They're all dead... all dead... I screwed up... I...
"Hey, looks like he's coming round..."
I... Daniel?
Waking up slowly, Jack gradually became aware that he was in the infirmary again. Looking up, he saw Daniel sitting beside his bed but, before that fact could make him worry he was in that ‘other' place again, he saw Teal'c and Carter out of the corner of his eye.
"Hey, Jack..."
"You're... you're okay?"
Carter came to sit on the bottom edge of his bed.
"We're fine, sir. Just been cleared to leave the infirmary a couple of hours ago."
Teal'c added, "We appear to suffer no ill effects from the transfer."
Daniel waded in.
"Janet's been a bit worried about you though. Apparently, all the extra activity had completely exhausted your brain. It shut you down almost completely. You were in a comatose state when they carried you back through the gate then your patterns altered to a deep sleeping state. You've been asleep for nearly three days now."
Three days? It seemed like mere moments ago he'd been watching with horror as all their monitors had flat-lined. And, yet, here they were looking as if none of it had ever happened.
He still couldn't quite believe his eyes.
"So you're really all okay?"
"We're fine, sir. Although I've got to admit we were a little stiff to start with... some of our muscles had barely twitched for days and days.
Daniel added, "But we're getting there..."
Now that he was more awake, Jack could feel the awkwardness that was setting in. Up until now, his condition had obviously been of concern to them but now he seemed to be okay, recent events were obviously coming back to the forefronts of their minds.
Not quite sure where to start trying to fix things, he began to say, "Look, I'm sorry about what I..."
The temperature in the room dropped several degrees almost instaneously. No-one could play at this all being fine anymore. He trailed off as his team looked at each other for a moment before Daniel appeared to win or lose whatever silent debate was going on and nodded.
"I'll meet you up at my office."
They nodded back and, smiling at him slightly stiltedly, headed out.
Daniel awkwardly continued, "Jack... we need some time." Trying to lighten it up, he added, "See, we just spent our downtime stuck in your head... so I hope you'll understand if we feel like steering clear of you for a couple of days. For everyone's sanity."
Jack knew there were some serious issues to work out with his team. What they'd been through was... a unique experience. Thanks to him and his need to be alone, his friends had had their minds hacked to bits and he'd raked through the tatters of their knowledge like some unnatural scavenging beast. None of them were going to be okay with this for a while to come.
Nevertheless, Jack decided to follow Daniel's lead and try and keep it light.
"No, won't exactly be cut up about it. Clear off."
Daniel smiled and, pressed down on his arm.
"You got us out of there, Jack. We'll be okay."
In the new silence, Jack lay back happily with the echoes of Daniel's last words promising that any fractures with his team were fixable. Now, finally, he was truly alone for the first time in what seemed like forever. Limbs that all felt the right size again. No more damn anti-histamines or being literally forced to listen silently to full-length Danielcarterathons. Bliss.
Stretching his normal-feeling arms behind the head that was fully his, he sighed happily. Back to normal. Picking up a magazine beside his infirmary bed, he flicked through it for a while before his eyes grew heavy. The magazine slipped from his grasp as his eyes closed and he slipped peacefully into dreams of his own.
Upon being released from the Infirmary the next day, Jack had resisted the impulse to seek out his friends. He had to admit that he was a little anxious to ensure that they'd forgive him for everything but... well, Daniel had told him what they needed... and that was time to deal. Hell, he probably needed some of that himself. And, besides, since absence made the heart grow fonder, it might be advisable to let their hearts grow a little fonder before he sought them out for any heart-to-heart talks.
Therefore, instead, he'd headed to the gym. His mind might have been exhausted but his body was protesting at its recent inactivity so he thought it only fair to take it down the gym for a workout. He hoped, though, that eventually he'd stop thinking about his body as something entirely separate from his mind again.
Then, suddenly, he wasn't looking at the control bar of the treadmill anymore. Instead, he was standing in the pouring rain with thunder cracking in the distance. Then, disoriented, he became aware of echoes of voices coming from all angles. Voices that he recognised all too well...
"Jack, Jack..."
"Colonel, Colonel, Colonel..."
"O'Neill, O'Neill..."
A different voice, stronger than the rest said, "Colonel?"
Snapping awake, he looked up to find Major Reynolds looking down concernedly at him.
"Sir, are you all right?"
Severely disoriented, he asked, "What? What just happened?"
"You just took a tumble off of the treadmill, that's all."
Looking up, Jack realised he was back in the gym again. There was no thunder, no rain and no voices. Major Reynolds had the beginnings of a smile on his lips but seemed to be forestalling actually mocking him falling off the treadmill when it was set to slow jogging pace due to just how freaked out he must currently look.
Brushing him off with a few mutterings about being fine and feeling a little dizzy, Jack slowly got to his feet and walked deliberately out of the gym trying to ignore the eyes that followed him. Once he was sure he was beyond their gaze, however, he picked up speed and sprinted back to the lab where Grelmin's device had been returned to allow McKay to study it. Hooking it back up to the power generator as quickly as he could, he activated it.
Grelmin flickered to life.
"How may I assist?"
At least the automated responses were in English now.
Jack growled, "How may you assist? You may assist by telling me what the hell's happening to me."
"Apologies, the question you asked does not appear to be answerable by my database. If you wish additional information; resume interface."
"No way, I am not letting you back in my head."
"Apologies..."
As it shut off again, Jack groaned inwardly then, shutting his eyes, he pressed the button and felt the zip of energy. As he opened his eyes, he saw a scientist bent over the workbench.
"Grelmin."
Looking up, the scientist said, "Ah, Colonel O'Neill."
Jack rushed over and grabbed him.
"You've done something to me, you son of a bitch!"
"I have done nothing. I reassembled your occupiers as you requested... It is not my fault if you now miss the benefits of being Ha'ranas."
"Ha'ranas? Listen, I don't give Ha-rat's-ass about that. What I care about is freaky visions and voices bouncing around in my head."
"Then you should allow me to purge your system. Stray echoes of the occupiers may be causing this sensation."
"Purge my system?"
"Reset your mind in the manner that I did with the other occupiers."
He backed up towards the device.
"You mean when you made their hearts stop?"
"That is correct."
"Yeah, well, no way that's happening."
Reaching blindly back, Jack pressed the buttons and Grelmin disappeared again. Weird mood swings or not, he was giving permission to Grelmin to mess with his head, not to mention his heart, about the same time as hell froze over.
Sighing, he thought for a moment. Surely, he was just overreacting here. After what he'd been through... why wouldn't he feel a little out of sorts? All he needed was a little serenity. That was it... he just needed to get out of here for a while. He just needed to be somewhere that wasn't here for a bit to get to know who he was again. Purging his system be damned; beer and fishing sounded more his style.
Jack decided that it'd be a good idea to get away from the base awhile. Maybe go fishing up at the cabin for a couple of days. After all the ‘quality time' he and the others had just spent together, he could really do with a little alone time.
A short while later, he knocked on the General's door.
"Come in."
Opening the door, he said, "Sir."
"Jack, how you feeling?"
"Like myself again. Just myself, I mean."
Hammond chuckled slightly.
"What can I do for you, Jack?"
"I was wondering if you'd mind me taking off for a couple of days, sir. You know, just to clear my head... well, clear it more."
"Didn't the others tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"I already granted you all a week's leave. I believe they already left."
"Oh... oh well, sir, I guess I'll see you in a week."
"Have a good time, Jack. But do take a phone this time, please."
Doctor Fraiser had insisted on giving him another check-up before he could leave the mountain and, consequently, it was getting pretty damn dusky by the time he made it to the cabin. After he'd unloaded his gear and got the fire going, he wasn't really in the mood to do much but sit back and watch the flames crackling. Rifling in his cool-box, he dragged out a beer and, smacking it open off of the arm of his chair, drank deeply from it. He didn't think he'd ever, in his entire life, stopped to marvel just how great it was to have a hand that moved only when you told it to. Heck, two of ‘em seemed like an obscene luxury. And legs that only took you where you wanted to go... or, in his case, that just lay there happily and didn't make you get up when you didn't want to. And the eyes! Oh, how had he gone all that time without realising what a truly amazing gift it was to have eyes that followed your every whim so effortlessly you almost forgot you controlled them at all. Yeah, most people just didn't know how good they had it.
As the flames licked around the thick log in the centre of the kindling, Jack sighed happily to himself. It was nice to finally have himself back to himself. And, even if things were gonna be awkward between them for a while, he'd gotten his friends back. Vaguely, he wondered where the others had all gone. Seemed like they'd gone off somewhere together which seemed odd considering they'd spent as much time with each other as they had with him. Well, maybe they'd gone their separate ways as well... or maybe it wasn't the time together but the being torn apart that they were finding hard to reconcile with...
He almost missed having them in his head. It felt odd to hear your voice echoing around in there without any reply. A nice sort of odd, though... and he certainly wasn't about to start wishing they were in his head again. Normality was just going to take some getting used to, that was all.
Getting up from the chair, he took a look around the cabin. Place was in need of some TLC so since he was up here for a few days, he was going to get around to getting the maintenance work done that he'd been putting off for the last few months. The roof, especially, was in need of some repair before the colder weather set in. Of course, that would prove a whole lot easier with a second pair of hands but he doubted Daniel was still planning to make the trip up here to help like they'd originally arranged. Well, in any case, that would be a job for tomorrow.
After finishing unpacking, Jack settled down on the chair before the fire again. Picking up his half-finished beer, he was beginning to feel drowsy. A couple more swigs and he found his head dipping and his eyes beginning to close. Shaking himself awake again, he shifted from his position on the chair and lazily threw a couple more thin logs onto the fire. Setting the bottle down on the table beside him as he sat down again, he leaned back to watch the pictures in the fire.
He could still remember the one and only time he'd brought Charlie up here. Kneeling before the fire and showing him how to stack the kindling for maximum effectiveness. They'd sat before it as it crackled and spat and Jack had told him ridiculous stories about the dance of the Irish fire sprites.
Now, watching the fire, Jack could pick out faces and dancing men. He watched the dance for a while. Pulling the blanket up and over himself, he began to doubt he'd make it as far as the bed before he conked out.
There was a sudden rustling of kindling and then crackling as the fire gained intensity. That in itself wasn't unusual... until you considered that you hadn't moved from the chair to poke at the fire.
Becoming fully-alert again, he realised there was a figure crouching by the fire wearing slack jeans and a checked brown shirt who was jostling the embers sporadically.
"Who the...?"
Trailing off, he realised he was looking at the back of...
"Daniel?"
Straightening up and turning round, his friend smiled at him.
"Jack, finally, you're awake."
He didn't even remember falling asleep but guessed nodding off explained the suddenness of Daniel's appearance. Now that the initial surprise at seeing his friend had passed, it was replaced by shock as he realised, after everything that had happened, his friend had still come to the cabin. Maybe he was gonna get a chance to start fixing things sooner than he'd thought.
"You drove all the way up here? How did you even know I'd...?"
It was Daniel's turn to look confused as he cut him off.
"Jack, of course I drove up here; I drove you up here. Remember?"
"What? No you didn't. You left the base with the others."
"What are you talking about? You know I never left the base the whole time you were..."
Trailing off, an unpleasant look of realisation entered Daniel's gaze. Setting the poker down, the civilian turned slowly to look at him properly, with a carefully neutral expression, before, with affected nonchalance, he picked a beer up out of the cool box and brought one of the others chairs round to sit next to his.
Sitting down on it, he adjusted it until he was looking at Jack and, carefully trying not to sound panicked, said, "So how's it going in the other reality then?"
The realisation hit Jack like a staff blast to the chest. Oh god...
Pointing his beer bottle slightly accusatorily at him, Jack said, "You're the other Daniel; the one in the infirmary."
To himself rather than Jack, Daniel muttered, "I tried to tell them you weren't better yet."
Carefully again, he continued, "Jack..."
His head falling into his hands, Jack, half to himself and half to Daniel, said, "I'm dreaming, right? I've fallen asleep in front of the fire and this is just a dream. A scary as hell nightmare of a dream but just a dream, right?"
Looking up again, Jack was relieved to see that Daniel had vanished again. Slapping himself on the chin a couple of times, he satisfied himself that he was awake now.
He'd fallen asleep, hadn't he? Not exactly beyond the realm of possibility when wrapped in a blanket before a warm fire, in a quiet cabin, miles from anywhere and exceptionally likely when you considered you'd been two-thirds exhausted before the long drive up here.
Despite his self-reassurance, his heart rate was taking its time to get back to normal and the adrenaline sloshing through his veins wasn't going to quickly subside. Now he was anything but relaxed. Besides, after his recent experiences, ‘just a dream' wasn't all that reassuring a phrase. He still remembered those corridors inhabited by the caricatures of his friends... and that ever-present shadow that haunted him even now.
Reaching into his bag for his cell, Jack rotated it around in a contemplative manner. He could phone real Daniel and reassure himself of what was real. Or he could phone the base and double-check that the world was as he thought it was. No, both options were liable to result in someone racing up here to drag him back to the infirmary for more damn tests. He was fine... just a little edgy and paranoid after everything that had happened, that was all. That; and he had the beginnings of a truly blinding headache on his hands.
Washing down a couple of heavy-duty painkillers, Jack stumbled into his cot and stretched out along the length of it. His head was pounding like a hundred silent voices were shrieking in his head at the same time that two men were battering it with alternate blows from their sledgehammers. Okay, so maybe coming up fishing, on your own, wasn't the smartest move when you'd suffered major brain trauma only a couple of days before but it'd been isolation he'd been after and there was nowhere better to get that than up here at the cabin. After days of constant voices, a little silence was just what the doctor ordered... along with the pain pills.
Jack woke to find his head still ached and washed down a couple more pills. Yeah, he'd been going to do a little maintenance on the roof of the cabin today but with the thumping of his head still continuing, it didn't seem like the wisest idea to add hammers and heights to the mix. Instead, he dragged his deckchair down to the lake and cast his line out. Yep, no better way to clear your mind than to sit, with your line cast, and wait for fish to bite when you knew, for a fact, that there wasn't a single fish in the lake. Teal'c had never gotten the meaning of fishing and seemed to be labouring under the delusion that actually catching a fish should feature in some way in the whole endeavour. Now, where would the fun in that be? You'd just have to reel it in and land it and who needed that sort of hassle? No, this would be the perfect antidote to the last, few, insane days... weeks. Combined with a fistful of pain pills, it might even shift this headache.
Time ticked by with the non-existent fish always just losing interest in the bait at the last second. He felt the stress from the last few days beginning to ebb away into the ground beneath him. The headache would fade, the dreams would lessen and, hopefully, his friends and he could get back to the madness that was their normality.
Pulling his cap down over his eyes, he sighed happily. His fishing rod slipped from his grasp and his eyes closed themselves.
"Jack?"
Eyes snapping open, he ripped the cap off of his head saying, "Daniel, what're you...?"
He trailed off to see Daniel, still in the same outfit, sitting next to him with his fishing rod fixed beside him but a book in his hands that would prevent him actually catching anything if it snagged on his line. The fact that the only thing he was likely to catch in the lake was the hook of Jack's line was a moot point. It was such a familiar image that it took Jack a moment to remember that he wasn't actually supposed to be there.
Rolling his eyes, he said, "And you're back."
Daniel quickly became edgy at the comment but, masking it with mock hurt, he replied, "You know, I'm pretty thick-skinned but I could start to get insulted by the fact, when you think this is some weird fantasy of yours, you're never pleased to see me."
"Oh come on, if I were really drifting in and out of reality then I would never have been allowed out the base. You and the others are fine now... and so am I."
An odd echo to his voice for a moment, Daniel replied, "No you're not, Jack."
More normally, he continued, "I mean, think about it... you can choose not to believe me but it doesn't change the fact that you are either imagining this or that or both. I don't call that okay, do you? I know I agreed to give you another day here but that was only if you didn't have another relapse. We can't stay here; we need to go back. We need to fix this."
"All right, who are you? Some bit of Gizmo in my head trying to make me stick everyone in my head again?"
Perplexed, Daniel asked, "Some bit of what?"
But Jack was on his feet now.
"No, I'm not dealing with you like this anymore so either get lost or stop pretending to be Daniel!"
Viciously wrenching at his top, Jack felt it gather and fold in his hand. Then, suddenly, there was no weight to the figure he was holding and the clothes melted away to reveal... Daniel...
What sat before him was Daniel in his fatigues. What was unnerving about that was the fact that the fatigues were tinged white and he was surrounded by an unsettlingly ethereal glow.
"All right, Jack, have it your way. Let's talk."
Carefully, he said, "Daniel... what's going on... you're a... a..."
As he tried to get his mind around the idea his friend could be ascended again and, therefore, appeared to have died somehow, the civilian finished his sentence for him.
"A remnant."
"What? You mean you're not... Daniel?"
"No, I'm a remnant."
"Okay... you're a remnant of...?"
"Of what you were becoming."
"A leftover bit of Daniel inside my head?"
He smiled slightly.
"Yeah, something like that."
"You're what Grelmin was talking about when he said I'd have to purge my system."
Sobering, Daniel's eyebrows knotted.
"Yeah, although I'd like to see him try."
"You seem a lot more talkative than the other... bits..."
"I'm not like those... things you talked to before. They were just aspects of the three of us with no independent awareness. All the life they have, they're given by you. I'm not like that."
"So, what, you're Daniel's ascended side, is that it?"
"In a manner of speaking... yeah, I guess you could call me that. See, what you like to call ‘Daniel'... he's more like the tip of an iceberg. The latent knowledge he possesses isn't something he can consciously access; not even I can do that... but his unconscious mind... well, it's not exactly your everyday subconscious these days. When Grelmin's procedure couldn't handle the processing required to process his subconscious; it somehow managed to split at least a portion of the conscious and subconscious from each other...which allowed me to surface independently. I still can't access that knowledge consciously, but it's like a layer of mist has been stripped away. I somehow knew how to navigate through your mind; somehow always understood about what had happened to us; somehow retained an independent awareness."
"So why keep pretending to be Daniel? Why not just tell me all this before?"
Hesitating for a moment, he explained, "Being split from me; my conscious awareness...'Daniel', was far too weak to stand against the assault of your awareness. As long as I remained dormant, he could feed from me and he was strong enough to withstand it... but the symbiosis worked both ways... and if I'd surfaced for too long then I would have sucked too much out of him and there wouldn't have been enough of him left. Unfortunately, unless I surfaced fully like this, I could only translate an idea through your dream state... and pretty much everything but the gist got lost in translation. I'm putting aspects of ‘me' at risk just speaking to you now."
"So why are you?"
"I was getting desperate. I have to try to save my life and the lives of the others."
"You mean other remnants?"
"I mean my life. Daniel's life. And Sam's. And Teal'c's. They don't have much time left."
"What? What do you mean?"
"I mean Grelmin didn't do what he promised."
"But... they're all fine."
"No, they're not..."
After a pause, he said, "Jack, you have to listen to me. I'm the only one that can talk to you... and what aspects of Daniel are left in here are fragile so soon I'll not be able to risk talking to you at all."
After a pause, he said, "When you've been neurally linked to Grelmin... I've managed to make the connection go both ways... I've seen into his mind... into the memory matrix... and I don't think Grelmin's evil, exactly... but he killed off the population of his world."
"Thought that was the famine?"
"It was. Grelmin's famine."
"What?"
"Grelmin came up with this way to make these super-human beings that he thought would be the new pinnacle of evolution... only he couldn't get enough funding or volunteers to prove it worked - even with the desperation of wartime on his side."
"I can certainly understand that!"
"No, I mean, until the famine, he'd had to stop human trials all together."
"Yeah, he said it was nearly complete when the famine came."
"Yes, but do you think that was a coincidence, Jack?"
"What?"
"Don't you see, Jack? Grelmin caused the famine. He needed people to get desperate enough. The guy is completely obsessed with the Ha'ran. He really thinks that way is better and he'd tried every other way to convince everyone else of it."
"What?"
"I don't think the mineral Sam was so desperate to study in the soil is naturally occurring. It stimulates incredible rates of plant growth and strengthens them... but it strengthens them to the point that trying to eat the plant-life becomes impossible. And with completely inedible plant-life, it was only a matter of time until the herbivores all died out... and with them gone..."
The whole food chain collapses."
"Exactly."
"You think Gizmo put that stuff in the soil?"
"No, I think he tricked the people into doing that themselves. The rate of growth of the plants would be desirable. Probably marketed the stuff as some super-fertilizer. Remember, there were official reports of him working on developing something like that."
"And then the rationing would have started."
"Grelmin told you about the war with the neighbouring world. It'd been going on for years by the time of the famine. Both fleets were depleted and the Stargate had been put out of commission by their enemy. Given time, the people were probably advanced enough to come up with farming techniques that would have resulted in a new sustainable food source... but that was something Grelmin didn't give them. They had to go onto emergency rationing... but there just wasn't enough to go around."
"And then Gizmo brings the whole Hairyness thing back to the table, I bet."
"Probably a very safe bet. And, this time, I doubt he met with much resistance. Ha'ran offered more than a way to ease the burden on the depleting rations without simply waiting for the bulk of the population to die of starvation... they were theoretically so smart that they'd come up with a solution to the famine in time to save the population... and, of course, Grelmin had always suggested they'd make fantastic warriors..."
Holding up a hand to halt Daniel, Jack said, "Wait, if you're saying you're all still in my head then who exactly is meant to be walking around? Grelmin?"
Beginning to look rather pale, Daniel sat down.
"No, it's the three of us, all right... only, we're not."
"What?"
He really was beginning to look pale now. The glow around him appeared again and tendrils of light licked around him. He looked up uncertainly and went to speak before wincing deeply.
Fading even further, he said, "Go back... you have to..."
"Why? Daniel, what's...?"
But the glowing light had faded and he was alone again with no evidence that Daniel had ever even been there. Going back to the cabin, he retrieved his cell-phone and went back to sit by the lake again. What was going on? Had that all been ‘real' or was he now going well and truly nuts?
He felt his head sag down again. He was so goddamned tired of this whole thing. He'd thought he'd have nothing better to do than just do a repair job on himself and then a patch-up job on rather dented team dynamics but now all this?
He sighed and shook his head. No, this was all just in his head, surely? Maybe Daniel was exactly what he'd said he was to begin with... just a remnant of this whole experience. His friends had been angry with him when he left but they'd still been them. There'd been nothing missing from those eyes but the trust he would have to win back. Besides, with the pills he'd taken, if he got behind the wheel of his car, he'd risk losing a lot more than his commission.
No, that decided it, he was going to stay here and he was going to fish for non-existent fish until his head stopped hurting. Setting the cap back down over his eyes, he got back down to the important business of the day; leaning back and waiting for the fish to bite.
"O'Neill?"
Jack, headache miraculously gone, looked up to see Teal'c gazing inquiringly down at him. What was Teal'c doing at the cabin? Then, suddenly, it hit him that he wasn't at the cabin. Instead, Teal'c seemed to be standing on unknown rocky terrain.
He stood up and looked around.
"Where the hell are we?"
Raising an eyebrow, Teal'c said, "O'Neill, you are already aware of that information"
"Indulge me."
Hesitating for a moment, the Jaffa inclined his head in acceptance of another display of randomness from his CO.
"The designation is P56 622 although Daniel Jackson believes that the inhabitants once called it Myrae. Are you feeling well, O'Neill?"
At the reply, his mind cleared. Of course, all that insanity at his cabin had been days ago - he'd just been dreaming about it again, that was all. He remembered how, when he'd finally made it back to the base, he'd found, as he'd suspected, there was nothing at all wrong with his friends other than the fact none were that happy with him. A little grovelling later, they'd all kissed and made up and then he'd slept off his headache for about a week and finally been declared fit for active duty. This was their first mission since it'd all happened. Okay, they were back to it when they were supposed to be on leave anyway but he'd wanted a mission to ensure that the healing bonds between the team were given a chance to solidify and to prove to himself that he was totally back to normal. Unfortunately, it was a rather tedious Daniel-centred mission to investigate some temple carved out of the base of a deep quarry - hence the sleeping and subsequent dreams on his part.
Fully awake now, he felt less disoriented and replied, "Don't worry big fella... I was just checking. Come on, let's go see how Daniel and Carter are getting on."
Teal'c assessed him for a moment longer before nodding in acquiescence and falling into step with him. They headed onwards to where Daniel and Carter were standing looking down at the temple.
Carter was saying, "...so what are you thinking?"
"Well, given the engravings I can make out from up here, I'm wondering if the similarity between this planet's name and the Moerae is entirely coincidental or not."
Jack decided to wade in.
"Oh yes, but isn't that what we're all thinking?"
Daniel shot a look at him which warned him that this friendship was too recently healed to withstand many cheap shots. So, caving quicker than he normally would have, he asked seriously, "Okay, okay, what's the Moerae?"
His friend appeared to be assessing him for a moment to see if he was asking out of civility or was actually interested so he tried to look at least vaguely like he actually wanted to know.
Either convinced or uncaring, Daniel replied, "The Moerae, or the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos are from ancient Greek mythology. They were supposed to spin, measure and cut the thread of life. They also were supposed to give each person their share of good and evil."
Having focused his attention mostly on appearing to look interested, Jack had only caught the gist of what Daniel had said so tried to change the subject before he cottoned on.
"All right, well we're in for a long walk down to see the temple so how's about we get going?"
As everyone nodded, they started on their way down to the temple. Jack fell into step with Teal'c again as they began to head round the long spiral that would eventually bring them to the base of the quarry. Up ahead, Daniel and Carter were keeping pace with each other when, suddenly, Daniel broke off and headed over to get a better vantage on the temple below. He paused a few paces from the edge but then, slowly, began to edge forward until he stood only inches from the edge. His eyes appeared locked on the ground below.
Unaware of whether that edge was stable or not, Jack halted where he was and carefully said, "Daniel?"
When Daniel didn't look round, Jack began to worry that he'd stepped closer to look at the temple without considering the effect it would have on him considering his general dislike for heights of any sort.
So, slowly, he said, "Daniel, you feeling okay?"
This time, Daniel smiled slightly round at him.
"I feel great, Jack."
Partially relieved but still a little wary of anyone being that close to the edge, Jack replied, "That's great. How about feeling great a little further back from the edge?"
Without looking away from the drop, Daniel just smiled again.
"It's far deeper at this point. Just look how far down this goes..."
Jack shivered. His friend's fixated gaze angled down at the lethal drop was giving him very unpleasant flashbacks to when he'd found him standing on the outside of his apartment's balcony with nothing between him and the ground but eight storeys of air.
Trying to keep it light and probably failing, Jack said, "Glad to see you seem to have resolved you problem with heights, Daniel, but you can get too much of a good thing, you know."
Then he realised Carter was also up at the edge.
"Wow, it really is a long way down, isn't it?"
As well as being slightly anxious about it, Jack was getting annoyed now.
"All right, everyone away from the edge. It's an order this time."
Carter rolled her eyes and walked away from the edge but Daniel said, "Why? You scared, Jack?"
"Would just prefer to get through this mission without having to scrape anyone off the bedrock."
Daniel looked down at the depth again.
"My insides should be twisting up even looking down here... but they're not..."
Then he smiled.
"Weird, huh?"
"I'm sure it's fascinating. Now will you please get away from the edge?"
"The depth is indeed impressive."
To his utter exasperation, Jack realised that Teal'c had now walked over to look down to the depths. And, as he looked back round, he saw Carter was back next to Daniel again. Okay, so his whole team were ignoring him, which was fair enough after what they'd been through, but he'd have thought at least Teal'c would have the sense not to stand so close to the edge.
"Okay, so you're ignoring me and it's very funny and everything but you don't know how stable this path is."
Teal'c turned to look at him.
"Why are you afraid, O'Neill?"
"I'm not afraid; I'm justifiably cautious of crumbling paths round ancient quarries over large drops and tend not to stand on the edge of them."
Daniel chuckled at the reply and Jack snapped, "And why the hell d'you appear to have forgotten you hate heights?"
He shrugged and, balancing his way along the edge from Sam to Teal'c as if it was a tightrope, replied, "Don't know. Guess I'm cured."
"Either that or you've all been out in the sun too long. Now would you...!"
As he stepped forward, however, there was a hideous noise. A definite cracking noise. And, suddenly, the whole path before him split from the wall of rock. His friends, in their precarious positions, could do nothing to prevent the inevitable. He leapt forward to try and help but there was no way he could reach all three of them in time...
Then, suddenly, they froze, mid-fall.
As he blinked, utterly bemused, he heard an angry voice say, "This is where we are, Jack."
Turning, he saw glowing Daniel standing beside him again. He walked forward and stepped off the edge and onto the thin air beyond it.
His progress towards the frozen trio appearing unhindered by the fact there was no longer any ground below his feet, he continued, "You can just wait, Jack, and hope that I'm not real and what I'm telling you is wrong. But we're on that edge right now, Jack. You wait too long and we'll be out of your reach."
Suddenly, Jack snapped awake and realised that, once again, he was at the cabin. In fact, he realised belatedly, he'd never really left it, had he? His heart still racing at a mile a minute, he found that the headache had returned with renewed ferocity. Clutching at his head, a hideously loud ringing and accompanying vibration rippled through his skull. No... um... actually... that would be the cell he was holding...
Head still aching, he answered his phone with a groaning, "O'Neill."
"Jack?"
He sat up straighter.
"Sir?"
"It's... there's been an incident, Jack... Major Carter..."
Frozen eyes locked upon him; frozen fingers already out of reach.
Jack shivered at the memory.
"Sir, what is it? What's happened?"
"She called the base to tell me that she's been arrested for assaulting a highway patrol officer who pulled her over for speeding."
Relief that there were no cliffs involved in the statement flooded through him so violently that it took a few moments for the actual statement to sink in.
When it did, he exclaimed, "What?! What the hell...? Sir, you know as well as I do..."
"I've had words with the civilian authorities and she's on her way back to the mountain as we speak but, Jack..."
"Sir?"
"She hasn't denied committing the offence."
A part of him very nearly yelled down the phone at Hammond not to be so goddamned stupid. After all, why should Carter feel she should need to deny such a ludicrous claim? But another part still had glowing Daniel's words echoing in his ear and couldn't help but wonder...
He knew one thing right now. He needed to get back to the base.
Hammond obviously thought so too.
"How soon could you be back at the base, Colonel?"
"I... took some of those pills Fraiser gave me. Can't drive until they're outta my system."
Concern in his tone, Hammond continued, "I'll have them send someone from the nearest airbase up to collect you, Jack."
There'd been two other frozen figures hovering beyond his reach and, last he'd seen them in reality, they'd been with Carter.
"What about Teal'c? Daniel?"
"We've tried to contact both of them but, so far, there's been no word."