General George Hammond, commander of the SGC, watched down from the briefing room as Daniel tromped down the ramp into the Gate room, following after the rest of SG-5 that had been with him still on the planet. Teal'c had already returned with the bulk of their equipment, leaving Daniel's hands mostly free for once. Jack moved over to meet him.
"Jack, you've got to see this," Daniel started out, only to be abruptly cut off.
"Daniel. There's been an incident."
Daniel brushed off Jack's interruption. "Yeah I know, I got your message. But this is really important! There's this light in this amazing-"
"Barber's dead." Jack's voice was louder than he intended and it sounded sharp even to his ears. At least it was enough to get Daniel to stop talking long enough to listen.
And it worked, getting Daniel's full attention. "What?"
"Come on," Jack said as he gently pulled Daniel's along to follow him to the briefing room and Hammond looked back over at the table. Teal'c and Sam were already sitting around it and he called for SG-5 to report for their physicals before receiving the news of their dead teammate.
Daniel shrugged out of his gear and jacket before heading into the briefing room and taking his customary seat.
"Did Lieutenant Barber show any signs of depression while on the mission?" Hammond asked Daniel. It was worrisome to think that he may have somehow slipped through the net of psych evals that all off-world teams had to endure before assignment and periodically throughout their missions.
"The opposite," Daniel assured him. "He was fine."
Jack's frown deepened slightly, etching further into his face. "How long had he been back?"
Sam thought for a moment. "Well, he hadn't even been Earthside for forty eight hours," she pointed out.
Jack nodded slightly and glanced back toward Teal'c. "What was he doing?" he asked the Jaffa.
"Awaiting the results of a translation with which I was assisting Daniel Jackson."
Daniel shook his head, still unwilling to believe what he'd been hearing. "If you're asking me if he was suicidal, he wasn't," he insisted. "He was fine. He was- he was better than fine. Didn't anyone talk to him or like even notice anything?"
Teal'c shook his head.
"We were all taken by surprise," Sam admitted, worrying at the cuticle of her thumbnail. How could they have missed something so dramatic? She couldn't stop imagining how it must have felt, to race headlong into the forming wormhole, torn apart by space and gravity and freezing cold. She could only hope it had been quick and painless.
Daniel nearly stammered in his drive to figure it out. He couldn't figure out why they thought he had any more answers than they did. Is it because insanity had proven in the past that it loved him best of all and he had a longstanding relationship with depression? "Well so am I. I don't even know what to say."
The team all looked at each other, letting the uncertainty and grief hang in the air. Any member of Stargate Command, whether they were on a gate team or not, was part of their extended family. Plus they had all liked Dean Barber. He'd had a good sense of humor and was reliable, if still green.
Hammond leaned forward on the table. "We'll continue to investigate what may have compelled him to do what he did. But it's been my experience that these questions often go unanswered."
Jack had been uncharacteristically quiet and still. "Yes sir," he agreed in a soft voice.
"Dr. Jackson, perhaps you can tell us more about this Goa'uld palace you were studying?" Hammond asked, looking over at Daniel who was lost in thought. "Dr. Jackson?" he repeated a bit firmer and louder, drawing Daniel's attention back to him.
"Yes? Ah- uh, sorry. Uhm," he stuttered out absently, blinking to refocus. He'd been thinking about the device they'd found on the planet, the one he'd been studying so intently and was trying to tell Jack about when he returned. It was beautiful beyond description. He almost started to follow his thoughts down that path once more when Teal's voice pulled him from his musing.
Teal'c interjected. "Were there any signs of recent Goa'uld activity?" he asked, paraphrasing what the General had been asking.
"No. I'm pretty sure no one has been there for hundreds of years. But there was this room where there was this pedestal which projected this light matrix hologram onto the ceiling and it was…" he trailed off for a moment, hand motioning as if he was following the lines and flow of the light in his memory. "It was absolutely stunning."
There was a wistful tone to his voice that made the tiny hairs on the back of Jack's neck stand up for a moment. He chalked it up to being overly sensitive after the incident with Barber.
"Any idea to its purpose?" Hammond asked.
Daniel shook his head. "Ideas yes, but I was hoping this might tell me more," he said as he pulled the box in front of him closer and opened it, pulling out a small device that he turned over to study. "It's kind of like a Goa'uld hand held computer." He held it up for them to see. "When it's turned on, it displays this Goa'uld dialect I've never seen before and there are similar writings all over the pillars of the palace. I'm thinking, or hoping-" he paused, shrugging, "Crossing my fingers, actually, that they're instructions."
"I would be happy to provide further assistance with the translation, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c offered.
Attention still focused on the device, Daniel glanced up for a second and nodded before going back to studying the device. "Thank you. I was counting on it." He didn't even seem to realize he'd finished saying the words since he was already so engrossed in the device.