Chapter Thirteen

Jack

I watched my daughter fade away as I transferred myself to a different plane of existence. She is very important to me. Not because she is my daughter but because she is our link for our future as well as our past. I recognized her soul.

As I contemplated on her and our situation I started to notice the Tempestas plane coming into view along with the scene that is playing out there.

The Tempestas plane is aptly named, for the sky has dark gloomy clouds hanging over a land devoid of life except Daniel. He is lying on the ground in a fetal position, and I am hoping he is still alive.

When I reach him I check his pulse and breath a sigh of relief. I laid my hands on his head and chest and concentrated on his injuries. I could feel the pain within him and I siphoned it into me. The pain is intense but soon diminishes as I slowly heal myself. I do not know how long it took before I regained my awareness but when I opened my eyes there was Daniel holding my head in his lap and mentally encouraging me to come around, 'Come on Jack, wake up.'

'Hey,' I croaked.

'Hey, yourself, you going to be alright?' He asked.

'Yeahsureyoubetcha,' I whispered my reply. I was still a little weak from helping Daniel.

He started to shake his head in understanding when he tensed and moved his head in a tilt to look at me better, 'You can understand what I am saying without me opening my mouth?'

'Yes, Daniel, It is called telepathy,' I mentally shot back.

'Oh, very funny, ha ha. How?...I mean, how can I do it?' He asked while I was trying to sit up and look at him better.

'I'm not sure, but both Sam and Teal'c should be able to, also.' I informed. I was finally getting my strength back and started to stand and Daniel was following suit.

'Sweet,' he said with a cheesy grin.

He is amazing sometimes. I looked at him and realized that both Oma and Anubis where not here. 'Daniel? Where are Oma and Anubis?'

'I haven't a clue. One minute I'm trying to fight off Anubis' attack the next Oma is in his face yelling at him. That in itself is unusual. She was saying something about knowing...Marcius was in there somewhere, Anubis screamed out 'no', then Oma embraced him, and they both did their glowy thing that the Acsendants are so good at and vanished. That is about when I passed out.' After Daniel's little narrative I noticed something about his feelings that was radiating off of him.

'You're in love with Oma.' That was not a question. I knew the truth. I could feel it just as intensely as I feel for Sam.

I finally found a way to make a linguist speechless. He looked like a fish out of water with his mouth open and gasping for air.

I reached over and closed his mouth. "It's all right Danny. I won't tell. But when did you realized your feelings for her?"

"After my ascension," he said with the anguish of the moment. "Jack, can your help her? Please! I do not think I am strong enough to do it.'

I looked at him for a moment. He still can get me to do almost anything. All he had to do is use those 'Baby Blues' in that hurt puppy way and do that self-hugging thing. I shake my head in resignation and said, "I will try. However, you need to get back to Thor's ship. Jon is going to need your help, Deucalion."

Daniel stopped his self-hugging and dropped both his arms, "How did you know? I found out from..."

"...from touching your jewel on the Claviger," I finished the statement for him.

"Yeah, Mercurio," he just stares into my eyes, "Jack?" Daniel asked a thousand questions in that one word.

"Later, Daniel, I will tell your everything later. Right now you need to get back and I will go see if I can help Oma."

"Ahhm...I think I need a little help here. I'm not sure about making it back on my own. I'm having a hard time focusing properly," he shyly explained.

"Just a second. Let me see what I can do," as I placed a hand on his shoulder for a moment to pick up a connection. Then I reached out with my mind to my 'Mini-Me'...Jon.

'Yes Jack, what can I do for ya?' Jon replied readily.

'Daniel needs a bit of help returning. Can you feel the connection I have established?'

'Yeah. Just like fishing.'

I laughed and squeezed Daniel's shoulder and instructed him to think of Jon.

"Jon?"

"Yep, he'll bring ya in."

Daniel closed his eyes and I let go of him and stood back and watched him fade away...now to find Oma and Anubis.

If they were using some of the Ascendents' powers then they would be in the only place that they will not be detected by them. The Regnum Mysterium...

'I so don't like this!' I thought.

Stealth is what is needed, but there is no back door to there and it is not a very large part of space and time. So, I decided to do a frontal assault and prepare, sort of speak, for every contingency.

As I focused on the area where I needed to go, I began to visualize a shield around me as well. 'Multi-tasking, don't you love it?' I had gotten a lock on it almost immediately. I took a breath and pictured myself diving into a river, expecting turbulence.

When I emerged into the realm of Regnum Mysterium the first thing I sensed was pain. 'Damn. I was so hoping that wouldn't be part of it.' The second was the bright red glow surrounding two figures in the distance. I moved closer and saw that the red glow looked more like a column of pulsating energy. Oma seemed to be holding up but weakening. Anubis' body was starting to fade.

'O'Neill,' Oma mentally whispered to me, 'Please help me pull the essence of my brother away from the Goa'uld.'

Brother? I would never have guessed. Damn...all right O'Neill get into gear.

I moved forward and place my hand on the column to test its properties. There was a tingling at first, and then it increased to emotional friction that brought a heat to the touch. It was getting stronger as I pushed forward to reach Oma. The Emotional Friction field accompanied with the initial pain when I had first entered the Regnum Mysterium was requiring me to use my multi-tasking skills to maintain control to get in there with Oma to link our strength to help her "brother". I reached out with my energy, as I merged into the column, to Oma to give her a boost in her struggles. She was fading as well. When I finally connected completely the energy column started to shift its coloring. The pulses of energy began to swirl and churn. Anubis' body has begun to sink to the ground and was fading away fast. What were left were two separate clouds of energy; one was the dark cloud that haunted the SGC after his fleet was destroyed, but darker; the other was what appeared to be an Ascendant with its bright white light.

Oma practically had a death grip on the later, her brother. She was drawing him to her and she was changing into her Ascendant form at the same time and I was giving her as much of my energy to help.

Then finally, like a cork from a bottle, the three of us flew back. Oma and her brother were suddenly in their physical form, and we landed hard, the column dissipated into a spectacular explosion of multicolor lights, leaving behind a small black cloud hovering where Anubis hovered. As I watched the cloud disintegrated into a small shower of ash.

I lay there trying to catch my breath after I made sure the ashes of Anubis were not going anywhere. A small breeze started to blow across our bodies, both Oma and her brother where in human form and lying next to me unconscious. It is unusual to have a breeze blow in this realm. I asked, "Who is there?" No answer was forth coming, but the breeze picked up and started to scattering the ashes everywhere. After the ashes where blown to the four corners and beyond the breeze died down and vanished.

Not sure who it was, but if I had my guess, it was more than likely one of the Others.

I sat up to get a better look at Oma. She appeared to be fine as I checked her over. She was just exhausted. Her brother was another story. He was very thin and pale. He had no clothes on so I could see his ribs stretching his skin almost into transparency. His hair was long, brown and matted around a face very similar to Oma's in color. He started to stir and gave a weak groan.

I moved over to him, "Easy, don't move." I started to remove my jacket to cover him. When he rolled to his back I laid the jacket over him to comfort him. He opened his eyes and looked at me with a glimmer of recognition and horror flittering across his face. "No, it's alright." I tried to comfort him. "Your freed from Anubis. Ssshh." I placed a hand on his forehead and across his chest over his heart. I called the energy to come forth and help him heal. I could not help his memories, but at least I could get his body into better shape. He slowly relaxed and closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

I turned back to Oma to see her watching me. "He will be alright in a little while. He will gain his strength soon. How are you doing?"

She blinked a couple of time before she spoke, "I will be fine, but I do not believe the Others will let me or my brother stay as Ascendents.

"Why not? You got your brother back and you eliminated Anubis, they should be ecstatic.

She finally sat up and looked at her brother. "Because of what I did. I was the one that helped Marcius ascend not knowing about Anubis until it was to late. You see, I had a special connection with Marcius, he is my twin, Anubis used that against me. Hiding within Marcius."

"Well that is not so bad," I pointed out, "Ascended...I mean. That life is fine but life with us humans can be just as great or more."

She looked at me and furrowed her brow, "Is that why you stay instead of ascending? Why you would not let Daniel help you before?"

"Mainly. I do it because I have the ability to affect the future of Earth more directly, hopefully for the better. Plus, I love the fishing," I said as I wiggled my eyebrows at her.

Oma just smiled back and nod her head in understanding. That is when I thought of something. "What is your real name? It's not Oma, right?"

Her smile got bigger and she looked down at her twin. "We were named similarly," she looked back at me with a twinkle in her eyes. "Marsha."

"Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!" I laughingly said. "Who would've thunk it? Big step from Oma."

"Yes, but Oma opened quite a few minds," she said seriously.

"Why?"

Her smile faded as she looked back at her brother. She stroked his face as she decided what to tell me.

"Marcius and I are twins and we always had this connection, even as children. It was strong and very profound. I would be able to sense his physical and mental anguish as well as his happiness. The connection one day had been severed abruptly, not before I felt the extreme pain he had experienced prier to the disconnection. I had tracked him to a valley near our home and found him unconscious near a boulder in a ravine. There was blood both on the boulder and behind his neck. I did not know at the time the significant of it but I had assumed it was from a fall. When he was better he left our home to 'discover the world,' he said. We never got our connection back and he left.

As Ancients we had our abilities but for some reason mine did not sense that Anubis had already taken over Marcius and used his Ancient abilities to block our psychic bond.

I had felt lost without him. I ended up in Sparta, Greece and married.

"Wait...ahh...was that Daniel you married...or at least his soul, right?" I asked. I just realized why I thought Oma...or Marsha, was so familiar. Daniel and I were Spartan soldiers together. That explains a few things, like our closeness and how well we bonded. "Daniel is your soul mate, isn't he?"

She looked at me with a sad smile, "Yes, but it was you he would not leave to join me. He did for a while, but he could not or would not stay away. I still do not understand why."

"Believe me, it is nothing against you. It's just that Daniel still has a job to finish. Something that was started long before you and your brother were originally born."

"The Claviger?"

"Yes. When this is over, try approaching him again, I'm sure things will be different." I pulled her into a one-arm hug and whispered, "I'm positive."

She looked up at me and smiled, "And to think I resented you when Daniel showed more interest to you then me."

"I forgive you," I said with a smirk. I leaned in and kissed the top of her head. "Come on, let's get you and Marcius back. He should be able to regain more of his energy once we leave here."

Marsha and I had gathered Marcius between us and started exiting Regnum Mysterium. As soon as we were out of there, Marsha and Marcius began to glow with an amber light and looked like they were being pulled away one cell at a time, sort of like sand in an hourglass. The look on Marsha's face was one of resignation. She mouthed 'Thank you' before she and her brother were completely gone.

I was standing there for a moment contemplating their future, when I perceived something or someone. An awareness of a power or a being in a distance and it was coming closer. I felt an urgency to leave. As I was departing I felt something impact my back hard, which threw me forward to the next plane I was aiming for at a greater speed then I had intended.

I knew I was not going to like the final impact. I was moving too fast to change direction or to terminate my approach, because what ever had hit me injured my back and was causing a severe burning sensation along my lower spine and paralysis down the legs. I started to materialize on the deck of Thor's ship. I felt my body slam hard into the floor. It reminded me of the HALO drop I had in '91, except there was no sand to make it easier. The last thing I remembered was Sam's shocked face and Tilly's screams before everything begun to gray around the edges and then like a light switch everything went completely black.

17