The Stargate spat Jack and Daniel unceremoniously out the other side. Concerned more with speed than grace, Jack tumbled and rolled down the unexpectedly sharp embankment this particular Stargate happened to be perched on, coming to a stop directly atop Daniel, who had of course fallen with him.

"Ow," Daniel grunted as Jack rolled off him.

Jack patted Daniel's shoulder with his good hand, half as a breathless response to the comment and half to reassure himself that he and Daniel really had made it to the other side intact. Daniel certainly felt solid enough, so Jack decided it might be a good idea to sit up and get eyes on Teal'c and Carter, and find out where the hell they'd been sent, because by necessity it sure wasn't the 'Gate Room back home. Without their IDC, the team would've been guaranteed to splat right into the iris if they'd gone home.

"Ow," Jack groaned as he sat up, unconsciously sounding just like Daniel had a moment before.

Carter and Teal'c were a few feet away, shamelessly having landed on their feet. Or Teal'c had anyway, and he was supporting Carter, so the effect was the same. Jack peered around, and found the landscape looked more typical of off-world locations than the place they'd just left. Then he looked back at Daniel, who had so far declined to get up.

"Daniel?" Jack inquired, maybe slightly worried.

"I'm good," Daniel replied, his voice muffled because he was face down in the grass, "Just don't ask me to get up until my head stops spinning."

Jack was about to respond to this, when Teal'c shouted a warning.

"O'Neill!"

Snapping his head around, Jack noted which direction Teal'c was looking in, and he followed the Jaffa's gaze. He had assumed the howlers wouldn't follow them through the 'Gate. Confronted with the terrible power of the Stargate, most people tended to shrink from it, even those who knew what it was and what it was for. But about a half dozen of the howlers had summoned the courage to pursue their escaped prisoners even here. They came through with faces contorted with rage, but a moment later stood rather dazed, blinking in the sudden brightness. The courage of one deserted him and he tried to flee back through the Stargate, just a hair too late (fortunately for him), for it deactivated and he went tumbling through the empty ring and rolled noisily down the slope on the opposite side from Jack and the rest of SG-1. The other howlers jumped at the deactivation of the 'Gate, and one began to chatter nervously at what was evidently their leader.

Blowing through his nose disdainfully, this lead monkey turned away from the Stargate to survey SG-1.

Teal'c and Carter stood where they were. Jack stayed sat where he was. At Teal'c's warning, Daniel had rolled over and gotten as far as pushing himself up on his elbows, but there he'd stopped to wait and see what the howlers would do now they were on alien turf.

"Feels like the worst mistake of your life, doesn't it?" Jack asked the monkey when they locked eyes.

The howler flinched first, lowering his gaze deferentially. Outside his home range, cut off from his clan, the howler's aggression deserted him, even though he was brave enough not to run or start babbling like his companions. Probably for the first time in the memory of his race, he stood on an alien world, having journeyed through the Stargate as none of his kind had since before they had begun to record their history. Jack was impressed by the courage of the howler, if not by his foolhardiness.

Seeing the Stargate for the first time, Jack doubted he'd have gone through it without the recon that had already been done, allowing him to see what was on the other side, and be reassured by scientists that he wouldn't be ripped to atoms by the Stargate (or at least he'd be put back together before he was spat out the other side, half frozen and nearly sick; 'Gate travel had improved a lot since then).

The lead howler looked around to make sure the one that had tried to bolt was coming back. Irritably he snarled at the one that was chattering at him, and then bopped it on the head to make it silent. The cuffed monkey ducked away and hid behind his companions, but shut up anyway.

"Looks kinda like a Leroy, doesn't he?" Jack said of the lead howler.

"We should probably get them off the dais," Daniel remarked, carefully neither moving nor adding any special inflection to his tone, presumably to avoid alarming their uninvited tagalongs, "SG-13 is due... sometime soon?" he sort of looked at Carter as he trailed off.

"Within the next couple of hours..." Carter said with a shrug, "Give or take."

None of them had their watches anymore. The howlers had been fascinated by the devices. Not only was it hard to measure time in a prison where nothing really happened to mark it, the cloud cover today had made time estimation by sun position thoroughly impossible. And it was probably a different time altogether here, and clearly neither Daniel or Carter could recall the time differential. Jack couldn't blame them, he couldn't even remember what the address SG-13 was supposed to be visiting today was. He wasn't sure how Carter and Daniel managed to keep so many addresses in their heads.

He was pretty sure part of it was that the addresses didn't look random to them. Jack was no slouch when it came to astronomy, but Carter's understanding of astrophysics left him absolutely in the dust. And of course Daniel's knowledge of ancient cultures and the significance of the stars to them and all that probably gave him an unfair advantage. Anyway. This line of thought wasn't getting the monkeys off the dais or away from the Stargate.

"Are you sure we can't just... you know..." Jack looked at Daniel.

"They're not evil, Jack," Daniel snapped, "They're just confused."

"I was afraid you were gonna say that," Jack replied, though in truth he'd've been worried if Daniel had said anything else, because it would have gone against the man's character as he understood it.

Shakily, not quite trusting his legs, Jack got up. When he'd gone back for Daniel, he'd stumbled and landed hard on one knee. It felt badly bruised, and clearly resented the misuse. His knees weren't what they'd once been, and they complained bitterly at what seemed like the slightest strain. Even so, he managed not to stagger on his way upright, and managed to avoid a showing limp when he took a couple of steps to see how his balance was.

By this time, Daniel had sat up properly and folded his legs under him, but worryingly stopped there. The way he'd closed his eyes as if against pain suggested he'd done more than just spin on his way down, he must've hit his head. He'd mentioned the world spinning, and Jack suspected Daniel might still be seeing stars despite no longer being in the wormhole of the Stargate itself. He decided to leave Daniel alone for the moment, and instead turned to address the howlers.

Lacking any proper means of communication, he fell back on the ancient way of letting an animal know it was not meant to be perched on that piece of décor. He waved his hands dismissively and said 'shoo' in one of his least threatening voices, trying to make it clear that he wanted them off but didn't really mean them any harm at this juncture. The howlers stared dumbly at him.

Jack glanced at Daniel again, but there was no help there yet. He turned to Carter and Teal'c, but they were no more use than Danny. Clearly it was being left to Jack to figure out how to get these monkeys off the dais. He supposed he could just chase them, but he didn't really want to start the fighting up again, and he really wasn't sure it was a good idea to scatter them to an alien forest. Even with their lost nerve, the howlers could probably kill SG-1, at the least mauling them badly before it was over. Jack saw no reason to test his luck out that way.

"You need to get off the... thing," he realized the words would do no good, but he tried miming picking something up and putting it somewhere else.

Leroy barked at him, a sound that wasn't quite a roar or a hoot, but was very much a threat sound. Evidently something Jack had done or said looked dangerous, and the howler was telling him not to do it again, or perhaps to keep his distance. With lowered head, Leroy flashed his canines, looking up at Jack from hooded eyes, like a frightened and cornered dog that sees no other option but to bite if the human hand comes any closer.

"Maybe they'll get off on their own," Carter suggested, "Start exploring if we leave them alone."

"Yeah and maybe they won't," Jack replied flatly.

In a strange way, he felt a kinship with these howlers. They weren't the policy makers in their troop. He didn't even recognize them as the monkeys who'd been standing guard over SG-1 all this time. They were just foot-soldiers, going where their masters sent them, protecting their own as they understood how. Not unlike Jack himself. The way the group hung around Leroy was familiar to him, and he recognize the sort of bewildered hopelessness of the leader who doesn't know what to do but knows he can't admit that to his followers or else they'll panic and lose hope on him.

"Daniel," Jack said, waiting until Daniel's eyes opened, but not expecting them to focus in his direction (they didn't), "I'm not asking you to get up, but you gotta give me something."

For a moment, it looked like he was being hung out to dry. But then Daniel took a breath and rubbed his forehead for a moment. After that, he put his hand down where the grass had been torn away when he and Jack had landed, and started drawing something in the dirt without really looking at it.

Leroy barked again, but more inquisitively, with less hostility. Daniel persisted, looking neither at the drawing nor the howlers, clearly working from feel and memory. Jack wasn't sure if that was because Daniel couldn't see, or if he was trying to avoid being intimidating to the howlers.

Bobbing his head, Leroy stepped to the edge of the dais and peered at what Daniel was drawing. He tilted and turned his head, frustrated that he couldn't quite see until Daniel was finished. And then it turned out the howler still couldn't see on account of the steep angle.

Snarling a clear instruction at the others to stay, Leroy hesitantly came down the steps of the dais, one at a time, looking around suspiciously at each one as if it might bite him. He hesitated to touch the ground beyond the dais, foreign soil to him. But then he eased over it, sidling up to Daniel, who pointedly averted his gaze.

Leroy sat down to study the markings Daniel had made. He picked his nose for a bit, then scratched his head. Finally, to Jack's relief, he made a chuffing noise that seemed to beckon the other howlers off the dais. They shuffled off slowly, worried and fearful, but they came to him one after the other, then sat in a huddle around him, looking at the markings without apparent comprehension.

"What did you say to him?" Jack asked wonderingly.

"Uh... roughly translated... 'come look at this.'" Daniel said, sounding a bit embarrassed as he added, "It was all I could think of."

After the howlers had investigated the full depth and breadth of this sentence, they sat in a tightly packed huddle, rotated their heads and stared at Daniel, not with menace but with cautiously veiled curiosity. They looked so much smaller outside their home, so ridiculous out on open ground all sitting in a pile that it was hard to believe these were the same creatures that had chewed up and captured SG-1. These were the same creatures that had harassed and bullied them, the same ones that had chased them through the jungle, the very ones who might've killed them.

But with their fangs carefully sheathed, their hands sort of grasping futilely at each others fur as if seeking reassurance in their pitifully small numbers, tails curled protectively around one another, bodies hunkered down and shivering a little with the shock of it all, their faces suddenly became more expressive, and they were almost cute. Almost.

"I think you'll have to think of something else," Carter said, "To say, I mean."

Daniel looked thoughtful. More than that though, he still looked a little dizzy, and Jack didn't like that. Not that there was anything he could do about it, but it worried him. Head injuries were a messy, unpredictable business, and Jack had had his share of them.

Finally Daniel wiped away what he'd written and started working on something else. In utter silence, and with rapt attention, the howlers observed as he did so. When he finished, they peered at the writing, but only some of them seemed to understand it. Jack wasn't sure if it was because Daniel didn't have a good grasp of the written language, or if it was that only some of the monkeys knew how to read. Of course, the other possibility was that Daniel knew the language and the monkeys could read fine, but Daniel's ability to write distinctly had been compromised. Jack didn't want to think about that.

By this point, Carter had sat down against a convenient boulder, and Jack had joined her. Teal'c, evidently satisfied the monkeys weren't a threat for the moment, was scouting the area.

If he weren't so tired, Jack might've harassed Daniel endlessly about what he said to the monkeys. As it was, he was satisfied to just watch Daniel work. He was glad they were all free, all together, and all more or less in one piece. Too easily could it have been otherwise. Carter must have felt the same weariness, for she did not make any remarks until Leroy started writing responses to Daniel, at which time she nudged the half-dozing Jack to get his attention.

"So, how's it going over there?" Jack asked, pleased to see Daniel's eyes had finally focused on what he was writing, and that he was able to locate Jack when he looked around.

"They're scared," Daniel said, "But I think it's going well."

Jack grunted. Sometimes it was easier to communicate with the boots on the ground than the superiors in their offices and ivory towers. Of course, Daniel was also getting better at the written language of the howlers. And this particular pack was highly motivated to understand him instead of yanking his chain. Jack supposed the little pack of monkeys might consider themselves POWs, assuming they had concept for such a thing. Certainly they were cut off from all support, and must presume this was where SG-1 had come from. Surely they could imagine that more humans might be along any time. At least Daniel they were familiar with. At least Daniel they knew was inclined towards peaceful interaction (though he had really clocked the howler that had jumped him right before they made it through the Stargate).

"Daniel," Jack said, and waited for Daniel to look in his direction again, "We're not keeping them."

"No, I know," Daniel replied.

"When we get home, the first thing we do is send 'em right back where they belong."

"I know," Daniel said.

"I mean it," Jack persisted.

"Jack," Daniel answered, "You're the one who brought Teal'c home, not me."

Jack felt a momentary annoyance at this truth, but then he saw Daniel's grin, and he found he was so glad to see a genuine smile on the face of one of his team mates that he forgot to be irritated. Instead he laughed, and nodded agreeably. Daniel was right, of course. Jack had been the one to bring Teal'c home, and to fight for the Jaffa to be allowed onto their team. But if he hadn't, he was sure Daniel would've tried. The two of them were very different, and probably always would be, but not in the ways that really mattered.

A few hours later, it was proven that Daniel had made a good call. The Stargate activated, and SG-1 along with the howlers ducked just in case it wasn't friendlies. But then the familiar shape of the MALP appeared and the device trundled noisily down to flat ground to peer around.

Jack stepped out from behind the rock he'd been using as cover, and waved for the camera. A little over half an hour later, SG-1 was back home, along with the monkeys they'd picked up. The monkeys were shepherded to temporary isolation quarters to keep them out of trouble, SG-1 was ruthlessly driven by Dr. Fraser into the infirmary, where she and her nurses immediately set to work on them. That is, all except Teal'c. Seemingly only a little scratched, Teal'c was allowed to go free and make SG-1's report to General Hammond before reporting in to the infirmary (Teal'c had learned long ago not to waste effort claiming it was unnecessary for minor injuries; Janet Fraser was a tiny tyrant with a medical degree who wouldn't have tolerated protests from the President of the United States had he been a potential patient of hers).

Sure enough, Jack's hand was broken, and one of the spots where the thorns had stuck him the first day had started to get infected. Carter had gotten away with a sprained ankle. Daniel had gotten the most chewed and beat up, but surprisingly had taken the least damage, all of his bites, scratches and bruises being superficial, though Dr. Fraser did want to keep him under observation on account of the head injury, a prescription he opted not to buck.

Between the pain relievers they were given and it just flat seeming like too much trouble to go to the surface and get home, the team opted to stay at the SGC, though Jack and Carter did escape the infirmary at the first opportunity, preferring the quarters that had been set up for them as senior staff of the SGC. Jack's quarters were like a small, ugly, windowless hotel with no room service, but to Jack they had almost become more home than his actual house, because he seemed to spend more time at the SGC than he did anywhere else on Earth.

Daniel was obliged to remain in the infirmary while Dr. Fraser was monitoring his condition, something he was very sulky about. All of SG-1 resented infirmary time, to such an extent that they usually wouldn't even hang around long if one of their number was stuck there. They'd stop for a brief visit, but then they were out. The only time they spent a lot of time in the infirmary when they weren't under Fraser's orders was during a vigil for a friend in critical condition. Then you could count on one or more of the team to be present at all times, much to the annoyance of Fraser's nurses, who found SG-teams running around loose underfoot to be highly inconvenient (this being another reason nobody hung out in the infirmary if they didn't have to; it was a courtesy to the medical staff, who had limited space to work with. Despite plenty of space for a medical wing, the bunker had not been designed for large numbers of casualties at once; most of the rooms were long and narrow).

After a quick nap, Jack made his way unerringly to the base mess, where he was not surprised to find both Carter and Teal'c. Because of the 24/7 nature of what went on at the SGC, and the differing time zones teams had to adjust to coming and going from planets, there was always fresh food available in quantity for whoever wanted it, even aside from the stuff that would keep like cereal and several kinds of bread. Normally the team all liked an amount of fruit, though Teal'c most of all, but not one of the three touched a single fruit-like food this time. In fact, Jack didn't feel like having anything sweet today, and so avoided the desserts as well for once. He felt like he'd had enough sugar to last him to the end of the week, if not for the rest of his life. He did go for some coffee though.

"Oh, Coffee, how I have missed thee," Jack said, and then he drank an entire mug of the brew in a couple of gulps; amusedly ignoring Carter's wide-eyed stare.

When he put his coffee cup down, he looked at her and grinned, to kind of reassure her that he was being goofy on purpose. So often odd behavior was the signal that things were about to get messy because someone was diseased or possessed or replaced by a clone or something. Carter smiled back, and he could see his relief that they were all alive and well and home mirrored in her blue eyes. Somehow it just wasn't real that a mission was over until they got to sit down and take a breath, eat some food, drink some coffee and crack some lame jokes.

Teal'c as usual seemed not to have been ruffled by the experience, though it looked like he'd taken about half the available food in the mess and dumped it onto a tray for consumption. With Teal'c, lunch was a lengthy, methodical affair. Jack never did quite lose the wonder at Teal'c's capacity, and he had sometimes half-wondered if he could steal the Jaffa away for a hotdog eating contest at a County Fair or something. Teal'c could probably eat all his hotdogs and those of the other contestants and still have room to spare for pie after. The sight of the Jaffa's steady and surprisingly quiet eating was further proof all was right with the world again.

After eating all he could comfortably hold, Jack sat back in his chair with a sigh, and just kind of watched while Teal'c continued to eat. Carter too seemed disinclined to get up and move after she'd finished. But there also somehow didn't seem to be much to say, or any need to say it.

In truth, Daniel was the major talker of their group, and meals were invariably pretty quiet without him. But on his way into the mess Jack had run into a nurse, who had said Daniel was sleeping when she went off for lunch. Jack always had trouble sleeping in hospitals, even if it was just the infirmary at the SGC, but that sort of thing never did seem to trouble Daniel. Daniel could sleep just about anywhere, Jack supposed. Jack liked to think he could also do that, but Daniel just always had to go that extra annoying mile, in this case meaning he could even sleep in a hospital bed.

"What do you suppose will happen to the howlers?" Carter asked suddenly.

Jack knew she was just opening conversation. She knew as well as he did what was likely to happen.

"Probably Ol' Doc Fraser'll examine 'em, and then we'll ship 'em home," Jack replied, "May have to wait for Daniel to wake up though. The monkeys like him now."

It actually had less to do with liking him, and more to do with understanding him. While waiting on the planet, Daniel had put in several hours of communication with the monkeys. Jack didn't know what all they'd talked about, but Jack could tell it had been more in-depth than 'How-do-you-do.' They weren't Ents after all. As it had turned out, they weren't a lot like the Bandar-Log either, seeing as they seemed to have a purpose and organization that was at least vaguely recognizable even to Jack.

"Knowing Daniel, he'll try to establish a dialogue," Jack muttered, half annoyed and half amused by that potential reality, "Once he gets a taste of success, he never lets go."

"Even if he doesn't," Carter corrected mildly, "He'll do what he thinks is right."

"Well I for one have had it with the ape-men and their planet," Jack said, "So Daniel can talk all he wants, but I'm not goin' back there, and neither is SG-1."

Carter said nothing, but laughter danced in her eyes when she looked at him. They both knew full well that, if Daniel pushed hard enough, he was likely to get his way. Daniel could be highly persuasive when he wanted to be, and vicious if he had to be. He'd fight or he'd grovel, no hesitation or shame in either, just so long as he managed to make himself heard. If Daniel really thought it important to go back to that godforsaken jungle planet, he'd find a way to make it happen. It didn't matter how long it took, or how much anyone protested, or who he had to verbally thrash or which boots he might have to lick. Daniel was relentless in his pursuit of a goal.

"We're not going back," Jack insisted.

"I didn't say anything," Carter said, but there was a bit of a giggle under her words that Jack couldn't help but hear, and she exchanged a significant glance with Teal'c who for his part looked suspiciously cheerful, like he wanted to laugh too, but was unwilling to sacrifice his grave dignity to do so.

"We're not," Jack repeated, but even he wasn't deaf to the weakness in his voice as he said it.