It was about a half an hour later before they were able to leave for Colorado Springs. Sabrina had re-packed her suitcase and then had presented Lieutenant Lewis with her partially completed inventory of Catherine's belongings, along with keys to the main house and the out-buildings, and the codes for the security system.

Finally they both had been fingerprinted so that their fingerprints could be eliminated from the ones found at the mansion. Daniel started to tell the lieutenant that his were already on file, with the FBI and God knows who else, but he realized that would cause more questions and just hold them up.

Sabrina had fallen asleep before they had even left the Denver city limits. With her head resting on his folded up jacket, her face turned toward him, bathed in the light from the dashboard, she seemed very young and vulnerable; and Daniel's heart ached for her.

As he headed south on I-25, driving through the dark mountains of Colorado, he thought over the events of the last two days. He couldn't bear to think that his beautiful, funny, generous friend might actually have been murdered, but every instinct he had told him it might be true. How much worse it must be for Sabrina. No wonder she didn't want to talk about it, but talk about it she must, and soon.

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It was just after midnight when they finally reached the outskirts of Colorado Springs, and not long after that they pulled up in front of Daniel's modest house. Gently he shook Sabrina's shoulder and she opened sleepy, blue eyes before gazing around her in mild surprise.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sleep the whole way."

"That's ok. You've got to be tired—it's been a long day." He smiled as he brushed a stray lock of hair off of her face.

"For both of us," she yawned. Sabrina stretched like a cat, got out of the Jeep, and followed Daniel up the short walk to his front door.

As Daniel inserted his key in the lock, he did a quick mental survey of his house. Just how clean had he left it? He pictured the mild clutter of the morning before as he had prepared to leave for Denver and decided it was probably acceptable. Nonetheless, it would have to do. If he could just slip into the bathroom first and pick up some towels and clothes he could almost guarantee were lying on the floor, everything would be ok.

These were the thoughts that were going through his mind as he entered the darkened living room, Sabrina behind him. Perhaps that's why he didn't immediately notice the broken glass under the window on the far side of the room. Nor did he sense the dark form crouched on the floor behind the sofa.

He was fumbling with the light switch in the hall and was just about to ask Sabrina to pardon the mess when he felt something slam into his chest, knocking him backwards onto the floor. Normally Daniel could've held his own in hand-to-hand combat, thanks to Jack's careful training over the years; but at that moment his attacker had surprise, the dark, and momentum all on his side.

A fist came out of the darkness, crashing into his jaw before he was able to throw up his arms in defense. He managed to grab his intruder by the upper arms and flip the two of them so that he now had the advantage.

"Sabrina! Turn on the lights!" he cried. But before she could comply, something hit him on the back of his head. Lights exploded behind his eyes and he dropped like a stone.

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When Daniel finally came to, a few minutes…a few hours later, he wasn't sure; he was still lying on the floor in his front hall, Sabrina kneeling next to him.

She had managed to turn him onto his side and was cleaning what had to be a sizable lump and cut on the back of his head with a towel. She looked upset. He groaned and then reached back to feel for himself.

"Are you ok?" he asked. When his fingers came in contact with the lump, he gasped. God, it felt like his skull was going to explode. "They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"I'm fine," she said. But she wasn't. Daniel could see that she had been crying and her hands were shaking. Sabrina stopped dabbing at his head wound and watched him carefully. "After you got knocked out, someone pushed me into the sofa, then ran out the front door. I think there were two of them."

"At least," agreed Daniel, "and one of them must've been driving a truck." He tried to push himself up onto one elbow, but Sabrina stopped him by putting her hand on his other shoulder.

"You need to lay still, Daniel. You might have a concussion," she said. "You've got a nasty lump back here, and the way it's bleeding, you might even need stitches." She folded up the towel to cushion his head and then helped him roll over on his back.

"Unnn…. How long was I out?" Daniel groaned at even that small amount of movement.

"About ten minutes…I was just getting ready to call 911."

"Oh….there's no need to do that. I've got a pretty hard head." Daniel closed his eyes and waited hopefully for the throbbing to stop.

"But Daniel, you don't understand."

Daniel opened his eyes and looked myopically around the room. Somehow his glasses had gotten knocked off in the struggle. Seeming to read his mind, Sabrina looked around her on the floor then crawled half-way down the hall to retrieve them. She handed them back to Daniel and he gingerly put them on. It was a little hard to tell from his position on the floor, but it looked as though his house had received the same treatment as had Catherine's.

"Well….crap." He levered himself up on his elbows so he could get a better look. "This day just keeps getting better and better."

Evidently they had interrupted the intruders before they could do too much damage. That was the good news. Still, Daniel was getting a strong sense of déjà vu as he looked around his small living room.

Drawers had been pulled out, their contents scattered everywhere. Several books had been pulled from his bookcase and were lying haphazardly in a pile on the floor. He couldn't tell from this angle if they had been damaged or not.

What few artifacts he had in the house seemed to be lying on the sofa next to him. In front of the sofa sat a large cardboard box. On closer inspection, he realized that some of his possessions were already in the box—some vases, a couple of pieces of pottery; all of them from Earth's past, thank God, and not from another planet.

The few artifacts he kept at home, merely for decoration, had been gathered from the many digs he had been on in his youth. None of them were very valuable. That's why this robbery didn't make any sense. He struggled to sit up completely, and this time Sabrina helped him.

"Call Jack," he said, as he leaned forward and rested his head on his knees. He picked up the towel and pressed it lightly against the back of his head, wincing as it made contact.

"Jack?" Sabrina asked. She helped Daniel scoot back so that he could lean against the front of the sofa.

"O'Neill," Daniel replied. "I work with him at Cheyenne Mountain. You'll find his number on my cell phone." He reached into the pocket of his jacket and handed the phone to Sabrina.

"Why not the police? This has to be connected with what happened in Denver."

"Oh, definitely. But there may be more going on here than we thought." Daniel pulled the towel away and was relieved to see that the bleeding had stopped. He hated to drag his friend out of bed so late at night, but he knew that he was in way over his head, and he really needed Jack's experience and insight.