Daniel stood behind Walter's chair in the control room, overlooking the gateroom of the SGC. The Archaeologist, his arms folded across his chest, was waiting for SG-3 to return from a mission, hoping to catch the Archaeologist who had accompanied them. He hadn't had much in the way of time recently to carry out his usual duties in off-world archaeology and linguistics, what with the situation with the Ori, not forgetting too the messy politics and in-fighting of both the Lucian Alliance and the Free Jaffa; and he had hoped that he could take advantage of a 'quiet' couple of hours, by his standards anyhow, to actually begin to feel remotely like the man he had started at the SGC as, rather than the soldier that he now almost saw himself as.

He sighed quietly as he thought that in a week's time, he and Sam, Mitchell and Vala, Jack and Sara... and maybe even Teal'c and Ish'ta – should his Jaffa team-mate give in to Jack's repeated persuasions – would all be married. It had been pretty tough to even get this far, and he knew that things weren't going to get better any time soon what with their primary enemies continuing their fanatical crusade across the Milky Way, and the Ori galaxy. And that was without taking into consideration what Atlantis was dealing with.

They had agreed by common consent that honeymoons would be out of the question... for the active members of SG-1 at least.

It would be worth it though, he thought. All their stress and worries would all prove to be for naught, hopefully, and he and Sam would finally be husband and wife. He smiled slightly as he thought of Sam, and how much more stressed she had been over the past few months – how she, Vala and Sara had had repeated fallings-out over small details in their, as Mitchell had began to call them, weekly covens.

The sound of the 'gate activating shook him out of his thoughts, and he looked at the 'gate moving and clunking into life as the Iris immediately covered the rippling surface of the event horizon. As Landry joined them, Daniel nodding in greeting at the General, Walter called,

"Receiving IDC, Sir... it's SG-3."

Landry cleared his throat and said, "About time. Let 'em through."

"Yes, Sir."

The Iris almost immediately opened, the event horizon appearing to illuminate part of the gateroom as SG-3 returned through it. Daniel was about to leave the control room to intercept a colleague when something stopped him. At the foot of the ramp as the 'gate deactivated, he saw an elderly man with long light grey hair and a long beard of the same hue. The man wore long silver robes and carried a long white staff that was studded with light blue jewels around the top of it.

The man looked straight up at Daniel with a determined expression on his face, and then he looked behind him at the Stargate, raising his free hand in its direction. Daniel frowned as he stared at the man, recognising him to be Merlin.

A hand on his shoulder startled him, and he looked to his right to see a worried Landry who had called his name several times prior to the contact. "Doctor Jackson?"

Daniel quickly looked back at the gate ramp and saw nothing but an Airman sweeping it. He frowned, and Landry asked, "Doctor Jackson, what's wrong?"

Daniel, still frowning, asked as he looked back at the General, "You didn't just see an old man in long robes down there did you?"

When Landry looked at him as though he had just asked him which Hilton sister he preferred, Daniel shook his head and muttered, leaving the control room, "Thought not."

0o0o0o0o0o0

Cam casually wandered into Daniel's office, his hands stuffed into his pockets, to find Vala sat on the desk, intently reading a book from a pile that propped up her left elbow. Cam frowned, wondering what reality he had slipped into, and he remarked,

"Haven't seen you so into a book since Sam got you all those Harry Potters last Christmas."

Vala raised a finger, indicating for him to wait a moment as she continued to read, and he folded his arms across his chest, watching her with barely concealed amusement as she finished what she had been reading. She looked up and said with a shrug as she hopped off the desk,

"Thought I may as well start pulling my weight around here... not that that's going to be a difficult enterprise seeing as I'm..." she seductively ran her hands down her waist, feigning innocence, all the time aware of Cam's eyes on her. "... rather slender anyway..."

He rolled his eyes in exasperation. "We're at work."

She shrugged again and grinned at him as she hugged him around the waist. "I know. It's just fun testing your rather dubious self control."

He smiled as he held her, and he asked, glancing at the open door and hoping for all the world that Landry wouldn't take that opportunity to walk past, "What's with the books?"

She sighed as she rested her head against his chest. "You know... Daniel has all those books... I was just curious." she looked up at him mischievously. "I thought they would be full of pictures of naked women, but it turns out they're all full of pictures of naked men. Now, I'm not one to complain..."

He shook his head in disbelief and she went back to the desk, her voice a little less playful. "I like Emily Dickinson... she has a nice writing style... and Charles Dickens." she looked up at Cam as he, bemused, followed her. "Do you think SG-1 have encountered him in their previous travels?"

He shrugged as he turned over a copy of Homer's Odyssey to read the back cover. "Wouldn't surprise me in the least... although I have it on good authority that they haven't."

"Hm. Shame."

He chuckled and looked at the haphazard pile of fictional material on Daniel's desk. He asked, glancing at her, "Don't you think that you ought to put them back before Jackson comes back? You know how he gets about you being in his office."

She remarked brightly, waving dismissively, "Oh, he's ok with it... otherwise he wouldn't let me be in his office all alone."

"He doesn't. Actually, I seem to remember him making a habit of locking it... after that thing with the Aztec sculpture... chiefly, the breakage of said sculpture."

"Well then, that means that I don't have to put them back." she shrugged with a mischievous smile. "He'll do it anyway when he catches me here and throws me out."

0o0o0o0o0o0

Sam looked up from her PC at her lab, a phone to her ear as she talked to Bill Lee, to see Daniel leaning in her doorway, a troubled look on his face. Concerned, she waved at him, partly in greeting and partly as a means to invite him in, and she said into the phone,

"Ok... uh-huh. Look, I'll call you back, Bill. Team meeting. Yeah." she chuckled nervously. "Ok. Well, it sounds more professional and is a better alibi than saying my boyfriend's here. Ok, talk to you later." she put the phone down and asked as she looked up at Daniel, noticing him fiddling with a device on her lab table,

"Daniel? Are you ok?"

She got up to close the door, and he replied, turning around so that his lower back was resting against the lab table, "I saw Merlin in the gateroom."

She faced him, asking in confusion, "Merlin? As in... formerly Ascended Merlin?"

He nodded, looking strained, and she, worried, hugged him, asking as he rested his head against her shoulder, his eyes closed, "Did anyone else see him?"

He shook his head, whispering glumly as he held onto her, "I've finally gone nuts. They'll be putting me in Nick's old home before the week is out."

She smoothed the back of his head. "Hey, don't say that." she kissed the tip of his ear. "We've all been stressed with the big wedding... maybe it's coming out differently in you. You always have to be unique." she couldn't help but smile at that, and he sighed.

"Maybe."

Suddenly, his eyes still closed, the darkness was replaced by a vivid image of a flat-topped mountain collapsing in a huge explosion. The image changed to a dark box opening, a huge beam of light shooting out of it, and then nothing as everything faded into darkness within seconds of the start of the vision.

Sam, who had felt him tense up and had heard him gasp, asked as she looked down at him in her arms, "Daniel?" Even more worried when he didn't reply, she held him by his upper arms and tried to look into his face. "Daniel?"

At last, he opened his eyes with a gasp, and, breathless from his vision, murmured, his eyes appearing to look straight through her,"Armeria verimas." He finally focussed on her worried face and said, looking scared, "The Ark of Truth. We have to find it – it's our only hope."

"Our only hope against what?"

He looked at her, apprehension and determination duelling in his eyes. "The Ori."