The aliens turned as one and looked at SG-1. "It is done," they said.

"But, it's only been a minute at the most," Sam protested in surprise.

They shrugged in answer. "The mist lifts even now," they said. She turned and saw that indeed the fog was thinning.

"And?" Daniel prompted. They gave no reply. "Did he pass?" he asked again.

"See for yourselves," they answered as the mist thinned even more, and they could see O'Neill's upright form standing right where he had disappeared. He was looking down at something in his arms which even as they watched seemed to fade away with the mist. As they began to run towards him, they saw he'd lost his equipment, his jacket and Kevlar vest, and his weapons. He looked haggard and exhausted and had several days' growth on his beard, but he was alive. Before they could reach him, he slumped to the ground clutching, of all things, an army green T-shirt.

"Colonel!" Carter yelled and was echoed by the cries of her teammates: "Jack!" "O'Neill!" Hearing their calls, he recognized they'd given him back his name though it didn't seem at all familiar. As a man in a daze, he looked up at them. He did not know them. They were strangers, yet they were more familiar to him than his own name. He had met them before. In the mist.

"Are you all right, Sir?" the beautiful, blond woman asked him, and he gazed into her familiar, blue eyes and nodded. She smiled and her smile was like coming home.

Kneeling beside her, the questioning young man asked, "What happened?" He shrugged in reply. He had thought he'd know in the end, but the answers were just as cloudy in this bright sunshine as they had been in the fog. The stranger reached out and patted his shoulder, "It's all right" he said, "whatever happened you obviously passed the test."

"Yes, O'Neill, and we are pleased to have you back with us," the dark warrior loomed over him and thrust out his hand. O'Neill stared at it for a moment before reaching out and taking it. He was pulled to his feet where he swayed unsteadily but managed to stay upright.

He looked around. "So where's the other two?" he asked. His voice was dry and raspy, and the woman looked at him with concern and handed him her canteen. He nodded his thanks before taking a long swig.

"What other two?" she asked when he was finished.

"The bald one and the Asgard," he answered.

"The bald one!" Daniel sputtered, "Do you mean Hammond?" He shrugged in reply.

"Sir," the woman began hesitantly, "do you know us?" The question stumped him. Did he know them? Except for their names he knew them as well as he knew himself. He nodded his head a tentative 'yes'. "General Hammond and the Asgard haven't been here, Sir. Perhaps the mist..." she glanced off at the others who stood a short distance away.

"The mist does what the mist does," they answered together. "And it is never wrong. Your heart is true, Colonel O'Neill. We offer you our friendship and swear we will stand beside you should you need our services in the battle before you. You need only call us." They turned to the others, "You are free to go. You will find what we have to offer for your fight at the portal."

"Thank you," Carter told them. Their words seemed little return for whatever the colonel had been through, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was getting him home. Regardless of his answers to her, he did not appear fine, and he was clearly confused. The aliens turned as one and silently stalked off into the trees. She watched them until they disappeared and felt only relief they were gone. She should have insisted his belongings were returned to them, but she would rather deal with the repercussions of failing to do so than have to spend another minute in their company. "Let's go," she said to her teammates, and with the colonel staggering along between them they moved down the path towards the StarGate.

It soon became apparent he was in no shape to make the 2 kilometers to the Gate. They'd covered the same distance in less than twenty minutes not two hours before, but it wasn't happening now. The colonel had been silent the whole time. He didn't know what to say to these people, and he was too busy trying not to collapse. All those hours or days or whatever on his feet, and he'd almost cried when he'd finally seemed to come to the end of it, and now here he was going again. When the woman called a halt, he sank gratefully to the ground.

She squatted beside him, offering him water and food which he happily accepted. "Sir?" she asked hesitantly. Everything she said to him seemed to be tentative and gave him the uncomfortable feeling she was expecting something of him, but he didn't know what. He looked at her and waited for her to continue. She shook her head sadly and said, "You're pretty confused, aren't you?" He gave a half nod, half shrug in response. "What do you know, Sir? You said you know me, what's my name?" He met her eyes and then dropped his gaze.

"I don't know," he admitted and saw disappointment and fear pass quickly over her face. It hurt him to see it. He continued quickly, "But I know as long as you're walking beside me, life's good, and I know your smile makes me happy." Remembering his conclusion that the baby wasn't really a baby at all, he didn't add that he knew she had a sweet and beautiful baby girl, but even so he could tell his answer was not what she had expected. She tried to stammer something in return but then fell silent, her face red. She bit her lip and glanced to see if the others were listening. They were.

"OK," one of them said, "what about us? Do you know our names?"

"Not your names, but I know you. You are full of questions and the love of learning. Something makes you very sad, but you hide it behind curiosity and words. We don't laugh at the same things, but we want the same things."

"What things would that be?" Daniel asked him curiously.

He frowned at that. They'd both thought the baby was beautiful and needed to be kept safe. But though he felt her loss as a physical pain in his arms, there had never been a baby. Twice he opened his mouth to try to answer, but in the end he simply shrugged. Shrugging, he was finding, was an all-purpose answer that suited him very well.

"Well, what about Teal'c then?" Daniel asked, nodding towards the warrior.

"I know him, too," he answered. "He's a great warrior. He was an enemy and could easily have killed me, but instead he has given me his friendship and his loyalty. He will die at my side."

"Right," Daniel said after a moment of stunned silence. "So, you don't know us by name, but you recognize us anyway."

"Yes," he said, "I met you in the mist."

"You did?" Daniel asked at the same time Sam said, "We didn't go into the mist."

He looked at them both and shrugged. He was too tired to continue talking, and they must have seen it in his face.

The woman gave a resigned look and said, "Sir, it's really not that far to the Gate. We can wait here while you rest if you want, but I'd prefer to get you safely home. Teal'c could carry you?" Home. It was a word that should have meant something to him, but it didn't. "Sir?" she prompted, and he realized she was waiting for his answer. Did it matter, he wondered. Was there an urgency to get to this place he no longer remembered? Looking at their faces the only urgency he could read was their concern for him. If that was their only problem, they could wait. He needed rest much more than he needed anything else. Instead of answering he stretched out on his side and pulled his cap down over his eyes.

"Okay then, I guess we wait," he heard the woman say as he slipped easily into sleep. It seemed like he'd barely slept at all when she was shaking him awake. "Sir," she said, "night will be falling soon. We need to go on." He blinked up at the sky and saw the late afternoon shadows stretching around them. He sat up.

"What's your name?" he asked; sleep still audible in his voice.

"Oh. I'm sorry, I should have thought. I'm Carter...Daniel...Teal'c. We're your team members? From Earth?" There was no sign anything she was telling him meant a thing to him.

"Earth? That's home?" he asked as he pulled himself to a stand and looked around them somewhat anxiously.

"Earth's home, Jack," Daniel cut in. "And that," he said nodding into the trees, "is what you're looking for. We'll wait here." And they did while he made his way out of their sight and relieved himself. He returned flush with embarrassment, but the three of them seemed unconcerned.

"Ok, if the pace is too fast just let us know, Colonel," Carter told him. His bones still ached with weariness, but he managed to walk beside her and he felt stronger than before his nap. He glanced over at her, and she smiled. He stumbled, and she reached out a steadying hand. "Do you need to stop, Sir?"

"No, I'm fine," he answered and kept walking. After a moment he said, "We walked along like this in the mist, and you smiled just like that."

"Oh," she said then gave him a half smile, "well, we do this a lot..."

"Do we?" he asked wondering what it was they did a lot: walk? smile?

"Yes, we travel together from world to world. Most of the time on foot. We're explorers."

"We are?"

"You don't remember any of it, do you?" she asked with dismay.

"Not a thing," he said. "How do we walk from world to world?" he asked, confused.

"There's a transportation device...the StarGate?" she looked at him expectantly but the word meant nothing to him. "It's capable of forming a wormhole between two planets. We step into it and literally walk from one world to the next."

"And that's how we came here?"

"Yes, this morning. We met the natives. They seemed friendly, but then...they said one of us had to undergo the 'Trial by Mist' to prove if our hearts were true. If they were, we'd receive their friendship; if they wouldn't, we would die. We really weren't interested in their test, but we were outnumbered and..." she shrugged.

"I see," he said, though he didn't really. "So I got elected to be the one."

"No," she said, her voice hard and harsh. He glanced at her and saw she was not smiling. A look at Daniel behind them showed his face was set in an almost identical frown. Teal'c's broad back in front of him didn't reveal much, but he imagined he was frowning as well.

"But, I'm the one who went into the mist?"

"Yes, you were," she answered shortly.

"Because?" he prompted.

She stopped walking briefly to look him in the face. "Because you're our commanding officer. You thought-you always think it's your duty to put yourself in danger to protect us!" So, he thought. That explained why she put everything to him as a question. She wasn't comfortable giving him orders. But, it didn't explain her anger.

"Well, isn't that right?" he asked.

"I suppose so," she muttered starting off again. He moved to keep with her.

"But?"

"But, I don't like it. You'll die one of these days playing the hero and where will that leave us?"

"Hopefully alive," he answered. She snorted in disgust and shook her head. He looked back at Daniel.

Daniel grimaced and said, "Listen, Jack. I suppose technically it's right, but...well, it's not always wise. You had no business taking the Trial-any one of us would have been a wiser choice, but you wouldn't have it any other way!"

"Why?" he asked, still looking back and almost tripping over a rock in the path. He decided it was safer to drop back alongside Daniel for the moment. He found his anger easier to bear than Carter's anyway.

Daniel was at a loss at what to answer Jack. He pushed his glasses back up his nose and waited, hoping Jack would let it go.

He didn't. "Why would you, for example, have been a wiser choice than me?"

"Well, for one, this wasn't a test of physical strength. You didn't have to be stronger or quicker."

O'Neill, his body aching and bone-tired, felt the Trial had been all about physical testing, but he didn't have the energy to argue the point. He certainly didn't feel physically superior to any of his three companions. They were moving right along without breaking a sweat or breathing hard, while he was ready to lie down again. "Am I stronger and quicker?" Jack asked him doubtfully.

Daniel answered, "Normally...except for Teal'c, of course."

"Hmm," Jack said, "Maybe it wasn't necessary, but I can't see it would hurt. It still doesn't explain how that makes you a wiser choice."

"No, it doesn't, but here's the Gate. Let's go home."

O'Neill looked at the Gate curiously. Through its center opening he could see the first evening stars beginning to break through the darkening sky and more of the forest they were in. He watched as Daniel reached out his hand and pushed the pieces on the pedestal near it. The kawhoosh when the Gate opened sent him ducking for cover. He was relieved though embarrassed to see the others weren't concerned at all.

"Sorry, Sir," Carter told him, "I should have warned you."

"Yes, well, maybe you better fill me in on what's going to happen now...we're going to step into that...puddle and ?"

"It's not really water, Sir. We'll just step in and when we come through the other side, we'll be home. You might feel a bit sick on the other side, but it won't last long. There will be soldiers there with guns...they're on our side, you don't have to be afraid of them." She cringed when she realized what she'd said, but he didn't take offense. She went on, "We'll go to the infirmary right away and have the doctor check you out...see what they did to you. And the general will want to know what went on here."

"Ok. So what did go on here? Do you understand it any better than I do?" he asked.

"No, Sir," she admitted. She motioned to a pile of unfamiliar looking stuff at the base of the Gate and added, "But, whatever did, we've been given this stuff here. Do you mind carrying some of it?" He stared at her. "Sir?"

"You asked me to carry something for you in the mist, you know."

"No, what was it?" she asked frowning at him. If the natives had telepathic abilities, perhaps they also had the ability to see in the future. Maybe what he had seen in the mist was what was about to happen. She'd run a quick inspection of the alien equipment lying at the base of the Gate steps and everything had looked in order, but in her hurry to get the colonel home she was aware she might have been too hasty. "Was it...dangerous?"

"No," he answered. "It wasn't dangerous at all."

"But, it wasn't this stuff?" Daniel asked.

"No."

"Then what?"

"It doesn't matter, it wasn't really what it seemed like anyway. It was just a manifestation of something else."

"Such as?"

"Maybe this stuff," Sam said. "I hate to cut your discussion short, but we probably should talk about it on the other side. Before we have to open the Gate again." They gathered up the equipment and went home.