TWO:
Three days later.
Sam sat back and stared at the thing she'd just finished. Finally. After six days the 'doo-hickey' as the Colonel would have called it, was complete. Now all she had to do was figure out what the HELL it did. She ran a hand through her hair, closing her eyes and leaning her head back.
Six days, and she still didn't have the foggiest clue as to what she'd built. Six days, and they seemed to be no closer to finding Colonel O'Neill than before. Six days, and what did she have to show for it? Three banks of little red and green lights which blinked on and off at seemingly random intervals. Sam opened her eyes and glared at the offending pieces of machinery. The lights were happily twinkling, like some sort of techno-futuristic Christmas tree, and the circuits were quietly humming, going about their business, whatever the heck their business was.
'Damnit, Colonel,' Sam thought to herself. 'What are you trying to tell us?'
The Major was not allowing herself to consider the possibility that, perhaps, this machine had absolutely no bearing on anything the Colonel had done or was doing. That, perhaps, it was just a diversion, just a delaying tactic, or just sheer boredom. Sam refused to believe that. There had to be something that she was missing. Something that the Colonel had not made readily apparent. Something.
Anything.
There had to be.
* * *
Goshen Nok-maal, Sa-ren of the Corenduk village, sat before his communal fire-pit and contemplated the man locked in the Chamber beneath the temple. The stranger had come to them many moons ago. Even then, with his true self buried so deeply within that the man was not even completely aware of it, Goshen had sensed his pain.
Goshen had known, from the first moment he'd set eyes on Colonel O'Neill, that the Shalerets, the Fates, had brought him to Corenduk. So Goshen had brought the stranger to the Chamber, and the man had survived the Ordeal of Flesh. He had relived every injury ever dealt to him. The Chamber had had to revive him several times during the process, but he had survived.
Then, the stranger and his people had left. In the time since then Colonel O'Neill had endured the Ordeal of the Mind. The Sa-ren, ever honest with himself, admitted that O'Neill looked worse for having survived the Ordeal.
But he had survived.
And now, now he was enduring the Ordeal of the Soul. If he survived, then the shadows in his eyes and on his heart would be lifted.
If he survived.
Goshen turned his eyes back to the flames in front of him. They leaped and twined, consuming their fuel and casting a soft blue glow. Goshen didn't know if what he had done was right. But, once the Ordeal was set into motion, it could not be stopped.
* * *
The planet was quiet, cal, and completely empty of intelligent life. The civilization which had long ago existed there had fallen to dust and decay many centuries before SG-1 had first set foot upon its soil. Teal'c strongly suspected that General Hammond had sent his team to this planet as a type of forced vacation. The fishing equipment which had been among their supplies had only served to confirm this suspicion.
Colonel O'Neill had spent the two weeks they'd been on-planet fishing. He had succeeded in catching one underwater plant. It had been a vibrant pink in color. The Colonel had named it the 'pink-water-jack-weed.' Teal'c strongly suspected that the Colonel had been trying to make a joke.
Never the less, the Colonel had stated, often, over the course of their 'mission,' that he would 'not mind' retiring there. So, Teal'c had come to this planet to find his friend and commanding officer.
He turned away from the Stargate and started the two-mile trek to the ruins. Overhead the sun glowed brightly.
* * *
The pounding on his door was loud. Really, really loud. The moment Daniel thought that he shot up into full awareness, hand reaching out automatically to grab his glasses off of the nightstand. Someone was knocking at his door.
Daniel gave his eyes a moment to adjust and then focused on the bright green numbers of his digital alarm clock. According to the device it was 3:23 in the morning. Nothing good could come from someone pounding on his apartment door at three thirty in the morning.
Briefly he considered ignoring it. The pounding continued, then it was joined by a muffled shout. "Dr. Jackson! Dr. Jackson!" With a sigh the anthropologist pushed himself out of bed and stumbled into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. He recognized that voice, and silently he wished that it was anyone else. At that moment he would have even taken Apophis over Sarah O'Neill.
The pounding, and shouting, continued. Daniel winced as he stumbled through his dark and cluttered living room. His neighbors were so not going to be happy with him. He stopped at the inside of his apartment door, hand above the deadlock. Sarah continued pounding and shouting.
Daniel closed his eyes, the tension coursing through his body. He REALLY didn't want to deal with Jack's ex-wife. He hadn't even been sure how to act around her the few times that he'd seen her before Jack's, problems, began.
With a start Daniel opened his eyes and stared at his outstretched hand. It had convulsed into a fist, his nails digging into the flesh of his palm. It hurt. Daniel shook his head and forced his hand to open. In the dim glow from the streetlights outside he could see for small half moons cut into his skin. As he watched one filled with thick, black, blood. Shit.
Daniel sighed, reached out with his uninjured hand, and unlocked the door, opening it by slow increments. It was kind of like a scene in a horror movie when the stupid-and-soon-to-be-dead character knows that the monster is on the other side of the door, and they open it anyway.
The light from the hall was dim, but it still hurt his eyes. Sarah was a slender darkness standing, hands on hips, in the middle of his doorway. Daniel curled his bleeding hand and half hid it behind he leg, waiting for his eyes to focus on the woman.
"Well it's about damn time," she said, voice stiff and annoyed, and slightly hoarse from all of the shouting. Then she started trying to force her way through the door and into the darkened apartment.
Daniel's brain cells started processing what was happening just in time to block her way and force her two steps back until she was back out in the hallway. His living room was covered with file after file of Jack's horror story life. The hospital photos were pinned to bulletin boards in chronological order. The last thing that this woman needed to be seeing was the illustrated version of her ex-husband's sordid past. Besides, Daniel didn't think that any part of his friend would appreciate Sarah's knowing.
"Can I help you, Sarah?" Daniel asked, voice hoarse with sleep.
The shorter woman glared up at him. "I want to know where the Hell Jack is," she said, voice loud.
Daniel winced, but didn't invite her in. The neighbors were definitely not going to be happy with him. "I honestly don't know," he replied, making sure to keep his own voice low. Sarah's eyes and body language said, plainly, that she didn't believe him. "He took off, Sarah. No one knows how he even escaped, let alone where his is. The only person who knows where Jack is, is Jack."
"Then why the Hell aren't you out there looking for him? You are a member of his team, aren't you?" Sarah demanded. "I thought you two were friends!"
Daniel closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the doorframe, consciously forcing his hand not to clench. He wasn't 'out there' looking for Jack because Janet had threatened to confine him to the infirmary with an IV and sedatives if he went out with any more search teams. The same had happened to Sam. Both members of SG-1 knew full well that they couldn't do squat from the infirmary. So, Sam was in her lab working on the Colonel's schematics, and Daniel was at home searching through Jack's past for anything even remotely resembling a clue.
"Is there anything else?" Daniel asked Sarah, not opening his eyes.
He heard her shifting. "Yes," she finally answered, voice lower than her previous shout. "I found these in a box in the attic. I thought that they might be able to help."
Daniel opened his eyes and looked at her. She was holding several leather bound journals clutched to her chest. They had to have come out of the bag over her shoulder. He hadn't noticed it before.
Clutching the journals like that, Sarah looked vulnerable. Daniel didn't know the woman that well, but he got the feeling that she didn't do vulnerable often. If ever.
"I know that I've got no right to care," she said, her voice thick, as if she were holding back tears. "But I want him home and safe."
Daniel pitied the woman, but it was the pity of one stranger for another. He didn't know this woman, not really, and his loyalty to Jack dictated that he wasn't, really, allowed to like her. He tried to soften his expression, but the best that he could get was non-accusatory.
"Thank you," he finally said.
Sarah nodded, once, then handed him the journals. "Just bring him home safe," she said, then turned and walked away.
The leather in his hands felt thick and worn, as if they'd been well and heavily used. Knowing Jack, and Jon, Daniel was surprised that they'd even kept a journal.
Sarah's plea echoed in his ears as she disappeared down the hall and he closed his door, locking it with a heavy sounding click. "Just bring him home safe."
Daniel leaned his back against the door and closed his eyes, tilting his head back until it rested against the wood.
"I'll try," he whispered to the darkness of his apartment. "I'll try."
* * *
"What are you staring at?" Jack asked, opening his eyes to find Jon leaning against the wall opposite him.
His mirror image cocked his head to the side. "A figment of my imagination," he answered, voice bland.
Jack closed his eyes and let his head fall back to the floor of his cell. The debate had lasted for as long as either of them could remember, and it had yet to reach a satisfactory conclusion. It was like the chicken and the egg, only worse.
But then, like the chicken and the egg, in the end it didn't really matter.
"Why are we still here?" Jack asked. He opened his eyes to find Jon standing above him, face neutral and hands in pockets.
"You know why, Jack," Jon answered.
Jack narrowed his eyes and pushed himself into a seated position. "Like Hell I do!" he shouted.
Jon just smiled a secret little smile. The one that said that he knew everything, and he wasn't sharing. It told you everything, and nothing, all at once.
"We commit the body of Charles O'Neill to the earth-"
"No!" Jack whispered, pushing himself to his feet and out of the memory. He was breathing hard, as if he'd been running. And, in a way, he had.
"There're still some things ye've got t'see, and miles t'go b'fore ye're free," someone said.
Jack looked up to find Jay standing in Jon's place. He was wearing torn jeans and a white t-shirt. His leather jacket was worn and faded, and looked like it'd seen better days.
"Ye were expectin' th'Pope, perhaps?" the alternate asked.
Jack didn't respond verbally. Instead he pulled back his fist and let fly a punch. He hit the hallucination in the solar plexus, knocking the other man to the floor. Jay lay there, staring up at the ceiling with a blank expression.
"Now why in the Hell did you go and do that?" Jon asked from behind him.
Jack whirled to face him. When he glanced back Jay was gone. "You know why, you bastard," Jack answered Jon.
"Of course I know, Jack. The question is whether or not you do."
Three days later.
Sam sat back and stared at the thing she'd just finished. Finally. After six days the 'doo-hickey' as the Colonel would have called it, was complete. Now all she had to do was figure out what the HELL it did. She ran a hand through her hair, closing her eyes and leaning her head back.
Six days, and she still didn't have the foggiest clue as to what she'd built. Six days, and they seemed to be no closer to finding Colonel O'Neill than before. Six days, and what did she have to show for it? Three banks of little red and green lights which blinked on and off at seemingly random intervals. Sam opened her eyes and glared at the offending pieces of machinery. The lights were happily twinkling, like some sort of techno-futuristic Christmas tree, and the circuits were quietly humming, going about their business, whatever the heck their business was.
'Damnit, Colonel,' Sam thought to herself. 'What are you trying to tell us?'
The Major was not allowing herself to consider the possibility that, perhaps, this machine had absolutely no bearing on anything the Colonel had done or was doing. That, perhaps, it was just a diversion, just a delaying tactic, or just sheer boredom. Sam refused to believe that. There had to be something that she was missing. Something that the Colonel had not made readily apparent. Something.
Anything.
There had to be.
* * *
Goshen Nok-maal, Sa-ren of the Corenduk village, sat before his communal fire-pit and contemplated the man locked in the Chamber beneath the temple. The stranger had come to them many moons ago. Even then, with his true self buried so deeply within that the man was not even completely aware of it, Goshen had sensed his pain.
Goshen had known, from the first moment he'd set eyes on Colonel O'Neill, that the Shalerets, the Fates, had brought him to Corenduk. So Goshen had brought the stranger to the Chamber, and the man had survived the Ordeal of Flesh. He had relived every injury ever dealt to him. The Chamber had had to revive him several times during the process, but he had survived.
Then, the stranger and his people had left. In the time since then Colonel O'Neill had endured the Ordeal of the Mind. The Sa-ren, ever honest with himself, admitted that O'Neill looked worse for having survived the Ordeal.
But he had survived.
And now, now he was enduring the Ordeal of the Soul. If he survived, then the shadows in his eyes and on his heart would be lifted.
If he survived.
Goshen turned his eyes back to the flames in front of him. They leaped and twined, consuming their fuel and casting a soft blue glow. Goshen didn't know if what he had done was right. But, once the Ordeal was set into motion, it could not be stopped.
* * *
The planet was quiet, cal, and completely empty of intelligent life. The civilization which had long ago existed there had fallen to dust and decay many centuries before SG-1 had first set foot upon its soil. Teal'c strongly suspected that General Hammond had sent his team to this planet as a type of forced vacation. The fishing equipment which had been among their supplies had only served to confirm this suspicion.
Colonel O'Neill had spent the two weeks they'd been on-planet fishing. He had succeeded in catching one underwater plant. It had been a vibrant pink in color. The Colonel had named it the 'pink-water-jack-weed.' Teal'c strongly suspected that the Colonel had been trying to make a joke.
Never the less, the Colonel had stated, often, over the course of their 'mission,' that he would 'not mind' retiring there. So, Teal'c had come to this planet to find his friend and commanding officer.
He turned away from the Stargate and started the two-mile trek to the ruins. Overhead the sun glowed brightly.
* * *
The pounding on his door was loud. Really, really loud. The moment Daniel thought that he shot up into full awareness, hand reaching out automatically to grab his glasses off of the nightstand. Someone was knocking at his door.
Daniel gave his eyes a moment to adjust and then focused on the bright green numbers of his digital alarm clock. According to the device it was 3:23 in the morning. Nothing good could come from someone pounding on his apartment door at three thirty in the morning.
Briefly he considered ignoring it. The pounding continued, then it was joined by a muffled shout. "Dr. Jackson! Dr. Jackson!" With a sigh the anthropologist pushed himself out of bed and stumbled into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. He recognized that voice, and silently he wished that it was anyone else. At that moment he would have even taken Apophis over Sarah O'Neill.
The pounding, and shouting, continued. Daniel winced as he stumbled through his dark and cluttered living room. His neighbors were so not going to be happy with him. He stopped at the inside of his apartment door, hand above the deadlock. Sarah continued pounding and shouting.
Daniel closed his eyes, the tension coursing through his body. He REALLY didn't want to deal with Jack's ex-wife. He hadn't even been sure how to act around her the few times that he'd seen her before Jack's, problems, began.
With a start Daniel opened his eyes and stared at his outstretched hand. It had convulsed into a fist, his nails digging into the flesh of his palm. It hurt. Daniel shook his head and forced his hand to open. In the dim glow from the streetlights outside he could see for small half moons cut into his skin. As he watched one filled with thick, black, blood. Shit.
Daniel sighed, reached out with his uninjured hand, and unlocked the door, opening it by slow increments. It was kind of like a scene in a horror movie when the stupid-and-soon-to-be-dead character knows that the monster is on the other side of the door, and they open it anyway.
The light from the hall was dim, but it still hurt his eyes. Sarah was a slender darkness standing, hands on hips, in the middle of his doorway. Daniel curled his bleeding hand and half hid it behind he leg, waiting for his eyes to focus on the woman.
"Well it's about damn time," she said, voice stiff and annoyed, and slightly hoarse from all of the shouting. Then she started trying to force her way through the door and into the darkened apartment.
Daniel's brain cells started processing what was happening just in time to block her way and force her two steps back until she was back out in the hallway. His living room was covered with file after file of Jack's horror story life. The hospital photos were pinned to bulletin boards in chronological order. The last thing that this woman needed to be seeing was the illustrated version of her ex-husband's sordid past. Besides, Daniel didn't think that any part of his friend would appreciate Sarah's knowing.
"Can I help you, Sarah?" Daniel asked, voice hoarse with sleep.
The shorter woman glared up at him. "I want to know where the Hell Jack is," she said, voice loud.
Daniel winced, but didn't invite her in. The neighbors were definitely not going to be happy with him. "I honestly don't know," he replied, making sure to keep his own voice low. Sarah's eyes and body language said, plainly, that she didn't believe him. "He took off, Sarah. No one knows how he even escaped, let alone where his is. The only person who knows where Jack is, is Jack."
"Then why the Hell aren't you out there looking for him? You are a member of his team, aren't you?" Sarah demanded. "I thought you two were friends!"
Daniel closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the doorframe, consciously forcing his hand not to clench. He wasn't 'out there' looking for Jack because Janet had threatened to confine him to the infirmary with an IV and sedatives if he went out with any more search teams. The same had happened to Sam. Both members of SG-1 knew full well that they couldn't do squat from the infirmary. So, Sam was in her lab working on the Colonel's schematics, and Daniel was at home searching through Jack's past for anything even remotely resembling a clue.
"Is there anything else?" Daniel asked Sarah, not opening his eyes.
He heard her shifting. "Yes," she finally answered, voice lower than her previous shout. "I found these in a box in the attic. I thought that they might be able to help."
Daniel opened his eyes and looked at her. She was holding several leather bound journals clutched to her chest. They had to have come out of the bag over her shoulder. He hadn't noticed it before.
Clutching the journals like that, Sarah looked vulnerable. Daniel didn't know the woman that well, but he got the feeling that she didn't do vulnerable often. If ever.
"I know that I've got no right to care," she said, her voice thick, as if she were holding back tears. "But I want him home and safe."
Daniel pitied the woman, but it was the pity of one stranger for another. He didn't know this woman, not really, and his loyalty to Jack dictated that he wasn't, really, allowed to like her. He tried to soften his expression, but the best that he could get was non-accusatory.
"Thank you," he finally said.
Sarah nodded, once, then handed him the journals. "Just bring him home safe," she said, then turned and walked away.
The leather in his hands felt thick and worn, as if they'd been well and heavily used. Knowing Jack, and Jon, Daniel was surprised that they'd even kept a journal.
Sarah's plea echoed in his ears as she disappeared down the hall and he closed his door, locking it with a heavy sounding click. "Just bring him home safe."
Daniel leaned his back against the door and closed his eyes, tilting his head back until it rested against the wood.
"I'll try," he whispered to the darkness of his apartment. "I'll try."
* * *
"What are you staring at?" Jack asked, opening his eyes to find Jon leaning against the wall opposite him.
His mirror image cocked his head to the side. "A figment of my imagination," he answered, voice bland.
Jack closed his eyes and let his head fall back to the floor of his cell. The debate had lasted for as long as either of them could remember, and it had yet to reach a satisfactory conclusion. It was like the chicken and the egg, only worse.
But then, like the chicken and the egg, in the end it didn't really matter.
"Why are we still here?" Jack asked. He opened his eyes to find Jon standing above him, face neutral and hands in pockets.
"You know why, Jack," Jon answered.
Jack narrowed his eyes and pushed himself into a seated position. "Like Hell I do!" he shouted.
Jon just smiled a secret little smile. The one that said that he knew everything, and he wasn't sharing. It told you everything, and nothing, all at once.
"We commit the body of Charles O'Neill to the earth-"
"No!" Jack whispered, pushing himself to his feet and out of the memory. He was breathing hard, as if he'd been running. And, in a way, he had.
"There're still some things ye've got t'see, and miles t'go b'fore ye're free," someone said.
Jack looked up to find Jay standing in Jon's place. He was wearing torn jeans and a white t-shirt. His leather jacket was worn and faded, and looked like it'd seen better days.
"Ye were expectin' th'Pope, perhaps?" the alternate asked.
Jack didn't respond verbally. Instead he pulled back his fist and let fly a punch. He hit the hallucination in the solar plexus, knocking the other man to the floor. Jay lay there, staring up at the ceiling with a blank expression.
"Now why in the Hell did you go and do that?" Jon asked from behind him.
Jack whirled to face him. When he glanced back Jay was gone. "You know why, you bastard," Jack answered Jon.
"Of course I know, Jack. The question is whether or not you do."