Chapter Title: The Cost

Summary: "Clear!" Jack's body jolted off the bed. No pulse. "Charge it! ...Clear!"

Author's Note: I fully admit that I stole all medical jargon from Atlantis episode "Adrift".

Daniel frantically pulled Jack out of the control chair, throwing him none too gingerly to the floor.

"Daniel Jackson, I shall carry him and meet the medical team halfway."

Daniel checked Jack's pulse one more time. "Damn it," he cursed under his breath. "There's no time, Teal'c. He's not breathing."

Daniel silently thanked the military for demanding he know how to perform CPR. Tilting Jack's head back, he pinched the man's nose and breathed two, long slow breaths in Jack's mouth.

Daniel checked again for breathing or a pulse. He could find neither.

Cursing again, Daniel put his hands in position over Jack's chest and compressed to a count of thirty. He switched to breathing two more breaths. Still nothing.

"C'mon!"

Daniel repeated the process twice more before checking for a pulse. Still nothing.

"Damn you, Jack! You are not allowed to die now!"

He compressed Jack's chest again and was positive he heard something snap, but kept going. Dr. Keller stormed in the door, pushing him out of the way while asking what happened. Daniel found he was shaking so much that he couldn't say anything and Teal'c quickly informed Jennifer what had occurred.

Sam barreled into the room as they were getting Jack on a gurney. The three of them tailing after the medical team, Sam questioned, "What happened?!"

Still taking deep breaths, Daniel panted, "After the second wave, he stopped breathing and I couldn't find a pulse. I performed CPR but I couldn't get anything."

They found themselves in the infirmary, Jennifer with paddles in hands.

"Clear!"

Jack's body jolted off the bed. No pulse.

"Charge it! ...Clear!"

The flat line rang in everyone's ears. Sam watched, completely unable to move.

"Let's start him on mannitol -- two hundred C.Cs I.V."

Jennifer pumped Jack's chest manually, the monitor in the backround unchanging.

"Time?"

"Two minutes flat line."

"Come on!," Jennifer yelled. "Put up a fight, airman!"

The tone increased to a rapid beeping.

"He's going back into V-fib." Grabbing the defibrillator paddles, Jen yelled for everyone to clear and shocked him again. A regular heartbeat sounded out of the monitors.

Sam let out a relieved sob, not even realizing that she had been silently crying the whole time. Daniel wrapped his arm around her, pulling her to his shoulder, his own eyes red and hands still shaking.

Once Jack was fully stabilized, Dr. Keller allowed them over to his bedside.

"We'll need to do a scan, but I'm pretty positive he's got at least two cracked ribs."

Daniel winced. Sam took Jack's hand in her own and as Dr. Keller was about to walk away, Sam said, "Jennifer?"

Jen stopped and looked at her former commander.

"Thank you."

Jennifer smiled softly and walked away with a nod.

After a while of sitting silently and listening to the steady beats of his heart, Sam quietly said, "Thank you, Daniel."

"I don't know how much good I did. Those cracked ribs are probably my fault."

"Without you, he wouldn't be alive to complain about them."

Daniel smiled, knowing that's exactly what Jack would be doing when he woke up.

"What was the second wave for?," she asked.

"Iratus bugs."

Sam stared at him and Daniel shrugged. "What's the point in getting rid of the Wraith if it could just happen all over again?"

Jack's grip tightened in Sam's hand.

She stood up from her chair. "Jack?"

"Oy," he groaned, reaching up to rub his free hand on his face.

Daniel and Sam looked at each other and smiled.

"Welcome to the land of the living, Jack."

Scrubbing his hand over his face, then looking at Daniel, he asked, "Vicis?"

Daniel's face fell inperceptibly. In all the drama he'd temporarily forgotten about the Repository.

"It's about 1300, Jack," he told him in Ancient.

Jack nodded and rubbed his hand across his chest, wincing.

"That's probably my fault," Daniel expounded for him. "You tried to stop breathing on us."

Jack's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He looked to Sam.

"She's okay, Jack. Was really shaken up there for a while, but she's okay now."

Jack touched his chest again and looked to Daniel. "Gratias esy."

Daniel smiled. "You're welcome. You owe me though. Having to kiss up to your sorry mouth."

Jack cringed at the thought, making Daniel chuckle. Sam watched on, feeling completely helpless and out of the loop as they spoke to each other in the Ancient tongue. Jack seemed to sense her unease, squeezing her hand.

When their eyes met, he asked, "Nate?"

It was odd hearing Jack say their son's name with a slight accent, almost as if it was foreign to him and he was saying it for the first time.

She stroked her thumb on the back of his hand. "He's fine. Cassie's watching him."

He nodded, recognizing Cassie's name. Still looking at Jack but directing her comment at Daniel, Sam stated, "We need to get him back to Earth. The longer we wait, the more we risk he'll have brain damage."

"Yeah. I'll go get Dr. Keller to see about releasing him."

"I don't understand it," Keller said, plopping down in a chair next to Jack's bed.

"Understand what?"

"I was sure he had some cracked ribs. His scans just came back clean. He doesn't even have any bruising which is impossible given what he went through."

Daniel mused, "Well, the last time Jack had the Repository knowledge, he healed Bra'tac. I don't see why he wouldn't be able to heal himself."

Jennifer barely bit back from saying aloud how wonderful it would be if they could run some tests to learn more about the process. The medical advancements they could make could be astronomical. But she was well aware that time was of the essence. General O'Neill had to get back to Earth ...and soon.

SG-1 left a jubilant Atlantis with John making them promise to come back and celebrate once Jack was better. Turning serious, he shook Sam's hand and told her he hoped things went well.

The team made it back to Earth. After debriefing with General Landry, they beamed directly to the Odyssey where Sam would perform the procedure.

Stepping up to a console, she said, "I'll need just a few minutes to upload the scan that Dr. Keller took of his brain into the mainframe and then I'll be ready."

While waiting Cameron came from the bridge. "Got some bad news, guys."

"What?"

"Apparently the Sator Aevum has been hijacked from Atlantis."

"What?! By whom?"

"Some long term residents of the city."

"A rogue group."

"Looks like."

"We specifically ordered that device to be destroyed!," Sam fumed.

Cam smiled tightly. "The ones given that job were the ones that took it."

Jack frustratingly nudged Daniel's shoulder to get him to explain what was going on. Once he did, the determination on his face had Sam saying 'no' from across the room.

Striding over to him, she said firmly, "You have to have the Ancient knowledge taken out now. If you don't, the brain damage will be unrepairable."

Jack stood right in front of her but his eyes moved left and right, obviously thinking of something in his own mind. Finally, he nodded briskly and got on the pod looking thing in position.

Sam moved controls on the console and activated the procedure.

Several seconds passed and Daniel asked out the side of his mouth, "Is it supposed to be taking this long?" After all, Asgard technology was pretty much instantaneous.

Sam checked the console readouts to be sure. "Everything's working the way it's supposed to. I don't know why it's going so slow. There. It's done."

She walked over to the pod 'bed' just as Jack was sitting up and rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.

"Woah!" Jack looked at everyone surrounding him with a blank expression. "Uhhh ...what's going on?"

Sam's face split into a massive grin. It worked.

Daniel asked, "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Pancakes."

Everyone but Sam looked confused.

Glancing around at everybody and seeing that he was obviously on a spaceship, Jack asked again, "What's going on?"

"Oh, not much," Daniel said. "You've just built a mini Dakara weapon, discovered another city ship in a different galaxy, flew Atlantis, and destroyed possibly all the Wraith in the Pegasus galaxy in the last three days."

Jack's eyebrows rose. "Busy then?"

"Just a little."

"We've got a slight problem, sir."

"Do tell, Mitchell."

"A rogue group has gotten a hold of the Sator Aevum."

Jack looked at Daniel with his explain-the-big-alien-words-please expression.

"The name of the Dakara weapon."

"Ah." Jack got up from the pod bed. "Well then, let's go find it shall we?"

SG-1 walked back into the gate room of Atlantis, where it looked decidedly less like a party atmosphere.

John walked down to greet them. "Sir," he directed to Jack with a nod of his head.

"What happened, Colonel?"

"Directly after you left, the gate started dialing on its own and three of our people escaped in a jumper. We discovered they had taken the device with them shortly after that."

"What planet did they gate to?"

"McKay's trying to figure that out."

Sam stepped forward. "Wasn't someone up at operations?"

"Chuck was supposed to be."

Her eyebrows rose. "Supposed to be?"

"Chuck was one of the three in the jumper."

Sam's shock radiated off her face. "Chuck is one of the rogue group?"

"Yes ma'am. As well as Lt. Graves and Dr. Omar."

Too stunned to speak, Jack retook control of the conversation for her. "Who do we think they're working for?"

"You'd know more about that than me, sir. Can't say I know much about Earth based rogue groups. As far as I was concerned until about thirty minutes ago, those three were loyal long term members of this expedition."

Coming back to herself, Sam said, "I need to get to McKay. If he doesn't know where they went by now, they must have set up a program to block his access."

Three hours later, they finally had a lock. It had taken both the efforts of Sam and Rodney to crack the code. Some of the lines and pieces of code went back years. Whoever was behind this had been waiting for an opportunity like this for a long time. And was very very good.

SG-1 and SGA-1 geared up to leave.

While strapping on her vest, Sam said, "Obviously, they'll have gated to another planet once they left here. Rodney and I will have to determine the next address they went to, but it will take some time."

Cam asked, "How much time?"

Grimacing, Sam admitted, "It could take a while."

Rodney huffed. "Please. I can figure it out easily. It won't take any time at all."

Sam barely refrained from rolling her eyes but secretly hoped he was right. The damage that a device like the Sator Aevum could cause in the wrong hands ...it was scary to think about.

The wormhole established and everyone started to head toward the gate when Jack stopped them.

"Everybody got everything? Sidearms, C4, ...toothbrushes?"

Blinking eyes and several odd looks were his reply.

Daniel licked his lips. "Jack, are you okay?"

Flipping the cover to his watch, Jack answered, "Peachy, Daniel. Why?"

Brows furrowed in his I'm-torn-between-being-concerned-for-you-and-just-thinking-you're-strange face, Daniel replied, "No reason."

"Okay then." Jack backed toward the wormhole and flipped the cover back on his watch. "Let's head out."

Jack walked through the wormhole and Daniel walked to follow beside Colonel Sheppard, shaking his head at his friend's odd behavior.

Right as Daniel came nose to shimmering puddle, the wormhole snapped off. Blinking at the back wall of the gate room, Daniel surmised, "Well, that was rude."

Lifting the burnt-off tip of his P90, John said, "Tell me about it."

"What just happened?"

John turned on his heels. "Rodney?"

"I don't know. Just give me a minute," replied the scientist. John could practically see the ideas and formulas running through Rodney's head.

Sam ordered the gate to be redialed, but after trying, the technician informed her that it wouldn't lock.

"What?!"

Sam and Rodney ran up to the operations center, trying to find the problem.

John asked, "Is this the rogue group again?"

Sam, still typing, responded, "It's probably a fail safe of their code that we missed."

McKay, equally as busy, disagreed. "We didn't miss anything!"

While it appeared that they obviously did, Sam had to agree with him.

Cameron took a look at the DHD and dialed an address. It locked and the wormhole was established. Seeing everyones looks, he shrugged. "I had a hunch."

"Okay," John said. "We gate to another planet and then use that DHD to dial the one the General's on."

Sam shook her head. "That won't work. They gated to the Milky Way galaxy. Atlantis is the only gate that has a control crystal. Without it, we can't dial an eight symbol address."

Cam tilted his head. "So, dial the SGC and we'll gate from there."

Sam was about to acquiesce when, "Woah! Daniel? What does this say? My Ancient's a little rusty."

Daniel walked over to her computer screen and read, "E romel. E komai."

He translated, "I'm sorry. I lied."

McKay ranted, "That doesn't even make sense. Why would the rogue group be apologizing?"

Daniel huffed a disbelieving laugh. "It's not them. It's Jack."