Author's note: Thanks to all of you who have sent in reviews and feedback. I really appreciate it. Special thanks go to Diane for correcting all my mistakes.
O'Neill stood at the window staring out at his past. He knew that Avard meant something to him, but he just couldn't figure out what it was.
He closed his eyes and did his best to calm himself. He turned toward his friends, each wearing a look of worry and concern and walked back to his desk to sit down. No one said anything, they were waiting for him to speak, to say anything that would clear up the mystery of his behavior.
Why did this stuff always have to happen to him, he wondered. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked at Gallagher. "Is it you?" he said softly, looking into his clone's eyes hoping that Gallagher was experiencing the same thing to prove O'Neill wasn't crazy.
"What?" Gallagher asked looking at O'Neill as if he had gone over the deep end. "Sir, are you alright?" O'Neill looked away and noticed that everyone else was looking at him with… was that worry?
"No, Jack, I'm not," O'Neill said with a sigh, just get rid of them. "Colonel, go out there and make sure they leave."
"What did you mean by that, sir?" Gallagher butt in, his concern clearly showing in his eyes.
Wasn't he making himself clear? "I'm sure the Colonel can figure out my orders quite well, Cadet," O'Neill growled.
"Yes sir," Carter said as she got up.
"No, I meant about the warning," Gallagher said testily.
"Wait a minute, what warning?" Daniel asked looking at both Gallagher and O'Neill. Even Carter stopped in her tracks and turned to hear the answer.
"O'Neill, what is it you are not telling us?" Teal'c spoke up for the first time. "Your behavior indicates something is wrong and I believe it would be in everyone's best interest for you to reveal your secret."
"Being a little nosey, aren't you, Teal'c?" O'Neill asked. Damn, wouldn't these people just leave him alone so that he could sort out this whole thing?
"Jack?" Daniel pleaded.
O'Neill put his head in his hands and rubbed his face. He could feel the eyes of his friends staring at him, and he figured what the heck? Maybe they could help him.
The memory had haunted him throughout the entire meeting with the Tok'ra, taunting him, and he wondered a few times if he had lost his mind. Gallagher didn't seem to hear the voice of that memory, and although O'Neill was insistent that they were two separate people, he wanted Gallagher to be hearing the voice too, just to confirm that he was still sane.
He looked over at Gallagher again, silently begging the younger man to clarify that he was hearing the voice.
"General, what did you mean by that?" Gallagher tried again. "Sir?" he said when he didn't get a response.
"Do you hear it?" O'Neill had to know.
"Hear what?" Carter asked.
"Not for awhile now, at least a week" Gallagher responded.
"She's practically screaming at me now," O'Neill said quietly. "It has something to do with Avard, I know it does," he continued. "From the moment he walked down that ramp, I had this gut feeling."
"Well, let's work this out, then," Daniel said. "Why would Avard bother you? Have you ever met him before?" he asked.
"I've never heard it during the day, sir," Gallagher said with a puzzled frown, "only in my dreams."
"You guys have the same dreams?" Daniel asked, apparently deciding this news was more interesting than the Tok'ra out in the briefing room. "Do you have them at the same time? What about your thoughts and ideas? Oh, oh wait, remember how you both said the same thing at the same time at Gallagher's first briefing? Oh man," he continued excitedly, "I gotta read up on this subject."
"Daniel!" O'Neill snarled, "We are two different people who do not have the exact same dreams at the exact same time, nor do we have the exact same experiences. You got that?" What was wrong with that idiot anyway? O'Neill wondered. "Why don't you go and escort our guests to the Gate?"
"We did have the exact same experiences up until three years ago, sir," Gallagher spoke up. He was staring at O'Neill with apprehension, and O'Neill realized that the thought of Gallagher understanding him was comforting.
"Daniel," Gallagher continued. "While we…, Colonel O'Neill, was trapped in Ba'al's fortress, we…, he… damn, this is too difficult to explain. General, sir, permission to say it was ME just to make it easier to talk about? I know how you hate it when I remind you that I was you."
O'Neill couldn't help it, the smile just bubbled up and he let it show through while at the same time rolling his eyes. "Go ahead, Cadet, but only just this once. I mean it," he continued.
Gallagher grinned back at him, and O'Neill noticed that the others seemed relieved to see his own smile. Gallagher could be such an asshole sometimes, O'Neill thought fondly.
"Well, as I was saying," he said shaking his head at the General, "when I was a prisoner in Ba'al's fortress, I kept recalling the same memory over and over again. It was a woman, and she kept saying the same thing, 'Is it you?' 'You shouldn't have come.' And 'He will know it is you.' I suppose this was a memory of her words to Kanan when he came back for her, but at the time, I didn't know who she was," he said, his eyes gazing at something far away and into the past. O'Neill knew what Gallagher was feeling and he looked down at his hands as Gallagher continued.
"Ever since I came back, I've been hearing her voice in my dreams. It only happens just before a nightmare, which is why I've been calling it the warning. The General mentioned that he too still hears the warning just before a nightmare."
O'Neill looked up to see Gallagher staring at him, and he was glad that Gallagher was here to help him through this.
"Well, besides the fact that it is not a good sign that you are hearing voices in your head," Carter said with a smile, "what is it about Avard that would bring back the memory?"
"Perhaps it is because the Tok'ra want you to go back to Ba'al's fortress," Teal'c said.
"No, that's not it," O'Neill had to say. "That memory came to me before they even told us about that. Actually, I heard the voice right after I touched Avard's shoulder to push him along."
"And the weird feeling I got when he walked by me," Gallagher said in a rush, his eyes widening.
O'Neill and Gallagher stared at each other with horror. Gallagher's expression turned to anger, then to an emotionless mask and O'Neill knew his own mirrored Gallagher's. Don't let the emotions show through to others had been his motto from his youth.
Gallagher turned and went to look out the window and O'Neill let his gaze drop to his desk. It can't be him, he thought knowing in his heart it was. 'He will know it is you,' the voice taunted.
The three Tok'ra were standing in the corner as far from the sentry as they could get and were talking amongst themselves. Gallagher stared at the little group, at Avard's back in particular, and wondered who that prick really was.
He had a suspicion and he knew that O'Neill had the same suspicion judging by the look of horror on his face before it turned to stone. It couldn't be. He was dead. Wasn't he? Son of a bitch better be dead, he thought.
He turned back toward the office and looked around at his teammates. All three had puzzled looks on their faces, but were ready to be there for the General, and for himself, Gallagher knew.
"Jack, what really happened there," Daniel asked, looking at O'Neill. "I only know what I've read in the mission reports, and even that was sketchy."
O'Neill didn't answer, just stared at Daniel. Gallagher knew at that moment that O'Neill had not told anyone about Daniel's visits to him during his imprisonment. He didn't blame him a bit, he would never have either. It's bad enough that he told them about the voice in his nightmares to have them all thinking he had gone over the deep end.
"O'Neill had been captured and tortured by Ba'al, killed and revived repeatedly," Teal'c said.
"We finally had to get Lord Yu to attack the fortress to give the Colonel a chance to free himself," Carter added.
"He was there because of the Tok'ra wasn't he?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah," O'Neill said giving Daniel an intense look.
"And it's a Tok'ra that is invoking these memories," Daniel continued and Gallagher saw realization dawn on Daniel's face. "What happened to that Tok'ra, what was his name?"
"Kanan, I believe," Carter said. "He left the Colonel before the Jaffa found him, leaving him to deal with Ba'al on his own."
"The coward," O'Neill growled, voicing Gallagher's thoughts.
"Yes, but what happened to the Tok'ra?" Daniel asked again, his gaze turning to Gallagher. Gallagher just nodded at the suspicion Daniel was harboring.
"Well, he must have died," Carter said. "Or he could have found another….. Oh my God," she said as her eyes widened and she stared at O'Neill. "Oh my God!"
"Avard," Teal'c said unnecessarily.
"Kanan," Gallagher spat out. He leaned back against the window, crossed his arms in front of his chest and dropped his head to glare at the floor.
"You were able to sense him, sir?" Carter asked. "From what I was told, he didn't blend with you, he…"
"Took control and did whatever the hell he wanted to do," O'Neill roared, causing Gallagher to look up, "despite the consequences I would have to face." He dropped his head to his hands and Gallagher could see him trembling with anger.
Gallagher's anger was near the boiling point, as it was, and he wanted to go out there and bash that bastard's head in.
"Alright, alright," Daniel said trying to calm things down, "what do we do now? The Tok'ra need our help and let's face it, we owe them big time."
"I can see why Jacob was forced to come here," Gallagher said. "They figured he would be handy to have around when we found out who came with him."
"Why the hell did he have to come anyway?" O'Neill chimed in. "The Tok'ra could have sent anybody, why Kanan?"
"There's only one way to find out," Daniel said.
"Daniel," O'Neill said staring at the archeologist, "if I go back out there, that particular Tok'ra will be carried out of here by his comrades, that is, if they are still standing when I get through with them."
"This is not the way to deal with this and you know it," Daniel argued. "They are asking us for help, help that we are able to give them, by the way, and we should at least consider their plea. It's the least we can do," he said.
O'Neill didn't answer and Gallagher found himself wondering if Daniel ever remembered coming to see him in between the torture sessions. The answer came to him even as he thought it and it saddened him that this was something they never talked about. Daniel had been a slap of reality when he was there, keeping him sane, keeping him talking and caring about him. He had felt so empty and alone during those times when Daniel didn't come. He had missed his friend.
"We'll go talk," O'Neill said quietly and he got up from his chair to follow through on his statement. "You were there, you know," O'Neill said to Daniel. "You wanted to help me ascend to get me out of there. I wouldn't and you left. I remember asking you to end it, but you weren't there." Gallagher had a vague memory of hanging on the wall, hearing Ba'al accuse him of losing his mind when he called to Daniel to end it.
"I don't remember any of that, Jack," Daniel said, his expression showing surprise and sadness. "I'm sorry that I didn't help you out."
"But you did, Daniel. You finally came back and told me to get ready to run," O'Neill said.
"Not to mention keeping me company in between the sessions," Gallagher added trying to smile through his memories.
O'Neill glared at Gallagher, "You can stop talking about yourself as me, now."
"Yes sir," Gallagher said as he now tried to hide his grin.