Chapter 2: Wires and Tomes

Jacob had been right about one thing, and that was that the others were highly skeptical of the plan. Teal'c arched his eyebrow, Jack stared at Daniel like he was crazy and Hammond looked confused.

"The tree of life?" Jack said. "I saw a movie about that. Doesn't it make you live forever if you drink its sap or something?"

"Well, different cultures have different interpretations of it…" Daniel sighed. "The point is, Selmak said that it actually does exist and it might be our best hope for saving Sam."

"I too have heard of such a thing." Teal'c put in. "It is legend among the jaffa. Supposedly a place not even the gods are allowed to go."

Daniel nodded slowly. "Selmak seemed to think it's doable."

"Yeah, well, Selmak thinks a lot of things are doable. He's a tok'ra." Jack grumbled.

Daniel turned to scowl at him, finally sick of having his plan shot down. "You're certainly sounding very pessimistic for someone who claims he wants to help Sam."

"Hey!" Jack shouted. "I want to help Carter as much as you do, but I don't think finding this mystical tree is going to do that!"

"We can try, at least," Daniel's eyes widened in a disparate expression. "What other options do we have?"

Hammond spoke out, in an attempt to placate the two. "Dr. Jackson, you said there's an ancient library somewhere that has more information?"

"Yeah, on the planet Dakara. Teal'c knows about it." Daniel glanced to the large Jaffa for confirmation.

"Indeed." Teal'c nodded. "However the planet is heavily guarded by various goa'uld. It would be difficult to reach using the Stargate."

"So we'll get a ship," Daniel said. "Go in through the back way."

Hammond sighed, frowning slightly in a displeased way as he mulled over the plan. "And where are you going to get a ship from?"

"The tok'ra." Jack said flatly. "They have to give us one."

"Talk to them." Hammond said with a sharp nod. "Put together a solid, viable plan for carrying out this mission and I don't see why you shouldn't have a go. Dismissed."

"Thank you, sir." Jack said as they got to their feet. The colonel still had a scowl on his face and he seemed tense, though Hammond could hardly blame him.

While the other members of the team filed out of the room, Hammond touched Jack on the shoulder. "Colonel, come into my office. I'd like to have a word with you."

Jack nodded and followed him listlessly into the office, collapsing into one of the chairs. Hammond sighed heavily as he sat down.

"Jack, is there anything you'd like to talk about? Things that are bothering you?"

"Sir," Jack said slowly, picking at a spot on the arm of the chair. "I just found out that my second in command…scratch that, a very good friend of mine…has an incurable form of cancer. I'd say that there are a lot of things that are bothering me."

"It's hard to face, I know." Hammond said. "In my time I've seen more than a few of my friends pass away and it's hardest when you can't do anything about it."

Jack's eyes snapped up to his, hard and dark with an ever deeper scowl than before. "With all due respect, sir, I don't need a lecture about dealing with death!" he got vehemently to his feet, pushing the chair back. "Carter isn't going to die!" Shoving the chair back up against the desk Jack marched out without waiting for so much as a 'you're dismissed' or 'goodbye'.

He found Daniel and Teal'c in Daniel's office, sitting on stools, though they both got to their feet as Jack entered.

"Jack, I think we should –" Daniel began, but Jack cut him off.

"Don't say you think we should have a little talk because I just got one of those from Hammond!" he snapped, eyes flashing. "Why does everyone think I need help coping with death? I had to see my son die, and now I have to watch Sam die too and there's almost nothing I can do to help her! So stop trying to give me advice and start giving me ideas to help my friend!"

Daniel looked slightly affronted and took a step backwards. "I was just going to say that we should get ready to go as soon as possible. The tok'ra have a goa'uld cargo ship waiting for us, complete with identification codes to get us into Dakara."

"Oh." Jack appeared slightly abashed.

"Yeah. And while I was organizing that, Teal'c was filling Sam in on our plan," Daniel said. "She thinks it's a long shot, but worth trying."

"Yeah, well, anything that's a shot at all is worth trying." Jack was reaching for the phone. "I'll call Hammond and tell him we've got the ship."

The temple at Dakara with its tall stone edifices and towers was bathed in afternoon sunlight as they maneuvered the cargo ship to a landing pad in the back. Jack grumbled to himself; the heavy Jaffa armor they were all wearing was stifling and uncomfortable, though he kept reminding himself that he was doing this for Carter, and then it all seemed a little less difficult.

Luckily this was a less crowded area and they were able to reach the temple unnoticed. Once inside with their serpent guard helmets on the three blended in perfectly with the other Jaffa, who didn't pay a moment's notice to them.

Teal'c seemed to know where he was going, so Daniel and Jack followed him through the maze of twisting corridors, deeper and deeper into the temple. They finally passed down a long torch lined hall and found themselves facing a pair of heavy wooden doors that bore some ancient writing carved into their surface.

"Library." Daniel murmured, his voice muffled by the helmet.

Teal'c nodded and pushed the doors open, and they all stepped inside. The room was large, what they could see of it, and smelled of musty paper and leather. It was also almost pitch black, so Jack backtracked and grabbed one of the torches from the hall, carrying it into the room as Daniel carefully closed the doors behind them.

After finding a couple of braziers along the wall and lighting them, the team got out of their armor and Daniel began moving about, examining the tall, crowded bookshelves. They were filled with thick, leather bound tomes and yellowing scrolls, all bearing the familiar block like ancient writing.

Under normal circumstances Daniel could have spent hours, even days reading up on his Ancient history and slowly devouring each book, page by page. But he didn't have the time now, and so he hurried along, reading titles and tossing irrelevant books and scrolls aside until he finally came up with a thick, leather bound volume that had been tucked away in a far corner.

Blowing dust off the cover, Daniel read the title. " The Tree of Life; an account of the wanderings of…" he frowned. "Can't read the name. Marcus something."

Jack, who had been sitting with his back against the wall perked up. "Is that what we're looking for?"

"It looks like it." Daniel flipped through the book, scanning the pages and nodding to himself. "Yeah. This seems to be it. This Marcus guy was an Ancient who went on a quest to find the tree of life. There's an introduction by some scholar who says that Marcus was the first and he was able to chart it for the others. But…"

"There's a but?"

"The scholar also says that these 'others' only consisted of a handful of Ancients. Supposedly –" Daniel had to pause to sneeze loudly a couple of times. "Supposedly the journey is harder than ascending."

"Great!" Jack said, throwing his hands in the air. "Harder than ascending! That's just peachy!"

"O'Neill! Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c had been standing near the door and now he looked at them, holding his staff weapon up a little higher. "Someone has been alerted to our presence, I can hear footsteps."

Jack and Daniel both scrambled to grab their own weapons; no time to get back in their armor and try to bluff their way out. Seconds later the doors flew open and two Jaffa stood there, hours guards, their staff weapons trained on the three intruders.

One of the guards shouted something in goa'uld, but Jack and Daniel promptly zatted them both.

"Ok, kids, lets get out of here!" Jack said, rushing for the door. "Danny, you got the book?"

"Yeah." Daniel nodded, casting a wistful glance around the room, obviously wishing that he could have more time, or perhaps just a chance to take the rest of the books with him. But Teal'c and Jack were already out the door and Daniel had to follow them.

It took a little more stealth to get back to the ship; no one else had heard the staff weapons, it seemed, or no one else cared, but they still had left their armor back in the library and so had to stick to the shadows until they made it safely back to the cargo ship and up and away from Dakara.

"This…is going to be hard." Daniel said.

"No kidding." Jack scanned the summary Daniel had written up of the book. "Nine gates, purity of spirit…I don't like the sound of that. A test of one's soul? What the hell."

"This sounds more like a religious document." Sam muttered.

It was the next afternoon and the team was gathered around the table in the briefing room, going over the book Daniel had found with General Hammond. Any doubts they'd had before were slowly coming back as they found out exactly what this journey would entail.

"Well it is a religious document in a way," Daniel said, shrugging at the skeptical look Sam was shooting him. "It's like the grandmother of all myths. But the author very clearly gives us the nine 'gate addresses that we need. Most of the book was about Marcus preparing for the journey, though the last couple chapters specifically describe the journey."

"Hmm…" Hammond frowned, flipping through the summary. "Doctor Jackson, what the book seems to give us is less of an actual description than I could have hoped for."

"Yeah." Jack nodded in agreement. "So he gives us 'gate addresses and tells us we need to be pure of spirit, that only those with a selfless cause will prevail. But he doesn't tell us what we need to do exactly. Like is the tree just at this last planet? Because I kinda find it hard to believe that a jump through nine gates is gonna get us to the center of the universe."

"Colonel O'Neill is right," Sam said. "It isn't physically possible. There's got to be something that the book left out."

Daniel sighed. "He says that the journey leads itself. That we merely have to have the strength to keep on going and the path will be laid out before our feet."

"And there we go with the cryptic again!" Jack cried. "Have these people not heard of straight answers?"

"Doctor Jackson," Hammond said, waving aside Jack's outburst. "If we give you more time to study the document, do you think you could come up with more?"

"I can see." Daniel said. He was running his fingers over the edge of the book possessively. "But I won't be able to give you things that aren't there."

Hammond turned to Sam then, asking gently, "Major? How…much time do you have?"

Sam bit her lip, staring down at the table. "Janet's going to have to start treatment in the next couple days if we want to keep me around longer. She's going to do both the radiation and chemo here because she doesn't know how the naquadah in my blood will react and it would be too hard to explain it to a civilian doctor."

"Alright." The general looked back at Daniel. "Three days, would that be enough?"

"Sure, that would be plenty." Daniel nodded, standing up. "I'll go get started."

"Good. The rest of you are dismissed."

They all left the briefing room. Jack caught up with Sam in the hall, falling into step beside her. "Hey, Carter."

"Hi, sir." She sounded more listless than before they'd left, and Jack could see dark circles under her eyes. She was looking thinner, as well, and that worried him.

"How're you doing?" Jack asked quietly.

"Oh, I'm doing just fine," Sam said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I had another seizure while you guys were on Dakara…it was worse this time. Janet's put me on some medications to help but…" she shrugged. "There's only so much we can do."

Jack wanted, beyond anything, to just put his arms around her and hug her, reassure her that he would find a way to cure this. But it was virtually impossible to do that when he wasn't so sure of it himself. "So…radiation therapy. Doesn't sound like too much fun."

"Not at all." They'd stopped outside Sam's lab and she pounded one fist absentmindedly against the door. "I get a whole month of it. Five days a week." She waved one hand helplessly. "I'll be sick, tired, my hair'll fall out…and that's on top of what chemo's gonna do to me." She looked up at Jack, eyes wide, and he could have sworn she was on the brink of tears. "What's the point, sir? I'll be living four years instead of less than one, but I'll be miserable. Why even bother?"

"Sam…" he took a step closer to her. It was so strange to hear Sam talking like that. Usually she was so willing to accept technology and know it would pull her through, but here she was, so devoid of hope. "Jesus…come here." He held out his arms and Sam fell against him, resting her chin on his shoulder and closing her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her.

Had she always been that fragile?