Jack gazed at the blue puddle feeling a moment of apprehension. Another mission. Another planet. More aliens and the possibility of danger for his team. This was what he was, what he did. He was a soldier and he'd learned years ago to face the fact that each mission could be his last. He had to be willing to lay down his life for his team, his mission, his country. Only that willingness to die gave him the courage to do what was necessary to ensure their survival. It was a soldier's catch-22.
     "Jack?" Daniel's soft-spoken voice broke through the haze of his muddled thoughts.
     Jack gave a shrug, gesturing with his MP-5 for the others to precede. "After you, kids," he said.
     Sam gave a grunt of exasperation before she stepped through the event horizon. Although she was younger than him and a woman, therefore someone he felt honor-bound to protect, he'd never really looked at her as a kid. Well, maybe at first. But he kept using the term to remind himself that she was off-limits. She was his subordinate, part of his team, someone he worked with. Not someone with whom he could ever have a relationship.
     Teal'c raised his eyebrow, his head cocked in a curious expression, before he followed Sam through the Stargate, his hand firmly grasping his staff weapon. He didn't walk so much as prowl. He looked deceptively relaxed, like a two-thousand pound tiger faking out an unsuspecting antelope. Technically, referring to Teal'c as a "kid" was faintly ridiculous. The Jaffa warrior claimed he was one hundred eleven years old. But Teal'c had once called him his apprentice and Jack had never quite forgiven him that.
     Daniel was the only member that made the description accurate. Although older than his son Charlie would have been by maybe two decades, there was still an innocence about Daniel that had survived despite a host of tragedies that would have crippled a lesser man. Daniel was selfless to a fault. He was kind, trusting, gentle, forgiving... everything that Jack was not.
     Daniel waved his hands in the blue puddle and shot Jack a lop-sided grin. "As many times as I go through this, it never ceases to amaze me," he said softly.
     Jack allowed himself a moment's indulgence to smile back. Then he gave the archeologist a shove and quickly followed him into the unknown.
     Blue lights, black void, cold- bone cold, sliding, slipping, nauseating... the journey took only seconds, yet it almost seemed to last a lifetime. Jack hated the between, the time when he wasn't sure he was still himself, when his body parts were invisible, when he was vulnerable. His corporal self ceased to exist, yet his mind seemed to function on overload. It was like those moments when he'd been seriously injured and he didn't think he was going to make it, caught in a haze induced by pain or medication or perhaps a combination of both and almost like a reflex, something he couldn't control, his entire life would flash before him. It wasn't pretty. And damn, but he didn't want to do that again.
     Then his body parts returned and he stepped out of the puddle on the other world, whole. He glanced away, turned his back to his team, until he was certain the relief he felt was no longer apparent.
     Jack glanced up, surprised at the darkening sky. "Hey, didn't the MALP show it to be about noon?"
     "Yes, sir," Carter replied.
     There was a note of worry in her voice that had him instantly alert. He raised his weapon and snugged it tight against his shoulder. "Teal'c?" he asked.
     The Jaffa warrior took a stance, legs apart, staff weapon planted butt-end next to his right foot, shoulders squared and eyes alert. "I do not recognize this place, O'Neill," he said.
     "Did you mis-dial?" Jack asked, glaring at Sam.
     "No, sir," she said, her puckered eyebrows further attesting to her utter confusion.
     Mis-dialing from Earth wasn't really a possibility, Jack acknowledged, although he'd had to ask it anyway. The seven symbols were checked and double-checked before they were fed into the computer. Then the six-million-dollar MALP was sent through first to ascertain the potential danger before SGC would even authorize the mission. Still, twice now the wormhole had sent them someplace else. Once, while returning to earth, a power surge had caused the wormhole to jump from the main stargate in Cheyenne Mountain to an ancient, previously unknown gate buried beneath the ice in Antarctica. And once a solar flare had caused the outgoing wormhole to flash through time, sending them thirty years into the past. Still, neither time had Sam actually "mis-dialed".
     "Well, dial home and let's go back," he snapped. He wasn't really mad at her. But he always got a little testy when he felt he wasn't in control of the situation.
     Sam went to the DHD and studied it, squinting in the fading light. "This one has to be the point of origin," she mused, fingering the only symbol she didn't recognize. Then she touched the series of symbols, six designating an area with earth at the point where all lines intersected, and the seventh for wherever they were now. Daniel hovered over her shoulder, sketching the seventh symbol in his notebook. Once they were safely back, he might be able to figure out where this was.
     The chevrons glowed. As each one engaged, the Stargate shifted, the inner circle rotating like a gigantic, cosmic combination lock. The seventh locked. The whirling event horizon spit out towards them, then bounced back into place, shimmering inside the alien technology.
     Sam tapped their security code into the transmitter that would open the iris and waited.
     Jack radioed for help. "General Hammond! General? This is Jack. Come in, please."
     There was no response. He tried again. Although solid matter couldn't travel backwards through a wormhole, radio waves did. There was no reason for Hammond not to respond.
     "Ah, forget that. Let's just go," Jack snarled.
     "Sir, no! You can't," Sam protested.
     He glared at her. "Why not?"
     "We don't know where we are, sir. We don't know what went wrong. We don't know if that's earth, or if they got our IDC or why they aren't responding. Sir, if we walk through that Stargate without more information, it may be the last thing we ever do."
     "General Hammond?" Jack called more urgently. "Come in!"
     Sam shook her head. Jack knew she was going to launch into a lengthy explanation where he wouldn't understand one in ten words she said, so he cut her off.
     "I don't want to hear it. Let's get the hell out of here and find out what happened to PX3-149, or wherever the hell we're supposed to be right now. Where it's also warm and lunch time. Noon. Time to meet the natives. Aren't we expected there for dinner?"
     A hideous yowl split the air, followed by a cry of something in pain. Something dying. Somewhere, not that far away, a predator had secured its meal. Jack's eyes narrowed and he took a few steps forward placing himself between the unseen danger and his team. Their safety came first. Figuring out what went wrong was later, down the list of important stuff to do. Without taking his eyes off the dimming horizon, he gave Sam one last chance to save the day. Or night. "Can't go home?"
     "No, sir."
     "For crying out loud."
     Maybe it was that point of origin thing again. If they'd gated somewhere really off, then maybe the sequence of symbols had changed. He guessed it was like handing a compass to someone who was already lost. Although if he kept following it in a steady direction he'd eventually wind up somewhere, it still couldn't help him figure out where he was or where he'd been. Jack gave his head a shake. The thinking part wasn't his responsibility, thank God for that. Half his team was way smarter than he could ever be. He was quite happy to leave the thinking to them. Still, it ticked him off when they used that four letter word: can't.
     "Well, we're not staying here," he said, stating the obvious. "Come on kids, let's find a nice place to camp out."
     "Do you suppose whatever that was had enough to eat, Jack?"
     Daniel sounded nervous. He hovered at his elbow, his voice carrying that uncertain little breathy catch it always did when he was scared but trying not to sound like it. Jack knew if he didn't head him off quick he'd start babbling. "Don't offer him your power bar," he warned.
     "That was over three years ago," Daniel said defensively. "And it worked out right in the end. If I hadn't followed that beast-"
     "You weren't following him, he dragged you, as I recall," Jack said. He felt a smile coming on. Baiting Daniel gave him something to do besides stew about their situation. It was good exercise.
     "If I hadn't been dragged by that beast, we never would have met Skaara, or Sha're, or found the symbols to get off that planet."
     "Oh, we'd have met them eventually, Danny boy," Jack said. "It wasn't that big a place."
     The small clearing around the stargate gave way to a forest like Jack had never really seen before. The trees were huge - not quite like California's sequoias, but maybe twenty feet in diameter and so tall he couldn't see the end of them. Of course the blackening skies didn't help. The ground was rough, uneven, like a shirt that had sat too long in the dryer. He knew he wasn't as graceful as Teal'c, but he should have been able to walk more silently. Instead he tripped over roots and brambles like a first-year enlistee. Jack swore again. His knees were starting to ache. He was getting too damn old for this.
     "O'Neill," Teal'c said.
     Jack stopped instantly, listening, every muscle tense. "What?" He kept his voice relaxed, patient, trying to shield Daniel at least from knowing just how serious things were getting.
     "We are being followed," Teal'c stated.
     Shoot. So much for protecting him. Daniel stepped closer, practically touching him. Even Carter took a step in. All turned around to stare into the blackness behind them, straining to hear grass part beneath the unknown predator.
     "We should get up," Sam offered, thinking aloud. "Maybe it can't climb."
     "Maybe it has wings," Daniel whispered, always was too pragmatic to be an optimist.
     Jack glared at the tree nearest him. He'd been a good climber as a kid, even broke an arm once climbing a little too high, but he'd have to have spiked boots and yards and yards of canvas belting and perhaps a little of that luck of the Irish he'd heard so much about but never really experienced before he could climb that gigantic tree. "Got any more bright ideas?" he asked derisively.
     Teal'c aimed his staff weapon, thumbing the catch to charge it. "Stand clear," he warned, then fired upon the tree in short, repetitive bursts. Smoke fizzled from the scorched bark in an even column of burns, creating instant hand-holds. "It will still be hot," Teal'c warned.
     "Ouch!" Jack sucked on three fingers. "Hot or not, we're going up," he snapped. He dropped his pack and rummaged until he found some rope. Daniel jumped back when he went to tie it round his waist.
     "That isn't necessary," Daniel snapped, scowling.
     "We all get tied together," Jack said. He was in full-command mode now. This was not negotiable. Major Carter and Teal'c were already fastening the rope around their waists with a solid bowline loop. When Jack went to tie it to himself, though, he hesitated. If he fell, he'd pull them all down with him and that just was not an option. He quickly tied a kind of half-hitch he'd invented that would hold firm but he could release instantly if he had to. Carter and Daniel probably would never forgive him, but they'd be alive and he figured he could live with that.
     Damn, his fingers hurt, but that beast was still out there somewhere and he was running out of time. Plastering himself against the rough bark of the tree, he tested the lowest hand-holds Teal'c had carved. He dug his steel-toed boot into a lower blast spot and stretched to reach the next hand hold. Teal'c aimed his staff weapon again and fired repeated burns into the tree above Jack's head. A few splinters drifted down. Jack blinked to get the dust out of his eye. "Watch it with that thing," he warned.
     Teal'c said nothing. He didn't have to point out that a few splinters was infinitely preferable to becoming something's next dinner entrée. Jack knew that. But needing to protect his team and not knowing how to do it always made him irritable. Teal'c knew he had to vent a little. Sam knew too. Only Daniel seemed to think that Jack could do anything he put his mind to and therefore had no reason to be unreasonable.
     "Uh, Jack? I can't do this," Daniel said.
     "Do what, Daniel!" Jack was up about twelve feet by now, but no one had started to follow him. The rope was nearly taut between him and Daniel. If he didn't start soon, Jack wouldn't be able to go much farther.
     "I don't think I can climb this."
     "It's just like riding a bike. You never forget how to do it."
     "I've never climbed a tree before."
     Jack stopped cold. He stared down at Daniel, looking up at him so trustingly, so innocently. From this angle, with Daniel looking up, he seemed even more like a child. "God, Daniel. You've got to be kidding me."
     Daniel blinked, but he didn't move.
     "Danny Boy," Jack said with his forced, calm, you'd-better-listen-to-me-if-you-know-what's-good-for-you voice. "Either you climb this damn tree, or we're all fodder for the feast. Now put your hands into the hand-holds. That's right. Now climb!"
     Daniel moved up two feet. His fingers scrabbled blindly across the rough bark, searching for the next hold.
     "Damnit, Daniel! Open your eyes and don't look down," Jack yelled.
     Two beasts yowled then, a little closer this time, in frightening syncopation. Daniel's eyes snapped open and he started to climb in earnest. Jack watched until he saw Carter start up behind Daniel, then he resumed climbing.
     Teal'c had carved holds as far up as his staff weapon could reach, but Jack feared that it would still leave them about forty feet short of the first branch. He clenched his teeth. If he'd been a man of faith, he'd say a prayer about now. Jack's boot slipped out of a scorched foothold. He slid down a couple inches until his arms were straight, his fingers supporting all his weight. Daniel cried out in alarm. Jack cursed under his breath. Sweat broke out on his brow in spite of the dropping temperature. "Never thought of myself as a damned tree hugger," Jack muttered.
     The sarcastic comment worked. Daniel exhaled the breath he was holding. If Jack could make a joke about something, then it couldn't be too serious. Still, either he found a hold again or he'd have to pull the hitch and cut himself loose. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but he wasn't ready to die. Not yet, anyway. His tired, cramped fingers nearly gave out, but finally Jack was climbing again.
     One hand up, then another. Find the scorched hold. Move the feet. Then reach up again. The tips of Jack's fingers were blistered. Sweat dripped in his eyes. Sweat soaked his shirt, but the cold breeze brought a shiver up his spine. He risked a glance down. Sam was keeping up and Teal'c was maybe twenty feet off the ground. Jack drew in a deep breath and let it out. With any luck, the alien predator couldn't climb and they would be safe. At least for the moment. They couldn't stay here, though. Jack had to get them to the first branch and they were going to have to wait there until daylight.
     "Teal'c, can you cut the next story?" he asked.
     "I do not wish to harm you," the Jaffa replied evenly.
     "That's big of you, but we're not staying here," Jack ordered.
     He heard the weapon click as it was armed. Jack shut his eyes and hunched down, attempting to shield his head. The weapon fired. Jack imagined that he felt the tree tremble. Again and again. Two dozen burns scored the bark. Jack waited this time, to allow the burned wood to cool at least a little.
     The others were too quiet. He was certain Daniel wasn't breathing again. Sam should have been reassuring him. The fact that she wasn't implied that she was at least as nervous as he was. For crying out loud, he muttered under his breath. She was such a trooper so much of the time that he sometimes forgot she was a girl. Well, not really. Not ever. But she was different. She didn't need protecting like other women. Like Sara. He could count on her and he could be himself around her. He could be his same old ornery, cussed self and she seemed to like that just fine. But she wasn't comforting Daniel when Daniel needed it.
     "So you've never been tree climbing," Jack said conversationally. "I guess there aren't a lot of trees in the desert."
     "I didn't grow up in the desert."
     "You might as well have. You missed out on some really cool stuff. No trees, no hockey or baseball. I bet you never had detention either, did you?"
     "Detention?" Daniel sounded clueless. Jack laughed.
     "Uh, sir?" Sam asked. "Could we talk about your reckless youth some other time?"
     "No time like the present, my grandma always used to say," Jack chimed. He tried the next handhold and found it cool enough to touch.
     "Ah, detention. That's when you had to stay after school because you were dumb enough to get caught," he reminisced. He really should send Mr. Stenvold, the high school principal, a thank-you. Jack was certain all the practice he had at trying not to get caught had helped him through his military special forces training.
     "So tell me about little Jack," Daniel urged, understanding that Jack's rare moment of self-revelation was meant for his benefit. He tried to focus on what Jack was saying and not that he was clinging to the face of huge tree in the dark while a hungry beast lurked underneath just waiting for one of them to fall. Of course, if he did fall from this height, being eaten might be preferable to surviving with multiple broken bones and undoubtedly a skull fracture or two. Or three. "What did you do to deserve detention?"
     "Well, let's see. There's the usual stuff most guys try to pull off - spray painting the lockers, writing dirty jokes about your least favorite teachers on the walls of the john in permanent marker. Dropping smoke bombs in a trash can to set off the fire alarms to get out of taking a test. Setting a rat loose in the lunch room. But then there was the day the district superintendent was coming to inspect the building. Our school was really old and all the signs had been ripped off the bathroom doors for years, but we all knew which were which. I mean, if you open a door and don't immediately smell the urinals, then you're in the wrong one, right? But I lettered a sign "Men's Room", in my best handwriting, I might add and taped it up to the women's john. The superintendent walked in and got a bunch of girls screaming in his ears, so I came to their rescue."
     "You didn't," Daniel said. "You hit him?"
     "Laid him out cold. He had a shiner for a week, although he tried to conceal it with his wife's makeup."
     "And you got detention for that? What was that, exactly? Because if you'd been in my school, you'd have been expelled."
     "Yep." Jack didn't expand on that for a moment. The blisters on the tips of his fingers had burst open. The rough wood hurt. It was humiliating. He worked out, kept in shape, could still make a twenty-mile hike while carrying a full pack and keep up with men half his age, but a couple of stupid little blisters were making his eyes water and putting his life at risk as it grew increasingly harder to hang on. Like he'd done so many times before, he stowed the pain, endured it, focused on something else. Daniel. Help Daniel.
     "Did it ever occur to you that you were in school to learn?" Daniel asked. He shut his mouth before he said any more. Like, maybe if you'd paid a little more attention to your teachers and less to getting into trouble, you might be a whole lot smarter. Daniel thought it, but he didn't say it. He didn't say it because he knew it wasn't really true. Jack was one of the smartest men he knew. He was just smart at different things. Jack didn't know other languages or upper level math, but he'd saved the world, for heavens' sake! More than once! He never gave up. Jack would say he was just too dumb to know when to quit. Daniel knew better.
     "So, what does detention have to do with climbing trees?" Daniel prodded. The conversation was really helping. He didn't feel quite so dizzy now and it didn't even matter if he looked down. It was so dark he couldn't see beyond Sam.
     "Well, you climbed a tree when you got home, so your step father couldn't catch you and give you hell," Jack replied. Daniel sensed the conversation was getting too personal. He wasn't surprised when Jack steered it away in another direction.
     "Billy, Luke and me had a tree fort. It was in the top branches of an old pine tree. The top was funny looking, like someone had cut it off for a Christmas tree years before. But that tree had so many branches that even if you lost your grip, you couldn't fall more than a few inches. And pitch clung to your skin, hair and clothing. But that didn't matter. When you scrambled through to reach the flat top, we had a couple of wooden pallets lashed together to make a floor. We kept a stash of cookies up there, some flashlights and stuff. And when we were eight years old, it seemed like we were sitting on top of the world."
     Jack felt a wave of relief as he neared the first branch. This tree was nothing like the ones in Minnesota. Well, cottonwoods weren't big for making branches, either, but he'd never been dumb enough to try to climb one. Still, this branch was as big around as a truck. There was almost nothing to grab on to.
     Jack let out a deep breath. He'd have to make a jump for it. And this was it. One unfortunate slip and he'd have to tug that damn rope loose. He could do this. The small, nagging inner voice that reminded him every once in a while that it was time to retire warned him that his reflexes weren't as good as they used to be, that his fingers hurt and his stomach was starting to growl, but Jack ignored it like he'd always done. Mentally, he counted to three. Still he didn't move. His mouth twitched into a smile. Teal'c had yet to understand the concept of counting to three. Then Jack counted to two, jumped on three and clutched to the rough bark for all he was worth. For a frightening moment he thought it was all over as he slipped a little, but then somehow he held on.
     "Be careful, sir," Sam cautioned him, a little late. If he'd been really careful, he'd have insisted they send a second MALP through and maybe even a third, before he risked his people on this fool's errand. He should have been having dinner with the Merusians of PX3-149, not be dinner.
     Jack adjusted himself, feeling cautiously. The branch's upward slope was minimal and it was safely six feet wide before the edges rounded underneath. Jack got to his feet and stood, stretching cramped muscles.
     "Just hang on a second, Danny Boy," he said lightly.
     "I'm not going anywhere," Daniel admitted.
     Jack felt around, but there was nothing to anchor the rope to. No smaller branches. The wide one he stood on stretched on forever, for much longer than he had rope. Jack retied his rope to a more solid bend.
     "The rope is just a precaution, Daniel," He said. "I'll catch you if you slip. But you're not going to. You've jumped farther. It's a piece of cake."
     "Jack, I-"
     "Just do it," Jack yelled. He braced himself. If Daniel slipped, he would undoubtedly pull them both down. Jack wished he'd thought to send Teal'c up first. The Jaffa could probably lift Daniel single-handedly. But at the time, he'd thought it smarter for Teal'c to take up the rear and shoot that hungry beast if it got too close.
     Daniel climbed higher, until the branch was just below him. Then he shut his eyes and jumped.
     Jack held him for a moment. Daniel was shaking badly. "It's over, you did it," Jack said quietly. "You okay?"
     Daniel stiffened, pulling free. He was ashamed to be such a coward. Sam and Teal'c were still clinging to the tree. "I'm fine," he growled.
     "Good. Sit there and don't move," Jack said. Then he grabbed up the rope that connected Daniel to Carter. "Next," he urged.
     Sam scrambled nimbly onto the branch without so much as a tug. Teal'c swiftly joined them.
     Below, they heard another vicious yowl from the hungry creature. It sounded a long way down. For a brief moment, Daniel was grateful they were up so high. Then he bent over as a wave of nausea shook him.
     Jack knelt beside him and placed a hand behind his head. He didn't say anything, but the gesture offered silent support. Daniel was ashamed that he'd been the only one needing it. Once again he had proved that he was little more than a burden to others. Still, if he had fallen, either the others would have pulled him to safety or they would all plunge to their death. It was comforting, in a macabre sort of way, to think of them dying for him.
     Daniel straightened, moving away from Jack's touch. "I'm alright," he said.
     Teal'c sat down at the base of the branch, leaning against the thick trunk. Jack walked away until the rope was taught.
     "I suggest we all get some sleep," he said, back in full military mode.
     "Up here?" Daniel asked incredulously. "You can't be serious. Besides, it's got to be only what, three or four p.m. our time? Who's tired?"
     "I am," Jack retorted. "And we'll sleep now because it is night. Until we find out where we are and how to get home again, that's the way it's going to be."
     "Sir," Sam started, her voice still sounded strained.
     "Unless you're going to tell me we're going home in the morning, I don't want to hear it."
     "But sir!"
     "Eh!" Jack interrupted rudely. "Stuff it, Carter. Sleep."
     "I've really missed these little intimate moments, Jack," Daniel said. "Good night."
     The group fell silent. Daniel touched the rope, felt how taut it was and knew he couldn't move more than a foot in either direction. He stretched out and tried to get comfortable. A bark bed didn't even sound inviting, though. If he took off his jacket and used it for a pillow, then he'd be cold. Besides, he didn't dare risk dropping his jacket. While the wild beast might not know what a power bar was, it could ruin his jacket while discovering whatever else the pockets might contain. Daniel shifted onto one side, then tried laying on his stomach. It wasn't any better. It was going to remain uncomfortable all night long. And in the morning he would have to try to climb down without the benefit of darkness to conceal just how far down that was.
     He caressed the bark absently. It was thick and deeply furrowed, similar to the Sierra Redwood, except that he didn't think this tree was a conifer. He wouldn't know for sure until daylight and he could examine the leaf structure. Still, evergreens usually smelled, well - like evergreens.
     After what felt like half the night, his eyes grew weary and he was nearly asleep. Then he heard Jack mutter, "There's no place like home."
    
    
    
    
    
     Chapter two:
    
     Jack resisted the need to fidget until he heard the deep, even sounds signifying Daniel had finally fallen asleep. Perhaps Carter, too. He wished he could talk to Teal'c, but he knew any little movement would wake the others and God knows they needed the rest. Tomorrow promised more challenges than he was ready to think about.
     For a moment, he wondered what might have caused the stargate to malfunction this time, but quickly forced that thought away. That wasn't his job. Carter was brilliant. She'd figure it out in time. He only had to make sure she stayed alive.
     Shelter, water, then food. That was the order of importance. The law of threes. Man could survive three hours without shelter, three days without water and three weeks without food. Worst case scenario, that is. Shelter would keep them warm and dry and offer them protection against the beasts that go boo in the night. He didn't even want to think about what might be hunting them in the day.
     The tree wasn't good enough. It kept them safe from that whatever, but as the temperature dropped, Jack had to clench his teeth together to keep them from chattering. He rummaged through his pack and took out the thin sheet of what looked like aluminum foil but was actually a fairly warm emergency blanket.
     Damn, but Daniel wasn't covered up. He was snoring quietly, like everything else he did, trying so hard not to inconvenience anyone. He was using his own pack for a pillow. Jack wouldn't be able to take out his blanket without waking him, but Jack knew how long it had taken him to fall asleep the first time. Grunting resignedly, Jack crept closer and covered Daniel with his own blanket. Even as he did, the younger man sneezed once in his sleep.
     "You'd better not get sick on me now," Jack warned. Just the same, he'd better keep an eye on him tomorrow.
     Jack returned to his position, keeping the rope taut, then resumed rummaging through his pack as he weighed what they had against what they might actually need.
     Medical supplies. They all carried a basic kit, but aspirins and antibiotic ointment were sorely inadequate against most of the injuries they sustained on their away missions. There was that Goa'uld brain mushing device and that all-over-the-body electric jolt from a zatt, not to mention the third-degree burns of a staff weapon. Jack had been shot in the arm with an arrow so strong that it penetrated the bullet-proof glass of the observation deck first and still took him out of commission for over a week. He'd been knocked unconscious by those crystal people and crippled with old age. He'd been pinned to a cement wall with a metal rod through his shoulder while an alien virus attacked his DNA. He'd broken a leg and several ribs. Yep. Aspirin and ointment was definitely not enough.
     A cold wind blasted around him, his sweat-damp shirt chilling him. Jack clenched his eyes shut and willed morning to come soon.
    
    
     Daniel sneezed three times in rapid succession. Instantly Jack was awake and hovering over him like a frantic grandmother. What a funny picture that would make, he thought derisively, a gray-haired soldier playing nursemaid to a myopic geek a hundred feet off the ground on a swaying tree limb of a frosty morning. The branch wasn't really swaying... it was probably just his imagination.
     "Jack, it's okay," he managed to choke out before another round of sneezing took over.
     Jack put a hand to his forehead, presumably to feel for a fever. "Don't you have pills to take for that?" he asked.
     "I take allergy medication, yes," Daniel answered calmly.
     "Maybe you need some antibiotics or something," Jack said.
     Daniel laughed. "No, Jack. Sometimes a sneeze is just a sneeze. I'm fine, really."
     "We can't have you getting sick on us," Jack insisted.
     Daniel refused the package of pills Jack shoved at him. "Overuse of antibiotics is dangerous. If I took antibiotics for every viral infection I caught, I'd become immune to them. Then what would I do if I really got sick? Trust me, I don't need any medication now."
     "He's right, sir," Carter added, sleepily rubbing her eyes. God, she looked great first thing in the morning, Jack thought absently. He scrubbed a hand through his own graying hair, tugging at it. This was so wrong. They shouldn't be here. He didn't think much of his apartment in Colorado, but anywhere had to be better than here.
     "Fine," he snapped. "But you stay well and that's an order."
     "Aye-aye," Daniel replied with a mock solute.
     "O'Neill, I suggest we descend while the beast appears to have left."
     "Yeah, yeah," Jack agreed. "Down we go, kids. Campout's over."
     Teal'c went first, reversing the order in which they had ascended. Sam looked a little tense, but she scrambled down easily as though tree-climbing had been a required subject at the Air Force Academy. Daniel hesitated. Jack wanted to be patient, to let the civilian archeologist work it out on his own, but lack of sleep, sore, throbbing fingers and being cold to the bone didn't do much for his disposition. "Move it," he barked.
     Daniel shot him a reproachful look, but he complied. Pointedly refusing to look down, he focused on the tree - it was a conifer after all - in his immediate line of sight, finding the hand and foot holds and slowly making his descent. About half way down he became aware of just how crabby Jack was this morning. More so than usual, more so than the situation warranted. Daniel became convinced that Jack was in pain and that worried him. They needed Jack. They depended on him. If anything were to happen to him, Daniel knew their chances of survival dwindled drastically. Teal'c was a great warrior, a solid wall of confidence and bravery, but he was after all, only first prime of Apophis, the number one in the Goa'uld's slave army, but still just a slave. Teal'c could follow orders, but could he give them? He was so willing to lay down his life in the line of duty that he didn't often look for any other options available to him.
     Daniel heaved a weary sigh of relief when he felt Teal'c's hands around his hips, guiding him safely to the ground. Sam was coiling the rope around her elbow. Daniel quickly untied himself and let her finish. When Jack jumped the last five feet, Daniel grabbed his wrists.
     "Cut it out, Daniel!" Jack snapped, pulling away with shameful ease.
     "I will not. You're hurt. These are serious burns and if you don't treat them immediately, they will get infected. Why didn't you say something last night? Or better yet, why didn't you do anything about them then?"
     "I'll get you for this," Jack muttered under his breath as Carter took over. She whipped out her med-kit and dabbed at his hands with an antibacterial tissue.
     "Did I not warn you the tree would be hot?" Teal'c chided him.
     Jack scowled and made a face. "Tell that to the beast."
     Carter put a dab of antibiotic ointment on Band-Aids and wrapped one around the tip of each finger. She did it just right the first time, not too tight, not too loose.
     "You're better at that than setting bones," he mumbled, taunting her.
     She winced sheepishly. "Lots of practice babysitting, sir."
     "You know these damn things will make it hard to hang on to a weapon."
     "So I'll take lead, sir," she offered.
     "Like hell. Just watch my six." Jack shouldered his MP-5 and stomped off.
     "Look at the size of these prints," Daniel said. "They're huge. That animal had to be five or six hundred pounds at least. Probably of the family felidae, genus panthera, although I don't think there's anything this big on earth."
     "Daniel, biology lesson is over. Let's go."
     Daniel looked at Jack's retreating back. "Go where? What use is there to just wandering around an alien planet unless you take the time to learn about the environment. You haven't a clue what we could run in to."
     "And I'm not going to figure that out by sniffing scat. Now move!"
     Daniel sniffed the crisp air, which made him sneeze again. He didn't smell any scat. Shaking his head, he jogged to catch up. He'd have to study in short snatches, whenever the pace slowed enough for him to observe more than Jack's back. It was just like being back in school on a field trip. The teachers always insisted that the group stay together, but the group rushed through the museum or zoo or whatever they were supposed to be seeing too fast for Daniel to be able to read more than the exit signs. It got so that he hated field trips. It was like taunting a poor child on Christmas Eve with a tour of a toy store, but telling him he could never have one to play with. Sometimes he'd been successful at dodging the group, pausing to tie his shoe, or claiming he had to use the bathroom. Then he could double back to see something he'd found interesting, but the teachers always got angry with him. One humiliating time the teacher had actually tied his wrist to a rope to keep him with the group. Odd, how he'd hated her for that, but when Jack had tied him last night, it had brought him only comfort.
     Jack wasn't heading back towards the stargate, Daniel realized with a start. He seemed to be tracking the beast! "I didn't think you wanted to know more about it," Daniel said, catching up to him.
     "I don't," Jack insisted. "But it's gotta drink, doesn't it?"
     Daniel flushed. Of course. He knew that. Follow the wildlife and eventually they'll lead them to a source of water. Or to their den, where they would be surrounded by fierce predators. Daniel fell back a step and glanced around nervously.
     The air was finally getting warmer. The morning sun had burned off the light frost and the brisk pace was invigorating. The sun seemed brighter, bigger maybe, than earth's. Daniel didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. It meant that they probably weren't back on earth in the present, past or future. But where were they?
     At the edge of the giant redwood-like trees was a narrow grove of smaller ones, saplings, perhaps, and then they emerged from the canopy of bare branches covered with tight buds into a field of dead grass that was higher than their heads. Seeing anything in any direction would be impossible, yet Jack continued relentlessly. Daniel checked his own weapon, curious that it made him feel better. He'd never liked guns, never played with toy guns as a child. Never pretended to be a soldier, cowboy or even an ensign on a star ship, but if that enormous tiger-lion-wildcat whatever came at him, he was fairly certain he'd be able to fire at it. At least, at the ground near it's feet. Maybe he could scare it off.
     Jack held up a fist and everyone stopped. Daniel had learned that meant he should be silent as well. Jack signaled with his fingers. Teal'c fanned out to his left, Sam to the right. It was moments like this when Daniel felt the most useless, but he took a position behind Jack, protecting his back. Presumably, if Jack missed the first shot, Daniel would be there to fire a second. But Jack never missed.
     The air rushed past with a noisy flumping sound as a flock of birds were startled into flight. Jack lowered his MP-5 and aimed a pistol, nailing one of the birds with deceptive ease. Daniel stared in horror as it fell to the ground. Teal'c retrieved it, carrying it by it's feet. It was mostly white, but it didn't look healthy, like it was molting or something. Daniel rubbed at his nose which was starting to itch.
     "A molting white bird. If this place is anything like earth, then I'd have to guess that it's early spring here, not fall."
     "That's good," Jack answered. "I really don't like snow. At least, not without a snowmobile handy and some of those military-issue wool-lined long johns."
     "Looks like a Ptarmigan," Daniel continued, explaining how he'd come to that deduction. "On earth, they are white-feathered in the winter, but red-brown to black in the summer. See the feathers on it's feet? That helps it to walk on snow."
     "That's very interesting, Daniel. But how does it taste?"
     Realization dawned. Jack hadn't shot the bird because he was angry or frustrated. It was the third rule of survival. Food. "Actually, it tastes like chicken."
     "You say that about everything."
     "But it's true. The ptarmigan are of the phasianidae family, the same is chickens. Although they're of the genus -"
     "Fine. Chicken for breakfast. And that, people, looks like water. Carter- is it fresh?"
     The grasses parted to reveal a small lake shimmering quietly in the morning sun. Daniel could see all the way around it, but the far shore was fuzzy. He took off his glasses and wiped them on a shirt-tail. Inhaling deeply, which made him sneeze yet again, he decided it didn't smell like salt water.
     Carter dipped her fingers in the liquid and smelled it, then tasted it. "Of course, we should boil it first to be safe, but it seems okay to me."
     Jack filled his canteen and drank deeply, the clear, cold water dribbling down his chin. "Safe enough. Drink up, kids."
     The water tasted clean. It tasted wonderful. This planet was certainly worth investigating further, with its pristine lake, unsullied air, panoramic vistas and amazing creatures. Jack wondered if it was what earth might have looked like before man. Then, as if to reassure him that they hadn't traveled back in time, a double moon appeared on the horizon. The first moon was enormous, easily three times the size of earth's, while the second was smaller, partially concealed by the first. Too bad they hadn't been out last night. As big as the nearer one was, it would have illumined the sky for them as it reflected back the light of its sun.
     Daniel stood, capping his canteen. He followed Jack's gaze to the left, beyond the edge of the lake, to the distant mountains. They looked tiny, no doubt a long way off. It could take them weeks to walk there, but mountains meant the possibility of caves and Jack would be looking for shelter. "We're not going there, are we?" Daniel asked anxiously.
     "I don't want to get too far from the stargate," Jack replied. "You know Hammond won't rest until he finds us."
     Daniel let out a rush of air. Not that he'd mind the forced march, he could keep up, but he really wasn't feeling very well. At first he'd hoped it was just sore muscles from the uncomfortable sleeping accommodations, but now he was too warm and his sinuses were blocked in spite of the antihistamines he took. It was lousy timing to come down with a cold.
     Jack scanned the wildlife around the lake. He didn't see anything like that wildcat they'd heard last night. He had to know what they were up against to help him figure out what to do about shelter.
     Caves were preferable. For one thing, they already existed and he didn't have to build them. But the mountains were too far away. Tree houses were fun, but they weren't warm. Of course, Daniel had told him that summer was coming, not winter and he believed him. A tree house might work for a temporary solution. Hopefully, temporary was all they'd need. But that tree they'd slept in last night was so damned tall. He wasn't relishing the idea of climbing it several times a day, or hauling their food and supplies up there. And there was no way he could topple that four hundred foot giant with a single zatt and a staff weapon. Some C4, maybe.
     He knew how to build shelters out of branches or palm fronds, how to lash sticks together or even bundles of grass. He'd made shelters from mud, animal skins, even snow. He groaned inwardly, suspecting that whatever shelter he had to make this time was going to take a lot of work. "Let's cook that baby. I can't think on an empty stomach and I do not feel like chicken-flavored macaroni this morning."
     Daniel took out his spade and dug a shallow hole in the ground, pulling the dry grasses away. Carter bent and twisted the grasses into log-shaped bundles and Teal'c fired on them with a zatt. They burst into flames, flared for a few moments, then simmered down to a slow smoke. Daniel fed the small fire with more grass and small, woody weeds. Being spring, everything was pretty dry, in spite of the early morning frost. He kept his back turned while Jack cleaned his catch and when next he saw the dead bird it looked more like food - beheaded, skinned and gutted, a stick rammed through its center. Jack set the stick on two others jammed into the ground on either side of the fire. Daniel licked his lips. Chicken. Chicken soup. He suddenly realized just how hungry he was.
     "Keep an eye on my breakfast," Jack ordered, signaling Carter to stay and keep an eye on Daniel. "I'm going to look around."
     Daniel shrugged. Normally he objected to the way Jack felt he had to baby him. Right now his body ached all over and his shirt was sticking to his skin with perspiration. All he really wanted to do was climb into bed for a few days. Maybe other people went to work when they had colds, but Daniel never could. A simple cold always seemed to knock him down and hold him there for a few days at least. And if he ignored it, then it always developed into something more serious. A secondary infection. Good thing they had plenty of antibiotics. He smiled, shaking his head as he recalled how Jack had fretted over him just a few hours ago. Now Jack seemed to have forgotten that Daniel might have even been sick. That was okay. Daniel didn't want him to worry, but he didn't feel up to any more hiking today, either.
     "Daniel? Are you okay?" Sam asked anxiously.
     "Yeah, why?" he said, not quite looking at her. He didn't want to lie, but he didn't need to have her worried, too.
     "You look a little flushed."
     "It's the heat of the fire," he suggested. That much could be true. "I'll be fine."
     She shrugged, accepting him at his word. He felt chagrined at misleading her. But he would be fine. That was true. It was just a simple cold. Jack's burned fingers were more to worry about and even that wasn't much. So far this mission had been relatively harmless. If being lost didn't count. And the wildcat was less of a threat than a Goa'uld mother ship.
     Sam cradled her gun in the crook of her arm and paced a wide circle around Daniel. He gave the bird a half turn on the spit, then stretched out on his side. His legs screamed in protest. He shivered once, sneezed again, then felt a sigh escape. Maybe a short nap was all it would take.
    
     Jack cleared his throat as he neared the campfire. He knew Carter would be alert, her weapon aimed right at his chest. He knew that she had nerves of steel and wouldn't fire until she saw a threat, but just as a consideration, he let her know that he was more friend than foe. The last of the tall grasses parted and he stood where they had trampled the grass to create a small clearing. The fire was still smoking cheerily, the tarragon-ptarmigan- bird-thing smelled perfect. Some fat dripped from its cavity to sizzle in the fire below. Burned fingers or not, he could hardly wait to eat.
     Then he saw that Carter had doubled as chef and watchman, while Daniel lay sound asleep. Jack scowled. Wordlessly, he crouched beside the younger man and touched his forehead, then glared as Carter as though it were somehow her fault. "How long?" he snapped.
     "Sir, I didn't know. Honestly. He said he was fine. Only after he fell asleep did I notice he was running a fever. It's not too bad, though. It could just be a cold."
     "Well, we can't stay here," he barked. "I got a glimpse of that tiger. I've seen tanks that were smaller."
     "We don't have to go right this minute, sir. Sit and eat."
     Jack folded his legs and sat on the ground. It felt damp. Definitely couldn't be doing Danny Boy any good. Absently he accepted the hunk of bird, wincing as hot fat seeped under a Band-Aid. It did taste good, though. Better hot, too. "Shouldn't we wake him to eat?" he asked.
     "I don't think so. I'm making him some broth."
     Jack glanced at the fire, at the mess kit full of water nestled in the hot coals with a chunk of bird carcass floating in it. "I didn't know you could cook," he teased.
     "Not much, sir. But I learned how to boil water from you."
     For a few minutes, no one spoke. All Jack heard were the sounds of lips smacking. It was pretty near the best chicken he'd ever had. Washing his hands in the cold lake finished off the last of the Band-Aids, but his fingers were feeling a little better already. The ripped blisters were scabbing over. He always felt that covering a sore only kept it sore anyway.
     "So what now, sir?" Carter asked.
     "You watch Daniel. Teal'c and I will work on our house."
     "I'd like to help, sir."
     "You are. And unless you want Daniel falling trees, you'll sit here and keep watch."
     "Yes, sir," she said glumly.
     "Hey. And when he wakes, don't let him do that Daniel thing. You know, the guilt trip? Tell him it was great knowing that summer's coming. Made a difference on where we're going to live."
     Carter nodded, forcing a smile. She knew it was ridiculous, but she felt it was somehow her fault that they were here. She had to figure out where they were and how to get back. That Colonel O'Neill hadn't already told her to do so only worried her more. Maybe he didn't believe she could do it.
     "If he feels better when he wakes up, you can follow our trail."
     "Yes, sir," she said. And then they were gone. She was alone with her worries. Alone to keep the fire going, knowing it was pitiful protection against the predators, but at least it offered a little warmth for Daniel. Feed a cold, starve a fever, she remembered her mother saying when she'd been small. But what did you do when you had a cold with a fever? That never made any sense to her.
     She stood and stretched her legs, arched her back and felt something snap quietly back into place. As she'd been doing since last night, she relived the final moments at SGC, the chevrons engaging and the seventh locking into place. General Hammond's pleasant voice over the speaker informing them "you have a go". Walking up the ramp. Stepping into the event horizon. There had been no clue that anything was amiss. What had gone wrong! Why had the MALP revealed PX3-149 at noon on a sunny day, the Merusians gathered around waiting to escort them to a feast in their honor. They were supposed to mingle, survey, study and report back. If things checked out, a diplomatic team would be sent next to negotiate a treaty. The Merusians weren't technologically advanced, they were just beginning their industrial age, but they did have rich deposits of oil that earth's politicians found tempting. If the stargate could bring in a cheap source of oil, it would change the balance of power in the Middle East and maybe the stargate could begin to pay for itself.
     Carter didn't agree. Science should be allowed to exist for itself, not for profit or political gain, but of course, Senator Kinsey wouldn't believe that for a second. So how had they wound up here? And where was here? She rubbed a hand through her short blond hair and gave it a tug, as though willing the knowledge to suddenly sprout roots.
     "Is that why you like to keep it short?"
     Carter jumped, turning sheepishly to smile at Daniel. "Maybe. How are you?"
     "Better. How long have I been sleeping?"
     "Four hours. Maybe five."
     Daniel sat up, holding his forehead until the dizziness passed. "You didn't have to. But I think it helped."
     He sneezed into a handkerchief, wiped his eyes and grimaced. "But I'm starved."
     Carter took two sticks to lift the bowl of hot broth from the fire. She handed Daniel a spoon. "So, really? You're feeling better?"
     Daniel stirred the soup and blew on it until it was cool enough to taste. He nodded. "Yeah. I may get a lot of colds, but usually if I rest and take it easy the first day or two, they go away pretty fast."
     "You haven't been sick that much since we started working together," she pointed out.
     "Maybe because I'm not around earthlings enough to catch whatever's going around?"
     That made sense. She smiled. "So, is this like contagious? Because I don't know about you, but the only thing worse than being stranded on an alien world with Colonel O'Neill, is being stranded with him sick."
     Daniel chuckled. He knew she didn't really mean that, about being stranded with Jack. They both knew that if they had to be stranded anywhere, they wanted Jack with them. But Jack was a lousy patient. "He's probably too ornery for the cold virus to take hold."
     Daniel finished the soup. It was watery and lacked seasoning and the meat had been so overcooked that it practically melted in his mouth like baby food, but at least it was filling. "So, what now?"
     "If you're up to a walk, we'll go find them. The trail through this grass is pretty easy to follow. And occasionally I hear them. I don't think they are very far."
     Daniel stood slowly, feeling a little unstable, but he raised his pack and squared his shoulders gamely. "Lead on."
     Sam set an easy pace. She listened intently for any sound in the tall grass, perhaps more protective of Daniel than normal, as a cold might affect his hearing as well as his reflexes.
     "Sam, don't you think we should go back to the Stargate?" Daniel asked. He unbuttoned his shirt to let the warm breeze circulate. He had been perspiring heavily from the fever and now he felt like day-old toast. A bath would be nice. With hot water would even be better.
     "I guess," she said, sounding very unlike herself.
     "I mean, we should be figuring out where we are, what went wrong, and then how to get back. If we could do that, we wouldn't be needing a shelter. Would we?"
     "It took three days before Colonel and I were rescued from Antarctica. We were in 1969 for several weeks. We've had missions go wrong before."
     Daniel was unconvinced. "But this isn't earth," he insisted.
     "Daniel," Sam said, the word escaping on a rush of air as though she too had no patience for him right now. He winced. "I'm sure Colonel O'Neill has his reasons."
     Daniel shrugged. That was about as close as she would come to agreeing with him. She had that military thing down pretty good, where you obeyed your commanding officer no matter what. He'd take it up with Jack later. He was about the only one who could. Teal'c followed Jack with almost blind devotion, but since Daniel wasn't in the military, he argued with him frequently.
     They came to a place where a large area of the tall grass had been cut, opening up their view. Ahead, at the edge of the woods, were Jack and Teal'c. Both had stripped to the waist and were about thirty feet up. A platform had been set between four tall saplings. Two walls made of bundled dried grass faced the prevailing winds to the west and north. There was no roof yet, but just seeing the wide, fairly level platform made Daniel sigh with blessed relief. He wasn't sure he could spend another night like the last one, precariously perched nearly a hundred feet up without a parachute.
     Jack waved at them, then grasping a rope, jumped over the edge of the platform, the corded muscles in his arms flexing and stretching as he lowered himself swiftly to the ground. Daniel smiled. The simple block and tackle wasn't quite like an elevator, but it was far superior to the way he'd had to climb last night.
     "Welcome home, kids," Jack said brightly. "Carter, lend me your canteen."
     Sam offered it to him, but instead of drinking it, he poured the contents over his head. The water, slightly warmed, sluiced down his back and chest, making little trails through the layer of dust. He didn't hand it back to her. Daniel knew he'd refill it himself. Jack was like that.
     "So, what do you think? And I'm not looking for honesty here, folks. A little bald-faced lie will do if you don't like it."
     "It's nice, sir," Sam said, smiling.
     "Let's hope it doesn't rain tonight," Daniel taunted, concealing a grin as he indicated the lack of a roof.
     Jack playfully punched his shoulder. Daniel yelped. "Well, you'd have got more finished if we'd all helped."
     "You can make it up by sitting first watch tonight," Jack conceded. Then the playfulness dropped. He scowled at Daniel, inspecting him. "How are you doing?"
     "Much better, thanks for asking."
     "Good. I'm starved. Carter, any of that arctic chicken left?"
     "A little, sir," she said. She opened a side flap on her pack and drew out a towel-wrapped carcass.
     Jack ripped off a thigh and bit in. "Eat up. Until we have a way to store it, we won't be saving our left- overs."
     Daniel picked delicately at the greasy meat. The ecology of the planet must be pretty good for the bird to be so fat at this time of year. When Sam had chosen a piece for herself, Teal'c took the remainder of the bird. Jack wouldn't have to worry about left-overs. Daniel was surprised to see Teal'c eat it though. The Jaffa was pretty much a fruits and vegetables man, although he did enjoy colored Jell-O from time to time.
     "Carter, why don't you see if you can get a fire going? I'll bring back some water."
     "Sir, we need to talk," she said quietly, falling in step with him.
     He gave her a hungry look before quickly masking his face from any emotion. Daniel wondered if either of them knew just how much they really loved each other. They were too busy trying to be good little soldiers.
     "As tempting as your offer sounds, you really don't want to bathe with me," Jack said with just the right amount of his usual sarcasm. "I stink."
     Carter blushed, stopping dead in her tracks. "A fire. Yes, sir."
     Daniel dug in his pack, pulling out a bar of soap and a change of clothes. He hurried to catch up to Jack.
     The enormous sun hovered at the western shore - they always called west the direction the sun set, regardless of which way the planet rotated. Fingers of crimson and violet reached out towards them, painting the sky with childlike abandon. Daniel smiled appreciatively.
     "Enjoying yourself, Danny Boy?"
     Daniel glanced at Jack. The older man had pealed off his boots and socks, but dove into the water with his pants on. After a long moment he surfaced, shaking his head and spraying the area with drops of water. Daniel ducked, wiping water from his glasses.
     "Oh, I can think of better ways to spend my time," Daniel said. "But it is lovely here."
     "You know what? I'm tired of saving the world. Tired of saving the Tokra, the Tollin, and all the other guys... I'm not glad we got stuck here, but if this is what it takes for me to get my vacation, hey, I might as well enjoy it."
     Daniel made a thoughtful face. Jack had already retired once. He'd done his bit for God and country. Since he was seldom on earth to spend his insignificant government paycheck, it tended to collect and accrue interest. Jack's tastes ran simple. There was that fishing cabin in Northern Minnesota he'd shown Daniel once, but seldom had a chance to visit. Somehow Daniel just couldn't see Jack sitting back and doing nothing. Jack thrived on adversity. Daniel hated to think about it, but he suspected that Jack would never have that idyllic retirement. He'd probably die in the line of duty.
     Jack splashed him purposefully. "Coming in?"
     Daniel grunted. Carefully he removed his glasses and folded them, setting them on top of his clean shirt. Then he loosened the laces on his boots. Meticulously, he removed his grubby clothes and folded them. Then gingerly, he waded into the cold water. Only the thought of how good it would feel to be clean drove him to persevere. Finally, he dove beneath the surface, grateful that his disadvantaged childhood had at least included swimming lessons.
     Jack half-heartedly scrubbed soap over his wet pants and in his hair. He swam some more, then emerged from the cold water naked. He slung the wet BDUs over some brush, then grabbed up a fistful of rocks and preceded to skip them across the surface of the lake while he air-dried.
     Daniel took longer in his grooming. He washed thoroughly, then washed each piece of his military issue uniform, wringing as much of the water from them as he could, then dressed carefully, trying to keep too much sand from getting inside his clean clothes. Long before he finished, Jack was tamping a booted foot impatiently.
     Jack veered off the trail he'd made coming out to the lake. He seemed to be looking for something. Daniel tightened his grip on the weapon they trusted him with, but he didn't hear anything. Then Jack ducked, grabbed up something and yanked. It was a narrow, woody vine. Tiny roots tore from the marshy soil. Jack coiled it around his palm and elbow. "Handy stuff," he said.
     "Fine. So long as you're not tying us in tonight," Daniel muttered.
     Jack threw an arm over Daniel's shoulder in a rare gesture. He wasn't generally the touchy-feely type. Daniel wondered if he were still worried about him, or if maybe something in the air were affecting him. He glanced up anxiously.
     "You're all right," Jack pronounced.
     Daniel didn't think he was referring to his health.
    
     Sam had a nice fire going by the time they returned. Teal'c was still tying bundles of grass together. The light had nearly gone from the sky and off in the distance the yowling of the yet unseen predators returned. Daniel stood closer to the fire.
     Jack straddled the large knot at the base of the rope and hauled on the other end. The pulley quickly raised him to the platform. There he tied the new vine he'd collected at about waist level between two of the support trees. Then he spread out his wet clothes over it to dry.
     "Come on, kids. Lights out. Tomorrow's a busy day," Jack called cheerily.
     Sam tossed several more bundles of twisted, dry grass onto the fire. It was more smoke than heat, but it would help hold off the wildlife. Between the fire, the raised shelter, and their firearms, she knew she'd sleep better tonight.
     Daniel clenched his teeth, determined to maneuver himself up on his own, but his cold left him feeling weak and helpless. Teal'c took the rope from him and hauled him up in three easy yanks. Then the Jaffa followed, tying the rope up out of the way.
     "This is nice," Daniel admitted as he walked around the base of the shelter. "Not quite home, but it will do."
     "All we need is some marshmallows," Jack sighed dreamily.
     "Sir, I really think I should look at the Stargate tomorrow," Carter said.
     "Yep. That's next on the agenda," Jack replied.
     Carter's eyes widened. She'd anticipated having to argue with him. "Sir?"
     "Shelter's half done. The lake is nearby. Food is plentiful, and winter's a long way off. What else have we to do? Besides, the sooner you figure out what went wrong, the sooner we can get off this rock. Not that it's not a nice place to visit."
     "But you don't want to live here," Daniel finished, chuckling. "Why marshmallows?"
     "S'mores," Jack said.
     Teal'c cocked his head, raising an eyebrow quizzically. "Some more what, O'Neill?"
     "First you roast a marshmallow over a fire, then when its twice as big and melty warm, you top it with a chunk of chocolate and sandwich it between graham crackers. If you think Jell-O is good, you haven't lived until you've gorged on s'mores around a campfire."
     Daniel thought that sounded pretty good himself. Once again he was reminded of his sheltered, unhappy childhood. He knew only slightly more about life on earth than the alien warrior. That was pretty pathetic. His foster parents had been okay, some of them anyway. But whenever they went on family vacations, he wasn't included. He'd been sent back to the group home. While the birth children visited Mount Rushmore or Disneyland or gone camping or to visit grandparents, he'd holed up in a dormitory reading a book and telling himself that he hadn't wanted to go anyway.
     Jack reached into his pack and pulled something out. "Well, sorry I forgot the marshmallows," he said. He passed around three chocolate bars, keeping one for himself.
     "You're a lifesaver," Carter exclaimed. "I was having a chocolate attack. How did you know?"
     Teal'c accepted the sweet treat silently, but Daniel thought he looked like he was enjoying it. He ate it in three bites. Daniel broke his into eight small rectangles, sucking each one until it melted to nothing. He liked to make it last as long as possible. He was still feeling a little groggy from the cold, so he wrapped up in his blanket and stretched out. His eyes grew heavy, his limbs weak, but his spirits were high. Drifting to sleep, he was comforted by the light-hearted banter of his friends.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
     Chapter three:
    
     Daniel awoke to the sound of Jack's whistling. He cleaned his glasses and slid them over his nose, then looked down from the raised shelter. Carter was tending the fire, Teal'c was tying more bundles of grass to finish the shelter and Jack was carrying a brace of fat fish. Daniel's stomach lurched. Fish were okay. He generally wasn't interested in food much, except as a means to stop the annoying cramps that interfered with life at regular intervals, but somehow eating fresh fish for breakfast when he still didn't feel one-hundred percent was just more than he could handle.
     "You should have come with me, Teal'c," Jack insisted.
     "I could not. There are no mosquitoes," Teal'c replied straight-faced.
     Daniel shook his head and smiled. Jack's fascination with fishing was legendary. Unfortunately, none of his friends shared that interest. He scrambled down the rope, relieved that he was feeling well enough to do it on his own.
     "Hm. Nice big, juicy, maybe lake trout. You think?" Jack laid the fish on wide leaves, sprinkling them with water, then wrapped the leaves around them. He laid the leaves directly on the coals and sprinkled more water on the leaves to keep them from burning. Smoked fish. Maybe that would be okay for breakfast, Daniel mused.
     The air felt heavy. Daniel gazed at the horizon which was hazy with indistinct clouds. He hoped they weren't the harbingers of rain, or Jack might decide the shelter had to be finished before Sam could check out the Stargate.
     "I'm going to the lake, sir," Carter said, gesturing at the fish. "Breakfast looks like it could take a while."
     Jack stood, shouldering his MP-5. "Danny, keep an eye on that. Don't let it burn."
     Carter ducked her head, trying to hide her embarrassment. "Uh, sir? You don't need to follow. It's the women's shower room right now."
     Jack shrugged. "Tell that to wildcats."
     Daniel pretended to cover a yawn as he concealed a smug grin. It was a good thing they would be going home soon. Being stranded together might force those two to acknowledge feelings they denied having. Still, he didn't envy Jack one bit. Standing with his back turned, weapon ready, while listening to the sounds of a beautiful woman in her bath was more than any man should have to endure first thing in the morning. Jack hadn't even had his coffee yet.
    
     It was midmorning by the time they arrived back at the Stargate. Daniel scowled. Something about it looked different. It had been dark the night they arrived, so he hadn't really noticed. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something was definitely wrong.
     Sam had seen it, too. She approached the DHD with trepidation. Teal'c took up his position for guard duty, and Jack started whistling something, unconcerned, as he had full confidence in Sam's abilities.
     "Look at this, Daniel," she said quietly.
     He came to her side and touched the DHD. It seemed smoother, shinier than usual. No dust gathered on the raised dials, no scratches or signs of wear marred the surface.
     Sam pressed each of the seven symbols and watched while the event horizon spilled out and settled back into place. Again she tapped her GDO and tried to radio General Hammond. Still there was no response. She shut it down.
     "I'm going to have to open it up," she muttered.
     Daniel helped her pull off the side panel. It was about all he could do. He'd watched Jack draw the plans to the DHD back when he'd had all the knowledge of the ancients, but it hadn't made any sense to him then. The technology was still way beyond anything they could build, but Sam had managed to repair a DHD several times in the past.
     "This isn't right," she muttered again.
     Jack had stopped whistling. Now he was singing "Home, home on the range."
     Sam stood, glaring at the alien machine. She tugged at her hair, her frustration level skyrocketing. "Sir," she called.
     "Any time, Carter. 'Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home'."
     "Sir, please!"
     "When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah! Hurrah!"
     "Sir, stop! We're not going anywhere!"
     Jack stopped in mid-phrase and whirled on her. "Come on, Carter. You've done it before. What about those fancy plans I gave you last year? Did you forget everything I taught you?"
     "Look at the stargate, sir," she said firmly. "Really look. See anything different?"
     Jack stopped smiling. He gazed at the 'gate, then turned to her questioningly. "Okay. What am I looking for?"
     "It's new, sir."
     "No it's not."
     "Trust me, sir. This stargate is brand new."
     "Daniel," Jack said slowly, his voice rising like a question. "Weren't the stargates made by the ancients gazillions of years ago?"
     "Not exactly," Daniel stammered. "Although they certainly predate the pyramids. We theorized the 'gate in Egypt was placed there maybe ten-thousand years ago, but the one in Antarctica is probably older."
     "But the 'gates are old. Not new, Carter."
     Sam slammed her fist on the DHD. "Look at this! It is shiny, clean, and brand-spanking new."
     Jack stood, arms on his hips. "How," he demanded.
     "Maybe the Goa'uld built this one. Maybe they backwards engineered it."
     Jack tensed, fingering the trigger on his weapon at the mention of the Goa'uld. Daniel was certain Jack wasn't even aware of doing it. "Why?" he asked.
     "Who knows? Maybe they want to expand the system of stargates. Think what an advantage that would be? A system lord could conceivably amass quite an army and no one would be any wiser."
     "So, this is a new stargate," Jack stated flatly. "Why won't it send us home?"
     "I don't know, sir. But this DHD looks like nothing I've ever seen before. There are whole parts that are just missing. I don't know why we gated here instead of to PX3-149, but I can't trust this DHD. Sir, we're not going home. Not on our own."
     "So, if Goa'ulds gated here, they're stuck too?" His eyes were narrowed, a small muscle in his jaw twitching.
     "Maybe," Sam said. "Or they might have left and died in the attempt. Maybe that's why there's no sign of them here. I mean, why would they put up a new stargate and leave it unattended? Unless anyone who knows it's here isn't alive any more."
     Jack glared at them. Daniel winced, waiting for the harsh words that were sure to follow, but nothing happened. Jack simply turned around and stomped into the field. Sam started after him, but Daniel touched her arm.
     "Sam," he said quietly. "Just let him be."
     Teal'c closed the panel on the DHD and stood. "I believe you are correct, Major Carter. This device is dissimilar to any I have encountered before."
     "Sometimes I hate being right," she grumbled.
     Solemnly the three of them returned to base camp. Teal'c tied more bundles of grass. Sam tried to assist him, but Jack had been the brains behind the structure. Although Teal'c had helped him earlier, he had never built one before. He didn't know how to fashion the door or a window, or how to do the roof. Sam kept glancing about anxiously, hoping Jack would soon return.
     Daniel tended the fire, gathered deadwood from the forest floor, and discovered a nest of eggs for dinner. Silently, he thanked Jack for leaving. He knew the older man blamed himself. He would have a lot of anger to vent. It was considerate of him to vent it by himself. When he returned, they could talk about what to do next. As the day passed, though, the three of them ate their eggs without him.
     In the middle of the night the clouds opened up and rain pummeled them. Wrapped in his thin emergency blanket, Daniel shivered. The eggs hadn't been very filling. His muscles ached. His sinuses were painful. His spirits were about as low as they could go. The yowl of a couple of wildcats chilled him. "You'd better watch out for yourself, Jack," he murmured.
     It rained all the next morning, too. Daniel had to go down to relieve himself, but then he was too weak to return. Teal'c had to pull him up. Daniel sneezed repeatedly. He ignored Sam when she fussed over him. Speaking was too much like work.
    
     Sam touched Daniel's cheek. He was burning up. The rain had finally quit and Teal'c had gone out to hunt something for dinner. All their clothes were drenched. If they didn't get warm and dry soon, they could all become ill. For maybe the first time she could ever remember, she was furious with her commanding officer. She didn't blame him for their predicament. It was not his fault, but he was the glue that held them all together. He kept them motivated with his eternal optimism. Without him, they were lost. And Daniel was the one to pay the price.
     She tossed armloads of wet clothes down, then lowered herself to the ground. Jack was sitting by the fire pit.
     "Sir," she said flatly.
     He didn't stir. His clothing was soaked, his hair plastered to his head. Water beaded on his weapon. That shocked her more than anything else. Jack treated his gun as an extension of himself. Was he giving up?
     She made a teepee of the small branches Daniel had gathered the day before. Nothing was dry. She'd never get the fire started with wet wood, wet kindling, and wet tinder. Still, she tried, because she didn't know what else to do.
     Jack ignored her. He neither spoke nor moved. He just sat, staring blankly. An hour passed, before Daniel started another coughing jag. It sounded deep and croupy. Jack was up the rope in a flash. Sam winced at the string of cursing he let loose.
     More clothes appeared on the ground. They had to be the wet things Daniel had still been wearing. Jack came down, silently fuming. He grabbed one soggy stick from the fire pit and began to make short slices into the bark. He made a series of them down the length of the stick, exposing the drier, inner core. He sliced all the sticks. Then he gathered up some pine cones and tucked them inside the teepee of slashed sticks. Expertly striking a flint, he dropped several sparks onto the tinder. Even damp, the pitch-filled pine cones caught and smoked. Jack aggressively fed the fire, building it up, daring it to deny him. Next he strung a lower clothes line and hung up all their wet things. Then he returned to tying bundles of grass. He kept his eyes averted, not speaking to Sam or acknowledging her presence.
     He heated stones in the fire and carried them up to the shelter. Later Sam noticed that the stones were wrapped in leaves and tucked under the thin blanket with Daniel. At least he wasn't shivering any more.
     Teal'c returned, dragging a huge animal. It was far more meat than they could eat in a week, she thought. Since they had no way to preserve it, it would go to waste.
     "Perhaps so," Teal'c agreed. "But the skin will provide much warmth."
     She shuddered. Was that what they would have to rely on now? Had they been reduced to using stone knives and bear skins?
     Jack took his knife and quickly skinned the beast. It looked a little like a furry anteater, but the thick, black and white coat was very soft. The next time she checked on Daniel, he was wrapped in the untanned hide, fur side in.
     Jack worked wordlessly, ignoring direct questions and rudely avoiding coming into contact with them at all. Teal'c tried to assist him with the roof, but Jack turned away. In the end, they left him alone.
     The anteater-like beast had a strong, oily taste. Sam hoped they wouldn't shoot one again, but it's soft fur coat made that unlikely. And their protein-heavy diet wouldn't be good for long. They had to find fresh fruits and vegetables, natural grains, nuts, and seeds. She tended the fire all afternoon and evening, stretching one shirt at a time over the roasting spit as she tried to coax it dry. Her skin felt chafed from the wet, sandy uniform. Somewhere around midnight, she folded all their clothes and set them in the shelter. She wrapped in her blanket and tried to sleep. Daniel's breathing sounded labored. By morning she'd have to insist he take some antibiotics. Unfortunately, Daniel was allergic to penicillin. All their med-kits carried the sulfa drugs his system would tolerate, but how long would they have to last? How long would they be stranded here?
    
     Jack's stomach protested against the apparent neglect as he had refused to eat even though food was readily available, but he ignored it. This was all his fault. First that they were stranded on this Goa'uld-forsaken planet, and that he hadn't insisted they finish the shelter before going to mess around with the stargate, and that Daniel was sick, probably with pneumonia this time, and that they were all angry with him. They had every right to be. He hated himself right about now. He was almost as depressed as the weeks following his son's death. Yesterday he'd sat in the rain holding a gun very much like that other one. He'd thought about just quitting. He wasn't sure he could do this any more. Everyone needed him. Everyone depended on him. And he failed them. Maybe if he wasn't around any more, they'd have to find someone else to pin their hopes on. Who, Teal'c maybe? He was a good man.
     And Teal'c could protect them from hostile forces, but he wouldn't know how to help Daniel. The Jaffa was seldom sick and never needed help. His junior Goa'uld healed him. Sam, she might. She was smart. But she couldn't set bones worth a damn. She'd told him she wasn't that kind of doctor. So, maybe she wouldn't know how to help Danny either.
     Jack wasn't educated. He'd enlisted right out of high school. He'd taken a few courses over the years, survival stuff mostly, and he'd learned a lot in the school of hard knocks. But growing up, he'd taken care of his grandmother a lot while his mom worked. Grandma had a lot of chest colds. She'd taught him to make chicken soup and onion poultices. She'd insisted that he help her take short walks, because she believed that mild exercise helped her fight off infection. She would bundle herself up in sweaters and robes, believing that sweating was good for the fever. Then there were those hot toddies she'd take, claiming they helped her breathe easier and sleep better. Jack had only a small flask of whiskey hidden away in his pack - for medicinal purposes, of course - but he'd gladly give it all to Danny.
     Finding onions in the dark was not going to be very likely, given the alien surroundings and all. But there was a pot roast in one of those MREs. He peeled it open and picked out the onions. It worked better with raw onions, but he'd have to improvise. He slipped the onions in a plastic bag and zipped it shut, then dropped the whole thing in boiling water.
     He used the water to make a weak toddy, and simmered some chunks of the meat in the rest. When Daniel started coughing again, he went to bring him down.
     "Leave me alone," Daniel grumbled. "I'll be alright in the morning."
     "No, Danny boy. Time for a walk," Jack insisted.
     "Can't," he complained.
     Jack didn't like how weak Daniel seemed. Throwing him over his shoulder, he strained to lower them both safely to the ground. He'd put Daniel's trousers back on him before, but the younger man was still barefoot and bare-chested. They wouldn't walk far.
     "Jack? Need to sleep," Daniel murmured.
     "In a minute. Come with me," Jack said. Looping one of Daniel's arms around his shoulders, and his arm firmly wrapped around his waist, he half-carried, half assisted him a few laps around the campfire. Daniel tried to cooperate, but he got heavier with each lap.
     "Jack? Don't feel good. Wanna lie down."
     "Sit here just a minute, Danny boy," Jack soothed. "I'll be right back."
     He climbed up to retrieve the animal hide and his pack, settling everything near the fire. Then he gathered Daniel, wrapped him up in the skin and sat down. He leaned against his pack, pulling Daniel into a half-sitting position against his chest.
     "Take this," he ordered, putting two tablets in Daniel's mouth and offering him a sip of water.
     He took the bag of hot onions next, opened it, and smeared the mushy aromatic vegetables on Daniel's chest, then laid the bag on top to hold in the heat. He tugged the fur around Daniel's shoulders.
     "Sorry, Jack," Daniel whispered, coughing violently. He leaned over to spit blood on the ground.
     "No, I'm sorry," Jack replied. "Oh, Daniel. I'm sorry I wasn't here for you." He offered him sips of the toddy frequently, every time he coughed, until the cup was empty. Then he offered him the weak meat broth. He sat up all night long, holding Daniel, reheating the onions, giving him more broth, and whispering in his ear. He told him nonsense stuff about how everything was going to be fine. He told him how much he admired him. He told him everything he knew the younger man had always wanted to hear, but Jack had been too stubborn or too proud to mention, but this time there was a real chance that Daniel wasn't going to make it. Jack blinked away tears, knowing if he had to send Daniel into the where ever, he had to make up for a world of hurts in his last hours as if a few kind words could make the journey less frightening.
     Death scared Jack. It terrified him. That was the only thing that had kept him from carrying through with his thoughts of suicide. He didn't believe he would go to a nice place. He didn't deserve it. He was a low-down, mean son-of-a-bitch, according to his step-father, anyway. And he'd done a lot of stuff he wasn't proud of. As a commanding officer, he'd sent innocent young men to their deaths. He'd lied, cheated and he'd stole. He'd always told himself that the ends were all that mattered and how he got there wasn't important. But he knew. His Catholic grandmother had taught him. If there was a heaven, then there was a hell. And he knew what hell was like.
     When the toddy and broth were gone, and the onions had been boiled away to nothing, and Daniel had had a second dose of antibiotics and some zinc tablets, and the rosy glow of morning hung on the horizon, he seemed to turn a corner. Daniel began sweating profusely, and he finally slept without the deep cough to disturb him. His head was hot against Jack's chest, but his breathing sounded more natural.
     Jack closed his eyes in silent prayer. Not for him, but for the young man. He knew then that he couldn't take the coward's way out. He had to stay strong and positive. He had to keep them alive until they either made it home or died of old age. But when they got back, he was going to retire for the last time.
     He heard sounds stirring in the shelter. It had to be Sam. He'd never hear Teal'c move. Sure enough, in a few moments she knelt beside him, her eyes wide and a little frightened. She looked like such a kid.
     "Sir?"
     Jack forced himself to smile. It felt obscene, given the circumstances, but it reassured her. She smiled back, her relief evident, and expelled a breath she'd been holding.
     "How is he, sir?"
     "On the mend," Jack whispered.
     "Did you sit up all night?"
     He didn't like how she sounded impressed by that, like he was a saint or something. "It's the only way Daniel could sleep," he snapped.
     She patted his shoulder. "Let me fix you something to eat."
     "There's an opened pot roast up there," he said.
     "For breakfast?"
     He shrugged. Waste not, want not.
     She heated it and offered it to him. He held it awkwardly over Daniel's chest, still supporting the younger man, while he picked at it disinterestedly. He would have to eat. They needed him. Damn.
     Sam touched Daniel's cheek then and smiled. "I don't know what you did for him, but it worked, sir. He feels almost normal."
     Jack brushed off her praise. "He's weak as sin and won't be back on his feet any time soon, or he'll risk a relapse."
     Sam heated some water and added two spoons of instant coffee to it. She poured some in a cup for him. "This won't last much longer," she replied. "But I guess I can give it up."
     "We might find a substitute," he said. It was time for that famous Jack-O'Neill optimism. "I want you to think up a way to send a message to General Hammond that no one else would be able to understand and we'll throw it through the stargate."
     She was thoughtful for a few moments. "But why doesn't he answer our radio?"
     "I don't know. Maybe this broken DHD is interfering somehow. And maybe the wormhole isn't getting to earth. Maybe it's going close, like Abydos? So the message should be something Kassouf would understand, too."
     "We don't want to alert the Goa'ulds to this place if we can avoid it," Sam continued. "But if that 'gate is new, then it's not on the dialing computer or the Abydos cartouche. If we're not on PX3-149, then I don't know the six symbols for this place."
     "But we do know the seventh symbol, for the point of origin," Jack said. "Use that. Let them figure out the rest."
     She looked skeptical, but didn't say anything. "Okay. We put the seventh symbol, and sketch four stick figures, and maybe put a drop of your blood. The DNA will tell Hammond it's from us, that we're all okay, and where we are. The Tokra might figure that out, too. But if anyone else finds it, it should be fairly meaningless. And I suggest that we use a soft stone, something that will erode over time. Something that looks natural, and if we toss it to a Goa'uld stronghold, might just be ignored."
     "Good," Jack stated. "Then we just wait and stay alive."
     "For how long, sir?" She sounded insecure again.
     "As long as it takes. Give Hammond and Doctor Fraiser a few hours to figure out the message. Then, because you aren't there to help, it could take them a few weeks to find out where this 'gate is. Then they've got to get the Tokra to help - that could take over a year."
     "Dad will come," she said defensively.
     "I'm sure he will. But knowing the Tokra and their never-share-a-thing secrets, they may not even tell him if he's on a mission. But eventually they'll send a ship and we can go home."
     "So, it could be a while," she said glumly.
     "Yep. Sorry, major. But this time you won't have any choice about taking that vacation. You won't be able to hole up in your lab and work on experiments. You'll just have to come fishing with me."
     "Only you could see the silver lining in a cloud like this," she grumbled, but she flashed a brilliant smile. Jack blinked away the emotion that tried to pool in his eyes. It must be the lack of sleep.
    
     An hour later Jack let Teal'c take up his position supporting Daniel. He put the finishing touches on the shelter, gathered firewood, and brought back more fish so swiftly that the unwitting things must have leaped blindly into his net. Or maybe it was just the luck of the Irish. Sam found two small, oval pieces of sandstone and worked on carving the cryptic message into them. Daniel awoke twice, briefly, returning to sleep after washing down doses of antibiotics with watery broth. Both times he whispered a pathetic apology for getting sick.
     "Teal'c," Jack said late that afternoon. "We need to bring a large, flat stone up to the shelter, so we can have a fire there. Want to go find one?"
     Teal'c accepted the assignment with equanimity. Jack was relieved. Playing the optimist was exhausting, and he just didn't think he could carry another blasted thing up there. Of course, the rock was only part of it. He'd have to part the thatch roof over the stone for the smoke to escape. It was still going to feel smoky inside, and they would want to avoid having a fire up there as much as possible, but sitting down on the ground all night wasn't safe. His fear and anger had kept him awake the night before, but he knew if he tried to do it again he could fail and that wild creature would have a Daniel snack. They might have to just hunt that beast and skin it.
     "Sir, what do you think?" Carter asked, showing him the carved stones.
     "Perfect," he pronounced. "When Teal'c returns, have him go to the stargate with you."
     "Sir, I-"
     "No one goes any where alone, major, and that's an order."
     "Including you?"
     Jack swallowed his stubborn pride. "Including me. Until we know more about this place, we're taking no chances. We go hunting in parties of two. We take a leak with a body guard. Sorry, major."
     "Sir," she said. "It's good to have you back."
     He wasn't quite sure how she meant that.
    
    
     Teal'c and Carter did everything while Jack sat holding Daniel. He must have dozed off for a while himself. The evening stars were just peaking out in a periwinkle sky when he became aware of the delicious smells taunting his selfish stomach. Carter grinned at him. "Ready for dessert, sir?"
     Dessert? Had he missed dinner? What the heck, he'd take anything right now. "What is it?" He knuckled his eyes and sat up a little straighter, gently adjusting Daniel.
     "Teal'c and I found some fruit. I figured we'd better pretty soon. Too much protein and nothing else can cause some serious digestive problems. He's eating his raw, but I cooked ours. I think it's sort of like applesauce, sir. If you don't mind the green color."
     "Aye, lassie. Me granny used t'dye the stuff green on ev'ry St. Patty's."
     His mock accent made her chuckle. "Some how, sir, I still can't imagine you as a little boy."
     "May I have some too," Daniel whispered hoarsely.
     "Daniel! You're awake? How are you feeling?" Carter reached out to touch his cheek, but Daniel flinched.
     "I'm fine," he mumbled.
     Carter scooped some of the hot fruit sauce into a bowl and gave it a stir. She passed it to Jack, who held the bowl for him. Daniel struggled to sit up as he just became aware of his human back rest. "What's going on," he asked quietly.
     "Just relax, Daniel," Jack replied. "You gave us a scare. Your cold came back with a vengeance, and I wasn't sure the antibiotics were going to be enough."
     "It wasn't a cold, sir," Carter insisted. "I'm sure it was pneumonia. Daniel, you were coughing up blood. You've been asleep for twenty-four hours."
     Daniel wouldn't meet her eyes. "I'm sorry to slow you down," he replied.
     "Just stop that, Daniel," Jack snapped. "You were sick, you needed our help and we gave it. End of story. That's what people do when they're part of a team. So stuff it, and let me help you eat this mush while it still smells appetizing."
     Daniel chuckled. It was like music. Jack exhaled deeply, snugging his arms around Daniel a little in an unconscious hug. Daniel's hand lay on his, warm and limp. The fingers moved softly, beckoning him. "Okay, Jack. Under one condition. When you're the patient, you have to let me return the favor."
     "Of course," Jack answered. Like that would ever happen.
     "I'm serious, Jack. You are the world's worst patient. That's why we all hate it when you get hurt. It isn't that it scares us, like we're frightened children and can't survive without you. It's that you're such a bear."
     Jack would have argued, but Carter immediately agreed with him. "Fine," Jack spat. "IF - and that's a big if - I need your help, I'll willingly accept it. Now, eat!"
     Daniel continued chuckling while Jack awkwardly spoon-fed him. When he'd had enough, Jack ate the rest himself. "Where did you find fruit this time of year?" he asked absently.
     "It wasn't fresh, sir," Carter confessed. "But I'm sure it was okay. I mean, we picked it off bushes, but it had dried right on the vines. Like big, green raisins. I washed them and boiled them. It could be weeks before we find anything fresh."
     "It was fine, Carter. Green raisin mush is my favorite, right up there with marshmallows."
     Somehow his sarcasm felt just right.
    
    
     Teal'c got the fire going in the shelter and opened a vent in the roof. Sam carried up the fur, which was starting to stiffen and stink. Teal'c carried Daniel. Daniel intended to lie down, but Jack wouldn't hear of it.
     "You got to stay elevated, Danny boy, or your lungs will just fill up again."
     "Jack, you don't have to-"
     "We're not having this discussion again," Jack insisted. He leaned into a corner wall and tugged Daniel against his chest.
     "I'm not an invalid."
     "Of course not. Shut up and get some sleep."
     "That's quite a bedside manner you've developed," Daniel said.
     "I don't get many complaints. But then when your paying for it, they're usually willing to do just about anything."
     The comment went right over Daniel's head. Carter shook her head. "Men."
    
    
    
    
    
     Chapter four:
    
     On the sixth day of their alien vacation, Daniel insisted that he needed a bath. He complained that he smelled of onions and rotten meat, and if he didn't change that soon he was going to barf. "Glad to hear you're feeling better, Danny Boy," Jack taunted. "The grouchies are always a positive sign."
     "No wonder you're so healthy," he grumbled.
     "I will assist you, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, supporting the young man.
     "I can," Jack insisted.
     "You need a bath as well, O'Neill." Teal'c didn't often take such a commanding tone. Jack lifted his arm and sniffed. "Well, at least I don't smell like onions," he said.
     "I'll just," Carter started to say, but Jack cut her off.
     "Nope. No one goes or stays anywhere alone. You can stand guard duty."
     Carter fought down a blush. "Yes, sir."
     Jack stripped and dove in. The water didn't feel quite as cold. Maybe alien summer was just around the corner? He tried to make a list of priorities. The shelter would do until winter. Hopefully the Tokra would have come for them by then, but just in case, he'd have to think about something a little more substantial. That could go to the bottom of the list.
     The water was good. He'd have to dig a better latrine system. Probably make thatch outhouses, for Carter anyway. And that skin would have to be tanned soon. With care their clothing could last a few months, but he had already torn the knees in his pants. Tanning with vegetable matter took months. They'd need to gather hides and start tanning them immediately. Then the hides could serve for clothing, luggage, blankets, doors and a host of other things. Even cooking containers.
     Hunt for animals. Check. What came next? Daniel would need something to feel useful. With Carter, maybe he could do a plant study or something. They should try to put in a garden rather then ranging every day, further and further from their shelter. And he wanted to leave a sign by the stargate that they were here... just in case the Tokra came quietly. Although a ship hovering over the stargate should be fairly visible anywhere in this part of the continent.
     Jack finished soaping up and rinsed off. He pulled on the clean change of clothes, all stiff and scratchy. Nothing like military issue, he grumbled. And a little April-fresh Downy wasn't standard gear.
     Teal'c washed when Jack got out, and when Daniel had dressed, then they all stood guard while Carter took a turn. Jack grit his teeth. This was maybe going to be the hardest part of their forced vacation.
     They returned to camp for the last of the coffee. Jack made a toast, commemorating the moment. "We should give this place a name," he said.
     "Base camp?" Sam suggested.
     "Why?" Daniel cocked his head questioningly.
     "We may be building other structures," Jack replied. "It would keep them straight."
     "I remember when I went to summer camp the cabins all had different names," Carter said. "They were all named for birds, though. It would be odd to name a cabin "Robin" if there aren't any robins on this world."
     "Would it not be expedient to name each location for its function, O'Neill?" Teal'c stated.
     Jack shook his head, clapping the Jaffa on the shoulder. "Get into the spirit of things, Teal'c. Words can bring hope, joy, satisfaction. What do you think of when you hear "Chulag?"
     "Slavery. False gods. And many battles."
     "Forget that. Bad example. When I hear "Minnesota" I think of warm evenings on the dock, cold beer and fresh fish. Great memories."
     "How about something Latin," Daniel suggested. When no one responded, he went on. "Well, I don't think we want to use modern English everywhere. Just in case a Goa'uld does come along, we don't want to give our presence away."
     "What did you have in mind, Daniel," Jack encouraged. He knew he'd have to work at making the archeologist feeling useful. His brilliant command of twenty-three different languages wasn't going to be very useful in this mission.
     "How about 'Ad astra per aspera'. It means "to the stars through hardships. It's the Kansas state motto. I thought it was kind of appropriate. Although 'labor omnia vincit' - 'labor conquers all' would certainly work as well."
     Jack laughed. "Aspera for short. That's perfect." Then he gave out their assignments for the day.
    
     Weeks passed. Jack and Teal'c hunted a variety of beasts. The skins were scraped and set to soak in a hollowed out tree trunk with an experimental tannin solution. The meat was hung in a new structure, a thatch smokehouse Daniel promptly labeled 'veni, vidi, vici'- 'I came, I saw, I conquered.'
    
     Carter and Daniel searched around the lake, the field, the woods, and a grove of smaller bushes opposite for food-bearing plants. The only method to test for suitability, though, was trial and error. The green-raisin-applesauce had given them all a terrible case of Montezuma's Revenge that lasted for hours. Carter believed the fruit was still okay to consume, just in small amounts, but Jack wasn't sure he'd ever eat green applesauce again.
     Together they turned over a small plot of soil between Aspera and the lake, then Jack and Teal'c built a crude fence around it with sticks and vines. Sam dug a trench from the lake to the garden and rolled stones to block the water flow until it was needed.
     In a moment of whimsy, Daniel labeled the men's latrine Cogito, the women's Ergo Sum, and the fledgling vegetable garden Fortuna Suffragante. He'd had to translate them several times before Jack could remember "I think", "therefore I am" and "with luck on our side." Then Jack bastardized the language, and the garden was affectionately called Suffering Fortune.
     The days grew increasingly warmer and the nights no longer brought down frost. The trees leafed out and birds swarmed to their branches, the shores of the lake, or the fields of tall grass. The second animal hide tanned better than the first, which they'd had to bury far from camp because of the odor, and the third and fourth skins were soft and supple, perfect for just about anything.
     The whole adventure might have been idyllic, except for some mounting tensions. More and more Jack's optimism was overshadowed by irritability. He'd snapped at Carter and Teal'c and had a full-blown argument with Daniel that left them all angry and sullen for days.
     Then one morning they awoke to the sound of Jack's cheerful whistling. Daniel shook his head sadly. Jack had been an ass, but he wasn't likely to apologize. He'd do something nice for each of them and then he'd act like it had never happened. Daniel knew that was his way and he'd always accepted it before, but now they were more than just friends, more than just a team, they were a family. They were together twenty-four/seven, and they'd better learn how to communicate. He wasn't going to just let it go this time.
     They joined Jack around the campfire where he served them omelets filled with chopped greens and smoked meat. Daniel tried to scowl, but Carter smiled at Jack gratefully. "Thank you, sir," she said.
     "A new tradition, Carter," he said brightly. "Sunday morning omelets."
     "How do you know it's Sunday, sir?"
     "You know, I don't. But it just dawned on me this morning that we've been here for months without a day off."
     "Well, technically, sir, we've been here months with nothing but days off. We're not at the SGC."
     "Details," he insisted, brushing away her objection. "This isn't really a vacation, Carter, it's survival. I'm talking about taking the day off. Today. No work. Nada. Squat. I think each one of us should do whatever we feel like doing, alone. Take up a hobby. Skip rocks. Do a dance. Or vegetate in Kel-Norim. Whatever, so long as it has nothing to do with basic survival. No gardening, hunting, building, or skinning. Got it?"
     Carter grew thoughtful, her sharp mind already listing a variety of possibilities. Daniel gazed at him. Something seemed different about him this morning. Jack was animated, filled with excitement. "What are you going to do?" Daniel asked him.
     "That's confidential."
     "A secret? How long is that going to work? We're supposed to stay together."
     "Nope. I'm changing that order. Temporarily. The alien tigers haven't been around for some time. I think we can move around on our own, cautiously."
     Daniel glanced toward the distant mountains. He guessed that was where the cats had gone. The females were undoubtedly raising litters of future predators while the males would be hanging around, perhaps providing fresh kill for their mates the way some of the big cats on earth would. "What if someone gets in trouble?" Daniel asked. "What if something goes wrong?"
     "Call for help," Jack answered lightly. The batteries weren't dead yet on their radios. They'd been miserly in using them.
     "This strategy has merit, O'Neill," Teal'c replied calmly. Even he seemed excited, or about as excited as a Jaffa warrior could get when it didn't involve immediate battle and bloodshed.
     Daniel waved a limp hand as the three of them took off in different directions. He kicked a small stone around on the ground. What did an archeologist do on vacation? He hadn't had any personal time off in so long, he didn't know any more.
     If Sha're were alive... when Sha're was alive he'd hoarded every spare moment to be with her. She filled his life and gave it meaning. His entire existence could be defined in three parts - the time before Sha're, the time with Sha're, and the since. Before he'd been an awkward, bungling geek with no friends, no respect, no job, no future. Then for a year he'd known what heaven was like. After her capture, he'd had three years in limbo, yearning, hoping, praying, sometimes even going a little bit crazy. But now it was over. He had to try to go on, because he'd promised her he'd find the child. But he didn't have to like it.
     If there'd been any sign that people once visited this planet, he'd search for their past. He'd scour for caves or burial mounds or structures that had to have been made by an intelligent species. They'd hiked for quite some distance from Aspera in all directions, though, and he'd seen nothing to suggest there were people here.
     Daniel ambled to the lake, kicking at the stones until one crumbled at his toe. Inside it was bluish and green. Daniel picked up the mineral thoughtfully. It made him think of cave paintings he'd seen on earth and on other planets. Cave paintings were simple, highly stylized, not meant to be great art. Maybe it was something he could do. Then Daniel knew what he wanted to do on his day off. He would paint something about them on stones. Some symbols to acknowledge that they had passed this way. Daniel began to hunt for other colors for his aboriginal paint box.
    
    
     Sam was so excited she felt like hugging someone. There were so many experiments she'd been dying to do, but Colonel O'Neill would have labeled them a waste of time. This was a whole new world! Totally different from earth, and no one had ever studied it before!
     First she made a simple sun dial, then through out the day she would mark the length and change of the shadow against her watch, checking it against the passing minutes and hours. Her watch still kept time, but this planet's rotation was longer than earth's, so after a few days the appointed hour had little to do with whether the sun was up. Once she knew the hours in the day, she could calculate the approximate size of the planet and distance from the sun. Then she made a rain gauge, a simple barometer, and a few other weatherman's tools. Still, working with such primitive tools was frustrating. She wasn't really happy until she returned to the stargate and took the DHD apart again.
    
    
     Teal'c waited until the others had departed, then he set out away from them. He feared he was growing ineffectual. It had been many weeks since he had battled another, and then it had only been a round of boxing, a curious human sport. The others depended on him for their protection. It was unwise to relax his personal exercise program.
     He required little. Only a clearing and solitude. There he ran through the training exercises with his staff weapon that Bra'tac had taught him so many years ago. Then he set the weapon aside and went through the moves of hand-to-hand combat. Finally, using stones for weights, he worked his muscles, toning them, perfecting them, so that when he needed them, they would not fail him. Sweat slicked his skin and dripped in his eyes. He grinned, for he had not felt quite so alive in months. Towards nightfall he journeyed to the lake to wash.
    
     Jack was the first one to return to Aspera. He'd built a protective fence around the patch of wild hops he'd discovered the day before, which had brought on the whole idea of a day off. He hadn't made beer in ages and never with such primitive equipment. He didn't want the others to know what he was up to, in case it didn't work out. But when it did, boy, there'd be something to celebrate.
     The hops was just part of it. He needed some kind of grain and there was no way to know if the grain would be sweet or bitter until he tried it. And yeast. He knew beer was one of the oldest alcoholic drinks known to man, but even the ancient Egyptians had had stone jars for the fermentation process, or maybe even a little alien Goa'uld help. He wondered idly if the Goa'ulds ever had hangovers?
     The camp felt strange with his "kids" gone for the day, but a nice, quiet kind of strange. It reminded him of the rare times when he'd fly in with a few weeks leave between missions while Charlie was in school and Sara would let him show her just how much he had missed her.
     It didn't hurt to think about Sara any more. Charlie... yes. He would never forgive himself for the tragedy that had destroyed so many lives. But Sara had finally moved on. Something had happened after that time he'd been knocked out by the crystal guy, and the crystal guy had spent the day with his wife. Sometimes he wondered just what his alien twin had done. Sara told him she still loved him. She'd forgiven him. But she didn't want to get back with him. She wasn't a hole in his life any more. She was a good friend, a happy memory. He treasured that, because there were precious few of those.
     He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. This wasn't quite working, this stranded on an alien planet thing. It could have been worse - this could have been a Goa'uld stronghold. But this wasn't Minnesota, either. There he could sit back in his cabin and let the days stroll past and feel a deep sense of peace. Here he was wound up tight, like he was always on the edge of impending disaster. Here he was truly alone. In Minnesota, if something happened to any of his team, he could turn to someone for help. There were hospitals and lawyers and escaped-convict-spies to get them out of any predicament.
     Well, he wasn't going to be able to change that any time soon. But what could he do to make this better? Maybe he'd do something unthinkable. Maybe he'd ask his team.
     That evening though as the others drifted back to camp, they were all rather subdued. Not unhappy, just preoccupied, like a part of them was still out to lunch. They ate in silence and went to sleep, but he noticed that all of them slept with a smile.
    
    
    
    
    
    
     "Good Monday morning," Jack called, as he was the first to awaken. "Rise and shine, kids."
     Teal'c sat up instantly. Daniel rolled over trying to ignore him, but Jack pulled away his fur blanket. "None of that. The early bird gets the worm. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. And always hold hands when you cross the street."
     Daniel laughed, shaking his head. "Sure, Dad," he grumbled sleepily. "What ever."
     Carter hadn't moved, though. Jack called her again, but she pulled her blanket over her head. When he shook her gently, she yelled at him. "Colonel, bug off!"
     Jack was too surprised to be angry. Something was definitely wrong with her. That put him in command mode immediately, the good natured banter forgotten.
     "Carter, what's wrong," he demanded.
     "Nothing!"
     He tried to touch her forehead, but she slapped his hand away. He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a firm shake. "Major Carter, this isn't like you. Now I'm not leaving until you talk to me."
     She sat up and glared at him. If looks could kill, Jack would be beyond help. "Colonel, I'm fine! I am not sick. I am not dying. But if you don't go away at once and leave me alone, I am going to have to kill you. Is that clear enough?"
     Then she turned away and curled into a tight ball, the fur blanket over her head to block her from prying eyes.
     Jack stood slowly. He beckoned to Daniel and Teal'c to follow. Worried, wordlessly, they descended. They went about their morning routine solemnly, each lost in thought and filled with concern. Only when the breakfast was cooked and the apricot-flavored tea they made from crushed leaves was hot, did they sit together and speak in hushed voices.
     "Jack? I've never heard Sam speak to you like that before. Not in all the years we've been together. Is there anything you want to talk about?"
     Jack gave him a clueless look, which somehow made Daniel feel better. His first theory, that they had finally managed to consummate their buried feelings last night and it had turned out badly, was laid to rest. Then Jack popped himself in the forehead.
     "What an ass I am," he mumbled.
     "I know," Daniel agreed. "But how does that relate to Sam?" Maybe he should be worried after all.
     Jack stammered awkwardly. He had been married for a dozen years. Cripes! He knew what women could be like periodically. It was just that Carter had never been that way before. "Teal'c, you were married. Explain it to Daniel."
     "Explain what, O'Neill."
     Damn. That Jaffa 'I-don't-know-what- your-talking-about' routine was getting annoying. "Women. The moon. Didn't Dry'ac and you ever talk about it?"
     "A warrior does not discuss such matters," Teal'c said stiffly. Then he softened somewhat. "However, it could be possible that our symbiote prevents the female from discomfort."
     "Lucky Dry'ac."
     Daniel was blushing profusely, though, so Jack guessed he'd figured out what they had been trying not to say. After all, Daniel had been married once, too.
     "But that still doesn't explain why she's this way now. I mean, why is this month different?" Daniel felt there was something important here that they should figure out.
     "Well, for one thing, she's been living with three guys for going on what - three months?- now. Maybe we should cut her a little slack." Jack didn't think they should talk about her any more. As far as he was concerned, the subject was closed. Sam could snap at him once a month, and he could live with that.
     "Perhaps there is some element missing in her diet," Teal'c offered.
     "That's it!" Daniel grinned hopefully.
     "What's it," Jack said, sighing. He really wanted this to be over.
     "Either grains or dairy products. Both have nutrients we normally get on earth. Maybe women need more of the B vitamins found in bread, or calcium from milk and cheese. Maybe that would help?"
     "And maybe she just needs some time alone," Jack insisted. "And I don't think it's very nice for the three of us to sit here and talk about her like this."
     "Fine," Daniel spat, lowering his voice. "But grains and dairy products are important for all of us. If we don't do something, we could start suffering other symptoms of malnutrition as well."
     Jack finished his apricot tea. "Great. More work." He stood and paced back and forth. He had worn the grass away until the compound was just hard packed dirt. Daniel admired him. It wasn't just a way to let off steam, but Jack seemed to actually think better while moving. No wonder he'd never been much of a student. Schools generally insisted that their students sit still, and that would have made Jack's brain shut down.
     "Teal'c, you're in charge of milk. Find a cow or goat or some alien equivalent. Find one with a kid, so she's got milk. Capture her without harming her, and bring her back. Daniel, find grains. You said Sha're taught you how to grind it into flour. Maybe you can fix us some oatmeal or tacos for supper."
     "What about you, Jack?"
     "I've got an idea for something I think she'll like. But let me see if I can make it work before I say anything."
     They cleaned up after themselves, a mandatory routine after every meal to keep unwanted wildlife from visiting their camp. Then they set off in separate directions.
     Jack took the small shovel from their gear and all of the emergency blankets. He went to the lake and walked along its shore. The spot nearest camp had a narrow, sandy beach, which was growing steadily larger as they trampled the tiny grass shoots that tried to spring up. But further up the south shore the area was more rocky, and woody bushes grew instead of the tender grass.
     Seeing the canal Carter had dug to water the garden had given him this idea, although he hadn't done anything about it right away. There were so many other things that had seemed more important. Now he realized he'd been thinking like a man. Of course, that was what he did best. But he'd been selfish and unthinking not to have tried to consider Carter's needs before.
     After finding just the right location, he started to dig a shallow pool. They'd found dozens of deep, natural springs feeding the lake, which helped to explain why the water never got very warm. The spring water was like ice. But if he could funnel a little water into a pool, line it with stones to keep it from getting muddy, and maybe set the emergency blankets to reflect sunlight like a solar window, then they could take a hot water bath.
     The work was hard, but Jack never minded that. Stacking the rocks inside the pool just right, so they'd overlap but weren't too rough took time. He dug it big enough for Teal'c, with a wide shelf to sit on that let the water come not quite to shoulder level. Too much water and it wouldn't get warm. Too little, and it would feel like trying to take a bath in frying pan. He had to finish it by mid-day, if the water were going to have any time at all to heat. Then he built a fire near it, heating stones and adding them to the pool to hurry things along. It was a good thing the days were so long here, or he would never have gotten it finished, but by evening when he returned to camp, he was thoroughly satisfied with his effort.
     Daniel smiled at him wanly. He looked tired, but his ripped undershirt was smudged with a yellow powder that could only be flour. A large, flat stone held a handful of course meal. One tin mess bowl held a sticky goo, and on the pan over the fire was a large, tortilla shape browning nicely. Jack drew in a deep breath and let it out appreciatively.
     "Danny boy, you're hired. You can bake bread for us any day."
     "Thanks, Jack," Daniel said. "But if this works, you're going to learn to do it, too."
     Jack shrugged. That was fair enough. They generally shared all the work equally. Jack had learned at the outset that Carter would not tolerate any sexual discrimination. She pretty much wanted to be treated like one of the guys. He'd never forget how one of their first missions together she'd insisted on battling her own battle, quite literally. She'd fought a Mongolian- type war lord who wanted to make her the newest addition to his harem.
     Eventually Sam came down from the shelter. After a trip to Ergo, she joined them around the campfire. She looked sheepish. The boyish side of Jack wanted to let her squirm a bit longer, but the adult in command needed to put her at ease.
     "Sir, I-"
     "Forget it, Carter," he interrupted. "We all have off days."
     "But, I-"
     "Try some of Daniel's bread while it's still hot."
     She stared at the browned tortilla. Daniel spread a little green-raisin mush on it and rolled it up, offering it to her.
     "Wow. This is great! What gave you the idea?"
     Daniel stammered awkwardly. He was lousy at lying. Jack rescued him. "Sha're taught him how."
     "Where's Teal'c?" Sam looked around.
     Jack shrugged. "He'll be back. Eat up, 'cause I've got something to show you. Both of you," he amended.
     It took only minutes to consume all of the tortillas but one, which they saved for Teal'c. Daniel groaned. It had taken hours to gather the wild grains and more to grind even a handful into flour. Then to mix it with water and a pinch of herbs for flavor, and cook it in melted animal fat. Still, it had tasted wonderful and he felt a sense of accomplishment that he had been able to do something no one else on the team knew how to do.
     Carter asked Jack what it was he wanted to show them, but he just grinned. That made her more curious and she pestered him. Daniel smiled. Things were definitely getting back to normal. Normal was good. Normal meant he knew what to expect. Normal meant they were all friends again and everything was going to be all right.
     Jack was antsy like a kid with a secret. He hurried them to finish up, then he set off for the lake. They followed him past the sandy beach, through the scrubby bushes, and stood in awe at the steam rising from the man-made pool. Sam's mouth hung open and tears glittered on her eyelashes.
     "Sir!" she exclaimed.
     Jack grumbled, twisting about with an odd mix of embarrassment and pleasure. He gestured towards the pool. "Enjoy." Then he whirled around and nearly ran back to camp.
     "That was really thoughtful," Daniel commented.
     Sam nodded. "Not like him, huh?"
     "Oh, I don't know. There's more to Jack than he lets on."
     Sam turned and started back towards camp. "Aren't you going to try it out?" Daniel asked.
     She nodded. "Yep. And I'm not getting out of that water for an hour at least. But I'm going to get a change of clothes and some soap. By the way, you don't know how to make soap, do you? Mine is almost gone."
     Daniel glanced around. It was getting too dark now, but Sha're had shown him how a simple soap could be made from certain crushed berries containing saponin. Maybe there was something like that around here. The other method, mixing lye and tallow, was a challenging art, and not likely something they could master in time for tomorrow's bath.
     Jack was sitting by the fire whittling a fat stick and whistling tunelessly. Daniel scowled at the horizon. Teal'c still wasn't back yet. Jack's attempt at nonchalance was a poor cover for his mounting concern. Still, it was too dark to look for him now. Daniel feared none of them would get much sleep.
     True to her word, Sam stayed at the bath for a full hour. When she returned to camp, she looked almost radiant. A scent of apricots clung to her like freshness after a rain. She looked the same- her combat pants torn off above the knees, the rough edge folded several times to make them even shorter. Her army- green tee shirt worn and faded and unable to conceal the fact she was fully woman. Her blonde hair had grown longer since they'd been away. It wasn't as long as the alternate universe Sam's, but it wisped about her face in a decidedly feminine manner. Daniel gulped. She reminded him how much he admired her, how he'd found her attractive, but had stayed away because he knew she and Jack had feelings for each other. She made him remember what it had been like to hold Sha're, to sleep with her snuggled against his chest, her legs entwined in his, the scent of her hair as it tickled his nose. Sam did all that, and she hadn't a clue she was doing it. "Excuse me," Daniel mumbled, backing away from the fire light. "I'm going to turn in."
     Sam sat on one of the logs set around the campfire for that express purpose. She ran her fingers over her legs. Her last razor was about gone. If they didn't get rescued soon, she'd have to invent a pair of leather slacks. A dress would be easier, but she'd refused to wear one when she'd been a little girl, she wasn't about to start now. "Thanks, sir. That was really nice," she said.
     Jack shrugged boyishly. "It's nothing."
     "Yes it is. It's about the nicest thing you ever did for me. And I just wanted to thank you." She leaned close then and gave him a chaste kiss on his cheek. Then abruptly she escaped to the thatch hut, leaving Jack completely speechless.
    
     Teal'c returned the next morning as they finished their breakfast. His left arm hung at his side, but with the right he led a small antlered bovine-type beast with a leather lead tied about it's neck. Three kids bleated plaintively, their wagging tails shaking their whole bodies as they scrambled to keep up.
     Jack stood and smiled at him. "Good work, Teal'c. So how's it taste? I heard that goat milk is better than sheep milk, although I wouldn't really know. Is that a goat or a sheep?"
     "It gives milk, O'Neill. That was all you requested."
     "And?"
     "I do not ingest lactic fluid at any temperature," Teal'c replied indignantly.
     Daniel chuckled. Sometimes those two could be so predictable. Like dancers in an intricate ballet. He got up to inspect the animal.
     It was smaller than a Nubian goat, with a silky, shaggy coat like a golden retriever. The antlers looked dangerous as they twisted in gentle curving arcs like twin harpoons. He glanced at Teal'c left arm and the red stain oozing from a tear in his nearly worn-out shirt. "You're hurt!"
     Carter and Jack descended upon him, pushing up the sleeve to examine the wound more closely. Daniel took the goat and tied the lead around one of the trees that supported their hut. She was skittish, but she gazed at him with wide, trusting eyes. Daniel thought she could be tamed.
     "Teal'c, this looks bad," Jack said. "What happened?"
     "My symbiote will heal me," Teal'c replied blandly.
     Jack poured some of the water they'd been heating for tea over the wound. "Maybe so, but why not give junior a boost? This needs to be washed and sterilized. When did this happen?"
     Teal'c sat down and tolerated their ministrations with silent disapproval. "The lead male was merely protecting his herd. It was not my intention to do battle with him."
     "Good thing, too. Looks like he won the first round."
     Sam dabbed the last of the antibiotic ointment on a gauze pad and wrapped the wound securely. "Just because you have a symbiote doesn't give you the right to put yourself in danger," she muttered.
     Teal'c cocked an eyebrow at her. "I was never in any danger, Major Carter."
     She expelled a breath. "Right."
     "Glad you're back in one piece," Jack said, clapping Teal'c on the shoulder. Then he went to meet the newest addition to their homestead. "So, Daniel. What clever name will you give her?"
     "Trixie," Daniel replied, as he tore pieces from a soft fruit and coaxed her to take them from his hand.
     "Trixie? Why?" Jack waited for the Latin translation, because there was sure to be one.
     "She kind of looks like the dog one of my foster parents owned."
     "And?"
     "Well, if you're looking for meaning, Trixie is the short form of Beatrice, which is Latin for "happy, bringer of joy"."
     Jack nodded. He knew there had to be Latin in it somewhere. "Fine. Trixie it is. Anyone know how to milk one of these things?"
     Carter wasn't as impressed with their addition of fresh milk, until she started working on a design for refrigeration. The springs were naturally cold, but she would need a water-proof container to hold the milk. Daniel showed her how to pound animal fat into leather until it was water-tight. She cut a large circle and strung a narrow strap through small slits around the circumference. Pulling the drawstring, she filled the pouch with fresh milk, folded the top down and wrapped the string around it tightly.
     Then she dug a hole near the edge of the lake down about three feet until it just started to fill with cold water. Setting the milk down in the hole, she covered the top with a thatch lid Jack made.
     "You know," Jack said lightly. "There was another alternative to keeping it cold. Fermented milk tastes pretty good, I'm told."
     Carter wrinkled her nose. Daniel just laughed.
    
    
    
     Chapter five:
    
     Trixie's three little kids were a growing nuisance. They got into the garden repeatedly, trampling and tasting the precious plants they'd been slaving over, but when Jack suggested they just butcher them, he was outvoted three to one. The little goats became pets, consumers of resources, producers of not one single useful commodity. Jack pointedly refused to help in cleaning up after them. Carter snapped at him, shocked that he had so little compassion for the beasts which were promptly named Eenie, Meenie, and Miny.
     The goat signified a turning point in their homestead, though. It brought a sense of permanence. No one spoke about the stargate any more, or looked skyward longingly searching for the Tokra or Tolin. Trixie also brought a bit of whimsy. It was hard to watch the silly goat antics and not smile.
     Daniel caught half a dozen ptarmigans, nagging Jack until he built an enclosure. Eggs became a frequent edition to their diet then, along with the milk and their neophyte attempts at cheese and a whipped spread that may have tasted like butter with a bit of imagination.
    
    
     Late one night they were awakened by an awful squawking. Jack glared at the others. "If its those kids again, I'm going to kill 'em."
     "Don't be ridiculous," Daniel insisted. "Goats are vegetarian. They wouldn't be chasing chickens. Not at this hour."
     Jack grabbed his weapon. "Stay here," he ordered, then swung down from their hut. Carter and Daniel crowded around the door, squinting in the dark to try to see what was happening. Jack was shouting, the chickens squawked, and then something vicious growled. The gun discharged and Jack let out a curse. Then all was eerily silent.
     "Sir?" Carter called nervously.
     They heard him mutter angrily. Carter let out a sigh of relief. Jack climbed up and crawled back into bed. "Sorry, Daniel," he grumbled. "It was a wolf. I think it got two of your birds."
     Daniel swallowed. "A wolf. Are you-"
     "Go to sleep."
    
     In the morning, Jack was up and gone from camp before any of them awoke. The dead birds were missing, but two small plots of freshly turned soil suggested that Jack had buried them before Daniel had to see them. Also missing was the wolf he'd shot. Teal'c pointed out where Jack had dragged the corpse, but instead of skinning it, it too had been buried. That surprised them, for Jack seemed to have almost a fetish about saving every hide they got. They had so many skins tanned and saved against the coming of winter that Carter thought they could outfit an army. Primitively, anyway.
     Tending the animals and garden filled their day, but at odd times each would gaze at the horizon and wonder when their leader would return. "Should we not go and look for him," Teal'c suggested.
     Carter shook her head. "He's okay. He's got his MP-5. He'll fire it if he needs our help." The batteries to their radios had finally given out.
     "We all need a little time to ourselves," Daniel added sagely. "Jack just seems to need more than most."
     Finally, Jack's silhouette appeared on the horizon. Slowly he walked towards them, his shoulders hunched and head down. Carter worried, but he didn't seem to be limping or bleeding. She kept herself from running to him, knowing that if he were out of his black mood, he'd be whistling.
     Daniel set the table, another new addition to their camp, with the tin plates and cups from their mess kits. He'd made biscuits to have with the meaty stew, and poured the cold milk that they drank with most of their meals now.
     When Jack was nearly there, they saw that he was hunched over something wiggling in his arms. It yipped softly, squirming and licking his face. Jack didn't look happy.
     "Oh, Colonel! He's so cute," Carter gasped, stroking the wolf pup's forehead with a finger. It bit down with sharp puppy teeth and she yelped.
     Then Jack looked at her. If she didn't know him better, she'd say he had been crying. "Colonel?" she asked.
     "Its mother's dead. I shot her. Last night."
     "Oh," she said.
     "I didn't know. But this morning, when I buried her, I knew she had to have a litter somewhere. So I followed her tracks. There were four of them. Something got the others. This one's the only survivor."
     Daniel stroked under its chin. The pup closed its eyes and leaned into the gesture. "That's the law of the wild, Jack. If you hadn't shot the wolf, she would have killed all the ptarmigans. And smashed their eggs. And she might have kept coming back again and again, since we have so much food stored here."
     Jack shrugged his shoulders as if it were no big deal, but he kept his eyes averted. Teal'c poured a little milk on a plate for it and Daniel cut some small chunks of meat. The pup ate voraciously, but then it whined. It cried pitiably until it was once again in Jack's arms. It slept with him that night, and every night after that. Jack asked Daniel to give it a name, but Daniel refused.
     "He's definitely your pet. You should name him," he said.
     So Jack named him Wolf.
    
    
    
     The summer turned dry, and herds of animals flocked to the small lake, although the wild cats still had not returned. Large herds of herbivores, flocks of birds in a plethora of color and sound, reptiles and insects, and the occasional predator or two dotted the landscape in an ever changing array.
     Some of the creatures were very Earth- like, while others were quite alien. Among the flocks of geese and ducks were albatros-like birds in a vibrant blue. Turtles ambled down to the water's edge along side fat, squat little mammals with claw feet and sleek fur. Daniel continued to catalog them, writing smaller and smaller in the lined journals he took on every mission, as he tried to ration out his dwindling supply of paper.
     One morning the ground trembled. The sky remained clear and cloudless, not a hint of rain. Flocks of birds startled and took flight. Herds of herbivores scattered. A deep bugle sounded, not unlike the call of a bull elephant. Jack insisted they stay in the safety of their treehouse, while they watched the enormous creatures take over the area around lake.
     They were big. Big and hairy. They had long snouts and big ears, bristly fur on their heads and backs, and enormous feet, huge, curving tusks and small, black eyes.
     "My god," Daniel gasped. "Mammoth."
    
    
     For two days the small band of humans and jaffa remained in their camp while the mammoth monopolized the resources around the lake. Jack, always irritable at things that were beyond his control, burned off some of his anger by chopping firewood with his small government-issue field hatchet. Teal'c spent time in meditation. Sam and Daniel, though, were fascinated by the lumbering beasts. They crept as close as they dared, which was far closer than Jack would have liked, to observe their behavior.
     They saw two infants being born, which may have explained why the herd lingered by the lake. They saw how the herd stood in a circle at night, their butts together, their tusked faces turned outward, with the young sheltered protectively in the center. They saw that the lead male, easily distinguishable by his superior size, favored some females over others, doted on the young, and occasionally disciplined the herd by smacking them with his trunk.
     One mammoth was treated almost like a pariah. She appeared to be very old, for the bristly hair on her head and back was streaked liberally with gray, and her tusks were much longer, thicker, curving out from her face then up and back. She moved slowly, almost painfully, and all of her ribs were showing, although there was plenty of food available.
     On the third day, the mammoth finally started to move out. The newborn calves gamboled on unsteady feet, but the herd moved at a slower pace to allow them to keep up. Daniel was almost sorry to see them go, for watching them had been the best entertainment he'd had in months. Jack was furious at the mess the beasts left behind. The water was muddied and smelly piles littered the once pristine shore.
     "Grab a shovel," Jack snapped. "The sooner we clean up after them, the better."
     As they neared the lake, they saw that the old mammoth had been left behind. She was laying on her side, half in the water. She lifted her trunk once and lashed out towards Daniel, but the gesture was half-hearted at best. Her trunk fell to the ground, barely making a splash. She closed her eyes and seemed to give up.
     "Daniel, stay away," Jack warned.
     Daniel wasn't listening. "Look at how thin she is. She wants to go with them, but I don't think she has the strength."
     "It's that circle of life stuff, Daniel. Remember? You grow old, you die."
     "No, that's not good enough," Daniel insisted. "There must be a reason why she's not eating. I bet there's something wrong, like a bad tooth or a stomach infection."
     "Daniel!" Jack was getting angrier by the minute.
     Sam joined Daniel, slowly approaching the fallen mammoth. "I think you might be right," she said. Very slowly, she raised her hand and inched closer to the beast, speaking softly. The mammoth blinked, but she made no effort to defend herself. Then Sam was touching her. She touched her forehead, her shoulder, her back, stroking her like one would a lost kitten.
     Jack rolled his eyes and groaned. "No, Carter. You can't keep it."
     Daniel already had his hand and most of his head inside the beast's mouth. Jack stood back, shouldering his weapon and hoping he wouldn't have to blast the creature away to save him.
     "Just as I thought," Daniel was saying. "A bad tooth. Infected. She's not eating because it hurts. Eventually the tooth might fall out, but she'll be too weak by then. We have to help her."
     "No we don't," Jack said.
     "Yes, we do."
     "No, we don't!"
     Sam laughed. Sometimes Jack and Daniel sounded like little boys. "Sir, I think we should help her. Not because it is the smart thing to do, but because it is the human thing to do. If she dies, at least we will have tried. And if she makes it, we can release her back to her herd."
     Jack growled, glancing at Teal'c, but the Jaffa remained obstinately silent. "Fine," he spat. "She can be your temporary pet, just like Eeny, Meenie, and Miny, but I will not help you take care of her. You're on your own."
     Sam agreed. "Fine, sir."
     Jack and Teal'c stood guard, their weapons ready, while Daniel tied a narrow rope around the base of the infected tooth. He and Sam moved back a few paces, then yanked with all their might. On the first tug, the tooth came loose. It stank of infection. The mammoth raised her head and groaned, looking like she'd just as soon give up and die. Daniel approached her again, patting her massive head and whispering words of comfort.
     He boiled water and washed the area with foul-tasting soapberry, then rinsing it with the last of Jack's whiskey. He worked at gathering grains, grinding them and partially cooking them, then coaxing the weakened mammoth to eat. Sam helped him, and even Teal'c took a turn. All day and night they worked, without any sign of success.
     On the second morning, Daniel was afraid that he would have to admit Jack had been right and they would have to bury the enormous beast, before the stench around Aspera became unbearable. He wiped his glasses on his tattered, thread-bare tee shirt and staggered drowsily towards the lake.
     He heard strange sounds he never would have believed. Daniel slowed, sneaking up on the scene to stare in astonishment at Jack, who sat on the damp ground with his legs folded, a big bowl of grain mush on his lap. He held a handful of the goop and waved it in the air in front of the mammoth, almost teasingly, as he made a sound like an airplane taking off. "And here's one more for baby," Jack cooed.
     The mammoth followed his movements, opening her mouth wide, trying to take the food. The pretend airplane went in for a landing as Jack slid his hand into her mouth. She sucked on it, and when he removed his hand it was slick with spit.
     Daniel crinkled his nose. "I didn't think you cared," he said.
     Jack's face colored with embarrassment. "Yeah, well, at this point it seemed easier to feed her than bury her."
     Daniel chuckled. He didn't believe for a minute that Jack was as tough as he pretended to be. Later he was mentally kicking himself, though, as the mammoth's newly awakened appetite had him grinding and cooking grains almost around the clock. He was amazed at how much it took to feed a mammoth. No wonder they were extinct on earth. The planet would have become a barren wasteland just trying to support them.
     Finally, the mammoth got to her feet. She drank deeply, then made her way to the field to happily munch uncooked grain for herself. The stargate team gave a victorious cheer.
     The mammoth remained by them for a week. "We need to take her back to her own kind," Jack said one morning. "I'm tired of picking up after her."
     "The herd has moved too far away," Daniel objected. "We'll never catch up with them."
     "We have to try," Sam said, agreeing with Jack. "She belongs with her own kind."
     It wouldn't be hard to follow them. They had cut wide trails through the tall grass, trampling much underfoot, and consuming quantities of it as they slowly passed through. Small trees sprouting up in the field had been stripped of their bark and leaves, irreparably damaging many.
     They couldn't all leave, for they had the garden and livestock to consider. Jack had to go, for the mammoth wouldn't leave him. Teal'c and Daniel chose to remain behind.
     Jack set a fast pace, determined to rid himself of the enormous shadow that dogged his footsteps. All day they walked. Sam didn't complain, but halfway through the second day, she started lagging behind. Blisters formed on her feet to match the holes in the soles of her worn-out combat boots.
     "Why didn't you say something," Jack snapped at her.
     She shrugged. "I didn't realize it was getting so bad until it was too late," she explained sheepishly. Jack glared at her. Foot care was basic, something taught in boot camp. A soldier was only as good as his feet.
     "Well, you'll have to ride," he said, glancing up at the mammoth.
     Sam followed his gaze. "Sir? You're kidding, right?" Although they had hand-fed the wild mammoth, she didn't forget for a minute that the creature was indeed, wild.
     Jack shrugged. "It's worth a try."
     Of course, neither of them had ever mounted a mammoth before. Jack tried boosting Carter up, but the mammoth shifted her weight, moving away from him each time he tried. He led the beast towards a boulder and tried again. Still no luck. Sam was ready to give it up and just walk on sore feet, but Jack persisted.
     "Oh, for crying out loud," he muttered under his breath. Then he climbed onto the creature's tusks, grabbed a hold of her ears, and swung his legs over. He reached down to grab Sam's wrist and haul her up behind him.
     The beast swung her trunk from side to side, swaying her body and tail in opposite directions. She gave a bellow, sounding rather pleased with herself. Jack patted her broad forehead. Nudging her with his knees, like he would have a horse, he urged her forward.
     They caught up with the herd the next day, but the lead male wouldn't let her near. He kept running the mammoth off, slapping her with his trunk. He gathered up his herd and moved them away, leaving her behind. Jack gave up. "All right," he sighed. "You can keep her. But only until we find a way home."
     Sam grinned. "Yes, sir!"
     The mammoth moved swiftly, belying her age, as she retraced their journey to Aspera. She seemed to realize that she was part of a new herd now. Daniel beamed happily, patting her broad forehead as he offered her some treats from the garden. "I'm not surprised," he admitted. "Reintroducing wildlife is challenging. Even the experts fail sometimes."
     "Yeah, well you should have said something before we left," Jack muttered.
     "I did!"
     "Did not."
     Sam just laughed. "I'm glad you're here," she told the mammoth. "I was tired of being outnumbered."
     Teal'c interrupted their argument. "She needs a name."
     "Jack should name her," Daniel said. "She's his pet."
     "Is not!"
     Carter objected. "I'm not calling her "Mammoth". Daniel, please, think of something!"
     "How about Lucy?"
     The mammoth snorted, nudging him with her trunk in an affectionate gesture.
     "Lucy sounds good. Now tell us what it means," Sam said.
     "Light. A bit of a pun, I suppose, although the Latin refers to light like in daylight, not as in "not heavy"."
     "I love Lucy," Jack chanted. "Okay, Mr. Daniel-God-Is-My-Judge-Latin expert, who knows the meaning of every name. What's Jack mean?"
     Daniel smiled. "Well, Jack isn't Latin," he said. "And it's a derivative for John."
     "Uh-huh," Jack said.
     "John is Hebrew. I think it means God is Merciful"."
     Jack smiled, his head cocked to the side. He nodded his thanks, then went to help with supper preparations.
    
    
     *****
     At last it was ready. Jack poured himself another cup full. It was rather strong and had a slightly bitter aftertaste, but chilling it in their pit-refrigerator had helped it a lot. The bottles were faintly disgusting looking. Daniel had washed out the guts of some creature and tied one end. The material had some stretch to it, was watertight, and even somewhat amber colored like regular beer glass, but Jack couldn't stop thinking about what it used to be. Maybe after another cup of beer it wouldn't bother him much. He slung three gut-bottles over his shoulder and hiked back to Aspera.
     It was another Sunday evening in their endless exile. Their rituals had multiplied since Jack served that first Sunday Morning Omelet. Now they also had to have Sunday Dinner - a bigger, fancier meal than the rest of the week, and sit around the campfire and share stories. That had been Daniel's idea. He'd said that storytelling was a viable equivalent to television, but Jack had yet to be convinced. It was just a bit too touchy-feely for him. Daniel had only laughed.
     "The stories we tell don't have to be true," he'd insisted. "Think about it, Jack. All those cultures we've visited over the years, all their myths about religion, creation, their ancestors - maybe some of them hold a grain of truth, but certainly they get embellished with the retelling."
     Jack had pointed out that for most of the cultures, there really were "gods", even if they were only sadistic alien parasites impersonating gods, which Daniel countered with the fact the Goa'ulds only impersonated god-beings from already existing cultures. Sam had ended their almost argument by offering to go first. Then she told a sweet little story from her childhood, how she'd been maybe four or five years old and sound asleep. There was a terrible thunderstorm, but her dad came and woke her. He took her out into the garage to watch the lightning display. Her arms had snugged around his shoulders, a little frightened, but his quiet, gentle voice explained why the thunder was so loud in technical terms he expected her to understand, and it was nothing to be afraid of. She never forgot that rare moment with him, and it urged her to study hard so that her father would never lose faith in her intelligence. Jack had to admit he went to sleep a little easier that night. Her voice had a soothing, mesmerizing quality. Maybe Carter should become their official story teller.
     But Daniel insisted everyone had to take turns, and for crying out loud, it was Jack's turn again tonight. So it was the perfect time to sample the beer. Maybe after a dozen cupfuls he wouldn't have any trouble talking.
     Wolf scampered between his legs, nearly tripping him. Jack smiled at the pup. He'd grown some, a little bigger than a beagle now. His mama had been close to eighty-five pounds, though. Jack knew Wolf had a ways to go.
     "If you keep that up, I'm going to spill the beer," Jack told him.
     Wolf yipped agreeably. Anything Jack said was absolute truth as far as he was concerned. He licked at Jack's fingers and raced ahead, doubling back and barking at him to hurry. Dinner always meant meat scraps and a large bone to chew. Life couldn't be more perfect.
     By unspoken agreement, Jack and Teal'c never had to cook Sunday dinner. Their attempts at fancier fare had been disastrous. They made up for it by fixing all the breakfasts. Jack inhaled deeply, his mouth watering. "What is that smell?" he asked appreciatively. "If you could bottle that and sell it, you'd make a fortune."
     Daniel laughed. "I think what you're smelling is my first attempt at pizza. Here, anyway. Goat cheese isn't mozzarella, but it melts. And my solar oven takes a little longer than a regular conventional one, but hey, making do is what this is all about, right?"
     "Mom always told me the way to a man is through his stomach," Carter said. "So all a girl has to do to get your attention is smell like pizza, huh?"
     Jack shrugged. "Guilty."
     Wolf barked.
     "What's in the bags?"
     Jack grinned broadly. He slipped into a heavy Irish accent and told them about his Sunday afternoon brewery. "So I think it's fittin' that we sample me first batch on this fine Lord's day, don't ya now?"
     Teal'c raised his eyebrow at Jack's foolishness. "I do not consume alcohol," he reminded him.
     "There's a first time for everything," Jack insisted, pouring them each a glass. "Afraid Junior can't handle it?"
     The pizza was perfect. It didn't matter that the crust wasn't thick and soft like his favorite deep-dish back in Colorado, or that it was topped with wild onions, shredded smoked meats and fresh herbs instead of black olives and pepperoni. It was something different. After a diet of steak and wild lettuce almost every night for months on end, different was good.
     Pizza was the perfect go-with for his beer, too. And the beer almost rescued him from another story-telling fiasco. They sat around drinking more and more, getting louder, laughing themselves silly over anything, even at one of Teal'c's jokes. But then, as the fire settled to glowing red coals and the insects picked up their midnight song, Jack pulled his pup in his lap and cleared his throat.
     "It doesn't have to be a story-story, right?"
     "Well, it should be more than a page from a dictionary," Daniel commented. "Something at least mildly entertaining, whether or not it is true."
     "Fine. How about a song?"
     "A song?"
     "Yeah, you know. A story to music."
     "You sing?"
     "No."
     Daniel stared at Jack, confused.
     Jack held out his cup. "Fill 'er up. Then maybe I can do this."
     Daniel poured him another beer, then sat back expectantly. "You know, one song probably isn't going to be enough."
     "Oh, come on, Daniel. Give me a break."
     Carter shook her head. "He's right. Songs are pretty short. But three songs, that should do. One for each of us."
     Jack hiccuped. If he were lucky enough, he'd pass out before he finished. "All right. Three songs. But just remember, you asked for this." He cleared his throat again and began.
     The first he sang was "The Minstrel Boy". It was an old, old Irish melody, haunting and sweet, but the words he knew were nineteenth century. It was a song of freedom and courage, although the minstrel dies in the end of the song and destroys his harp rather than let it sing for the conquerors.
     No one booed him, so he lunged ahead into the second. He gazed right at Carter and gave her all the verses of "I'll take you home again, Kathleen." That one needed no explanation. A husband promised to take his wife back to Ireland because she was so unhappy in their new home. The third gut-bottle was nearly empty. Jack enjoyed singing, although he hadn't done it outside of his shower in ages. He wasn't sure if he was in tune, but he knew he didn't care. Finally, he launched into the final ballad. This one was his personal favorite. "Danny Boy." It was a melancholy song. A king had led his army into battle, but fell on the field. As he lay dying, he said farewell to his only son, Daniel, sending him in to finish the fight.
    
     "And I shall hear, 'though soft ye tread around me,
     And all my grave shall linger sweeter be,
     Then ye will bend and tell me that ye love me,
     And I shall sleep in peace until ye come to me."
    
     When he finished, no one spoke. Silently they drifted off to the hut and went to sleep.
     Teal'c thought how the first ballad spoke of the Jaffa, the warriors who had found the courage to turn against false gods and fight for the freedom of his people. Like the minstrel, they would rather die than live in slavery.
     Carter sighed wistfully, knowing that Jack, like the husband in the song, would do everything in his power to get her home.
     Daniel wept silently, longing for the kind of affection the Irish king had for his son, "Oh Danny boy, Oh Danny boy, I love you so."
     Jack rolled over, turning his back to them. They hadn't liked the stupid songs and he would never sing in public again.
    
    
    
     Chapter Six:
    
     Morning came far too early. Jack's head felt like broken mirrors, splintered and useless. Climbing down from the hut took Herculean effort. He didn't even make it to Cogito before he puked like he hadn't done since the seventies and Wolf wasn't helping any. His high-pitched bark and puppy enthusiasm had Jack almost wishing he'd never found him.
     He stumbled to the lake and dove in, clothes and all. Or what was left of them. The pants had frayed to shorts weeks ago, and it was a good thing his undershorts were a matching green. At the risk of embarrassing Carter, he was hoping he wouldn't have to start wearing buckskins until the temperatures dropped considerably. Which shouldn't be much longer now.
     Wolf dove in with him, barking and splashing and destroying any hope of settling the headache. "Next time, remind me to share my beer with you," Jack muttered. Wolf gave him a big, sloppy, canine smile.
     When he started to shiver, he knew he had to crawl out. He flopped on the sand and threw an arm over his eyes to block the sun. Wolf trotted over, spun in a tight circle spraying sand all over Jack, then laid down, his head resting companionably on Jack's queasy stomach.
     "O'Neill," Teal'c inquired. He looked obscenely robust, Jack thought. Teal'c had had at least as much beer. Couldn't Junior have taken one day off?
     "I wish you to write down the words to your ballad. When I am next on Chulag, I would like to share it with the warriors of Bra'tac."
     "Yeah," Jack said. Maybe that was all the Jaffa would want and he could go back to slowly dying.
     "Is it not time to begin our work?"
     "Later," Jack groaned.
     "The weather grows colder. Building a winter shelter is of immediate importance."
     "Teal'c! Forget it. I'm not moving until my brains shrink back inside my skull."
     "I will begin without you."
     Jack thought he almost smirked as he turned and left, his gait purposeful and not the least wobbly.
     Sam found him still on the beach an hour later, somewhat drier, but not yet ready to move.
     "Sir? I wanted to thank you for last night. That was really something."
     Two for two. He still wasn't sure he wanted to sing outside the shower, but if she wanted to try a duet sometime - he slugged himself on the forehead, using physical pain to shut out the unexpected mental image. "Sure. Anytime," he snapped.
     "But about going home. Sir, I think it's time to face the fact that we might not make it."
     "Carter, can't we talk about this some other time?" He hoped she'd hear the silent desperation in his plea. She didn't.
     "No, sir. I think it's time to leave Aspera. We should head for the hills and try to find a cave or something a little more permanent. The thatch hut was fine for summer, but when the snow flies, frankly sir, I'm afraid we'll turn into human Popsicles."
     "And one Jaffa-sicle."
     "Sir -"
     "Carter! Not now!" Jack rolled onto his side, groaning at the movement. He clutched his head in both hands and pulled up his knees, as his stomach hurt nearly as much as his head.
     "Are you sick?"
     He opened one eye and glared at her. "The real question is, why aren't you?"
     "Well, sir. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't really drink beer much. I only tasted it because it seemed important to you."
     "But your cup. You had seconds on top of your seconds. I remember. I poured."
     "Sir, I, um. I kept dumping mine back into your cup. I didn't want to waste it, and you were enjoying it."
     Jack groaned. He knew he'd been a fool, that he'd had far more than sanity should allow, but he hadn't honestly known that he was drinking for two.
     "What can I do to help?" she asked nervously.
     "Just shut up. And I mean that in the nicest way. Please. Go away. I'll be fine in a couple hours."
     "Fine. But think about what I said."
     Jack managed to doze for a bit then, but he didn't start to feel better until he saw Daniel crawl to the water. Daniel's complexion was ashen and his eyes were unfocused. He must have left his glasses back at the camp. Jack was relieved. The only thing he hated more than a hangover was suffering alone.
     "What was in that stuff?" Daniel groaned. He was on his belly now. Somehow he managed to dunk his head in the cold water without drowning himself. He slithered back a few feet, then fell still, all the energy having been drained from him.
     "Just beer. Maybe a little higher alcohol content than you're used to."
     "I'm not used to any and you know that. Why do I let you talk me into these things."
     Neither of them spoke for a while. Jack wondered if Daniel had fallen asleep. He opened one eye to see Daniel staring at him.
     "That was really nice. Last night. When did you learn all those songs?"
     "Oh, pour a little beer into most Irishmen and they think they can sing."
     "Ah. Then I guess it does serve a purpose."
     Jack rolled to his elbows. The sun was setting and the ground was getting cold. His head wasn't pounding a tattoo anymore either. And just maybe he could manage to put some food inside his battered stomach. "You know what the best cure is for a hangover, don't you?"
     Daniel shook his head, his eyes wide and trusting.
     "Another beer."
    
     Carter scowled at them when they sauntered in for dinner, supporting one another and singing a raunchy song slightly off-key. "It's not Sunday any more, boys. We don't need the entertainment tonight," she said derisively.
     Wolf disagreed. He tipped back his head and howled, chiming in on the refrain.
     Carter gave up. Any serious conversation would have to wait for morning.
    
    
     "Sir," Carter started before he'd finished his first tea.
     "It's Jack," he said.
     She stared at him as if he'd suddenly grown a second head and turned purple. "Sir?"
     "Carter. You think there's little hope of getting home. So, if we're stuck here for eternity, I'm no longer your commanding officer. Call me Jack."
     "I'm sorry, sir, but I just can't."
     There was that word again.
     "I mean," she continued, a faint blush staining her tanned cheeks. Jack lowered his cup and watched, wondering what thoughts running through her mind had stirred up such a response. "Even if we grew old together, and were sitting on rocking chairs in front of your cabin, I think I'd still have to call you 'sir'. Nothing else feels right."
     Jack shrugged. Anyway, the only person who generally called him "Jack" was Daniel. Teal'c usually used his last name. General Hammond was always calling him "son" or, if he was in deep trouble, "Colonel O'Neill", wielding his rank like a shillelagh.
     "Fine," he said, making a gesture of defeat. "Now what's this about leaving Aspera?"
     "Winter's coming, sir. The thatch hut won't offer enough protection against a snow storm and subzero temperatures. And besides, we never explored this planet. Remember when we were in Antarctica -"
     "Like I could ever forget."
     "And I thought we were on an ice planet, because that's all I could see. But what if just over those mountains there were people. A village or even an entire civilization?"
     "Every inhabited planet we've gated to so far has had signs of civilization fairly close to the stargate. Why should this one be different?"
     "Well, the gate is new, sir. Maybe there were people here before the gate was installed?"
     Jack didn't want to go. He had to stay by the stargate, because he still hoped Carter's dad or maybe the Tollin or the Nox or some other advanced race would come to his rescue. He'd do it for them. Didn't any of them owe him by now? Why couldn't he collect a few favors? Besides, they'd never be able to take all their food stores with them. No, they were better off staying right here.
     "Teal'c and I are planning to start building a log cabin," he told her. "That should keep us warm all winter. We'll make it a little bigger, separate bedrooms."
     "What about people, sir. We've done really well on our own. Better than I would have imagined. But our medical supplies are gone. We're all alone here and that scares the hell out of me."
     Jack winced. It was his job to do the worrying, not hers. Their voices had raised a notch or two. Teal'c and Daniel wandered over to take sides.
     "I believe Major Carter could be right, O'Neill," Teal'c interjected. "We should search for signs of intelligent life. The people of this planet may be able to assist us."
     "Or eat us," Jack muttered.
     "I think Jack's right," Daniel said. "About staying here, that is. Not the other." He made a face as if Jack's macabre suggestion had just registered. "We have food, water, shelter, and if we leave, we can't possibly take it all with us. And what if the Tollin are sending a ship? Won't they look for us around the stargate?"
     Jack stepped back from the discussion to think. They were carrying on fine without him anyway. He didn't want to let them go. He could pull rank and end it right now. Carter would obey him, because she was much better at following orders than he was. But what if she were right? What if one of them did fall ill this winter and died? He would never forgive himself.
     But she couldn't go alone. And that was the problem. Daniel. He was the weak link. Oh, he was smart and talented and invaluable on most missions. He could even handle a gun fairly well now, but he wasn't a warrior. He couldn't be depended upon to protect Sam, he was far more likely to put her in danger. He could be so trusting and ignorant - if they did run in to aliens, he'd waltz right up and want to shake their hand. Jack had seen him do it too often in the past. And then again, while on the journey, he would be too easily distracted, wanting to collect rocks or reflect on the meaning of life stuff. He didn't have Teal'c's sixth sense for danger. Teal'c would have his weapon aimed and charged, maybe even the threat dispatched before Daniel knew anything was up. But if he kept Daniel with him and sent Teal'c, then how would he finish the cabin?
     The discussion halted and they turned to him, waiting for his final decision. He took in their trusting faces and cursed under his breath. "I don't want to let you go," he said slowly, then held up a hand to stop the protests. "But I'm not going to make it an order. If this is what you feel you must do, then do it. Pack as much as you can carry. Teal'c, go with her. Daniel and I will stay here, keep an eye on the stargate, and finish the cabin. If you don't find some sign of civilization in two weeks, then return as fast as you can. Agreed?"
     Carter nodded solemnly.
     "One more thing," Jack said. "Lucy stays here. We'll need her to help with the house, and she'd only slow you down."
     Daniel didn't say anything, but Jack could tell he was upset. That didn't matter. He'd be safe here where Jack could keep an eye on him.
     Carter and Teal'c made quick work of packing their supplies. Jack felt empty inside, like the king in the ballad sending his son off to war. He set his jaw and scowled. The sooner they left, the sooner they would return. He took Teal'c's staff weapon from the hut and handed it to him. "Take care of her," he whispered.
     "I will not take my eyes off her," the Jaffa promised.
     "Carter, take this," Jack said. He held out a bundle of skins. She hesitated, so he unrolled it. It was a crude shirt, laced together with sinew. It would hang to her knees, but it would be warm. She glanced down at her thread-bare shorts and snug faded tee shirt and wondered when he'd found the time to make it. "Thank you, sir," she said.
     Jack stood and watched as they set off. Carter turned back once and waved, but Teal'c set a course for the distant mountains and never wavered. Jack watched as they were swallowed by the tall grass and then they were gone. Lucy bellowed, straining at her rope. Daniel spoke to the ancient creature, stroking the bristly fur on her knobby head as he placated her. Finally, a heavy silence hung about the camp. It felt like death.
     "Well," Jack grunted. "Guess we'd better get to work."
     Daniel followed him silently. With only hatches, they chipped away at the base of the smaller trees, those with a diameter of four to five inches. When they managed to chip a small pocket, they'd fill it with gunpowder, tuck in a rag, ignite it and run. Sometimes the tree fell down. More often than not it clung precariously with only a shred of wood and bark on one side still holding it vertical. Then they had Lucy press her massive head to the trunk of the tree and push. It was slow work. By the end of the day they had only a few logs for the house, raw blisters on their hands, and they still had not said two words to each other.
     "Okay, Daniel," Jack snapped. "Let's have it."
     Daniel glared at him. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
     "Oh for crying out loud, Daniel. You never could tell a lie. You're angry with me. Get over it."
     "If you don't have any faith in me, then why do you keep me on your team? You could request a transfer," Daniel shouted, his face dark with rage.
     Jack shook his head at the younger man. "You've got it wrong."
     "Do I? You should have kept Teal'c here to help you build this house. I'm the linguist. What if they do meet somebody? I should be there to try to communicate with them. The only reason I'm here is because you don't think I'm good enough with a gun."
     "Daniel. You're not a soldier. That's not your fault."
     "What do I have to do to prove myself to you! Do you know how many Goa'ulds and Jaffa I've killed over the years?"
     "No, but you do. And you'll remember every single one of them until the day you die. That's the difference between you and me, Daniel. I don't know how many times I've had to kill somebody. And I don't care."
     "And you're lying to yourself if you believe that crap."
     Jack scowled. He hated verbal fights because he wasn't quick with words and he tended to lose them unless he fought dirty. "Give it up," he warned.
     "You're too damned prejudiced! Just because I have a few college degrees you don't think I'm quick enough, or coordinated enough, or tough enough-"
     "I don't think that at all. Carter's got those degrees, too."
     "And you don't trust her either! You sent Teal'c along to baby-sit!"
     Jack clenched his fists. This was getting ugly. He took a step back, trying to cool down before he lost it. "Daniel, it's a damn shame you're not military. Being in charge means I don't have to explain myself to you. Let it drop."
     "No. Not this time," Daniel challenged. Then he took Jack by complete surprise and threw the first punch.
     Jack took it full on the jaw. His head snapped back with a loud crack. The pain in his jaw was only slightly less than the one in his gut. All those emotions swirling around inside- fear, loneliness, failure, defeat, worry, caring, friendship - all combined into the one he could understand. Anger. He fought back, bare-knuckle boxing mixed with self-defense, until Daniel was pinned beneath him, sporting far too many bruises. Then sanity returned, just as Jack's fist hovered above Daniel's nose with enough power to drive bone and cartilage into the brain in a fatal blow.
     Jack stopped himself. "Oh, god, Danny," he groaned.
     Blood oozed from a cut on Daniel's lip and from his nose. One eye was swollen and turning purple. Maybe the fight had gone out of him, but not the anger.
     Jack rolled off him. He turned away and put a few steps between them. "I'm sorry, Daniel," he murmured. "I'm sorry."
     Daniel curled onto his side and pulled up his knees. "Shut up, Jack."
     Jack grabbed a canteen of water and the soft rag they used for washing dishes - a remnant from someone's trouser leg. He knelt beside Daniel and dabbed at the cuts.
     Daniel coughed. Silently he accepted a drink of water, but then he snatched the damp rag from Jack and held it to his lip. "Don't apologize. I started it. Besides," he stopped, coughing again. He groaned, clutching at his stomach.
     Jack winced. His jaw hurt and his ribs might have a few bruises, but he was in a lot better shape than Daniel. He waited for Daniel to finish. He deserved a good chewing out. He felt like a bastard.
     "That's the first time you ever treated me like an equal," Daniel said. He sat up straighter, a flush of pride in his clear blue eyes.
     Jack stared at him. Had he hit him a little too hard on the head? "You don't know what you're talking about," he grunted.
     "You won't fight with me, because you think I'm weak. You don't trust me, because I'm not a soldier. What's not to understand?"
     Jack stared at him. Then he started to chuckle. Daniel's eyes widened, first in anger, then curiosity, but finally he started to chuckle too. The chuckle grew to laughter, which grew until they were laughing like idiots so hard that their bruised ribs and battered abdomens were aching. Daniel wiped away a tear that leaked from the corner of his eye. Just when he thought he had Jack O'Neill all figured out, he discovered he didn't know him at all.
     "What's so funny?" he asked.
     "I was thinking about Carter. How she'd be pissed if she saw us now. She hasn't even been gone a day and already we're at each other's throats."
     Daniel slowly got to his feet. He offered a hand to Jack. "Well. What she doesn't know won't hurt her."
     Together they prepared a simple meal, banked the fire, and climbed into the hut for the night. The hut felt empty with half its children gone. Jack hated the feeling. It always reminded him of an empty bed in a little boy's room back in Colorado.
     "I do trust you, Danny," he said quietly. "You're one of the smartest, bravest men I've ever known. But you are under my command. It's my duty to protect both you and Carter. Even Teal'c. And what I did today, fighting with you, is a court-martial offense. If I seem over-protective, it's not because you're a geek. It's because you're younger. Kind of innocent, maybe. Damn, I'm not saying this right. But, you're the best part of why we're doing this. Fighting the Goa'ulds. Saving Earth. You're what we're saving Earth for."
     "Jack. Don't patronize me. I'm not some idealized representation of the perfect human. I'm just a man with a job to do. Let me do it."
     Jack was quiet for so long that Daniel wondered if he had fallen asleep. Finally, he spoke. "Do you want to know the real reason I wanted you here instead of Teal'c? That guy cannot carry on a conversation. I figured I'd be a raving lunatic before Carter returned."
     Daniel laughed. Everything was back to normal. Nothing had really been resolved. Jack had backed away from real intimacy by doing what he always did - use either fists or sarcasm. But Daniel felt better, even if his ribs were bruised and drinking or eating was going to be painful for the next few days. He was still shocked that Jack had actually fought him. Even though he'd thrown the first punch, he'd half expected Jack to just deflect his blows, which would have made him even angrier. As another wave of pain shot through him when he tried to roll over, he was grateful, though, that Jack didn't fight with him more often. He had to acknowledge that although Jack was much older, he was certainly the better soldier.
    
    
     Chapter seven:
    
     They awoke to a fine layer of frost on their animal skins and a bone-cold shivering that three cups of tea did nothing to eliminate. Jack seemed too relaxed, which Daniel took as a bad sign. The colonel usually covered his anxiety with sarcasm and humor. Daniel was worried about Carter and Teal'c as well. He'd heard the wild cats again last night.
     The terrifying cries of the powerful beasts had not been heard since early spring. Why had they returned now? Why would they winter near the stargate? Was game more plentiful here? If so, then how would Carter and Teal'c survive? And had they managed to escape the notice of the cats?
     Jack sat motionless, his MP-5 propped on a knee as he tried to get something in his sights. Daniel cleared his throat before speaking, not wanting to startle him. "Jack? What are you doing?"
     "I am not going to listen to that son- of-a-bitch all winter," he snapped.
     "So you're just going to kill it? Them? It sounds like a whole pack out there - many wildcats on earth live in extended family groups. Very efficient hunters. But if we're careful, we can avoid them and share these woods."
     Jack remained motionless for a long time. Then he sighed and lowered his weapon. "You're right, Daniel. There's a couple of cubs with him. Her. What ever. So long as they stick to eating wild goats and birds -" He didn't have to finish his thought. Daniel's active imagination had no trouble filling in the blank.
     They dropped more trees. Lucy dragged the logs to the site and Jack showed Daniel how to notch them so they'd fit snuggly together. It seemed like an endless task. The trunks were fairly straight and without branches, but the outer bark on the bottom side had to be stripped away and the log slightly hollowed. Then when more logs were stacked on top, it would settle down tight to the log beneath. Daniel had seen pictures of log cabins before. He'd stayed in them on several stargate missions, but he'd never actually built one. It felt good, like actually being a part of history. He gazed at Jack, filled with admiration.
     "So, when did you learn to do this?" he asked.
     Jack wiped his forearm across his face, smearing the sweat and dust. "On Edora."
     Ah. One mission when Jack had been left behind. A meteor had struck the stargate and the naquada in the soil had melted and solidified right above the event horizon. No one could gate in or out. Jack must have given up hope of ever being rescued, for he had made a life for himself there. Then when they showed up, he didn't seem especially pleased to see them. That had hurt Carter deeply. She'd spent months working long hours to develop the particle beam generator that would melt the naquada and allow Teal'c to gate through. Instead of a joyous back-thumping embrace, Jack had just stared at them. Then he'd hugged the Edoran leader, a woman named Laira, and Daniel was almost sure he'd seen moisture in Jack's eyes. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but he thought the woman bore a striking resemblance to Sara.
     "You gave up then," Daniel commented. "After several months, you didn't think we were going to rescue you. Why not now? What's different here?"
     "I gave up," Jack hissed, swinging the hatchet viciously. "And I screwed up. I let someone care for me, and then I broke her heart. That won't happen again."
     "Her little girl is yours, isn't she?" Daniel's voice had dropped to barely a whisper.
     Jack froze, the hatchet stopped in mid- air. Then he turned and threw the hatchet. It sailed end over end to bury itself in the next tree. "She married Boltar. He is raising the child as his own."
     "So, you didn't necessarily break her heart. You gave her the child she wanted."
     "Shut up, Daniel," Jack snorted.
     Daniel watched him work a few moments. "She has your eyes," he said. Then he picked up his hatchet.
    
     Thirty-four days Daniel had marked on the stick he used as a calendar, just over a month since Carter and Teal'c had left. While he and Jack weren't really bonding, they had established an easy camaraderie, as long as Daniel didn't ask anything too personal. They worked hard every day now, even on Sundays, but sometimes at night Jack brought out his beer. They limited themselves to just one - so there were no repeat performances of that first hangover, but the beer did seem to loosen Jack's tongue. On those nights, they talked. Still, at odd times of the day he would find Jack staring silently to the west, watching the horizon for the return of their friends.
     "They'll be fine, you know that," Daniel reassured him.
     "I'm going to skin them alive when they get back," Jack snapped. The first snow fell that night.
    
     The next week brought warmer weather. Daniel wondered if Indian Summer were a universal event. He would have enjoyed it more, if Jack would have let him. Instead the older man got more edgy, snapping at him, doubling the work on the cabin. They had four walls now, but the roof was still unfinished. There was one window in each wall. The windows were small, built more like portholes for a gun barrel than for enjoying the view. Jack hung shutters on the outside and skins on the inside to cut the drafts. Of course, a roof would really help. Daniel gazed at the cerulean blue sky above. He didn't look forward to working on the roof. He'd done a lot to overcome his fear of heights, but still...
     The wildcats snarled, startling them both. Jack dropped his hatchet and reached for the automatic weapon he carried everywhere since their return. Daniel gulped nervously. Another snarl had him slowly exhaling the breath he'd been holding as it sounded like it was moving away from them towards the stargate. He raised the hatchet ready to return to work, when the cat struck it's prey and the dying creature gave out a very human-sounding cry.
     Jack turned and ran, Daniel close at his heels.
     'It can't be Sam,' Daniel told himself over and over. She would not have gone to the stargate without stopping to see them. But that means there's other people, but why do the cats hover near the 'gate? Is that because they find easy prey there? So the 'gate is used, frequently enough for the wild life to know the taste of human flesh? And they were too late! More cries rent the air. The cats let out a bone-chilling snarl and another death-cry screamed.
     Jack ran into the clearing, firing rapidly at the pride of cats. Six of them, three adults and three half-grown cubs. The cats were enormous. Easily twice the size of the largest Siberian Tiger Daniel had ever seen. He stared impotently, wishing he'd had a gun, as the long, sharp incisors of the cats tore human limbs asunder.
     Two cats fell, but only after multiple wounds had been inflicted. The bullets seemed to have little effect. Jack was aiming for their heads, thinking to do the most damage, but Daniel wondered how thick their skulls were. While blood dripped into their eyes, they seemed more enraged than weakened. "Behind the shoulder," Daniel shouted. "Aim for the heart!
     Jack fired again and another beast went down, one of the cubs this time. Wolf had one cat by the hind leg, his teeth sunk deep into flesh. The cat shook him loose and Wolf went down with a yelp.
     Jack continued firing although there didn't seem to be anyone left alive to rescue. A grisly tangle of arms and legs was all that remained. Then they heard it at the same time as the cats. A small child's cry. Jack stared in horror as a little boy crawled out from beneath the body of his dead father. A large cat crouched, its tail flicking from side to side as it prepared to pounce. Jack thrust his weapon in Daniel's arms and took off for the child at a run.
     Daniel tucked the weapon into his shoulder as he had learned to do. He fired without thinking. Bullets rained into the cat until the clip was empty, but through the weapon's sites he had a magnified view of the nightmare playing out before him. He saw Jack lunge for the child, wrap him protectively in the circle of his arms and keep running. The giant cat's feet left the ground. He sailed through the air. Blood spouted from a dozen wounds like macabre rain in a devil's dance. Momentum carried the dying cat forward. With its last breath, it knocked Jack to the ground, one massive paw, claws extended, tearing into his thigh.
     Jack screamed; the child screamed, but the cat was eerily silent. Daniel stood dazed for a moment. It was over. None of the beasts moved. Afraid of what he'd see, Daniel steeled himself and ran to Jack's aid.
     Jack's arms were tight around the child, a small boy of maybe three or four. "It's over," he crooned in a warrior's lullaby. "You're safe now."
     "But you're not," Daniel stammered anxiously. "Jack, you're bleeding like a stuck pig!"
     Daniel ripped off his belt and wrapped it around Jack's leg twice, yanking on it tight. He pressed a hand over the wound, hoping to staunch the flood.
     Jack groaned. "The boy's alive," he murmured. His eyes looked unfocused.
     "Yes, Jack. You saved him. Now hang in there."
     "Sorry, Daniel..." Jack seemed suddenly too weak. Daniel stared at his hands red with Jack's blood, at the life flowing out of him. Fear turned to anger.
     "Stay with me, Jack!" he shouted. "Don't you dare give up on us. We need you! I need you. The boy - you didn't save him to let me watch him die! Damn you!"
     Jack went still. Daniel touched a blood-slick finger to his throat and felt a pulse. It was weak, but Daniel could have cried. He'd have to work fast and treat the wound while Jack was unconscious, but all their meager supplies were back at camp! After half an alien year of hard labor just struggling to survive, Daniel was stronger now than he'd ever been in his life, but he still didn't know if he could carry Jack the distance.
     He pulled off his shirt and folded it, pressing it to the gaping wound. Then he took Jack's belt and wrapped it to hold the make-shift bandage in place. "I have to get the med- kit," he told the boy. "Come with me."
     The boy clung to Jack's neck. His eyes were wide, his lip trembling. Daniel tried to pry him loose, but the child screamed. "Okay, you stay here," Daniel said nervously. "I'll be back. Take care of Jack for me."
     Wolf stirred. He limped over to Jack and lay down beside him. Daniel didn't know if the wolf cub could protect the wounded man and small child, but he didn't have time to worry about it.
     Daniel ran back to camp. He threw supplies together, tossed them onto the travois with some fur blankets and hitched it to Lucy, urging the lumbering beast to hurry.
     Jack remained unconscious while he rolled him on to the travois. He poured water into the wound, cleansing it with crushed soapberry. Blood had soaked through the bandage. He was afraid to take off the tourniquet, but he knew he couldn't leave it on. If he didn't restore circulation to the leg, it would become necrotic. He didn't have thread or needle and he didn't know if he could sew up the wound if he did. There were no antibiotics left. All he had to offer Jack for pain was some strong beer. Wolf let out a mournful howl.
     Daniel wrapped the leg with the last of the gauze. Then he held the wound closed with duct tape. Bless Jack. He always carried an ample supply of the stuff where ever he went.
     The child wouldn't let go of Jack's neck. He clung like a leech. Daniel stared at him, really seeing him for the first time. Yellow hair hung to his shoulders, wild and uncombed. Wide blue eyes watched from a pale face. His clothing was even more primitive than Daniel's - a hodge-podge of skins and sinew belted around a thin waist. Daniel didn't want to look at the human remains all around him, but someone would have to come back and bury them. He couldn't tell how many there had been. Three, four, maybe five. Mostly adults and an infant. Daniel doubled over and puked.
     Lucy hurried back to Aspera, as if she realized the urgency. Daniel's eyes darted furtively searching for any sign of danger. The woods were strangely silent. Above a lone vulture circled, ready to fulfill its part in the cycle of life and death. Daniel shivered.
     Once back at the camp, Daniel didn't know what to do. Jack was always the one to take over in a crisis and give them small, manageable tasks. He tried to imagine what Jack might say now. Should he build up the camp fire to keep the wild beasts at bay? He'd have to do that before he could boil water to do a better job of cleansing the wound. Would Jack need beer or food? Or return to bury the dead before the vultures attacked? What about the child? The child was shivering. Daniel slapped his forehead. Treat for shock. That was the first step.
     He took the animal skin blankets and tucked them around Jack and the boy. Then he lowered the travois, propping the foot end up slightly. He rolled animal skins into a bundle and propped the injured leg further. The wound had soaked through his shirt and the gauze. Daniel layered fresh bandages over the old ones.
     The fire was next. He added kindling, blowing on the dying embers until they flamed to life. Feeding it smaller sticks, then the larger ones, he soon had a roaring fire and set a pot of water on to boil. Once the wound stopped bleeding, he'd try to cleanse it again.
     Finally, there was nothing more he could think of to occupy his time. He sat and stared into the fire. Panic threatened to overwhelm him.
     He was stranded on an alien world, for all practical purposes, alone. Sam and Teal'c should have returned by now. Jack was unconscious, but when he woke up he would be in great pain and incapable of doing anything to improve their situation. He had plenty of food for the winter, but the cabin still had no roof. He couldn't do the work alone.
     Those wild cats... they'd been so large, so much larger than anything on earth. At least, twenty-first century earth. And that was the problem. The cats had been easily seven or eight hundred pounds. They were striped like tigers, but their faces were something nightmares were made of, with huge canine teeth extending down over their lower jaws. They looked very much like artists' renderings of the extinct Saber Toothed tiger.
     Extinct cats. New gates. A child dressed in animal skins. Daniel felt a cold dread settle deep in his gut that had little to do with Jack's injury. No one would ever come looking for them, for General Hammond and the SGC had not yet been born. He knew they had traveled back in time, but not to earth's past. The past of PX3-149. That was the only explanation that made sense. Large tears filled his eyes and spilled down his face.
     Grief was a strange bedfellow. It filled him, but made him feel empty. It consumed him, but gave him too much time with nothing to do but agonize. It destroyed hope. All day and night he did not move. He did not eat. He let the fire die to nothing but ashes. He ignored Wolf's plaintive howl and the child's silent stare.
     Maybe it was hunger. Maybe it was fear and loneliness, mixed with desperation, but as alien dawn pinked the horizon, Daniel faced his deepest fear, failure. If Jack died, he would grieve. If Jack died because he had failed to help him, he would never recover. Grimly, Daniel set to work.
     He built a fire. He boiled water to kill any bacteria or parasites. He cooked food for him and the child, and Jack, when he awoke. He even tossed some scraps and a bone to Wolf, who had not left Jack's side yet to hunt for himself.
     Daniel hunched down near the boy. "Hi," he said softly, a gentle smile on his face. "I'm Daniel. My name is Daniel. Daniel." He tapped his chest. In all the years with SG-1, he'd had plenty of practice perfecting his Me-Tarzan, You-Jane routine. He figured he had it down pat. He wasn't surprised that the child didn't answer him, though. The little boy had witnessed his parents' violent death. On earth he'd be tagged for years of therapy with a child psychologist.
     "Are you hungry? Here, you need to eat."
     The child didn't move. His thin arms were still latched around Jack's neck. Short of force-feeding him, Daniel wasn't sure how to help him.
     "Look. I'm going to eat," he said lightly. "Hmm." He took a bite of meat, pretending to savor it. He pointed out that Wolf was eating. He held a drumstick out to the child and waited interminably. At last, the child snatched it from him. He held it to his chest and nibbled tentatively. Daniel smiled. Hunger was a good motivator.
     The water had boiled and cooled. It was time. Clenching his teeth and willing his breakfast to remain where it was, Daniel gently removed the duct tape from Jack's leg. The gauze and his shirt were stiff with old blood. Part of the fabric stuck in the wound. He soaked it with water and waited before trying again. The wound was still gaping and open, but fresh blood no longer flowed. He saw torn muscle and damaged bone. Daniel flooded the wound with the boiled water. Jack needed surgery and antibiotics. Daniel felt woefully inadequate.
     The ancient Egyptians had made aspirin. And willow bark contained a chemical similar to acetylsalicylic acid, although he couldn't think of the name just then. This world was not earth, but there was so much that was similar. Grass was still green. Blood was still red. Again he shook himself. As long as he lived, he didn't think he would ever like the color red again.
     Jack's hands fisted, the first sign that he was coming awake. His face contorted in a grimace, his eyes clenched shut. "Daniel," he whispered.
     "I'm here, Jack."
     For moments he didn't speak. Moisture leaked from his eyelids. White ringed his colorless lips. "The boy?" he choked out.
     "He's fine," Daniel said. "Actually, he hasn't let go of you since you rescued him."
     Jack opened his eyes then. The boy looked at him with a wide, blank expression. "Take him away," Jack groaned.
     Daniel tried. He tugged, but the child screamed. Jack cried out. "Forget it!"
     "I'm sorry," Daniel said.
     Jack punched the ground with his fist several times. When he stretched his fingers, they trembled slightly. Then he buried them in the child's hair and held him. "Damn, it hurts," he confessed.
     "How about a beer?"
     Jack's lip twitched, but he shut his eyes again. His head barely nodded. Daniel filled a cup with the dark amber liquid and held it to Jack's lips.
     "So, Daniel. What's... our status?" Jack asked when he'd managed to take a few sips and keep it down.
     Daniel hesitated. Now was not the time to tell him his theory about the stargate. How the Tollin were not going to come rescue them. At least, not for the next seventy or eighty thousand years. "Sam and Teal'c haven't returned. The cabin is not finished, but we've lots of food," he said simply. Jack knew that much.
     "They should have returned by now. Something's wrong," Jack said.
     Daniel agreed, but what could they do?
     "You have to go and look for them. Take the boy with you. I don't know what kind of trouble they may have gotten themselves into, buy you'll have to take your chances."
     "You're in no shape to travel," Daniel said quietly.
     "I'm not going."
     "I won't leave you behind!"
     An anguished cry slipped past Jack's clenched lips. "Daniel. You have too! If you stay here, we're all dead."
     Daniel glanced at the horizon, willing Sam and Teal'c to return. "I won't leave you behind," he said firmly.
     "If you drag me along, I will die on the journey."
     "You and Teal'c really piss me off," Daniel snapped. "You're both so willing to die! Wish you had some of that fight to live. I need you, damn you! Okay? I'm not the soldier you are. And the boy needs you. So don't you dare give up on us!"
     Jack's eyes went unfocused. He murmured something Daniel couldn't make out. He grasped Jack's shoulders and shook him gently. "Jack?"
     "Alright, Daniel. We all go. Load up as much as Lucy can carry. Travel west until you find out what happened to them."
     "And you?"
     "I get to keep that promise."
     Daniel cocked his head curiously. "Which one?"
     "To be a better patient."
     Jack forced a half-smile, but it came out more as a grimace.
     Daniel swallowed a sob. He feared he would bury his friend on the journey, but Jack was right. They couldn't stay here. "We'll leave in the morning."
     Jack closed his eyes. "Some day I gotta get Teal'c to teach me that Kel-Norim stuff...".
    
    
    
    
    
    
     Chapter eight:
    
     Leaving the boy with Jack, Daniel returned to the stargate and buried the victims. Or what he could find of them. He tried conjugating Medieval Slavonic verbs to keep from thinking about the grisly remains as he carried body parts to the shallow graves. Setting stones on top of the dirt to discourage scavengers, he said the Abidonian prayer for the dead.
     It was common in many cultures to adorn oneself with the skin of a powerful enemy. Jack had been almost obsessive about saving every hide, except the hide of the mother wolf. But Daniel would never look at a tiger quite the same again. He would always see the grizzly remains of this primitive family, hear their death cries, and remember how Jack had nearly given his life for strangers. He wouldn't skin these tigers.
     Still, something urged him to save a memento. He took a knife and removed the canines of the largest beast. The deadly teeth were easily ten inches long. He wrapped them and tucked them into a side pocket on his pack.
     Next he had to deal with the child. He was coated with his father's blood. Daniel hoped he was young enough that he wouldn't understand, and therefore wouldn't be traumatized by what he'd witnessed, but he knew he had to get him cleaned, first. He checked the water in Sam's bath, adding heated stones to warm it.
     "My name is Daniel," he said again, when he returned to the boy. "Now, you're coming with me. I know Jack's your hero, but right now he needs to rest."
     Taking the boy's hands and untangling them from Jack's neck, he pulled the boy loose. The boy screamed, but Daniel held him. "Sh, it's okay," he murmured, holding the child close. "I'm not going to hurt you. You're just going to have to trust me."
     The child continued to cry, but when Jack was no longer in sight, he hugged Daniel. Daniel smiled dryly. Any port in a storm. He sat on a flat stone at the edge of the bath and began unlacing the boy's footwear. They were ingenious, really. Two layers of animal skins, the outer one waterproofed with fat. On the bottom of the inner layer was a thick insole. Perhaps it had started as a wad of wool, but walking on it with sweaty feet had pressed it into felt. Daniel realized the child's boots were warmer than anything he could offer. He'd try to salvage them, but he was not going to let the child wear anything that was stained with blood.
     The child fought him, not wanting to let his clothing be removed. Daniel laughed. "So boys in any culture still hate to take a bath?" he said. He continued to talk, keeping his voice calm and gentle, as he stripped off the filthy skins. He noticed that he was just as dirty, so he peeled off and got into the hot pool with him. It might be the last bath he could take for a long time.
     Once in the warm water, the child relaxed. He splashed a little, trying a tentative smile. He laughed at the slickery feel of the soapberries, and sniffed the slight bayberry scent, grinning widely. Daniel let the hot water wash over him, wishing it could cleanse his mind and soul of the day's horrific events, and not just his body.
     "Tiku," the boy said, thumping his skinny chest.
     "Tiku?" Daniel pointed to him. "Is that your name?"
     He nodded solemnly. "Tiku, Dan-el, Paxa?"
     "Paxa. What is paxa," Daniel encouraged.
     The child pointed to himself and Daniel, then made a gesture with his fingers. "Paxa."
     "Paxa. Friends? Is that what you're saying? That we are friends? Yes, I guess we are. Paxa."
     The child seemed greatly relieved.
     Daniel managed to sponge off the stains from Tiku's mukluks with the soapberries and a rag, but his jerkin was destroyed. Daniel cut one of their skins to fit, using the old one for a pattern, then fastened it with a braided leather strap tied around the waist. "I like that felt-stuff you're using," Daniel said, finding comfort in the sound of his own voice. "If we see any sheep on the journey, we'll have mutton for dinner, and I can take their wool. It could make a difference in our survival."
     Daniel wouldn't even try to get Jack up into the thatch hut that night. Since the entire pride of cats had been killed and Daniel had not heard a sound of any more in the distance, he figured they'd be safe enough on the ground. At least, with Wolf to help keep guard and a roaring fire. Daniel removed Jack's soiled clothes then and gently bathed the unconscious man, wrapping him in layers of animal skins for the journey. Frostbite was his biggest concern, that and gangrene.
     Jack stirred in the middle of the night. "Daniel?" he whispered.
     "I'm here, Jack."
     "Sara?"
     "She's... not here. Jack, you're running a fever."
     "Hungry."
     Daniel took a small chunk of boiled meat and offered it to him. Jack could only manage to eat a bite of it. "Where are we?" he asked weakly.
     "We're at base camp. Aspera. That's what we named it. Jack, we're going on a journey as soon as the sun's up. We'll go find Sam."
     Jack nodded, his eyes closing. "Charlie? Go find Sara. Tell her... I'm sorry."
     Daniel swallowed. "I'll tell her, Jack. I promise. You get some sleep."
     "I'm sorry, Charlie."
     Daniel didn't sleep after that. At first light he got up and wrapped smoked meats and dried vegetables in skins, tucking some into his pack, tying others to makeshift saddle bags for Lucy to carry. He packed as many of their skins as he could fit. There was no more ammunition, so he left both weapons behind, taking the spears, bow, and arrows instead. Then he opened the chicken pen and set all his Ptarmigans loose. Kicking the fire apart, he gazed at the simple campsite, amazed at how much it felt like home.
     Lucy wrapped her trunk around Daniel's shoulder. Daniel patted it affectionately. "It was a lucky day when you joined our family," he whispered. "Let's get started."
     Wolf trotted beside him, his tongue lolling from his mouth in a trusting, canine smile. Tiku walked beside him for a while, his small hand tucked in Daniel's. He pointed to the wolf. "Paxa?"
     "Yes, Wolf is a friend, too," Daniel agreed. "Paxa."
     "Paxa?" he asked, patting Lucy.
     "Lots of friends. Yes. Her name is Lucy."
     By noon Tiku braved riding on Lucy' broad back. Daniel devised a harness for tying the boy on, so he wouldn't fall off if he drifted to sleep.
     Jack remained unconscious the rest of the day, uttering only a few muffled curses as the travois bumped along the rough ground.
     Daniel handed out beef jerky and dried apricots for the evening meal, but continued to walk. Only when it grew dark, and with the dark, cold, did he stop. Jack was shivering.
     He layered another fur around him, tucking it around his shoulders. His skins were drenched in sweat. Unfortunately, they'd been walking through the field all day and he hadn't seen anything that looked like a willow tree so he could brew a medicinal tea, nor had he seen a wool-gathering beast. He offered Jack more beer from the gut-skin bag. Jack took only a few sips and he didn't eat a thing.
     Days passed. Daniel handed out dried meat and water for breakfast, then kicked apart the campfire and continued west. He alternately walked or rode. He checked on Jack, urging him to drink something, but Jack remained out of it most of the time.
     The tall field grass gave way to a shorter, sparser variety, and shallow creeks that seemed to meander aimlessly. Daniel knew they didn't feed into the lake, and wondered if there were a larger body of water to the south. At times the air had almost a salty tang to it. Maybe it was an ocean.
     The game was plentiful, but Daniel didn't plan to hunt anything unless it wore wool. After this mission, he'd have to think seriously about becoming a vegetarian. Dreaming, of course, that this mission ever ended. Which it wouldn't. Except maybe for Jack.
     That night, as he cut away the soiled bandage to wash the wound with boiled water, he smelled it. The sickening odor of decay. The wound was worse, with red striations reaching down the leg and up over the hip.
     "Oh, dear God," he gasped. Was that what gangrene looked like? Panic welled up in his chest. For a moment he couldn't breathe.
     The leg had to come off. Daniel found gutting and skinning a dead animal challenging - how could he do it on a live man? A friend? But if he didn't, the rotting wound would surely kill him. Daniel dug inside Jack's boot for his knife. Jack kept the eight-inch blade razor sharp, but even so it would be about like sawing into him with a butter knife. Daniel didn't know if he could do it.
     Jack gripped his arm, awake for the first time in days. "Leave it, Daniel," he commanded.
     "Jack, it's killing you. If we were home, maybe they could save it, but it's too late. I don't have any antibiotics, I don't have anything!"
     "You are not cutting off my leg," he said tersely.
     "But you'll die!"
     "If you take it, I swear to God I will kill myself," he bit off. There was no sign of delirium now. Jack was wide awake and deadly serious.
     Daniel was annoyed with himself at the relief he felt. He tucked Jack's knife back into his boot. "Fine. We'll just wait for a miracle then."
     "Find Sam. Teal'c. You need to find them," Jack said. He was fading out again.
     "We're at the foot of the mountains, Jack," Daniel said. "But I haven't seen any sign of people. No fires, no foot prints.... No camp. And I saw a white fox yesterday. Winter is definitely here."
     "I want Teal'c to take command," Jack murmured. "Not Sam. Until you get off this planet, Teal'c's the boss."
     "You're going to get well, Jack. No one's replacing you," Daniel lied. Positive thinking was about all there was left for treating Jack's injury. That and prayer. But Jack had never struck him as a religious person, and Daniel had never chosen one particular faith to follow. He'd studied a lot about different religions even before coming to the stargate program. Now he knew that most of the ancient gods had in fact been aliens. The people on P3Z- 012 had it nearly right. They prayed to the ancients.
     Jack didn't wake again.
    
    
     Chapter Ten:
    
     The first night that Daniel saw smoke was one of celebration. He whirled Tiku around, tossed him in the air and caught him, laughing like an idiot. Tiku smiled shyly.
     "Where there's smoke, you know there's a camp fire," Daniel explained. Tiku's vocabulary had grown by only a few dozen words, but he seemed to enjoy listening to him anyway. "Fire," Daniel said again, pointing to the smoke.
     Tiku made a gesture, four fingers on one hand wiggling up from the palm of the other. "Shimi," Tiku said. "Fi-errrr."
     "Shimi?" Daniel asked. The hand gesture seemed to be as much a part of the language as the vocalizations. He imitated the boy's gesture. "Shimi."
     Tiku nodded gravely. He put his hand trustingly in Daniel's. Daniel wanted to press on further, but Lucy needed to rest, and running into primitive peoples in the dark was a sure way of getting shot at. At least his feet weren't freezing any more. He'd nailed a ram a few days before, shearing off the winter wool with Jack's boot knife. The wads of wool inside his mukluks had made a huge difference. He layered the rest of the wool around Jack, tying animal skins around him so he couldn't kick them off in his fevered struggles.
     Daniel thought about all the ancient cultures he had studied in the past, and the Abidonians he had lived with for a year. He knew that they would be hesitant, curious, cautious, and maybe fearful of him. He had to make a good first impression. He might not survive if he didn't.
     Tiku made a sign with three fingers held up like the Boy Scout oath. "Paxa," he said gravely, pointing towards the smoke curls just beyond the ridge.
     Daniel wasn't exactly sure of the meaning, for Tiku used the word to refer to him and Lucy and Wolf, but not Jack. Jack was "Pata", with a palm rubbing the area around his heart. Daniel wondered if he were seeing relationships where none existed, or if the child's language was more ancient than Latin, a sort of Indo-European root from which all other ancient languages sprang. Paxa seemed like the Latin root word Pax, for peace, but then what of pata? Was that a variant of pater, for father? He knew Tiku had bonded with Jack, clung to him for comfort, but did he really think Jack was now his father? And if so, was it a custom of his people because Jack had saved him or because he'd been traumatized and chose to wipe out the memory of the brutal deaths of his parents?
     "I don't know if they are paxa or not," Daniel said. "I just hope that their language is similar enough to one I know, so we can communicate with them. Jack's life depends on it." Probably his, too.
     In the morning, Daniel kicked apart the campfire with a mix of dread and excitement. Jack was getting worse. He hadn't awakened from his fever-induced delirium for three days. They were on the threshold of meeting other people - but would it be his friends? Or Goa'uld slaves? Or primitives like Tiku? Would they be able to help him, or would they finish off what the tigers had started?
     He decided to ride Lucy this time. Using her trunk like a stool, he swung Tiku up first, then mounted behind him. Tiku patted Lucy's furry head and chanted excitedly, "Mishi, mishi!" Daniel wasn't sure, but thought it might be the equivalent of "Faster! Faster!"
     Lucy plodded along purposefully and no amount of encouragement would get her to move more quickly. The path narrowed, climbing steadily uphill. The rocky, uneven ground bumped the travois mercilessly, and the holes were impossible to see for the layer of snow that covered everything. Jack shivered, his sweat-soaked hair matted to his forehead.
     Daniel saw figures clad in furs fetching water from a small stream, but they disappeared into the underbrush. He gulped. It wasn't Sam or Teal'c, but neither did they look like Jaffa warriors. He thought he glimpsed flaxen hair beneath the furs, and a feminine face. The women would report back to their people, giving them plenty of time to arm themselves... if they chose.
     Lucy would frighten them. He should leave the aging creature behind, but he couldn't carry Jack by himself. He slipped off her broad back, motioning to Tiku to stay put. Holding the thin braided halter in one hand, Daniel steeled himself, swallowing his fear, and marched forward through the drifting snow.
     He followed the trail left by the water-gatherers, around the thorny shrubs, through a narrow chasm, and into a small clearing at the peak of the ridge. Layer upon layer of mountain ridges dotted the horizon. There were no cities, no airports, no sign of advanced civilization, only endless woods, mountains, and the small camp of stick and bark hutches and twenty spears aimed right at him.
     The hutches were similar to some constructed by the plains Indians in America's ancient west, but blocks of snow were stacked against them, in igloo-fashion. The snow covered only the lower third of each hutch. Undoubtedly, as more snow fell, more snow bricks would be added, until the structures were solid and warm, secure from winter's storms.
     All this Daniel took in quickly, while staring at the sharpened spears, as he sorted through the languages he knew and wondered which to try first. Keeping his gestures slow, trying to look as non-threatening as possible -- while a mammoth-sized creature stood just behind him -- Daniel introduced himself. "My name is Daniel."
     The spears didn't waver. Daniel removed his hood, then extended both hands, palms up, to show he was unarmed. "I come in peace. I need shelter for my sick friend. I mean you no harm."
     One man stepped forward, jabbing his spear into the snow. He grunted a word Daniel didn't understand, then gestured with his hands. Several fingers waved in the air, like smoke, then he drew his hand downward in front of his face, scowled, and smacked a fist into his palm. Daniel didn't have to be psychic to know that the words and gestures were not complimentary.
     "Na, na, na!" Tiku exclaimed, startling Daniel and the others.
     "Stay put," Daniel warned him, but the youngster was already sliding off Lucy' back. Daniel grabbed him before he hit the ground. Tiku scrambled from his grip and ran to the one who had spoken. He said a string of words, making hand gestures and pointing towards Daniel and Jack.
     Daniel stared, awed not by the sight of a small boy arguing with the tribal leader, but that they spoke the same language. He hadn't yet found Sam or Teal'c, but he had found the boy's people. These people had to have come through the stargate - although he was only guessing that they originated from earth. So why hadn't Tiku come through the 'gate with them? Daniel's mind wondered at all the possibilities.
     "Paxa!" Tiku said with a final air, pointing to Daniel. Then he raced to Jack's side and grabbed his hand. "Pata!"
     The leader went to Jack's side, leaving his spear behind; his warriors held theirs steady. From Tiku's gestures and words, Daniel gathered that he was telling him how Jack had saved him from the tigers. The leader flung back the skins to look at Jack's bandaged thigh. At his command, all the warriors lowered their spears. They came to lift Jack from the travois and carried him gently into one of the shelters. Daniel followed mutely.
     Jack was laid on a raised pallet near the center where a warm campfire glowed. Instantly Daniel's glasses fogged up. The room was hot and humid. He wiped them on a square of fabric that had shredded to almost nothing, as he glanced about the room.
     Bowls of steaming water were set all around. One woman replaced the cooled stones at the bottom of each pot with hot ones from the fire. Already Daniel was sweating. He loosened his parka.
     Two women removed Jack's furs and bandages, while a fourth, a heavy-set woman, knelt beside him and crooned a tuneless melody. Daniel was shocked by how thin and old his friend appeared. He added a prayer of his own, to any god who would listen.
     Crudely shaped bronze tools were placed in the fire, although Daniel could not discern their purpose. The heavy woman seemed more impressed by Jack's shiny knife than by the severity of his wound. Daniel assumed she was the healer of their tribe, judging by the respect the others showed her. He looked nervously at the men and women inside the crowded shelter, wondering if the healer was deserving of their praise.
     The younger people looked fine. They were tall, slender, handsome people, with hair that varied in shade from ash to ripe wheat, and piercing blue eyes. But the older ones were hideous. Their eyes were nearly buried beneath protruding brow ridges, their legs were bowed, arms twisted, shoulders hunched. They almost resembled "the Touched" or some missing link in earth's evolutionary chain. He didn't have time to ponder it further, for the healer put Jack's knife to his leg.
     "No!" Daniel shouted. "You can't do that!"
     The healer glared at him, wagging the blade towards his chest. Several men grabbed his arms and held him. Daniel couldn't fight them. "Please, you don't understand," he pleaded. He didn't doubt that Jack would carry through on his threat.
     The woman cut into the infected wound. Jack screamed. Blood and puss oozed. Others came to help hold him down. Wolf loped through the door and landed on the pallet, straddling Jack's chest, emitting a fierce, protective growl. Daniel stared in horrified fascination, no longer resisting.
     "Help me," Jack gasped. His eyes were wild, glazed with pain and fever. He didn't even seem to recognize Daniel when he looked at him. "Sarah!" Then blessedly, he passed out.
     Wolf snapped at the air just above the healer's hand. His hackles were raised, and his head hung low, shoulders hunched.
     For a moment, nothing moved, except Jack's blood as it silently flowed over the pallet and onto the ground. Daniel didn't know what to do. Wolf would keep the healer from hurting Jack, but then she couldn't help him, either. And Daniel had brought him here hoping to find help. "Wolf! Down," he ordered.
     Wolf whined, glancing at Daniel hopefully. Daniel repeated his command. The wolf pup backed up, lying down beside Jack, but he no longer growled.
     The healer returned to her task, but she didn't seem to be cutting too deeply. She cut away dead or dying tissue, then cauterized the wound with the heated tools. She mixed up a goop of two different types of white crystal and water, mounding the thick paste into the wound, then bandaging it carefully.
     Tiku reached out to Daniel, tears hovering on his eyelashes. "Pata mishi?"
     Daniel could only guess at what he meant. "I think Jack will be better soon," he said soothingly as he hugged the boy close.
     Next the healer laid thin skins soaked with water over Jack's chest and spread hot stones on top. The water hissed as it evaporated. Daniel thought she might be trying to raise Jack's body temperature, to force him to sweat away the toxins that had already invaded his body. The men who held Daniel had loosened their grip and Daniel shook free. He held up both palms in surrender. "All right," he said. "I won't interfere."
     They nodded gruffly, sweat poured down their faces. They watched him a few minutes more and then left the steamy hutch. Daniel's curiosity was peaked. He went to the stone jars, lifting the lids to sniff and taste the white crystals. Salt, sugar? What possible reason could she have to put a paste of salt and sugar in a wound? Salt would burn, but it was also a disinfectant. Daniel had never heard of using sugar in that manner before. Only time would tell if the healer's efforts had been enough.
     The healer grouched at him, slapping his hand until he replaced the lids on her stone jars. Daniel apologized quickly. "Thank you," he said. "For trying to help Jack."
     She gave him a curt nod. "Adona," she said. Then she pronounced it again carefully, as though speaking to someone where wasn't very bright.
     "You're name is Adona? Or is Adona your title, a healer?"
     "Adona," she repeated.
     "Daniel."
     She took his elbow and turned him towards the door. Daniel glanced over his shoulder. He hated to leave Jack, he should be here when Jack awoke, but he knew he had to try to speak with Adona's leader. "Take good care of him," Daniel warned.
     Adona gestured at Jack, then made a sign with her fingers rising up in front of her face. She smiled broadly. "Dzak budo," she said.
     He hoped that meant something positive.
    
    
     Chapter eleven:
    
     The day was half spent. Daniel was surprised to see that the sun had slipped behind the next ridge. His stomach grumbled plaintively to remind him he had not eaten in many hours. He wandered into the center of the small village. Lucy's tracks were everywhere. He'd almost forgotten about her. Then he saw faces in every hutch peeking out through the doors, their expressions anywhere from nervous to fearful. Mentally he kicked himself.
     "Lucy?" he called, dodging around the hutches. How could he misplace a mammoth? Cold, wet snow soon quickly covered his sweat-drenched clothes. Daniel shivered.
     Then he saw her. She'd found her way to the river, where she was happily munching away at bare branches of the scrubby bushes. The villagers would not come to fetch water for cooking while she was there. Daniel patted her fuzzy cheeks, then took the leather halter rope and guided her further downstream, looping the rope around a bush to tie her there. The rope wouldn't hold her if she really wanted to leave, but Lucy was generally complacent. Daniel hoped she wouldn't terrorize these simple people.
     Daniel filled his own water bags and carried them to the village then. Timidly, a few ventured out, then a few more, as they set to the tasks of preparing the evening meal.
     The central campfire was built up, but most of the cooking was done inside the hutches. Daniel wandered around, offering to help, but mostly just getting in the way. As was typical of many primitive cultures, there was a clear division of labor based on gender. The men carried heavy chunks of frozen meat from a central storage unit beneath the snow to each hutch, where women set about thawing it and cooking it over their fires. The men then lit torches- dried moss wrapped around an end of a long stick and dipped in some sort of animal tallow- and set them around the clearing, then sat on logs near the campfire to wait. Tiku climbed in his lap, yawning widely.
     The leader sat beside him. "Matabu," he said, thumping his chest.
     "Daniel," he replied.
     Matabu spoke slowly, with exaggerated hand gestures. Daniel struggled to understand, even with Tiku's help. This language was like none that he had ever spoken before. It seemed to exist solely of nouns and a few verbs. If that fingers rising up in front of the face meant "good", then it also had a few adjectives. There didn't seem to be much in the way of grammar, though. He thought maybe Matabu was welcoming him to their fire, which might have been a ritual for making him a member of their tribe.
     The food, when he was offered some, was good, although lacking in variety. He had meat and a sort of boiled grain that was something between barley and oats. He had a few dried vegetables yet. He'd share them in the morning, and maybe when he could speak their language better, he'd teach them how to preserve the summer's bounty.
     The first star appeared in the gray sky. A hush settled around the village. He felt them staring at him, but they seemed more curious now than frightened. He acknowledged that in their eyes he was something of an oddity. He commanded wild beasts and wore glasses and although he was a grown man, his speech was like a small child. Then Matabu stood.
     The hush spread, even children held their breaths with an air of expectancy. "Mongo toona heebi," he began. His voice was deep, with the cadence of a story.
     Tiku crawled on Daniel's lap, translating some of the words and gestures. Daniel flushed. He had degrees in linguistics, anthropology Egyptology, and he'd done graduate work in Latin and medieval studies, but the uneducated child was learning his language faster than he could learn cave-speak.
     The story took on more the feel of a dance. With wide, sweeping arm gestures, rhythmic placement of feet, body swaying and a deep, chanting tone in his voice, Matabu's gestures depicted his people's journey to this new home.
     Daniel learned that winter came to their former village and never ended. Mountains of ice crept towards them. Game was scarce. They went hungry. That might explain the twisted bones and disfigured faces. Daniel had read a theory once that Neanderthal Man was only the malnourished remains of a culture that suffered some ecological disaster. These people would lay proof to it.
     Matabu told how their numbers dwindled, until he feared they would cease to be, when the Agano came. They fed them, cured their children from the disfiguring illness, and taught them to swim through the ring of blue water, bringing them to this new world. If Daniel understood them right, then the Agano were the ancients, and these people were from Earth.
     "I have to meet the Agano," Daniel said. "Can you contact them? How did you meet them?"
     Matabu shook his head. He made the gesture for spirit and the one for good. The Agano were believed to be good spirits, revered holy beings, but he did not know how to call them. Daniel sighed. They would have to return to the stargate and send another message through. Maybe they would even have to go through it themselves, although he had no proof that the ancients would still be on earth.
     After the story, Matabu turned to him expectantly. Daniel hesitated. He knew a lot of stories, but the language barrier was still a concern. What if he said something wrong and offended them? How much could he make them understand? He hadn't learned their words for tomorrow or next week - how could he tell them he had come from seventy million tomorrows?
     Matabu gestured towards the steam hutch where Jack lay, and made a sign like a cat clawing his thigh. That was the story they wanted to hear.
     Daniel had had lots of practice communicating with different cultures, different beings, since joining SG1. The primitive Unas, the very alien, non-humanoid mushroom people, a four-thousand year old aquatic lifeform Jack had labeled "sushi-man", and dozens of cultures that had their roots in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and more. Daniel stood, clearing his throat. "You'll have to help me, Tiku," he cautioned. Tiku grinned.
     With a few words and a lot of pantomime, Daniel told them about his three friends and how they came through the blue water by mistake. They built a shelter near the lake, hoping to find a way to get home again. As winter drew near, two friends left on a journey and never returned. Then he told about hearing the cats and a human cry. He glanced at Tiku anxiously. Maybe this wasn't something the boy should be forced to remember? Tears filled Tiku's eyes, but he bravely squared his shoulders. He helped tell the story then, coming to stand beside Daniel.
     The villagers listened in complete silence, their expressions filled with awe. Daniel gathered that they had lost loved ones to the giant tigers as well. Some of the men seemed skeptical. They didn't believe that Jack alone could kill a pride of the giant tigers, when their entire village had been unsuccessful. Daniel couldn't explain that they had superior weapons, since he'd left them behind. Instead he went to his pack and withdrew the canine teeth he had salvaged.
     The villagers gasped as almost reverently the teeth were passed around. Then one older woman, whom Daniel learned was Matabu's wife, came to him, clutching the teeth. He didn't understand her words at all, but suspected that she was asking if she could have the teeth. Daniel didn't want to give them to her. They should belong to Jack. Jack might be the sort to value them, like trophies. Still, where could he ever display them? Shooting saber- toothed tigers wasn't exactly legal on Earth. Daniel nodded, pushing the teeth towards her. "Go ahead. You may have them."
     He reached into his bags then and offered gifts to everyone. He gave some skins that he or Jack had cured. He gave away dried vegetables and fruits. If Jack recovered, they would need their supplies to return to Aspera, but Daniel felt that making friends with these people was more important at the moment.
     Adona came to him, clutching Jack's knife with a possessive air. She wanted him to give it to her. Daniel hesitated. "That's not mine to give," he tried to explain. It was Jack's knife. He didn't doubt that Jack would give it to her, grudgingly, out of gratitude for saving his life, but that was up to Jack to do. Daniel shook his head. Adona scowled, but handed it to him.
     "I can give you mine," he offered. "It's not as big, but it folds so you can carry it in your pocket and not cut yourself," he said, demonstrating the technology of a pocketknife.
     Adona's eyes twinkled proudly. "Budo! Budo!"
     The last gift Daniel offered was Jack's beer. It was nearly gone - not enough remained to cause a hangover which could be interpreted as an evil curse. He held the skin out to the leader. "Drink," he said. He imitated drinking from the bag.
     The leader gave an imperial nod. His wife poured some into a carved wooden cup. Matabu sipped, his eyes widened and he drank some more. He let out a deep belly laugh. Daniel was thumped on the back hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. The beer was passed around, the bag emptied. Jack would have a fit, Daniel thought, grinning to himself. And Jack had done it again. He was always the one to take control, to fix things. Here he was unconscious, barely alive, and still it was his beer that sealed their budding friendship with these people.
     Matabu offered Daniel to share his shelter, but Daniel hesitantly declined. "I need to be with Jack," he said. "But could Tiku stay with you?"
     Tiku pouted, overly tired, and clung to Daniel. "Please," Daniel urged. "Go with them. You can see Jack in the morning."
     Matabu's wife, Robrina, held out her arms, cooing softly to the child. Tiku let her take him. He rested his head against her breast, closing his eyes. Robrina's eyes filled with tears. She caressed Tiku's hair longingly. Daniel had the distinct impression that she had lost a child of her own not long ago.
     The villagers wandered into their shelters. Daniel followed Adona into the steamy hutch. This time he took off his parka and mukluks, so he wouldn't get overheated, before he sat beside his friend.
     Adona had removed the heated plaster from Jack's chest. He lay deathly still on the pallet, only a thin fur covering his hips and legs. Sweat still coated his skin. Adona dipped a cloth in hot water and washed his face, her motions smooth and practiced.
     Wolf whined softly. Daniel patted his thick fur behind the ears and under his jaw. "I miss him, too," he confessed.
     It had been a long day. Daniel was exhausted from stress and worry. Although he fought it, eventually he gave in, his head resting on the edge of Jack's pallet as he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
    
    
    
     It was barely morning, not even light yet, when something woke him. Daniel sat up groggily, trying to remember where he was. "What?" he murmured.
     "You should go to bed."
     Daniel stared, his eyes wide with surprise. "Jack?"
     "You been sleeping here all night?"
     "Geez, it's good to hear your voice. How are you feeling?" Tears quickly filled his eyes, tears of relief and joy. "I thought I'd lost you," he confessed.
     Jack tried to push himself up, looking vaguely surprised when he couldn't. He scowled. "What happened? Where am I?"
     Daniel laid a hand on his chest to hold him still. Adona had awakened, and she clucked at Jack in a stern tone.
     Jack cursed. "Daniel, what's going on!"
     "Hold still. Jack, do you remember the tigers? You rescued Tiku, but nearly got yourself killed in the process."
     "Tiku?" Jack winced, a sharp pain running up his hip as the healer removed the bandage.
     "That's the boy's name."
     Daniel risked a glance at the wound. Adona had lit an oil lamp, which cast flickering shadows. Thin wisps of smoke irritated Daniel's eyes and nose, making him sneeze. Jack watched as she mixed the crystal goop, then cried out when she applied it to his thigh. "Daniel! Get me the hell out of here!"
     "Jack, I'm sorry," Daniel said softly. "Whatever she's doing seems to be helping. You've been unconscious for nearly a week. I was sure you were going to die. Now suddenly you're lucid, and the wound appears to be healing."
     Jack clenched his teeth, moisture seeping between tightly closed eyelids. Adona measured some crushed herbs into a cup and added hot water. She stirred it, then offered it to Jack. He glared at Daniel before taking a sip.
     Judging by his expression, the liquid had a bitter taste. Adona urged him to finish it, though. Jack coughed, gagging some, but by the time the cup was empty, his expression cleared and his eyes came unfocused. "Man," he said. "Reminds me of the seventies."
     "Jack, we're in the mountains. I brought you here, looking for Sam and Teal'c. I found these people instead."
     "S'okay," Jack said.
     "Tiku's staying in their leader's shelter tonight. I think his wife will be willing to keep him. Raise him."
     "Little kid," Jack said drowsily. "Blonde hair."
     "That's right. That's Tiku, the boy you rescued.
     "Daniel?"
     "Yeah?"
     "Shut up and get me something to eat. I'm starved."
     Daniel chuckled. Now he knew Jack was going to be fine.
    
    
     Chapter twelve:
    
    
    
     Adona kept Jack drugged most of the next day, but the following one he complained and cursed fairly constantly, taking a break only when Tiku came in to visit him. Daniel smiled, shaking his head. He'd heard Tiku practicing the vulgar words anyway, as he sought to imitate his hero. Finally, four days later, Adona gave Jack a crutch and some clothes, cautioning him to be careful.
     Even Jack had learned to communicate, gruffly, in the primitive language. He accepted her gift, snapping at her to leave so he could dress. Adona laughed, but she did as he asked. Daniel had to admit it was a little funny. She'd bathed every inch of Jack's body while he'd been unconscious.
     Daniel would have left, too, when Jack called for him to wait. Daniel turned to him expectantly. Jack looked at the floor, the clutter around the hut, anywhere except at Daniel. Daniel cocked his head, about to ask what was the problem, when he saw Jack tugging at the fur blanket. His hands looked thin and trembled slightly. Daniel realized then that Jack was too weak to do it himself.
     Quietly he knelt beside the man he had grown to admire, even to love, since they'd first met all those years ago. Jack the strong one, who covered his feelings of inferiority with sarcasm and his fears with determined optimism. Jack needed his help just to get dressed. Daniel swallowed the thickness that lodged in his throat.
     Without a word, he helped Jack into the soft under shirt cut from a chamois-like skin, then the crude leather breeches, the felt-lined mukluks and finally a hooded fur parka. With an arm around his waist, he helped the older man to stand, holding him until the wave of nausea passed, then handed him the crutch. He supported him while together they walked outside. Jack said nothing, but his fingers tightened around Daniel's shoulder in a grateful squeeze.
     The villagers cheered loudly when Jack emerged. He blinked in the bright light, shielding his eyes with a thin hand. "What the hell?" he muttered.
     Matabu came forward. In a mixture of cave-speak and English, he thanked Jack for destroying the giant cats and formally made him a member of their tribe. Then his wife presented him with a necklace she had made, stringing the tiger teeth on a leather thong with bits of pretty stones and feathers. Jack bowed, letting her place the necklace on him. "Thanks, ma'am," he said. "Budo." He gave the famous lopsided, Jack O'Neill grin.
     Matabu clapped his hands then and a shout rose from the villagers. It was party-time. They made music on crude drums and flutes, they sang, and they passed around a wine with a distinctive green color and the taste of the dried raisin-fruits Daniel had discovered down by the lake. They ate roasted sheep and ptarmigans and grains boiled with green raisins.
     Daniel had had enough hangovers to last a lifetime. He only pretended to drink his portion. Remembering how Sam had surreptitiously dumped her beer into Jack's cup last summer, and the horrendous headache he'd suffered because of it, made him smile. He missed her. He missed Teal'c. If only he knew what had happened to them!
     The party lasted all day and into the night, although Jack had to go lie down around mid-day. They cheered him again when he returned at dusk. Jack brushed off their praise and admiration. Stoically he endured Adona's ministrations when she cleaned and bandaged his thigh that night, but he refused the narcotic tea she offered. "It's okay," he insisted. "I think the wine will be enough."
     Daniel lay down on a pallet Adona made for him in her hut. Nervousness stirred in his stomach. He had to tell Jack what he knew, but Jack was not going to like it. He'd been putting it off, fearing that the finality of their situation would be too much for Jack, that he would simply give up. Now he was on the road to recovery. Daniel couldn't wait any longer.
     "Jack, I was thinking, maybe we should just stay here."
     Jack grunted. "They make a hell of a wine. But I'm a beer-man more myself."
     "I don't mean until you're better, or even until spring. I mean, for good."
     "No."
     "Jack. We can't go home."
     "Yes, we can."
     "Think about it! These people are in the stone age! The DHD doesn't work right, hell, it wasn't even built right! The stargate is new. There are saber-toothed tigers, mammoth, and other extinct creatures here. These people are from earth, Jack! We moved back through time, maybe seventy thousand years!"
     "I know," Jack said quietly.
     "You know?" Daniel was stunned.
     "Yeah, I wondered how long it was going to take you to figure that out."
     "When did you?"
     Jack shrugged. He groaned as he shifted on the pallet, tugging the blanket around his shoulders. "I think when we found Lucy I suspected it. That day at the stargate..." He paused. Daniel would never forget that day. "I knew."
     Daniel didn't know what to say. He'd been trying to protect Jack, and here Jack had known all along. He'd been protecting Daniel again! Damn him. "So we can't go back," he snapped.
     "Yes, we can and we will. I'm going back to the 'gate just as soon as I can travel. I'm going to send a message to those damn ancients and give them a piece of my mind. I'm going to tear into their technologically superior, sorry asses and demand they figure out a way to get us back. Staying here sucks. I want to collect my back-pay."
     Daniel smiled. He didn't think they'd have any luck, but just hearing Jack's assertive optimism brightened his mood. Jack had never let him down yet. "Good night, Jack. I'm glad you're back."
    
    
     Jack was back, but not completely. Snow fell, at least a little, every day. The heavy stuff was cleared from the center of the village and mounded up over their crude structures until they were completely sealed in snow, with only small tunnels to crawl through. Jack wasn't capable of crawling through them yet, he was still unsteady on his feet and could only walk with the crutch. Adona left their door as it had been - tall enough for Jack to walk through - and covered with an animal skin door. That meant they had to feed their fire more wood than most, and continually replace the stones in the bowls of water that heated their shelter.
     Daily life varied little for the primitive culture. Some people sat around the communal campfire, whittling chunks of wood into bowls or cups or toys for the children. Some shaped long, straight sticks, gluing bits of feathers to make new arrows. Some did nothing, but sat enjoying the warm sun on their weathered faces.
     Near the fire was a large loom with a half-finished tapestry. The colors were vibrant with blues, reds and gold. Daniel admired the design, saying something about how it looked almost Nordic. He'd learned that the bright fabric was worn poncho- style, over the chamois undershirt, when the weather was too warm for a parka. He watched the weavers as they worked, even begged to try it, although the men just laughed at him. This was another task done solely by the women of their tribe. Daniel didn't care. Life here reminded him of his year on Abidos. It brought him a little closer to the memory of Sha're.
     Jack's recovery slowed. A gaunt-look remained about his face, dark shadows under his eyes, but he grew stronger. He could walk without Daniel's help, leaning heavily on the crutch. That the leg still hurt, Daniel knew by the way he guarded it, or the way he'd gasp and get white in the face if someone bumped into him, but he didn't say a word. He seemed tired, maybe a little forlorn. Daniel often caught him gazing off into the distance.
     "I'm sure they're all right," he said, consoling him.
     "I'm going to kill them when I get my hands on them."
     Daniel laughed.
    
    
    
    
    
    
     The people of the village were friendly, curious to know everything about the newcomers. They admired the furs Daniel had given them and wanted to know their tanning process and they loved the smoked meats. They taught him to make a net with sinew and catch fish in the cold, rushing mountain stream. He taught them to dry food in the sun, and they taught him to make arrows. He helped their Adona deliver two babies. She taught him to make the pain-killing opiate that she used to treat severe pain, coughs, sleeplessness and diarrhea. He taught her to use soapberry and boiled water to prevent diarrhea. Every day he learned something from a people he would have labeled as extremely primitive.
     The winter seemed to never end. Snow grew deeper and deeper. The hunters had to travel further just to find food, and when they brought meat back to the village, it was tough and lean. Daniel caught Jack giving his portion to Tiku more than once. "You shouldn't do that," he lectured him. "You need to regain your strength."
     "We should go," Jack said.
     "Where? To find the ancients? I think we should wait until spring. You're not in any shape to travel."
     "Normally, I would agree with you," Jack said tersely. "But these people are hungry. We have a ton of food stored back at Aspera. We should bring them down the mountain with us."
     "If we wait just a few more weeks, the snow may melt," Daniel insisted.
     "Once the snow starts to melt, the river will flood. Then we'll be trapped here for another month. I've been talking with Matabu."
     Daniel hadn't known that. He stared at the horizon. "So, when do we go?"
     "Tomorrow."
    
    
     Matabu told his people of his decision that night. They were uneasy, although they believed Jack when he said he'd killed the cats. This was their winter home, and they found comfort here. Down by the lake they'd be vulnerable in a late-season blizzard. Also, they didn't have pack animals. They could only bring what they could carry. Solemnly, they went to bed early.
     In the morning the village was alive with activity as items were carefully selected and others were buried in fur-lined pits in the ground to keep them safe. Jack grudgingly mounted Lucy, knowing he could never make the hike, but he insisted that the old ones in the village rode behind him. Timidly, curiously, two women and a man accepted his offer, grinning imperiously from their perch high on the mammoth's back.
     Tiku walked, or rode on Daniel's shoulders. Sometimes he rode in front of Jack. Wolf barked eagerly, prancing in wide circles. The villagers had accepted him into their tribe as well, ever since the night he'd growled at a predator, awakening them to the danger. The entire mood had shifted from fearfulness to celebration. Some of them even started up a song, which the others quickly joined. Daniel watched it all, wishing he had more paper to keep his journal.
     Matabu thumped him on the shoulder, guiding him to the front of the group. Daniel would be leading them. He held the spear they made for him, glancing up at Jack nervously. Jack gave him a salute. "Lead on."
     Every journey begins with a single step, Daniel muttered, remembering one of the maxims the monk on Oma's planet had spouted. Or maybe he'd heard it somewhere else. It wasn't obscure enough to be the monk's.
     Traveling down the mountain should have been easier than up, but the deep, wet snow made traveling slow and tiring, and they had to stop periodically to hunt for food. At least this time he wasn't worrying about whether Jack would make it.
     It had taken him ten alien days to make the trip before. It took more than two weeks to return, but he couldn't help the joy swelling in his chest when he first glimpsed their lake, and then their tree hut, and finally, the log cabin he and Jack had worked on.
     Something was different! A sturdy roof now covered the cabin and smoke curled from a chimney. Daniel shouted, racing forward.
     The familiar form of the tall Jaffa appeared in front of him, his staff weapon aimed at his chest. Daniel stopped short. Teal'c didn't recognize him, dressed as he was in fur. Teal'c must have recognized Lucy, though, or perhaps Jack riding on her, for he lowered the weapon and offered one of his rare smiles.
     Daniel threw back his hood, revealing his identity. "Teal'c! It's me!"
     Sam screamed, running out of the cabin. She threw her arms around his neck, kissing his cheeks and ruffling his hair. "Where did you go! We came back, but no one was here. We feared the worst when we saw the graves at the stargate." She glanced up at Jack, hurt that he didn't seem to be as happy to see her. He remained on Lucy, his expression unreadable.
     Daniel hurried over to help him dismount. One of the elderly women passed him the crutch she'd held for Jack. Jack accepted it, a flush of something Daniel could only guess was shame colored his face. Then he scowled angrily, hiding his embarrassment with the only emotion he felt comfortable with. "Where the hell have you been," he snapped.
     "What happened to you?" Sam asked, her brows puckered.
     Jack waved off her concern. Furiously he pushed past her, limping towards Teal'c. "And you! I thought you had enough sense to come home when you were told. What'd you do, get caught in a storm?"
     "We carried out our mission," Teal'c answered precisely. "The first people we discovered were primitive. We went around their village to search further. We journeyed for weeks, but found no sign of civilization. Returning, we were slowed by storms. We have been here for some time, O'Neill."
     Jack didn't respond. He turned to Matabu, gesturing at the villagers. "Please, tell them to pitch camp. Daniel, get some fires going. Sam, these people are hungry - you didn't eat up all the stores, did you?"
     "No, sir. We have enough to feed a small army. I guess that's a good thing."
     Daniel could see the questions she yearned to ask, but she turned to fetch food and drink for all of them. Teal'c helped the elderly to dismount from Lucy, guiding them to the circle of logs set around the fire pit. He laid wood in the pit and fired on it to ignite it. The villagers gasped, asking Daniel if Teal'c were a good spirit or an evil one. Daniel tried to explain that Teal'c was paxa. When they saw that Wolf welcomed Teal'c, they accepted him, too.
     Sam tried not to stare, but her eyes frequently sought Jack, worried about him. Daniel followed her to one of the pits where they had stored food, willing to answer her questions in private.
     "Daniel, what happened," she gasped the moment they were out of ear-shot.
     Briefly, he told her about the attack. "Jack saved Tiku's life, but the injury and resulting infection nearly killed him. Maybe one day he'll be able to walk without the crutch, but assuming we ever do make it home again, his career with the SGC is over."
     "It's all my fault," she said, devastated.
     Daniel shook his head in disbelief. "Sam, how can you say that? Jack's always throwing himself into danger. He never thinks about himself."
     "Teal'c wanted to come back as soon as we realized that the people were primitive and would not be able to help us. I wanted to go on, to make sure that there weren't other peoples, perhaps a more advanced culture, sharing the same planet. But if we'd been here... oh, Daniel! Teal'c staff weapon would have stopped the tigers."
     "You can't play that game. It never works. What if we hadn't run out of ammunition? What if we had made it there faster, before the child's parents had been killed? What if... hind sight is always perfect. The truth is, it happened. It was an accident. And Jack isn't going to tolerate your pity. I think that's why he's being such an ass right now."
     Sam nodded, drying her eyes. "You're right. I should just treat him the same. But that's going to be hard."
     Daniel gave a wry smile. "Nothing is ever easy where Jack's concerned."
    
    
     Matabu's people quickly pitched tents of animal skins and wood poles, their traditional summer lodgings. Then they begged to be shown the strange dwellings Jack's people had built - the elevated thatch hut and log cabin. The young men admired the workmanship and even made some suggestions for improving the design. The women didn't like the tree hutch at all, complaining at how difficult it would make their daily tasks, but the children unanimously decided it was perfect for play.
     Jack was kind in dealing with the villagers, but his manner towards Sam and Teal'c remained distant. Teal'c ignored it, but Sam clenched her teeth, knowing she would have to have it out with him eventually. She watched while he slowly made his way to Cogito, but figured that wasn't the best location. It was too close to the campsite for privacy. Finally, she brought Lucy with her and approached him outright.
     "Sir, we need to talk."
     "Forget it, major."
     "Sir, I really need to talk with you, privately."
     Jack scowled, waving towards the circle of tents. "Not a lot of that here."
     "I know. That's why we should take a ride together."
     Jack grit his teeth and glared at her. She stared into his eyes. Others described them as plain brown, but she'd always felt they were much more than that. They were warm brown. Sometimes with golden flecks. Sometimes she saw herself reflected in them. Sometimes she saw something that Jack would never intentionally let anyone see. She would see pain, fear and insecurity that he masked behind sarcastic humor. Bravery, she believed, wasn't someone who was never afraid, but rather someone who did what was necessary despite his fear. She could lose herself in his eyes.
     Without a word, he passed her his crutch, then awkwardly mounted Lucy. Sam put a foot on her trunk and swung up behind him, alarmed at how the simple task had caused sweat to bead on his brow and his lips thinned to a grim white line. He urged Lucy to turn and walk towards the lake.
     Lucy took a deep drink from the cold water, her heavy feet breaking through the thinning ice. Jack gave her a moment, then turned her to walk along the shore away from camp. "Now, what is it," he snapped.
     "I'm sorry you were worried," she said.
     "Forget it."
     "I will if you will."
     "What the hell's that supposed to mean?" He was getting more irritated, which was a sure sign she was striking a raw nerve.
     "You, sir. You're angry with me. That implies you're not ready to forget this. If you want to yell, yell. Get it over with. We're out here, away from the others. Go ahead and chew me out."
     Jack didn't say anything, but she could see the tension in his shoulders increase. When he glanced towards the side, that muscle in his jaw twitched. She smiled, amused at how well she'd learned to read him. Men could be so predictable.
     "I told you to turn back. You were supposed to look for intelligent life, then get back before the snow fell. We waited for you, for over a month!. Daniel and I couldn't finish the cabin without help. You put all of us at risk."
     "I know," she said quietly. "I'm sorry."
     "You're sorry? That would go over well at a hearing, if I charged you with dereliction to duty, or disobeying a direct order."
     "No, sir. It wouldn't. But I can't change what happened. Any more than you can."
     "What are you talking about!"
     Sam held her breath. She'd been thinking about the tiger attack, but knew that would be the worst thing she could say at this point. "It's not your fault we're marooned here."
     His shoulders slumped slightly and she heard him exhale. She realized with a start that he did blame himself.
     "We should have been home months ago," he breathed.
     Sam didn't have anything to say to that. They rode in silence for a time, while Lucy circled around the lake with a steady plodding pace. Sam shifted a little closer to her commander, tentatively putting her arms around his waist. When he didn't stiffen or pull away, she leaned her head against his broad back.
     "It has been a different sort of vacation," she said then, breaking the comfortable silence they had shared.
     Jack snorted. "Yeah?"
     "Well, I'm usually hiding in my lab running experiments and you're trying to get me to go fishing. Now here we are, a year full of fishing, and you can't wait to get back."
     Jack chuckled. "Something like that."
     "Ever been skinny dipping?"
     "Huh?" Jack was sure he'd never follow the minds of women.
     "It's dark, sir. Want to share the hot tub?"
    
    
    
    
     Daniel tried not to grin when he saw Jack and Sam return, both with damp hair and cleaner skin, and apparently, no longer angry with one another. He used to hope that they would find a way to have a relationship, but he knew now that was impossible. It wouldn't be fair to Sam. Not because of some obscure military protocol, but because when Jack had been delirious with fever, he'd called out for Sarah. Daniel knew Jack cared for Sam, respected her, might even have a good life with her, but he was still in love with his ex-wife. Jack would never remarry. Still, having them on speaking terms again made camp life a little more pleasant.
     After a communal supper, the villagers went to their tents and Sam eagerly showed Jack and Daniel the finished cabin. There were three beds, a small table, and an oil lamp made by floating a wick of dry moss in rendered fat. There were animal skins covering the window openings and interior door, although the main door was made of wood. A fourth bed had been set in the second, smaller room, although it looked like it hadn't yet been used. Jack looked at Sam in surprise.
     "Major?"
     She shrugged. "Equal rights, sir, doesn't mean I get special treatment. The private room should go to the ranking officer."
     Jack was going to argue, but Daniel laughed. "Some things never change," he said.
     Jack glowered. Then he limped into the smaller room, wishing there were a real door to slam.
    
    
     In the morning over several cups of herbal tea, Jack presented his plan. They needed to contact the ancients and ask for their help. Then he asked for ideas on what message to give them to draw their attention, since their first rock through the stargate had failed.
     Sam sketched a few ideas in the slushy snow, but Jack didn't like any of them. Teal'c stoically suggested sending one of them through to deliver the message personally. Daniel felt an idea bloom, and started to speak before it had fully formed.
     "You have it," he said to Jack.
     "What?"
     "All the information of the ancients. All you need to do is access it."
     Jack shook his head. "You forget, Danny Boy. I gave it back, compliments of the Asgard. I don't remember a thing."
     "Just because you don't remember it, doesn't mean it's not still there."
     "Daniel-"
     Sam interrupted. "He could be right, sir."
     Jack shook his head. "No, he's not."
     "Think, sir. Remember the computer analogy? When you had the knowledge of the ancients 'downloaded' into your mind, it was like filling a computer hard drive with programs written in a language it couldn't read. Janet hypothesized that if the information weren't removed, your computer - your mind - could shut down entirely."
     "I do remember that much," Jack muttered obstinately. He hated being the topic of discussion.
     "But when the Asgard removed the knowledge, they couldn't just reformat your hard drive. If they had, you would have ceased being the Jack O'Neill we all knew. All your memories would have been erased."
     So far, he was with her. Although Jack didn't even try to understand her when she talked about physics or advanced math, he did know basically how a computer worked.
     "So I'm not reformatted. I still can't speak ancient."
     "But some of the knowledge of the ancients must still remain in your subconscious."
     "Fat lot of good it'll do us there."
     Daniel snapped his fingers. "We just need to access it. Then we could write a message to the ancients in ancient. They couldn't ignore that. They would know these primitive people didn't send it, and neither could it be a Goa'uld trap, if there even are Goa'ulds in this time frame."
     "You're talking about hypnosis," Jack said. "I'm not doing that bark like a chicken stuff."
     "Kel'no'rem," Teal'c said, speaking for the first time.
     Sam, Daniel, and Jack all looked at him.
     "A deep state of Kel'no'rem allowed me to communicate with my symbiote. Perhaps it will also open your subconscious mind."
     "It's certainly worth a try," Sam insisted.
     Jack shook his head, but he caved in. "Fine. But I'm not responsible for anything I say."
     Daniel grinned. It could be very tempting to take advantage of the situation. "Of course," he agreed.
     Teal'c talked Jack through the process, placing him in the deep trance of Kel'no'rem. Jack had done it once before, when one of Machello's sick little tricks had caused Teal'c and him to switch bodies. Soon his expression went slack, his breathing barely noticeable. The lines of pain and worry left his face. Daniel wondered if Jack shouldn't go into Kel'no'rem more often, but the trance was potentially dangerous.
     "The ancients," Daniel began, speaking in a soft, soothing voice. "Remember when you were helping me translate the repository of knowledge on Ernest's planet? Or the sphere? It began, "Hic avideum."
     "Nu ani anquieatus..." Jack whispered. We are the ancients.
     He didn't retain all the language of the ancients, but he did recall more than a few phrases. With his help, Daniel composed a brief message, carefully forming the alien words and hoping he didn't accidentally change the meaning into something nefarious. By unspoken agreement, they let Jack rest a while longer, keeping close watch on his breathing, before bringing him out of the trance. When he awoke, he seemed more rested than he had been in many months.
     "We have it," Daniel said proudly, showing Jack the message he had written on a hide.
     "The place of our legacy," Jack said, shocked that he understood it.
     "Now we send it through."
     Jack nodded, his expression grim. "I'll send it."
     He mounted Lucy, knowing he couldn't walk as far as the stargate. Sam, Daniel and Teal'c followed, along with the entire village. No one wanted to miss the chance to meet the good spirits and perhaps even have a chance to speak with them.
     Sam pressed the seven symbols to dial earth. The 'gate turned, curls of smoke rising from each symbol as it engaged. The seventh symbol locked and the whirling event horizon spilled out towards them before settling into place.
     Jack stared at it for a moment. Then he rode Lucy right up to the stargate before he dismounted. He rolled up the message, wedging it between Lucy's trunk and tusks. "Don't worry," he told the aging mammoth. "It's a piece of cake."
     "Sir?" Sam asked.
     Jack patted Lucy on the shoulder, urging her to enter the stargate. Then she was gone. Daniel hurried to Jack's side, offering him a shoulder to lean on.
     "If I'd known what you were going to do, I'd have brought your crutch," he said derisively.
     "No, you'd have tried to stop me."
     "Sir? Why?" Sam asked.
     Jack grinned, for a moment looking like his old self again. "It's kind of hard to miss a mammoth."
     The stargate closed, the event horizon vanished. Stoically accepting Daniel's and Teal'c's help, Jack moved back to wait. They waited an hour, then two. Some of the women had to leave to tend to their children. Finally, hours later, the stargate trembled. One by one the symbols engaged and locked. As the blue horizon shimmered silently, Jack held his breath. This was it. It was his last chance. If this failed, he'd have to face failure and consign his team to spending the rest of their lives here in anonymity.
     Lucy came through first. She trumpeted loudly and appeared to grin from ear to ear, quite pleased with herself. Slowly she ambled down the ramp. Then behind her stepped two figures. They looked human, with fair coloring and fur clothing identical to the primitives they had allegedly rescued. Jack made the three-fingered gesture of greeting. "Paxa."
     The figures approached Jack, their expressions solemn. "Kwarrum?" one of them asked in a deep male voice.
     "I did," Jack snapped, groaning as he tried to take a step. He grabbed on to Lucy's trunk, hobbling forward.
     The leader spoke, demanding something, rattling it off in his native language, but Jack couldn't understand more than a few words. Jack grew angrier. He shook a fist, and shouted back in his own language. "Who the hell do you think you are? Playing with people's lives! Who died and made you god! We're stuck here, on this stinking planet, and I have a life back home! How many other people have been stranded because of your technology? Of all the irresponsible-"
     The two strangers now stood directly in front of Jack. One unfolded his arms, stretching his hand out towards Jack's forehead. Too late he saw the ribbon device on the alien's hand.
     "No!" Daniel shouted, lunging to stop them. Teal'c raised his staff weapon, thumbing it on. Jack held up his hands to fend off the attack. The second alien waved her arms and a tunnel of blue light shimmered around them and Jack, absorbing the energy of the staff blast.
     Jack stumbled and fell, crying out, but the ribbon device immobilized him. Sam was screaming. The primitive villagers surrounded the blue light, raising their spears protectively against the beings they had thought were good spirits.
     The second alien placed her hand on top of the ribbon device, and the glow swelled, encompassing both of them. At last the attack stopped; the energy shield dropped. Jack groaned, drawing his knees up and curling into a ball. Daniel and Sam reached him simultaneously. Sam spoke to him, desperate to know that he was all right. Daniel glared at the aliens and shouted angrily. "What the hell was that for!"
     "You are afraid," the male said, in clear English.
     "We are not your enemy," Daniel hissed.
     The male examined the ribbon devise on his hand, his expression one of mild amusement. "It is only a tool. It is not harmful."
     "I've seen it kill before," Daniel insisted. "It turns the brain to mush!"
     The alien knelt, stretching out a hand towards Jack's thigh. Jack pulled away. He reached for Daniel's help, wincing as he got to his feet.
     The female turned to Daniel, clearly puzzled. "What speech?" she asked.
     "What speech? You mean this? This is modern English."
     "Where are you from?"
     Daniel started to explain, but Jack interrupted angrily. "We're from earth! From the future. Your stupid technology sucked us back here. So figure out how to fix it!"
     "You are from this planet? There were no beings here when we began resettling our Tau'ri."
     "Not this planet!" Jack yelled.
     "The Tau'ri? Is that what you call these people?" Daniel asked curiously. "But we are the Tau'ri."
     The woman slipped a Goa'uld healing stone from her pocket and placed it in her palm. She reached for Daniel's hand. He hesitated, his eyebrows drew together. Reluctantly, he let her take it. She passed the healing stone over his palm, her eyes closed. "It is true," she to the male with obvious distress. "They and our Tau'ri have the same code of life."
     "You will explain this at once," the male demanded.
     Jack propped his fists on his hips, an 'I-don't-care" expression plastered on his face. "Or what?"
     "Sir," Sam said, stepping between him and the alien male. "We can't tell them anything about the future. We could drastically change our own past!"
     "I know," Jack hissed. "Been there, done that."
     "The stargate allows passage between worlds," one of the aliens insisted. "Not between time."
     "I suggest we all go back to camp," Daniel said. "This could take awhile. Would you stay and share a meal with us?"
     The woman smiled, looping her arm through Daniel's. "It is pleasant to see that good manners exist in other cultures. I would be honored. My name is Rena. My companion in Iman."
     Jack called to Lucy and accepted her help in mounting her broad, bony back. Sam climbed up behind him. It might be the last opportunity she had to make him understand just how dangerous a game they were playing. What if something they said stopped the ancients from scattering human cultures among other planets? Or stopped making stargates all together? What if they chose not to meet with the Asgard, the Nox and the Furlings to form the great alliance? Or what if they never made the repository of knowledge where Jack had learned to speak ancient in the first place? Being in the past with knowledge of the future put them in a position to play god. It was more than just frightening. It was potentially lethal.
     At Aspera the women had a meaty stew simmering in pots around the various campfires. They had added some of the dried vegetables from the garden, Suffering Fortune. The two aliens sat on logs near the central fire, Rena graciously making small talk while Iman scowled. He still doubted Jack's conviction that they were from the future.
     "Teal'c," Jack called. "Show them our weapons, radios, anything, to prove that we are more technologically advanced that these villagers."
     Of course, the weapons were out of ammunition and the batteries in the radios were dead. Jack suggested Sam talk to them about wormhole theory, but she was afraid to say a thing for fear of the consequences. Then Daniel snapped his palm against his forehead. "Earnest's planet!"
     Daniel grabbed a stick and began to draw in the soft mud left by the melting snow. He drew a simple hydrogen atom, then one of carbon, sodium, and more, showing the aliens things the primitive people couldn't possibly know. Rena needed no more convincing.
     "You claim that it is our fault you are here," she said slowly, still not quite understanding. "But why were you using the stargate? It is not yours to use."
     Daniel started to speak but Sam stopped him. She cleared her throat. She was getting no where with Jack. Maybe Rena would understand the implications better. "We are from the future," she said firmly. "But if we do or say anything to change what you already did in our past, we could simply cease to exist. Please don't ask us for information about what we know. I would like to say we owe you a great debt for things you will do. We are not your enemy."
     Rena beamed broadly. "It fills my heart with pride to hear you speak! You, our Tau'ri, and nearly fully grown!"
     "Tau'ri? Does that mean 'child'?" Jack asked, scowling at her.
     Rena nodded. "Our kind lost the ability to reproduce many, many of your years ago. We adopted your people as our Tau'ri, nurturing them, providing for them during the last age of ice. Now it is time to step back and watch them grow. It has been a most rewarding experience."
     "Splendid," he snarled.
     Iman stood. "What you ask, to be sent back to your future, is impossible. We do not even know how you came to be here."
     "But we know," Sam insisted. "It happened to us once before. We didn't have a working DHD, so we made one ourselves. It didn't have the fail-safe device to protect against the effects of a solar flare. We went thirty years into our past. I don't know why we went so much farther back this time. Perhaps it has something to do with the distance traveled through the wormhole, or where the solar flare occurred. Anyway, we were able to come home again before, only because we knew when the next solar flare would occur. But we don't have any way of knowing that now."
     "A fail-safe devise to protect against solar flares. An interesting hypothesis," Rena murmured. "I don't suppose you know how to build one?"
     "Not me," Sam said. "Although I've repaired a DHD on occasion. Jack drew up the plans. Back when he - when he knew how to do it."
     "Draw them again," Rena insisted.
     Jack rolled his eyes. "Sorry. It's gone."
     Iman rose. "You will return with us," he ordered.
     Jack bristled. "What is it with you people? How about a simple "please"?"
     Teal'c tensed, gripping his staff weapon. Sam and Daniel drew around Jack protectively.
     Iman took him by the shoulder, Rena touched his other arm, and together they waved their hands. The three of them simply disappeared. One of the village women screamed. Tiku clung to Daniel. "Agano take Tiku," he said.
     "I won't let them take you," Daniel said. "At least, not without a fight."
     "Agano take Tiku tunu," he said. "Tiku budo."
     "Daniel, what are we going to do?" Sam asked.
     Teal'c grimaced. "We wait," he replied for all of them. There was nothing else to do.
    
    
     Jack was cursing angrily as he rematerialized. He didn't have a lot of patience for human scientists and geniuses, but the alien kind were continually pissing him off. Only the thought that they were his last chance of returning home kept him from trying to tear them apart with his bare hands or die in the attempt.
     "Tell us this design," Iman ordered.
     "I'm not telling you a damned thing! I don't know who you are, or who you think you are. You could be frickin' snake-heads, for all I know!" Jack knew he didn't thinking clearly when he was angry. Sam would have told him if she'd sensed the presence of a Goa'uld.
     "I do not understand this term," Rena said gently, her brows puckered. She patted Jack's forearm with a patient, maternal gesture.
     Jack bristled. Glaring at her didn't help. He felt like he was six years old again, facing Mother Catherine in the principal's office at St. Patrick's. Only Rena was more beautiful. Her complexion was flawless, her features perfect. "Why do you look like us?" he asked.
     Rena smiled. She slid one arm around his waist, graciously escorting him towards a chair that suddenly appeared nearby. Jack stared, only then noticing his surroundings. The room was all white. White walls, white floors, white ceilings. There was no visible source of light, but rather everything seemed to emit a soft glow. There was nothing in the room to see, except him, the aliens, and now a table and three chairs.
     "We took this form when we first encountered the Tau'ri so we would not frighten them," Rena explained.
     "Then, are you just energy and smoke, like Oma?"
     Rena laughed, her voice light with music. "You speak strangely, Jack O'Neill. The devise lets us master the words of your language, but not always the expressions."
     Jack sank gratefully into the chair, unable to resist massaging his thigh. His whole leg hurt with pins and needles. The damned injury must have done some nerve damage, too.
     Iman sat opposite him. A sheet of paper and a pen suddenly appeared on the table. Iman gave the paper a quick jerk. "Now. Explain to us."
     "I don't like you," Jack said childishly. "I will talk only to Rena."
     Iman's face clouded with anger, but Rena shushed him. "You may go," she said.
     Iman didn't respond, tensing apprehensively.
     "I will be safe here," she assured him. "Jack will not harm me."
     "Yeah, Fly Boy. Take a hike," Jack added, flipping his fingers in a curt gesture of dismissal.
     Iman stood, planting his arms on the table and leaning ominously over Jack. He said nothing, but his intent was clear. He would not hesitate to end Jack's existence. Then he backed off. The white wall thinned, giving Jack a glimpse of something beyond, something gold and suspiciously resembling a Mother Ship. The white melted together again, and Jack was alone with the woman.
     "Not snake-heads?" he asked.
     She just stared, clearly not understanding him.
     Jack had to think for a minute. Goa'ulds probably didn't exist yet. Teal'c confirmed Daniel's theory that the Goa'ulds were parasites, that they stole technology and didn't invent it. They used the stargates left by the ancients. Did they also usurp their mother ships?
     If there were no Goa'ulds here, then couldn't Jack just tell these ancients about them? Maybe they could do something to ensure the Goa'ulds never even came to Earth?
     But, what if there were no Goa'ulds? How would that change his past? What if the ancient Egyptians hadn't had to rebel, overthrow their Goa'ulds and bury the stargate? Would human advancement have slowed? Maybe even stalled? Maybe they never got as far as the twentieth century? Or rather, in the twentieth century, they were still hung up somewhere in the dark ages?
     Then, what of other worlds? The Goa'ulds were responsible for seeding some of the planets with humans, although they did it to create a ready slave-base than to preserve a species. And what of the Jaffa? If there were no Goa'ulds, then Jack would never meet his friend Teal'c.
     He couldn't do it. Although he hated the snake-heads, although his hate was so strong that it was a stumbling block to ever accepting the Tok'ra, he couldn't say a thing to alter his past. Maybe something Sam had said made sense, at least to his subconscious mind.
     "You're the ancients," he stated, looking for confirmation.
     "That is correct."
     "You built the stargates."
     Again, Rena agreed.
     "Sam said not to tell you anything about your future. But I could discuss anything that's already part of your past. Tell me... have you met other advanced - people? Other than the ancients?"
     Rena hesitated. "We have," she said slowly.
     "Were any of them kind of short, with gray skin, big heads, four fingers on each hand... they call themselves the Asgard."
     Her expression of surprise said it all.
     "What about the Nox?"
     "How do you know these people?" she gasped.
     "You will meet with them and another race - can't remember their name, 'cause we haven't met them yet. But the four of you guys will form this big alliance."
     She nodded slowly. "We are. We have been forging this alliance for many years."
     "So, you believe me, that I'm from the future?"
     She blinked rapidly, shaking her head. "I must. There can be no other explanation."
     "So, can you fix the stargate to send us home?"
     "I am not sure," she said. "You see, we may have to stop building the stargates entirely."
     "You can't do that!"
     "Sometimes people disappear when they go through the stargate. We do not know where they go. There is no evidence of their code of life anywhere - we do not believe they are killed - and the risk is very small, only one or two per hundred thousand, but it is a risk, none the less. Our people feel it is not worth taking. We have been ordered to check on the Tau'ri on each planet, then close the stargates forever."
     "You can't do that," Jack insisted again. "I mean, you didn't do that! The 'gates are there, in my future. You have to leave them. Oh, god, I wish Sam were here."
     "But if you know how to fix the stargate's dialing device, or DHD as you call it, then perhaps we can get our leaders to change their minds."
     Jack scrubbed a hand through his short, gray hair. "I only learned how to fix the stargate because you guys left the information for me to stumble upon, and it filled my brain. It almost overloaded me, almost killed me. The Asgard took it out. Sam says the information is still locked in my subconscious, but honestly! I don't know how to get it."
     Rena patted his arm again. "Do you trust me?" she asked gently.
     It was hard not to. The form she had taken was one of human perfection. She looked like a goddess. Her eyes were filled with compassion and understanding. Jack thought if she'd been his teacher, he might have actually learned something in school. He gulped. "Yes, ma'am."
     She took a ribbon device from a pocket and slipped the four gold-tipped fingers over her hand like a glove. It was smaller, more delicate, shaped to fit a woman's hand. Jack stared at it. The ancients had to be at least partly humanoid, if they were the original designers of the device. They had to really have hands. Although, they probably only had four fingers, just like the Asgard, since they used base eight. He couldn't remember then if the Goa'uld ribbon device had four fingers or five.
     She waved the device over his forehead. Jack winced, pulled back, but she touched his arm with her other hand. "I will not harm you, Jack. Please, relax. Breathe deeply, slowly."
     Jack did as he was told, although he wanted to fight. He felt her in his mind then, telling him without words that it was going to be fine. There was nothing to worry about. He felt like she was holding him in her cosmic arms, soothing him as a mother would a child. He was too old for this. His mother had been dead for many years. He was a soldier, and a good one. He'd saved his planet! He wasn't a small, frightened child.
     But her presence was soothing, like a balm to his weary soul. He closed his eyes, ceasing to resist. He felt so encased in compassion that he was filled with joy. This was that meaning of life stuff Daniel was always searching for. For one moment, Jack understood clearly the purpose of existence, not just his, or his kind, but of all life.
     "Remember," she whispered, shattering the experience. He felt like he was soaring outside of himself, watching as from above. He saw his arm move, his fingers pick up the pen. Then he watched as he quickly drew the designs to rebuild the DHD. The large sheet of paper was identical to the one he had drawn before, all the equations written in the alien mathematics.
     Jack was moving like a zombie, not entirely in control of his actions, but he was also there, his own self, watching, thinking, but unable to react. "Why don't we make lots of copies of this," he thought, "and send it along with every stargate team?"
     Slowly, then, he came down from the subconscious mountaintop and felt a sense of loss as the joy dissipated, leaving only a memory of experience. He blinked, surprised at the trail of tears on his face. Rena stood, drawing him into her arms and embraced him.
     Jack wept, unsure of why he was weeping. It had been such a powerful experience. He knew he could never talk about it. Words would cheapen it, reduce it to something less than it was. He was only sorry that Daniel wasn't here to share it.
     Slowly, he pulled away, part of him wishing he could stay in Rena's arms forever. He grumbled, embarrassed, looking around the stark white room. He shuffled his weight on the wrong foot, groaning audibly at the knife of pain that reminded him he was damaged goods. He reached for the chair and sank into it.
     "Thank you, Jack," Rena said sincerely. "This is wonderful. This plan you have drawn. I am confident that we can not only get the stargate program reopened, but that we can send you home again."
     "That's, that's great," Jack murmured. His voice trembled slightly.
     "Now, will you let me help you?"
     "Get my team home," he said.
     "No, you. I can heal your wound."
     He stared at her, his mouth open. The tears that hadn't completely dried filled his eyes again. "You mean, I could walk again?"
     "That is correct. Let me do this for you."
     He nodded mutely.
     Rena took the healing stone again. Jack felt himself being lifted, the chair transmuted into a bed, a high bed, placing him at Rena's waist level. The bed was so soft, so warm, that he felt his eyes growing drowsy, although he fought to stay awake. His furs faded, leaving him mostly bare, only a small covering protecting him for modesty's sake. He blinked, resisting the compulsion to sleep.
     She held the healing stone over his thigh. It hurt. He gasped, crying out, but the pain deepened and the urge to sleep grew stronger. It was Rena again, in his mind, soothing him. Asking him to trust her. Then Jack passed out.
    
    
    
    
     Two days after he had disappeared in a cloud of smoke with the aliens, Jack waltzed into camp on two legs. He grabbed Carter in a bear hug and swung her around, clapped Daniel on the back hard enough to drive him to his knees, and shadow-boxed with Teal'c. "I'm back," he sang, as if they had failed to notice.
     "Sir! They did this? The ancients?"
     "Yep. Seems they felt honor-bound to repay me for teaching them something they taught me in the future. Weird, huh?"
     "You drew them another set of plans for rebuilding the DHD?"
     "Yep. They got it from my unconscious mind. Or is that subconscious? I never know the difference."
     "So what now? We still don't know when there will be a solar flare, or what sun would have to flare to produce a big enough time displacement to send us precisely into our future."
     "It's all being taken care of," Jack said. "Come on, kids, we're going home!"
     Daniel ran to the hutch and began stuffing his sketches and journals into his pack. Sam gathered up their weapons and other things, not wanting to leave anything behind that could spoil the natural development of the villagers. Teal'c simply waited beside his apprentice protectively.
     Matabu brought a brightly woven cloak and offered it to Jack. "This is gift," he said. "Remember Matabu by the Ocean."
     "Thanks," Jack said casually. "I don't know what to say. Guess it is getting a little warm for parkas." He shrugged out of the rough fur parka and slipped the cloak over his shoulders.
     Tiku lunged for him, throwing his arms around his neck. "Tiku go?"
     "No, kid," Jack said. "These are your people. You should stay here."
     Tiku pouted. He looked like he might cry. Jack called Wolf over and knelt down, grateful that the motion caused him no discomfort. "Tiku, Wolf has to stay here, too. He wouldn't like it at my place. Would you kind of keep an eye on him for me? Keep him out of trouble?"
     "Tiku stay." The small boy wiggled free, transferring his arms to circle Wolf's neck.
     Matabu's wife, Robrina, patted Tiku's head. "We give boy budo domo," she promised.
     The farewells were quickly said, but heartfelt nonetheless. Jack wondered what would happen to these people, if he would ever see them again. They'd done so much for him, taking in him and Daniel and feeding them, although it meant they ran out of food before spring. Suddenly, he wished they had done more for them in return. Daniel had taught them about gardening, and Sam had shown them the refrigeration pit, and Teal'c had taught them self- defense. And he had destroyed the tigers.
     Then it was time. Jack knew that Rena would be waiting for them at the stargate, installing the new DHD built according to his design. Iman was with her, but the male alien stubbornly refused to speak with Jack. That actually made Jack like the ancients better, that they were "human" enough to have petty faults and jealousies.
     "My people thank you," Rena said, clasping Jack's forearms in a friendly gesture. She nodded forward in a slight bow. "You have done much for both our people. Good journey, Jack."
     "Thanks," he said, grinning foolishly. "Hope you have a good one, too."
     She smiled, then pressed the seven symbols on the DHD to return them to earth. She tapped the controls on a small, hand-held device he'd never seen before, but it appeared to be some sort of timer, for she motioned them all on to the stairs in front of the event horizon, then told them to wait. Her chin nodded up and down as she silently counted down. Then she said, "Go! Go! Go!"
     Jack grabbed Sam's hand, Sam grabbed Daniel's, and Daniel grabbed Teal'c. They'd jumped through the 'gate thousands times before, fleeing attack, fleeing staff blasts and mother ships and hostile forces, but never before had they felt the need to seek the security found in each other's hands. It was something unspoken, as though some small part of them doubted they were really going home, but if they had to be stranded anywhere, they wanted it to be together.
     The black void felt different this time, Jack thought, as his mind went into hyperdrive and his atoms came apart. He could still feel Sam's hand. It was ridiculous, for she didn't even have a hand right now, but in his mind he could clearly feel her touching him. He could feel Daniel and Teal'c too, which was even more ridiculous. He could almost feel their thoughts... it was as if a part of him were still experiencing the joy of the ancients. Then it ended, and he stepped through the stargate, gazing dazedly at General Hammond's confused expression.
     "Colonel O'Neill? Care to tell me what's going on?"
     "That, sir, is a long, long, long -"
     "Long, long," Daniel added.
     "Long, long, story," Sam finished.
     "Indeed," Teal'c agreed.
     "The Merusians called us ten hours ago wondering where you were. They said you never showed up for the banquet. And, what on earth happened to you?"
     Jack glanced down at himself, noting his mukluks and fur leggings and the beautiful woven cloak, his shoulder-length hair. His team was just as scruffy - Daniel's hair was even longer than Sam's. They were dirty, tired, most of their equipment was gone, and they were grinning stupidly.
     "How long have we been gone?" Sam asked, trying to focus.
     "About twelve hours," Hammond replied, overwhelmed with curiosity. "And when the 'gate opened, we didn't get your IDC for some time. We almost didn't open the iris."
     Sam sighed. The transmitter's batteries were old, the wiring damaged from moisture. It wouldn't have worked at all without Rena's magic touch. "General? We've been gone for a year," she said to a stunned room.
     "Everyone, into the infirmary," Hammond said. That was his general recommendation whenever he was faced with something he didn't understand. It would buy him some time, and Dr. Frasier's report would let him know if anything they said could be backed up medically.
     Jack stopped in front of him. "Excuse me, sir," he said, still grinning foolishly. "Permission to give you a hug?"
     "Colonel?"
     Jack wrapped his arms around Hammond's chest, or as far around as he could reach, and thumped his back. Hammond held his breath. Jack's clothing- if those rags could be dignified as such - were giving off a pungent odor. "It's good to be home," Jack said sincerely. Then he stepped back and gave a smart salute.
     Hammond gazed, dumbfounded, as his star team exited the gate room.
    
    
    
    
     Janet treated a few minor scrapes, but otherwise gave them a clean bill of health. Then they sat through several hours of debriefing, as their story was almost too incredible to believe. Jack's euphoria at being home faded, his irritability escalating. Finally Janet called an end.
     "General, it sounds like they've been through hell," she said.
     "Not quite," Jack interrupted. "Been there before."
     She scowled at him, continuing as though he hadn't interrupted. "They clearly need to go home and get some rest. This can wait a few days."
     "Actually," Sam said. "I'd love a bath and a good night's sleep in a real bed, but I really want to come back tomorrow. It's like we've been on vacation for a year. I really need to get back to work, as soon as possible."
     "That's good," Hammond said. "Because we're going to have some diplomatic issues with the Merusians."
     Jack rose, giving a half salute with his fingers. "See you in the morning, sir," he said.
     Hammond nodded. "Get some rest."
    
    
    
     Epilog:
    
    
     Jack smiled at his team. A hair cut, new uniform, and a good night's rest had done them all a world of good.
     Hammond postponed the debriefing at the Merusians' request. They were eager to hold the banquet before all the food they had prepared spoiled. Dr. Frasier insisted that the team was in perfect health. Jack even seemed better than before the mission, the touch of arthritis starting in his knees was gone entirely. "SG-1, you have a go," Hammond said. He resisted the urge to cross his fingers.
     Jack grinned. The last trip through the 'gate, he'd felt his friends clearly, even though they were melted down into basic atoms. The wormhole would never bug him again. "Let's go, kids," he chimed.
     Moments later they stepped through the stargate onto PX3-149. They all stared at the DHD, releasing a collective sigh of relief that it was old and dusty. The Merusian sun glowed brightly at noon on a summer day. Merusians, genetically identical to humans, greeted them warmly, speaking a language almost identical to English with only a few words that differed.
     "Budo," the Merusian leader said, clasping Jack's outstretched hand. I am Matai. We welcome you!"
     "Budo?" Jack glanced at Daniel. It had been a word on the prehistoric world, where it meant "good".
     Daniel shrugged his shoulders.
     "Colonel, look!" Sam exclaimed.
     Jack glanced in the direction she indicated. The Merusian city was just where it should have been, a short distance from the stargate, gleaming in white stone and smooth lines. It had a classic appearance, with large stone beasts crouched protectively at the base of the columns. It looked just like it had before, when they had first made contact with them. Only then the creatures hadn't made an impression on the team, for they'd had no frame of reference. Now they saw that the beasts were saber-toothed tigers.
     Matai smiled, gesturing to the statues. "They are revered among my people," he said. "Once they roamed our planet in great numbers. They were powerful, dangerous predators. Then a spirit came and taught us how to befriend them. Tradition tells us they captured the young cubs and tamed them. Their form dominates much of our art and culture. We find them quite beautiful."
     Jack scowled. "Sam, how can this be?"
     "I don't know, sir," she stammered.
     Daniel nodded. "It was meant to be," he said slowly, deep in thought.
     "I do not understand," Teal'c said.
     Daniel waved his hands excitedly, his voice rising a few decibels. "The whole trip into the past. It had to happen! The first time we came here, we were seeing the result of our influence on their ancient past. We were meant to go back! Everything happened as it should have! We didn't alter history, we fulfilled it!"
     Jack shook his head. "No, Daniel. That can't be. I was only able to teach the ancients how to build the DHD, because they'd given me that knowledge in their repository. How could I teach them something I couldn't possibly know. I mean, who really, originally, developed the plans for the first working DHD?"
     Sam chuckled. "We're way out of our league, sir. We're limited to thinking in only four dimensions-"
     "Yeah, got that," Jack interrupted. "Height, length, width, and time. Einstein stuff."
     "Right. The theory of relativity. Some refer to it as the "space-time" continuum. But if we could step beyond our understanding of time, into a plane where all things occur simultaneously, then cause and effect are no longer relevant. We could, conceivably, be responsible for both learning from the ancients and teaching them the same thing."
     "Ah," Jack said, nodding sagely, pretending he knew just what she was talking about. "That double ducks stuff again."
     Sam cocked her head in puzzlement.
     "Sure Jack," Daniel said, laughing. "It's a paradox."
     The end.

Return to Main Index
Please send comments to: Lorelei Sieja

     The Minstrel Boy
    
     The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
     in the ranks of death you'll find him;
     His father's sword he has girded on,
     and his wild harp slung behind him.
     "Land of song!" said the warrior bard,
     "Though all the world betrays thee,
     one sword, at least, thy right shall guard,
     one faithful harp shall praise thee."
    
     The minstrel fell, but the foeman's chain
     could not bring that proud soul under;
     The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,
     for he tore its chords asunder;
     and said, "no chain shall sully thee,
     thou soul of love and bravery
     Thy songs were made for the pure and free,
     they shall never sound in slav'ry."
    
    
     Danny Boy
     Traditional
     Written By: Fred E. Weatherly
     Copyright Unknown
    
     Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,
     From glen to glen and down the mountain side;
     The summer's gone, and all the leaves are falling;
     'Tis ye, 'tis ye must go, and I must bide.
    
     But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,
     Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow;
     'Til I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow;
     Danny boy, Oh Danny boy, I love you so.
    
     And when ye come and all the flowers are dying,
     If I am dead, as dead I well may be.
     Ye'll come and find the place where I am lying,
     And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.
    
     And I shall hear, 'though soft ye tread around me,
     And all my grave shall linger sweeter be,
     Then ye will bend and tell me that ye love me,
     And I shall sleep in peace until ye come to me.