*****

Jack, Carter, Teal'c, and Daniel had waited outside the infirmary for as long as they could. Dr. Fraiser had insisted that they stay outside because there were too many people working in the confined space around Shaboni. After waiting for thirty minutes for her to stabilize, they decided to go and meet with the general. The depth of the fatigue that had settled over Jack was indescribable. Besides the mind-numbing headache he had, the soreness from the accident had been set in his muscles by the cold rain from earlier that evening. He sat down at the table in the briefing room and put his head in his hands.

"How is she?" the general got right down to business.

"She's half dead," Jack said flatly.

Sam took over for her exhausted CO. "She is still unstable. Apparently she has arrested twice since we got her out of the warehouse. Janet doesn't seem to expect her to survive the night," she informed him sadly.

"Well, you did good work getting her out of there. Did I understand correctly that Colonel Mayborne was on the premises at the time of the retrieval?"

"Indeed, he was, General Hammond. He was of great assistance during the rescue of Captain Uziel."

"Well, that is interesting," the general admitted.

"Oh, I'm sure it wasn't altruistic," Jack said bitterly.

"I agree, Colonel. And I don't even want to consider what his price might be. For now let's just be grateful he didn't choose to stand in the way."

"That'd be him that should be grateful," Jack replied ominously.

Daniel stared at him. That deadly cold look had not yet retreated from his eyes, still emanating from behind the weary and fatigue etched across his features.

"So what now, Sir?" Carter asked.

"Now we wait to see if Captain Uziel recovers. If she does, we have been authorized to exchange a degree of information about her husband for any information about Dr. Ben Jahadi's work. The Pentagon feels that in her condition she could be allowed to live out her remaining time at the SGC, and that what she knows about the weapon that she was exposed to could be of benefit for the program. We have confirmed that she officially resigned as an officer with the Mossad over a year ago, so there is no need to inform the Israeli government about her situation. Technically she wasn't even a captain anymore, but an officer of Mossad. She retained her military rank honorarily. They are hoping also to get the name of the Russian chemist she visited before the incident in Prague."

"She mentioned something about an antidote when we were trying to get her out of that hole they stuck her in," Jack noted. Images of the bunker-like room rushed his mind's eye. He ground his teeth together trying to force back the memory of her laying there, nearly naked and drowning…dying...cold...alone...

Carter shook her head, "Sir, I don't see how that is possible. The only known treatment for heavy metal poisoning is chelation treatment. If they got started early enough in the process of her poisoning, it is possible that it might stop the progression of degenerative encephalopathy."

"English, Carter," Jack gave her a cross look.

"Brain damage, Sir. The lab reports from Mercy were inconclusive as to whether or not she had Dimethyl-mercury poisoning. There was definitely something like it, as well as something like beryllium. I think what they were seeing was the combination of Naquada and this SE201b. Still, it is behaving in a similar way to the two known elements in the way it is attacking her body, causing respiratory failure and central nervous system damage."

"So would key-trading help her?" he asked.

"Chelating, Sir, and I'm sure that Janet is going to do that, if she hasn't started already. I really don't know much about that process, but it is standard treatment for heavy metal poisoning. It uses macro-molecules to attach to the metals in her tissues and makes it possible to pull them out of her blood through hemodyalisis."

"Like magnets," his eyes lit up slightly. 'LOVE magnets!'

"Sort of, yes," Carter smiled at him.

"So if she survives the condition she's in, and Doc Fraiser can use some kind of magnets to remove some of the metals from her body, there's a chance she'll make it?" the colonel reached up and pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead, trying to ease the pain that was building.

"That I don't know, Sir. I guess we'll just have to wait and see," she admitted sorrowfully. She wanted to say something else to elicit that wonderful spark from his eyes. She wanted to give him hope. To make him smile. To make at least something better. It was painfully obvious that this mysterious woman had affected him deeply.

Daniel spoke, "So if she survives the night, and is able to help us with the information we're wanting, just how much are we allowed to tell her?"

The general steepled his fingers diplomatically and looked very steadily at both Daniel and Jack, "That, gentlemen, I will leave up to you." And with that he stood up and dismissed them.

Sam looked at her watch. It read oh-my-God-it's-late o'clock. She was tired and worried, and tired of being worried. As they walked out of the briefing room, she made her way to the corridor that led to their base quarters. She was going to get a shower and put on something clean and comfortable. Then maybe she'd go back to the infirmary. Or maybe she'd just climb in bed and worry about it tomorrow...

Teal'c informed the colonel that it was necessary for him to Kel-no-reem. "Goodnight, big guy." Jack half-heartedly slapped him on the shoulder.

"Good night, O'Neill." Teal'c replied, and then retired to his quarters.

Daniel and Jack went to the infirmary. Daniel poked his head in the door to see how things were going. The amount of activity had lessened considerably. Janet was mulling around Shaboni's bed peering over a chart. "Hey, Janet. How's she doing?" he asked quietly.

"She's stable, at last," Janet said. She put the chart down and walked past him out into the hallway. "She is still in critical condition, but I have some hope she'll survive the night," she said with an exhausted sigh. "Once we were able to get her respiration improved, we were able to start concentrating on removing some of the poisons from her body. I don't have to tell you she was gravely ill when we got here."

"Carter mentioned something about how collation might be helpful," Jack implored hoarsely.

Janet smiled a tired smile, "We're administering chelation therapy, Colonel. But frankly, I think it may be too late for that. The levels of Naquada in her blood and hair indicate she's been poisoned for a long enough time that irreversible brain damage has likely already occurred. We're still trying to determine if there is Dimethyl-mercury in her system. It is a much more toxic variation than environmental mercuries. The beryllium-like compound, however, has caused severe lesions in her lungs and esophagus. She had lost so much blood through her GI tract that we have already replaced eight units, more than half the total blood volume for a normal body. I honestly don't know how she was alive when you found her. She is a real fighter," Janet looked at the colonel warmly.

"Thanks, Janet." Daniel said. A beeping from one of the monitors inside pulled her attention back to her patient. She excused herself and disappeared back inside the infirmary.

Jack, who had been fighting the effects of the last few days, felt his strength begin to ebb. His legs were taking on a distinctly rubber quality that he was largely familiar with from those times when he'd pushed himself well beyond his reasonable limits, well past the point where adrenalin would suffice, and into the place where not even the strength of his will would keep him going. He sagged against the wall.

Daniel commented, "You look like hell, Jack."

"Thanks, Daniel, feel like hell." The pain in his head was escalating to a distracting crescendo.

"You want me to get Janet?"

"No." I

t was, by Jack standards, a very weak refusal. Daniel watched him suddenly turn several ever-paler shades of white. Jack was about to ask for a chair when the floor slipped sideways a little, and he completely lost his equilibrium. He started the long slide down the wall towards a very inviting-looking floor. From far away he heard Daniel call, "JANET!" Then he felt himself caught under the arms before he keeled over sideways. The blaze of pain in his head was a searing light blotting out all vision. He grabbed his head with both hands and held on tightly, certain it was about to fly apart in many very tiny pieces.

"Daniel, help me get him on the stretcher," Janet instructed.

When they lifted him Jack unleashed a scream that frightened them both. He thrashed incoherently. Daniel grabbed his hands and started trying to hold him still.

"JACK!" he tried to yell through the haze of pain and exhaustion.

They wheeled him into the infirmary, and Janet and her team started taking his vitals. He had calmed somewhat and a large lieutenant came to hold his arm down so she could start an IV. Daniel stood back and let them work. Janet administered something in the IV, and Jack became very still.

After a few minutes she said, "Daniel I don't think he's in any real danger. He did have a subdural hematoma a few days ago. After getting whacked in the head again, and all the excitement of the evening, I think he probably just had some fluid pressure build up around the site of the earlier injury. He desperately needs rest and quiet. I'm going to get a CT to be sure, but I really don't think he's in any danger." Her warm brown eyes assured him that what she was saying was true. "Why don't you get some rest, yourself?" She touched his arm gently.

"Not yet. Too much adrenalin, I think." He closed his eyes and scrunched up his brow in an expression of wired-out, exhausted frustration.

Daniel plopped down into a chair and rested his head in his hands. As time in the infirmary stretched out the way it always did and medical routines carried on, Daniel lost himself in thought. Janet came and took Jack for a CT and then brought him back again. She came in and told Daniel the results and left again: they were encouraging...she was optimistic...should rest for the night.... Daniel participated in the routine of it passively, all the while listening to the dialogue between his mind and his heart.

The last three days had felt interminably long. But at the same time he had felt better than he remembered feeling in months. Somewhere within him the grief that had threatened to eat his very soul had given way to the forward momentum of life. Not just of any life, either, of his life with SG1. There was more than Sha're. There was more than Abydos and Apophys and everything that he felt had been ripped from him. He had friends, and they were as important to him as anything he'd ever known. Their importance to him was not the same as the soul-deep love he'd felt for his wife, but that importance still permeated everything about who he was. His work with them mattered. It mattered to him, and it mattered to them. And with that knowledge, he was putting one foot in front of the other and moving on with his life, grief and sorrow in tow, but the momentum of life would not be denied. It was something of a burden lifted.

Now here he was, watching his friend for the second time this week struggle to overcome his injuries. He didn't think Jack was going to die, but to see him in pain and weakened to this point was strange and disjointed for Daniel. Jack was too much like a rock in the stormy sea of his life. A jagged and sharp rock that could bruise the hell out of your shins, but an unmovable and solid figure nonetheless. They would never really speak of it. They had been through enough together to know that words were simply not their way. But Daniel trusted Jack. And Jack, whether he liked it or not, trusted Daniel. Daniel was of the opinion that beneath the crusty colonel exterior that he wore like a comfortable old shirt, he probably liked it quite a lot.

So here they sat. An all too familiar situation. An all too familiar room. But this time there was someone else. A woman who had touched something in Jack. A place that only a woman could touch. Daniel knew of those places. He didn't usually associate their existence with the likes of Jack, but that was mostly because he'd never really thought about it. A man was a man. And nothing cut to the depths of a man like a woman. This woman had wrung something out of Jack's determinedly closed heart. Daniel was curious whether Jack appreciated that or begrudged it. He would probably never know for sure. He could ask, but what would be the point in that?

"Daniel?" Jack's scratchy voice cut through the narrative in his head.

"Hey, Jack. Feeling any better?"

"No....yes...well maybe." He decided on maybe. A good solid maybe.

"You look better."

"Thanks. You don't."

"I'm beat. Was thinking about getting some coffee."

"Why don't you get some sleep instead?"

"I'd really like to stay." Daniel looked over to where Shaboni was lying. She was on a respirator, and there were lines and tubes coming off of her in every direction, but she somehow had the look of a Mid-Eastern doll that someone had been playing hospital with. Her beauty was evident even beneath the stark bruises and sickly color of her skin.

"She really is something," Jack commented hoarsely.

"Yes," Daniel agreed with a half-smile. "Have you decided what you're going to tell her?"

"No. I'll know when the time comes." Jack laid back and closed his eyes. "Daniel?" he said quietly.

"Yeah, Jack?"

"Get out of here. I need some sleep." And Daniel knew exactly what he meant. It was the way with them. Words didn't always mean exactly what they said. Sometimes they were a Trojan horse smuggling an armada of emotions. Then sometimes they meant exactly what they said and absolutely nothing more. This was one of those times.

"Good night, Jack," Daniel said, and walked out quietly.

*****

Jack watched the tendrils of smoke rising from the glowing embers of a hearty wood fire. The undulating colors were calming, mesmerizing. The smell of it encompassed him. He was warm, dry, relaxed, and in no pain. It was not a state he got to experience very often these days. He felt so good it was practically scary. Practically. His reverie was interrupted by the sounds of light footsteps. He looked around in the direction of the approaching steps. The lowness of the firelight to the ground cast light across the bare feet coming into view. The long slender legs and bare feet walking across the carpet became the lower part of a woman and then, as she came fully into the warm circle of light, a whole woman. A whole graceful, sweet, and beautiful woman wearing a white cotton nightgown that ended just above her knees. Light brown hair hung silkily down her back. She came close to where Jack was lying and sat down on her knees.

"Are you resting?" she asked.

"I am. It feels wonderful. I haven't felt this relaxed in a lifetime."

"Are you happy?" she cocked her head to the side, looking at him intently.

"I think so," he smiled softly. "Are you?"

"You never want to allow yourself a moment's happiness, Jack. You don't think you deserve it." She did not answer him. He didn't know the answer so he could not provide it for himself here.

"And what do you think?" It wasn't as bitter a question as it once would have been.

"I always wanted you to be happy. Our death came the day I knew that I could not affect peace in your life. That you wouldn't allow it, especially not from me." She leaned to the side resting her weight on her arm and stretching her long legs out to the side. Her hair fell over a graceful shoulder. The firelight shimmered against her skin.

"I know it is too late for this, Sarah, but I'm sorry." He looked up at her with his dark brown eyes filled with sincerity.

"I always knew. You carried enough apology around for ten men," she smiled gently. "I never needed those words."

"What did you need?"

"I needed you. When Charlie died, I lost you both."

Then there was a lingering silence. The next thing was not something he wanted to permit to be spoken. But this wasn't really speaking it, was it? "And I lost us all." He looked at the fire and said it so quietly someone trying to listen would have had to lean close to hear it. But since she wasn't really there, and wasn't really listening, she heard him just fine.

"And now you've found your way." Sarah pushed herself to her knees. "Don't miss this chance, Jack." She reached out and ran her hands through his hair softly. "I like the gray."

"I miss you." He reached up to take her hand while it was still close.

"No, you don't." Her hand slipped right through his as if she were a ghost.

He watched as she faded like the smoke from the fire. He spoke to the ghost of her, "I must have loved you."