General Landry strode into the briefing room, having just taken a detour to the Infirmary. Four fifths of his flagship team got to their feet from their seats around the briefing table, the remaining fifth currently being examined in the Infirmary by his daughter, Carolyn, and the base's Psychologist. His face only showing a small fraction of the true anxiety he was feeling for the team's Archaeologist and Linguist, he nodded at the rest of the team in greeting and said before as he sat down in his usual place at the head of the table, gesturing with his hands briefly,

"At ease."

The team sat down, and the General looked at Sam, who was doing her best to look professional but her eyes gave away, as they usually did, the true state of her emotions. Landry said, his hands clasped in front of him on the table in front of him as he leaned forward, now intrigued at the scrapes that only SG-1 – and Daniel – appeared to get into,

"Colonel, what can you tell me about Doctor Jackson's... visions? He's not being exactly forthcoming about it, and both Carolyn and Doctor Hutchinson are trying to understand what's happening."

Sam nodded, her hair tied up in a ponytail. "Well, Sir. It's understandable. He was worried that he might be going mad, but the recent visions have led him to believe otherwise."

As the others exchanged concerned looks, Landry asked, his eyebrows going up a micro fraction as he considered the possibility of SG-1 being down one man, one very important man during such a critical time, "What do you think?"

She grimaced. "Personally Sir, I don't think he is. Initially I thought that it may have been stress due to everything he's been through in the past year with Adria and Merlin... and what with the wedding coming up." She looked at Landry, looking ready to get up. "If I may, Sir."

Landry nodded in acquiescence. "Go ahead, Colonel."

Sam got up and activated her laptop as Teal'c got up to switch the lights off, and everyone turned to face the front as an image of Jonas Quinn was projected onto the whiteboard at the front of the room. Sam stood to one side and gestured to the image,

"Teal'c, you may remember... and Cam, I'm sure you've read the reports for this." Cam and Teal'c nodded as Vala looked from the screen to them and back again, looking bored and then suddenly interested. "About five years ago, during the time that Daniel was among the Ascended, Jonas began to experience visions of the future... or rather, different futures, which started off a chain of events which ultimately led to the then Colonel O'Neill, and Teal'c managing to escape an ambush off-world. These visions were unpredictable and with some of them, it wasn't clear as to what would have to happen first for a certain vision to become reality."

She sighed quietly as the image changed to one of an MRI scan showing a side view of a human brain. She picked out a small dark spot with a laser pointer near the front of the right lobe, and Cam asked, frowning as he tried to remember the precise details from the reports pertaining to the incident, "Wait... is that..."

Sam nodded. "It's a brain... Jonas' brain. This was the first scan that Doctor Frasier conducted. You can see the spot here." Several images flicked onto the screen consecutively, the dark spot progressively growing larger. She looked at her friends, looking concerned. "The source of Jonas' visions was a tumour situated near the top of the right frontal lobe. The right side of the brain processes images and feelings, whereas the left processes logic. The tumour was made up of ordinary human brain tissue, but with neurons five times more densely packed than normal, suggesting that perhaps Jonas had developed a higher brain function via the tumour, which then allowed him to see what he had. Doctor Frasier hypothesised that perhaps this was a legacy of what Nirrti had subjected him and his people to."

The image changed to one of another MRI scan but with a different head shape and minus any dark spots. Next to it was a colourful image of a brain from the top, the different colours indicating varying degrees of energy consumption. Sam said after a brief pause to collect her thoughts,

"Daniel's preliminary MRI came back clean... but..." she gestured to the colourful image. "... his PET scan shows abnormal activity in the frontal region of the brain." She gesticulated with her hands as the screen went blank and Cam got up to switch the lights back on. "Jonas' visions had a concrete cause – a tumour as a result of generations of genetic manipulation and engineering on Nirrti's part." She looked at the General. "Perhaps Daniel's visions could be a legacy of the year he spent with the Ancients... perhaps a suppressed memory. We still don't know much about that period."

Vala raised a hand as Cam looked at his fiancée sceptically, Teal'c raising an eyebrow. "Ooh. I know... he didn't like the Ancients... how they went about doing things."

Sam smiled briefly and nodded politely. "Apart from that." What she was about to say died on her lips as Daniel walked in, the Archaeologist not wearing his glasses, and she looked at him in concern. Cam asked, looking concerned too as he looked up at Daniel from his seat,

"Jackson, you done with Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy?"

When Landry looked at him reprovingly, the Colonel shrugged, and Daniel nodded, remarking, "For the time being." He pulled a memory stick from the pocket of his fatigue jacket, saying to Landry, glancing at Sam,

"General?"

Landry sighed, waving dismissively. "Go ahead... we've already been through Colonel Carter's scientific hypotheses."

Daniel couldn't help but smile briefly as he made his way to the laptop and Sam, slightly embarrassed, went to switch the lights off, asking as she sat down again, "Where's your glasses?"

The General and the rest of the team noticed how drained Daniel looked as he replied distractedly, typing into the laptop, "I'm fine... I know what you guys look like so I don't need to squint... and I've memorised these slides. I could do this presentation blind-folded."

Cam glared across the table at Vala again when she remarked, ever so slightly amused until she noticed Cam's expression, "Kinky."

Daniel looked in her direction for a moment, staring at her blankly, and she rolled her eyes. Cam then looked at Teal'c seated next to him, muttering, "Presentation? The guy was in the Infirmary."

Daniel cleared his throat, glancing in Cam's direction before beginning as his focus moved more towards Landry. "I think I may have found a cause of these visions that I've been having." He suddenly frowned and looked at Sam, remembering something.

"Sam?"

Sam tossed her laser pointer to him and he caught it in his fist, smiling faintly in thanks before continuing, "They were just nightmares... or so I thought until I began to have them during the day too. They have been growing in vividness, and the overall composition of these visions has been a box... or a chest opening, and a bright light coming out of the chest. And then an exploding mountain. Just recently, they've become vivid enough for me to see Merlin stood in front of the chest as it opened... and somehow I knew what the chest was..."

A slide appeared on the whiteboard, showing a line of Ancient letters, and Daniel highlighted each letter with the laser pointer. "Armeria verimas. It's Ancient... and loosely translated... it means 'Ark of Truth'. If my research is accurate, this could be it... this could be what we're looking for... to stop the Ori forces once and for all."

Cam sighed, looking frustrated as he covered his nose and mouth with his hands, and he was about to speak, when Landry asked, looking intrigued, "What does it do?"

The slide changed to a drawing of an elaborate looking dark box, and Daniel glanced at the image. "There is a mention in some Ancient inscriptions I found on Dakara last time we went... and in the Asgard archives, of a device that an Alteran scientist invented. The device, or the Ark, was built with the intention of turning the tide on the rising power of the Ori. It was intended to essentially indoctrinate them with... the truth. The Alterans however chose not to use it because of their steadfast belief that freedom of will should prevail... they acknowledged the device's great potential but they may have also been scared by that same power, lest it be turned against them." he looked around at his friends. "The Ark of Truth, if it exists..." he sighed as he gestured expansively with his hands. "... it could change everything. It could stop the crusades and the bloodshed and the oppression..."

Cam cleared his throat and raised his hand briefly. "Wait a second... this is mass indoctrination we're talking about. Giving people back their free will and letting them see the Goa'uld for what they really were was one of the things that changed the tide of the war against them."

Daniel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look, I'm not saying it's right." He looked at Cam. "It's a way... and for the time being, the only way that we have."

Landry nodded and thanked the Archaeologist before the latter took a seat in between Sam and Vala, the dark-haired alien touching his forearm in concern. Landry then asked as he processed what he had been told,

"How do you explain the presence of the visions?"

Sam and the others looked at Daniel in renewed interest as he replied, glancing down, "Merlin."

Sam said, looking even more worried, "But he's dead."

Daniel nodded, raising a finger briefly. "I had his consciousness inside of me... I even exhibited abilities similar to the ones Jack did when he'd downloaded the Ancient Repository into his head the second time. What if Merlin had left a latent memory in my head prior to his consciousness dying inside of me? It would explain..."

Sam shook her head. "But it's highly unlikely."

"Why?"

"Well... for one thing, Merlin was an Ancient who retook human form... but he retained Ancient knowledge in his head. Now surely if the Others allowed him to do that, to carry that knowledge, there must have been some rules with regard to divulging it. We're talking about knowledge that could change the course of human development far faster than even the Stargate program has. The Ancients have laws against downright intervention."

Daniel couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Sam... it's not downright. Downright would be him... or Morgan appearing right now and telling us the exact location of the Ark." Vala looked around the room just in case Daniel had tempted fate. "When the preprogrammed restoration in my DNA occurred, destroying Merlin's consciousness and returning my body to the state it was in prior... um... before I was turned into a Prior, it's not impossible for some knowledge to have stayed behind... just a small amount. I doubt that it ever really did take everything."

Sam sighed. "Even so... what's to say that this isn't just the product of your subconscious mind?"

Daniel raised an eyebrow, his voice getting dangerously low. "I saw Merlin in the gateroom... I've never hallucinated like that before. And besides, if it was the product solely of my subconsciousness, why would I have the same visions over and over again? Surely there would be some marked variance?"

Cam, sensing that things might get out of hand but also curious as to what Daniel had just revealed, held up his hands for a moment. "Whoa, hold those horses... you saw Merlin... in the gateroom?"

Daniel nodded, replying, his gaze lowered, "Minutes before I had the big vision in Sam's lab."

Cam stared at him for a moment and then said, glancing at Vala and then at Landry, "I think this might be worth looking into, Sir..."

Teal'c immediately jumped in, not giving Cam a chance to finish as he asked, "Would not a return to Dakara be the most logical step to take?"

Daniel nodded as Vala looked at him in concern, Sam too. "Yeah..." he looked at Landry. "... We know, Sir, that Dakara is the first place the Alterans landed in the Milky Way, so perhaps..." he shrugged. "... it could be there."

Landry nodded once again and replied, looking dubious, "Understood, Doctor Jackson." He looked at the Archaeologist, his eyes silently assessing the younger man before he said, "If we know about the Ark..."

Cam said, looking at Daniel critically, "If this exists in the first place... surely the Ori forces would know about their supposed kryptonite and stop at nothing to find it and destroy it... or exploit it."

Landry said, looking at Cam and then at Daniel, "Which is why we've got to get there first, Colonel." He stood up and the others immediately stood too. "SG-1, I'm authorising an urgent mission to Dakara at 1700 hours..." he looked around at the four slightly disappointed faces and the one that remained impassive. "... which should give you enough time to sort things out amongst yourselves. Dismissed."

Daniel piped up. "With all respect Sir, it could take days... weeks even..." everyone else exchanged troubled glances, and Landry replied with a sigh, making a mental note to ring Jack,

"It remains our only viable option."

The General left the briefing room for his office, and SG-1 stared at each other in the silence that followed as the magnitude of the situation hit them as well as a sense of manifold destiny. Vala was eventually the first to break the silence as she looked from Cam to Daniel and back again.

"Wait... the wedding's next week. If this takes days or weeks..."

Cam nodded, looking at Daniel, a challenging gleam in his eyes for all of a moment before he grimaced and looked down at the table. Teal'c said sternly before leaving the room with a nod,

"This is far greater than us all. We must proceed with this mission to stop the pernicious crusades and the oppression that is blighting the lives of many throughout two galaxies. It is only a matter of time before a large scale attack is launched on the Earth. Matrimonial ceremonies can be postponed and rescheduled; this cannot."

Sam sighed, remarking with a slight raise of her eyebrows, "He's right."

Cam retorted, shaking his head, "Well, it's ok for him – him and blonde Xena are just guests 'cos they're still at the homicidal stage of their relationship. What is it about Jaffa lovin'?"

Vala chuckled softly. "They're incredibly violent lovers when they want to be..." she smiled, feigning innocence as Cam glared at her. "... and that's all I'll say on the matter."

Daniel grimaced as disturbing images of Teal'c as well as Ish'ta began to filter into his consciousness. "Good." He looked at Sam, who nodded, knowing what he was going to ask, and he placed a hand over hers, their hands resting on the back of a chair. He looked at Cam and Vala and said,

"Look... I..." Sam squeezed his hand and he glanced at her. "... we... don't want to ruin things for you guys. You two, and Jack and Sara can still get married." He shrugged. "Sam, Teal'c and I can go... we've been a three-man team before now."

Cam and Vala instantly objected before exchanging another glance, this time a surprised one, and Cam said, cocking his head as he glared at Daniel, "Hey... come on... that's just splitting the band up... which is just wrong. You're gonna need us all... and how the hell are we gonna be happy being stuck here while you're facing off Ori soldiers off-world? We can't let that happen... and anyway, I don't think General O'Neill's gonna want to go through with it without you at least."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

A little later, a once more bespectacled Daniel walked into Sam's lab, having come from another medical examination – this one for the upcoming mission – and took a seat near hers, watching the oblivious Colonel work... or at least try to work. When she sighed in frustration as she worked on her PC, he said quietly,

"I'm sorry."

She looked over at him, startled, remarking as she eventually smiled, a hand to her chest for a moment, "Daniel... I didn't hear you come in."

"I know... didn't want to disturb you."

She switched the computer off and turned to face him, holding his hands as she asked, looking worried as well as a little amused, "What are you sorry for this time?"

He grimaced a little as he looked down at their hands, and he exhaled. "For my behaviour in the briefing room. It was uncalled for. We're all pretty stressed about everything... and this hasn't helped matters." He raised his eyebrows deprecatingly. "So I'm also sorry for getting us all bundled off on a mission in a couple of hours."

She looked disturbed that he was apologising, and he met her gaze. "I just need to know one thing, Sam... just one thing."

Looking increasingly worried, she asked, "What?"

"Do you believe me?"

She frowned in confusion at the question and the way that he looked at her earnestly. "Of course I do."

He nodded, looking a little more relieved as he gave her hands a squeeze. "That's all I needed to know." He shook his head, his eyes closed as he looked down again. "Sometimes I don't believe me... I just..." he sighed, opening his eyes. "... what if I am really mad and I've essentially killed everyone because General Landry trusts me enough to send us all to Dakara like this?"

She looked stunned at his self-doubt despite knowing him so well. "Oh... Daniel. No, of course not. It's not blind faith, believe me... you argued your case very well. If anything, I'm sorry for arguing with you about the veracity of the visions."

"I'd be more worried if you'd just accepted my crazy talk without question."

He reached out to touch her cheek and said softly, knowing that with all probability they could actually die during the next mission, the odds seeming higher than ever before now that they were following a lead on something so dangerous, "Sam. If we..."

She shook her head, knowing what he was about to say but not wanting to hear it. "I know." Her eyes moist, she reached out to touch his cheek gently, stroking his jaw as they sat close enough to each other that their knees were touching. "Me too... with everything that I have." They gazed at each other for a moment before she slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He held her in his arms, memorising every detail of her, the feel of her body in his arms, the taste of her kisses, the feel of his fingers in her hair; storing away the memories for the no doubt tough times that lie ahead of them and the rest of the team.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Meanwhile, Cam and Vala lie in bed in the Colonel's quarters on-base, one of Cam's arms holding Vala close to him as the other was bent and under his head. He remarked as his hand moved over her bare torso, the Colonel looking thoughtful,

"That's part of why I like being on SG-1... Jackson makes a seemingly wild guess which then turns out to have a basis in reality... and we go on adventures across entire galaxies..."

She looked up at him, looking troubled as she noticed how distant his gaze was. "You don't look particularly happy about it."

He sighed. "I am... it's just that it couldn't have come at a worse time... but it's so much bigger than us... than all of us. It's our responsibility to do this. T was right... it really is only a matter of time before we get surrounded by ships, like the Earth in that alternate universe that Sam disappeared into not long after Adria took Jackson."

She nodded, staring up into the darkness of the room as she wistfully thought of her daughter. She sighed, closing her eyes as she turned to face Cam, her head now under his chin, and he said softly, worried at her demeanour, "Hey..."

She shook her head, her eyes still closed as her voice sounded strained. "Sometimes I think I could have tried harder to reach Adria. The fact that she kept trying to reach me... I just thought that there was some humanity in her, but I was wrong. She's... evil through-and-through."

He rubbed his hand up and down her upper arm and he kissed her hair, resting his cheek against it. "It's not your fault, Vala... she's just a tough cookie. Scratch that... she's a cookie in ten coats of super glue."

She chuckled humourlessly, her hand slowly moving on his chest. "That certainly is a tough cookie."

"I'll say." He turned over to look at the clock on the nightstand, and he said, turning back to her. "We better get dressed soon otherwise we'll be late... and Landry's gonna be in a foul mood if we're late again."

"Hm." She exhaled, slipping an arm around his waist as she rested her head against his chest. "Just one more minute. I don't want to forget this."

Knowing that she was at least as worried as he was about the odds of coming home again, he kissed her, his fingers tangled in her hair. "We won't, baby."