A/N: Thank you so much to those who reviewed. It brings me such joy! Please continue doing so. This chapterfurther setsthings up. Don't worry--there's serious action in the horizon. --your humble author

Chapter Three: Life Is What You Make of It

Sam awoke with a start. Her leg! Her leg had a hole in it! The pain was unbearable; it was excruciating; it was torturous. It was all in her head?

"Huh?" She looked at her leg, which had previously been a charred mass of skin, destroyed nerve endings, and blackened bone. At least, that's what she vaguely remembered. But as she ran her hand over her appendage, it was completely normal.

"Captain Carter, I am pleased you are awake. Are you well?"

"I…think so. Wasn't I shot?"

Teal'C nodded. He had spent most of his time in an exceptionally deep state of kel-no-reem and consequently didn't know what had happened. "Indeed. I cannot explain your recovery, although it likely occurred because of our captors."

"Have you seen them?"

"No. They have not presented themselves."

Sam sighed and flexed her knee. Well, her leg seemed to be in one piece. She stood up and took a tentative step, relieved when she didn't fall over in agony. "This all seems so strange. Why would they heal me? How would they heal me? Their technology seemed advanced, but they certainly didn't. Maybe this planet has healing powers," she conjectured. "It doesn't make sense, but nothing does, really."

"There is little we can do until we have more information."

Sam sat back down, resigned. "You're right. We'll just have to wait until they see us. I hope the Colonel comes back for us."

"That would be consistent with his previous actions."

That made Sam smile. "So, it looks like we've got some time on our hands. Want to play twenty questions?"

Jack and Daniel walked the halls of the SGC. Jack explained Danny's past and present, while the young archeologist grew increasingly awed. Although he accepted that seven years had mysteriously passed, he certainly hadn't come to terms with it. Everything seemed unreal.

"You figured out how the Gate works about two weeks after you got here. 'Course, I guess that's why they brought you in."

"I'm sure anybody could have figured it out," Daniel responded with sincere modesty.

"The military had an entire team working on it for two years before you showed up. But, yeah, two years, two weeks—what's the difference?"

"Oh."

Jack rolled his eyes and continued by relating their mission to Abydos. "Well, we couldn't have been there more than a couple of hours when you pissed off some weird camel and it dragged you to the planet's city. At least, I guess you could call it a city; people lived there. Anyway, that's where you met Sha'uri."

"Sha'uri?"

"Your wife."

Daniel's jaw hit the floor and his eyes bugged out. He vaguely resembled a fish. "I got married? To an alien?"

Jack explained everything he could, from Ra to the bomb to leaving Daniel on Abydos with Sha'uri. It was painful for him to tell Daniel all that had happened, considering the heartache it caused the "real" Daniel.

"Well, how did I wind up back here? Wait—where is 'here?'"

"Colorado. We're in an underground complex on Cheyenne Mountain. And you're here because of a swell little visit we got from our old friend Apophis." That led Jack to discuss their present circumstances. He told Daniel about Sha'uri's abduction, Sam, Teal'C, Ammonet, and their continuing mission to save his wife and protect Earth. Jack felt like he was reciting the opening monologue to Star Trek.

"And that pretty much brings us up to today. I guess. I mean, we've done a lot of stuff since we started using the Stargate and we've been on more missions. But you can read the reports."

Daniel nodded slowly, not really understanding what Jack meant by "missions." The concepts of traveling through space, stomach snakes, and his wife were also giving him trouble. And apparently there was more. "So what happened today? Besides my amnesia."

Jack barely concealed the anger he felt at the situation and at himself for not preventing the problems they were facing. He knew in his head that none of it was his fault, but that didn't stop the guilt. "We got to P3X-772 and split up. You and I went to look at a rock while Carter and Teal'C tested for naquada. Not more than an hour could have passed when we got attacked. They got Carter and Teal'C but we escaped. That's how you hit your head—we jumped off a cliff and into a river."

"Well, there's something I would never do."

"You do what you have to. And now we have to go get our teammates."

"We?"

"Well, that's the problem; you knew what was going on. The rock you were looking at said…something…and you were gonna tell me when they started shooting at us. Now it's kind of important for you to remember. Their lives depend on it."

"Oh. Um…I have no idea."

Jack shook his head. "It's okay. C'mon, I've got something else for you to see."

Daniel sat numb, the glow of the television glinting in his eyes. Jack had left him to go speak with the doctor and some General. While he was gone, Daniel was supposed to watch that morning's briefing in an effort to regain his memory. It wasn't happening, though. The more he watched, the more upset he began to feel. What the hell had he got himself into?

"Traveling to other planets? Getting married? Working for the military? Stomach snakes? And I look so old. I guess that's no surprise; anybody who'd been through the past few years he'd been through—I've been through? We? I got married?

"How on Earth am I supposed to help these people? For Heaven's sake, I only just finished the first draft of my dissertation. I'm in no position to understand what's going on on another planet!"

He sighed heavily. "Seven years of my life. My goals, my plans, everything I've worked so hard for…and it's all gone. And I'm talking to myself."

Daniel became quiet and watched the images on the screen. There was his doppelganger, cheerfully expounding on archaeological finds on P3X-772. An older man referred to him as "son" while Jack mumbled something about a complete lack of strategic value. Sam (who was surprisingly attractive for a military officer) warned him about the last time he had seen great archaeological finds. She said it with a smile and the other Daniel, who seemed to know what she was talking about, blushed furiously but returned the grin. Such camaraderie. They were all friends. They were friends, part of a secret military organization, running around the universe, and getting attacked by native people and stomach snakes.

"This is too much," he mumbled. Daniel stood up and ran out of the room.

Jack sat in Dr. Fraiser's office with General Hammond. "He believes us. I took him to the embarkation room and explained everything. It turns out his aliens-built-the-pyramids theory's been around for awhile. He just doesn't know what the hell he's doing here."

"And I don't know why that is."

"Dr. Fraiser?"

She shook her head at the General's question and pulled out a few complicated looking papers. "I have gone over his tests three times and I just cannot see any injury that would result in his amnesia. He was unconscious longer than I would like for a concussion, but there is no evidence of brain damage."

"What are you saying? He's faking it?"

"Not at all; Daniel would never do something like that. He has suffered some sort of trauma, but I think it might be psychological as well as physical. I believe his brain has used this injury as a trigger. It sent him back on purpose."

Jack looked confused and even more frustrated. "So what do we do now? How do we get him to remember? Will he remember?"

The General put up his hand, silencing Jack. "What is your recommendation, Dr. Fraiser? Colonel O'Neill will be going back to the planet and we need Dr. Jackson's help."

"Since the problem is psychological, you have to find out what caused it. Once you have that, he should regain his memory. If I'm correct, his brain is trying to protect him from something; once he's forced to face it he'll recover."

Jack opened his mouth to respond to the impossibility of the task when a young MP raced into the room. "C-Colonel O'Neill!"

"What is it?"

The young man looked very nervous. "Y'know how you told me to keep an eye on Dr. Jackson while I made my watch? Well, I went by the room every few minutes but then I went by and he wasn't there. And I don't know what's going on but I couldn't find him and—"

"I told you to keep an eye on him! I told you to make sure he stayed in that room!"

General Hammond placed a hand on Jack's shoulder. "I know you're concerned, but I'm sure he's fine and somewhere in the compound. We'll get a team together and look for him."

"With all due respect, sir, this compound is huge."

"Then we'll have a big team. Let's go."

"He's probably scared," Dr. Fraiser called after them. "You're gonna need to be sensitive to his circumstances. Now that he's acknowledged the truth of the situation, there's a lot for him to swallow. Bring him back here when you find him."

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