Cam said, "I've got something."
"Grab your stuff and let's get across the hall before they come upstairs. We have only seconds," Daniel directed, grabbing his duffle and opening the hall door. He picked a room directly across from them and rapped on its door. "Urgent business for the Margave," he said in a low but commanding voice. "Be quick."
A confused and anxious little man opened the door to be immediately pushed out of the way by four people spilling into the room. Daniel quickly closed the door. He had his knife out and the man swallowed any sound of protest he had been considering. Cam crossed to the window, threw it open, and looked down to the alley. He reported, "No one on this side of the tavern." He secured the line and gestured to Sam. She looked anxiously at Daniel.
"Just go. I'll be behind you." Daniel turned to the man who was making ineffectual little noises. "I'm the one they call Strider, Lodi of Enphata. Have you heard of me?"
The man actually gulped. Daniel wondered if, after he left this place, he'd ever get that kind of reaction again. Sam was on the ground and Teal'c was on his way down. "They'll be up here in a moment looking for me. It would be well for you to have thrown the line down and to say you have not seen us. They won't believe you weren't an accomplice."
Cam said, "Daniel, now."
Cam had barely dropped to the ground next to Daniel when the line came snaking down behind him. He grabbed it up without attempting to sort it out and they all followed Daniel down the alley to a narrow street, empty of people, that ran at the back of the tavern. Daniel ran to the left, crossed the street and ducked into the next narrow alley, grateful that they were now out of sight of the tavern.
"We've got to get out of Inova very quickly," he told the others. "Going by boat is not a good idea. Mine is out of commission and it would be too risky for any other boatman to aid us. The Margave has a ship in the area. The water would be the first place they would look for me. This is a major search. There's something more going on than just the message I carried. This part of the country is pretty thinly settled when you get more than 20 miles from the river. It's all forest, some pretty serious wild animals, and mainly inhabited by rovers who've been driven out of their communities for various and sundry offenses."
"Sounds interesting to me," Cam said. "At least we're on the same side of the river as the gate. How about we work ourselves in that direction?"
"You never give up, do you?" Daniel asked. "If you still want me, by the way, I'll go back with you. You practically had me at hello, you know, but I've had a lot of fun watching you do back flips."
"You know, Strider old fellow, I knew that. You know why?"
"Why, Mitchell?" Daniel dutifully asked.
"Because if you really wanted to stay lost, you would have immediately gated to another world after you got to this one. We would never have been able to find you." Daniel had nothing to say. "See," Cam crowed. "I knew."
"If you two are done with one upping each other, or whatever this is, I think we should move along," Sam said.
Daniel led them down the alley to a narrow street and then through a succession of streets and alleys until they were on the downriver side of town. They came around a corner and found themselves face to face with Valentino and six of his closest friends playing some dice game. Daniel skidded to a halt and pulled a knife. Cam said, "He's got more friends behind us."
SG-1 could fight in ways these idiots had no knowledge of but they were outnumbered more than two to one and their opponents were all armed. The zats were in the packs and not much help. Valentino was grinning the least appealing grin Daniel had ever seen. If he was Strider, this man was Worm Tongue. Valentino strolled forward until he was close enough for the aroma of his unwashed body to assault them. "I see you brought your girl friend to see me," he said. He started to reach toward Sam with a large knife, intending perhaps to slash her clothes.
Valentino suddenly diverted his attention from Sam when a voice rapped out in trade, "Don't move. We've got you surrounded.
Daniel turned slowly toward the voice, disbelief warring with relief. Jack O'Neill and seven others in local dress stood loosely spread out with zats at ready.
Cam said, "Great timing, General."
Daniel jerked his head toward Valentino. "I know this thug and his friends. There's a major manhunt for us right now. If we don't kill them all, they'll help to lead the Margave's men right to us."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "What do you suggest?"
Daniel just knew that Jack thought he was going to get some sort of touchy feely moralistic diatribe from Daniel. Daniel shrugged and said, "They're vermin. Kill them all." Deep inside the voice he sometimes heard from the old Daniel protested but he was Lodi and refused to listen.
"In cold blood?" Jack asked.
Daniel made a face, sidestepped, and hit Valentino hard. A fight erupted and ended immediately as every last one of the thugs was permanently eliminated. "What the hell was that all about, Daniel?" Jack demanded.
"You didn't want it to be in cold blood," Daniel said. "Thanks for taking out the garbage, O'Neill." He turned to his three comrades from the inn. "I guess one of you, maybe all of you, were carrying locator devices?" Daniel asked.
"Never leave home without it," Cam said.
Jack came forward with his troops and made introductions. Daniel had met only one of Jack's company before. They were all professional soldiers with faces that didn't usually show much, but they weren't good enough to hide the fact that he was getting the zoo animal scrutiny again. He was seriously starting to wonder if they got out much. There were plenty of people on earth who still had long hair.
Jack made an abortive move as if to embrace Daniel or clasp his hand, but something in Daniel's body language and unfriendly expression stopped him. He slapped Cam and Teal'c on the back and gave Sam a quick hug. Daniel noticed how awkwardly she received it and realized that she was nervous about his interpretation of it. She'd damn well better be, he thought. He'd forgiven but not forgotten. If she wandered into Jack's bed again, there would be no coming back from that.
"They're looking for us pretty seriously. We need to get away from the river, get into back country to work our way back to the gate," Daniel informed Jack.
Jack looked at Cam for confirmation which pissed Daniel off. He just wasn't feeling the Jack love at the moment. "How did you come here from the gate, O'Neill? Across the grassland before the forest and then up along the river." Jack nodded.
"I'll tell you what Jack. Why don't you and your boys here and Teal'c and Mitchell take off and I'll make my way separately. I promise I'll meet you at the gate, but you'll be spared having to follow any kind of lead from me." He spoke in a flat, menacing voice, very soft but devoid of any warmth or even much humanity, "Because this is my turf and I'm doing this my way."
Jack actually came close to gaping at him, but of course didn't. The man had developed a frozen face somewhere in the past few years. Sam spoke in Russian, a language she and Daniel knew, but Jack didn't. It was likely few of the others present knew it either. "I notice you didn't assign me to either party."
"I didn't know where you wanted to be now that you had a choice," Daniel responded.
"Where do you want me to be?" she asked.
"I want you safe more than anything Sam. Probably I should have sent you all away as soon as I knew they were looking for me. Now, they'll be looking for the rest of you very close to as hard. So, you're safer with me. Jack has strength in numbers, but no idea at all of what he's doing here."
She looked at him troubled, but evidently decided that if that was all he was giving her now, it was enough. She said, in English, to Jack. "I'll go with Daniel."
"Wait just a freaking moment!" Jack exclaimed. "We're staying together."
"You think you can take me Jack? In a fair fight anyway? I'm not following you while you blunder through the woods."
Jack looked at Daniel, really looked at him now. Daniel helpfully moved out of the shadows where he had been since Jack appeared. He saw Jack take in the hair, the scar, the knives, the rock hard muscles, the way he moved. "What did you do with my archeologist?" Jack said. Maybe it was meant as a joke or one of Jack's sarcastic putdowns but it actually came out sad.
"Enough," Daniel said. He picked up the duffle he had dropped when Valentino had faced off with him. He jerked his head at Sam and started to walk away. He heard her steps right behind him.
"Okay, Daniel," Jack said. "You've got command until we get to the gate."
Daniel didn't feel any victory at all in the concession. He did think a little mournfully that he would definitely have to cut his alcohol consumption for the next few days. He'd have enough trouble getting them to listen to him even if they didn't see him drinking.
He moved them quickly out the back ways from the town and through the farm country behind it, avoiding houses and seeking out every stream he could to slow down trackers. When they came close to the last farm house, he left them to sneak into the lean-to built against the house to take toka salve. He left coins in payment, but hid them elsewhere in the shed so that they would not be found for weeks. He hoped they would merely think that one or the other of them had mislaid the salve, not that someone had been there.
When the cultivated land began to fall away and things got wilder, it was near dawn. He stopped them and asked them to form up for a briefing. He told them about the more significant of the predators that lived in the forest and the tricks for avoiding disaster with them. He then pulled out the salve. He opened it up and saw several of the group make faces at the odor that wafted out. "Smells really bad, huh?"
"Something died in that jar," Jack said.
"The neat thing is, it smells that bad to the forest animals too. Each of you take some and dab it on your pulse points like a perfume." There were blank stars from all, but Sam and the two women who had come with Jack. Daniel demonstrated and then handed the salve to Teal'c. "This will make all the difference in your general comfort level," he added. Teal'c had handed it to Jack, who was hesitating. "Do I have command or not?" Daniel asked.
"You have command," Jack said begrudgingly and applied the salve before passing it on.
Daniel led them into the woods then. They hiked for two hours, going steadily uphill before he called a halt on a treeless little knoll, a rocky outcropping of sorts, with three large boulders. "Let's stop here and try to get about four hours of sleep. We've all been up all night. Jack, would you care to arrange sentries? One last thing." He took the bandana off his head, scrambled up the largest boulder, and wedged it there so that it fluttered in the breeze. He jumped down and told them, "I hoping to find friends, but there are also some excessively bad people in this forest. Try not to be trigger happy and call me if you see anything."
The group dispersed to sleep or stand watch. Sam had been staying close to Daniel. She looked at him now, an appeal for understanding in her eyes. He could see the struggle she was having. She was afraid to take a chance of messing anything up with him, but she was a soldier on a mission. If she slept as close to him as a lover would, it would not be a good thing from the military perspective. He started to tell her he understood when Jack materialized in front of them.
"Daniel, you've got a bug up your butt and I was wondering if you would care to share why," he said. He was in Daniel's face and his jaw was jutted out, spoiling for a fight. "I've spent a lot of time over the last three years cleaning up after you and I'm feeling just a tad unappreciated at the moment."
Daniel gave Jack a 'do we really want to have this conversation with hell and half of Georgia listening' look and pantomimed a sort of shushing sound. In a quiet voice, he said, "Jack, you got me all squared away to come back to the SGC for your own reasons. I didn't ask you to"
Jack moderated his tone, but not enough for Daniel when he heard what he had to say next. "I'm not just talking about the professional untidiness, Danny Boy. I'm talking about this woman next to you. She was, to put it bluntly, a basket case. I had more conversations with her about feelings in the course of a three month period than I ever want to have with anyone again, in toto, for the rest of my life. Then she quite talking about it, but that was almost worse. Sam wasn't there any more. There wasn't any spark. There was just a sort of wind up doll."
"Jack," Sam protested, softly. "That's enough. You're exaggerating."
"I thought it was bad when you Ascended. I just didn't know," Jack finished, ignoring her.
Daniel looked around. They were attracting covert interest from the others. "Jack, I do not want to talk about this now with an audience."
Jack dropped his voice to a whisper, "I'm not postponing this any longer." He stood his ground, glaring at Daniel.
"Okay," Daniel returned the whisper. "Sam chose me over you and you couldn't handle it. Maybe you felt guilty and tried to make things better afterwards, but they wouldn't have gotten so bad over the plague incident if you hadn't sabotaged me to begin with. Then you slept with her and you both lied to me about it."
Sam shook her head. "Daniel, I didn't sleep with him. I don't know why you believe that, but I didn't."
Jack had been standing thunderstruck. Suddenly, he lashed out toward Daniel with his fist. Daniel saw it too late to miss it or fully block it, but soon enough to reduce the impact. He immediately swung back and like Jack, got in less than a satisfying punch. The two men dropped to a crouch and circled each other. The rest of the camp except the sentries came toward them. Daniel rushed Jack and they were locked together, punching at each other. He dimly heard Cam say, "Leave them alone."
Part of him knew that Jack was no longer trying to hurt him, just defend himself, but three years of self-hatred, betrayal, and despair were fogging his mind and behind his punishing blows. Suddenly Sam was there, trying to separate them. "Please, please stop this," she begged.
"Sam, get away," he snarled.
"I love you Daniel. If you care anything for me, please stop." He was looking into Jack's face when she said it and there was so much pain and sorrow in those brown eyes that all the fight went out of Daniel. When he went limp and dropped his hands, Jack stopped fighting too.
They stood for just a moment, panting. The spectators began to disperse except for Teal'c, Cam, and Sam. Then Jack amazed Daniel. He put his arms around Daniel and hugged him fiercely. He further astounded him by talking about his feelings. "We'll talk later about why you believe what you do. It isn't true and you'll see that. I'm so sorry you've been in all this pain. God, Daniel, I love you. We have to make this right."
Daniel felt a sob in his throat. He couldn't cry, not in front of men he was trying to lead. He limited himself to returning Jack's hug. "I want to believe you. Thanks for coming to find me, Jack."
They broke apart. Sam had been just a couple of steps away. She closed the distance and took Daniel's hand. She looked over at Teal'c and Cam, drawing them into the group. "You should know that Daniel and I are together again."
Teal'c just smiled. Cam looked as if he was going to make one of his typical exuberant comments, but then thought better of it and simply said, "About time."
Jack said, "I'm glad. You believe that Daniel?" There was a little anxiousness in his voice.
Daniel didn't need to think about it. "I do."
One of the sentries called out, "We got company from the north." They moved quickly to take cover behind the boulders and looked in that direction. There were flickers of movement in the trees. There would appear to be at least a dozen in the advancing force. An arrow arced out of the trees and struck the ground at the foot of the knoll. It's flight was wobbly and when it struck they could see that it was because there was a strip of cloth tied to it.
Jack asked Daniel, without taking his eyes off the thinning trees approaching the knoll. "Are we in trouble?"