The Great Odyssey

by Kontheria

Pan awakes on an alien world with a headache. Where is she? How did she get there? She decides to put her trust into a group of people in green uniforms. But between shadows of her own past catching up and her headaches growing stronger, what is going to happen next?

2. Darkness Ritual

Darkness Ritual

When I woke up the next day and started wandering around the tunnels, the others had already left. So I went back to my room and doodled on the paper I got from Sam the previous day, but my heart wasn't in it. The headache was still there, somewhere in the background, but my head wasn't the only thing that was throbbing with pain. Somehow the events of the last two days had cut deeper into my past than I cared to admit. Memories I had tried to lock away, painful memories, were coming back, flashing before my eyes like the strange images I saw since the headaches had started. I could smell the rain again, the wet asphalt of that back-alley. That was the last time I had seen his face, melting away into the darkness, a smile on his lips. And now I was here, with someone who constantly reminded me of something I had been trying too hard to forget in the last few years.

I threw myself on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. What was the point of being here? I felt like someone was playing a dirty trick on me. There were too many things that made either no sense at all or far too much, and in a surreal way, that lead me to believe that this was all still a dream. A nightmare I needed to wake up from. But my dreams had never lasted this long, and the pain from the shot wound was still sharp in my memory like the smell of gunpowder. And if I woke up, there would be no Daniel. Not even this one. Which brought me back to my question: What was the point?

Someone knocked on the door, interrupting my self-pity. I dragged myself off the bed and opened it. Outside was the short woman from the day before. What was her name again? Dr Fraiser, that's right. Janet.

'Hey,' I said, my voice as joyful as a drowned body. 'What's up?'

'I just wanted to see how you are feeling today, Pan,' she said with a smile and came in. She saw the sketches on the desk right away and examined them. 'Those are really good!'

I shrugged. I had made better ones.

'Do you think you're up for some more exams today?'

I knew I shouldn't have let her in! But maybe some more headaches would finally distract me from the chaos inside my mind.

'Sure, why not.'

We walked to the lab, me in gloomy silence, and Dr Fraiser chattering away, telling me all about Kassandra, Tok'ra healing devices and the amazing possibilities of the Ancients' healing powers. All those things the others had mentioned the previous night but never really explained. She seemed adamant not to talk about what exactly it was she was planning to do to me, but at the same time I felt my head clear with every step I took away from my room. Maybe this would be more enjoyable than my own company.

After only a few short moments we entered the infirmary, which was very quiet this time. There were only two patients, and it seemed they wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon. One had a broken leg, the other one had a bandaged head and seemed to be talking in his sleep. Dr Fraiser led me past both of them to the same bed in the corner I had been on last night. There she asked me to sit down, pulled up a chair and opened a notepad.

'How is the headache?'

I shrugged. 'Not too bad actually. Sleeping seems to help soothe it a little.'

She took a note on her pad.

'I see. And do you have any idea when it gets worse?'

I thought about this. I had a theory, but so far I hadn't pieced together an actual reason yet. But after all, that was what I was here for.

'Actually, I have an idea.' I ventured. 'The last two days, whenever something triggered the Ancient knowledge, the pain suddenly increased.'

The doctor nodded and took some more notes.

'It's really hard to put my finger on it, though. Because in that temple area, the pain was pretty constant.'

'Well, you would have been surrounded by possible stimuli, right?'

'That's what I thought,' I nodded in agreement. 'But I don't just get headaches, I also get random flashes of images and words.'

She scribbled furiously on her pad.

'I'm not sure if they are memories, because they're certainly not mine, but it always feels like I'm remembering rather than learning something new.'

I had run out of things to say and waited for the scratching of Dr Fraiser's pen to stop.

'Alright then,' she said after a short while. 'It seems we have something we can start working with.' She paused. 'That is of course if you would like to try some things and see what causes the headaches.'

I shrugged. There were few things that could get worse from this point on. Besides, if we found the reason, maybe we would be able to find a solution as well.

Only moments later I was wired up to another machine and watching Dr Fraiser gather some papers in the next room. My fingers were fidgeting with the edge of the sheet on the bed and I bit my lip as the headache suddenly swelled up again. My heart was thumping away and I felt cold sweat forming on my back. The doctor returned with a pile of papers and gave me a bright smile. Then she frowned when she saw my face.

'Are you alright?'

'Yeah,' I tried to smile. 'Just a bit nervous.'

She laughed. 'Well then, we will have to change that, won't we?'

After some readjusting of her papers she looked into my face again. 'How does your head feel? We need to find a reference point for later on, so we can compare the results to something.'

I hesitated for a moment too long, and she frowned. 'Sorry,' I started. 'It's not too bad, but worse than it was before.'

Her frown deepened and I shrugged again.

'I think it's just nerves,' I explained and gave a dry laugh. 'Anticipating the pain to come. And all these wires. I feel like I'm in Frankenstein's lab.'

We both laughed at that.

'Well, then we'll just have to try and take your mind off things for a while.' She handed me a few of the pages she had brought in. 'The general sent these through to me. If you could fill those out with as much information as you can, we'll do our background checks on you to confirm the info you gave us.'

My hand was shaking when I took the papers, and I wasn't sure whether this was better or worse than getting my brain dissected. What if they found nothing? What if it turned out I didn't exist at all? But that was a fact I wouldn't be able to change either way. And after all, they had brought me back with them, even though my story was highly suspect. So how likely was it, they would just kick me out? And kick me out where at that, after all, they couldn't let me loose on a world where I didn't exist. And if I really didn't exist here, my thoughts concluded, why would I want to be here anyway?

I took a deep breath and started to work through the papers. Place of birth, places of residence, parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, siblings, children – which I didn't have, thank god -, friends, and basically information on every school I had ever attended, any sports club I was part of or any other information that would enable them to pinpoint if I was who I said I was. I wrote down the contact details of my literature professor as well, hoping he would be able to confirm who I was.

Once that was all done, Dr Fraiser got down to business. She had video materials, notes and debriefing documents from the colonel, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel she went through with me. Every flicker of pain she noted down and checked the graph on the machine I was wired into. A few of the stronger instances I could tell where the pain was coming from. There were text passages from Ancient texts, some more complex symbols and even a recording from the girl they had found in the ice. I was watching her use her healing powers, and that brought back unpleasant memories of my own healing session. My right hand rubbed over my left arm without me thinking about it.

A lot of the other times I couldn't tell where the headaches were coming from. But the more we did, the more material we went through, the sorer my head felt. I wasn't sure whether it had been just minutes or already hours that passed when I asked Dr Fraiser for a break.

'The pain itself isn't too bad,' I explained. 'But it's like poking me with a sharp stick always in the same place. My brain feels like raw skin...'

She gave me a bright smile and switched off the machine.

'That's quite alright, Pan. I think I have plenty of material to form a hypothesis. Anything else you would like to share with me?'

'Well, it's...' I hesitated. 'The pain isn't as strong as it was yesterday or the day before. Then it felt like someone was cutting through my brain with a red hot knife. But these are more like pricks with a needle.'

Dr Fraiser wrote that down, too. 'If you ask me, there are less simultaneous triggers here than there were in the lost temple. That could be part of the reason. As far as I can tell, your headaches are not just related to Ancient texts, symbols and artefacts but also their lives and abilities, maybe even memories.'

'But whose memories?,' I said to myself more than anyone else. I did have a few memory flashes I told the doctor about, but nothing specific, no faces, no actual mundane memories of eating food or having a conversation with someone else. And I was fairly sure that even the Ancients had done those things on occasion, when they weren't busy building temples or stargates. I pulled the cables off my face, neck and shoulders and ran my hand across my forehead. Dr Fraiser tidied them up and wheeled the machine away into another room. When she returned I took a deep breath.

'I have been wondering,' I began. 'Do you know if there has ever been a similar case with the headaches triggered by external stimuli? Maybe a case of trauma, suppressed memories, that sort of thing?'

'Not that I'm aware,' Dr Fraiser returned with an apologetic smile.

'Anything at all,' I ventured. 'I was just hoping there would be some scientific material...'

She shook her head and I fell silent.

'Sorry,' she said. 'I really wish there was. I could use some input as well. So far all I can say is that your headache is related to the Ancients, but that is all I can say for sure. My recommendation would be to limit exposure to a minimum until we made some progress.'

I nodded. That seemed to make sense.

'Do you have any idea at all why my head hurts, doctor?'

She thought about this for a moment. 'If you want to hear my hypothesis, I think in this case we can compare your brain to a computer and the new synapses to a new hard drive. If your computer is too old and too slow, which by comparison your left hemisphere is, it will struggle to use the new hard drive.'

I nodded again. It was like I could almost hear the noise my computer at home had made when I plugged a super fast hard drive into it. For almost an hour it was completely frozen and even after I had disconnected it, I had to reboot it before it acted normal again.

'I think I understand,' I mumbled. 'It's like trying to run a new programme on a computer with an old operating system. Even if it is compatible, the processor wouldn't be able to cope.'

'Well, I'm not that good with computers,' Dr Fraiser admitted.

'Neither am I,' I laughed. 'What I said just now probably makes no sense.'

'It should be getting close to lunchtime,' Dr Fraiser remarked and glanced at her wrist watch. Then she smiled at me. 'Would you like to join me?'

'Gladly.'

We found a quiet table in a corner in the canteen and made ourselves comfortable with our trays.

'So, Pan,' Dr Fraiser said in between bites. 'I heard you are from Oxford.'

'That's right,' I agreed when my mouth was empty again. Was it finally my turn to tell my story to someone? 'I was born and raised there, but I lived in other parts of the UK as well.'

'And have you ever been to the US before you got here?,' the doctor continued.

I squirmed on my chair. 'I have actually. A few years ago. But it was only for a very short time. A friend of mine has a sister who lives in LA. We had to ... check on her.'

There was no reaction from Dr Fraiser. How could that be?

'Oh, I see. And did you like it there?'

Did I like it? What exactly? The explosions, the screams, the hell it had turned into?

'It was alright I suppose,' I said, watching her closely. Still no reaction, not even a flicker. 'Have you been there yourself?'

'Oh, yes quite a few times actually.'

'Recently? Say in the last five years?'

'No,' she looked up from her food. 'Why do you ask?'

'Oh, no reason,' I lied, poking at my food. Suddenly I didn't feel very hungry. 'I was just wondering if anything had changed, that's all.'

She gave me a bright smile. 'And what were you doing in Oxford, Pan?'

'I just finished my master's degree at university,' I explained, glad to change the subject.

'And what did you major in?'

'Art history,' I explained. 'But I was considering writing my PhD in my secondary subject, literature. It's a lot easier to find materials for long essays in that field.'

'I see what you mean,' Dr Fraiser laughed. 'And what do you do outside of your classes?'

'My parents were very keen on a cultural education, so I played the piano, sometimes at the Italian embassy.'

'Ah, yes, your parent's are Italian, I remember,' Dr Fraiser interrupted with a bright smile.

'Yes, my father did quite a lot of work with the embassy, so on several occasions the ambassador had asked me to perform there,' I explained. It wasn't something I was proud of. I wasn't a virtuoso and never would have been, but I was a cute little girl who played the piano well for her age, so I had turned into a kind of mascot for their soirees. 'Aside from that I like to read and draw, and for a while I ... practised sword fighting.'

'You learned to fight with weapons?,' Dr Fraiser said with wide eyes. She hadn't noticed my hesitation. 'That's an interesting hobby to have.'

I wasn't sure whether hobby was the right word for it. It wasn't like I had much of a choice at the time. But the gaps she had left were starting to nag at me.

'I guess that's one way to put it,' I smiled. 'Most old houses in the UK have a sword over the fireplace, and for some reason ours did, too. That wasn't the one I used,' I said quickly when I saw her face. 'But the idea was not as unusual as it probably sounds to you.'

Could I tell her? About the deal we had struck and the swords we got in return? Part of me wanted to believe that she had to know, she had to be aware of what had happened five years ago. But even when I had mentioned LA she hadn't even blinked. Could it really be? I needed to be sure.

'Doctor, there is one thing I was wondering about,' I said when her tray was finally empty. I still hadn't touched my food and now it was too cold to eat.

'Well, I hope I can give you an answer,' she said with her bright smile.

'About five years ago, I think there was a great catastrophe,' I said slowly, watching her face very closely. 'Something incredibly terrible happened, here, everywhere else and especially in LA. Do you know what I'm talking about?'

Her forehead wrinkled in concentration and I felt my heart stop beating. She didn't know. How could she not know? My stomach felt like a lump of hot metal and it was getting difficult to breathe. Could it really be?

'No, sorry, I'm not sure I know what you're talking about,' she said and gave me an intent look.

I felt my head spinning. This couldn't be! I tried to keep my composure on the outside while in my head my world had broken into pieces. I breathed an excuse and put my fork down on the table. With my hands on the table I pushed myself up on my shaking legs. I felt like I couldn't breathe and everything around me seemed blurred. She had no idea what I was talking about. Almost like it never happened. Maybe it was because to her it never had. And what did that mean for me? I staggered out the door, making my way back to my room, the safest place I knew at the moment. There was no way to tell if she was calling after me, all I could hear were the screams from five years ago, my nose stung with the stench of smoke and burning corpses. To be fair, only days later most of it appeared as though it had never happened, thanks to him, but everyone kept at least some sort of vague memory of that time. Smoke on the horizon, confusion on the news channels, some old friend they never heard of again. But in her eyes there had been nothing, no recollection whatsoever.

After what felt like an eternity I found myself at my door. My breathing was too fast, my heart was racing and my vision was still blurred, but I managed to open the door, shut it behind me and threw myself on the bed. I stared at the ceiling until the panic had subsided. So this was how things were. Even in here in her underground infirmary Dr Fraiser would have noticed something of the events I remembered from five years ago. The only conclusion I could draw from that was that it never happened, at least for her. Or anyone else here. I remembered Daniel mentioning something about parallel universes. Was that really possible? Had I not just woken up in a different place but in a different reality altogether?

I got back on my feet and started pacing the room. If that was the case, my background checks would turn up nothing. They would think I was a liar and kick me out. But where to? The moon they found me on? They knew I didn't belong there. And they couldn't let me live here either, that would essentially be a prison without the bars, due to a lack of windows. Besides, I probably knew too much already to just let me wander free. Would they execute me to make sure I stayed silent? If there was no record of me in this world, nobody would miss me, and if I was never seen again it wouldn't make a difference either. Secret operations like this were usually guarded by the least scrupulous people.

The next wall I passed I punched. All that did was hurt my fingers. I turned with a snarl, punched and kicked at the concrete until I couldn't feel anything anymore. Then I slumped down on the bed and buried my face in my throbbing hands. Should I try to run away? But where to? And how long before they would find me again? Somehow I felt my chances were pretty slim either way. I got back up and walked over to the desk. From the chair I fished for one of the discarded books and leafed through it, not paying any attention to the words. I tossed it into a corner of the room and got back to my feet. The dress was still hanging on a coat-hanger on the wardrobe door. Taking slow steps I reached it and took it down. The fabric felt silky, and all the blood stains had gone. On the shoulders the bronze brooches shone in the artificial light, and someone had even thought to coil the leather band around the hook of the hanger.

This was where it had all started. This stupid dress. With a scream of rage I threw it across the room. One of the brooches came off and bounced on the floor a few times with metallic clangs until it slid into a wall and fell silent. I looked around wildly and saw the sketches I had made this morning. Crunched into balls I tossed them off the table, then I sat down on the chair again and stared at the wall. Even though I had not thought it possible, I was feeling more settled. Things were the way they were, and there wasn't much I could do about it. All there was to do was wait and see where the currents of this turbulent river of events would take me.

A knock on the door startled me and I nearly threw over the chair.

'Come,' I called, slightly too loud. The door opened and Sam poked her head through the crack.

'Hey there,' she said, giving me a bright smile. When she saw the mess on the floor she frowned. 'Is everything alright?'

Somehow her voice brought me back to reality. My fears and especially the panic was still there, but it felt distant now.

'Sorry,' I said, got up and picked the dress off the floor. 'I had a bit of a moment.' I found the second brooch and put it back on the shoulder part.

'Janet mentioned you didn't look well after lunch,' Sam pointed out and came all the way into the room, taking in the scene of destruction.

'Well, that's one way of putting it,' I agreed, uttering a dry laugh. 'I just realised that my background checks will return without any matches.'

'Oh, why is that?'

'Things I remember... Dr Fraiser doesn't know what I'm talking about,' I tried to explain. 'Now, I see no point in going into details, if those things didn't happen here, you don't need to know about them. But trust me, if they did happen, you would at least remember something.' I sighed. 'And since you don't, they clearly didn't happen, so I was either dreaming the whole thing, or to you it never happened and I am in fact from a different reality. Or something.'

Sam hadn't moved the entire time I had been talking. Now she shifted her stance and folded her arms.

'And that's what you're worried about?'

'No, what I'm worried about is that I have no place to go.' I slumped down on the bed. 'I mean, I don't know how you people operate. But if my background checks don't check out, the most logical assumption would be that I am lying. But there is nowhere for me to go, since even my family might not exist at all, or at least be unaware of me. And I'm not sure I can stay here forever...'

My voice trailed into silence. The confusion in my mind was still racing and slowly the headache started to bear its claws once more.

'Come along,' Sam said without warning and turned to the door.

'Pardon?'

She turned back to me and smiled. 'Come with me. I'll show you something.'

Giving her a puzzled look I got up and followed her out of my room and down the corridors. She didn't speak another word until we reached a door that looked like all the others, but I was sure I had been here before. Behind it was Sam's lab. It looked different than it did the night before. There were notes and notebooks across one table, and in the middle of it a laptop stood open, screen on.

'What was it you wanted to show me?,' I said, looking around the room. Apart from her notes and the laptop there wasn't much to suggest it was a lab at all. But then again I had no idea what an astrophysics lab was supposed to look like when they weren't building space machines or something.

'Over here,' she said and went straight for her laptop. She opened a different window and suddenly there was a model of a solar system on the screen. 'I thought you might like to have a look at where we found you.'

I leaned closer to get a better look over her shoulder. There was a star in the centre, two or three planets in closer orbit, the largest and most distant one in red, just like the planet I had seen in the sky. Sam pressed a few buttons and the planet got larger on the screen. Satellites and their orbits around the planet appeared and she pointed one of them out to me.

'That's the moon we went to,' she explained. 'It's the only habitable place in the whole system.'

'How do you know all this?,' I asked, once I remembered to close my mouth. 'Just from observations?'

'Yeah,' Sam said and smiled. 'That and some of the carvings in the temple detailing the system. There might be more planets further out than that one, but they are much more difficult to find if they are further away.'

'That's pretty cool,' I said, stretching my back again and taking half a step back. 'What are you going to do with that simulation now?'

'Watch this,' she grinned, typed a line of code into the window and the planets and moons danced around each other a little. Then they stopped. The moon she had pointed out was now directly behind the planet, hidden from the sun.

'An eclipse?,' I asked.

'Yeah,' Sam said leaning back. 'In a few days from now, there will be a solar eclipse on the surface of that moon.'

Something tingled at the back of my mind.

'That sounds familiar,' I said slowly. ' Where did I hear that before?'

'You said it,' came a voice from the door. I spun around, only to see Daniel standing in the open doorway. He had one hand raised as if to knock, but lowered it when we both looked at him. 'You translated that one carving for me, remember?'

I was too shocked for a moment to answer. How long had he been standing there? But what did it matter in any case.

'That's right,' I said and smiled. It felt strange doing that. Like I hadn't smiled in a very long time. 'I forgot about that.'

Sam got up from her chair and headed for her notebooks.

'We didn't expect the eclipse to be so soon,' she explained. 'But we thought it might be important, if the carvings mention it.' She gave me a long stare. 'And then you turned up there, just as we were looking for the temple...'

She left the sentence hanging in the air with a noose on the end. What was she trying to tell me? That it was fate? A strange coincidence?

'I don't think I understand,' I began.

'You said you were worried about your background checks turning up empty,' she said. I glanced at Daniel out of the corner of my eyes. I hadn't planned on letting him know about it. 'But I think there is far more at stake here. Without you we wouldn't have found the temple at all, and then we find it just in time for a rare solar eclipse, that clearly will cause something big to happen in those ruins. Those seem to be too big coincidences to me to just ignore them.'

'I have to say, I agree,' Daniel interrupted and I faced him again. 'If we hadn't found the temple that night, I doubt we would have found out any of this in time. And if I'm honest, without you there was no way we would have gotten through the doorway.'

'He might have just started a dig in the forest until he found something,' Sam chuckled behind me, and I couldn't help but grin at this image. There he would still be now, digging between the trees on the other side of the temple, wondering why he never found anything.

'Yeah, very funny,' he said, but he was smiling as he said it. It was that smile again that I had seen on the very first day. I felt hot blood flow into my cheeks and hoped the dim neon light would hide it from the others.

'Actually, I've been meaning to ask,' I said, turning back to Sam. 'Who put those books into my room?'

'Why, don't you like them?'

'I'm really sorry, but ... I'm not sure how you can read those without losing several IQ points in the process.'

They both laughed and I joined in.

'Probably one of the younger airmen picked those,' Daniel said. 'They aren't famous for their literary taste.' He gave me an apologetic look. 'You really don't have to read them if you don't like them.'

'Well, I would like to read something,' I sighed. 'But I prefer something more educational.'

'I have quite a few books in my office, if you want to have a look,' he offered and gestured toward the open door.

I gave Sam a brief smile.

'If you'd excuse me,' I said. 'I need to stock up my library.'

'You might have to help her carry them all home, Daniel,' Sam called past me and I stuck out my tongue at her. Probably not the most adult reaction, but I felt it was justified. She had clearly figured me out.

Daniel led the way through the corridors, around a few corners. I couldn't tell if we went past the place where I had run into him the night before, everything looked exactly the same, but we reached another grey door that looked just the same as all the others. Daniel opened it and turned on all the lights. There was a desk in a corner, lots of cabinets, probably for files, and a table with bright lighting in the centre of the room.

'So, this is my place,' he said, gesturing at the surroundings.

'Is it?,' I returned. 'Well, I suppose you don't go home that often then.'

He scratched his head, but said nothing. I must have nailed it. There was a large bookcase dominating one wall, its shelves struggling to contain the amount of books, notebooks and loose paper loaded on them. My keen eyes already scanning the titles I walked over, moving my fingers over the spines as I read them. When I turned back, Daniel was standing at his desk, shuffling his notes. On one corner was a picture frame. I couldn't see it very well from where I was standing but there was a woman with a round face, black curly hair and a beautiful smile. I didn't even have to ask who it was. As I watched, Daniel's gaze fell on the picture and he froze for a moment. I turned away, too embarrassed to say anything, and returned my attention to the books.

'Are there any books here I should leave for you?,' I asked without turning around. I heard Daniel approach and look over my shoulder. He pointed out a handful.

'I will need these for my work,' he explained. 'You can pick any of the others.'

I pulled out a book on Mesopotamian mythology, one on the Minoan culture and a third dealing with Mayan temples and their significance.

'These all look amazing,' I said, looking at the rest of the shelf. 'But I doubt I'll have enough time to read them all.'

'Why? Are you planning to go somewhere?'

I didn't answer. I wasn't sure how much he had heard before when I told my thoughts to Sam. Of all the people in this base, he was the one I didn't want to know too much about me.

'Are you worried they are going to lock you away if your background checks return blank?,' he insisted. I froze. Of course he would have worked it out eventually. He was incredibly intelligent after all. But a part of me had hoped that he would be too absent-minded to make the connection.

'Something like that,' I murmured and put the books down on one of the cabinets. 'The truth is, I don't even know what to expect if they don't find anything. On one hand, it scares the living daylight out of me.' I saw him move toward me out of the corner of my vision. But at the moment I didn't have the courage to turn around to face him. Not in this room, with the picture of his dead wife staring at me. 'On the other hand, I don't see that there is anything I can do to change what will happen.' I shrugged. 'That's all really.'

Daniel said nothing. I stood immobile, my hands playing with the corners of the books I had just pulled off the shelf. There wasn't anything left to say really.

'You said you studied art history?,' he suddenly changed the subject. I heard him walk over to the table in the centre. Surprised at the change I turned and followed him. Under the bright neon light was a cardboard box. As I approached, he lifted the lid off and carefully took something out of the box. He extended both his hands and I saw a small and delicate, yet incredibly detailed white figurine.

'It's a sphinx,' I said, trying to get a good look without touching it. 'The wings indicate Greek influence, but the hair and breasts are Roman.'

'Take it,' Daniel said, and I could tell by his voice that there was the smile on his face again. I resisted the urge to look up and check whether the dimples on his cheeks had returned as well. Not here, not now. With great care I picked it out of his hands. It was heavier than I had expected. But I could not tell what material it was made from.

I turned it over and over. 'This mix of styles I only know from modern period imitations. Back in the early 19th century when they rediscovered Pompeii, the neoclassical period.' This time I took a closer look at the face. 'But this is wrong, the beard and the eyes, they're ... Egyptian.'

This time I looked up into Daniel's face. He was still smiling and for a moment my heart skipped a beat and I nearly dropped the Sphinx.

'I'm not sure I understand,' I began. 'Off the top of my head I'd say late 18th or early 19th century,' I said. 'But these mixed cultures shouldn't exist. And the material seems much older. Unless it was under water.'

The look on Daniel's face was now plain amusement.

'The first sphinxes were made by the Egyptians in the Old Kingdom. That was more than 5000 years ago. And I would say artistically they would not have been able to make this so detailed.' I narrowed my eyes. 'But you're going to tell me it's much older than that, aren't you?'

'You were off by about 5000 years,' he said with a grin. He took it back out of my hands and placed it back into the box. 'It was found in a tomb not too long ago, but the carbon dating places it at about 10,000 years ago.'

'That's...' I had wanted to say impossible. But under my current circumstances I thought that would not be the best answer here. 'Incredible.'

As Daniel was about to close the lid I saw something, a strange shadow.

'Wait a moment.'

I took the figurine back out of the box and examined the base.

'What is it?'

In the bright light of the neon tubes I had almost missed it. I turned the figurine this way and that, trying to find what I had seen.

'Right there, see?'

With the light hitting it from the side, there were indentations visible in the base, faint shadowy lines.

'Is that writing of some kind?'

'An inscription,' Daniel mused, taking the figurine back and tried to get a better look. 'I think we need some special equipment to see this properly.'

I felt quite pleased with myself, having made a discovery of my own. But I knew better than to push my luck. Before I would be able to find out what it said on the base of the sphinx I would most likely have to wait for a long time.

'Did you find any more interesting inscriptions in the temple?,' I asked, changing the subject to another matter of interest.

'Quite a few actually,' Daniel said, closing the box again. 'But I think I have to go over my notes and clear them up a little before there is anything you can help me with.'

I gave him a bright smile.

'Can I see them anyway?'

'Are you sure this is a good idea?,' he asked cautiously. 'I thought it gave you headaches.'

'It's actually a lot better than it was,' I said. 'I think it was mainly the temple that made it unbearable, but here there aren't as many stimuli, so I think I'll be able to cope.'

Daniel didn't seem convinced, but I insisted, so he got out his notebooks and leafed through them.

'There were a few inscriptions here, which I think describe some kind of ritual,' he pointed at a page. 'And these over here described some kind of judgement. I think there was at least one who left them against their wishes, but they caught him and brought him back.'

This time without a headache, I quite enjoyed hearing all these stories of a race long gone. A few of the words sparked my interest, but the meaning forming in my head was much more vague than the precise stabs of pain they had caused me in the ruins. The headache was more in the background this time, like the noise of a car passing by outside your window. Looking over Daniel's shoulder I followed his explanations. Most of them I did not understand, they didn't seem to refer to everyday life as humanity knew it, mentioned other races and wars and strange occurrences. Then he turned the page.

I only caught a glimpse of a carving. Daniel had made quite a good job of copying it in detail. As I tried to take a closer look, the pain came. Not in stabs or a growing pressure as it had the last time, it came in an explosion. All of a sudden my head was filled with fire, my skull was split open and my brain turned to ice. The intense pain made me go blind, my ears filled with a high noise and my mouth went dry. I gripped the edge of the table to steady myself, but my knees slowly gave way. Only now did I realise that the high noise was my own whimpering. The pain was just too much.

'Pan?'

I tried to steady myself, pushed myself back onto my legs, but it remained dark around me. Trembling with every muscle in my body I gritted my teeth. Whatever had happened, I wouldn't give up.

'Pan!'

My fingers lost their grip, my legs gave way and it felt as though my entire body was on fire, burning hot, but at the same time my bones turned to ice. I couldn't move, couldn't see, I could only hear my own cries of pain. Someone caught me in my fall. There were shadows in front of me and two bright lights, reflections on oval glass pieces, and behind them a pair of blue eyes filled with worry and fear.

'I'm ... sorry,' I managed. 'I ... don't think I ... can...'

Darkness closed in around me. When I came to I was half walking half dragging my feet down a corridor. My head lolled from one side to the other, still burning with hot pain, but at least I could see again. My one arm was around Daniel's shoulders. He held onto my wrist with one hand and held me upright with the other. My other arm was over Sam's shoulders and she too had an arm around my waist. When she saw me looking at her she seemed surprised, but they didn't stop.

'We have to get you to the infirmary,' she explained.

I tried to object, but no sound came over my lips. I only did it out of principle. Since I wasn't even able to walk by myself, there wasn't much to object to.

'What ... happened?,' I managed after we had turned another corner, but neither of them gave me an answer. I tried to remember what I had seen just before I collapsed, but this only increased the pain and a low moan escaped my cracked lips. My mouth was dry and not just my head but my spine and the rest of my body felt as though cold fire was racing through my arteries. I had never imagined that I could feel this much pain at once, or at least not under normal circumstances. The darkness returned and I felt myself drift off into unconsciousness once more.

There was a steady beeping noise and a warm softness on my skin when I resurfaced from the depths. I blinked and the world slowly swam into focus. It took some time until I realised I was in a hospital bed, and then some more before my eyes managed to see that I was not floating in white clouds but was in fact merely surrounded by white curtains with light shining through the fabric. My body and mind felt dull, as though I was separated from the rest of the world and my own senses by a layer of cotton.

The curtains were drawn aside and two familiar faces entered the tight space surrounding my bed.

'Well, she's awake,' the short woman said.

'Fraiser,' I murmured, not sure why I couldn't hear my thoughts very clearly unless I said them aloud.

'But don't be too long,' she continued, addressing the grey-haired man next to her. 'The anaesthetic I gave her is quite strong, I'm not sure how long she'll make it.'

I felt my eyes swim this way and that, as if they were in a bowl of water instead of my eye sockets. It was extremely difficult to focus on the colonel. My lids kept falling and I felt that lying flat on my back wasn't helping either.

'Could you ... help me sit up, please?,' I managed to slur and I instantly heard a mechanical whirring noise and my head was floating upwards. My mind clearing somewhat from the upright position I noticed a clamp attached to my digit and several cables hanging from my head and neck. 'Thank you,' I sighed, trying to lie still so I wouldn't tangle myself up.

'How're you feeling?,' the colonel asked, and I was surprised to notice the concern in his voice. Him of all people I had taken to not be very emotional, especially about people he had only just met.

'Been better,' I replied. 'But to be honest I can't say I feel anything right now.' I lifted the hand with the peg attached to my finger and wiggled it around a little. 'Not even this.

'Dr Fraiser had to put you on some pretty strong drugs until she thought it was safe to wake you up.'

'What happened?,' I finally asked the question that had been bugging me. I had tried to remember, but everything after Daniel opened his notebook was a blur, a wall of cotton I had tried to run into to no avail.

'You fainted when you saw one of the carvings from the ruins,' Colonel O'Neill explained. 'When they hooked you up to the machines in here your brain activity was just off the scale, so Dr Fraiser decided to sedate you for a while.'

'I see,' I sighed. 'And what happens now?'

'Well, for one thing you will have to stay away from Daniel's notes,' said Dr Fraiser who appeared behind the colonel like a medical halo. 'If this is what a simple copy of one carving can do to you, until we found a way to stop it from happening I can't say it would be safe to let you anywhere near those notes.'

'I understand,' I murmured. 'It's my fault, I got too curious. I should have stopped when the headaches started again.'

'At least now we know that there is a danger,' Dr Fraiser pointed out. 'But it's good that they brought you here when they did. If I hadn't been able to sedate you in time, you could have suffered some serious neurological damage.'

'Why would anyone do that?,' I burst out. 'Fill my head with knowledge that could essentially kill me. Why? Is that how destructive the Ancients really are?'

'If they are the ones who did it,' O'Neill interrupted. 'But for the moment we don't even know that for sure.'

'Well, what do we know?,' I returned, my mind getting weaker by the minute. Getting angry about my general situation hadn't done anything except exhaust me even more.

'We are having a meeting in an hour or so,' the colonel explained. 'And we would like you to be there as well.'

'If my doctor allows it,' I returned, looking at Dr Fraiser. My lids got heavier by the minute and I wasn't sure how much longer I would be able to stay awake. 'Id be happy to attend.'

'We should have you back on your legs by then,' she returned with a smile. 'I think for the moment we should focus on finding a way to keep that headache under control. If you agree we can try a few painkillers later...'

She watched as my eyes shut for longer and longer intervals. It was a struggle to force them open again.

'Colonel, we should leave her for now,' I heard Dr Fraiser say softly. 'I'll make sure she'll be in the meeting room in time.'

Once I managed to stay awake for more than a minute at a time and most of the dull feeling had vanished out of my head and my fingertips, one of Dr Fraiser's assistants started to stick needles into my arm. It took a while until she found a painkiller that dulled the droning headache at least a little. The pain had returned as the drugs had started to wear off, but I agreed with Dr Fraiser when she said that there was no point in me falling asleep all the time only to keep the pain under control. So we had to find something else. After some experimenting we finally discovered a narcotic that reduced the pain so much I could barely tell it was there.

'This isn't good,' Dr Fraiser said when she saw the results of the experiments.

'It's working,' I said, shaking my head experimentally. No rolling canon balls this time, and apart from a slight pressure behind my eyes the pain didn't increase at all.

'Yes, but this would work if we had just amputated all of your extremities,' she signed. 'I'm not happy using this too much.'

'Alright,' I agreed. 'I will try and keep the emergency situations to a minimum then.' I gave her a bright smile. 'Over the last two days I think I got better at ignoring those headaches. And as long as it doesn't get as bad as this afternoon, I think I'll be able to handle it in the future. Usually it subsides after a while as well, so if it gets too strong I'll just take a break and wait until it goes away.'

'And if it comes as suddenly as this afternoon?'

'I'll have to come back here, I guess,' I said and shrugged.

A young airman entered the infirmary and headed straight for me. He stood to attention in front of me and I almost expected him to salute, but I was relieved when he didn't. That would have been awkward.

'I'm here to escort you to the meeting room, ma'am,' he said, staring straight ahead, about 10 centimetres over the top of my head.

I looked at Dr Fraiser and tried to hide my amusement.

'Looks like my ride is here,' I observed and climbed off the hospital bed. I pulled the sleeve of my black shirt down to my wrist to cover the bruises the needles had left on my arm. While I saw the necessity of the tests, I still objected to my arm making me look like a heroin addict.

The airman led me through the corridors, the control room looking down onto the stargate, up the stairs and into the meeting room. He knocked briefly on the door, opened it for me and closed it once I was inside. The table inside was occupied by the general on one end and the colonel, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel on either side. When they saw me enter, Daniel jumped to his feet and turned off a projector that had been displaying an image of the ruins on a screen behind the general. I looked away until Daniel had sat down again, then I went to sit next to Sam. She gave me a friendly smile, but turned her attention back to General Hammond as soon as I was comfortable.

'First things first,' the general began, and I tensed up. I knew what was coming. 'We have the results of your background check from this morning.'

I frowned. This was fast. Too fast.

'Unfortunately there was no record of anyone called Pandora Lucrezia Polo,' he declared and I shut my eyes in despair.

'However,' the general continued, referring to a document in front of him and I opened my eyes with suspicion. 'We have managed to find nearly everyone else you listed.'

I shut my mouth. I hadn't even realised I had opened it.

'Everyone?,' I asked, my voice sounding hoarse with surprise.

'Yes,' General Hammond continued. 'Even your literature professor and most of your contacts at the embassy. Considering the amount of detail you were able to give us and we were able to confirm,' he made a meaningful pause and looked at me over his papers, 'I am pleased to say we have decided to accept your story.'

'But there are discrepancies,' I insisted. Me not existing was possibly the biggest problem I saw.

'Minor,' the general said and smiled. 'But those are easily explained. Both Major Carter and Dr Jackson suggested you could be from an alternate universe. We had previous occurrences proving to us that the concept does exist.' He gave Daniel a meaningful look, who nodded. 'And considering the nature of the discrepancies in your background check, I am forced to agree. It is the most logical explanation.'

'Sir,' I said when he was shuffling his papers. 'I don't mean to pry, since I am clearly not part of this world these people are neither related to me nor my concern. But would you mind telling me what the nature of those discrepancies is you are referring to?'

'I'm not sure I should tell you this,' General Hammond explained. 'As you have said, these are not the same people you know and they do have their right to privacy.'

'Just tell her, sir,' Colonel O'Neill interrupted. 'It's not like she'll go around telling anyone.'

This got him a stern look, but the general cleared his throat and put down his papers.

'Your parents,' he began. 'We found them both. But as far as we can tell they never met. They never got married and they never had a child. Your father works in the Italian embassy in Hong Kong and your mother as an artist in New York. Is that amusing?'

'Sorry, sir,' I said, trying to stifle my laugh. 'In a way that is better news than you think. You see, my parents stayed in Oxford because they felt it was the right environment for me. They wanted their daughter to grow up in financial and social security, in a society that was intellectual, multinational and tolerant. It seems not having me as a burden they actually went and fulfilled their dreams.' There were tears in my eyes, but my smile was in earnest. 'And you are saying that almost everyone else is exactly where they are in my world?'

'It would seem so,' General Hammond agreed. 'The only person we could not find a trace of was Lucy. Is that funny as well?'

'Actually, it is,' I said, unable to stop my laughing. 'She is the kind of person who could be anywhere.'

'I see,' General Hammond concluded and put his documents aside.

'There is … one more person I would like to ask about, sir,' I said, hesitation weighing down every syllable.

'Your friend Jeffrey Brooks is still working for the same newspaper agency...' General Hammond tried to anticipate my question, but I interrupted him. Jeff still working at the same place wasn't a relief at all, on the contrary. It meant his life was just as miserable as it had been before we met. Maybe even worse, considering that had been five years ago and changed his life for the better.

'No, I wanted to ask about my nonna,' I explained. 'She was … very important to me.'

General Hammond nodded. He didn't even bother to look at his papers. 'I'm sorry to say she has passed away two or three years ago.'

I nodded and looked down. 'I should have expected that,' I whispered. 'She was probably just as bad a smoker here as in my world. Even her death date must have been very close, unless they found the cancer sooner.'

'I think there was a day or two difference,' General Hammond said.

I nodded again. 'Thank you for telling me,' I said. 'I really appreciate all you have done for me.'

'Maybe you can do something for us now,' Colonel O'Neill said. Sam and Daniel gave him a stern look.

'Anything I can,' I agreed. The relief was still pulsing through me, making me feel slightly light-headed. When I felt like this, I could do anything at all.

'Dr Fraiser recommended to limit your exposure to the Ancient culture as much as possible,' General Hammond said. I nodded once more.

'Yes, sir. We found a painkiller that seems to dull the headaches somewhat, but it is apparently so strong she wouldn't like to use it on a daily basis.'

'I understand,' the general nodded. 'However I understand from your personal history and Dr Jackson's recount that you have some academic expertise in the fields of art history and languages. Is that something you would feel comfortable with?'

'I … uh...'

'I would suggest you as a temporary assistant to Dr Jackson. We would of course need to consult you on a few matters relating to the ruins, however only in extremely urgent circumstances.' He gave me a little smile. 'Otherwise I would recommend you work on all cases unrelated to the Ancients. I'm sure Dr Jackson will have quite a few loose ends that need tying up.'

'I do, actually,' Daniel agreed. Then he looked back at me. 'If you're okay with this, Pan. I could really use someone to help me at the moment.'

I had objections, too many of them. The main one being that I still didn't think I should spend more time with Daniel than strictly necessary. General Hammond digging in my past made it harder once more to remember that this wasn't him I was dealing with. But on the other hand some work would help take my mind off things for a while. And it might even be fun.

'I'll try my best,' I said smiling. 'Does that mean we get to go on excursions as well?'

'That will have to wait,' General Hammond said. 'Colonel, if you would please.'

Colonel O'Neill, who had been rocking on his chair with both hands behind his head, came forward with speed, folding his hands in front of him, and gave everyone a stern look, as if we had been misbehaving.

'There is a slight problem at the ruins at the moment,' he admitted. 'We had two other SG teams out in the field and they got under fire from jaffa patrols. I ordered them to break camp, abandon the ruins and make their way back here. They nearly lost a man, but they made it back in one piece.' I started to breath again. These stories were a whole lot different when you didn't read or hear about them in the news. 'There's just one problem,' the colonel continued. 'They're onto us. They're probably expecting us to come back soon and they'll be waiting, probably preparing an ambush. Which means that world is off-limits for the time being.' Sam and Daniel groaned at this.

'But we only have a few days before the eclipse,' Sam pointed out.

'And we need to be there for the eclipse,' Daniel added. 'All the inscriptions mention it, and we really can't miss it.'

'I agree,' I threw in. I never had been able to stay out of a conversation. 'I understand it is dangerous, sir,' I said to the colonel, 'but the eclipse is very important. Most of the memories and the knowledge I have seem to be related to that eclipse. That makes me wonder whether that could be the whole purpose of me being here.'

I got this idea from Sam. If I had really been found in that place, at that time and with those specific memories, there had to be a reason. And the eclipse had to be it.

'Maybe none of you heard me,' the colonel said, his voice sharp as a knife. 'But I just said, the whole place is swarming with jaffa patrols. We can't afford to lead them to the temple, and we can't afford to lose any people over it.'

'This will be our only chance, sir,' Sam pointed out. 'The eclipse only occurs once every 150 years. The moons orbit is influenced by...'

'I don't care, Carter,' Colonel O'Neill interrupted her. 'I'm not getting shot just so Daniel can climb through those ruins in the dark.'

'There might be a different way, sir,' I said, and my quiet calm voice caused the rest of the room to fall silent.

'The only way for us to get to that place is through the stargate,' he pointed out. 'That's the only place they have to wait for us. And then they will follow us all the way to the temple.'

'That is true,' I agreed. 'But the Ancients had enemies, right? Any place important enough to them would have some kind of defence mechanism. We just need to figure out where it is.'

'And how would we find t?,' the colonel insisted.

'If I'm right,' I smiled, 'we won't need to.'

They had sent me to bed right after the meeting and the next day I woke up way too early. The guard in front of my door looked particularly unrested and didn't pay me any attention when I walked down the corridor. I stopped in front of Daniel's office, not sure whether he would already be in, but I knocked anyway. After I waited for a minute or two I started to feel awkward and decided to go to the canteen instead. At least at this time there might be some people there.

The door opened.

'Oh, good morning Pan,' I heard Daniel's voice behind me. 'Sorry, I didn't think anyone was up yet.'

'Well, you are,' I pointed out and he laughed.

'True. Alright then, come in.'

I followed him into his study. There was paper pretty much everywhere and I saw at least three empty mugs buried underneath it.

'Long night?,' I asked looking around.

'Yeah,' he agreed. 'I hadn't realised what time it was until you knocked.'

He looked around and I saw a look of panic cross his face.

'Um,' he began and walked around, trying to be everywhere at once. 'This is not good.'

'What?,' I asked and tried to see what he was talking about. He stepped into my way and I was forced to look up into his face.

'Well,' he began. 'Dr Fraiser did say we should keep you away from the Ancient culture for a while, and, um...'

'I see,' I said and grinned. 'How about I get you a fresh cup of coffee and you can tidy up a little.'

When I returned his office had transformed. The paper was gone and there was an urn sitting on a second table with a chair, a drawing pad and some pencils.

'I thought you could start by helping me transfer the painting on this,' he said when he noticed me.

'You don't have a camera?,' I asked and laughed. This felt too old-school to be real. Was he just trying to keep me occupied?

'I do,' he admitted, 'but I can't put the pictures together very well, and as you can see it's quite complex and goes all the way round.'

I picked up the urn and turned it in my hand. It showed what looked like a mythological battle. Someone was fighting a large snake with a sword and there was a naked girl on it, too. The figures were quite central, but the snake was all over the place, winding its way from top to bottom and left to right. I saw why Daniel wanted a conclusive copy of that. The body of the snake even wrapped itself around the patterned borders. And there were strange symbols everywhere.

'Think you can handle it?,' he asked too close to my ear. I nearly dropped the urn. I hadn't noticed that he was looking over my shoulder. But I just gave him a bright smile.

'You bet.'

The next days passed pretty much the same. Daniel was working away at his desk, and he had warned me not to come too close, because he had to work on the inscriptions in the temple, and I was at the other table, copying a design or sometimes even helping him go through research material on other cultures. He never said much about my work. Most people who didn't draw would always come over and watch me, tell me how good I was or ask if I could draw them next. But there was none of that from him, and I appreciated it. It made the whole situation feel more like a job and less like a strange holiday camp. Sometimes if I left the room for a while, I could see him hastily collecting notes all over the office when I returned, apologising for the mess. It was almost as if he was trying to keep his entire work a secret from me. He wouldn't even answer some of my questions in case they would trigger memories too painful for me.

Overall I enjoyed the time I spent in his office. We found the time to joke and laugh, and I learned a little more about his grandfather and his research. Their adventure with the crystal skull sounded incredible. When he asked me, I told him that all I did was study and help out at the embassy in London where my father worked. It sounded like a lie, well, it was a lie, but there was no way I could tell him the truth. Not him. Not ever.

When he left the room I caught myself counting the minutes until he returned. And when he was there I sometimes found that I was watching him over my work, smiling at the serious face he made when he went through his notes and documents, and looking away hastily when he looked back at me. I had known spending so much time in the same room as him would be a problem, but I hadn't realised how big a problem it would turn out to be. His presence was distracting at least, but at the same time I found him incredibly fascinating, his brilliance and knowledge, his smile and at the same time the pain hiding behind his eyes, that I could sometimes see.

And for some reason the more I tried to fight it, the stronger those feelings got. It was infuriating. Perhaps soon this would all be over, I could go home and forget everything that had happened here. But was that really what I wanted? One day when I returned from lunch, I saw Daniel standing at my desk, going through the drawings I had made that day. He looked up when I entered and gave me one of his smiles. My heart skipped a beat, as it always did, and I smiled back.

'You know,' he said, 'those are really great. You have an amazing talent.'

'It's not a talent, it's a skill,' I returned. 'It's just practice, an eye for detail and good hand-eye coordination. Or would you say you have a talent for languages?'

He didn't answer, only smiled to himself, returned to his desk and picked something up. 'I know I'm supposed to keep you far away from this,' he said. 'But there is something I need to show you.' He returned to me, holding something wrapped in a cloth in both hands. When he unwrapped it, I had been prepared for the headache. But it didn't come. It was a knife, the blade a long symmetrical triangle made from silver, the hilt was twisted and inlaid with angular gold patterns.

'You found it,' I breathed and picked it up. 'That's the ceremonial knife!'

'I thought it might be,' he said and sounded amused at my excitement. 'The last SG team picked it up before they got under fire. Apparently it was hidden somewhere in the ruins.'

I handed it back to him, but he waved his hands.

'It's yours,' he said. 'If this is needed to open the temple, I think you should keep it for the time being. We'll probably need it again when we go back to the ruins.'

The days flew past and before I noticed what had happened, the colonel waylaid me one day, told me to pack everything I needed and be at the stargate at 1200 the next day. I couldn't get any sleep that night. Too many thoughts in my head, too many expectations. What was going to happen in the ruins? What would the eclipse reveal?

Somehow I managed to get ready in time, and somehow we made it through the stargate in one piece. It wasn't until we got under jaffa fire halfway throught he forest, that once more reality caught up with me and I felt the world around me clearly once again.

I ran ahead as fast as I could with my backpack. I heard shots fired behind me and once or twice a fiery ball flew past my head from behind and hit a tree next to the path. I ducked behind the first pillar of the entrance and waited for the rest of the team to catch up. With trembling fingers I pulled the knife out of my pack and glanced behind me. Daniel appeared beside me and took cover behind the pillar next to mine. He gave me a quick nod and I tried to see past the pillar without exposing my head. The rest of SG1 and 14 had taken up position behind various trees close to the gate. As planned Colonel O'Neill was behind the closest. I tried to catch his eye and managed to draw his attention when he was reloading.

'How much time do you need?,' he shouted over the shots.

'As much as you can give me,' I returned and he gave a grim nod.

'Get on with it then.'

Daniel and I jumped out from behind the pillars and I drew into the air with the knife. It wasn't the most even doorway, but I was pressed for time. As long as people could walk through it upright, I wasn't complaining. I darted through the glowing arch, taking care to leave the knife in the opening. Daniel followed right behind me and waited as I put down the knife next to one of the pillars, the blade still blocking the doorway.

'Sam!'

She started to fall back, paused behind the colonel, who gave her a few seconds cover, and she darted through the doorway, crouched down behind the pillar right next to the knife and continued to fire at the opponents hidden in the bushes. I saw one getting hit, and I saw a member of SG14 go down with a scream. But I had different things to worry about. I raced to the second pair of pillars on the inside of the barrier and after some searching I found the symbol I had been looking for. After some pushing I managed to open a panel and slide it out. The inside was filled with colourful crystals shaped like icicles. This far I had planned, but now I had to think fast. Or remember.

I touched all the crystals, trying to find one that sparked a memory, but right in this moment the alien knowledge abandoned me.

'Come on,' I growled, touching all the crystals, trying to find the right one. This was ridiculous. For days the headaches had plagued me, but right at this moment when I needed to remember something, the flashes had abandoned me. Tears of desperation ion my eyes I turned to Daniel.

'I can't find it,' I told him. 'I can't remember.'

He crouched down next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. The warmth of his skin reassured me somewhat, and his encouraging smile did the rest.

'You can do it,' he told me, and I turned back to the crystals.

One of them had indeed reminded me of something, but I knew that it was the wrong one. I got back to my feet and raced back to the entrance.

'Colonel,' I shouted on the top of my voice.

'What?,' he barked back, not pausing firing his shots.

'If I close the door, it will never open again. We'll be able to get out, but nobody will ever come back in.'

'Do what you have to, but do it quickly,' was his response.

I raced back to the pillar, went straight for the yellow crystal I remembered and pulled it out of its socket. The rest began to flicker and I could hear a rising whirring, as if something in the pillar was charging up. I hadn't expected this, but now that it happened I knew what it was.

'This isn't good,' I said and looked back at Daniel. His face didn't fail to express his puzzlement. I pointed at the gun that was still in his hand. 'Is that just for show or can you use it?'

Instead of giving me an answer he cocked it and gave me an expectant look. I pointed at the crystals, he aimed and fired every last of his rounds. The crystals exploded like candy, colourful shards flying in all directions and the glow and the noise stopped. I had watched Daniel's face as he was firing, he had blinked with every shot, and his face was twisted up in what looked half like fear and half like disgust. Somehow that made him even more likeable to me, if that was even possible.

There was a call from Sam. I looked up and saw the doorway flicker. The barrier was still there, but I wasn't sure how long the door would stay open now that the systems had been disabled.

'Colonel!,' I shouted as loud as I could. 'It's about to close!'

'Fall back!, I heard his voice echo through the forest and one by one the rest of the team appeared through the glowing arch. Teal'c appeared, took station behind the other pillar and laid down fire with his staff weapon while two airmen dragged the injured team member through the doorway and took him to safety. One more followed. The last one to arrive was Colonel O'Neill. He crossed into the barrier and continued to fire at the advancing jaffa. I saw another one go down, but the others still advanced.

'The knife!,' I shouted and jumped toward the entrance. 'Get the god-damn knife!'

Daniel got a hold of my wrist and stopped me from getting into the line of fire. Sam pulled the knife out of the doorway, but it was too late. One of the jaffa soldiers got his foot in the door as it closed and managed to pull himself through the barrier. Colonel O'Neill's foot caught him full in the chest and he stumbled back into his friends, who couldn't see him coming, not with the barrier doing its job once more. The momentum carried the colonel over the line as well. He went through the barrier and was once more visible to the jaffa warriors on the other side. They started to fire. Teal'c's arm shot forward, he grabbed the colonel by the collar and hauled him back through, just before the first shots hit the barrier and disappeared. There was a roar of frustration from the jaffa warriors. They charged – and disappeared when they hit the barrier. I could hear them still shouting at the other end of the clearing, but it was too late. The door had shut and we were in and they were out.

I sank to my knees and gasped for breath. I hadn't even realised I had been holding it for the last few minutes. The others guarded the door, just to be safe, but I knew that there was no way in. Not anymore, for anyone. Sam handed me the knife and I put it back into my pack. I heard it clink against the brooches of the dress and felt my bag get heavier in my hands. After a few moments Colonel O'Neill seemed satisfied that the jaffa were indeed locked out for good and gave the command to set up camp in the centre of the temple complex. The rest of us followed suit, eager to begin the preparations before the night. I helped Sam set up our tents, then I checked the contents of my bag. Nothing could go wrong tomorrow, this was far too important.

When I was about to leave the camp to get some air before my obligations would weigh me down again, Daniel caught up to me, one of his notebooks in his hand.

'Pan,' he called and I turned to wait for him. 'I think there is something you should see.'

'Is it going to be painful?'

He hesitated.

'I was joking,' I laughed. 'What is it?'

'I found this on our first day here,' he told me and started to leaf through his journal. 'I was going to ask you about it, but I completely forgot about it after that large carving.'

He stopped at a page, smoothed it out with his fingers, then he showed it to me. It was a sentence he had translated.

'The rock will shine,' I read and frowned. His translation was accurate, but there was a subtle meaning to the sentence I couldn't quite put my finger on. 'That can't be right.'

'It's not?' He looked taken aback. 'I double-checked it, but I couldn't find anything wrong with it.'

'There isn't,' I agreed. 'But it feels like there is something missing. Where did you find this?'

He led the way to a low wall. There was a pillar toppled over the top of it and leaning against the crumbled remains. I smiled. This was where I had my first conversation with him. Who would have thought we would ever come back to this exact spot? Daniel knelt down, pushed the high grass aside and pointed at the writing.

'It's right there, see?'

I knelt down beside him and traced the lines. They disappeared behind rubble further down. Without thinking I started to shift the smaller rocks with my bare hands.

'Could you give me a hand?,' I asked through clenched teeth when I tried to roll a larger piece of stone out of the way,

'Are you sure this is a good idea?,' he asked when it finally shifted under our hands.

'There has to be more,' I told him. 'And it's important.'

He didn't ask further questions, and I wasn't sure if I was able to give him answers in any case. At the bottom of the wall another line appeared, then another and then there was a cavity.

'Finally,' I breathed and stuck my hand into the hole we had just discovered.

'I wouldn't do that,' Daniel began, but he was too late. I pulled something out of the hole, but I cut my hand on the sharp edge of the rock on the way out.

'Ouch,' I said, dropped the thing I found and inspected the cut.

Daniel gave me a worried look, but I had already drawn my strength together and sealed the cut the same way I had the shot wound only a few days ago. 'It's alright,' I told him. 'Good as new.'

We both looked at the device I had found and Daniel picked it up.

'This is strange,' he said and turned it in his hands. It was a metal hoop, the front inlaid with a large gem that looked like an opal or a moonstone. There were chains hanging down from it and little bent metallic spikes sticking out the top. 'I've never seen anything like it.'

'Well, at least now we have an idea what rock the inscription was referring to,' I laughed.

'You're quick to jump to conclusions,' he told me. 'That's not how archaeologists work.'

'It's how I analyse literature,' I told him. 'In a story most connected things are extremely obvious and predictable.'

'But we are not in a story,' he insisted. I just smiled and held out my hand. He put the item into it and I turned it over and over in my fingers. For some reason it had a very familiar feel to it. The inside of the hoop had a strange pattern on it and I bent down to examine it more closely.

'Can I see?,' Daniel reached out, adjusted his glasses and turned the hoop in the light. 'These look like circuits.'

'That's what I thought,' I lied. I had no idea about computers. 'I don't think it's just a piece of jewellery, I think it's actually a machine. Or at least a part of one.'

'I'll have to take your word for it,' he said and tried it on. It was much too small for him. 'But then where is the rest of it?'

I stuck my hand back into the hole before Daniel could stop me, reached around and found two more metallic objects. When I brought them to the light they turned out to be metal bracelets, broad wristbands I could slip on with ease. They too had thin chains attached to them.

'Either someone was up to some kinky stuff around here,' I observed and Daniel's face – to my own surprise – turned red, 'or these chains need to attach to something.'

He just shrugged, but said nothing. But I had an idea of what the chains belonged with. We returned to the camp at my request, because I wanted to check a suspicion I had. After some digging in my pack I found both brooches from the dress and turned them over. The underside showed a similar pattern to the one on the hoop and, now that we could have a closer look, the inside of the bracelets. And upon examining, so did the hilt of the dagger.

'Well, this is a coincidence,' Daniel stated.

'Is it really,' I said in a dry tone. I had stopped believing in coincidences a while back. There was a reason why I was here, why it had to be me, and somehow all the pieces were starting to fit together. But I still didn't have an answer. Maybe tomorrow would be more enlightening. The sun was beginning to set and everyone was returning from their various excursions to the camp and the fire in its centre.

Daniel showed the colonel, Sam and Teal'c our latest discoveries. Teal'c's face didn't change and the colonel just shrugged and returned his attention to his dinner. Only Sam showed interest, turned the hoop over and over in her hands.

'It almost looks like a crown,' she observed.

'I think that's what it is,' I told her. 'And I also think the chains need to be connected to the shoulder brooches of my dress. But that's just guessing at this point. I only hope we have enough time to piece it all together tomorrow before the eclipse.'

'Well, you have until just before noon,' she reminded me. 'That should be plenty of time for a dress rehearsal.'

We laughed, but I didn't feel too happy with the situation. What if I messed up? We only got this one shot at it, and, even though I hadn't told anyone yet, part of me was hoping that whatever we would find would help me get back to my world. True, I would lose a group of friends I had started to treasure, but in coming here I had lost some other friends, who were leading depressingly boring and lonely lives without me in this world. I had to go back somehow. I owed them that much.

After dinner I excused myself and wandered through the dusky ruins once more. I had the feeling that tomorrow would be an extremely hectic day, and we would most likely need to pack up and leave soon after the eclipse. So this was my last chance really to have a good look around. So many places here felt like I had seen them before. So many corners reminded me of little things, like a smile, receiving a flower or having a particularly interesting conversation about a philosophical topic entirely alien to me. After a while I heard footsteps following me and felt an icy feeling rushing down my neck. Someone was hunting me in the dark.

I ducked into the first doorway and stayed in the shadows until the person following me was walking past. Then I stuck my foot out and felt it connect. I heard a thump.

'Ouch,' someone said from the dark ground. The voice sounded familiar.

'Hello Daniel,' I sighed and stepped out of the shadows.

'Why are you hiding?,' he asked, rubbing his shin and getting back to his feet.

'Why are you sneaking after me?,' I returned and folded my arms.

'I just wanted to make sure you're not getting lost,' he said. 'We have a big day tomorrow.'

'Yes, I know,' I said and looked at my feet. The shadows were getting darker and the stars grew brighter. 'That's why I thought I'd have another look around.'

'Anything come to your mind?'

'Nothing specific,' I told him. 'Images, feelings, little snippets of someone else's life.'

Daniel waited silently for me to tell him more, but I just shrugged.

'It's not enough to piece it together,' I told him. 'There is just this … vague feeling of familiarity sometimes, like I've been here before. A long time ago.'

'Someone else's memories?,' he asked and looked around.

'Maybe,' I said. 'I wouldn't know.'

I walked on and he stayed by my side. At this moment I couldn't tell whether his presence annoyed or reassured me, and that frustrated me even more. I hadn't been this confused since the rainy night in the dark alleyway, five years ago. Why did it have to happen all over again?

'I mean,' I began, not quite sure why I was telling him this. 'I have great hopes for tomorrow.'

'Oh?'

'Something or someone brought me here,' I explained. 'To this moon in a parallel universe. And everything has been moving toward whatever happens tomorrow at the eclipse. So I'm hoping, that it might give me a way to go home.'

We walked on in silence for a while.

'You want to go home?,' he finally asked and I sighed.

'Of course I do,' I said. I knew what he was going to say, so I tried to stay ahead of the conversation. 'Please don't take it like that. It's great here, you are all amazing and I can't remember the last time I had this much fun. But this is also not my place. My family doesn't exist and my friends … well, let's just say they are very different people.'

'You can stay,' he said, and the hope in his voice almost broke my heart.

'I would love to,' I said and felt tears rise to my eyes. I turned my face away from him so only the darkness would know my secret. 'But this is still not my home.'

His footsteps stopped and I walked on, hoping he understood. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him or any of the others. But they had to know, they would have to accept that this was my decision to make. And, I swore to myself, if I got back I would try to find them. All of them. Even Teal'c, although I had no idea where he would be.

After I had paced the dark ruins to my content I returned to the camp. Without paying any attention to Daniel I wished the others a good night and went to bed.

Strange dreams plagued me that night between the ruins. I was running through brightly lit corridors and rooms so high I couldn't see the ceiling. There was no sense of direction, so I just kept going, hoping I would reach somewhere. Every now and again I thought I heard a voice calling an inaudible word. I followed the call whenever I could, changing directions and sometimes heading back the way I had come. After what felt like hours of searching I reached a large space. There was short grass under my naked feet, it felt warm and smelled of the sun. In front of me was the carving Daniel had shown me, the carving that had nearly caused my head to explode. I stared at it, and here in this dream for the very first time I was able to look at it.

In front of it stood a woman. I estimated her to be a little older than me, but it was hard to tell from the back of her head. She was dressed in what looked like the white dress I had woken up in and stood with both arms extended to her sides in front of the carving. I saw she was wearing the circlet and bracelets, the chains connected to the shoulder brooches and hanging down over her arms and shoulders. She looked so elegant and divine just standing there, I didn't dare make a noise. Somehow she noticed me anyway and turned around slowly, lowering her arms. I gasped when I saw her face. Because it was my face. Somewhat older and somehow ageless, but nevertheless my face. She smiled when she saw me and stepped away from the carving.

'Thank you for coming,' she said in a soft voice, and for some reason the words I understood were not the words she had said to me, but a different language altogether.

'Who are you?,' I asked the obvious question. But all I got was a slight shake of her head which made the chains jingle.

'No time for that,' she insisted and took my hands. 'You must remember. Remember Ulysses, the cunning one. He will bring you home.'

I awoke with a start and sat bolt-upright in my sleeping bag. Someone was shining a torch in my face.

'Sorry,' I heard Sam say when I raised a hand to shade my eyes and the light disappeared. 'I heard you scream.'

'Scream?' I was confused. Why would I scream?

'Or shout,' she said and sat down beside me. 'Is everything alright?'

'Just dreaming,' I said, still half asleep. 'Did I wake anyone else?'

'Nobody,' I heard Colonel O'Neill say outside the tent. 'Just the rest of the camp.'

'I'm sorry,' I said and swallowed.

'It's okay,' Sam said and gave me a reassuring smile.

'Just out of interest, what did I shout?'

'I think it was Ulysses. What's Ulysses?'

'I wish I knew,' I sighed and, once the others had disappeared, lay back down and tried to go back to sleep.

The next day I was one of the first to get up, although of course nobody could beat Colonel O'Neill. He was sitting on a broken-down wall facing the entrance and eating an energy bar. When he saw me approach he gave me a nod and pointed towards the pillars.

'They're not giving up,' he said. I narrowed my eyes and could indeed see a few shapes move in the shadows under the trees.

'They're not getting in,' I said. 'So why are they still there?'

'They know we will have to go back out at some point,' the colonel said and took another bite out of his breakfast. 'We'd probably do the same.'

I sighed and returned to my tent. I grabbed my pack and went to get changed behind a few walls I felt were high enough. The dress still didn't feel quite right. It was too bulky in places and felt to revealing in others. I fastened the leather band around my waist and attached the brooches to my shoulders. When I stepped out of my changing booth, Sam was just getting out of her tent.

'Wow,' she said when she saw me and smiled. 'That looks really nice.'

I looked myself down and shook my head. 'It still feels like a nightgown to me,' I told her.

'No, you look like one of those statues. You know, the one that's missing the arms.'

'You mean Venus de Milo?,' I asked and laughed to hide my embarrassment. That was the first time anyone had compared me to the goddess of love, and, I hoped, the last. 'Wasn't she half-naked? In any case, I'd have to do something with my hair first.'

'I can help,' she offered and stepped behind me. I could feel her tugging at my bun, loosening some strands and pulling out the ends. 'There, that's pretty close.'

'I have to take your word for it,' I grinned and returned to the scorched patch of grass where the fire had been. The bracelets and the circlet were still where I had left them the night before. I sat down and collected all the items in front of me in a pile. There were little hooks on the underside I hadn't noticed before. But I still remembered the woman from my dream and how she had worn the items. I would be able to make it work. I just knew it.

After a few tries I had managed to connect the bracelet chains to my shoulder pieces and slipped them on. The chains dangling down my arms felt strange and the cold metal burned on my skin in the early morning air. The next part would be much more difficult. I lifted up the headpiece, turned it so the stone was facing away from me and lowered it on my head. It fitted perfectly around my forehead and the cold metal was soothing my ever-present headache. When I tried to attach the chains hanging down past my ears to the shoulder pieces I ran into a problem. I needed to turn my head to see the hook it attached to, but when I did the chain didn't reach. It was too short.

'Do you need a hand?'

The chains whipped into my face when my head spun around.

'Oh, good morning,' I said with a bright smile when Daniel sat down next to me. 'Yes, that would be great, thanks.'

He picked up the chain hanging down the side of my face and with a very serious expression attached it to my shoulder piece.

'About last night,' he began and shuffled over to the other side.

'Look,' I interrupted him. 'You don't need to say anything. I'm sorry if I upset you. I love it here, and working with you has been … amazing. But it was only temporary. And I don't want to spend the rest of my time here regretting anything. Alright?'

'Forget I said anything,' Daniel said and smiled. The dimples in his cheeks and the look he gave me through his glasses made my heart race and I quickly looked away. I felt the last chain click into place and tested the headpiece again. The spikes were pushing through my hair and touching my scalp, but it wasn't painful. In fact this was the best my headache had been since I looked at the carving in Daniel's notebook. I got back to my feet and regretted the fact that there wasn't a mirror available. But the amazed expression on Daniel's face told me everything I needed to know.

'Right,' I said. 'When is that eclipse again?'

I spent the remaining hours fully dressed up. Somehow I was afraid I wouldn't be able to reassemble it all in time if I took it off. So I sat in my dress with jingling chains and an antique crown on my head on a toppled pillar in the ruins and watched everyone go about their preparations. Sam was setting up scientific equipment and most of the younger airmen were assisting her in one way or another. Near the entrance I saw Colonel O'Neill standing motionless as ever, legs apart and his gun in his hand, studying the enemy outside the barrier through his sunglasses. Not far from him between broken down walls I saw Teal'c practice combat with his staff weapon. He was fighting imaginary opponents, dodging attacks that only existed in his head and countering their strikes.

Looking further I saw Daniel buried in his notes, studying another carving on a wall not too far away. Curious I jumped down and joined him. His fingers traced the lines on the wall and he cross-referenced the passage with his notes. I looked over his shoulder and saw that he had already copied and translated the passage.

'Double-checking?,' I asked and he jumped. 'Sorry,' I said quickly and helped him gather up his notes again. 'I didn't realise you didn't hear me coming.'

'It's alright,' he said and stuffed the sheets back into his notebook. 'After you found the circlet and bracelets it made me wonder how many other carvings I missed because they are now buried.'

'I've been meaning to ask,' I began, 'where is that carving? You know, the one that … made me pass out?'

'It's … why do you ask?,' he returned slowly and shuffled through his notes. I wasn't sure why he was hesitating. Was he still worried it would have the same effect on me? Or a worse one, since it would be the real thing, not just a copy?

'I … just wanted to know,' I returned and shrugged. His eyes dug into me like hot pokers into a block of ice. 'I had a weird dream last night,' I sighed when the stare grew too intense. 'The carving was in it.'

'I see,' he said and pushed his glasses back up his nose with one hand. He looked like an owl when he did that. 'Is that the dream with Ulysses?'

'How do you know that?,' I burst out and quickly covered my mouth with my hand.

'I have a very light sleep,' he said with a smile.

'I'm sorry.' It seemed I really had woken everyone up, including myself. 'I normally don't sleep talk, much less sleep shout.'

''I'm sure it wasn't your fault,' he said and laughed. 'Although I am curious what Ulysses has to do with your dream.'

'I'm not sure what Ulysses is,' I told him. 'In my dream...' I hesitated. Could I really tell him? It was incredibly strange and felt quite intimate. Until now I hadn't wanted to tell anyone else about my dream. But I thought if anyone could help me understand what had happened, it would be him. So I took a deep breath and told him about my search through the ruins and the woman I found. 'She was wearing all of these artefacts,' I explained. 'And then she told me to remember Ulysses the cunning one. That's when I woke up.'

'What did she look like?,' he asked. He seemed very eager. 'Was there white light?'

'Yes,' I said. 'The entire sky was white. It was almost like The entire world was just white clouds, the only real things were the ground, the ruins, her and me.'

'And her face?'

'It was … my face,' I said and swallowed. 'I can't explain it, but when she looked at me I saw … me. Sort of ageless, but it was my face.'

He was silent for a while and I felt the need to press on.

'She was standing in front of the carving. That's why I was asking. I think that's where I need to be when the eclipse starts.'

'I had a suspicion,' he said and nodded. 'Some of the carvings seem connected both to the eclipse and the carving. Also if you were supposed to be here for the eclipse, I thought it would be the carving you reacted to the most.'

'So we're going there anyway?'

'I don't see why not,' he said with a smile and got to his feet. 'How is your head?'

'Good as new,' I smiled back. 'I can't feel anything, even when I read Ancient.'

'Really?' He looked surprised. I touched the metal around my head.

'I think this is helping a lot,' I told him. 'But I do have one more question.'

'Yes?'

'So far you were the only person who wasn't confused about Ulysses,' I said and saw him grin. 'So, who or what is Ulysses?'

'You know who he is,' Daniel returned and started to walk away. 'You might just know him under a different name.'

'What name?' I tried to keep up without stumbling over my skirts. 'Who is he?'

'Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus.'

'Odysseus?,' I repeated and tripped over a rock hidden under a patch of grass. My knee hit something hard on the way down and my hand slipped over the grass. I managed to stop myself before my face hit the ground. 'Ouch.'

Daniel returned and helped me back to my feet.

'I hope that doesn't compromise the mission,' I said and pointed at the grass stains on the white dress.

'It should be fine,' he said. 'Are you alright?'

'Yeah,' I said and rubbed my burning hand. 'Just a bit bruised. But seriously, Odysseus of Ithaca?'

'Yes.'

'Then what did she mean?,' I mused. 'In Homer's Odysseus he takes 10 years to get back home after the battle of Troy. Does she expect me to hang around here for that long? Or is there something else she was trying to tell me?'

'I have no idea,' he told me. 'But if this eclipse doesn't bring you an answer, I promise, I will help you find a way home.'

I felt tears rise to my eyes. The earnest look in his face and his voice reassured me more than anything had so far. 'Thank you,' I said and heard my voice tremble. He took my hand and squeezed it for just a heartbeat. Then the moment passed, he walked on and I stood rooted to the spot, trying to figure out what had just happened while I waited for my heart to stop racing. After some thought I returned to the campsite and had some breakfast. Sam saw me sitting on a low wall and came over.

'What happened?,' she asked when she saw the stains.

'I tripped,' I said and made a face. 'The skirts are a bit too long for my normal walking pace.'

'You should be more careful,' she said and sat down beside me. 'You could have got hurt.'

I lifted my skirt and examined the now blue and red bruise on my knee. 'It's not too bad.'

'You'll be fine,' she said and laughed. 'I think I lost count of how many of those I had.'

'Same,' I said and grinned.

We sat talking for quite some time, until Sam suddenly jumped to her feet.

'We're almost out of time,' she announced. 'We should get ready.'

'Ready for what?,' I returned, but she had already run away. I stood up as well and saw the rest of the camp get into motion, running around with a purpose that didn't make any sense to me. Were we leaving already? Around me I saw the sun disappear from the grass and looked up. The sky was still blue as ever. So why was it getting dark?

'Pan!' I saw Daniel run towards me. 'It's starting!'

I looked up again and squinted into the light. The sun looked like an oval now and the light was growing dimmer by the minute. Of course, I told myself. The eclipse! How could I have forgotten. I hurried towards Daniel, lifting my skirts so they wouldn't get under my feet again. Behind him I opened my pack and took out the knife, then I turned back to face him.

'Where do we go?'

He lead the way through the tumbled walls, through a maze that was strangely familiar, even though I knew I had never been this way. He had kept me away from this area, and now I knew why. We turned another corner and suddenly there it was. I stopped dead. There was a pressure behind my forehead, but the coolness of the metal on my head soothed the pain and I stepped forward staring at the carving. It looked almost like a mandala, a circular pattern on the wall, lines crossing each other, forming a shape like a flower or a very complex star. In its centre was a dent and an almost imperceptible slot, hidden among the lines. I could only tell where it was from memory, and whose memory it was I didn't dare ask.

As I stared more and more people arrived. Everyone had come to see what this was all about, and I felt nervousness rise up through my feet, as if it was the ground I was standing on that was trembling with fear. The light grew darker around us and I darted another look up into the sky. The sun was only half there now. Around me the others started to put on special eclipse glasses. I had only seen them once before, back when there was a total eclipse in Europe when I was a small child. To my embarrassment, the only thing I remembered about that event was how our surroundings got so dark, the street lights and even the illuminations of the airport came on. Afterwards everyone talked about the corona you could see around the dark shape of the moon, or the diamond ring you saw afterwards. And all I remembered were the red lights on the runway of the airport in the distance.

Someone offered me glasses, but I waved them away. I had more important things to worry about than astronomy. We had one chance to use this eclipse, and I wasn't going to miss it. The fainter the light from above became, the more red it seemed. I glanced upwards again and saw the remaining light from the sun had begun to turn orange and then a deep red.

'It's the gas atmosphere of the planet,' Sam told me, when she saw my face. 'It's tinting the light.'

'Was this supposed to happen?,' I asked her back and raised my voice. With the declining light a strong wind had picked up. I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it had a strong effect on the general atmosphere. Without the sunlight the air suddenly got very cold. I felt goosebumps crawl up my arms and started to shiver.

The light grew dimmer still and I stood there in front of the carving on the wall, shivering, the dagger in both hands, waiting for the opportune moment. Every now and again I glanced upwards, waited for the totality, but there was still too much light coming from one side of the planet. I had the feeling that something else had to happen to show me what and when to do it. I already had a pretty good idea, but I needed to be certain. There was no room for doubt. And still the wind increased and the world got darker around us.

Then from one moment to the next the wall in front of me started to glow. Certain lines of the carving lit up, started to glow in the red light.

'The planet's atmosphere must be altering the frequency of the light,' I heard Sam talk to herself behind me.

The others were staring at me. And not at me directly, but at my forehead. I lifted my hand and saw a glow reflected on my palm, much like the one coming from the wall, that was emitted by the crystal on the circlet. So this must be it, I decided, the moment we had all been waiting for. The glow became stronger and among the lines I could see writing. It was Ancient.

'The door to the light will open,' Daniel said behind me in a quiet voice, and I knew he was translating. I had already read the inscription and knew what the second part meant. 'The priestess has the key.'

In the centre of the indentation the narrow slit started to glow as well, a brighter light as the other lines and it appeared to come from within.

'What's behind that wall?,' I asked Daniel over my shoulder, not taking my eyes off the glowing carving.

'I'm not sure,' he said. 'I'm pretty sure I noticed nothing special.'

I nodded and took a few steps closer. I could have reached out and touched the carvings with my fingers, but I had the feeling that would break the spell. Everyone else was watching me in silence as I raised the knife in both hands and pushed it slowly into the crack in the wall.

Nothing happened. The world went silent, even the wind died down.

'Well, that was disappointing,' I heard Colonel O'Neill say from the back of the crowd and felt my face get as red as our surroundings. I had failed. A quick glance upwards told me that the totality had nearly passed, and nothing had happened. I hung my head and let go of the knife in frustration, giving it one final shove into the crack. The ground began to tremble. I stumbled backwards on legs and knees that didn't know which way they were going. When I bumped into Daniel he put his arm around my shoulders and held me upright. We all watched as the crack around the knife widened, the metal blade sliding down the sharp stone edges emerging on both sides of the opening door. The entire wall with the carving was separating, two enormous stone blocks gliding sideways with painful slowness and revealing a dark staircase leading downwards.

After what felt like half an eternity they stopped, the ground became calm once more and I dared to breath again. With a nervous movement of my hand I brushed Daniel's arm off my shoulder and went to look what lay beyond the stone doors. They hadn't opened in over ten thousand years, from what I understood about the Ancients, and after what I had been through I wanted to be the first to see. But after the earthquake my legs still felt like rubber, my knees seemed to be bending the wrong way and after only two steps I was back on all fours on the ground, trying to stop my arms and legs from trembling.

Daniel was the first there to help me back up and he supported me while walking me to one of the near walls. There he let me down carefully. My arms felt heavy and somehow my head was full of fluffy cotton. Thinking had become difficult and it had to fight to keep my eyes open.

'Well, that was misleading,' the colonel remarked when the first airmen got their torches out to explore the cavern that had just opened. 'Didn't the inscription say this was the door to the light? It's damn dark down there.'

I laughed at that, but nobody took any notice. My fingers couldn't get a good enough grip on the metal of my bracelets when I tried to pull them off my arms and kept slipping off without completing the task I wanted them to do. Daniel saw me struggle and once again assisted me, this time in detaching the chains and taking the bracelets off my wrists. When I tried to take the circlet off myself, my fingers slipped off the metal like with the bracelets, and suddenly my arms felt so heavy they just dropped uselessly to my sides and hit the ground so suddenly, I hurt the back of my hands.

'I'm sorry,' I mumbled when Daniel took the trinket off my head with a worried look on his face. 'I don't understand why I'm so tired all of a sudden. It's not even the afternoon yet.'

I tried to get to my feet again, but just slumped back with a groan. When I had tried to put weight on my legs my ankles had simply bent sideways, unable to support my body weight.

'What's going on?,' I breathed and tried to sit up against the wall.

'Just stop moving,' he told me and sat down beside me. He turned the circlet over in his hands again. 'It's possible this does more than just stop your headaches.'

Through my droopy eyelids I saw Sam heading our way. She too looked worried.

'What happened?,' she asked and squatted down on my other side.

'Tired,' I croaked.

'I think these aren't just for show,' Daniel said and handed her the circlet. 'Do you see the pattern on the inside? How it's connected to the gem and the chains?'

Sam turned it over and over in her hands. 'These circuits,' she said, 'I don't think I've ever seen anything like this.'

Daniel told her how the circlet had suppressed my headaches and thereby helped me use the knowledge and memories in my brain for the first time. I could only sit there and listen, too tired to speak.

'It sounds like the circuits interact with your brain,' she said slowly. 'That might explain why all these chains and trinkets were necessary to open the door. Even the knife has these connections on it. It must be your brain pattern, or something in it, that was the key to the door.'

That just sounded insane. The look on my face must have expressed my doubt better than any words I could have uttered at this point and Sam noticed it. She tried on the circlet herself. It didn't fit.

'Yes, I have a small head,' I said and tried to laugh. It sounded more like a cough. 'Rub it in.'

'I just wanted to see what it feels like,' she said and took it off again. 'Because there is a large chance this does even more. Most Ancient devices we have seen so far require an energy source of some sort. But this doesn't seem to have one.' She turned it over and over in her hands again. 'So I'm wondering, if the wearer is the energy source.'

'That would explain why you got exhausted,' Daniel pointed out. 'The energy needed to suppress your headaches and open those doors came from you.'

That still sounded insane. I decided to leave it be for now and struggled back to my feet.

'What are you doing?,' asked Sam and took my arm when I staggered forward. The ground was shifting under my feet, or else my legs were long sticks made of rubber.

'I want to see what's behind the door,' I said and tried to shake her off, but I instantly fell over in the other direction. This was exasperating. More than anything I needed to see what was at the bottom of those stairs. I needed to know if I could get home. From where I was on the ground I could see lights moving about inside the vault, but the rest was still too dark.

Sam pulled me back to my feet and dragged me back to the wall. Daniel had already gotten back up and was heading for the open door. This was so unfair! I had opened the door, and as a reward I was too weak to enter. Once she was confident I wouldn't try to walk away again, Sam headed for the vault as well, leaving me behind on the surface. I could hear muffled voices coming from the stairs, but for the moment all I wanted to do was close my eyes, just for a few minutes.

When I opened them again the sunlight had returned. It was early afternoon and I was lying on the warm grass, an army jacket under my head. I got up quickly and instantly the world tilted with me, making my stomach curl up in pain and my head spin.

'Rise and shine,' I heard someone boom from above and I shaded my face to see who it was.

'Good morning, colonel,' I said once I had made out his features against the sunlight.

'Afternoon,' he pointed out and handed me a cup of coffee. I drank it without comment, even though it was black and too bitter, but it helped with the dizziness and made the numb feeling in my arms and legs go away.

'Thanks,' I said and handed back the empty cup. 'How long did I sleep?'

'An hour, maybe two,' he said. 'But they're all pretty busy down there, so I don't think anyone missed ya.'

'They' I noted. I struggled to my feet and for the first time managed to stay upright, even though I needed to support myself against the wall.

'I don't think you should do that yet,' the colonel said, but I could tell by his voice that it was none of his concern. And at the moment I would only stay where I was if they chained me to the wall. My wobbly legs carried me to the doors and then down the stairs. The air inside was cool and smelled of cellars, wet rock and mould. I didn't get very far in the gloom before I nearly tripped over something. Someone grabbed my arm just in time to save me from falling.

'You should have brought a light,' I heard Daniel's voice slightly above me.

'What's down here?,' I asked. The cold air was creeping into my skin and made me shiver.

'Lots,' he replied. 'We didn't even manage to go through half of it.'

'Anything helpful?,' I insisted and tried to see his face in the darkness. He had to know what I meant. But there was no answer, so I pulled my arm loose and ventured further into the darkness.

'Wait,' I heard him call from behind me.

My unsteady feet carried me to a young man looking over a stone tablet. His torch illuminated the carved letters and I was curious to see what was written. I managed to read the first three words, then the sledgehammer of pain hit me right in the brain. I bent over, holding my head in both hands and felt like I had to throw up. The coldness burrowed into my bones and made me shiver. The young airman pulled me back to my feet, not quite sure what to do next, but Daniel was already there, putting his arm around me and leading me away. The headache had disappeared as quickly as it had come, but I needed fresh air more than anything else. The feeling of drowning in a sea of darkness even distracted me from Daniel's arm around my waist until we reached the top of the stairs.

He sat me down on a toppled wall in the sun and joined me. I took slow deep breaths, trying to shake the nausea and the coldness of the vault.

'Thanks,' I said. 'It's better now.'

He nodded and got back up. He walked over to where I had woken up and picked up the jacket on the ground. Then he returned and put it over my shoulders. Even though the warmth of the sun and the kindness in his eyes was enough to thaw me up again, I didn't say anything.

'I mean, we might still find something,' he ventured. 'To get you home, that is. I know it's important to you.'

I shook my head.

'It's alright,' I told him. 'I don't think it will be there anymore.'

We sat in silence, and if this had been Earth we could have listened to the bird song. But there were no birds, no insects, only the wind blowing gently through the grass.

'You can stay,' he said after a while. I laughed.

'Like there is an alternative,' I told him.

'I meant with us,' he went on. 'There are more ruins than this out there, and I could use a second pair of eyes.'

'I'm not an archaeologist or a linguist,' I told him. 'All I can help you with is cross-referencing to Earth's culture or drawing pictures.'

'We'll find something,' he said and gave me one of his smiles. I smiled back.

'I'd like you to stay,' he said and squeezed me hand. I froze. Was this it? 'I know we haven't known each other for long, but – I feel like I found something I lost since you have been around.' Here we go, I thought and tensed up. I had only been analysing my own feelings, and for all this time I had been blind to what was directly in front of my eyes. But I couldn't let him get close. Not him. 'You are an incredible person,' he continued, oblivious to my panic. 'And I...'

'Just stop,' I said and jumped to my feet. My face felt hot and my heart was racing. 'We were only working together, Daniel.'

'I know,' he said and got up as well. 'But that was for this moment, the eclipse, and that's past now. We could...'

The hope in his eyes gave me stabs I couldn't have imagined. How could I let it get this far?

'Look, I just thought we could go and have dinner, just the two of us,' he said and smiled. 'I know this really nice Italian place and...' His voice was starting to sound desperate, and I knew I had to shut him down once and for all.

'This is all there is, Daniel,' I said and gestured around us, my voice getting louder all the time. 'You study this civilisation, and there I suddenly turn up with a head full of knowledge and memories about their race. This is all because of whatever they did to my brain, that's all there is to it, and don't you dare pretend it's anything else.'

I left him standing there, his crestfallen face cutting into my heart like a hot knife. But there was no way I was going to let this happen. Not again. Without thinking I walked through the ruins, trying to find a quiet corner, and it took me several minutes to realise that the noise I was running away from was inside my own head. I crouched down behind a wall, tears streaming down my face and focussed on the feeling of the sun on my skin. I realised I was still wearing Daniel's jacket, struggled to get it off my shoulders and threw it as far from me as I could. Then I hugged me knees and buried my face in my dress.

I heard steps approaching, stop, and get closer. Why could he just not give up?

'Leave me alone,' I shouted and couldn't stop a sob from escaping my dry lips. 'Just leave me in peace.'

Sam stuck her head around a corner, anger and worry fighting for a place on her face.

'What's going on?,' she said. I could tell by the tone of her voice whose side she was on, and it wasn't mine.

'I'm sorry,' I said and felt more tears running down my face. 'You wouldn't understand.'

'Then explain it to me.' She sat down beside me, close enough to listen, but far away enough to make me feel isolated.

I sighed. I knew I had to tell someone sooner or later.

'It's a really long story,' I told her.

'We have time,' she said, still in her cold tone of voice. 'It's not by chance connected to what happened in LA 5 years ago?'

I froze and stared.

'What … How…? I thought nothing happened here?' I burst out.

'It didn't,' she replied and I saw a slight smile steal across her face. 'I talked to Janet.'

Ah, of course. Dr Fraiser must have suspected something when I brought it up. And I had forgotten that they had spoken about this.

I sighed. 'Alright,' I said. 'All of this happened five years ago, and it started in a small town outside Oxford...'