Part two - Bullet

Jack could only watch helplessly as the assassin edged towards the open door, pulling the civilian along with him, and went to step over his slaughtered victim.

An inhuman howl split the air as the dead man lunged up, slamming the killer's feet out from under him before pouncing, straddling the traitor's chest. Unnaturally strong hands latched around the terrified assassin's throat and squeezed like a vice. His eyes bulged in terror as he struggled against an unbreakable iron grip.

Jack managed to push aside the absolute shock, and knelt at the formerly dead man's side. "Daniel, stop! We need him alive!" he said, although he wouldn't shed a bitter tear if Daniel snapped this guy's neck like a dry twig.

Just when it seemed Daniel was going to do just that, he released his grip and slugged the assassin across the face, knocking him cold. Slowly, he raised haunted blue eyes to meet those of the colonel. "Oh God, Jack…what is happening to me?"

"I don't know," Jack said, helping him stand and doing his best to ignore the frightening amount of blood. "But I'll make sure we find out. Come on."

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For a third time that day, Daniel found himself stepping into the infirmary. Sam, who had been looking over the alien virus with Janet, gasped in horror at the state of the archaeologist's uniform. Hardly an inch below his shoulders was free of blood, and he left a trail of crimson bootprints behind on the concrete.

"What happened?" Janet demanded urgently, pulling Daniel's sodden jacket away from his chest, her face paling.

"He got shot," Jack said bluntly, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Through the heart, no less. Some crazy bastard jumped him in the commissary."

Janet's obvious concern ratcheted up a few notches at this news, which then turned to confusion as she yanked Daniel's T-shirt up and wiped away copious smears of blood to reveal only slightly reddened skin. "I don't understand," she exclaimed in surprised. "There's…there's no wound."

"That's the thing," Daniel said dryly, running his hand over where he had been fatally shot. "I'm not dead anymore, either."

Janet pressed lightly over the spot he indicated, then a little harder when he didn't react. "Does this hurt at all?"

Daniel shook his head. "Only a small ache now, and it's fading."

"I want to get a chest x-ray on you just in case," the doctor ordered, and Daniel didn't bother protesting. Something was seriously wrong with him, and denying it wasn't going to change a damn thing.

Within the hour, Janet finished with her tests and called General Hammond and the rest of SG-1 to the infirmary lab. "What's the bad news, doc?" Jack asked, sitting next to a silent Daniel.

"Well," Janet began, putting up her scan results, "this is an x-ray I took right after Daniel was shot." She circled the large white shape sitting inside Daniel's torso. "You can clearly see the bullet still inside his ribcage, just behind the heart. Now, I took another x-ray fifteen minutes ago." She put up another scan, and the bullet was noticeably smaller and somewhat misshapen. "It seems that Daniel's body is treating the bullet like a disease, and is breaking it down and absorbing it into his bloodstream. I've never seen anything like this."

"Okay, how is that even possible?" Jack asked in amazement.

"It's the virus," Janet explained. "As near as I can tell, it's literally rewriting Daniel's DNA. So far there haven't been any negative changes that I can detect, besides his decreased ability to see colors, but until we're sure nothing more serious is going to happen I'd like to keep him here for observation tonight."

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Nurse Richards looked over the clipboard as she swiped her passcard to the isolation room. Patient Daniel Jackson, affected by unknown alien virus. She prayed he would recover soon – all the nurses at the SGC liked Doctor Jackson. He visited them often, usually against his will, but he was always polite and courteous to them.

Richards lifted her eyes to the bed in the center of the room, and was taken by surprise when she saw it was empty, the covers barely disturbed. She quickly scanned the room, not seeing the kind man anywhere. "Doctor Jackson?"

A strange noise came from the other side of the bed. Concerned that Daniel might be in distress, Richards quickly stepped to the end of the bed. A pair of blue canine eyes met hers, and she jumped back with a gasp. The brown wolf rose to its feet, but before it could do anything, the nurse ran for the blast door and quickly closed it, trapping the animal inside before sounding the alarm.

An hour later, Dr. Fraiser and the rest of SG-1 were gathered in the observation room above Daniel's isolation chamber. The wolf was curled up under the bed in the middle of the room, eyeing the watchers from the relative sanctuary of the shadows, looking quite lost.

"So you have no idea where this…thing came from?" Jack asked, gesturing vaguely.

"None," Teal'c replied, at somewhat of a loss for what to do. "The nurse on duty confirms that the door was locked the entire time."

"But then where did Daniel go?" Sam asked, bewildered. "The isolation rooms only unlock from the outside, and Daniel wouldn't just…leave, without telling anyone."

Jack looked down at the frightened canine. As if sensing his gaze, the wolf met his eyes. He felt a weird vibe as they looked at each other, and he suddenly came to a realization. "Let me in there," he ordered, heading for the door.

The guard looked at him oddly. "Sir?"

"Let me in there now, airman," Jack repeated, staring him down.

"Yes, sir." The soldier rested a hand on his sidearm as he unlocked the door, and stepped aside to let Jack through.

Jack moved into the room, acutely aware of the watchers in the window and hoping he wasn't making a big mistake. Slowly, he knelt next to the bed and reached out to the wolf. "Hey," he said softly. "C'mere."

Hesitantly, the wolf crawled out from under the bed. In the light, Jack could see a pair of blue scrub pants tangled around its back legs, the other half ripped and abandoned at the head of the bed. Whining slightly, it – or rather, he – let Jack touch him on top of his head. Jack moved his fingers in a soothing motion through the soft fur. "Daniel, how do you get into these situations?" he whispered.

Reassured that someone else had a clue what was going on, the blue-eyed wolf relaxed…

…and Jack abruptly found himself with an armful of baffled, half-dressed archaeologist.

"Jack?" Daniel gasped.

"Yeah," Jack said, looking up over the linguist's head at the astounded faces of Carter, Fraiser, and Teal'c.

End part two.