Author's Notes:- After our last very angsty, Jack and Daniel whumping fic we decided to do a more upbeat one before we both got carted off for therapy. Hope you enjoy it
Daniel
"He always pretends he's not as smart as he really is."
Cassandra's words about Jack echoed in my mind as we sat around the briefing table. It turned out that she was right, and judging by the side of himself that Jack had revealed on this mission we had all underestimated him for a long time.
x
It had started out as a milkrun mission, in Jack's words a "Let's go and look at trees and pick up rocks" assignment which we had all looked forwards to, - since Sam had discovered that she was being investigated by the suits at the Pentagon the team dynamic had been really tense, not helped by one conflict after another off world. The events on Tollan put stresses on the base and everyone was at breaking point. General Hammond hadn't been able to give us any downtime, but had agreed to let us visit P7J-9746 to do a mineral survey and for me to study some old ruins that had shown up on a UAV Probe. No signs of civilisation were apparent, although the Stargate was located near to some dense forestry, which as Jack said "could hide an army", still we were all in high spirits as we set off, with the all clear for a week off-world.
Once on P7J-9746 we settled back into the easy routine that we do so well, Sam excited about the possibilities of minerals, myself desperate to look at the ruins to see what I could learn, Teal'c ever reserved and watchful, and Jack becoming bored within about five minutes!
We decided to hike towards the ruins that the UAV had picked up on so that we could study both the ruins themselves and look for signs of civilisation, after all, mineral surveys could be done anywhere on a planet. It took us 3 hours to hike, although we weren't exactly rushing, it was just so beautiful! The sun was shining brightly, it seemed to be in the middle of the planets summer season (a nice change since it was November back on Earth) and plants and fruit were blooming everywhere. Although we couldn't see them we could also hear bird song in the trees as we walked alongside the forest, but we were yet to see any signs of civilisation other than the rough track we were following at the river's edge.
x
Jack
Okay, I know its really stupid but I can't stop thinking that someone is watching us. Ever since we started walking past the forest I've been feeling uneasy, maybe just paranoia after too long doing stressful missions, I'm glad we pushed Hammond for this assignment, we were all a little ragged around the edges, especially after the last couple of missions. I look across to Teal'c to see if he has a sense of anything strange but he is walking beside me happily. He meets my eyes questioningly but I see no concern there. See, Jack, you're just being paranoid. Be grateful that nothing is going wrong for a change. Relax! But I can't, I can't help feeling that someone, something is watching me...
x
"Jack?" Daniel's voice cut through my thoughts, "Are we stopping at some point before we can't see?"
I turn and give him a hard stare which he returns a slightly amused half-smirk at me. Damn Danny, you're getting too used to that look.
"If you think you can find us somewhere to match our accommodation needs then go for it," I grin.
"Sam's found somewhere," he smiles at me before heading away making sure I have no time for a comeback.
I laugh softly, he's been awfully reserved these past few weeks but I blame those latest rocks, Artefacts I can hear him correct me, Artefacts that SG7 discovered. One look at them and after he'd told me something I can't really remember he just disappeared into his office for three days in a row.
x
Teal'c was off-world with SG3, Sam was involved in one of those strange experiments that meant she was either in her lab or asleep and I got talked into training a bunch of raw recruits so none of us were around to notice we hadn't seen him, and since we hadn't seen each other either, by the time we realised, he had been living on a steady coffee diet for three days.
I dragged him to get something to eat but he was unlucky enough to run into Janet who discovered his lack of eating and he was scolded.
I've never seen anything so funny as Daniel standing there head hanging as Janet gave him into trouble for not taking proper care of himself. After his scolding he practically ran to get food. Janet turned to me and gave me a slow conspiratorial wink.
"One for big sister Janet," I murmured as she passed me.
With a self-satisfied look on her face she went back to the infirmary.
x
I had to admit the campsite Sam found was brilliant. Close enough to fresh water, trees for protection and right next to a wall with writings for Daniel to play with. That girl has good taste.
I strolled along still trying to get rid of the strange shiver that had plagued me most of the day. The planet was deserted with the exception of the SGC's finest so why was I so jumpy?
x
Daniel
Sam's discovery of the writings meant I had something to keep me occupied while they did the routine set-up of the camp. I don't have to help since all three lost the last bet we made.
Never bet a linguist of what something means.
The frustrating thing was I couldn't work out what the wall said. It looked so familiar yet there was this slight difference and I couldn't understand it.
A Challenge!!
I took it down on video before I settled down and pulled out my notebook.
"Daniel," Sam called out after what seemed like minutes, "Come and get something to eat."
"Just give me a few minutes Sam," I called back absently, "I just started on this."
"Daniel, you've been at it over an hour," Sam told me with a reasonable tone, "You need to eat, or I'll tell Janet."
Low blow, I thought remembering with shiver Janet's rather vocal telling-off when I went three days on only coffee. To be honest I have a stash of chocolate bars there for a reason. I hadn't not eaten, just not anything they seem to consider proper food.
"I'm coming," I sighed not wanting another long drawn out lecture from first Jack then Janet about my eating habits.
I dropped down next to the fire near Jack and was handed what could only loosely be described as food.
"Oh joy," I murmured with a roll of my eyes before I sat and ate whatever it was that tasted like chicken.
"Any luck Daniel?" Jack asked nodding over at the wall.
"It seems familiar," I told him, "But I can't seem to get it. Yet," I added with determination.
Jack gave me a strange look then nodded.
The rest of the night passed quickly as we sat and talked around the fire before heading to our own tents. When my turn for watch came I was stretching my neck when I saw it. The fire illuminated the writing and as my head was tilted I could read the first bit.
I started to laugh slightly relieved I now knew how to translate it and it wouldn't take as long as I had suspected.
Morning came far too slowly for me but the moment I had enough light I settled down next to the wall again. I lay down and propped my head on my elbow writing with my free hand.
"Daniel?" Jack's irritable voice sounded as his shadow covered me, "What are you doing?"
"I figured out that it's written at an angle," I told him, "I've almost finished."
He rolled his eyes, "Want some coffee?"
I smiled at him, "That would be great."
He was back quickly but my attention had been grabbed by what I'd just read.
"Daniel?"
"Uh Jack," I said softly, "I think we might be in trouble."
x
Jack
Okay, that was so not what I wanted to hear.
"What do you mean trouble?"
"Well..."
Okay, I'll give him credit; only his eyes gave away his panic. He managed to keep his voice and body language steady, but once I'd seen his eyes I knew something was badly wrong.
"I'll go wake the others and you can explain this to us all. Drink your coffee."
x
Daniel
Okay, I had a few minutes to collect my thoughts, maybe I'd translated this wrong, but the translation I had seemed to be the only one that made sense. And if I was right, this mission was not going to be the walk in the park that we had all hoped for.
"Daniel, you want to translate this for us?"
"Basically, the writings on the wall here are a variation of two root languages with the characters slanted to form runes rather than letters." I caught Jack's eye, this was not the time for a lecture. "It says that the voyager must complete a series of challenges if they wish to travel back through the circle of light, basically the Stargate. The planet was altered so that it could be used to separate the worthy. Basically, if you were sent through the Stargate to here then you needed to redeem yourself by passing through the challenges successfully to gain access to the second gate."
"Why can't we just go back through the first gate?"
"Well, basically because it isn't there anymore."
"What do you mean it's not? So where is it?"
"According to the sanscrip, the circle of light moves position every twelve hours. Since we've been here longer than that, we can reasonably assume that it's moved."
"But how, Daniel? The Stargate is huge. You can't just pick it up and put it behind a rock and hope we don't notice."
"Didn't the Nox make their gate disappear? I can't explain how, it only says that it will be gone, and sets down the first challenge to be undertaken. According to this there is a whole series to get through to reach the gate."
"Okay, I'm not saying I don't believe you Daniel, but before we start any challenges we need to check that we can't just go home the way we came. Write down all you need then we'll set off back that way and hopefully avoid being tested."
x
Jack
Dammit, I knew something felt wonky but this was ridiculous. We packed up the camp and hightailed it back through the forest the second Daniel was done with his translations, no-one quite sure what to believe. I mean, we all trust Daniel, and this wouldn't be the weirdest thing we'd seen by a long way, but even so this was crazy, haring back to the gate, not sure if it would be there or not. And how stupid would we feel if it was there all the time? Well, pretty damn relieved actually though Daniel would never live it down. Unfortunately, the one time I really wanted our linguist to be wrong he was proved right, we arrived back to the original co-ordinates and there was no gate. No sign that there had ever been a gate. Oh shit.
x
"Daniel, what do you suggest?" I turned to where Daniel had been to find nothing.
"Daniel?" I yelled then I noticed Sam had disappeared too, "Carter?"
Thankfully Teal'c was still standing right next to me.
"Teal'c did you see anything?" I demanded getting a really uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"I did not," he answered, "One minute both Major Carter and Daniel Jackson were standing there. When I looked again they were gone."
Then I looked around myself and we were somewhere completely different, "Oh shit."
This was really bad, now we were not only separated but now none of the team was in their original position, in short we were completely lost.
"O'Neill, I believe that this cave is the first test that Daniel Jackson spoke of."
"Great Teal'c, now we have to do half of the challenges without the geniuses of the team! Come on, we'd better see if we can figure out this test, hopefully between us we can make the grade."
"What grade do we need to make?"
I smiled, "An expression Teal'c, let's go take a look."
x
My heart sank as I looked at the wall to see a mass of writing- Daniel was the linguist for crying out loud! I was about to ask Teal'c for ideas when I suddenly recognised what I was seeing.
"It's Latin! Must be one of the root languages Danny was talking about before. Thankfully I can still remember most of what I picked up when we were looping, let's see if between us we can get a translation."
"O'Neill, I cannot remember much of what we learnt, I remembered only the translation as it developed, it was you who studied the language in detail."
I winced, "Thanks for the reminder! I'm going to try to translate this, then you can check it to see if you agree with my translation."
"Agreed O'Neill."
x
It took me longer than Daniel would have taken but I was fairly sure of the translation as I read it out to Teal'c. "At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen."
"I do not understand O'Neill, what is the task we have to do?"
"It's a riddle Teal'c, we have to work out the answer then find it on the wall. One section of the wall was the riddle, another just a jumble of words."
"Do you know the answer?"
"Actually yes, its the stars, so that's what we have to find on the wall, the Latin word for stars. Look for "astrum".
x
It didn't take us long to find, and when we pushed the tile with the word on, a section of the wall opened into a passageway.
"I guess we head for the next task. Hope Daniel and Carter are doing okay."
"Indeed O'Neill, perhaps for the next task I may be more of use."
I looked at him seriously. "Teal'c, we all have skills that are used by the team and there isn't anyone I'd rather have watching my back right now. I just hope that between us we are smart enough for whatever comes up next."
x
It turned out that the next task was one of strength, in order to get to the next passageway we had to build a tower against the wall in order to reach the top and pass through to the next stage. No easy task when the "bricks" are irregularly shaped boulders and the sheer wall is around 12 foot high. Between the two of us it took us several hours to build a ledge high enough for Teal'c to reach the top and pull me up after him.
x
Daniel
"Oh shit," I muttered looking around a strange cave.
"Holy Hannah," Sam cried from beside me.
We both stared around the cave to see neither Jack nor Teal'c were with us. I noticed some writings on the back wall and wandered over to have a look.
"The door can only be opened by the right keys," I read.
Sam frowned, "There's no door and no lock and no keys."
"Keys," I mused looking around again and seeing what looked like a piano, "Sam, it's not door keys it's musical keys. Music."
"Wonderful," she groaned.
"How are you at music?" I asked her.
Sam rolled her eyes at me and hummed a few bars.
"What the hell was that?" I asked.
"The National Anthem," she answered both of my questions.
"Brilliant," I sighed.
"Daniel, you have a piano in your apartment," Sam said, "Tell me it's not for decoration."
I shrugged uncomfortably, "The last time I played I was eight."
"That's more musical talent than I have," she told me flatly, "Your audience awaits."
I took a deep breath and sat down at the piano-thing, engraved in the wall behind it was what looked like a tune.
"It couldn't be physics," Sam muttered behind me.
"Okay, here goes," I pressed what I thought the first note to be. A clear tone echoed through the cavern so slightly more courageous I pressed the next one. With each note a door next to us opened very slightly until it was fully open.
"Let's go," Sam smiled.
Taking a few deep breaths I followed on to our next challenge.
x
"Oh my God," I muttered.
We were standing on a ledge, right in front of us was a huge hole in the ground and on the other side was the way out. I pressed myself against the wall feeling a sickness in the pit of my stomach.
"You okay Daniel?" Sam asked me.
"Oh yeah," I replied, "I just love the spinning thing my head does when I look down that far."
"If we move round a little I think our next challenge is on the platform," Sam took my arm.
Slowly we edged round to the platform and the moment we stepped onto it I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"Okay, what's next?" Sam asked.
"All it says is get across the cavern," I shrugged, "Well that's helpful."
Sam was looking around her lips pursed in thought, "We could swing across."
"Tell me you're joking?" I begged not really feeling like flying through the air with nothing below me.
Sam shook her head and picked up some rope. She fixed a claw to the end of it and started to swing it. I watched in amazement as she hooked it onto a beam and tested it.
"We'll probably best to go together," she suggested, "Just in case we can't get it back."
"Okay," I agreed nervously.
Sam started to tie the rope around my waist before tying it to her waist.
"Ready?" she asked.
"No, but when did that matter," I gave her a half-smile, "Let's go."
Together we started to run and jumped swinging across the huge gaping hole below us. Reaching the other side we scrambled onto it holding on so we didn't accidentally fall backwards. Taking a few deep breaths we looked at each other and burst out laughing. Sam pulled out her knife and released us from the rope. I took one last look back before we walked through the exit.
"Hey guys"
We spun around as we heard the voice behind us, we had been concentrating so hard on the task we hadn't been paying attention.
"Colonel, Teal'c, thank goodness you are okay," Sam enthused, "What did you have to do for your tasks?"
"A little logic and some spade work, what did they lay out for you two?"
"A musical number then a Tarzan impression," I grimaced.
"Our final task appears to lay in that direction," Teal'c pointed.
"Then that way we go," Jack took the lead.
x
Jack
The final passageway lead to a large well lit room, with symbols on the wall and a heap of blocks on the floor.
"Any guesses people?"
As I turned around I saw Teal'c and Sam sink to the floor and pass out.
"Daniel, give me a hand here, check on Teal'c while I check Carter. Okay, she's breathing and her pulse is okay, how is Teal'c?"
"Fine Jack, just won't wake up. Do you think this is part of the challenge or a response to the Gould presence from Junior and Jolinar?"
"I don't know and pray we don't have to find out. We'd better get started; we don't know if Sam and Teal'c are in danger so the sooner we get back the better. What is on that wall?"
"It's a bunch of equations, all on separate tiles. On the opposite wall is a list of gate co-ordinates and some strange sorts of symbols that I don't recognise. What are the blocks?"
"I think its a shape puzzle, we have to fit the blocks together to form a shape and then I guess we find the equation on the wall that links to the shape. Here, see if you can fit these blocks together while I look at the symbols."
I was still looking at the symbols, carved so beautifully into the tiles when Daniel called that the shape was a cube.
"These symbols are the old astronomy symbols Daniel, we need to work out the symbol for this planet by using the gate co-ordinates and comparing them with addresses we know. The symbol for earth I know but I'm a little out of my depth here. I need to borrow your notebook."
x
Daniel
Okay, this was surreal. Jack taking charge I can cope with, bad puns and a less than diplomatic outlook I can live with, but Jack O'Neill "I know medieval symbols and need to work out the codes" is just plain strange. Mind you, it's a good job as Sam is still out of it, and between us we have a much better chance of figuring things out.
x
"Jack, it's been a while since I took calculus, any chance you know about formulae and equations?"
"Try me"
"PV1/3 mn(c2)"
"That's the kinetic theory equation. Look for something starting with V equals"
Jack was furiously scribbling in my notebook and so completely missed my gormless stare. Good thing really, I don't think he'd thank me for asking him if he was maybe a little less stupid than he painted himself.
"There's too many Jack, what is the equation for a cube?"
"Try Vl3"
Okay, this felt beyond weird, but at this point I was willing to ignore the images in my head of the Indiana Jones movies that Jack made me sit through, and trying not to picture a giant rolling ball or pit of snakes I pushed the tile that Jack suggested.
x
Jack
"Finished!"
I looked up just in time to see Daniel press the wall and a passageway open. This time though, the entrance was not to another tunnel but to outside, which seemed blindingly bright after the caves.
"Daniel, grab Sam and I'll get Teal'c out of the cave, maybe whatever was effecting them was only effective while we were still in the challenge."
After consulting the code I had made in the tunnel I showed Daniel how to identify the symbols on the DHD, and after sending the code through the Stargate we helped a still very groggy Sam and Teal'c through the event horizon.
x
Janet was fussing over both Sam and Teal'c as Daniel and I stood nearby. Hammond had listened to our quick explanation before letting us head to the infirmary. He scheduled the meeting for the next morning so we could all rest after our wonderful boring mission.
"Okay Colonel," Janet said, "You and Daniel are free to go but Sam and Teal'c are both here for the night."
"Janet," Sam started to argue.
"No Major," I cut her off gleefully, "You and Teal'c were zonked for quite a while. Be a good girl and do as the Doctor said."
Sam glared at me, I knew I'd pay for that remark later so I grabbed Daniel and we headed out.
x
Armed with pizza and beer Daniel and I relaxed in my house talking over our challenges.
"Answer me this," Daniel turned a piercing gaze on me, "How did you know all that Latin?"
I coughed uncomfortably, "Remember when Teal'c and I were looping?"
"Vaguely," he smiled, "Well one day of it anyway."
"Well we spent several loops learning Latin so we could translate it all," I explained, "So you didn't start from scratch."
He smiled, "Looks like your skills are a little more than you let on."
I grinned back at him, "This doesn't get out."
Daniel laughed, "Don't worry Jack. The fact that you're actually really smart does not leave this room."
"Good. Two geniuses in SG1 are more than enough," I raised my bottle to him, "To us?"
He nodded and held up his bottle to the toast, "To us."