He looked around himself, seeing only black, not that it was dark or anything, there just wasn't anything to see. He did, however, feel that he was in some sort of very large room, it had that stuffiness to it. It was a familiar place, one that could mean good things, or very bad things, he hadn't decided yet.

"Hello?" he yelled at the top of his lungs. Judging by the way his voice echoed, the room must have been equal in size at least to a large concert hall. He slowly turned around, looking for someone, but no one had joined him there yet. "Oh come on, where is he? Did he stop for a potty break or something?"

"Or something." Jack spun around,

"Mac! Where've you been?"

"I was trying to pull your butt to safety, you had to just wait and be patient."

"Did you?" Mac had the grace to look embarrassed,

"No, I got shot," he saw Jack's worried gaze and quickly added, "tranq."

"What about Pete?"

"I'm pretty sure he made it to safety and is hiding right now." Jack let out a sigh of relief.

This type of experience wasn't new to them. It had happened many times over their lives, but never without the other. They were always here together. They had never really figured out where 'here' exactly was, but Mac had come up with a theory that it was a link in their subconscious minds, seeing as, most of the time, they could only get here when one or both was unconscious. It had happened twice before when neither was unconscious, but it was under extreme circumstances.

The last time it had occurred was Iraq, a very dark place indeed. Jack had been ruthlessly and endlessly tortured for four months. Somewhere in the middle of it, he reached out to Mac who dropped everything he was doing and booked the next flight there. Mac was the one who broke him out, saving his life. The story had been that Jack had escaped on his own and was found by a passing troop of soldiers who brought him back to base and sent him to the hospital. Mac had been with him every step of the way, even though they were secretly twins: no one could tell, so there had been no need for hiding. Jack was extremely malnourished, gaunt, and pale, and his face, and rest of his body, was so bloody and dirty it was almost beyond recognition, no one would have guessed they were related, and no one had.

It was a scary time, and they had spent a lot of time in the 'zone' as Jack called it. It was a place beyond pain, where only they existed. It had started at the same time their 'connection' had. It was when they were eight and a half years old, in Minnesota during a rare winter trip where the O'Neill's had dropped Jack off so they could go to Hawaii. Jack and Mac had been sledding a little ways from the cabin. A two-day blizzard had just ended, and powdered the whole area with two feet of new snow. It was too tempting to ignore, so they had woken up early, gotten their toboggan and headed for the hills.

/flashback/

"Come on Mac, just a little further." It was Jack's first time ever to experience a blizzard with the MacGyvers. They had stayed up, cuddled in front of the fire as a family and played Parcheesi while drinking hot cocoa. It was so much fun, and Mac had had a fun time just because Jack was, even though he had done it about a gazillion times before, and he was too old to be cuddled by his mom. But Jack had enjoyed it because his parents never showed him affection or spent fun time with him.

Mac had been woken up early by Gilbert, his dog, and when he saw that it had stopped snowing he had woken up Jack, who didn't want to see the snow: he hated snow.

Once he convinced Jack that snow was fun, and no, it wasn't just there to be shoveled by him like his father had said, he become really excited. He had never played in snow or went sledding before, and once Mac found out, they just had to go right then and there!

So, now Jack was pulling the toboggan up the biggest hill he could find, with Mac in tow.

"I'm coming Jack, jeeze! Hold your horses!"

"I'm holding, I promise, but they really want to go!" he held his hands out in front of him, pretending that something was pulling him, "Ack! They're slipping; I can't hold on any longer…I…can't. Oops, sorry Mac, they're gone." Mac was positively cracking up now. Jack could always do that to him. He was the funniest person he ever met, and it made Jack feel good when he made his little brother laugh. After all, it was his job, and he took it very seriously. "Now, hurry up Mac, all the snow will have melted by the time you get up there."

"I am up there Jack, so are you. We're at the top."

"Oh, of course we are." Mac rolled his eyes and tried to suppress a giggle at the goofy look his brother had on his face. "Now, how do you do this again?" Mac's jaw dropped. Jeeze, the guy was eight and he hadn't ever been sledding before? He couldn't believe it; he thought he had been joking before.

"You're serious?" A pained expression crossed Jack's face, but it was quickly replaced by the thrill of learning how to sled.

"Yeah, teach me."

Mac took the string of the toboggan from Jack, and moved it back form the edge of the hill a little bit.

"You sit on it like this, then you scoot over to the edge, pull your feet on, and, well, sled." He sat down on the toboggan in the front, leaving enough room on the back for Jack, so the could both share the ride.

"That's it?"

"Yup"

"How do you steer?"

"Normally you don't, but if there's a rock in your way, you just lean to one side a little. No big deal, just sit, you'll pick it up."

"Sweet!" Jack was really excited. His first toboggan! Man, he was so glad he got to spend Christmas with his brother's family. He was glad to spend anytime with his brother and his family, it meant less time with his own. He sat down behind Mac and grabbed on to the edge.

"Now, don't put your fingers beneath up, it runs on two sharp blades. Bobby Wintermyer, down the street accidentally stuck his finger underneath, and they had to ampilitate the ends of his fingers. It's gross." They both made identical scowls and winces of pain. Jack made a mental note to watch his hands.

"'Kay bro, ready?"

"'Kay. Ready!"

"Steady?"

"Steady!"

"Go?"

"Gone!"

The only part that Mac didn't like was the first second or two, where he saw exactly how high up they were. He was scared of heights, so he closed his eyes, but only for a second, then he opened them. Jack didn't close them at all. He was fine with heights, and he wanted to experience every part of sledding there was. They felt the cold wind sting their eyes, but they didn't care; it was all part of the fun. Jack had indeed found the biggest hill there was; it was more like a mountain.

"Weeeeeeeeeee…" They both let out their own squeals of excitement on the way down, screaming as loud as their young voices could go, which was a big mistake.

Mac had grown up in these mountains, and should have known better.

The heavy blizzard had dumped a lot of loose snow over the mountains, and it was highly unstable. Even the smallest sound could have set off one of the most dangerous things anyone could ever come up against, something that no matter how hard you fought it, it could still overpower you: an avalanche.

The boys' screams were more then enough to start the chain reaction. Loose snow higher above them shifted and fell a few feet. Normally, it cold have been stopped by a few well placed and sturdy trees, but if there were trees on the slope, it wouldn't make for the perfect place for two young brothers to sled.

The moving snow pushed the snow below it, which pushed the snow below it, creating a snowball effect, until a large portion of the mountainside was falling towards its unsuspecting victims.

Mac and Jack were having the times of their lives. Jack was curious about turning and steering, and even though Mac said you couldn't really steer all that well, he tried anyway. He leaned to his right side, and could feel the sled turning, but it was too much, and they tipped over.

"Woah," They crawled out from under the snow that they fell in, and righted the sled, "That was sooo much fun!"

"I know, isn't it?"

"Yeah, thanks Mac for taking me,"

"Don't thank me, we're not even done yet. There still a lot of hill left, and then we come back up and do it again and again and again." The smile on Jack's face grew even larger at the prospect of continued sledding.

"Sweet!" he pumped his arms high into the air. But then he felt weird, he knew something was going to happen, and he asked in a quieter, almost worried voice, "Mac?"

He saw the abrupt change in his brother's mood, and knew what it meant. 'Aw, man!' They were sledding. Couldn't whatever it was wait until they were done. It was Jack's first time, and he didn't want to ruin it. Then he heard it, like thunder rumbling off in the far distance. But it didn't stop, it continued, and grew in magnitude, the sound getting louder, and the ground beginning to shake.

"Jack, get back on the sled! We got to go…NOW!"

Jack did as he was told, not knowing what was going on, but when his brother was like that, he listened. He sat back down on the sled, in the front, and Mac gave them a running push before he got on, this time on the back.

"What is it Mac?" he had to scream over the wind, and the not so distant roar that had the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

"AVALANCHE!" The word set off a bad feeling that originated deep in his gut. Jack had never been through one, or even seen one before. He'd heard of skiers getting caught and trapped in them before…and dying. Now one was chasing him and his brother. Although he had never been on a toboggan before, he knew all about aerodynamics, he did want to be a pilot after all, so he tucked in his legs as close as he could to try and decrease drag, and Mac did the same. They tried not to look backwards, to see the river of snow gaining on them. They could feel it getting closer, and there was nothing they could do, they were almost at the bottom now, but there was no way they could out run it. They were out of time, and they knew it.

"Mac!"

"Jack!" they both screamed each other's names as the avalanche engulfed them. And jack's last thought was, 'I really hate snow.'

/end flashback/

Miraculously, they had both survived. The force of the snow had separated them, but they were never apart. That was the first time they had been in the Zone. They had suffered major injuries, and probably would have died, but with their combined wills to live and not leave the other alone they pulled through. They had spent the rest of the day and night in the snow, and were heavily frostbitten. They had a whole slew of broken bones, some internal injuries, and nasty concussions. They had shared a room in the hospital, and terrorized the nurses by switching beds when they left the room, the nurses couldn't figure out why the injuries didn't match the charts. It had been painful, but they were together, and that was all that mattered to them. Several other times throughout their lives, hey had to rely on the Zone to keep the other alive, or they used it to compare notes and figure things out while they were unconscious, like they were doing now. But, they had to be together; one couldn't use it without the other, and never with another person.

"Did you find out anything?"

"Note really. They were dressed in black, but they weren't wearing masks."

"They don' intend for us to live,"

"Doesn't seem like it, but they did use tranqs, so they want something."

"Great," Jack sighed, "I want to know who hired them though. Did you hear anything they said?"

"Yeah, they only want one of us, but couldn't figure out which one. Considering what you said yesterday, I think it's me."

"Yeah well, they're not going to get you…or me."

"Jack, they've already 'got' us."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know." They both sighed.

"I think it's time we woke up, Mac, and find a way out of there."

"Let's go." Mac felt the withdrawal of Jack form his mind, and vice versa. The blackness of the zone gave way to a different kind of blackness that was easily eradicated once they opened their eyes. Jack groaned, as he remembered something,

"I still didn't get to do the dishes."

Mac chuckled, "We get captured and you can only think of dishes?"

"Well, it's nothing new. I get captured a lot." Mac turned quickly to look at his brother, stunned, the lightness from his joke gone.

"What?"

'Uh oh.' Did he really just say that? He forgot that Mac didn't know about the Stargate or the Goa'uld. "Work, it's routine almost," 'that didn't help', "I get out. You get captured a lot too!" Jack switched the blame onto Mac, knowing that that would effectively end the conversation.

"Oh…yeah, well…" 'It is true,' Mac thought. Occupational hazard "Lets find a way out shall we." They looked around the room, and both were immediately drawn to the fact that it was bare. There wasn't even a discarded paperclip, nothing. It was dark, the only light coming through the bottom and sides of the door. There was no window, and the ceiling was low, only seven feet. Jack got up, and tried the door, not surprised when it didn't budge.

"Locked," it wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"Worth a try." Jack answered. You never knew what mistakes people made when they were too overconfident.

"So…what do we do now?"

"We wait, and when they come, I find out who hired them, then we leave."

"Easy as pie."

"Yup," they grinned. Now, if only things were to go as planned.