"You think that was wise?" Jack asked with a raised eyebrow.

Daniel felt like he was on the verge of throwing up. The fear singing in his veins had made him dizzy before the phone call, and what he'd heard on the other end of the line had brought that to a screeching crescendo that had generated an intense buzzing in his head. Breathing evenly to keep himself from shaking, Daniel holstered his weapon as Jack went on.

Jack continued, "He could come back. Besides, with what he knows-"

Daniel cut him off, "Nobody would believe him. Nobody ever believed me. Besides, we haven't got time for him now. We need to get back to the SGC. Give me your keys."

Jack cocked his head and asked suspiciously, "Why?"

"Jack, Sam's sick," Daniel answered, "Dr. Fraser thinks it was something she ate. Something you ate."

"What about you?" Jack wanted to know.

Daniel shook his head, "Maybe, but not likely. But just... give me your keys and let's go," seeing Jack still hesitating, Daniel persisted, "Look, I'd rather not have to carry you down the stairs."

With obvious reluctance, Jack tossed Daniel the keys to his truck. He didn't look particularly sick to Daniel, but apparently it had hit Sam pretty suddenly, and he preferred not to take the chance. He didn't know how Dr. Fraser had zeroed in on a specific class of the fruits they'd eaten, maybe it was just hope on her part, but he had to act on the information he'd been given, which was that the suspected fruit was one of the several he hadn't been able to stomach due to allergies.

As they left the apartment, Jack paused and said, "Keys."

Daniel felt around in his pockets, found the keys for his apartment and locked the door behind him.

"Happy?" Daniel asked.

"Delighted," Jack replied, and led the way down the stairs.

Jack continued to look okay most of the way down the stairs. Then, without warning, he suddenly went gray and started to collapse. Daniel caught him on the way down, bracing himself sufficiently that they didn't fall the rest of the way down the stairs together. The stairs were too awkwardly designed for Daniel to actually pick Jack up and carry him, but he managed to drag Jack down the stairs and maneuvered the older man into the passenger seat of Jack's truck.

"She wasn't kidding about sudden onset," Jack mumbled quietly.

Daniel was partway through buckling him in, and the comment made him pause for half a tick, then he finished snapping the seat belt into place.

"Hang in there, Jack," he said, backing out of the cab to shut the passenger door and go around the other side.

"If you ding my truck, I'll have to kill you," Jack managed weakly when Daniel got in the driver's side.

"Wouldn't be the first time I've died," Daniel replied, starting the engine.

"No," Jack agreed with a slight chuckle, "No it wouldn't."

Despite his attempt at levity, Jack really didn't look good, and didn't appear to have the energy to actually move. Daniel was a long way from being a medic, but he did know enough to guess that it probably wasn't the fruit itself, but some kind of contaminant. Possibly something introduced that interacted only with some of the fruit. Something that took some time to incubate, or possibly something that the human immune system could fend off a few times until it was weak enough to succumb to it. Either way, Daniel suspected there wasn't a lot of time.

As he pulled out, Daniel realized he'd never driven Jack's truck before. In fact, trucks weren't really his thing at all. It moved a lot differently than his little car. Still, he'd recently made handling dangerous machinery he knew absolutely nothing about a part of his career, a pickup truck was no match for him.

There was of course no point in calling a hospital, since this was bound to be some kind of virus or something the likes of which no Earth doctor had seen or knew how to cope with, and the SGC didn't actually have an ambulance on call strangely enough. Typically people came in sick through the Stargate, and there was no need to deliver them to the SGC because they were already there. Under the circumstances, Daniel was the fastest -and safest- option.

Even though his instinct was to screw the speed limit and the stop lights, Daniel knew that getting stopped by the cops would eliminate any time advantage he might gain from that, and of course an accident would be even worse, so he did obey the rules of the road... mostly. But it wasn't long before he was on that practically deserted stretch on the way to the base where almost nobody drove unless they too were on their way to the SGC. At that point, he dropped any pretense of being a law-abiding citizen. By then, Jack had ceased to be responsive, and Daniel got the sense that a clock was ticking, and time was short.

The guards at the gate had been told he was coming in. They not only knew Jack's truck, they had personally seen it drive out just a short while ago, and so they made no pretense of checking IDs, simply waved Daniel through. Fortunately, Daniel didn't have to get any further than parking the truck, because Dr. Fraser had a team to meet him there.

He'd barely shifted the truck into park when Janet Fraser was up in it, checking Jack's vitals, talking to him and recognizing there was no response, then backing out to let her orderlies haul Jack out and put him on the gurney they'd brought with them. In the meantime, Daniel got out of the truck and came around the side, at which point Janet intercepted him.

"How are you?" She asked.

"I'm fine," Daniel answered.

His insides were churning, but that wasn't illness, it was fear. Apparently Janet could tell the difference at a glance, because she seemed to believe him and didn't pressure him about it. She didn't have to ask him to come with her though. He was worried enough about his team mates that he followed the medical staff as closely as if he'd been leashed to them.

On the elevator ride, Janet asked Daniel a series of questions concerning what he knew about the fruit the team had eaten off-world. Daniel's recollections were surprisingly sketchy, he really hadn't been paying a lot of attention to the fruit at the time.

When she paused in her questioning long enough, Daniel asked, "Are they going to be alright?"

"I don't know," Janet answered, "It would really help if I had a sample of whatever it was that caused this. As is, anything I come up with will be a shot in the dark."

Janet was very good at those, and Daniel didn't doubt for a second that if anyone had the ability to solve this the hard way, it would be her. After all, she'd somehow not only ruled out any casually acquired diseases, but also seemed to have dismissed the possibility of infected bugs transmitting something via bite (and, considering the number of bug bites they'd gotten, that seemed a reasonable suspect), all in just a short while. Daniel didn't question how she'd done it, or how sure she was.

"You'll get your samples," Daniel promised when they reached the infirmary.

"Do I want to know how you're going to accomplish that?" she asked.

"Probably not," Daniel answered honestly.

Janet looked at him for a long moment. As chief of the medical staff at the SGC, she knew him well. As his doctor, she knew him even better. They weren't close friends like she and Sam had become, but they knew each other enough. As Daniel trusted the good doctor to do her job, she trusted him to do his.

"Be careful," was her only advice.

Daniel nodded, looked around and spotted Teal'c. He didn't have to say anything to the tall Jaffa. Their eyes met, and Teal'c understood what they were going to do without a word. Silently, he inclined his head. Daniel turned and left the infirmary, knowing without looking that Teal'c was following him.

Deciding to take a page out of Jack's book, Daniel skipped looking for permission. Making only one stop in his office for an unlined notebook and pencil, Daniel went almost straight to the holding cell where the howlers were. The airman watching the door took one look at Teal'c and immediately moved out of the way without any protest. Teal'c had that effect on people.

The ragged little pack of howlers which were looking increasingly nervous jumped at Daniel's abrupt entrance, and again when he dropped his notebook on the table in the center of the room.

Picking the one Jack had called Leroy out of the group, Daniel said, "We need to have a talk."

Less than thirty minutes later, while Daniel and Teal'c were gearing up, CMSgt. Walter Harriman located them.

"General Hammond wants to speak with you," Walter said, addressing himself to Daniel, but acknowledging Teal'c's presence with a respectful look.

"Tell him that I'm going," Daniel said, in the process of lacing up one of his boots, the one he kept his boot knife tucked into.

Walter, always with a good instinct for plucking context out of the air, replied, "You don't have to go, you know. There are other teams."

"None of them have the knowledge that I have," Daniel replied shortly, "And General Hammond knows it."

"Don't you think you should at least get his permission first?" poor Sgt. Harriman, always tied firmly to the chain of command, often had trouble understanding the true nature of SG-1.

SG-1 operated under SGC law only superficially. When it came to the tough calls and saving the world, it wasn't unusual for them to not only buck orders, but actively ignore them. Hammond let them get away with it because he knew them, trusted their abilities, and wasn't the pompous ass he often pretended to be in front of his superiors. Normally, Daniel would have done the courtesy of talking to him, making a show of respect for his authority, not only for the benefit of Hammond's superiors later, but also because he respected the General himself, as respected few uniforms. But he felt that clock in his head ticking away, and sensed neither Jack nor Sam had time for him to go through formalities.

"Why don't you get his permission and give it to me in the Gate Room?" Daniel replied.

Walter opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it. He was not an argumentative man by nature, and even his loyalty to the uniform wasn't enough to convince him it would be worth the effort of arguing with Daniel. In fact, only strangers, fools and Jack himself would make the effort to have an argument with Daniel once he was firmly decided on something. Walter was no stranger to Daniel, nor was he a fool. And he certainly wasn't Jack O'Neill. So he simply went away without another word.

"You ready for this?" Daniel asked Teal'c.

"I am," Teal'c replied, and together they headed for the Gate Room.

In the Gate Room, they found General Hammond had not only granted them permission to go, but was sending two teams, SGs 3 and 5, as backup and support. Between them they had the howlers which had been retrieved from their cell while Daniel and Teal'c were gearing up, suggesting both teams had been called in and told to gear up around the same time Daniel had received the phone call at his apartment. As if General Hammond had foreseen this, and made the decision as to how he would react to Daniel's actions before Daniel had ever known he would be performing those actions.

There had been a time when the teams might've objected to following the lead of an archeologist and an alien, but that time was long since passed, and the only thing that happened when Daniel and Teal'c walked in was the team leaders gave them respectful nods and fell in behind them.

The Stargate was already in motion, but Daniel paused at the base of the ramp and looked back.

"You have a go," the voice of General Hammond himself came over the PA system.

"Thank you, General," Daniel said genuinely, under the sound of Walter announcing the locking of each chevron in its turn.

The howlers yelped and flattened against each other as the 'Gate activated, but there was nowhere for them to go and they knew it. They also knew -but perhaps didn't fully believe- that they were going home. Daniel had told them that, it had been part of their original conversation that the howlers would be returned home, and the most recent discussion in the cell had reaffirmed that.

"Give us a five count," Daniel told the SG-team leaders, "Then let the howlers go. You follow."

There were no objections, so Daniel took a breath and closed his eyes for a moment as he turned towards the Stargate. He glanced at Teal'c beside him, gathering courage from the Jaffa's steady calm. And then he started up the ramp, Teal'c right with him all the way. They went through together.

His strategy was simple, and based on the understanding of the howlers he'd gained. He and Teal'c were both the distraction and the declaration that the people of Earth were not afraid of the howlers, and that -unlike Scar- Daniel didn't need a pack of body guards to precede him. The howlers to follow were a peace offering. Lastly would come the firepower, and any violence that came from them would be a statement that making enemies of Earth would be a deadly mistake. Daniel was done playing. It was time Scar -and by extension all the other howlers- took him seriously. Time they understood the fire they'd been toying with.

On the other side of the Stargate, the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. Daniel wasn't surprised to see howlers sitting in the trees near the Stargate. He was not surprised to hear their roaring fill the air, warning the rest of the pack, and perhaps requesting backup. Daniel and Teal'c stepped clear of the Stargate.

When a howler leaped down from its tree and came charging, Daniel pulled out his M9 and shot directly in the monkey's path. The bullet sliced into the ground, kicking up chunks of mud. With a startled yelp, the howler broke off its charge and went back to the trees.

The five count was up, so the half dozen howlers that had dared follow the team through the Stargate now returned to their home. They had clearly stepped through under protest, their nerve failing them at the last moment. For an instant, they stood still as statues, looking around, taking in the landscape, seeing it was familiar, perhaps even recognizing the faces of friends and family in the trees. They took off for the trees, and neither Daniel nor Teal'c moved to stop them.

SGs 3 and 5 followed, taking defensive positions around the Stargate. The howlers in the trees shouted and jeered, but none dared rush forward. When they finally quieted down, Daniel knelt in the grass to wait, his M9 still out of its holster. Teal'c stood next to him, still and solid as stone. SG-3 and SG-5 settled in to wait, following Daniel's lead even though they didn't know what he was doing.

Ten minutes later, either boredom or curiosity got the better of one of them.

"Uh, how long are we going to sit here, Dr. Jackson?" Col. Makepeace asked.

"As long as we have to, Colonel," Daniel replied neutrally, knowing his calm tone and cryptic words would irritate the marine more than anything, and secretly enjoying that.

Daniel didn't get along well with marines, even ones he liked.

"You're not gonna try to catch flies with chopsticks now, are you?" Makepeace inquired.

"Sorry," Daniel replied with a trace of a smile, "Left those in my other pants."

Seconds crawled into minutes, into half an hour, into forty-five minutes, into an hour, into over an hour.

Finally, the telltale shrieking and shaking of branches told Daniel that Scar was coming. He stood up, signaling the teams to hold positions with a wave of his hand. Their support was more than welcome, however their interference would not be. Howlers flooded out of the shadows, but instead of moving into the open, they flowed along the treeline, reluctant to leave its cover. The SG-teams tensed, weapons at the ready. Daniel, on the other hand, holstered his pistol. He did not instruct any of the others to do the same.

But he did say, "If Scar comes this way, let him. Stop any other monkey in their tracks, but don't hurt them if you can avoid it. A shot into the ground should do it."

"And if it doesn't?" Makepeace asked, low-voiced.

"Do what you have to," Daniel advised, "But don't make my job harder than it has to be."

Eventually, the howlers fell silent, and Scar emerged from the trees. There was no sign of Ginger, but in truth that didn't surprise Daniel because he suspected she was actually Scar's mate, which was why she had been kept back until Scar was assured of SG-1's helplessness. Now he again kept her away.

Scar looked smaller than Daniel remembered, and he moved with unaccustomed meekness. Apparently what his howlers had told him on their return had frightened him. Daniel had planned that too. He didn't have to make up any stories about the SGC and Earth; the truth was sufficient.

In fact, it was apparently more than sufficient. Several yards away from Daniel, Scar stopped suddenly. Apparently this was a signal for some other howlers to start forward. Daniel held up a hand to counter his last instructions to the SG-teams when he saw what they had with them. The howlers were bringing a peace offering of their own, bringing forward all of the gear they'd taken from SG-1, most of it more or less intact. The howlers took it only as close as where Scar waited, and then scampered back to cover. Scar waited, and Daniel understood.

"Wait here," Daniel said, and waited for no acknowledgment before he stepped forward.

When he reached Scar, he waited for the howler to sit before doing so himself. Daniel had shed the submissive persona he'd shouldered last time he was here, but he did not reach into his memory for the nature of the Goa'uld. What was needed now was just him, as he was, no pretense, only truth.

And the truth was that Daniel didn't hate the howlers, not even Scar. He didn't bear them any ill-will. He knew much of their behavior came from inexperience dealing with aliens, possibly even any groups outside their own; the rest was an impish sense of curiosity and childish temper. He couldn't hold that against them. They weren't evil really, just boisterous and self-absorbed. The truth was that the first Earthlings sent out to see aliens had been sent with the intention of wiping those aliens out. That was the original Abydos mission. The one Daniel had -with Jack's help- thwarted, in the process destroying Ra, freeing the Abydonian people, and unintentionally kicking off a war with the Goa'uld. Their record with aliens was hardly without blemish.

But while he wanted Scar to understand that they didn't have to be enemies, it was more vital that Scar understand that Daniel's friends -his family- were in trouble, and that he was willing to do anything to save them, and it was up to Scar to determine just what that anything would prove to be.

Keenly aware of the time ticking away, Daniel wanted to just demand fruit and be done with it. But he unhappily realized that he still had to lay a foundation with Scar. They had to reach an understanding.

"Let me tell you a story," Daniel began, "about a race called the Goa'uld."

With that, he got out his notebook and began to write.

"Make sure those get to the infirmary," Daniel said to Teal'c when they returned to the SGC, handing off the basket of fruit they'd gotten from the howlers.

Unspoken though it might have been, Daniel was officially the leader of this latest expedition. Ideally all members of teams sent out would come in for debriefings, but often those lower ranked on the mission would be allowed to come in late, or be excused entirely when the teams brought something extra back. In this case, a basket of fruit. In the meantime, Daniel and the rest of the SG-teams would be going to the briefing room where they would make their report to General Hammond.

Because this had been Daniel's mission, he carried most of the responsibility not only for anything that had happened, but reporting it in detail to General Hammond. Daniel had more than once come to explain an idea, a theory, or a discovery, but even when he was temporarily attached to other teams he was not their leader. Even so, it was not the first time he'd led a debriefing.

The teams assembled in the briefing room, and waited for General Hammond. They didn't have to wait more than a few minutes before the General came out and assumed his customary position.

"Good to have you back," he opened, initiating a fairly relaxed debrief.

General Hammond seldom demanded formality. Near-retirement, and comfortably confident that his people respected him without needing to be hard-ridden to do so, General Hammond was perhaps the only authority figure that either Jack or Daniel truly liked, certainly the only one that had the respect of the both of them. He had their respect because he knew how to step back and let them do their jobs, and because he knew when to throw the weight of his rank and position around. He was their commander, but he was also their supporter when they were in the field, and their staunch defender against the rancid claws of the governmental types who would seek to shut them down, or even do them harm. He was the ultimate voice of authority they answered to, but he was likewise their champion in times of political upheaval.

"Good to be back, sir," Daniel replied, even though in his case the 'sir' was unnecessary.

"How'd it go?" Hammond asked, his curiosity getting in the way of his usual patience.

"Well," Daniel answered, "I think it went... well."

Teal'c entered and took his seat beside Daniel without a word. There was no need to apologize for tardiness; everyone was well aware of where he'd been and what he'd been doing.

"How are Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter?" Hammond asked, and Daniel was immeasurably grateful to him for it.

Daniel of course had had no news of Jack or Sam since before he'd left, and it had taken pretty much all of his self-control to make himself come here instead of going to the infirmary first. He knew also that it was his place here and now to continue his report to General Hammond uninterrupted. But he wasn't sure he could've managed to do that. General Hammond was kind enough not to force him to find out.

"Dr. Fraser reports that their condition is stable for the moment. She says she is optimistic that the plant matter we brought back will aid her in her diagnosis and development of a cure."

"That's good," Hammond said.

He didn't prompt Daniel to continue from where he'd left off. He didn't have to. Daniel launched immediately into a recap of what had happened, skimming over the finer details of what he'd said to Scar and how he'd said it, not to withhold information, but because he would include it later in a written mission report. The General liked briefings and debriefings to be... well... brief. Everyone appreciated the saved time, and the spared stress that lengthy meetings caused.

When Daniel came to a natural break, Hammond asked, "Are they interested in trade negotiations?"

Daniel was reminded again how much he liked General Hammond. The man knew that sometimes relationships started off on the wrong foot. And he knew the value of the historical knowledge Daniel was always keen to acquire. Almost anyone else would have shut down the very idea before it was proposed, citing SG-1's capture, injuries suffered and subsequent illness at the hands of the howlers. But General Hammond wasn't so closed-minded. He had many years of military service, and -up until the Stargate- he'd basically seen it all. And too, he was something of a historian himself, albeit his interest was primarily in recent (which to Daniel meant less than a few thousand years ago) -specifically military- history. Hammond knew as well as Daniel that sometimes there was violence, potentially a lot of it, before an alliance was forged.

"I think maybe they are," Daniel answered, then sighed, "But we have a long way to go."

He didn't say so, but he knew his part in it was nearing its conclusion. There were teams whose job it was to continue dialogue and establish negotiations. SG-1 typically had a different purpose. If Daniel had the spare time, he always helped out with diplomatic and trade missions, but often he didn't have the luxury. Likely he would provide introductions -and a foundational course in the language- for a team devoted to diplomacy, and then he would be recalled to resume his duties as a member of SG-1. He didn't mind.

For some reason, the mysteries of the howlers no longer plagued him. He realized now that while the information that might be found in their history could be crucial, it could just as easily be nothing. It wasn't worth obsessing over.

Not right now.

As the debriefing had drawn to a conclusion, Daniel became keenly aware of how tired he was.

Checking in with Janet and finding that Jack and Sam's condition was unchanged but Janet's optimism in their prognosis was likewise the same, Daniel also extended his thanks to her for not trying to stop him from going on the mission, to which she replied, "Could I have stopped you?"

Dr. Fraser was a tiny woman, but she carried the full weight of her medical degree and her seniority without difficulty. Many was the time the stern click of her heels as she walked had foretold the sudden demise of some ill-conceived venture, as she pulled medical rank and forbade an excursion. She was not to be trifled with and, even if someone managed not to like her, they still wouldn't dare cross her. However, force of nature though she might be, going up against Daniel -who at times resisted even her authority- was sometimes a contest of the irresistible force and immovable object, requiring a third party (usually Jack, but sometimes Hammond or even Teal'c or Sam) to break up the stalemate.

In truth, Daniel didn't know the answer to the question, and said as much. Janet's only response was a small, knowing smile.

Daniel next went in search of an airman going off duty who could drop him off at home. Jack would snag any airman, any time, anywhere, for anything he pleased, but Daniel preferred not to inconvenience the people he worked with when he could avoid it. He did enough ruffling feathers and harassing people just doing his job.

He wrangled a young tech, whom he discovered to his discomfort was in awe of most of the teams that ventured off-world, but most particularly any member of SG-1. He endured the man's unabashed hero worship in virtual silence, too tired by now to do anything else. In fact, he must have fallen asleep at some point because he was startled awake by the sound of the tech shifting his vehicle into park. He thanked the young man for the ride, pleaded exhaustion and shuffled off toward his apartment.

The exhaustion wasn't a lie, Daniel was bone-weary, the kind of weary that comes from expending every ounce of physical and mental stamina you have, facing not only terror, but the demand to think of solutions on the fly in life or death situations. The weariness always hit Daniel after a mission, and he was ever grateful for the SGC's work scheduling, which reminded him of how firemen worked. Missions were extremely and unpredictably taxing, so there was always time off at the end of a mission unless some sort of crisis prevented it. Of course, people like Daniel and Sam often came in even when they didn't have to, ruthlessly pursued by their inner demons, which bade them never leave a project unfinished, even though there was always another project waiting in the wings.

So it was that Daniel wasn't terribly alert when he reached his front door, and he'd already walked through it before he remembered that he had locked it when he left. In that same instant, all hell broke loose, beginning with the sound of a bullet being launched from the barrel of a gun.