so much without them, lol. Thanks to you who have reviewed. You're such good reviewers, so please continue to do so. :) Enjoy!

Chapter 4

A drive that would usually have taken twenty or thirty minutes took several hours that night, and morning light was already peeking over the mountains when Cassie pulled into the SGC's parking lot. The checkpoint halfway down into the mountain was manned, but the young woman there looked shaken, and only glanced up, recognized them both, and waved them on.

Daniel and Cassie continued down quickly, but didn't know where to look once they were there. A solemn-looking Siler saw them and came over, relief on his face. "Doctor Jackson, you're all right."

Without thinking Daniel brought a hand up to touch the bandage on his head. "Yeah, relatively. Where is everybody?"

Siler shrugged. "Around. I think the people you're looking for are in Teal'c's room."

"Thanks," Daniel nodded, then motioned for Cassie to follow him and took off in that direction. It didn't take long to get to teal'c door, but when they were standing outside of it, he couldn't hear anything coming from inside. Hesitantly he pushed the door open.

He sighed; they were there. Sam and Vala were passed out on the bed, and Teal'c was asleep in a chair nearby. Vala's hand was still wrapped around the phone. But no Cameron. Swallowing and exchanging glances with Cassandra, he moved farther into the room and gently took the phone and set it back in its cradle. Vala stirred, and her eyes opened. She looked up at him, blinking through layers of sleep.

"Daniel…?"

He smiled. "It's me."

She was fully awake in a split second, shooting up onto her knees on the bed so she was eye-level with him, and wrapping her arms around him firmly. "Oh thank goodness; we were so worried about you."

Daniel hugged back tightly. "I'm glad you're all right too."

Sam woke next, sitting up yawning and rubbing her eyes. When she stopped to actually look, her eyes widened. "Daniel, Cassie!" She got up and came around the bed to hug Cassie.

Teal'c sat up and stood a moment later. "Daniel Jackson," he smiled as Vala finally let go of him. "It is good to see that you are well."

"You too, Teal'c." Sam let go of Cassie and moved to hug Daniel. "Hey, Sam…"

Cassie looked around. "Where's Cameron?"

Sam stiffened and slowly let go of him. Vala looked away.

"He vanished as well," Teal'c answered quietly.

Daniel swallowed. "You're sure?"

Vala nodded and gulped. "He was here. I…I saw it happen."

Daniel looked at her for a moment and then pulled her back into his arms.

"Daniel, what are going to do?" she asked, voice muffled in his shirt.

He sighed. "We find answers." Part of him suspected he already knew the answer, but he wasn't ready to accept that. There were still other options to explore.

The next few days passed in a blur. No-one was really on duty, but they all stayed at the SGC. Eventually the phones, the television stations, and the main power came back up, all over clean-up operations began, and the government began obviously trying to keep life moving on. Schools all over the world were cancelled for the rest of the school year, but life moved on still--though it was almost reluctantly.

After three days, Sam finally ventured out to check on her house, and found it to be just fine. Cameron's apartment building, however, had burned to the ground. Apparently someone had disappeared and left a stove running in there or something.

Sam went back to the SGC after checking, and dropped onto the couch in her room and flipped on the television to check the news. Maybe there would be something better on than there had been yesterday. The government had announced the day before that it 'had been determined' that the cause of the vanishing had been nuclear radiation build-up in the atmosphere from years of testing.

Sam, of course, knew that was bogus. There was just no way. But she figured that not a lot of people knew too much about nuclear radiation, and it had been decided it was something they could tell the world without too much, if any, contradiction. People would believe it. But she knew better. She was beginning to wonder if any of The Powers That Be had any idea what had really happened.

She watched the news for a while, and was just quite confused when there was a knock on the door, and called for whoever it was to come in. The door opened quietly, and Daniel stepped in.

"Hey…how you doing?"

She glanced at him, then back at the TV. "I'm okay. My house is fine. " She sighed. "Cameron's apartment building burned down, though."

Daniel sank onto the couch with her. "Oy…what next?"

Sam shrugged, then frowned. "Hey, you remember that Carpathia guy?"

"The new president of Romania?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "Nicolae Carpathia. He's been all over the news since the vanishings."

"I've noticed," Daniel nodded. "I haven't paid much attention, though."

"Well, he just became the Secretary General of the United Nations."

"What?" he questioned, his full attention on her now.

"And that's not all of it. That was after one of the two big business guys that used to back him, something Stonogal, grabbed a gun from one of the guards at a U.N. meeting earlier today, shot the other big business guy, Cothran, then killed himself--right in front of Carpathia, all the U.N. delegates, and a reporter that was there." She couldn't quite believe it herself.

Daniel shook his head. "For cryin' out loud…and what was a reporter doing there?"

"I don't know. I think he knows some people Carpathia knows, so he got invited to sit in. Uhm…Buck Williams, I think."

"Yeah, that name sounds familiar too." He sighed. "None of that makes anymore sense than nuclear radiation."

"You're telling me. I'm the one who knows exactly how ridiculous that is."

Daniel sighed. "What about Jack? We haven't heard from him yet."

Sam shook her head. "Not all the phone lines are back up yet. He probably just can't get through. I'm sure he's fine."

"I hope so…" he mussed.

"What I want to know is what the SGC is supposed to do. We have the main power back, so we could dial the stargate if we wanted to…"

Daniel sat up straighter. "Oh, that one I know. General Landry just got a call from the president while you were gone."

"And?"

He sighed. "We're supposed to sit tight for now. The energy and the money is needed elsewhere right now, what with recovery and everything. We can't dial the 'gate."

"Great…"

Jack looked up wearily as Baker knocked on his open office door. "What is it?"

"Uh, sir we just got word that the phones should be able to get through to Colorado now. You can try calling the SGC."

The moment Baker walked back out the door again, Jack almost launched himself at the phone. He hadn't been back to his apartment in three days. Instead, he'd been stuck here trying to figure out what had really happened despite the government's decision to announce something already, and they hadn't made any progress. He hadn't been able to think about anything besides Daniel, Carter, Teal'c, and Cassie.

Jack dialed Daniel's office number, and the archaeologist picked up after the first ring. "Jack?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "Are you guys ok over there?"

"Well, I'm fine…and Sam, Teal'c, and Cassie are fine. We've all been staying on base. It's insane outside."

"Tell me about it. But I'm just glad you're ok. Did the SGC lose anybody?"

He heard Daniel gulp. "Yeah, uh…several people here…Cameron and Walter are gone," he admitted.

"Crap…" Jack swore. And they were both such nice kids too. "Do you guys have any more idea what happened than the pentagon does? We've got nothin'."

"Oh really? I thought the pentagon was in agreement with the rest of the world's leadership that it was nuclear radiation that caused the vanishings," Daniel commented in amusement.

He rolled his eyes. "That story's a load of bull, and you know it."

"No kidding. I know what that kind of radiation does to a person."

Jack winced to himself "Yeah…I guess they just wanted something people would believe so everyone would get off their backs about solving this. But we're still trying to figure it out here at Homeworld Security."

"Yeah, so are we, but we haven't come up with anything yet either. And we just got word from the president that we can't use the stargate until further notice. Apparently they need the money for damage repair."

"What about incoming wormholes?"

He could hear the shrug in Daniel's voice. "Well, those don't use much of our energy, so if someone contacts us we can talk to them, but we can't let anyone through right now, and we can't dial out."

"Well, that's helpful," Jack snorted. "Anything else screwy?"

"Well, I was on the road when it happened, my car got totaled, and another crash sent a minivan into my living room, which got burnt to a crisp, but other than that, no, we're fine."

Jack had to resist the urge not to gape at thin air. "Your car is totaled and your house burned down?"

"No, my car is totaled, and my living room is burnt out. The rest of the house is fine. It's Cameron's apartment building that burned to the ground, but that doesn't exactly matter anymore, now does it?" His voice was way beyond stressed at this point, even though it was obvious he was trying to make light of it all, and Jack wasn't going to have any of it. Jack sighed.

"Just hang tight over there, Daniel. As soon as I can get a free day and flight out there, I'll come."

"Jack, you don't have to do that; we're fine. I'm fine," Daniel protested.

"Maybe so, but after all this, it'll make me feel better if I can see all of you. Do you have a problem with that?"

Daniel sighed now. "No…I don't have a problem with that. Just don't cut work or anything. Come when you actually have time."

"Yes, mom."

"Jack! You…oh, never mind."

Baker poked his head in at the door and motion that there was another call waiting for Jack. "Uh, Daniel I gotta go."

"Okay."

"It's good to know you're okay."

"Yeah, you too. Call back sometime soon, okay"

"You can count on it," Jack promised. "Bye."

"Later."

Jack hung up feeling a lot better than he had a few minutes before, but he was still uneasy in general. He wouldn't stop until he knew what could have made so many people disappear.

Just after Daniel hung up the phone, the unscheduled-off-world-activation alarm went off. It was different though, since it wasn't Walter's voice announcing it. Jumping up, Daniel hurried out into the corridor and down to the control room, where he met Sam, Teal'c, and Vala.

"It's Atlantis," Sam whispered to him as he came in.

Daniel looked to the computer monitors, where Elizabeth Weir's tired face dominated the screens.

"What's wrong, Doctor Weir?" General Landry asked, concern in his voice.

"We would have dialed in sooner, but there's a lot going on here. We're missing people, general," Weir reported.

Landry exchanged glances with SG-1. "How many people? What happened?"

Weir swallowed. "We don't know what happened. That's what we've been trying to figure out. They just disappeared into thin air and left their clothes behind. We lost about a fourth of the expedition. What's strange is that all of them were part of a group that usually meets somewhere on Sundays for a Bible study or something…and we heard from the mainland that most of the Ethosians that used to join that group when they still lived in the city are also missing, along with other Ethosians who joined them there when they started their own group." She shook her head. "I just don't know."

Landry shook his head. "Neither to we, but the same thing happened here--on a larger scale. Millions of people all over the world are gone. It happened about three days ago."

"That's right," Weir nodded. "It happened about that long ago here, too. Do think it happened at the exact same time?"

"It could have. Are people missing on any other planets over there?"

She nodded again. "Actually, yes. Many of the planets we've been friends with for a while have missing people…some of them many, some of them just a few, and a couple of them only one or two, but it's all over."

"It's all over the Pegasus galaxy?" Sam asked incredulously.

"How is that possible?" Vala questioned, eyes wide.

"That's what I'd like too know," Weir replied, lips pressed in a thin line.

Landry sighed. "We haven't heard from anyone else in this galaxy yet, but as of right now, I'm pretty sure we will." The general concluded the conversation with Doctor Weir, and the 'gate shut down.

Daniel swallowed, that nagging thought that had been in the back of his mind since this started nipping at him again. "General, do you think this is everywhere? As in…everywhere?"

"I don't know," the general admitted. "But it's sure beginning to look like it."