Earlier
"So what exactly are you asking, Selim?"
The Toak'ra smiled mirthlessly at General O'Neill, he had never trusted any of the 'snakeheads', except Selmak/Jacob that is, and he wasn't about to change that habit.
"Just for a little bit of help from you and that's about it."
"What kind of help do you need," Carter asked, spreading her hands out on the table top.
Selim/Osatahara pulled a strange device out of her pocket and set it down on the table. It was made of a dull silvery metal and had smooth runes etched in swirling patterns all around it.
Daniel's eyes practically lit up as he made a mad grab for the thing and began studying the writing. "Its one of those projectors, like the one Jacob showed us," he surmised, turning it over in his hands. "But I can't tell how to activate it."
Selim smiled and the thing floated out of the archaeologist's hands and rotated slowly above their heads before drifting down and gently landing in the middle of the table.
A family tree appeared and the symbols glowed.
"Wow, cool," O'Neill commented as Selim touched one of the symbols with a finger and a miniature person appeared dresses in strange robes and an over-the-top headdress.
"This is Dajimila, my oldest sister. She controls these systems," another finger movement caused a star chart to appear with several planetary systems highlighted in blue.
For the next few hours, Selim/Osatahara gave an in-depth account of her family, the systems they controlled, the resources on the planets, their defenses, and general personality traits outside the 'snaky and evil' category.
Finally, they came to three non-glowing symbols grouped together. The first two, she said, belonged to her mother and father. Then, touching the third, appeared the image of a young woman in a vampiresque looking costume and hairdo.
"That," Selim sighed and shook her head at the figure, "was me, around a few hundred years ago."
Jack raised an eyebrow at the costume and looked back and forth from the gothic looking woman in the hologram to the one sitting at the table across from him.
"Okay… and you thought you looked good in that?"
A chorus of groans from those seated around the table made him shrug and look at them as if to say 'what?'
Goa'uld world
"Look, I already told you, I don't know where she is."
"You lie, human," the Goa'uld's eyes flashed and another burst of pain tore through Daniel's body. "As all of your kind does, you lie!"
The pain was unendurable, and it seemed like his entire soul was alit with fire.
Again, pain washed over him and all Daniel could do was weep and mutter, "I don't know where she is…"
Finally, after hours of torture, it stopped and the Goa'uld left.
Two burly Jaffa picked him up by the arms, though he was so light now that one could easily have done the same job alone, and dragged him back to the cell he shared with Teal'c.
"Daniel Jackson."
"Teal'c"
It was all that was needed to be said, no words could help either of them then, and Daniel could only think back on a time Jack had told him about. When Jack had been captured and tortured endlessly, Daniel had come to him in his cell and tried to teach him how to ascend… but now here he was, back in the mortal plane, and no one to come and help him. He doubted that he would be allowed to ascend again, and he didn't have the strength to even last long enough to help Teal'c.
Daniel's eyes closed and stillness overtook him.
While he slept, the Jaffa returned and took Teal'c away with them.
Later
Daniel rocked back and forth in a fetal position, arms wrapped tightly around his knees and head tucked under them.
"Human, this is the last time I will ask you nicely."
A face appeared next to his – it was filled with compassion and tears filled the large grey eyes. "Please, all you need do is say one little thing and you can go free."
Daniel looked over at the woman crouched next to him.
"No, I can't. I can't"
The woman clucked and stroked his long, unkept hair.
"Of course you can – no one would blame you, certainly not these supposed friends of yours. They must know that you could not help but to tell us where Salima is, why else would they not have come back for you?"
Daniel moved away from the woman and gritted his teeth.
"They will come for me."
"But poppet," she cried, putting an arm around his thin shoulders, "it has been nearly a full year now. If they were coming, don't you not think that they would have by now?"
A whimper was her only reply.
"Or didn't you realize that's how long you've been here? Yes, poppet, you've been in the keeping of Bashir for eleven and a half of your Terran months, now. We have monitored your people; they made no attempt to rescue you since the Jaffa escaped. They have called one man known as 'Jonas Quinn' from another world to replace you. They have indeed, poppet," the woman cooed into his ear, "abandoned you."
A spark lit in his eyes and something clicked in Daniel's mind.
"They aren't coming?"
With a sad smile, the woman took Daniel's head in her hands and looked him in the eyes.
"No, poppet, they're not."
Control room
Colonel Carter paced back and forth in front of the control panel.
"Where is he," she fumed.
"Off world activation!"
Sam pumped her fist and turned to watch at the date dialed in and a burst of blue dazzled the wall behind the iris.
"Ma'am," called the young woman behind the computer. "It's a Toak'ra id signal."
Sam nodded.
"Open the iris."
The metal spiraled open and the simmering blue portal appeared.
A few seconds later Jacob Carter and a pale looking Jack O'Neill stepped through and into the gate room.
Carter wasted no time running out of the command center to meet them.
"Dad," Sam raced over to her father and gave him a bear hug.
"Hey Sam," her dad grinned.
A tap on her shoulder broke up their family bonding moment, and O'Neill stood next to her, grinning like an idiot with his arms wide open.
"Don't I get a hug?"
Carter blushed and they exchanged a small, but meaningful embrace.
Once they broke apart, seeing the look on Jacob's face, Jack shrugged and said 'what?'
"After all, I was the one who almost died… again."