'Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before.
The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this still life.'

"Hide and Seek" ~ Imogen Heap

It had been a metropolis once. Nearly as modern as Earth's beloved Manhattan, arched towers yawned from the detritus now engulfing the city.

Daniel, as he and Jack had done the first time without knowing why, took off his shoes. He carried them and his socks in one hand and Sam's makeup brush in the other.

He walked a solid hour through sandy streets. At last he came to the outskirts of the city.

Here, modernity ended and a selfish stretch of desert took its place.

Sure enough, beyond the dunes, in the belly button of a stony culvert, the ashes of a fire glared back at Daniel. He trotted down the sand to crouch near the fire and MRE wrappers. Just as the MALP had shown.

Smooth, Jack-sized slipper tracks led back up the hill and into the abandoned city.

Next to the fire were the bronzy remains of the Scrambler. It had taken a hammer from their time in pre-Beowulf Scandinavia and an alien laser to destroy it.

An ancient object and a futuristic one.

Daniel shuddered.

He headed back for the city. He and Jack had been blessed with the terrible privilege of visiting this planet in its past, when it was thriving. A past older even than the Ancients.

And only for one day.

The language had eluded them, something so antediluvian even Daniel had no reference for it. It was more like…singing…than talking. The civilization had already been dying from their own chrono-exploration and greed.

It had taken Daniel and Jack another two hundred years of time hopping to get home.

Daniel forced himself back to the city square—to the present—and its stargate.

The DHD was the only thing not sand covered, thanks to Jack's Shawshank act.

Daniel knelt beside the DHD. Sam's fine-whiskered brush cleared away any excess sand. Abruptly, Daniel felt normal again. Digging in the sand. Seeking knowledge.

He took off his sunglasses to spread a fine powder over the DHD symbols. He thanked whoever was listening that there was no wind to blow it away.

The sun was already beginning to set. It was just enough to see seven lined whorls—

"Yes!" Daniel actually whooped. "Yes!"

Jack's fingerprints smiled back in all their gritty glory.

Daniel pounded the sandstone he was so happy. "We have a chance! You hear that, Jack? Just hang on!"

The euphoria faded, however.

Daniel stared at the seven symbols and groaned.

No way am I asking for Sam's help now. Seven symbols. An infinite number of variations, of 'gates Jack could have gone to. Daniel could practically hear Sam's math lecture in his head.

Daniel frowned at the symbols in some subconscious hope they'd whisper up their secrets. He hadn't committed a criminal act that would render him a global threat in every government's eyes just to go back in defeat.

Wait a minute…

Daniel's eyes widened. He double checked the prints again.

I know these coordinates.

One didn't forget the place they fell from the sky. With an almighty huff of disbelief, Daniel sat back on his heels. He shook his head.

"Vis Uban. Jack went to Vis Uban."


One eyebrow arched towards a fedora perched on the glossy forehead and dark eyes stared down an equally tall, dark macchiato. Teal'c's fingers eclipsed the Starbucks cup but for a spiky top of green hair.

He seemed to be interrogating a particularly difficult suspect—without success.

He took the plastic cover off, sniffed it, made a face, and then quickly tried to school his expression into something neutral.

If Sam hadn't been so focused on her rear view mirror, she would have laughed.

Teal'c snapped the cover back on. "I will never understand your affinity for drinking dirt. Daniel Jackson is the worst culprit of all."

This time Sam lost it. Her snickers filled the SUV. "It's coffee, Teal'c. Well, espresso, actually."

He glanced at her. "Why, General Carter, did we stop for thirty minutes at a Starbucks?"

"Because." Sam adjusted her mirror. Only blank, sun moistened pavement met her eyes. Her grip loosened around the wheel. "This had to look like a normal afternoon off. You, me. Coffee. We were being followed and now we're not, so I'd say it worked. And for the thousandth time, I'm still Colonel Carter. Not general."

Teal'c's cheeks lifted in the barest hint of a grin. "You are a general to me, a title you have deserved for quite some time."

"Whatever you say, Teal'c." But Sam was grinning too.

The drive took another fifteen minutes, owing to Sam's random circling of the nearby suburbs. Just in case.

"How's life as a grandfather treating you? She sounds beautiful. Laeyana. Even her name is pretty."

At this, the Jaffa positively beamed. "It is most satisfying to hold her in my arms."

Sam was surprised to feel tears sting her eyes.

"I can't wait to meet her," Sam managed.

Teal'c inclined his head. "I intend to bring Laeyana here once the travel ban has been lifted. Though an infant, she has grown teeth—and an inner fire—at a startling rate."

Sam frowned. Then Teal'c held up his left hand.

Along the index finger was a half-circle set of cuts, tiny but painful looking. Sam laughed again. A low rumble signaled Teal'c's amusement too.

The familiar russet house and its black shingled roof appeared around a copse of trees, a coy distance from the other houses.

Sam pulled into the drive and shut off the engine, but neither moved. She ran a hand down her face and wondered when she'd started to feel like an orphan.

"Coffee?" offered Teal'c, holding out the Starbucks cup.

Sam huffed around a smile. "Thanks."

She swigged it back while they got out of the car. Both walked at a sedate pace, fake chatter on their lips even when they approached the door. Sam made a show of knocking.

"Sir? You home?"

Shrugging at Teal'c, she took out Daniel's copy of the house key.

"Took me months to find this," said Sam. "Turns out he'd hidden it in a copy of Hieroglyphic Cryptology. A new archaeologist found it. Go figure."

This sobered Teal'c for some reason. His face dropped and Sam felt like she was back in that closet five years ago, Walter saddened by something she hadn't understood.

However, she caught Teal'c's mood upon opening Jack's door and stepping into the foyer.

Both froze.

Last time Sam had been here, fond pictures of the team spanned every surface. There'd been little mementos, an arrowhead here or a jar there, all things Jack had made fun of Daniel for in the moment and then snuck back to keep later. It had begun to smell much like Daniel's old office.

After two years living at the cabin, they'd collected lots of trinkets. Photo albums from their year of travel.

News clippings about how the FBI and Air Force couldn't find them smugly hung on the fridge.

Now there was…nothing.

Jack had gone from living like a badgery, affectionate older brother to a hermit.

"Where are all the photos?" Sam's hand swiped over the smooth wall. "Why…why did he get rid of everything?"

Teal'c didn't voice what they already knew. Everyone remembered the arguments, that time Daniel threw a lamp at Jack. How both men came to loathe the sight of each other. Daniel leaving on a plane with a job offer and barely a glance in Jack's direction.

"General Carter?"

Sam realized she trembled faintly. "I'm good. I'm…just…not so great memories."

Teal'c's eyes clouded with images of that disastrous mission. He took the cup from Sam's hands and mopped up espresso on the floor.

Sam washed her hands without feeling. She didn't even feel the stained sleeves of her coat.

The coffee had burned the knobby joint on her thumb and she stared at it, eyes blank, water twirling over it in a swan song. Dying. Icy.

"Samantha Carter."

"Sorry." Sam wiped her hands on a towel. "I'm good to go."

"We must set things right," said Teal'c.

Sam's head bobbed in a curt nod. "Right. I'll check the bedrooms. You take the living room and kitchen."

Teal'c gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and removed two pairs of white latex gloves from his pocket. Both snapped them on with a weighted look at each other.

The NID and IOA can't know we were here. Not for this.

The bungalow grew colder the farther through it Sam walked. She was glad she'd kept her jacket on.

The guest suite was empty and the bathroom yielded nothing but a photo of Charlie hidden behind the sink, which Sam reverently put back.

On the threshold of Jack's bedroom, she bit her lip.

"This doesn't feel right," Sam muttered.

None of it was right.

Sighing, she crept inside and went for the closet. Judging by the blanket and pillow in the living room, not to mention the almost sterile-made bed, Jack didn't sleep much here anyway.

On closer inspection, Sam's brow knit. Something seemed…smelled familiar.

Her hands sifted through the hangers, faster now. She was a bloodhound, tracing minute wafts of a scent so old she couldn't place it.

Luckily, she didn't have to:

At the very back, tucked behind the general's dress blues, was a collection of strange garments. Long and in various shades of sun faded emeralds and tans, Sam had never seen anything like them.

Her hands dropped. A choked sound crawled out of her throat.

Daniel's. These are Daniel's Abydos robes. In one fold were looped a pair of Daniel's broken glasses.

Did Daniel even know Jack had these?

Before Sam could even begin to wrap her mind around this, reeling, Teal'c's voice made her jump.

"General Carter! You must see this."

"You too!" she called, jogging down the hallway. "You won't believe what I just—"

The sight of Teal'c, inky fedora not quite covering a sliver of gold tattoo and holding a two-thirds empty orange prescription bottle, turned out to be the straw that broke Sam's temporary calm.

"What?" she barked. And then she swore. A four syllable hybrid that would have made Jack smile.

"Is this not what we were looking for?" asked Teal'c.

"Yeah…I mean, no." She breathed hard. Hard enough to lift the bangs off her forehead. "I pictured some scum bag jabbing him with a syringe in a dark alley the night before all this happened. Cold War style. Not—" Sam snatched the bottle from Teal'c's fingers. Her eyes went huge. "—seventy five tablets of some drug I've never heard of!"

Teal'c's eyes were a fire.

Sam's heart pounded. "We've gotta move, Teal'c. Come on!"

He followed her at once. Sam had the SUV in reverse before he'd even closed his door.

And Sam was afraid. Terribly afraid.

"General Carter?"

"We have to get these to Doctor Lam. Now."

Teal'c shook the bottle. "What does this mean?"

Sam roared onto the freeway. Her hands were clammy on the stick. When she at last replied, her voice was low and tight with urgency.

"It means this was planned. Planned long before we ever imagined."