"That's it? You've got it?" Mitchell asked anxiously.

He had the feeling that Jackson hadn't really been following what Eilerson had tried to suggest. It looked like he was pretty much out of it again. When Galen had said that his help wouldn't last long, Mitchell had figured he'd meant something like an hour. It had hardly been fifteen minutes yet, and Jackson's breathing had picked up a horribly wet-sounding undertone.

"I've got something. Can't say if that's 'it' before we've tried it."

"So, we stop wasting time and try it."

"Who's going to..." Eilerson began.

"I don't care. Don't give a damn. Anyone. Whoever. Except for you, Galen. I need you to keep Jackson alive until we've got the walls. So, I'll do it on my own, if no one else volunteers."

"We shall all volunteer," Teal'c said, and if Mitchell could interpret his voice at all, it sounded a bit offended.

Of course they would all volunteer. Mitchell just felt so tired and annoyed that he couldn't help saying things he didn't mean. And he still had the grandma of all headaches, with a really bad attitude. He figured that if they wouldn't get out really soon, he might just go totally stir-crazy.

Galen had taken up his healing crystal again, hopefully trying to do whatever he could to help. Mitchell laid a hand on Jackson's shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze.

"Just hang on in there, Daniel," he said.

The answer he got was more than a bit startling, and not only because the voice uttering it was so weak.

"...Jack?"

"Sorry. He's not here right now. But we'll get there soon," Mitchell promised, and stood up. "So, which way to the second wall?"

The first wall was still glowing, so they knew at least that one was right. Mitchell remembered that the second wall was supposed to be in cuneiform writing, and he thought he could recognize it, but he couldn't be sure, and they couldn't afford any mistakes.

Eilerson didn't answer. Instead, he just walked to the cuneiform wall and hit it himself. It was correct.

"Linear A's next. Teal'c, it's right behind you," he told.

Teal'c turned around and touched the wall, which lit up as well.

Jack wasn't here. That thought, somehow, was enough to drag Daniel's wandering mind back into the present. That, combined to the fact that, for some odd reason, he was feeling slightly better again. No longer suffocating.

He was not on the Replicator ship. He was in the Dodecagon. He was really, really sick, with an Ancient disease. And Oma wasn't here. Though she'd had been there when he'd almost, no, when he had actually died on that ship, she hadn't been there when Daniel had escaped death so narrowly in the Dodecagon in their own universe, after he'd first touched a wall.

Maybe the containment in this place was so extremely effective that not even the Ascended could make their way into it. After all, higher plane or not, they were some kind of energy beings, and this room was built to keep energies tightly within, so nothing could go out, and nothing could get in. And still, maybe that was all beside the point. Couldn't it be that the Ascended had finally decided that Daniel was a hopeless case who would never ever be able to conform to their rules and regulations, so that they had forbidden Oma ever to contact him again, and that was why no one was here to help him?

Could he ascend on his own now? He had already been up and away over there once, and he'd come very near to it again after that encounter with Replicator-Sam. But even if he could ascend here, would he only become stuck, unable to get out through the containment? Would he be caught inside these walls until the end of time? The four days he'd been here so far had already felt like an eternity.

Of course, they might just figure the way out, and he'd survive. He didn't know what was going on with the walls at the moment. Max had been asking him questions, he remembered that, offering a possible order, and he'd approved most of it. But it was silent now, no one speaking anything at all, at least not loud enough for Daniel to hear. No cheering to tell that they'd got things right, and nothing to suggest that they hadn't, either.

If he could just open his eyes and look, but he couldn't. Wouldn't. He knew it would be a very bad idea. He also knew that this moment of clear thought, feeling slightly less dead, was passing quickly. It was an oasis that he'd already left behind, and now he was walking into the desert again, thirsty, without any water anywhere in sight, hurting all over, leaving a trail of blood behind him, so weary that he could hardly lift his feet from the ground.

The others might just figure the way out of here so that Daniel could die somewhere else.

They'd got six in a row. They were halfway through the walls, and they'd got each one right so far. They'd fallen completely silent. They were too tense to say anything at all, too worried that the next wall might be the one to go wrong. Eilerson went to touch the seventh wall himself. The English one. It glowed reassuringly.

Mitchell knew, or at least thought he'd heard, that the Goa'uld text would come next, so he started walking towards it, but Carter was there already. Eilerson nodded to her, and she and went for it. Right. It was right, too.

This was looking almost too good to be true. Could they really have the right order at the first try? There was always the next wall to go, always the chance that it'd wipe them all out of existence with some unknown and all-powerful Ancient weapon.

The text from Vala's planet came next, and Teal'c did that one. Successfully.

Eilerson got the alien language declaration from his universe.

Ten. They'd arranged all but two correctly. Those last two had been the haziest ones anyway, the texts from the future. And now that they had only those two left, it was just a fifty-fifty thing, and if this first try went wrong, then they'd do it again the other way, and it'd have to be right.

Mitchell was already starting to plan ahead in his mind, think about what they'd do when they got to those other rooms. How they'd get home. Not that he cared a whole lot about what all the other rooms had in them. All he needed was the stargate room. If there was an SG-1 in this universe, dead as they might be, it suggested that there'd be an SGC as well. Maybe they could just dial home, talk things over with them and go on wondering about what to do with the SGC crew of this universe. At least they'd be out of this awful place, and they'd get some real medical attention for Jackson. And some water.

Out of the two walls that were left, one was the odd futuristic French, and the other, that text already familiar from the first universe. Jackson and Eilerson had figured that the French came first. Mitchell was nearest to it. He turned to the wall, reached out a shaky hand, and touched it.

The relief when he saw the light shining through those curly symbols carved in stone was just overwhelming. His legs felt like jell-o. He had to place both hands on the wall just to keep himself steady.

Unceremoniously, but with a smug smile unlike anything Mitchell had seen on his face so far, Eilerson walked to the one single wall that wasn't glowing yet, and punched it.

The walls had come down with what had looked like surprising speed. Now it seemed to take ages for them to open. The lights went off from all walls at the same time, and the writing disappeared with a grinding sound about as bad as fingernails on a chalkboard.

The heavy stone slabs began to rise, so slowly at first that Mitchell wasn't sure if he was just imagining that little crack between the floor and the lower ends of the wall-doors. But they were going up, sluggishly but certainly, revealing the twelve rooms beyond.

Soon, Mitchell found himself staring straight at the stargate.

They'd got it right. No one was going to die in this place.

There was no need to be silent anymore.

Unable to find the exact words to nail what he felt, Mitchell just let out a victorious howl.

He saw Carter and Teal'c hug each other briefly, and Eilerson was still smiling, the expression seeming oddly out of place on his face. Galen had stood up from Jackson's side, staring curiously at the twelve doorways.

Mitchell wondered if Jackson had got what'd happened, and walked over to tell him. Carter and Teal'c knelt next to him too.

"We have great news," Teal'c started.

"Daniel, we've got it--you and Max got it! You got it right, and the doors are open," Carter said.

"Yeah, we're finally free, and everything's going to be fine," Mitchell added.

If Jackson heard it at all, he did a very good job hiding that. His eyes stayed shut, his bloodstained mouth hung loosely open. A teardrop was drawing a crimson line downwards from the corner of his eye.

"So, we've got the walls. What's next? Where do we go from here?" Eilerson's smile didn't really reach the tone of his voice.

"Next, we'll call home. Or the closest thing to our home in this universe, anyway," Mitchell declared. "Carter, how'd you like dialing Earth?"

The joyful look on Carter's face had already faded a bit when she'd looked at Jackson, and now it fell a bit more, hinting that she wasn't exactly sure about whether dialing an alternate SGC was a good idea. Still, she didn't say a thing. She walked through the open doorway to the DHD and started punching the symbols.

The seven gate chevrons lit in their familiar sequence, and Carter hit the central orb.

Accompanied by a disheartening, descending hum, the chevrons faded out.

She tried it again, but with the same results.

It seemed they weren't calling home after all.