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Chapter Text

"So, Carter, what are you doing for Christmas? Only four days left, ya know."

Captain Samantha Carter pulled herself out of her silent reverie and turned toward the man who had spoken. She tried, and failed, to hide her surprise at the casual tone of the question. "Sir?"

"Christmas? You know, chestnuts roasting, bells jingling, stockings hung with care and all that?"

"Yes, sir."

"So what are you doing?" Colonel Jack O'Neill raised his eyebrows on the last word. He knew that Carter was expecting an explanation for the strange timing of the conversation, but the best he could give her was a short nod of his head toward the figure that huddled against the wall three feet to her right.

Sam followed Jack's directed gaze and her initial confusion was replaced by understanding. "Oh, not much. I'll probably just stay home, eat a TV dinner, and watch old movies all day. My father's busy, and my brother ..." Sam paused, unsure of how to continue. "Well, he's just too far away."

"What about you, Teal'c? Any plans for Christmas?"

"I have no plans," the Jaffa answered, his eyes moving slowly between Jack and the still silent form against the wall. "I do not understand this Christmas."

"Well, Daniel could explain it better than I could." Jack turned a hopeful expression toward the opposite wall. "Daniel?"

Sam leaned back slightly, looking around her upraised arms to see the man to her right. Daniel Jackson slumped with his arms raised above his head, suspended there by two heavy manacles that circled each wrist and were secured to the stone wall by large bolts. His bonds were no surprise to Sam; she, Jack, and Teal'c were restrained in exactly the same manner. What worried her - what worried them all - about Daniel were his posture and bearing. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his back was pressed heavily against the wall behind him, and his head hung limply between his arms. The bruise that covered most of the left side of his face had darkened to a deep blackish purple, and a large bandage covered the day-old gash in his forehead. His injuries had been treated and had seemed to be healing well. Then things had gotten bad.

Seeing no sign of movement other than the steady rise and fall of his chest, Sam glanced across at Jack and Teal'c and shook her head slowly.

"Daniel?" Jack tried again. "Hey, Daniel, you awake over there?"

"Hm?" The groggy response was accompanied by a hesitant head being lifted and long hair falling across closed eyes. "Jack?"

"You're awake!" Jack responded, forcing his voice to express a cheerfulness that he did not feel.

"I wasn't," was the soft reply. "What'cha want?"

Jack exchanged worried glances with Carter and Teal'c before turning his attention back to Daniel. "Teal'c here doesn't understand Christmas. How about you open your eyes and explain it to him?"

Long eyelashes fluttered briefly, but stilled as a hiss of pain echoed through the small room. "How 'bout I don't?"

"Come on, Daniel," Jack urged. "Teal'c really wants you to."

"I do not," Teal'c argued.

"Yes, you do," Sam and Jack protested in unison.

"I do not," Teal'c repeated. "It was O'Neill who suggested ..."

"Teal'c." Jack almost glared at the large man seated three feet to his right. "You do want Daniel to tell you." The tone of Jack's voice made it clear that disagreeing was not an option. "You do."

"I do," Teal'c conceded quickly, capitulating to Jack without understanding why and turning his eyes back to Daniel.

"He does," Jack repeated, leaning forward as far as his bound arms and awkward position would allow. He ducked his head and attempted to see Daniel's face, only to find it still hidden behind his tousled hair. "Daniel?"

"I'm tired, Jack." Daniel leaned his head against his right arm, wincing at the pain that even such a small movement caused him.

"How's your back, Daniel?" Sam's concern at Daniel's obvious distress continued to grow. "Does it still hurt?"

Daniel nodded slowly, hissing once again. His eyes stayed closed.

"What about your head?"

"Yes," Daniel whispered. His breath caught in his throat as he spoke. The flickering torchlight reflected from the tears of pain that rolled down his cheeks unchecked.

Jack, Sam, and Teal'c looked around at each other again. Sam's eyes threatened to release the tears that filled them, and Jack's lips were set in a tight, grim line. Teal'c closed his own eyes briefly before speaking again.

"I wish to hear of this Christmas, Daniel Jackson."

The only responses were the alternating sounds of breath being drawn and shallow gasps of pain.

"Tried that already," Daniel's strained and quiet voice finally offered.

Jack glanced at his companions in dismay. Daniel was obviously having trouble staying focused, and his words were making less and less sense as the day wore on. "Tried what, Daniel?"

"Christmas. Explaining it. To Sha're." Daniel's lips quivered slightly in what might have been a smile. "Didn't work."

"You tried to explain Christmas to Sha're?" Sam breathed a quiet sigh, relieved that Daniel did appear to be at least marginally still aware of what was going on around him. That he wasn't bothering to inform them of his full thought process was cause for concern, but at least his mind was still functioning.

The answer was another small nod and a soft moan.

"What happened?" Jack shifted his position slightly, trying to pull himself as close to Daniel as possible.

"Mastadge ham," Daniel whispered.

"Ewww." The sound of revulsion escaped Jack's lips before he could stop it.

"Yeah," Daniel agreed. He leaned his head back carefully until it was resting against the wall behind him. With his forehead still pressed against his arm, he squeezed his eyes shut against another wave of pain. "They put candles... in the palm trees. Skaara thought... make snowballs with sand. Kasuf... wasn't happy."

Jack fought the urge to laugh and lost the battle. The mental image of the Abydonian elder being pelted with handfuls of damp sand brought forth a soft chuckle.

"What about presents?" Sam asked, enjoying the story despite its stunted retelling.

"Yeah, Daniel, what did you get Sha're for Christmas last year?"

"Hair ribbons," Daniel answered, his soft voice almost wistful. "Red... red something. Looked kinda like silk."

"I imagine they looked wonderful on her," Sam mused.

"Beautiful."

Everyone in the room noted that Daniel's momentary happiness was quickly sliding into despair. Jack swallowed hard and forced himself to speak.

"What did she get you?"

Daniel didn't answer immediately. Small sounds escaped his lips, and his shoulders began to quiver slightly.

Jack mentally kicked himself for his thoughtlessness. He had only wanted Daniel to keep talking; he hadn't imagined the conversation reducing the man to tears. "Daniel?"

Daniel lifted his head again, and his friends were shocked to see that rather than crying, he was laughing. The sound was small, as were his movements, but it was definitely laughter. "My glasses," he finally managed. "She didn't quite... grasp the concept. She took my glasses... I was asleep... wrapped them in paper... from my journal ..."

Jack and Sam laughed then, too, in spite of their worries. Teal'c simply watched, not understanding how anyone could find humor in their situation.

"It sounds like a wonderful memory," Sam remarked with a smile.

"The best Christmas... of my life ..." Daniel's voice faded as the effort involved in speaking sapped his waning strength. His head lolled against his arm once more.

Jack's gentle laughter died and he watched, helpless, as Daniel lost his tenuous grasp on consciousness. "Daniel?" Although Jack hadn't expected a real answer, he was dismayed when he didn't receive even so much as a moan. "Daniel!"

"Damn it, Jack, what?" Daniel's eyes flew open, but he slammed them shut again immediately. "Why the hell... why can't you just... let me sleep?"

Jack swallowed and looked from Sam to Teal'c as his concern approached panic. "You still haven't explained Christmas to Teal'c."

"Presents and sand," Daniel whispered. "Palm trees and candles. Glasses, hair ribbons, mastadge and stuffing... it was snowing. No, wait, it doesn't... does it snow on Abydos?" Daniel scrunched his face up as he tried to concentrate.

"Come on, Daniel," Sam pleaded. "Stay with us, please!"

"Right here, Sam," was the hushed reply. "Can't go... can't stay... can't... can't see? Jack, I can't see!"

Sam squeezed her eyes shut and turned away in despair.

Jack's voice cut through the room, steady and strong. "You've got your eyes closed, Daniel. Why don't you open them and look at us?"

"I can't." Daniel's shoulders started shaking and a sob broke through his voice.

"Why can't you, Daniel?" Jack kept going, determined to keep Daniel with them as long as possible. He focused his attention solely on the man suffering so much three feet away from him. He was only marginally aware that Teal'c had risen to his feet and was using every ounce of strength that he possessed in an effort to break the chains that secured him to the wall of the small cave.

"Why can't you open your eyes?"

"It hurts!" The desperate cry bounced between the walls; the terrified voice burned its way into the ears of the three witnesses to its owner's pain. "God, Jack, it hurts... hurts so much ..."

"I know, Danny," Jack whispered. "I know it does. Just hang on, okay?"

"You must continue to fight, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c's voice took Sam and Jack by surprise; they were shocked to see him suddenly free, pulling against the bolts that held Jack's shackles to the wall. "You will be free in only moments, and we will return with you to the SGC. Until then, you must fight to remain here with us."

Jack wrapped his hands around his chains and pulled himself to his feet. He turned his back to Daniel, braced his right leg against the wall and leaned back, adding his weight to Teal'c's as they pulled against the bonds.

"Did you hear that, Daniel?" Sam asked through anxious tears. "We're going home. You can't give up now."

"I just... want it... to stop." The words were broken by the sound of teeth chattering against each other. Sam was on her knees in a heartbeat, leaning forward against her shackles as far as she could. "Stop... stop hurting ..." The tremors moved out from Daniel's shoulders until his whole body shook. His chains rattled noisily as a seizure gripped him in its claws and sent him thrashing.

"Colonel!"

Chapter Text

Jack snapped his head around at Carter's frantic cry. At the sight of Daniel flailing around in his chains, Jack felt his heart start to pound. "No! Damn it! Daniel!" Jack spun back toward his own shackles, pulling against them with everything he had. "Teal'c, get me out of these damn things! Daniel!"

Jack and Teal'c pulled furiously against the chains. It was becoming obvious that Teal'c's bolts hadn't been as strong as Jack's were turning out to be. Both men grunted with the effort as they strained, their muscles tight and sweat beading on their faces.

"Colonel ..."

Jack blocked Sam's quiet plea out of his mind and focused solely on getting out of his restraints and trying to reassure Daniel. "Just hang on, Danny. I'm coming. I'll be... right... there!"

As the last word crossed Jack's lips, he and Teal'c managed to dislodge the bolts from the wall. The sudden lack of resistance threw both men off balance. Jack flew across the room and landed hard on his back at Daniel's feet.

Ignoring the pain that was now shooting down his own spine, Jack scrambled to his feet and lunged for Daniel. "Teal'c, get him loose!"

The command was unnecessary. Teal'c had already wrapped his large hands around the chains and braced one foot against the wall. His arms bulged as he pulled against the bolts that secured Daniel's shackles to the wall above him.

Jack reached out and grabbed Daniel's face in his hands, heavy chains still dangling from the large metal bands that circled each of his wrists. "Daniel! Look at me! I'm here... I'm right here."

Daniel's thrashing slowly abated as the seizure released its hold on him. He slumped to the floor, his whole weight suspended from his arms and his head lolling back.

"O'Neill, I cannot release him in this position," Teal'c said softly, looking down at the men at his feet. "If I attempt to use the chains as leverage, Daniel Jackson will be injured."

Jack nodded his head quickly. "Sorry about this, Daniel," he whispered, knowing that what he was about to do would cause the younger man more pain, but also knowing that there was no other choice. Jack positioned himself as far behind Daniel as possible, pressing himself into the small space between Daniel's upraised arms and the wall. With a deep breath, Jack wrapped his arms around Daniel's chest and pulled. Daniel moaned deeply and his eyelids fluttered. It took only seconds for Jack to haul Daniel back into a seated position. The chains and his arms went slack as the pressure against them was relieved.

Teal'c grasped the bindings in his strong hands again and resumed his efforts to pull them from the wall.

Jack sat for a few seconds, breathing through the fading waves of pain from his back. He was seated behind Daniel, with his legs to the side and Daniel's shoulders resting against his chest. Jack reached out with his right hand and placed it against Daniel's forehead, gently pulling the too-warm head back to rest against his left shoulder.

"God, he's burning up," Jack whispered. He wrapped his left arm more tightly around Daniel's chest while he used his right hand to brush the sweat-soaked hair out of Daniel's eyes.

Jack heard Sam whimpering to his left, and he looked up at her. He knew that he should say something reassuring to her, but at that moment he had no idea what to say. He shrugged slightly, wanting nothing more than to be able to tell her for a fact that Daniel would be all right. So upset was he at being unable to do that, and unwilling to lie, Jack couldn't even bring himself to smile for her.

Sam understood Jack's lackluster response. At least he and Teal'c were able to help Daniel; she was still chained to the wall three feet away. She couldn't even touch him, much less help him. Knowing that there was nothing more she could do for any of them, she gave Jack the smile he had been unable to give her.

"The bolts are nearly free," Teal'c announced.

Jack nodded and looked back down at Daniel. The wide blue eyes that stared back at him were a surprise.

"Daniel?"

The younger man blinked at him in confusion. "Jack? Wha's goin' on?"

Jack smiled at the slurred words, relieved to hear Daniel's voice again. "Oh, same old same old. You know how it is," he answered, glancing up at Teal'c to check his progress. Another few pulls and Daniel would be free. "How are you feeling?"

"Hm... bad," Daniel said softly. His eyes fell closed again. "Eyes hurt... neck, back... headache ..."

"Yeah, I know," Jack whispered. He turned his face away and leaned his head against the wall, suddenly feeling very tired and very, very old.

"Jack?"

Jack closed his eyes briefly before lifting his head and turning back to answer.

"Yeah, Daniel?"

"I think... think I'm sick."

Jack leaned back against the wall once more. "Yeah, Danny. Yeah, you're sick."

"O'Neill."

Jack looked up at Teal'c's quiet summons. The Jaffa nodded toward Daniel's arms, then at the bolts above them. Jack understood the unspoken concern, and reached above his head with his right arm. He grasped both manacles tightly in his hand, and with his left arm drew Daniel closer to him.

"Hang on, Daniel. This might hurt a bit."

Daniel nodded slowly, turning his head until his cheek rested against Jack's chest. "Okay."

Jack nodded at Teal'c. The large man gave one last great pull, pushing against the wall with his leg. His muscles rippled and his face flushed, sweat pouring down in rivulets as he strained against the chains. At last, the wall released its hold on the ancient rusted metal, and the bolts flew free. Teal'c stumbled back at the shift in balance, dropping the chains immediately, but somehow managed to stay on his feet. Daniel moaned involuntarily as the sudden momentum yanked his arms forward, but Jack's tight grip on the shackles stopped the movement from causing him serious harm.

"Teal'c, help me," Jack said softly.

Teal'c was on his knees at Daniel's side in less than a second. He wrapped his large hands around Daniel's wrists gently. As Jack released his hold on the manacles, Teal'c lowered the archeologist's arms until his hands came to rest in his lap.

"Your jacket ..." Jack began, but found it unnecessary to finish the thought. Teal'c had already removed his jacket, folded it, and placed it on the ground.

"Okay, Daniel. We're just gonna lay you down now, okay?"

Jack felt Daniel's nod against his chest, and glanced up again at Teal'c. The Jaffa moved slightly, until he was on his knees directly across from Jack. The two exchanged concerned glances. With a deep sigh, Jack spoke again. "All right, let's do this."

Daniel felt Teal'c's strong hands on his shoulders, and Jack's cool hands behind his head and neck. He knew they were moving as slowly and carefully as they could, but he couldn't stop the cry of anguish as pain flared to life in his spine, shot up his neck and exploded behind his eyes. By the time his head came to rest against Teal'c's folded jacket, tears were running freely down his cheeks.

"Get Carter loose," Jack ordered as he pushed himself to his knees. He leaned over Daniel and placed his hand against a fevered cheek. "Shhh... it's okay, Daniel. It's all right."

"Jack... make it stop. Oh God, please... make it stop."

Jack swallowed the lump in his throat, but he couldn't hide the moisture in his eyes as he looked up toward the other two members of his team. "Carter?"

Sam forced herself to look away from Daniel, blinking her own tears away as she met her commander's eyes. "We've got morphine," she answered. "Over there, in my pack."

Jack reached for the pack that had been thrown into the corner of the cave and dragged it closer. After fumbling with the buckle for a few seconds, he threw it open and started digging, speaking softly to Daniel as he did.

"Okay... okay, Daniel, I'm gonna make it stop, okay? I'm gonna make it stop hurting." He found what he was searching for, and pulled the syrette from the small box with his fist clenched in triumph. "Here we go, Daniel. Just a little longer. Give me your arm. We need to get your jacket off. Can you do that?"

Daniel nodded slowly and tried to move onto his side. Jack helped him roll, letting Daniel's back rest against his thighs, then took the cuff of Daniel's sleeve between his fingers. A quick visual comparison of the tight cuff and the large band of metal that circled Daniel's wrist convinced Jack that the jacket would be impossible to remove entirely without causing Daniel to suffer tremendously. "Okay, well... let's just get it off your shoulder. We can do that. Just a little more, Daniel. This might hurt, but it'll all be over soon." As gently as he could manage while still moving quickly, Jack pulled down on the jacket until Daniel's upper arm was free of it. He then pulled the sleeve of Daniel's black T-shirt up and out of the way.

"Teal'c, how's it coming over there?"

"Captain Carter is nearly free, O'Neill."

"Okay, great. You hear that, Daniel? Carter's almost loose. As soon as she is, we're gonna get you home. You can hang in there that long, right?"

"They caught us... once ..." Daniel whispered.

"Ah ah! Don't even talk like that. That is so not gonna happen again." Jack ripped a sterile wipe open with his teeth, then shook it out and wiped it across the back of Daniel's arm. "We're going home, Daniel."

"You could... could run ..."

"No!" Jack's answer was more forceful than he intended, and he saw Daniel flinch. He took a deep breath and concentrated on softening his voice. "Daniel, I said we're going home. We. As in all of us. I told Tuathal, and I'm telling you. If we go, you go. If you stay, so do we." Jack pressed the syrette against the warm skin. "Okay, little sting here." Daniel jumped slightly as the needle penetrated his arm. "It's okay. Just a few minutes now, Daniel, and it won't hurt any more. I promise."

Jack pulled the syrette away and rubbed the injection site with his hand. "All done." Jack gently tugged Daniel's sleeves back into place and rolled him onto his back again. He reached out and laid his hand on Daniel's forehead. "Hey, you still with me?"

Daniel's nod was almost imperceptible. Jack patted Daniel's cheek in response before raising his head and looking up. "Teal'c?"

Teal'c didn't answer, and Jack glanced toward the loosened bolts that held Carter's chains. Remembering his own experience with sudden freedom, and noticing that Carter was pulling as hard as he himself had been, Jack tried to shout out a warning. "Carter, brace your ..."

The bolts broke free, and Sam Carter found herself in a very undignified, and painful looking, heap at Teal'c's feet.

"... self," Jack finished, a slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Chapter Text

Sam scrambled to her feet, pushing herself forward and falling back to her knees at Daniel's side in one motion. "Daniel?" She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead and then against his cheek. She felt his skin burning against hers and shook her head-she couldn't tell how high his temperature was. She slipped her left hand under his shirt and pressed her palm against his chest. Still unable to determine just how high the fever had gotten, she leaned down and pressed her lips against his forehead.

"Sam?" she heard Daniel whisper.

"Yeah... yeah, it's me." She bent down closer to him, resting her own cheek against his. The heat that flooded through her skin from the contact terrified her.

"Um, Carter... what exactly are you doing?"

Sam glanced up at Jack, confused by his question. Jack raised his eyebrows and tipped his head in the direction of her left hand, which had moved lower and now rested against Daniel's stomach. Her eyes grew wide in shock and she blushed as she pulled her hand out of Daniel's shirt and straightened.

"He's got a fever," she declared.

"I knew that," Jack answered, a slightly bemused grin on his face. "I didn't even have to feel him up to figure it out."

Sam tried to ignore the baiting, but felt the warmth of blood rushing to her cheeks. "A hundred and three," she announced, looking from Jack to Teal'c and back again. "If not higher."

Jack jerked his head toward the corner of the room and stood. Carter answered the silent command by pushing herself to her feet and following him to a point that was far enough away from Daniel that he would not hear the conversation they were about to have.

Finding himself alone, and fearing that Jack was making plans to stay on the planet, Daniel reached out with his hand and struggled to push himself up.

"Jack! No... don't... I'm okay ..."

Jack spun toward the quivering voice. His feet had already started carrying him back toward the searching hand, but he stopped when he saw Teal'c kneeling at Daniel's side in Jack's place.

Teal'c grasped Daniel's outstretched fingers between his own, his large right hand enveloping them completely. Teal'c's left hand came to rest on Daniel's chest, comforting him and preventing him from rising at the same time.

"I am here, Daniel Jackson. You are not alone."

Daniel shook his head and bit his bottom lip in response to the lessening pain that had flared back up with the movement. He forced his eyes open and found himself looking up at Teal'c's concerned features through barely-opened eyelids. "No... Teal'c, tell Jack... I'm fine ..."

"You are not," Teal'c replied gently.

"I am," Daniel insisted weakly, again trying to lift his head from the floor. "I can... I can walk ..."

"You cannot."

"I have to!" Daniel gave up on getting himself up, and his head collapsed back into Teal'c's jacket. "Tell Jack... please... I can do it... We can all... go home ..."

Teal'c moved his left hand from Daniel's chest to the top of his head, sliding his fingers through the damp hair and forcing Daniel to look at him.

"O'Neill will not leave you, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c looked down into hopeful blue eyes and his face softened. "I will not leave you."

Daniel smiled back at his unlikely friend and protector. No matter what happened, he would not be alone. He let his eyes fall closed again and his head sank more deeply into the jacket that pillowed it.

Across the room, Jack pulled his eyes away from the scene on the floor and focused them on Sam Carter.

"Okay, what's wrong with him?"

"Colonel, I'm an astrophysicist ..." Sam began.

"Okay, let's just cut through all the crap right now. You're not that kinda doctor. Got it." He leaned closer to her and fixed her with his determined gaze. "But you're the closest thing we've got to a medic right now. I know you know what's going on, and I don't. I don't like not knowing what's going on, Carter."

"But, sir, there's no way for me to know for sure ..."

"Carter." Jack's tone invited no more stalling.

Sam sighed deeply. "Okay. His symptoms were sudden, right?"

"I'd say so. Yesterday he thought he'd pulled a muscle in his back."

"So, sudden symptoms. Back and neck pain, severe headache, fever, confusion, seizures, sensitivity to light ..."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm not gonna like this?" Jack asked quietly.

"He's got almost all of the symptoms, Colonel. It looks to me like it's a textbook case."

"Of what?"

Sam took another deep breath and forced herself to look Jack in the eye. "Meningitis, sir."

Jack winced. "I knew I wasn't gonna like this. Meningitis? You're sure?"

"As certain as I can be. I only know what I've read, sir, but it certainly does sound like it."

Jack tilted his head to the side as he considered the weight of Sam's words. "People die from that."

Sam nodded slowly. "Some do, yes."

"Okay, well that's not gonna happen." Jack made his declaration with certainty, and turned back to Sam. "But there's a chance you're wrong, right? I mean, you said 'almost all the symptoms.' So there's some he's missing, right?"

"Nausea and vomiting ..."

"O'Neill!"

Jack and Sam turned toward Teal'c's sudden cry. Sam closed her eyes and turned away again quickly; Jack fought the urge to do the same. Teal'c still knelt on the floor at Daniel's side, but instead of holding their friend's hand, he was holding the retching form of Daniel Jackson tightly in his arms.

"Oh, crap." Jack allowed his eyes to close momentarily, and drew a ragged breath before opening them again. "Come on, Carter." Jack grabbed Sam's arm and pulled her behind him as he walked back to Daniel and Teal'c.

Teal'c was just settling Daniel back to the floor when the pair reached them. Jack knelt down at Daniel's left side, carefully avoiding the evidence of the latest symptom. He reached out with his right hand and brushed the long, sweaty hair out of Daniel's eyes again.

"Hey, Daniel?"

"Jack?" Daniel turned his head slowly, opening his eyes and trying to focus on the man at his side. "Hey."

"We're gonna go home now, Daniel, okay? We're gonna take you home."

"Jack ..." Daniel raised his arm and tugged weakly at Jack's sleeve. Jack covered the warm hand with his own without hesitation. "What... what's wrong with me?"

Jack forced himself to smile again. "You're just a little sick, Daniel. That's all. You've just got a real bad case of the flu." He looked up at Sam, daring her to contradict him, but knew at once that she wasn't even considering it. "Doc Fraiser'll get you fixed right up."

"I'm just... I'm so tired."

Jack nodded and patted the hand on his arm twice before removing it from his jacket and placing it across Daniel's chest. "I know. Why don't you go on to sleep now? When you wake up, we'll be home and you'll feel better."

"Okay," Daniel answered softly. His eyes fluttered a few times before falling closed. Seconds later, under the watchful eyes of his friends, Daniel's body relaxed and his breathing evened out as he fell into a deep sleep.

"Colonel, do you think that letting him sleep is a good idea?"

Jack ran his fingers through his short hair as he stood. "I don't know," he answered with a shrug. "But whatever we do to get him out of here, it's probably going to hurt. Staying here is not an option. We can't count on the SGC sending anyone to help; we're not even due back for another day and a half. And if we run into those... people... again, we'll end up either running or fighting. And even if we don't have any trouble getting back to the gate... any way you look at it, it's gonna hurt him. And right now, I just don't want him to be in pain anymore."

"Of course, sir," Sam answered softly.

Jack paced the small cave frantically as they talked, his eyes searching every corner. That Daniel wouldn't be walking out under his own power was absolutely certain. Jack would willingly have carried him back to the gate, but between Daniel's back pain, headache, and nausea and Jack's own aching back, he knew that it would have been a bad idea to even attempt it. The last thing Daniel needed right then was to go crashing to the ground on his head because Jack's back decided to give out.

"We have got to go," Jack mumbled, spinning in a slow circle in the center of the room. "That means we've got to find a way to get Daniel out of here. Does anyone have any ideas?"

"I have, O'Neill," Teal'c replied.

Jack opened his mouth to inquire further, but closed it again when he realized he was already looking at Teal'c's answer. He had risen to his feet and was turning to face Jack and Sam. Teal'c had apparently reached the conclusion that using a fireman's carry was a bad idea as well, because Daniel Jackson slept soundly in his arms.

Jack shook his head and snorted softly. "Yeah, that'll work. You're sure you can make it to the gate?"

"I can. We can." Teal'c locked eyes with Jack before continuing. "We will."

Jack smiled. "Damn straight. Okay, Carter, you grab that pack. Let's go home."

Chapter Text

"Incoming traveler!"

The familiar call came just as Major General George Hammond was starting up the stairs toward his office. He gripped the railing and sighed. At just past eleven at night, he'd been about to sign out and go home. Instead, he found himself standing on a spiral staircase and staring out the control room window, waiting for bad news. He was mildly annoyed that his plans for a hot bath and a soft bed had just been cancelled, but he was seriously concerned by the implication of a gate activation in the middle of the night. A team returning early was rarely a positive thing.

None of his off-world teams were due back yet.

"Have you got a signal?"

"It's SG-1, sir."

"Thirty-six hours early," Hammond said aloud, neither knowing nor caring if anyone else heard him speak. "Open the iris and call a medical team down here. Let's see what they've gotten themselves into this time."

The iris rotated out of its closed position as Hammond retraced his steps back to the gate room. He walked through the door just as the wormhole rippled, and three of the four members of SG-1 stepped through. The fourth member, Hammond realized immediately, was being carried in Teal'c's arms. Jack O'Neill was standing shoulder to shoulder with the Jaffa, holding Daniel Jackson's head in his hands. Samantha Carter had preceded the men through the gate and was ushering the SF team assembled at the bottom of the ramp out of their way.

"Colonel ..." Hammond began. He wanted to ask what had happened to Dr. Jackson, wanted to find out why all four of them had chains dangling from their wrists, wanted to order them all to the infirmary at once, but was prevented from doing any of those things by the abrupt responses of the three people he was trying to talk to.

"Daniel Jackson is gravely ill." Teal'c's voice made it clear that no more explanation would be forthcoming.

"Sir, Daniel's sick." Sam Carter's trembling voice and wide, moist blue eyes were more telling than her words.

Jack O'Neill pulled his attention away from his archeologist just long enough to cast a distracted glance in Hammond's direction. "Um, yeah... in a minute."

Hammond bristled at being so quickly dismissed by his own second-in-command. "Colonel O'Neill!"

"I said give me a minute!" Jack responded as the three walked past their commander and out of the room. The medical team, led by Dr. Janet Fraiser, arrived at the door just as the group exited. The offered gurney was ignored and the three continued on their way. "Doc, Daniel needs you. Now!"

Jack stayed with them until he was satisfied that Dr. Fraiser was in control of the situation. After carefully nestling Daniel's head back against Teal'c's chest, he released his hold. His left hand lingered on the long hair for only a second before he placed his right hand on Teal'c's back. "You take him from here. I'll catch up in a minute."

Teal'c nodded and continued down the hall as Jack turned and jogged back to where Hammond stood waiting in the door to the gate room. He stopped two feet away and faced his superior officer.

"Colonel O'Neill, what the hell ...?"

"He's sick," Jack answered quickly, glancing back over his shoulder to watch the hurried procession disappear around the corner of the corridor. "Carter thinks he's got meningitis."

"Meningitis?" Hammond's eyes grew wide, and he took a few instinctive steps backwards. "She's sure?"

Jack shrugged. "Pretty sure, yeah. She's not that kind of doctor, though."

Hammond filed his concern away momentarily, and moved on quickly. "And the chains, Colonel?"

"Um... yeah. Unfriendly natives, General. Big, ugly, smelly, hairy, unfriendly natives. I don't think they'll be much in the way of allies, sir."

"Well, are the rest of you injured?"

"No, sir," Jack answered with a quick shake of his head. "They knocked Daniel around quite a bit, but the rest of us are fine. They didn't much like Daniel, sir. Some kind of Darwinian thing. They tracked us, ambushed us, dragged us off to some little hole, and chained us up. Then they just left us there."

"Well, did they say anything?"

"Yeah, they said a lot of stuff." Jack looked back over his shoulder again, then back at Hammond. "Sir, can I ...?"

Hammond nodded quickly. "That's good enough for now. We'll debrief fully later. Go, Jack."

"Thank you, sir," Jack returned. He spun around and jogged down the corridor toward the corner the others had disappeared around.

General Hammond was left standing in the door of the gate room, staring at the retreating back of his second-in-command. He started towards the stairs to the control room, but stopped and turned back around.

He watched Jack disappear around the same corner, and then glanced up at the control room. With a deep sigh of resignation, he turned and hurried after the strange procession in the hall.

Janet Fraiser took in Daniel's condition quickly. She was only mildly surprised when Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c waved off the gurney.

"Doc, Daniel needs you. Now!"

"Okay, let's get him to the infirmary ..."

"You'll probably want to put him in an isolation room, Janet," Sam interrupted.

"Isolation?" Janet felt her apprehension rise a notch. "Threat of contagion?"

"We think it's meningitis."

Janet turned to her nurses immediately. "Masks, STAT." The doctor pulled one from her pocket and handed it to Sam. As Sam pressed it to Daniel's mouth and nose, Janet turned to her again. "The airmen in the gate room ...?"

"I moved them all away. No one's been close to him since we've gotten back."

After making certain that Teal'c and Sam had both been masked by nurses, Janet slipped a mask on her own face, then spun on her heel and marched down the corridor toward the isolation units. "You realize that if that is the case, the three of you will have to be quarantined."

"We'll do anything you say, Doc," Jack replied as he ran up behind her, accepting a mask without question. He slipped it over his head quickly before placing his hand back on Daniel's head. "Just make him better."

Janet nodded without turning around. She had seen that same look of haunted desperation in Jack O'Neill's eyes once before, and had no desire to see it again. "Tell me what happened. When did it start?"

"Yesterday," Jack answered, shaking his head. He could hardly believe that it had really been less than thirty-six hours since Daniel had first made mention of the minor ache across his lower spine. "His back... he was limping a bit. He said he'd hurt his back-thought he pulled something."

"So his symptoms have gotten worse rapidly then?"

"Oh, yeah," Jack said with a sigh. "We camped for the night. When he got up this morning, he could barely walk... he was stumbling all over the place. He kept saying he was fine, he was fine."

"Daniel Jackson was not fine," Teal'c added.

Sam shook her head. "By the time we got him to tell us how bad it really was he couldn't even stand up straight. The light hurt his eyes so much he could hardly open them, and his head was hurting so badly that he couldn't see straight when he did."

"How long ago was that?"

"Since he woke up?" Jack asked. "Eighteen hours or so. Since he told us the truth? Twelve, maybe thirteen."

"What other symptoms does he have?"

The door to the Isolation Room opened. Jack and Teal'c stepped through with Daniel, leaving Carter to continue relating Daniel's condition to Janet as they followed.

"Well, the neck and back pain," she began. "Severe headache and sensitivity to light. He's been very tired, irritable, and he kept getting confused. His fever was at least 103 when I checked it earlier."

"Put him there," Janet instructed Teal'c and Jack, indicating the gurney in the middle of the room. She turned back to Sam. "Anything else?"

Sam watched as the two men carefully lay Daniel on the bed. "Um... he threw up once, right before he fell asleep." Sam wiped at her cheeks impatiently. There was no more reason to be afraid. They were home, they were safe, and Daniel was going to be just fine. "He had a seizure ..."

Janet had been busily assessing Daniel's condition, but she snapped her head up at Sam's words. "Seizures? How many?"

"Just one," Sam answered, never taking her eyes from Daniel's face.

"How long did it last?"

"A couple of minutes," Jack replied, stepping back from the gurney after adjusting Daniel's hands and arranging the chains to keep them from hanging over the side. "Not long."

"How long ago?"

"Um... an hour and a half? Maybe two?" Jack locked eyes with Janet, and this time she could not avoid that haunted expression or those trembling hands. "He might have hit his head... we couldn't get to him. I tried... we all tried ..."

"It's all right, Colonel," Janet reassured him as she continued her examination. She pulled a penlight from her pocket and opened one of Daniel's eyelids. "The black eye and bruises, Colonel?"

"He had a bit of a run-in with the natives last night. A whole lot of the natives, from the looks of him." Jack closed his eyes and shook his head. "Damn it, I blew this whole mission from the word go!"

"I'm sure you did everything you could. You brought him home."

Janet jumped when Daniel flinched away from the light and cried out in surprise and pain. "Jack!"

"It's all right, Daniel," Jack answered quickly, stepping back to his side. "It's okay. You're home now. It's just Doc and her silly light."

"Hm... okay." Daniel's voice faded as his eyes fell closed again.

Janet glanced at Jack across the gurney. "He wasn't unconscious?"

"No," Jack answered, shaking his head. "He's asleep... well, was asleep. We had to give him a syrette of morphine, for the pain. And he was so tired ..." Jack let his head fall slightly. "I should have gotten him here sooner!" he declared suddenly. "We should have left the second we noticed the way they looked at him. Damn it, I shouldn't have let them take us!"

Janet leaned down, seeking out the colonel's eyes. "Colonel?" When he looked up at her, she spoke again. "Colonel, you saved his life."

"Daniel Jackson will recover?"

Janet looked from one stricken face to the other. It was clear that the three people standing before her had suffered greatly from having had to watch their friend deteriorate so quickly, and from having been unable to help him when he needed them the most. Telling them the truth now would be devastating, but lying to them was out of the question.

"We'll do the best we can, Teal'c... Colonel, Captain. He's got a good chance."

"What do you need from us?" Sam asked.

Janet sighed and smiled up at them. "Right now, there are a whole slew of tests I need to be doing on Daniel. And I can't risk allowing the three of you back into the base population until I find out exactly what he's got ..."

"Can we stay in here?" Jack asked quickly. "We've already been exposed to whatever this is. And we'll stay out of the way, over there by the wall."

Janet thought about telling them that they'd have to wait in another isolation room, but from the looks on their faces it was clear that asking them to leave would result in a fight she didn't want to have and one that wouldn't have done any of them any good. After briefly considering the possibilities, she nodded.

Jack gave a quick nod of his own, and gestured to Sam and Teal'c to follow him. He backed away from the gurney slowly, not stopping until he felt the wall against his back. Sam and Teal'c moved after him, each taking a place at his side-Sam to his right and Teal'c to his left.

Janet turned her full attention to her patient, and began asking questions of the nurses in the room. "What's his temp?"

"One oh three point five," was the answer.

"BP?"

"One oh eight over seventy. Pulse is eighty-six."

"All right. Draw blood for a standard battery of tests, and put a rush on the CBC. I also want an IgM and a serum glucose. We'll need a CT, an MRI, and an EEG. Get them quickly; I want to get an LP done soon. I'm also going to want a chest X-ray, and a Foley."

"Colonel O'Neill, if you have a moment now?"

The voice came through the speakers in the room, from the microphone in the observation room above. Jack stepped out from the wall and spun around. He found himself looking up at an obviously worried George Hammond.

Jack cringed inwardly. He had known that his short explanation outside the gate room wouldn't satisfy Hammond for long, but he had hoped to have a bit more time to prepare his team. "What can I do for you, General?"

"Well, you could start by telling me everything that's going on ..."

Jack closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Sam spoke up beside him and saved him the trouble of answering.

"Sir, with all due respect, can't the debriefing wait a little longer? It's the middle of the night, and we've only been back a few minutes."

"Captain ..." Hammond began.

"We do not yet know the condition of Daniel Jackson," Teal'c put in.

"Yes, Teal'c, I understand that ..."

"General," Jack interrupted, his voice tight and strained. "I can't think of anything more I could tell you right now. They were big, and ugly, and they smelled bad, sir. And they didn't like Daniel. We just wanted to get him home, and they wouldn't let us leave ..."

"Colonel O'Neill!" Hammond emphasized the rank as he spoke it. He had no intention of pressuring SG-1 into talking before they were ready, but he also had no intention of allowing it to appear that the delay had been anyone's idea but his own. "I understand everything the three of you are saying. And I agree with you. That's why I scheduled the debriefing for 0900 tomorrow, so that you can at least get some sleep."

The three people on the other side of the observation room window lowered their heads, suitably chastised. When Hammond spoke again, his voice was much softer.

"I only wanted to ask if there's anything you need."

Jack looked over his shoulder at Daniel, who had all but disappeared under the swarm of medical personnel and equipment. He heard Janet swearing softly about something interfering with her progress, followed by the sound of scissors slicing through cloth. He glanced at Teal'c and Sam standing on either side of him, and saw his thoughts mirrored in their eyes. Jack shrugged at them, smiled quickly, and raised his eyebrows. Lifting his hands in front of his face, he looked up at Hammond once more.

"Well, General, a pair of bolt cutters might be nice."

Chapter Text

"Colonel, you never answered your own question."

Jack placed his hand against the wall, stopping the stool he was sitting on for a fraction of a second before pushing it in the other direction. "What's that, Carter?"

"What are you doing for Christmas?"

Jack reached out again, bringing the stool to a jarringly abrupt stop. He looked at Carter and Teal'c, and saw them waiting to hear his answer. They were both seated on stools near the wall, just as he was. The only difference between them was that their stools weren't spinning in circles and they themselves weren't about to tip over from dizziness.

Jack coughed to clear his throat before answering them. "Oh, I um... yeah, well, I ..."

"Colonel O'Neill?"

General Hammond's voice boomed through the speakers again. He never had gone home, choosing instead to stay in the observation room the entire time, watching the medical team attend to Dr. Jackson. Teal'c had spent a few hours in meditation, and Captain Carter had managed catch some sleep on a cot that Dr. Fraiser had provided. Jack had spent his night alternating between wandering around the room aimlessly, standing at attention at the foot of Dr. Jackson's bed, and spinning himself silly on his stool.

Jack looked at the ceiling and silently thanked God for Hammond's interruption before jumping to his feet. Carter and Teal'c followed suite. "Yes, sir?"

"It's 0900, Colonel. Let's start that debriefing."

"Yes, sir," Jack answered with a nod. He pulled his stool out from the wall and sat down facing the window. Teal'c and Carter did the same on either side of him. Jack waited until Hammond nodded, indicating that the recording equipment was ready, then took a deep breath, and began.

"Okay. Well, we gated to P49-635 at 1330 hours on December 19. Our mission was to collect soil samples for evaluation, and to make contact with the locals. The village is located approximately eight clicks from the gate. Our hike was uneventful, and we reached the village just before nightfall. The natives were friendly; they looked happy to see us. At least, they seemed friendly at first ..."

A large crowd had gathered around the four strangers, and more people were joining them every minute. They were all talking to each other excitedly, and Jack had no way of knowing what they were saying. Daniel was listening intently, repeating their words to himself, trying to understand them.

As the crowd continued to grow, Jack glanced around and did a quick threat assessment. The four of them were completely surrounded by what appeared to be nearly one hundred men, women, and children. He, Teal'c, and Carter were standing close to each other; Daniel was just a few feet to Jack's left. As the crowd began to surge forward, people began to fill the space between Jack and Daniel, separating Daniel from the rest of his team. Jack reacted quickly, concerned with keeping his team together, and he, Carter, and Teal'c pushed their way through the crowd carefully.

Jack reached out and placed his hand on Daniel's arm. "Daniel? Any idea what they're saying?"

"Um... I think so. It sounds like a derivative of Celtic. But what they're saying really doesn't make much sense, so I've got to be missing something."

"So what do you think they're saying?"

"Something about a hunt... Bor-Shelgeyr ..." Daniel's eyes narrowed and he raised his eyebrows as he concentrated on the translation. "Something hunter... master! Master hunter! Okay, they welcome the arrival of the master hunters and the... deib? Deibhl... deibhleid. The vile weak?" Daniel's cheeks flushed in embarrassment. "Vile weak one," he said with an awkward smile. "I'm guessing that would be me."

Jack looked around again as he felt his concern mounting. The attitude of the crowd was beginning to change; the expressions on the faces that surrounded them suddenly seemed much less friendly and much more predatory.

"Um... Daniel?"

"Jack?"

"Why are they looking at us like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like we're... dinner?"

Daniel turned his attention to studying the faces that surrounded them.

"There could be any number of reasons for them to be leery of us, Jack. Maybe they're afraid of angering the Goa'uld. Or maybe they think we are Goa'uld. Or maybe ..."

"Daniel. Just tell me we're not dinner."

"We're talking about a primitive tribal culture here, Jack. Probably related to the Celts, possibly the Vikings ..."

"Okay, now, the Celts drank blood."

"Of their dead, yes. Particularly dead warriors and hunters. They believed that they could gain strength ..."

"Okay, Daniel, back to the topic at hand. Are we dinner?"

"I don't think ..."

Daniel's voice trailed off as he took another look around at the crowd. He was beginning to notice marked differences in their expressions. Jack and Teal'c were being given looks of respect and, particularly in Teal'c's case, awe. Sam was receiving her fair share of admiration as well. The looks he himself was receiving, however - were they sneering at him?

"Daniel?" Jack noticed Daniel's sudden distraction and he shifted to his left, narrowing the distance between them even more. Sam and Teal'c echoed the movement, moving closer to Daniel on his left and at his back. "What's up here, Daniel?"

"Um... not quite sure. Give me a minute ..."

"Say the word, Daniel, and we're outta here." Daniel's growing discomfort with the crowd and the situation did not sit well with Jack. Daniel lived for this kind of thing - a long-dead Earth culture, alive and thriving on another world. He was usually too busy being fascinated to be worried. He glanced back at Teal'c and Sam, and saw the same expression in their eyes. If Daniel was uncomfortable, it was probably time to leave.

"No, Jack, I think it'll be okay. They seem peaceful enough. I think they're hunters, not warriors. I just wish I could understand them better." Daniel raised his head and looked around the crowd. "Or maybe talk to their chieftain ..."

"Fàilte!"

All four members of SG-1 turned toward the booming voice and the crowd around them fell silent. The man who had spoken stepped forward, and a path suddenly opened through the assembled crowd. He was a huge man; he stood at least three inches taller than Teal'c. He had long black hair that blew wildly in the wind and a thick black beard that covered not only his chin but half of his chest. He wore thick leather clothing that stopped just above his knees, and a large animal skin was draped around his shoulders. He strode toward them with a noticeable air of authority.

"Your chieftain?" Jack whispered in Daniel's ear as the man stopped directly in front of them. When he pulled himself to his full height, Jack realized that he had actually underestimated the man's immense size. He made Teal'c look average.

"Fàilte!" he repeated, bowing his head slightly in Jack's direction. "Good Journey to you, Bor-Shelgeyr. By the Grace of Cocidius, welcome to Domhan."

"Tuathal," Jack said with no small amount of heat. "The revered chieftain of Domhan."

"Domhan?" Hammond asked.

"The local name for P49-635," Sam explained.

Hammond nodded. "So I take it this Tuathal person is responsible for Dr. Jackson's condition?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't think he's why Daniel's sick, sir. But he's definitely behind that black eye and those bruises on his chest and back."

"And the rope burns on his wrists," Sam put in.

"Not to mention the whole chained up in the cave thing," Jack finished.

"I think you're getting a bit ahead of me, Colonel."

Jack sighed and let his head fall back slightly. "Tuathal invited us to a feast in our honor that evening. Daniel thought they'd be a valuable potential ally against the Goa'uld ..."

Daniel gazed around the village in wide-eyed fascination. He had spoken to Tuathal briefly before they had set out for the banquet hall at the edge of the village, and he hadn't seemed to be worried about the looks he was receiving since that time.

Jack walked beside him, one hand resting on his gun across his chest. He had noticed the change in Daniel's attitude, and it did put some of his own concern to rest. Some of it - not all of it. Jack glanced across his shoulder and saw that Carter and Teal'c were both keeping wary eyes on the large crowd that surrounded them and moved toward the banquet hall with them. Carter's right hand rested on her weapon exactly as Jack's did, and Teal'c held his staff weapon at a slight angle rather than straight up.

"Wow," Daniel breathed. Jack turned his attention back to the archeologist. "Look at this place, Jack! An actual Celtic village! This is ..."

"Fascinating?" Jack ventured with a smile.

Daniel nodded his head quickly. "Completely fascinating. Oh, look at that!"

Jack turned his head in the direction Daniel was pointing. An altar of sorts stood in the center of the village. It was circular, with three steps leading up to a wide platform that looked to be five or six feet wide. In the middle of the platform was a large post that looked to Jack to be about eight feet tall. Directly behind that platform was another of identical construction, but without the post.

Without turning back to Daniel, Jack said, "That looks like an altar, Daniel."

"It is, most likely," Daniel answered excitedly. "From the positions of the two platforms, and the post on the nearest one, it's probably a sacrificial altar of some sort. The one performing the ceremony would stand on the one without the post ..."

"Sacrifices?" Jack's smile held no humor. "This place just keeps getting better and better."

"They're a close tribe, Jack," Daniel said good-naturedly. "That's probably either reserved for their bitter enemies, or not used at all. They really don't strike me as being the type of people who would sacrifice their own."

"Well, I still don't like seeing it here, Daniel."

They had reached their destination, and began to climb the steps that led to the massive wooden doors. "Well, there's not exactly anything we can do about it, is there, Jack? It's their planet. We can't exactly demand that they take it down."

"I know that," Jack answered hotly. "I just said that I don't like it. This place gives me the creeps as it is. And things like that," Jack continued, pointing back at the altars once more, "don't make me feel any better."

"It's all right, Jack," Daniel said as they walked through the large doors and entered the banquet hall. "I'll talk to Tuathal at dinner, and I'll find out... wow!"

Jack looked around the interior of the hall, and he had to agree with Daniel's assessment of it. It was an impressive site.

Five large oak tables dominated the room, running almost the entire length of it. The table in the middle was the largest by far, and was surrounded by chairs decorated with animal hides, horns, and bones. The other four were flanked on either side by large, rough benches. Massive candle-filled chandeliers, also made of animal horns and bones, hung from the ceiling. The far wall was dominated by a stone fireplace that by itself was larger than any of the small dwellings they had passed on their way through the village.

"It looks like a page right out of Beowulf," Daniel whispered. "This is amazing."

Tuathal appeared beside them, and placed a large hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Deibhleid, you will sit with me."

"So he separated Dr. Jackson from the rest of you?"

Jack nodded. "Daniel said it was okay, that Tuathal just wanted to talk to him."

"And where were you seated?"

"At the other end of the same table."

"So, what happened at the banquet?"

Jack sighed deeply, and Teal'c began to speak. "We were seated, and the food and drink were brought out. Daniel Jackson and Tuathal were deep in conversation throughout the meal. From where we were seated, we could not hear what they were discussing ..."

Teal'c was growing more and more uneasy with the situation as the feast went on. The looks that the majority of the people in the banquet hall were directing at Daniel Jackson were becoming increasingly hostile. When Teal'c's unease had become serious enough that his felt his symbiote growing agitated, he decided to speak to O'Neill about his observations.

"O'Neill?"

"Yeah, Teal'c?" Jack's eyes were moving constantly about the room, returning every few moments to the head of the table and to Daniel.

"I agree with your earlier assessment of our hosts. However, I do not believe them to be a threat to you, Captain Carter, or myself."

"What do you mean?" Jack shifted his eyes slightly, and looked over at Teal'c across the rim of his goblet.

"I believe it to be only Daniel Jackson that they think to be edible."

Sam gaped at Teal'c's pronouncement, and Jack looked at him in confusion. After shaking his head slightly, Jack put the goblet down on the table and turned his full attention to the man on his right.

"Do you mean it's only Daniel they're looking at like he's dinner?"

"Indeed, O'Neill. Is that not what I just said?"

"Sort of," Jack answered slowly. "In so many words... I think ..." Jack shook his head again, and looked again to the head of the table. "But yeah, I noticed that too."

"What do you want us to do, sir?" Sam asked quietly. She too had noticed the strange looks Daniel was receiving from the natives, and she glanced down the table once more to find him still deep in conversation with Tuathal. The chieftain, for his part, was staring at Daniel intently with an almost feral grin.

"I really don't like the looks of this, Carter. Something just feels wrong about it," Jack answered. "Daniel doesn't seem to have noticed anything being amiss, at least not since we first got here. But I think it would probably be best if we collected our errant archeologist and headed home."

"Agreed," Teal'c said. Jack nodded at his teammates, and all three began to stand.

"Whoa!" Jack exclaimed in surprise. His vision blurred and his head spun, and he found himself landing hard in his chair. "Head rush."

He glanced to his left and saw Carter blinking her eyes rapidly, the expression on her face and the undignified way she was sprawled across her seat making it clear that she too had felt something when she'd tried to stand. Teal'c wasn't faring much better, though he had managed to land a bit straighter in his chair than either Jack or Sam had.

"Okay, this is definitely not a good sign. I think getting out of here right now just became top priority."

At that moment, Tuathal stood at the head of the table. "Oie vie, my friends!" the man bellowed. "We have feasted, and now we shall sleep. When the sun comes again, we shall honor Cocidius in all his glory, for by his grace on this day we have been granted our wish. By the Rule of Cocidius, the Glenney Folley will commence at Dawnbreak." Tuathal looked down at Daniel, and the grin returned. "We must give thanks to the visitors, for they have delivered to us this deibhleid." Tuathal looked down the table to where Jack, Sam, and Teal'c had finally managed to get to their feet, and he bowed deeply. "Bor-Shelgeyr, you have honored us deeply. We shall honor you in turn."

Chapter Text

Jack shook his head in disgust. "Honor us, he said. Yeah. We were honored to be too drugged to walk back to the gate that night. Tuathal said it hadn't been intentional, that we just weren't used to their wine. It sounded plausible at the time, I guess. He said he felt bad about it, and offered us quarter in the village for the night. So we stayed ..."

Jack sat down heavily on one of the four pallets that lined the walls of the small dwelling and raised his head groggily. "You don't look very tired, Daniel."

Daniel shook his head. "No, I feel fine. They didn't give me any wine with my dinner, though." Daniel glanced around the room and noted that both Sam and Teal'c seemed as tired as Jack did. "Are you guys okay?"

"Sleepy," Sam mumbled as she pulled a rough, woven blanket up to her shoulders.

"I, too, am most unusually tired," Teal'c added as he settled himself onto another pallet. "My symbiote is similarly lethargic."

"Strong enough to take Junior out for the count?" Jack asked in alarm. He looked up at Daniel. "That wine packs one hell of a punch, doesn't it?"

Daniel looked back at Jack. For the briefest of seconds, Jack thought he saw panic in Daniel's eyes, but before Jack could respond to it, it was gone and had been replaced by determination. "Tuathal said it was an accident, Jack. He told me it was stronger than I was used to; that's why I wasn't given any."

Jack snorted and leaned forward to untie his boots. "Too young for the good stuff, Daniel?"

"No," Daniel answered with a shake of his head. "Just too weak."

"What were you two talking about, anyway?" Sam asked. She yawned deeply before continuing. "You seemed pretty enthralled."

"We talked about a lot of things, actually. I learned quite a bit from Tuathal."

"Okay, Daniel, I'll bite," Jack responded tiredly. "What did you learn from Tuathal?"

"They are Celts," Daniel answered. "Or at least, they're descendants of the Celts. Cocidius - they worship Cocidius."

"And Cocidius was ...?"

"A Celtic god," Daniel replied.

Jack rolled his eyes. "I gathered that much. What was he the god of?"

"Um... hunting, mostly. Also the god of strength, the woodlands, and animals. Sometimes, he's the god of youth, luck, and trickery. Sometimes, he's a god of war."

"Busy guy," Jack remarked with a smirk. "Anything else?"

"Um... yeah. Sometimes, he was the god of death, too."

"God of death, war, and hunting, huh? Does anyone else suddenly not like this place?"

"I have disliked this planet for quite some time now, O'Neill." Teal'c shifted around on his pallet, trying to find some comfort despite the fact that lying down was an unusual position for him.

"Me too," Sam put in from her pallet.

"Guys, look, it's not really so bad here. They're actually very peaceful. It's just a different culture, that's all. They have a way of doing things that we don't understand. I really don't think it's going to be a problem. I talked to Tuathal; I explained why I'm still alive ..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up there, Danny. He thinks you should be dead?"

Daniel bit his lip and nodded quickly. "But it's okay; he understands now ..."

Jack pushed himself to his feet, shaking his head as he walked closer to Daniel. "I don't think he does, Daniel. Even if he does, the rest of these people sure don't seem to. Did you see how they're looking at you?"

"I know, Jack. But it's going to be all right. The purification ritual tomorrow ..."

"Purification ritual!"

"Um, Daniel, that doesn't sound so good," Sam observed.

"I'll be fine, Sam. And after it's over, we're going to have a strong ally in Tuathal and his people. That's worth a little discomfort, isn't it?"

"You aren't exactly making me like this place any more than I did before, Daniel. They've been eyeing you up like a piece of fresh meat since we got here. Accidental or not, the three of us are too drunk or drugged or something to leave. And now you say you have to go through some sort of purification ritual?"

"Jack, it's not a big deal. I've just got to prove myself ..."

"Oh, come on, Daniel! In case you haven't noticed it, these guys don't seem to like you very much!"

"Well, of course they don't." Jack rolled his eyes and turned away. Daniel followed him. "I am everything they don't believe should exist, Jack. They're warriors, hunters. They don't just believe in survival of the fittest; they live it. You, Teal'c, even Sam - you they respect. You they see as worthy. Me? They can't figure out why I'm even alive, let alone why you let me tag along with you."

"Tag along?" Jack spun suddenly, his anger and frustration at the situation and his inability to control it eager to be vented. "Is that what you think you do, Daniel? Tag along?"

Daniel sighed and smiled. "No, of course not. But that's what they think I do. They can't imagine any other reason why someone like me, who is obviously not a warrior by any definition of the word, would be in the company of someone like you, who obviously is." Jack sat back down on his pallet, and Daniel turned to face Sam and Teal'c. "They revere strength. They reward it. They look at me, and they don't see it."

"They're wrong," Jack declared. "You're one of the strongest people I've ever met."

"Physical strength, Jack. You, Sam, Teal'c ..." Daniel's voice trailed off when he realized that two of the people he'd been talking to had fallen asleep. It shocked him to see Teal'c actually lying down on a pallet and sleeping, but he managed to keep it from showing on his face. He continued, keeping his voice low. "The three of you could kick the butts of half the men in this village, and they know it. They also know that I couldn't. And no matter how strong you might think I am, Jack, you know it, too."

Jack leaned back against the wall, rubbing at his tired eyes. "So you have to fight somebody?"

Daniel crouched in front of Jack's bed, realizing that Jack was running on nothing more than determination and willpower. "It'll be a symbolic fight only, Jack, I'm sure. I explained to Tuathal that things are different on our world, that we value people for strength of spirit as much as we do for strength of body. He said he understands, and he'll take that into account. I've got a good chance of winning, Jack. He'll be fair."

"What if it's not quite as fair as you think it's gonna be?" Jack couldn't hold back the yawn that came out with the question.

Daniel smiled and put a hand on Jack's shoulder, easing him down to the pallet. "Let me worry about that, Jack. You just get some sleep. You're probably going to have one heck of a hangover in the morning."

"Have to keep watch," Jack muttered.

Daniel shook his head. "I've got first watch, okay? I'll wake you up in a few hours."

Jack nodded in reluctant acceptance, and his eyes fell closed.

Daniel sighed and stood up. Thinking Jack already asleep, he closed his own eyes and let his head fall back. "I swear I'll get you guys out of this mess I've gotten you into," he whispered to the ceiling. "No matter what I have to do."

Jack heard the soft declaration, and somewhere in his drug-addled mind it occurred to him to ask Daniel what he was talking about. He opened his mouth to do just that, but darkness swept over him and pulled him into the peaceful bliss of sleep.

"So Dr. Jackson wasn't as oblivious to the situation as you thought he was."

"Oh, no, sir," Jack answered quietly. "He knew. He knew a hell of a lot more than we did, actually."

"Why didn't he tell you?"

Jack straightened on his stool and looked Hammond directly in the eye. "This wasn't his fault, sir. He didn't endanger us by not telling us. Fact is, the only person in danger on that planet, at the time, was him. And he thought he could handle it himself."

"Looking back on things now, sir," Sam interjected, "Daniel knew that we wouldn't be able to get off the planet unless he went through with the ritual. By the time any of us realized anything was wrong we were already in the village, and it was already too late to stop it from happening."

"So what happened next?"

Jack glanced at Sam and nodded, and she took up the narration.

"The next thing we remember is waking up in the morning and finding Daniel, and most of our weapons, gone. We still had our knives; that was all. There were clear signs of struggle by the door, so we knew that Daniel hadn't gone willingly with whoever it was. We went to look for him ..."

The search didn't last long.

The remaining members of SG-1 found themselves in the center of the village. The altars they had seen the day before were no longer empty. Daniel stood on one of them, head down, eyes closed. His arms were pulled up above and behind him and twisted in a rather painful-looking fashion, and his wrists were tied to the post behind his head with thick rope. His shirt was gone, and his chest showed the signs of a recent beating. His face looked worse.

"Daniel!"

"Jack!" Daniel lifted his head slowly and blinked. When his eyes fell on his three companions, he smiled and sighed in relief. "You're okay."

Jack started to step forward, only to find his way blocked by four of the largest villagers. Rather than risk a confrontation that couldn't have helped anyone, Jack stepped back again. "Yeah, Daniel, we're fine. How you doin'?"

Daniel closed his eyes and shifted his position to relieve the growing ache in his lower back and shoulders. "Oh, I've been better. This is a little uncomfortable."

Tuathal stepped forward on the other altar. He smiled at Sam and Teal'c before turning his attention solely to Jack. "We hath rid you of your burden, Bor-Shelgeyr. We beseech Cocidius to look with favor upon us now, and seek the Mearsuinn of the Com-Shelgeyr to guide us as we rid Domhan of this deibhleid."

Jack glanced at Teal'c and Sam over his shoulder, and then turned to glare back at Tuathal. "Does that sound like a threat to anyone but me?"

"Jack ..." Daniel's voice was soft, but the quiver of pain was audible.

"Tell me what he said, Daniel."

"It doesn't ..."

"Tell me!"

Daniel leaned his head back against the post and closed his eyes. "He's asking for the strength of the great hunter god to help them."

Jack's eyes widened as Tuathal pulled a large, jagged knife from his belt and held it up for the crowd to see. A chorus of cheers and shouts surged up around them.

"To do what, exactly?" Sam asked, her voice tight.

Daniel didn't answer her. He had opened his eyes in response to the roar of the crowd, and his attention was riveted to the blade in Tuathal's hand.

"Daniel!" Jack called out. "What are they asking for help with?"

Daniel swallowed hard, pulling his eyes away from the knife to focus on Jack. "To rid their world of the vile weak one."

"Okay, that's a threat." Jack's nod, while barely perceptible, was enough to spur both Carter and Teal'c into action behind him. All three assumed aggressive stances, and began to force their way closer to Daniel.

"Jack, don't!"

Jack ignored Daniel's warning and shoved his way past another of the large villagers. He reached the bottom of the steps and looked up at Daniel as he ran up them. "Tell me again how peaceful they are, Daniel."

"It's the only way they know."

"This is not a cultural difference, Daniel!" Jack reached the top of the platform and reached out, pushing the long hair out of Daniel's eyes and taking a closer look at the damage done to his face. Daniel's left eye was swollen and dark; the bruise spread out and covered almost the entire left side of his face. There was a large, deep gash in his forehead, and blood ran from his nose and trickled down his chin from the side of his mouth. "This is an act of war."

Daniel shook his head slowly. "They're only trying to help you, Jack."

"Help us? They're trying to help us? By dragging you off in the middle of the night?" Jack demanded. "By stringing you up out here like this? By beating the living crap out of you? By threatening to kill you?"

"They just want to prove a point."

"What point? That they're jerks?"

"That I'm a liability."

"Bull!"

"Jack ..."

"No, Daniel!" Jack stepped behind Daniel and reached for the ropes that bound his wrists to the post. "You are not a liability."

"Which one of us is tied to the post here, Jack?" Daniel asked tiredly. "Don't tell me they could have done this to you. Or to Sam. Or to Teal'c."

"Damn it, Daniel, that's not the point."

"Yes, it is, Jack."

"No, it isn't!" Jack felt someone approaching from the left. A quick glance confirmed that Tuathal was leaving the other altar and walking toward them. Jack sped up his efforts to undo the knots around Daniel's wrists. "And now is a really lousy time to be having this conversation."

"Jack ..."

"Little busy here, Daniel," Jack replied rapidly, shooting a quick glance across his shoulder to check on Tuathal's forward progress.

"But, Jack ..."

"Working on it."

"Jack!"

Jack's head snapped up at the urgency in Daniel's tone. Sam and Teal'c stood on the bottom step of the altar, facing the crowd. Both had assumed defensive positions, and their body language made it clear that anyone who tried to make it past them would not have an easy time of it. But it was immediately obvious to Jack what it was that had Daniel worried. Toward the back of the crowd, and making its way forward through them at a fairly rapid clip, was a line of large bearded men bearing large, heavy swords.

"Damn it," Jack muttered, increasing his attempts to work Daniel's knots loose.

"You will cease your efforts at once!"

The voice was accompanied by a large hand coming down on top of his. Jack spun his head in Tuathal's direction, anger and determination making his eyes flash.

"Leave the deibhleid and you may go in peace."

"No," Jack answered menacingly.

Tuathal's confusion showed on his face. "Why do you refuse an offer of peace between us, Bor-Shelgeyr?"

"We will not leave this place so long as Daniel Jackson remains your prisoner," Teal'c said.

"And there will be no peace," Sam added. "Not unless you let him go."

"Cocidius, the Com-Shelgeyr, demands strength of his hunters. You have proven yourselves to be worthy of passing through Domhan." Tuathal sneered at Daniel's back. "Those who cannot stand on their own must not be allowed to tarnish our ground with their weakness."

Jack and Sam stared at the man with open hostility. Teal'c took several quick steps forward, placing himself directly between Tuathal and Daniel, and spoke.

"If you continue to insist on doing harm to Daniel Jackson, we would be most pleased to turn our strength against you."

"It is the will of Cocidius!" Tuathal declared, turning away. "This matter is done. He will remain. You will go."

"The hell we will!" Jack called out to his retreating back.

Tuathal turned back to them slowly.

"Let me explain this one more time," Jack said through clenched teeth. "He goes where we go. If we leave, he leaves. If he stays, we stay. We will not leave without him. Is that clear?"

"Jack, please ..."

"Damn it, Daniel, I brought you here! And I am damn well taking you home!"

Tuathal took a slow step forward. "Do you mean to challenge the Rule of Cocidius?"

"No!" Daniel cried out.

"Yes!" Jack declared simultaneously. "I mean to challenge every damned thing about this place!"

"Jack, no," Daniel pleaded softly. "You don't know what you're doing."

"The challenge has been put forth!" Tuathal announced, raising his arms to the anxious crowd. "By the Rule of Cocidius, the Rite of Sealg yn Deyrit begins at Dawnbreak tomorrow!"

Jack turned to Sam and Teal'c. "If this is the only chance we get, then I want to make sure we take advantage of it. Teal'c, no matter what happens, your first priority is to grab Daniel and get him the hell out of here. Is that clear?"

"It is, O'Neill," Teal'c answered with a nod.

"Carter, you stick as close to Teal'c as you can. First chance you get, I want you to make a break for the gate and dial it up. The sooner we get off this planet, the better."

"Yes, sir."

"Daniel ..." Jack's voice trailed off when he saw the expression on Daniel's face. He took a hesitant step forward. "Daniel?"

Daniel shook his head slowly. "You should have listened to me, Jack. You should have left when you had the chance."

"And leave you here to die? Wrong answer."

"At least then it would have been just me."

Jack exchanged looks with Carter and Teal'c and the words that Daniel hadn't said echoed between them. "And what is it now? All four of us?"

Daniel's smirk held no happiness. "Very possibly, yes."

"So what is this Rite of Shelge in Daylight anyway?"

Daniel looked directly into Jack's eyes. "The Hunt of the Doomed."

"Okay, so that sounds like it might be kinda bad. But we'll survive it, whatever it is. As long as we can do this together, we'll be just fine."

"The time of preparation has arrived!" Tuathal announced suddenly, stepping to Jack's side. "When next you open your eyes, Bor-Shelgeyr, you will see that the hunter can indeed become the hunted."

"What the hell is that supposed to ...?"

Tuathal simply raised his hand and a bright blue light flashed from his palm. Jack and Sam collapsed, unconscious, at his feet. Teal'c fought against the surging darkness, forcing his eyes to focus on the scene playing out above him. He watched as Tuathal looked down at Daniel Jackson, sneering at the obvious pain and fear on the archeologist's face.

"And now you see, Deibhleid, how your weakness infects even the strongest amongst your people. For if these fall tomorrow, the fault shall be yours, and no other's."

"I know," Daniel whispered. "Believe me... I know."

The light in Tuathal's palm flashed once more, and blackness followed.

Chapter Text

"You were unconscious?" Hammond could barely conceal his mounting concern.

"Yes, sir," Jack replied. "For quite a while, apparently. When we woke up, the sun was already going down, and we were nowhere near the village ..."

Jack groaned as he opened his eyes. He found himself staring up at a canopy of trees that he didn't remember, and turned his head slightly to the right. Sam was starting to stir beside him, her own moans and groans signaling her return to wakefulness. Teal'c sat just beyond her, already upright but still a bit unsteady.

"Teal'c? You okay?"

"I am recovering well, O'Neill."

Another low moan from his left caused Jack to turn his head more quickly than he probably should have. He blinked against the pain that erupted in the back of his head, forcing his eyes to focus on the body that lay beside him.

"Crap," he breathed. "Daniel!"

Jack ignored the pain and lurched to his knees at Daniel's side. Daniel's shirt and jacket had been returned to him, both stained with blood and both filthy. Jack placed a hand against the darkening bruise that spread across Daniel's face from temple to cheek, hoping that the damage was only skin deep. "Come on, Daniel. Show me those baby blues."

Daniel moaned in response and turned his head slightly.

Jack glanced frantically at Teal'c and Sam, and was relieved to see them both upright and much steadier than before. "Carter?"

"I'm fine, sir," Sam answered as she shook her head to clear the last of the fuzziness from her mind.

Jack nodded and turned his attention back to Daniel, who still hadn't opened his eyes. "Come on, Daniel, wake up."

"Sir!" Carter called out. "They left us one pack."

Jack closed his eyes and offered a silent thank you to whom or whatever it was that happened to be looking out for them. Without opening them again, he asked of Carter, "Is it yours? Please, Carter, please tell me it's yours."

A few seconds passed as Sam dug through the contents of the pack. When she looked up, she had a smile on her face and a medical kit in her hand. "It is."

"Yes!" Jack said, repeating the silent thanks once again. "Bring it over here. Let's get him patched up. Teal'c, you watch the perimeter."

Teal'c pushed himself to his feet and began his patrol, choosing a circuit that took him no further than ten feet from the rest of his team at any point.

Sam settled down opposite Jack's position and reached out to check the bruise for herself. As she pressed against the swelling, feeling for any bones that seemed out of place, Daniel moaned again.

Jack looked up at Carter anxiously. She smiled back at him weakly. "I don't feel any fractures, Colonel, but unless they were really obvious, I probably wouldn't. We definitely can't rule out a concussion, either."

"Damn it," Jack swore softly. "How long was he standing there like this?"

"About two hours."

Sam and Jack looked down quickly. Daniel's eyes were still closed, but his face had tensed slightly.

"Daniel?" Jack asked hesitantly. "You awake?"

"No, Jack," Daniel answered, still without opening his eyes. "I'm talking in my sleep."

Jack smiled in spite of himself. "Guess they didn't knock your sense of humor out of you, huh?"

"It's not for lack of trying," Daniel answered tiredly. He opened his eyes and looked up at Jack, but wasn't able to keep them open. He blinked rapidly before settling for squinting up. "Ow," he said slowly. "Wow. That really hurts."

Sam leaned forward and started dabbing at the gash above his left eye with a sterile wipe. Daniel jumped and cried out. "Not as much as that does!"

"Sorry, Daniel," Sam offered. "I'm really sorry."

"Just hang in there, okay, Daniel? Let Carter get you put back together so we can head back to the gate, all right?"

Daniel let his eyes fall closed again, and nodded slightly. "Yeah, I think that's a really good idea. I don't think I want to stay here any more."

"Good boy," Jack said with a smile. He glanced across at Carter, and saw her looking intently at something. She caught the question in his eyes and nodded her head in the direction of Daniel's right wrist. Jack looked down, and his eyes widened at the sight. Daniel's wrists were smeared with dried blood, and circled with rope burns that seemed far too deep to have been the result of his being tied to the pole.

"Daniel?"

"Yeah?"

"You wanna ...?" Jack took a deep breath and focused on asking the specific question he wanted an answer to. "Look, Daniel, these are deep. These are way too deep. How'd you get them?"

"Get what?" Daniel asked in confusion, opening his eyes halfway.

Jack lifted Daniel's arm gently, holding it up where he could see it. "Those."

"Oh, those." Daniel closed his eyes once more. "Those came from the fight."

"Oh, the fight." Jack tried to keep the open hostility out of his voice. "That would be that fair fight you were talking about last night, right? The one you thought you could win?"

Daniel snorted and squinted up at Jack again. "Yeah, turns out I was wrong about that."

"Not very fair after all, huh?" Jack looked up at Teal'c, who had moved his patrol closer after seeing the extent of Daniel's injuries, and then across at Carter, who was busily bandaging Daniel's left wrist.

"Not unless you consider ten really big guys against one sort of average one to be fair."

Jack nodded his head in perfect understanding. "And if that sorta average guy just happens to have his hands tied behind his back ..."

"Walk in the park," Daniel said.

Jack turned his head and swore softly.

"Hey, I got in a few good shots."

"Really?"

"Yeah. One of them didn't get back up."

"That's my boy," Jack said with no small amount of admiration in his voice. "How'd you do it?"

"You remember that move you and Teal'c taught me? What to do when someone grabs your arms from behind and someone else is coming at you from the front?"

"Yeah."

"Yes indeed, Daniel Jackson."

"Well, I remembered it, too. Both feet. Right between the eyes."

Jack and Teal'c shared a smile and a nod as Sam moved around to bandage Daniel's right wrist as she had his left. "After that?"

Daniel let his eyes fall closed once more. "After that, it hurt. A lot."

"After we got Daniel patched up, I decided that it would be best to just go to ground, boots on, no fire. Daniel looked like he needed the rest, and the only real alternative was to go trekking off through an unfamiliar forest, at night, with no weapons save our knives. And since Tuathal had said the hunt would start at dawn, we felt fairly certain that we were in no danger of being attacked."

"And this was when Dr. Jackson started showing symptoms of his illness?"

Jack nodded slowly. "We didn't know it then, but yeah, that was it. We all thought it was just the aftereffects of his little 'scuffle' with the locals and stiff muscles from that awkward position he'd been in when we found him. So when he started saying his back and shoulders were sore, none of us really thought much about it ..."

Jack glanced up and saw Daniel shuffling toward him. He seemed to be favoring his right leg slightly. Daniel settled himself carefully to the ground beside Jack, exhaling slowly as he did so. He stretched his arms out above his head and leaned back over the fallen tree behind him.

"Hey," Jack called out to him. "You okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. It's just... my back's a little stiff. I think maybe I pulled a muscle or something."

"You want some Tylenol? Carter's always got some with her."

"No, it's not that bad really," Daniel answered. He grasped his wrists behind his head and arched his back. The slight gasp that escaped him made Jack lean toward forward.

"Are you sure that's all it is? You haven't got any injuries we haven't seen, do you?"

"Huh? Oh, no. No internal bleeding or anything like that. It doesn't really hurt all that much." Daniel's eyebrows lowered in concentration, as if trying to find the exact description for what he felt. "It's just a stiff back and some sore shoulders. It's more annoying than anything."

Jack nodded slowly and looked up at Carter and Teal'c, who were just returning from another survey of the perimeter. "Okay, well, take it easy, all right? Don't push yourself too hard. You've been through more than enough on this mission."

"What's going on, Colonel?" Sam asked.

"Nothing," Daniel answered quickly.

"Daniel's back hurts," Jack countered with a glance at the younger man.

"Are you badly injured, Daniel Jackson?"

"Do you want some painkillers?"

Daniel let out an exaggerated sigh. "I'm fine, guys. It's just a pulled muscle. I mean, between taking on ten guys by myself and being tied to that post for two hours, I'm bound to be sore, don't you think?" Daniel smiled. "No pun intended, of course."

"All right, Daniel," Jack replied with a smile. "But no staying up all night, okay? I want you to get some sleep tonight."

"Okay, Jack. Look, if I promise I'll sleep, can we talk about something else?"

"Sure." Jack smiled across at Sam and Teal'c. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

Daniel lowered his head and stared at the ground for a few seconds. He reached down and started pushing leaves around with his fingers. He caught a glimpse of the bandage around his wrist and he stopped. He frowned and pulled the sleeve of his jacket down to cover the offending sight.

"Daniel?" Sam scooted around until she was seated just a few feet from him, on his left. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, leaning forward and putting herself directly in Daniel's line of vision. "Daniel? You okay?"

Daniel nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm just... Look, guys, I'm really sorry."

Jack snorted. "For what?"

"For getting you into this mess," Daniel answered softly.

"I do not believe you are in any way responsible for our current situation, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "Teal'c's right. I mean, yeah, maybe you should have told us just what the whole purification ritual actually involved, but hey, I can understand why you didn't. We weren't exactly the best audience in the world at the time, being drugged to the gills and all."

Daniel closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. "See, that's the thing though. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have been drugged in the first place. If it weren't for me, this would have been a routine meet-and-greet, and we'd be their allies instead of their prey. If it weren't for me ..."

"If it weren't for you, we'd be making nice with people who think half of our planet deserves to die, Daniel."

"No," Daniel said softly. "Just me. And after everything that's happened these past two days, I'm beginning to think they just might be right about that."

"No way, Daniel," Jack answered quickly. "Don't you even start thinking like that. I told you back at the village ..."

Daniel shrugged. "We're still here because of me, aren't we? You challenged the Rule because of me. You're all out here being hunted because of me."

"No, I challenged the Rule because it's wrong. And as I remember, you told me not to. I didn't listen; I challenged the stupid thing. And I'd have done it for Carter or Teal'c, too."

"Yeah, but it wasn't them, was it? It was me. It's always going to be me." Daniel lifted his head and looked Jack directly in the eye. "They're right about me, Jack. I am a liability."

"Daniel, you took on ten guys last night ..."

"And look at me!"

"... with your hands tied behind your back," Jack continued as calmly as he could manage. "I couldn't have done that. Teal'c, could you have done that?"

"I could not."

"Carter?"

"No, sir," Sam answered with a shake of her head.

"It was a set-up from the word go, Daniel. You couldn't have won no matter what you did. Come on, even you have to admit that the odds were stacked just a little against you." Jack waited until Daniel reluctantly nodded in agreement before going on. "And despite those odds, you got one of them to stay down, right?"

Daniel chuckled in spite of himself and glanced at Jack. "Knocked him out cold."

"And out of all those guys, is he the only one you managed to get a shot in on?"

Daniel shook his head no. "Quite a few of them had bloody noses, actually."

"So through it all, you still fought back, right? You didn't exactly just stand there and let them beat you to a pulp, did you?"

Daniel shook his head again, but didn't speak.

"And why do you think they tied your hands in the first place, Daniel? You thought you had a chance in a fair fight, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I agree with you. You would have had a chance in a fair fight. And I think they knew it, too. That's why the fight wasn't fair, Daniel. Because if it had been, you could have won. You probably would've won."

"They couldn't let you win, Daniel," Sam put in. "From the moment they saw you, they knew they'd have to make it so you couldn't. Their way of life, everything they believe, depended on whether or not you could stand up against them."

"How could they know that?" Daniel almost demanded. "I mean, it couldn't have been two or three minutes before they picked me out as being different. Why is that? I mean, it has to be obvious that I'm weaker than you guys are, right?"

Jack shook his head slowly. "No, it's not obvious. At least, not unless the three of us show it. Which we did."

"What?"

"Remember when they started pushing forward, Daniel? Right before you figured out what they were saying?" Daniel nodded. "What did we do when they started separating us from you?"

Daniel thought back on the first meeting for a moment and then shook his head. "I don't really remember. I wasn't really paying much attention to you guys."

"Teal'c, do you remember what we did?"

"I do, O'Neill."

"Carter?"

"Yes, sir."

Jack nodded and turned back to Daniel. "We did the same thing we always do, Daniel. The natives got a bit too close for comfort, and we formed up around you. We moved closer. We protected you."

Daniel looked at his teammates in confusion.

"They saw us protecting you, Daniel," Sam explained. "We had our weapons at the ready; you weren't even touching yours. Our weapons are bigger than yours to begin with. You were talking; we were watching."

"It's our fault they picked you out, Daniel," Jack added. "Not yours."

"Your words last night are truth, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c added. "You are everything they do not believe should exist. Your life invalidates everything that they believe."

"And we made it worse," Jack put in. "Because instead of ignoring you, or leaving you out on your own, the way they think we should have, we protected you."

"They perceived our protection as a sign of your weakness, Daniel Jackson. They did not see it as ours."

Daniel didn't respond immediately; he continued to stare at his feet and pick at the leaves on the ground.

"Your weakness infects even the strongest amongst your people," Daniel whispered. "For if these fall tomorrow, the fault shall be yours, and no other's."

"What?"

Daniel looked up at Jack with a tired smile. "Something Tuathal said." Daniel shrugged slightly. "Maybe he's right. I mean, you wouldn't protect me if you didn't think you had to, would you?"

"Nah," Jack answered with a shake of his head. "We all protect each other. It's what we do."

"If something happens to us tomorrow, Daniel," Sam added, "it's not your fault."

"Should we be captured by Tuathal and his men, the fault will be ours."

"Ours, or the big, ugly, smelly guy's," Jack said. "Point is, Daniel, it's not yours. You didn't do anything wrong."

"In a way, Daniel," Sam said softly, "you were more of a threat to them than any of us were. I don't think they were going to let us go because we're stronger than you. I think they were going to let us go because they weren't afraid of us."

Daniel jerked his head up and flinched as a wave of pain shot up his back. "Oh, and they are afraid of me?"

"Of course they are!" Jack declared. "Just look at you! You're the scariest guy I've ever met."

"Me?" Daniel asked, his eyebrows raised in skepticism. "I'm scary?"

"You scare the hell out of me on a daily basis," Jack returned lightly. "Take for example where we found you this morning ..."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "You know, I'm really tired. I think I'll turn in early ..."

Chapter Text

"The night was uneventful," Teal'c continued. "I was assigned the final watch. O'Neill and Captain Carter had both awakened before the sun had risen. O'Neill was patrolling the perimeter. Captain Carter was preparing the morning meal. I observed that Daniel Jackson had not yet awakened, and I endeavored to rouse him ..."

"Daniel Jackson? Are you awake?"

Teal'c paused momentarily, listening for sounds of movement before he approached. Hearing nothing, he walked forward slowly.

"Daniel Jackson?"

Teal'c could see him still lying on the ground. Noting that the steady rise and fall of the archeologist's chest had not changed, Teal'c stepped forward and knelt down at his side. After reaching out to grasp Daniel's arm in his hand, he shook the sleeping man gently.

"Daniel Jackson?" he said again.

"Hm?" Mussed hair fell away from Daniel's face as he rolled, and his eyes opened partway before fluttering closed again.

"It is morning, Daniel Jackson. It is time for you to rise."

The blue eyes opened completely, blinking twice in confusion. "Teal'c?" Daniel squinted up at him. He appeared to be having trouble keeping his eyes open. "What time is it?"

"It is 0630 hours. O'Neill wishes to break camp before sunrise."

"Oh! Oh, yeah." Daniel pushed himself up from the ground and sat up, turning his head toward Teal'c and opening his mouth to speak. Suddenly, his face became a mask of pain and he pitched forward. He let his head fall between his knees, wrapping his arms around it as he did so.

"Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c called in alarm, reaching for the younger man's arm once more. "You are unwell. I will summon O'Neill."

"No!" Daniel replied emphatically. "Don't. Don't call Jack. Just... give me a minute."

"You are in pain," Teal'c observed.

"I'm fine," Daniel countered. "It's just a little headache." Daniel leaned back slightly, lifting his head. He wrapped his fingers through his hair and pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. "Just a headache," he said again, opening his eyes slightly and glancing at Teal'c. "It'll go away as soon as I get up and around a bit."

Teal'c watched until Daniel had removed his hands from his head and blinked a few more times. "Are you certain that you do not require assistance?"

Daniel flashed a smile. "I'm fine, Teal'c. Really." He pressed his hands against the ground and pushed himself to his feet. "See?" he asked weakly. "I'm fine." Daniel took one unsteady step forward, and his face went white. "Just a little ..."

Teal'c had moved forward immediately upon seeing the blood drain from the younger man's face, and so was in the perfect position to catch him before he hit the ground. Teal'c wrapped his arms around Daniel's waist to keep him on his feet.

Teal'c didn't see the grimace that crossed Daniel's face in response to the pressure against his lower back.

"You do not appear to be fine, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel took a deep breath and banished the pain from his face. He patted Teal'c on the shoulder twice, and then pushed away. He swayed slightly, but managed to stay on his feet without falling over again. "Don't worry about it, Teal'c," Daniel said, giving another weak smile. "That fight just took a little more out of me than I thought. I'll be fine in a minute."

Daniel turned slowly, taking more care than Teal'c would have thought necessary. His measured, deliberate steps carried him past Teal'c and to where Sam was gathering the last of their minimal supplies. Teal'c could not help but notice that Daniel's efforts to walk normally made the limp that much more pronounced.

Teal'c felt O'Neill step up beside him. Together, they watched in silence as Daniel slowly lowered himself to the ground across from Captain Carter.

"Teal'c?"

The Jaffa didn't turn toward the sound of his commander's voice. His attention never wavered from the pale man on the ground and his obvious attempts at hiding his discomfort.

"Daniel Jackson appears to be in a great deal of pain, O'Neill. He was nearly unable to stand without assistance. Had I not been there, he would have fallen."

Jack nodded slowly, his own gaze locked on the side of Daniel's head. "Let me guess. He's fine, right?"

Daniel turned toward them. The expression on his face made it clear that he knew the two men were talking about him. The smile that he gave them, Teal'c was certain, was intended to reassure them. Instead, as Daniel turned back toward his conversation with Sam, Teal'c found his initial concern mounting.

"Daniel Jackson is not fine, O'Neill."

"I know. I figured that out last night." Jack touched Teal'c on the shoulder lightly. "Keep an eye on him today, Teal'c," he said quietly. "If you see him having trouble, let me know. If we have to make some accommodations to get him home, we will."

Teal'c nodded as Jack walked past him to join the others.

"We broke camp right after breakfast," Sam explained. "Daniel was obviously in quite a bit of pain by then, but he was doing his best to hide it. If one of us said something to him, he said that it was just a pulled muscle and a headache. Said that he should be in some pain after the night before. And it wasn't exactly like we had a choice; we had to go. We thought that if he was having serious trouble, he'd tell us. And so we started hiking back to the gate ..."

Jack jerked his head in Daniel's direction, and Sam slowed her pace. A few seconds later, she found herself walking side by side with Daniel. She turned her head to look at him, uncertain of just what it was she should be looking for.

Daniel's eyes were partially closed against the sun, even behind the darkness of his sunglasses. His gaze was locked on his feet, which were shuffling along the ground much slower than his normal speed. His limp was even more pronounced than it had been an hour before.

They had been walking for five hours already, and should have reached the gate easily. However, the circumstances of the day required extra caution while traveling, and Jack had been making certain that they stopped at least once every hour, for no less than fifteen minutes at a time. At first, the frequent breaks had seemed to do Daniel some good, and he'd been able to maintain a fairly moderate pace for the first three hours of their hike. The last two had seemed to have the opposite effect. Daniel had had more difficulty getting to his feet each time, and his pace had been slowing noticeably.

"Hey, Daniel," Sam said cheerfully. "How's it ..."

"I'm fine, Sam," Daniel answered quickly without looking up.

"Okay." Sam looked at Jack. Catching his expression of concern, she shrugged. How much longer could Daniel go on like this? With every minute that passed he was limping a bit more, walking a bit slower, stumbling a bit more often.

Almost as if in response to her thoughts, she felt Daniel wavering beside her. She reached for his arm automatically, only to feel him pull away from her. "Damn it, Sam, I said I'm ..."

The statement ended in a sudden gasp of pain. Sam jerked her head toward Daniel to see him grasping his head with both hands. He was trembling, and his face was ashen. He fell to his knees hard. Sam was on the ground at his side in an instant, and only her hands on his forearms kept him from collapsing to the ground face-first.

"Daniel? Daniel!" She saw him open his mouth to speak, but no words escaped his lips. He gasped again, and fell heavily against her. "Colonel!"

Jack had seen Daniel go down, and he was reaching for Daniel even as Carter called his name. He pulled Daniel away slowly, and together he and Carter gently lowered him to the ground. Jack removed Daniel's sunglasses from his face quickly, and leaned down. Daniel moaned and threw his arm across his eyes.

"All right, Daniel. That's it," Jack said. "I want to know what's going on with you, and don't you dare tell me that you're fine! You can't even walk, for crying out loud. Now, tell me what's wrong."

Daniel clenched his teeth and pressed the heels of his hands against his temples again. "I... don't... know ..."

"Well, are you sick? Injured worse than we thought? Having an allergic reaction to something? What?" When Daniel didn't answer, Jack reached out and grabbed his left hand, squeezing it tightly. "Come on, Daniel. Talk to me here. Tell me what's wrong."

"It hurts," Daniel gasped.

"What, Daniel?" Sam asked. "What hurts?"

"My back," Daniel answered softly. "My head... my neck... my eyes ..." Daniel flinched as another wave of pain washed over him, and tears began to flow from his eyes. "Oh God, it hurts!"

Sam and Jack looked up at each other, and each saw the panic in the other's eyes. "Teal'c!" Jack called out.

"I am here, O'Neill."

Jack spun toward the voice, and was surprised to see Teal'c standing right behind him. "How long have you... never mind." Jack turned back to Daniel long enough to put his sunglasses back on him. "That's it. We're helping you. Carter, grab his other arm. Teal'c, grab her pack."

Jack and Sam each grabbed one of Daniel's arms, and pulled him slowly to his feet. They each pulled an arm across their shoulders and wrapped their arms around his waist.

"Okay, Daniel," Jack began. "We've got a long way to go. We're at least another three hours from the gate. Can you make it that far?"

"Do I have... a choice?"

Jack pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Not really, no."

"Then we'd better... get going ..."

Jack nodded, and then turned his attention back to Teal'c again. "Teal'c, take point. Back to the gate." As Teal'c moved off, Jack turned back to Daniel. "We'll stop whenever you need to, Daniel. Just let me know when it hurts too much to keep going, okay?"

Daniel squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, steeling himself for the long walk ahead. He opened them again, blinking repeatedly against the sunlight, and nodded slowly.

"Ready, Carter?" When Sam nodded in ascent, Jack tightened his grip on Daniel's waist. "Come on, kids. Let's go home."

Chapter Text

"It was slow going," Jack continued. "At first, Daniel could go for more than half an hour without stopping. As the day went on, and his pain got worse, he was lucky to go for fifteen minutes at a time. So three hours later, we were still two miles from the gate. We were just starting out after another break when Teal'c spotted them ..."

"O'Neill!" Teal'c called over his shoulder. "There are several armed individuals concealing themselves behind the trees."

Jack glanced around, careful to make the movement seem as casual as possible. "What are they doing?"

Teal'c kept his eyes forward, but his hand went to the sheath on his belt and his fingers tightened around the handle of the knife that hung there. "They appear to be attempting to contain us. They are on all sides, and are moving closer to us."

Jack glanced over at Daniel. The archeologist had been leaning heavily on Jack and Sam for the past hour. He was barely holding any of his own weight any more. His right leg was dragging behind him, and he kept his eyes closed almost constantly.

There was no way Daniel could run.

"Okay," Jack said, turning his eyes away from Daniel. "Options? Ideas?"

"Jack," Daniel gasped suddenly, and all three turned their attention to him. "Put me down."

"Daniel, I'm sorry, but we can't stop right now."

"Put me down," Daniel repeated, opening his eyes just far enough to look Jack in the eye. "Please."

"Okay," Jack conceded. He gave Carter a quick nod, and together they lowered Daniel to the ground. They placed him next to a large tree, and then leaned him back against it. "Okay, Daniel. Now what?"

"Now," Daniel answered, closing his eyes, "you run."

"No!" Sam protested.

"No way, Daniel," Jack said.

"We will not leave you, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c stated calmly.

"You don't have... a choice."

"Oh, yes we do," Jack argued. "We can try to talk to them. If worse comes to worst, we can fight. What we will not do, Daniel, is leave without you. Is that clear?"

"You can come back... later. When it's safe ..."

Jack shook his head vehemently. "Uh uh. Not even an option. You go with us, or we don't go."

"Please, Jack," Daniel pleaded, opening his eyes to look at his friends once more. "Just go. Sam... and Teal'c... get them... out of here."

"O'Neill!"

Jack spun quickly, coming up to one knee as he did so. The locals had apparently grown tired of the team's lack of progress, and had stepped out from their hiding places. Jack found his team surrounded by a dozen large, long-haired men armed with a variety of low-tech, but effective, weapons.

"Um... hello," Jack said slowly. "So this is the great hunting party, is it?"

A pain-filled cry from behind made Jack turn back around. Tuathal himself had emerged from behind the tree Daniel had been leaning against, and was now dragging the archeologist away. Before Jack could react, Daniel was on his knees at the large bearded man's feet. He was being held upright by the man's left hand, which twisted cruelly in Daniel's long hair. The jagged blade of the knife he had held on the altar was pressed against his unprotected throat.

Jack, Sam, and Teal'c reacted quickly, and pulled the only weapons they had in their possession, their knives, immediately.

"Unless you want to die today," Jack said menacingly, "you will get your hands off of him. Right now."

Tuathal did not speak, but a wicked grin spread across his face. Before any of the others could move, he lifted his right foot and drove his heel mercilessly into Daniel's lower back.

Daniel's screams echoed through the forest.

"Stop that!" Jack commanded.

Again Tuathal was silent. His only response was to jerk his head in the direction of Jack's knife. The meaning behind the gesture was perfectly clear.

Jack hesitated while he glanced around and judged their situation. There were a dozen of them - all large, all unkempt, and all armed. The weapons these men had trained on his team ranged from swords to spears. On any normal day, they would have been no match for SG-1.

But it was no normal day.

Jack had no weapons to speak of, and he had a seriously incapacitated archeologist in what had clearly become a hostage situation. Daniel had been isolated from the rest of his team, and demands had been made. Daniel's health and safety, possibly even his very survival, depended solely on how pleased Tuathal was with the team's compliance. And while Daniel might have been able to defend himself under normal circumstances, his weakened condition left him incapable of doing anything more than wrapping his hands around the man's left wrist.

Almost as if to remind Jack of the power he had over Daniel, Tuathal twisted his fingers more tightly into Daniel's hair and pulled his head back further. He pulled the blade of the knife up tighter against Daniel's throat, eliciting both a moan and a thin trickle of blood.

"Stop!" Jack cried out. "Okay! Okay. We're putting them down, see?" Jack raised his knife above his head in a sign of surrender, and then glanced back over his shoulder at the rest of his team. "Carter, Teal'c, do what he wants."

"Sir? Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"I don't know, Captain," Jack answered. "But it's better than standing here and watching him kill Daniel."

"Captain Carter, I believe O'Neill is correct," Teal'c said as he placed his own knife on the ground and took one step back. "If we fight, Daniel Jackson will surely die."

"But, sir ..."

"Just do it, Carter," Jack ordered softly. "It'll be okay. Trust me."

Sam knelt down and laid her knife on the ground slowly. As she stood, she looked up at her commanding officer. The look in her eyes made it clear that she really hoped Jack was right.

Jack turned back to Tuathal. "All right. We put down our weapons. Now let him go."

Tuathal smiled again, and nodded.

Before Jack could think, he felt strong hands grab his upper arms. He pulled against them instinctively. "Hey!" Jack cast a frantic glance at Carter and Teal'c and found them being restrained in the same way. "What the hell ...?"

More men stepped forward. One man went to each of the three standing team members, pulling what appeared to be lengths of chain from their belts as they walked.

"No!" Jack called out, trying once again to wrest his arms from the strong grips. "Oh, come on!"

"We did what you said," Sam explained. "You don't have to do this."

"If you allow us to go free, we will leave this world," Teal'c promised, his voice calmer than either Jack or Sam had managed to be. "We will not return. Your way of life, and your honor, will remain intact."

The man who had walked to Jack reached out and grabbed his left wrist. A large metal cuff with a two foot length of chain attached to it was snapped into place before Jack could protest again. After repeating the procedure on Jack's right wrist, the man grabbed the chains in his hands and stepped back, pulling the chains taut.

Jack looked back at Teal'c and Carter again. When he saw them receiving the same treatment, he felt his heart begin to sink. All three of them were now being held in place by three of the large natives. Even if Tuathal did release Daniel, Jack realized that there was nothing the three of them could do to escape.

Jack glared at the chieftain. "Damn you!" he growled. "What the hell do you want from us?"

Once more, Tuathal only smiled. He removed the knife from Daniel's throat, stepped in front of him, and leaned down. With his face only inches from Daniel's, he twisted his fingers in the archeologist's hair. Daniel gasped in pain and his fingers tightened around the man's wrist.

Jack fought against the three men that now held him. "Leave him alone!"

The man paid no attention to Jack's command. He leaned closer to Daniel, until his lips were almost touching the younger man's ear. Daniel started to tremble, and his eyes suddenly shot open. Jack had no way of knowing what the large man was saying, but from the panic in Daniel's wide blue eyes, he knew that it couldn't be good.

Daniel's expression changed from one of fear to one of anger. As the large man pulled back to stand in front of him again, Daniel gathered every ounce of strength he had and put it into three words.

"Go... to... hell."

The backhand was not unexpected, but it was more forceful than Daniel had been prepared for. He crashed to the ground with a cry. His glasses flew from his face, only to be crushed under a large booted foot. As Daniel raised his upper body on quivering arms, he saw his teammates struggling against the men holding them. The tide was beginning to turn. Jack and Teal'c were rapidly gaining the upper hand against their captors; Sam wasn't far behind. But Daniel also saw the two men stepping forward with spears aimed directly at Jack and Teal'c's hearts.

"Jack," Daniel choked out. "Jack, don't!"

The frantic plea stopped Jack cold. One look at Daniel's face and at the panic there, and Jack understood exactly what was happening. "Don't fight them," he said suddenly, jerking his head in the direction of his team. "Teal'c, don't fight them!"

"Colonel?"

"They'll kill all of us, Carter. They'll start with Daniel, but they'll kill all of us. For now, we just need to go along with them. Got it?"

"But, Colonel," Sam asked quietly, her eyes riveted to where another set of chains were being roughly attached to Daniel's wrists, "what do they want with us?"

"I think they want us to die," Jack answered with a deep sigh. He watched Tuathal haul Daniel to his feet again. "Daniel?"

Daniel shook his head slowly. One of the men with the spears stepped forward and grabbed Daniel's right arm tightly. Tuathal grabbed Daniel's hair once more and pulled his sagging head up. "Just don't... don't fight them. Not for me. Don't die... for me."

"He passed out right after that," Jack said softly. "They locked our chains together-well, me, Carter and Teal'c, that is. They dragged us off to that cave, cell, whatever, and chained us to the wall." Jack snorted in disgust as he remembered the small stone room. "Thing didn't even have a door. They put us in there, and they just left. We had no resistance on the way back to the gate. I think they thought we were just going to sit there and die."

"And Dr. Jackson?"

"They kept him with them the whole time. Tuathal the great and his crony... just dragged him along. He didn't wake up until we got to the cave. Even if the three of us had managed to escape ..."

"Daniel Jackson would have been killed," Teal'c finished.

"And did you ever find out what it was he said to Dr. Jackson?"

"Thank you," Jack whispered.

"Excuse me, Colonel?"

"He said, 'thank you,' General," Sam repeated.

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

Jack's head shot up and his eyes hardened. "He thanked Daniel. We... I... damn it, I handed him to them! I might as well have just hung a sign on his chest that said, 'use me against them.' And that bastard thanked him for it!"

"Colonel," Hammond began, waiting until he was certain that Jack was listening to him before continuing. "Jack, you did everything you could have, under the circumstances. You couldn't have pretended that what they were doing to Dr. Jackson didn't matter to you any more than I could have."

"But, sir, I know better than to ..."

"You know better than to let a member of your team be killed for no good reason, Colonel. And no matter what you might think about your actions, that is exactly what you did. You did what you had to do to make certain that your team, all of them, survived."

Jack risked a glance back over his shoulder at where Daniel lay, heavily sedated and seemingly hooked up to every machine Dr. Fraiser could find. "I didn't order us to leave at the first sign of trouble. I was careless in eating or drinking whatever it was they drugged us with. Daniel paid for both of those decisions. I ordered my team to surrender, General, and we ended up chained up in a cave because of it. And the whole time, he just kept getting worse and worse. If I hadn't given that order, we could have been here hours earlier. If he dies anyway... How is he ever going to forgive me for that?"

"Forgive you for what, Colonel? Saving his life?"

Jack turned back toward his commanding officer in shock.

"That's all you did, Jack. They didn't sacrifice him because you made the decision to not let them. They didn't kill him in the forest because you made the decision not to give them a reason to. He didn't die from this... whatever it is... because you made the decision to bring him home rather than wait for rescue. All in all, Colonel, I'd say every decision you made was accurate. It was a mission that couldn't have been salvaged. Like Captain Carter said earlier, you were all in danger before anyone could have realized it." Hammond gave Jack a few seconds to let the words sink in before he leaned toward the microphone again.

"I think I've got everything I need to make a recommendation about this planet, Colonel. SG-1, you're excused. And welcome home. All of you."

Chapter Text

Janet walked up to them just as the mission debriefing was ending.

"Doc, hey!" Jack called out. He jumped to his feet and stepped forward with Carter and Teal'c right on his heels. "How's Daniel doing?"

"Well, I've got enough information now to give a full diagnosis."

"Are you prepared to give a full briefing, Dr. Fraiser?"

"Yes, General," Janet replied with a nod.

"All right, Doctor. Proceed."

Janet took a deep breath, taking advantage of the second it bought her to collect her thoughts. There was a lot of information to give, and some of it might not be good. However, she knew that the most important information, and the one thing that the people assembled with her would most want to hear, would be the first words out of her mouth.

"He doesn't have meningitis."

Teal'c closed his eyes and bowed his head as a small smile made its way across his lips.

Sam closed her eyes as well, throwing her head back and whispering, "Thank God," to the ceiling.

Jack raised his fists in the air in triumph. "Yes!"

"Colonel," Janet began, wishing that the next news she had to give weren't quite so potentially negative. "It might be a little premature to celebrate just now."

"What?" Jack demanded, spinning to face her. "Why? You just said ..."

"I said he doesn't have meningitis."

Jack's eyebrows lowered in confusion. "And that's not a good thing?"

"What is it, Doctor?" General Hammond asked from above. "What does Dr. Jackson have?"

With another deep breath, Janet looked up and answered him. "Encephalitis, sir."

"Encepha... encephalitis?" Jack repeated, glancing at Carter and Teal'c to see if they knew what Janet was talking about. Teal'c's face was blank. Carter shook her head at him and shrugged. "What's that?"

"It's an inflammation of the brain."

"His brain's infected?"

"Yes, Colonel, it is." Janet saw the redeveloping signs of panic in Jack's eyes, the blood rushing from Sam's face, and the deep lines of concern etching themselves into Teal'c's forehead. "But," she added hastily, drawing their attention back to her. "It's not as bad as it sounds. When it's caught early, which his was, it is most often entirely treatable."

"What's the prognosis, Doctor?" General Hammond's voice sounded deeper than usual as he fought to keep his worry from showing.

"He's got a seventy percent chance of recovery ..."

"Seventy percent?" Jack looked to his teammates again briefly; two faces that were equally as shocked as his looked back at him. "So there's a thirty percent chance that he's going to die? Tell me how exactly that isn't as bad as it sounds."

Janet tilted her head and gave Jack the most annoyed expression she could manage. "Another thirty-six hours, Colonel, and his chances of survival would have fallen to twenty. That's how."

"Treatment plan, Dr. Fraiser?" Hammond hoped the question would bring the impromptu briefing back into focus before either Jack or Janet said something they would later regret.

Janet nodded, moving her gaze from the colonel to the general. "He's been sedated since we performed the spinal tap, but I've just discontinued it. I've already gotten him started on acyclovir, which is an antiviral medication that has proven to be effective at combating encephalitis. We're also giving him large doses of IV indomethacin. It's already served to bring his fever under control, and reduced some of the swelling that his MRI was showing. We won't know for certain until he regains consciousness, but it should serve to relieve his pain as well."

Janet paused long enough for the information to sink in before continuing. "There is a possibility of long-term effects from this, General. Short-term memory loss, retrograde amnesia - we shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't remember anything that happened after he started showing symptoms. Depending on the amount of damage done to his brain tissue, he might be looking at recurrent migraines, or chronic seizures, or even develop epilepsy."

The blood had noticeably drained from the four faces watching her. Janet took another deep breath and made her voice as positive as possible. "All things considered, General, his chances for recovery are excellent. As I said, Colonel O'Neill and the others getting him back here as quickly as they did can only improve his chances. I think we got to him in time. He'll have to stay in the infirmary for a while, but I expect him to recover fully."

"How long?" Jack asked.

"He'll have to stay here for at least a week, possibly two."

"Two weeks?" Janet saw the look of dismay on Sam's face as she asked the question, and realized that she had forgotten to tell them the second thing they most wanted to hear.

"You won't have to stay here that long. Encephalitis is nasty, but it's not transmittable."

"So the quarantine ...?" Sam began.

"The quarantine is lifted. As far as I'm concerned, the three of you are free to go."

Sam and Jack flashed each other small smiles as they removed their masks; their concern for Daniel's well-being ran deep, but neither of them had particularly enjoyed the thought of being confined to the infirmary for two weeks.

Teal'c lowered his eyebrows in thought, and tilted his head slightly. "If this illness is not contagious, how then did Daniel Jackson become infected?"

"Um... yes." Janet stammered slightly as she gave them a nervous smile. "Well, that would be my fault."

"Your fault?" Jack didn't even try to disguise the disbelief in his voice. "How?"

"His blood work showed traces of varicella."

"Varicella?" Sam repeated. "That's the chicken pox."

"Yes, it is," Janet answered with a nod. "Which Cassie had, two weeks ago. Daniel... Dr. Jackson came to sit with her one afternoon while I ran some errands. He told me that he thought he'd had it when he was a child, but he really couldn't remember for certain." Janet flashed a nervous grin. "I guess he hadn't, after all."

Jack scratched the back of his head. "So, Cassie gave Daniel the chicken pox, and... what?"

"And the virus entered his bloodstream and eventually made its way into his brain. He would probably have had a small rash a week or so ago. He doesn't have one now, so it couldn't have been a bad one. Odds are he wouldn't have thought it anything more severe than dry skin or an allergic reaction to something he'd come in contact with. And that's if he even noticed it at all. I didn't see anything during his pre-mission physical."

Jack shook his head and snorted softly. "Only Daniel could get a brain infection from the chicken pox."

Janet only shrugged in response.

"What about his injuries, Doctor?"

"His other injuries are minor, sir. He's got a mild concussion, which accounts for some of his symptoms seeming more severe than they actually were. His vomiting could have been a result of that, or in response to the morphine he was given for his pain. He has no fractures, and no internal injuries. Basically, he's just got a lot of surface damage. It looks much worse than it actually is. That's all, sir."

"Thank you, Doctor. SG-1, you're released from quarantine. Based on the information you gave me earlier in your debriefing, I'll be ordering P49-635 locked out of the dialing computer. You're all on stand-down until further notice." Hammond smiled down at four people standing beneath him, and then at the sleeping man on the gurney in the middle of the room. "We'll give Dr. Jackson all the time he needs to heal completely before sending you out again. For now, I expect all three of you to shower, change your clothes, and rest until Dr. Jackson wakes up."

"Yes, sir, General," Jack replied with a smile.

Janet started making her way back to Daniel. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam turn toward Teal'c and start whispering excitedly. She smiled to herself, glad that the briefing had ended on a mostly positive note after all. Her smile faded when she felt the hand on her arm and heard Jack O'Neill's voice behind her.

"Hey, Doc?"

Janet's face was completely professional before she turned toward him. "Yes, Colonel?"

"Daniel's gonna be okay, right?"

The professional demeanor shattered, and a smile broke through again. "Yes, Colonel. I think he's going to be just fine."

Jack heaved a sigh of relief and returned the smile. "Hey... how much longer is he gonna be asleep?"

Janet glanced across her shoulder at Daniel, then back at Jack. "Most likely another six hours or so. I don't want to sedate him again because he doesn't need it. His body will tell him when it needs to rest. But I want you to understand that he's going to be sleeping a lot for the next few days."

"No... no, that's okay. I just... I wanted to know ..."

"So you could be here when he wakes up?"

Jack lowered his head. "Something like that, yeah."

"I'll tell you what, Colonel. As long as you're not back any earlier than five hours from now, I'll let you stay with him as much as you want. All three of you."

Jack lifted his head quickly and leaned forward. "Thank you," he whispered.

"You're welcome," she answered just as softly. She winked at him quickly before turning and walking away.

"Thank you," Jack repeated to her retreating back.

"Hey, Colonel!"

Jack turned back around to face Carter, who was still standing near the wall with Teal'c. "Captain?"

"You still haven't answered that question, sir."

Jack's face lit up as an idea came to him. "The question isn't what am I doing for Christmas, Captain," he responded, quickly covering the distance between them. "The question is - what are we doing."

"Sir?"

"Come with me," he replied, stepping between them and motioning with his hands for them to follow him out the door. "I'll show you."

Chapter Text

Jack had pulled his stool over to Daniel's bedside before he sat back down on it. He'd decided to forgo the spinning in circles he'd done earlier, and so he sat silently at Daniel's side, leaning forward every now and then to check for signs that he was waking. He was absently fiddling with a small package, neatly wrapped in brightly-colored paper, that he held in his hands. He glanced from Daniel's face to the package, and suddenly felt very foolish.

Jack leaned forward and rubbed his forehead as he tried to remember just what he'd been thinking. He was certain that Carter and Teal'c would return with truly amazing gifts to give Daniel and he, Jack O'Neill, was about to give his best friend something incredibly stupid. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. He would get him something incredible - later. Tomorrow. He'd stash this ridiculous idea of his away somewhere, and no one else would ever know how close he'd come to making a complete fool of himself.

Checking once more to make certain that Daniel was still sleeping, Jack quickly half-stood and opened the top drawer of the bedside table. He tucked the package away and moved some of Daniel's things around, arranging them to hide every last inch of the bright wrapping paper. He'd have to think of an excuse for having nothing to give Daniel when the others did, but he was sure he'd be able to come up with something. There was no way he was going to admit that his present was hiding in that drawer, not when he knew that Sam and Teal'c would come up with gifts that were so much better.

Jack closed the drawer and sat back down on the stool. When he turned back to Daniel, he was startled to see blue eyes staring intently at his face.

"Jack?"

"Daniel?"

"What... um... what are you doing?"

"Nothin'."

"Nothing." Daniel blinked and his eyebrows lowered. His skepticism was obvious. "You're doing 'nothing' in my drawer?"

Jack opened his mouth as his brain scrambled to come up with some excuse to give. He closed it again quickly, and then flashed a huge grin. "How are you feeling?"

"Um... like crap, actually," Daniel answered slowly. "But you already knew that." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "What were you doing in my drawer?"

"What drawer?"

"Jack ..."

"What?" Jack feigned an innocent expression.

"That's my stuff. You were digging through my stuff."

"I was not," Jack answered truthfully.

"Why else would you be in my drawer?"

"I wasn't."

"You were so. I saw you."

"Wasn't."

"Were too!"

Jack shook his head. "Nope. You must have been hallucinating again. Maybe this stuff Doc's got you on is stronger than I thought ..." Jack stood and looked at the IV bag, scrunching his face up as if he were studying it carefully. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he announced. "Happy juice. You're seeing things, Daniel." Satisfied with his explanation, Jack stepped away.

"I am not, Jack, I saw you... ow!"

"What?" Jack asked, suddenly concerned. "What's wrong?"

Daniel sighed and grabbed his IV line in his left hand, giving it a small tug. Jack jumped, surprised to feel something moving around his legs, and he glanced down. He had managed to get himself on the wrong side of a few feet of IV tubing, which had wrapped itself around his ankles.

Jack paled instantly, and then reddened in embarrassment. "Oh crap, Daniel, I... I'm sorry. That was stupid wasn't it? Here, let me see... are you hurt?" Jack leaned forward in an effort to inspect Daniel's IV site. He tripped over the tangled tubing and fell against the side of Daniel's bed. He had to grab the rail to keep from landing in Daniel's lap.

"Jack ..."

"I just... I wasn't thinking. Let me get out of this. Are you bleeding? Did I pull it out? Crap, Daniel ..." Jack spun in circles, first one way and then the other, trying to shake the stubborn tubing from his legs.

"Ow! Jack, could you just... ow!"

"Sorry... I'm sorry ..." Jack bent over, pushing and pulling at the seriously tangled IV line. "Almost got it ..."

"Jack, just... just sit down. Ow! Sit down!"

Jack flopped back down on the stool, hard, his face full of shame. The tubing fell away from his legs and landed on the floor. Jack gingerly lifted one foot at a time away from the line and looked back up shyly. "I'm so sorry, Daniel ..."

Daniel raised his finger and waved it in Jack's direction. "Just... stay over there, all right?"

"Okay." Jack turned his head away, but looked back only seconds later. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Daniel sighed and shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position. He checked his IV to make certain that it had not dislodged. Seeing no blood leaking from the site, he leaned back against his pillow. "Jack, I'm sick. I'm not dead, and I'm not gonna break, okay?"

Jack nodded. A few seconds later, he leaned forward again. "But you're sure ...?"

"Jack, I'm fine."

It was Jack's turn to show his skepticism.

"Okay... I'm not fine. But I will be. I feel a lot better already."

Jack couldn't help but smile. "Doc's magic happy juice. It does the trick every time."

Daniel chuckled lightly and nodded his head. "Yeah, it does."

A companionable silence descended around them, broken a few moments later when Jack suddenly grew serious. "You remember much?"

"Um... yeah. Most of it, I think."

"Good," Jack said with a smile, remembering Janet's warnings about amnesia. "That's good."

"I've got a few fuzzy places from the cave. Something about... snow on Abydos?"

Jack's smile faded and his expression turned to one of remembered pain. "Yeah."

"Oh, yeah!" Daniel exclaimed suddenly. "I remember now. You wanted me to explain Christmas to Teal'c." He grinned across at Jack. "I don't think I did a very good job."

Jack smiled back at him. "You told him that Christmas is about sandball fights and mastadge ham, Daniel."

"Well, I was right. Sorta."

"Oh, come on. You weren't even on the same planet as Christmas!" Jack meant the light tease to be a joke. When the smile fell from Daniel's face, Jack mentally kicked himself for the second time in as many minutes. "Daniel?"

"I was on Abydos," Daniel explained softly, looking down at his hands. "They don't get much snow there, ya know. No fir trees, no ham, no Christmas lights. I thought... I thought I'd failed so miserably at explaining it to them."

"Oh, Daniel."

Jack glanced up at the door, not surprised to see Sam and Teal'c standing just inside the room. He didn't know how long they'd been there, or how much they'd heard. From the looks on their faces it was obvious they'd heard quite a lot of it. If Daniel had heard Sam's voice, he showed no sign of it. Jack acknowledged them both with a nod as they moved into the room and turned back to Daniel again.

"But you know what? I woke up that morning, and I was so... upset. I felt like... like here's this amazing part of my culture that I want to share with them so badly, and I can't do it. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't make them understand. They've got nothing to compare it to. But ..." As Daniel's voice trailed off, he looked up. He looked around him, smiling at each of his friends in turn before looking back down and continuing. "They understood everything. They didn't need snow, or fancy food, or presents. They had everything they needed for a perfect Christmas." When Daniel raised his head again, there were tears in his eyes, but the smile on his face showed the joy he was feeling. "They had each other... we had each other. And that was all we really needed."

Sam sniffled as she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. Teal'c stood with his arms behind his back, and he bowed his head slightly in Daniel's direction. Jack glanced over his shoulder at them, and then back to Daniel. He felt something building within him, a warmth spreading through him, that he hadn't felt in years. He knew he had felt it before, but it had been gone for so many years that he hadn't even noticed it was missing. As he looked around the room at the three people in the universe who meant the most to him, he realized that he never wanted to lose that feeling again.

"So... it doesn't snow on Abydos?"

Daniel laughed and wiped his eyes quickly. "No. Snow on Abydos would be kind of like... Hell freezing over."

"Captain?" called a familiar voice from the corridor. "Captain Carter, where do you want this?"

The four turned toward the door. Three of them were surprised to see Sergeant Siler walk in, dragging a two-wheel lift behind him.

Sam beamed as she walked quickly toward Siler. "Just over there," she answered, pointing to the far side of Daniel's bed. "Close enough for him to see without his glasses."

Jack craned his neck to get a look at Carter's gift, feeling another wave of foolishness as he thought of what lay hidden in the top drawer. He wanted to see what amazing thing Sam had gotten for Daniel.

His jaw hit the floor when he saw it.

Siler spared a smile for the man in the bed as he unloaded his cargo. "Dr. Jackson. Feeling better, I see."

"Um... yes," Daniel forced himself to look away from the delivery and smile at the sergeant. "Yes, much better. Thank you."

"Well, there ya go, Captain," Siler announced, settling her gift to the floor. "Merry Christmas to you all."

A hushed chorus of "Merry Christmas"es followed Sergeant Siler out the door.

Daniel stared, slack-jawed and wide-eyed at Sam's gift. He didn't look up at her until he felt her sit down on the end of his bed. "Sam ..." He reached out with his left hand, but pulled himself up short, almost afraid to touch it. "Oh, Sam, I... how? I mean... why?"

Sam shrugged and smiled at him. "It was just something you mentioned once. You like it?"

"Oh, Sam... I love it!"

Daniel's hand darted out quickly, and he lightly brushed a bright green leaf with his fingertips. "I can't... I can't believe it." Standing next to Daniel's bed was a four-foot-tall palm tree. Candles were arranged in the soil around the trunk, and the tree itself had been decorated liberally with ribbons of deep red silk. "It's amazing, Sam," Daniel whispered, smiling at her in wonder. "Thank you."

"I have a gift for you as well, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c announced, stepping forward. "Sergeant Siler assures me that this will last for a great number of years."

Jack rose to his feet and leaned around the Jaffa to see how wonderful his gift would be. When Teal'c brought his hands from behind his back and placed his gift on the tray at Daniel's feet, Jack's eyes grew wide. Sam and Teal'c pushed the tray closer to Daniel so that he could see clearly what it was.

Tears welled in Daniel's eyes as the gift came into focus. A perfectly round ball of sand sat on the tray in front of him, held together by something unseen, the color that of newly wetted grains that had been pressed together tightly.

"I believe this to be a close approximation of what you recounted," Teal'c explained. "However, Sergeant Siler has informed me that throwing it at a person would be... unwise."

Daniel laughed through his tears. "Oh my God, Teal'c... it's amazing. It's really just... I don't know what to say. Thank you."

"You are welcome," Teal'c responded with a slight bow.

Daniel looked around at the group of people gathered around his bed. "Guys, I ..."

"Wait," Jack interrupted. "There's still one more, Daniel."

"No, Jack... really, you don't ..."

Jack pulled the drawer open again, reaching in and carefully retrieving his own gift. He hadn't understood why he'd gone to Dr. Fraiser and asked for her help. It had just seemed such a good idea at the time. His feelings of stupidity and foolishness faded into oblivion, and when he turned back around, he had a small, brightly wrapped package cradled carefully in his hands.

"I lied, Daniel."

"What?"

"I was in your drawer. I was hiding this."

"Jack, I really don't ..."

"Ah!" Jack silenced the protest with a smile, and laid his gift on the tray beside Teal'c's. "This is from me."

Daniel took a deep breath and gently pulled at the wrapping until it fell away. He stared at what lay before him, smoothing the paper against the tray. When he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out. He licked his lips and swallowed heavily, taking another deep breath before looking up.

"Oh, Jack ..."

"Doc Fraiser gave me your prescription," Jack said softly. "I thought... well ..." Jack scratched his head absently. "You lost your other ones on the planet and I... I just thought you might like to have them, that's all."

"Jack ..." Tears were rolling down Daniel's cheeks when he reached for the glasses. He sniffled as he unfolded them and raised them to his face. As he settled the new glasses into place, he looked up at Jack once more. "Jack, I ..."

"Ya know, if you keep doing that, you're gonna fog 'em up."

Daniel laughed through his tears, and wiped at his cheeks quickly. "You're right," he said, sniffing again and rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. "There's nothing worse than foggy glasses." Despite his words, Daniel continued to wipe his face as his friends watched him. "God, guys ..."

Jack nudged Daniel's IV line with his toe, pushing it out of his way as he stepped forward. After making certain that the tubing was a safe distance away, Jack perched himself on the bed at Daniel's hip, reaching out to remove the glasses as new tears washed across Daniel's face. "That's enough now, Daniel," Jack said with mock sternness, wiping the lenses against his shirt. "You're making Carter cry."

"Sir!" Sam tried for indignation - she fell short.

"Do our gifts not please you, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked in concern. He sat down on the bed across from Carter, at Daniel's feet. "We had hoped our gifts would bring you joy. We did not wish to upset you."

"No, Teal'c... you didn't." Daniel took one more deep breath before wiping the last of his tears away. "I'm not upset. Not at all."

"Why then do you weep?"

"People... well, some people," Sam began, amending her own explanation when Jack glanced at her across his shoulder. "Some people cry when they're happy, Teal'c."

Teal'c tilted his head slightly. "Does this not cause confusion? How are we to know if tears are shed for happiness or despair?"

"It's easy, Teal'c," Jack responded as he held Daniel's glasses up to the light and checked the lenses for smudges. "If they're not smiling, they're not happy. If they look like this ..." Jack gestured at Daniel. "They are." Jack took one last look through the freshly-wiped lenses and nodded to himself, satisfied that they were clean. He slid them over Daniel's ears, and then settled them on his nose. "Now, no more tears. Got it?"

"Yeah," Daniel answered with a soft smile. "No more tears."

Jack reached out and ruffled the younger man's long hair, smiling at him fondly. "Good. Because Carter was about to lose it over there."

"Colonel!"

Jack chuckled lightly and smiled over his shoulder at his second-in-command.

"Guys ..." Daniel said softly. When his three friends turned toward him, he spoke again. "I didn't... I didn't have time to get you guys anything ..."

"Don't worry about it, Daniel," Sam answered quickly. "We're not."

"Yeah, but I should have ..."

"You did, Dannyboy," Jack said quietly. "Believe me... you did."

"No, I ..."

"We have everything we require, Daniel Jackson."

"But I ..."

"Daniel." Jack gripped his shoulder tightly; Sam and Teal'c each placed a hand against the leg closest to them. "We're good. Listen to Teal'c... he knows what he's talking about."

"No, but... Teal'c, I can at least explain Christmas to you now. I'm pretty sure I can do it right this time."

"There is no need, Daniel Jackson. I believe I understand it very well."

Sam smiled at Teal'c and reached out to take his hand in her own. Daniel looked back at them in confusion.

"I think you do at that, Teal'c," Jack replied with a smile. "I think we all do."

He looked from Sam, to Teal'c, to Daniel, and felt the warmth inside him again, growing stronger with every moment that passed. From the looks on the faces of those around him, Jack knew that SG-1 had been given the greatest gift of all. Just like the people of Abydos, they had each other, and that was all they would ever need.