It was all too much. It hurt too much. Staying awake was too hard. He couldn't do it, not anymore.

He could hardly hear the voices around him, couldn't recognize any of the speakers or make up any words, Jack, Sam, Teal'c, Janet, Hammond, whoever, it was all a buzz that meant nothing to him.

He had always thought he was a fighter. Only because of that he had managed to escape death so many times in the past.

This time was different. He knew there was nothing anyone could do to help, nothing that could stop the inevitable from happening.

Daniel could just as well give up.

A weak voice, a barely perceptible word from Jackson, took Mitchell's attention immediately away from the view.

He couldn't decide what Jackson had said. Could've been a lot of things, like "hurts" or "help" or "hell", or then something in a language Mitchell didn't even know.

Mitchell crouched closer, so he could hear anything that might follow. But there was nothing more. Nothing at all. Jackson had stopped breathing.

"Damn! Not now! Jackson? Jackson! Daniel!" Mitchell shouted, shaking him vigorously. He got no response.

Teal'c, sitting at Jackson's feet, gazed at him intently. Mitchell tilted Jackson's head back, trying to secure his airway, but it didn't change a thing either.

"Galen! We're really not doing good here!"

"What's wrong--he's not-" Carter's concerned words came before Galen had said a thing.

He interrupted her. "No, Samantha. Stay where you are. I need you here," Galen spoke with a lower tone, and then switched to shouting when he addressed Mitchell. "Whatever I said earlier, forget about it! We're only minutes away. I can't leave the controls. Just do whatever it takes to keep him alive."

"Minutes away from where?" Mitchell asked, completely puzzled. He could only hope that Galen knew what he was doing.

He was nearer to Jackson. He had to do the rescue breathing. The disease could just go to hell. If he was going to get it, he was sure he had it already. He pinched Jackson's nose shut and gave him two breaths. Didn't do any good as far as he could see. He could taste Jackson's blood on his lips. He checked for a pulse, and felt nothing.

Teal'c had squeezed himself to the very narrow space between the Ancient machinery and Jackson's other side. He had placed a hand on Jackson's chest, and let his head droop sadly. Not good. Definitely not good.

"Whatever it takes, Galen said. T, never mind the bruises or the broken bones," Mitchell told him, so Teal'c positioned himself so he could start compressions. Mitchell knew he could do it well enough, had seen him do it before.

Fifteen compressions. Two breaths.

Galen had said they were minutes away. Mitchell couldn't imagine where he was taking them. No matter what the ship could do, crossing any distance across space in just minutes, without the stargate, sounded absurd. Especially since the Dodecagon was so far from everything else, all alone in deep space.

Just on cue with Mitchell's thoughts, Galen yelled, "Brace yourselves! Here we go."

Then, the world stopped, turned upside down, collapsed into itself and exploded back to its normal state again. It felt like the Big Bang, the effects of the Veraeda and those of a gate trip fused together and fit into a moment so short that it couldn't be measured.

It hadn't changed one thing, though. Jackson still showed no signs of life.

"What was that? What happened?" Mitchell heard Eilerson's voice from the cockpit.

"I can't think of a proper word for it," Galen's answer was vague. "A leap. A trip. A transition."

Teal'c had finished another fifteen compressions, completely uninterrupted by that immeasurable moment when the world had done a reverse somersault with twists.

Mitchell gave another two breaths.

Waiting for his turn again, he happened to glance at the screen on the wall. It showed another ray of the Dodecagon, or maybe the same one they'd come from. Its doors were opening slowly. What the hell was Galen up to?

"Samantha, it's your turn now. I need you to activate the stargate."

"Where to?"

"I don't know. You tell me. It's your universe, after all."

Though Mitchell still felt no heartbeat from Jackson, he could feel his own heart soar at those words. He didn't know how it was possible, he could hardly believe it. Of course, it might not be. Maybe they were just in a universe close to theirs. How could Galen be sure, anyway? How could any of them be sure? They'd have to spend a while in this universe, take a good look at everything and everyone at the SGC, before they could be sure. But if it really was...

Two breaths. No response.

He looked up at the outside again. Either they were now facing the gate room with the ship tilted into a really odd position, or then Galen had switched the view so they saw what was directly below them. The stargate, its ring turning, the chevrons lighting up much faster than on the Earth gate, and then the blue flash of the vortex. Mitchell had never, ever thought it could look this wonderful.

"Sam, you got the GDO?" he just had to check.

"Of course I do!" came her exasperated answer.

A voice distorted by static hissing came through their radios. "SG-1, this is Stargate Control. What's your status? Everything all right?"

"No, everything's not all right! We're coming through. Stand clear from the gate. No, wait—isolate the whole room and get a medical team in hazmat gear," Mitchell yelled to his radio.

The gateship of the Duodecim landed smoothly in front of the gate. There was just enough space for it in the narrow room.

"So, what're we waiting for? Let's go home!" Mitchell exclaimed.

The ship plunged into the shimmering, rippling blue of the event horizon.

SGC

They were home. Or at least very near to home. The gate room that Mitchell saw through the screens was exactly like it should be. And empty, except for a bunch of people in those protective suits that looked like something out of an old scifi-show.

Their landing was as soft and unnoticeable as any movement of this amazing ship. As soon as they were down, the ramp at the back started to open. And as soon as it was low enough, before Mitchell had even managed to really wrap his mind around the idea that they might really, truly have made it back, Teal'c had grabbed Jackson and started making his way out of the ship. But something wasn't quite right.

Teal'c's steps were really slow and wavering, as if Jackson was way too heavy for him to carry. It hadn't looked that difficult before. Mitchell couldn't know how long it'd been since Teal'c had used the last of his tretonin. He was probably sick too. He hadn't said anything about it. Damn his always solid, steady and stoical appearance.

Mitchell jumped up and ran after him, ready to offer his help. But he found out that his steps weren't too light either. He was exhausted after the long struggle to get out, the days spent without water, the CPR they'd been doing, and who knew what else.

Mitchell got there just in time when Teal'c's knees gave in and he pitched towards the floor. He tried to catch him, or Jackson, for that matter, to stop them from hitting the ground.

Instead, he found himself crashing down as well. They all landed in a heap at the bottom of the ramp.

Mitchell wanted to get up and tell Lam to take care of Jackson and Teal'c first. Jackson, most of all. He might be gone already, beyond any help. Even if he wasn't, he certainly didn't have a lot of time left. But Mitchell was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open.

When he actually saw Carolyn's face through that transparent face-plate of her suit, looking just like herself, working furiously, doing her best to help them, he allowed his leaden eyelids to close. He fell asleep right away.

Daniel was still hurting all over.

That could only mean one thing. He was still alive. Against all probability, against all reason, he wasn't dead. He couldn't understand how that was possible. He didn't feel much better, the pain was every bit as bad as before, he was dying, drowning, about to lose this battle. But breathing was easier, and the pain somehow less sharp than before, just as bad, but different.

The surroundings felt different as well. He'd thought he had been in the infirmary all the time, but he hadn't been aware of its scents, its sounds, its particular atmosphere. Now he could sense it all around him.

Something had changed, something had happened, but he couldn't understand how, or why. He needed to know. He fought to open his eyes.

The ceiling was white, but it wasn't glowing. That meant something. He didn't know what. It was supposed to be important.

"Hey--Daniel! Welcome back!" Jack uttered. Not in a happy welcoming tone, but in that wary one Daniel had been hearing all along, the one people used when talking to the mortally ill.

Back from where? Right, Daniel could guess. He had almost died, and they'd managed to save him. Why, he couldn't figure out. Why go on when they knew he'd go anyway, soon? Too much radiation. Nothing could prevent it. He had to tell that to Jack. Tell him not to get his hopes up.

"Jack... No way—radiation-" he could hardly hear his own voice.

A blur that had to be Jack swam into his field of vision. But something was off about it. It didn't look like a normal face. It was covered and framed with something--a hazmat suit. He had thought he wouldn't cause a risk of contamination anymore.

"God, Danny--is that where you are? What you think is going on?" Jack sounded appalled. "It's not radiation, Daniel. That was years ago. Forget about that. It's a virus. They're going to figure it out. Just hang on in there. Just a while longer."

Years ago... Jack was telling him he wasn't dying of radiation sickness. He was dying of a virus... If he was dying at all. But he was. He could feel it. It was just like that time years ago. The pain was every bit as bad, the feeling that his body was falling apart completely, failing utterly.

"Wha..." he asked. What had happened. What was going on.

"You were trapped, but you got out. Thanks to you. And a few others. And everything's gonna be fine."

Trapped. White glow from the ceiling. The Dodecagon. It was hazy, but it was coming back.

He didn't remember getting out of there. Anything that had happened after they'd gotten out of the freezing room was vague and overlapped with other, more distant memories.

How could they have gotten out? And back to their own universe? Unless... This wasn't their own universe at all, but an alternate one--he needed to know! And what of everyone else? Teal'c and Sam and Mitchell? And the two visitors from the future, Galen and Eilerson. Were they here? Were they all alive? All right? Had they got the virus as well?

Once he got started, the questions wouldn't stop, but he couldn't force his cracked lips and raw throat to spell them out loud. It was driving him crazy. The annoying, familiar beep of the ECG monitor was getting faster in time with his painfully racing heart.

"Doc! Lam! Hey!" Jack shouted.

She was there in an instant, another figure dressed in protective gear. "What's going on?"

"Daniel?" Jack asked, crouched closer to him, but he still couldn't speak.

The room had started spinning dizzyingly fast. He closed his eyes

They were really out of the Dodecagon, weren't they? But if all his previous memories and thoughts had been delusional... He knew he was feverish. What if this was just a dream? What if none of this was really happening? They could still be trapped within those twelve walls.

"He was awake, but..."

"I'm truly sorry, General... I can't have him worked up like this. He can't take it. I'll have to sedate him."

"But... He... You..." Jack was stuttering. Jack never stuttered like that. Was he an alternate Jack? Maybe he wasn't Jack at all, just someone else that Daniel took for Jack? He couldn't see his face properly, but the voice sounded right.

Jack, or whoever he was, managed to finish what he'd been trying to say. "If you do that... You don't know if he'll wake up again, ever, do you?"

Daniel knew Jack really hadn't wanted to say that. He also knew that Jack was right.

Even if it wasn't radiation, it could still kill him. The needles. The Ancient virus. The thing they'd not been sure he'd got, at first, but which had quickly become horribly obvious. Galen hadn't been able to heal it.

Lam didn't answer to Jack.

Someone was wrapping Daniel in blankets from the inside out. Not thermal blankets, but soft cotton ones, flowing through him, muffling his confused mind, enveloping his aching chest. It felt good.

The last thing he heard was Jack's voice.

"Daniel. This time, you're not going anywhere. And that's an order."