Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fail with consequence
Lose with eloquence and smile
You're not in this movie
You're not in this song

--Consequence, The Notwist

It's about a month before the second term inauguration of a popular or infamous (depending on whose side you're on) Democratic president. They call them "lame ducks" and Dani isn't sure why. Because they're easier to shoot? At least it means the SGC doesn't have to send someone to Washington to tell Mr. Brown or Mr. Clinton where a big chunk of his black budget is going. But apparently it means Washington has decided to send Harold Brown here.

Since July, when they got completely geared up for running missions (rather than just tripping over their own feet and mopping up after disasters of their own making) there have been nineteen successful missions, meaning they got back roughly the same number of people as they sent out and did not unleash any devastating plagues on Earth.

Their reward for this is a visitation from the Secretary of Defense. Secretary Brown wants to know where his (America's) money is going. He arrives amid a gaggle of uniforms and suit-coated aides. Sam and Jack are in Dress Blues too. Jack looks like he's seeking a target for his wrath. Dani stays out of his way. Since the arrival of the Secretary was hardly a surprise, she's wearing one of her "terrorize the freshmen" outfits left over from Berkeley; khakis and a chambray shirt with a blue blazer. (If cornered, she can discourse on the history and invention of the blazer for fifteen minutes, stunning her listener into insensibility, then run.)

Everyone's in the Control Room, as General Hammond wants to show off. They're sending a MALP through to P3C-117, followed by (probably) an SG team to do follow-up reconnaissance.

"Better hang on to something Mr. Secretary. This is how we open the front door around here," General Hammond says.

The Gate technicians dial. The Stargate spins and locks (and yes, it does make everything shake; that's why all of the levels down here are built on springs just like upstairs in NORAD). Dani doesn't get to view dial-up from here that often. Even from the back of the crowd, it's impressive.

"My god, General, it's..." Brown says in an awed voice.

"I thought you might be impressed," General Hammond says smugly.

"What exactly am I looking at?" Brown asks.

Sammy steps up. "We think you're looking at the event horizon of an artificially created wormhole, through our spacetime to a point…thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of light years away. Sir.'

"Uh-huh," Secretary Brown says, in the tones of a man who hasn't understood a word Sam's said. He's a physicist (Dani Googled him last night) so this is clearly a feint.

General Hammond tells SG-5 it's "go" time, and they walk up the ramp and through the wormhole.

"Do you have any idea what's out there?" Brown asks

"No, sir," Jack pipes up. "That would be why we're going."

"I'm not sure— Colonel, is it? Because to be perfectly frank, this Administration is not satisfied with the current progress of the Stargate program."

"Begging the Secretary's pardon, sir, but we've already visited nineteen separate worlds," Sam says. Dani starts working her way toward the front of the scrum.

"I believe the Secretary is referring specifically to the volume of technology being retrieved on our planetary missions," General Hammond says, in the tones of a man who has already heard this.

"The President and Joint Chiefs had been under the impression that the SG teams would be bringing back superior technologies," Secretary Brown says.

Dani moves forward. "I'm sorry, I… I thought we were explorers," she says. 'To boldly go' and like that.

"Oh, you are, Dr. Jackson. But even Marco Polo, when he came back from the Far East, brought back more than just a few…exotic spices."

Sure, but what he didn't bring back was weapons. Unless you count the recipe for gunpowder, which may be a bit of folklore.

"Mr. Secretary, it's been my observation that whether it's here on earth or… out there; cultures with advanced technology tend not to like to share it," Jack says.

"So basically we're wasting our time," Brown says.

Sammy looks stunned. Jack turns to her. "Would you interpret what I just said as—"

"Colonel!" General Hammond barks.

"Sir, with respect, this program is quite probably humanity's most important endeavor," Sam says.

"They said the same thing about the Apollo program. They brought back moon rocks. You may have noticed we haven't been to the moon in twenty-five years," Mr. Brown says.

Politics. It's all politics and flag-waving. They don't care about anything but the money and they don't really care about that, since it isn't their money. They're chameleon life-forms that want to be seen to be a certain thing, whether or not they're that.

And no matter if it hurts someone.

She's always known it. She just hates seeing it.

"What kind of comparison is that?" Jack asks irritably.

"Colonel, if one of those Goa'uld ships were coming here right now, have you brought back one thing we can fight them off with?" Secretary Brown asks. He has the studious yet delighted air of a matador that has just skewered a bull.

"What technologies do you seek?" Teal'c asks. He's managed to be pretty much overlooked, even with all the visitors and everything. It's hard to overlook a six-foot-many Jaffa with a big gold thing on his forehead, but there you are.

The Secretary recovers quickly. "You tell me. What's out there?"

"There are still technologies even the Goa'uld seek. There is a creature that lives on an unpopulated world. It possesses powers of invisibility," Teal'c says.

"Invisibility. As in stealth?" Mr. Brown asks eagerly.

"That is correct. It can appear or disappear at will. I was once commanded to retrieve the creature, to learn its secrets. Apophis took the lives of two of my men as punishment for my failure."

"If we manage to capture one alive, it could provide us with a serious tactical advantage the next time we came up against the Goa'uld," Sammy says.

"Sounds like a mission to me," Jack says.

They go the next day. Teal'c dials them out. They're taking a FRED (Field Remote Expeditionary Device, because everybody loves a good acronym), currently piled with camping gear, to carry their invisible target back with them. (Not fish, not flesh, not good red herring, a small unoccupied part of her mind says.)

It's 0800 hours and they're off.

P3C-117 looks offhand like a Köppen-Geiger Csb; cool and misty, with fog clinging to the treetops below them. The Gate is on top of a hill, and there are several more hills in sight. From this vantage point, everything that isn't up is down. She and Sammy are wearing helmets, which cuts peripheral vision to ribbons. She's going to see if she can talk Jack into letting her add them to the FRED's load. The sky is overcast, and Dani hears thunder rumble.

This place feels oddly different than other Goa'uld worlds, and she can't figure out why.

Jack is the last one through the Gate this time. "Carter?" he says, and she joins him. He follows Sammy past the Gate to where Dani and Teal'c are waiting.

"What have we got?" Jack asks. Dani thinks of elided plosives and orphaned vowels. Wa'd'a w'g-t?

"I thought I saw something just as we came through, sir," Sammy says.

"Teal'c? Did we score already?" Jack asks.

"I saw movement as well, O'Neill. This way."

Teal'c starts off and they follow. Jack is looking down at his tranquilizer dart rifle as if it has personally offended him.

"I hope these things are as big as you say they are. There's enough tranquilizer in these darts to knock out a rhino."

"They are very large, but also extremely maneuverable in the air," Teal'c responds. "We will find them most vulnerable when they hover."

This wasn't in the mission briefing. "Hover? Like a hummingbird?" Dani says.

"With teeth," Teal'c answers reprovingly.

"All right," Jack says, having ranged ahead of them, "there's nothing out here. Let's get back to the gear and…"
He turns in his tracks, clearly intending to walk back through them, and stops.

"Where's the Stargate?" he asks, as if one of them might know.

They all turn. The Gate—and the FRED—are gone.

"I don't like this," Jack says with commendable understatement. Dani forces down the immediate impulse to panic. They've been marooned before and always made it home.

"Did anything like this ever happen to you before?" she asks Teal'c

"It did not, Dr. Jackson. Should we have become misdirected and needed to locate the Stargate, we had a Goa'uld homing device to find it."

She raises her voice in Jack's direction. "Do we have a homing device?"

"Of course we do. It's with the gear," Jack says bitterly.

"Which is... by the Stargate," she says under her breath. He hears her anyway.

"Captain, let's start a box search. You and Teal'c take off in that direction. Stay in radio contact."

"Yes, sir," Sammy says.

"Indiana, you're with me." At least whatever's happened to them this time isn't her fault. She didn't touch anything and Stargates are too big to break.

They walk on. What looked like a definite hill where the Stargate was is more of a hillock. The land flattens out and opens up. They're in a meadow, and the trees are few and far between. Not a Goa'uld world, her inner voice insists.

She hears an odd fluttering noise off to her right. She turns. There's nothing there. Is it the nothing they came for? She stops.

"Psssst!" she hisses. Jack turns back to look at her and she beckons. Come here, Space Boy.

Jack walks back to where she is. They're both staring at the treeline, trying to see an invisible thing that they wouldn't recognize even if it was visible. She thinks that having taken Secretary of Defense Harold Brown on this mission could have solved several of their problems.

The noise the creature makes is like a bunch of people all talking at once. It gets louder.

"There!" she whispers. There's a warping in the air. I just hope it becomes visible once we tranq it, otherwise we're not going to be able to find it.

Jack raises his rifle.

From somewhere below and to the left, a staff-blast fires at the creature. It misses. The creature flees, still invisible.

"Teal'c what the hell are you doing?" Jack demands of his radio.

"It did not come from me," Teal'c says, very quietly.

She and Jack move closer to the edge of the hill they're on (coincidentally-not-coincidentally in the direction from which the staff-blast came). They're behind a screen of ferns as four Jaffa run into view, obviously looking for the invisible thing. They're all bareheaded except for skullcaps, their totem-helms retracted, but one is wearing gold armor.

Apophis.

Apophis is down there and he can tell them where Klorel is. He can make Klorel give Skaara back.

"Ah," Jack says, very softly.

The Goa'uld move on.

"We saw Apophis," Dani blurts out the moment everyone is there.

"You are certain it was Apophis?" Teal'c asks her.

"Oh yeah," Jack says.

"Okay, what are we going to do? We have to do something. Right?" she says. Skaara. Alive. Brought home as she promised Kasuf. "We can get him."

"That's not our mission," Jack says.

"Fuck our mission," Dani says roundly. "He's all full of technology and, and intel! He's the only one who knows where Skarra is. We may not get another chance like this. Jack!"

Jack studies her face for a long moment. She doesn't know what he's looking for. She hopes he finds it, or maybe she doesn't. Either way, he turns to Teal'c.

"What kind of entourage is he going to have with him?"

"Two, perhaps three Jaffa personal guard," Teal'c says. "No more."

"Sir, are we seriously entertaining the idea of going after Apophis?" Sam asks.

Jack nods, grim-faced.

"Sir, we're not prepared for an attack! Half the ordinance we're carrying is tranquilizer guns."

("Ordinance." Thank you, Samantha Carter.)

"So we use one to knock him out," Dani says urgently. "He'll wake up in a holding cell without his guards, without his technology—he'll have no choice but to tell us everything we want to know about— About Goa'uld stuff." About where Skaara is.

"Can I remind you that we don't know where the Stargate is?" Jack says irritably.

"He will have the Goa'uld homing device I spoke of," Teal'c says. (She loves Teal'c. Teal'c is her friend.)

"See?" Dani says triumphantly.

"All right. Teal'c, you know what were up against better then anyone. Can we do what Indiana Jones here is talking about?"

"We have the element of surprise. I have my staff weapon. If we eliminate his personal guard quickly, I believe so," Teal'c says.

"Teal'c, this character used to be a god to you. You're sure you're okay with this?" Jack asks.

"I am okay," Teal'c says firmly.

"Carter?" Jack asks, and Dani wonders if they're suddenly voting on this.

"If we're going to do this we better plan the attack very carefully," Sammy says reluctantly.

"Alrighty then," Jack says.

And it's "go" time.

They move overland above the trail. Nobody's said, but Dani thinks the Goa'uld follow the trail because they made it in the first place. Teal'c thinks they'll double back soon so as not to get too far from the Gate, so the four of them pick a good spot where the trail crooks and carefully leave a footprint. That should be enough. Then they all take their hiding places. She and Teal'c are on one side. Sammy and Jack on the other.

She can't see any of the other three.

Jack makes the call of the northern loon. (Drawing on life, she imagines.) Dani's mouth is dry and coppery with adrenaline and reflexive terror. She clings to the idea of getting her brother back. Of going home to Abydos. To all of this being over.

There's a flash of sunlight on gold. The hunting party is coming into range.

Number One Jaffa paces forward and squats down to inspect the footprint. He rises to his feet and turns to tell Apophis what he's found.

Everybody starts shooting. There's so much noise. She's heard most of this ordinance being fired, but not all at once.

Number One Jaffa goes down. Two and Three leap to shield Apophis's body with theirs but Apophis can't be shielded with just two men. Jack scrambles up the hill to get a better angle.

And Apophis shoots him dead.

She knows its dead because of the way he falls, because of the black-red burn on his back. He was shot through the heart, shot from the front, and her understanding of the wound is explicit, knowledgeable, graphic.

"Jack!" she screams, and in that moment there's no thought in her mind besides getting to him. She launches herself into space, throwing her pistol at Apophis.

And there's pain, and then darkness.

It takes a long time for her to realize that she's lying on her back staring upward. The ceiling looks... woven? There are chinks of light coming through it. Dani stares at it for a while before she decides this is a different place than the last place she was. Her fingers spider over her chest. There's a hole in her clothes all the way down to the skin. The edges of it are stiff. (With dried blood?) Also charred.

She bolts upright, looking at the flakes of char on her fingers. There's blood on her BDU shirt, and both it and the t-shirt underneath are burned through.

But the skin underneath is untouched. She pokes it, hard. Nope, no feeling of recent death. How?

She gets to her feet. She's surrounded by roots and branches and the area smells of moss and earth. It's an elaborately-constructed space that reminds her oddly of Abydos. The load-bearing arches and the pillars are made of a rattan-like plant; the ceiling is straw of a sort intermixed with other plants. The area is open, barring the nooks and crannies of its construction; Dani moves in the direction of the nearest open space and sees Sam. Sammy is lying on her back, looking dead. She has a big hole in her clothing, but like Dani's, the skin beneath is untouched. Dani rests her fingers against Sammy's neck. There's a pulse.

"Hey...?" she says quietly, and Sammy wakes.

"Hey yourself," Sammy says, and gropes at the blank unblemished skin of her chest.

"I felt that blast kill me. I mean… I thought... I… I thought we were dead. Weren't we dead?" Dani stumbles over the words. She hasn't had time yet to get used to the idea of her latest death and resurrection.

"I thought Heaven would be a little more upscale," Sammy says dryly.

"Oh, I don't think this is heaven," Dani says, looking around. "Jack!"

He's lying on another pallet crosswise with Sammy's. Like them, he has a hole through his clothing but uninjured skin beneath. Dani kneels down and puts her hand on his hair, smoothing it. Sam investigates his absence-of-burn.

Jack jerks awake with a speed that startles both of them, turning over and sitting up in one motion. "Don't do that!" Dani says, heart pounding.

"What the hell was that?" Jack says.

"It's okay," Dani says helplessly.

Jack feels the burnt place on the front of his clothes, then the one on his back. "Wasn't I just...?" he says.

"Killed," Sammy says with gruesome relish.

"'Killed' as in..." Jack says.

"Dead," Dani says.

"Dead," Jack echoes.

"Yeah," Sammy says. "We know. We saw it happen. Same thing happened to us."

"Ah," Jack says. "Well, this is a surprise then."

"I don't know what happened to Teal'c," Dani says. He isn't here with the rest of them.

"Colonel," Sammy says suddenly, "my sidearm's gone."

Jack makes an automatic "where's mine" gesture. His expression explains that his is gone too. "Gone," he says aloud.

Dani's is gone too.

A man (a not-Goa'uld, not-Jaffa) walks into the tent. He's shorter than she is, Dani thinks. His hair stands out from his head cartoonishly; it's faintly green, and festooned with leaves and twigs. His skin is in the same tones as his clothes; he's dressed in a tunic and trousers that are either ragged and tattered, or complexly ornamented to resemble rags and tatters.

Behind him comes a woman, a little taller than he is but much more delicately built. Her hair is similar; her clothing is the same sort of (possibly) rags and tatters as the man's, but she's wearing a dress. The two of them stare silently, faces expressionless.

"Hello," Dani says. "Hi. I'm Dani Jackson." She motions at Sam. "This is Samantha Carter and this—"

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, SG-1. Ah… Sorry to drop in on you like this but we were… dead."

"Do you know where our friend is?" Dani asks. She motions to (what's left of) her uniform. "Another like us?"

The woman beckons, and they follow her out of the hut. The doorway is screened by ribbons of dried plant matter.

They're in a large clearing. The hut they were in is the largest of four; two of the other smaller ones are the same size, and the third looks too small for any use other than storage. The roofs are elaborately thatched, with a wide opening in the top surmounted by a smaller cornute shape. There was a fire burning in the hut they woke up in; the space between the two "roofs" would make an excellent smoke-hole. The edges of the clearing have tufts of bright flowers growing up around the bases of the trees, the trees have flower-covered vines dangling from them, and there is a rough-hewn table at the far side of the clearing set with bowls of bright produce. Two more of the natives, one quite young, sit together on one side of it.

"Is this your village? Aresh? Menideri? Kauye?" Dani says. None of the words seems to ring a bell with either the man or the woman who escorted them out of the hut. "We need to find our friend Teal'c."

"Ah…fruit," Jack says, as they are led toward the table. "Nothing like coming back from the dead to build up an appetite."

They're led to the opposite side of the table from the others. There are several tree-stump seats there, covered in flat woven mats.

Everyone sits down and stares at each other for a moment. The older of the two males picks up a red fruit the size of a golf ball and throws it to Jack. "Oh, thank you," Jack says politely. (Jack is only this honestly polite when he is completely out of his depth. Well, she is too.)

The same man throws a fruit to her, then to Sammy. Okay, communication is being established, but what kind?

"Did you do this?" Dani asks, pointing at the bare skin inside the hole in her BDUs.

No response.

"Did you heal us?" Dani asks. She doesn't want to try them on Goa'uld without more information.

The four across the table trade confused glances, then motion to the food. Clearly they are welcome to have more fruit. She takes a bite. It's really good fruit.

"I think they're a family," Dani tells Jack excitedly, keeping her voice low.

"Of what?" Jack answers.

"I have no idea," she answers, but her heart sings. These are aliens. They're clearly not a transplanted Earth population—or if they are, they're from no human race she's ever heard of. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Unparalleled. To learn. To study.

"We should ask them to give us back our weapons," Jack says.

Dani thinks this is an incredibly stupid idea. Sammy clearly doesn't.

The small child comes around the table to stand in front of Jack. "Oh, hi," Jack says. "Um... listen. Those things you found on us, those things you, ah, took from us? The big things. They're very dangerous and—"

The child turns and runs off.

"Hey!" Jack says.

"Jack, I really don't think we should be—" Pushing our luck right now, she wants to say, but she doesn't get the chance.

"Teal'c! Thank God." Jack gets to his feet. Teal'c is walking toward them from behind the huts. The child runs over to him to hold Teal'c's hand, leading him the rest of the way.

"Please tell me you know what's going on around here," Jack says.

"I cannot tell you that," Teal'c says.

"What about Apophis, you got a line on him?" Jack asks, and Dani thinks they have probably exceeded Teal'c's grasp of colloquial American English right there. He answers anyway.

"I do not."

Jack isn't done yet. "Any idea how far away from the Stargate we might be?"

"I believe us to—"

Teal'c breaks off as the child comes over to Dani. He (They?) smells like flowers. They point to their chest. "Nafrayu."

Dani mimics the motion, touching the child gently. "Nafrayu?" she asks. The child nods.

She points to herself. "Dani," she says.

Nafrayu gazes at her adoringly. It's impossible not to smile back.

"No, you can't keep him," Jack says.

Sure, Jack, because I am single-handedly going to re-create the New World enslavement of indigenous peoples as well as the transportation of populations from their native lands into lives of servitude. But who is he? And what is he?

She doesn't say any of that.

The taller of the two males—she's going to have to label them, since only Nefrayu has spoken—lays a fire and goes to get some utensils. They're wood (not pottery, not metal, god knows not plastic), Dani thinks, but very finely made. When he returns, he lights the fire and begins preparing a pottage.

None of the other three members of her team was looking when Tall Male lit the fire. All he did was wave his hand over it and the kindling lit. Dani tries to stay very calm. She duplicates his gesture and looks at him in what (she hopes) is an inquiring manner. He smiles, but that's about it. Dear God, they have to get Apophis out of here so they can bring a team in to learn from these people. And put an iris on their Gate to protect them. Can they teach them to use a GDO? How smart are they? Current theories suggest that intelligence is linked to the development of speech, but she hasn't heard any of them make a sound except the child. Have these extra-human powers delayed or bypassed the development of speech entirely? (Oh God she hopes they aren't telepathic: she only wants to kill Jack O'Neill some of the time.)

Tall Male scoops some of the pottage into a cup made of a leaf and holds it out. Jack taps her on the arm. Apparently she's the designated lab rat. She takes it, and scoops some of the contents up with her fingers since there's no spoon. It's good. She takes a sliced piece of fruit to use as a spoon to eat more of it, sucking her fingers clean. (Cuts as sharp as she sees on the fruit imply metal knives—sharp metal knives. Do they mine, smelt, and forge?)

"Maybe you should ask them about the Stargate," Jack says to her.

"Weren't you paying attention? They don't say much of anything. At the moment I'm trying to figure out if they're human or not."

Nafrayu is sitting next to Sammy, looking up at her adoringly. Like all of the others, he (she's going with "he" because Nafrayu is also wearing pants, and of the four of them only the adult female is not wearing pants) has bushy hair (or a wig) braided with a variety of leaves and grasses. Dani has been wondering why their clothing seems so familiar to her, and she finally gets it.

A ghillie suit. An artificial construct designed for camouflage.

All four of these people would blend in seamlessly to any foliage or high grass completely unseen. Maybe not as invisible as their monster, but pretty close. It has to be deliberate. "Jack—" she says.

"I will take you to your doorway," Tall Male says.

"Whoa," Jack says.

"You understand what we're saying?" Dani asks. (Oh god please don't let them be telepathic please don't let them be telepathic.)

Tall Male nods. "It took time to learn your speech."

"Not much time," Sammy says, speaking for all of them.

"Your weapons... are gone," Tall Male adds.

"Gone where?" Jack asks.

Tall Male takes a bite of his food, clearly not interested in providing an answer to that question.

"You know about our enemy?" Sammy asks.

"The bad guys? You took us. They'll be looking for us," Jack says.

"You attacked them," the woman says, speaking for the first time.

"You saw that?" Dani blurts out.

"We only meant to capture him," Sammy says.

Well yeah, and kill the three Jaffa with him, but aside from that our intentions were entirely peaceful, Dani thinks.

"Look. We're... um, we're not in the assassination business," Jack says.

Tall Male and Woman inspect Jack with interest.

"He's just…bad. He's very…"

Jack looks to her for support.

"Bad. He is a bad man who likes to destroy things. He took my brother and he's the only way we have—"

Jack cuts her off. "We just wanted to take him back to our world and have a little chat with him about all the nasty things he's been doing." He glances toward Teal'c. "We just didn't know about this little force field deal."

"I have never seen such a device. If I had—" Teal'c says.

"It's all right," Jack interrupts. "We're alive. Thanks to you folks."

"We will take you to your doorway," Tall Male says. "You will go."

"As in... the Stargate?" Sammy asks.

The woman answers. "Yes. You will go."

"Well it's not quite that simple," Jack says.

"By rescuing us, you have put yourselves in great danger. Apophis will try to locate us," Teal'c says. (Yeah, especially once they were teleported out of the killing box after Apophis'd shot them all dead.)

"Rest now. You will leave soon. Take your ways with you," Tall Male says.

Oh if only. They haven't worried about cultural contamination yet. They've only met three other races, all Goa'uld transplants: the steppe dwellers, the Touched, and the people whom Jonas Hansen enslaved. (Okay, yes, and those gorgeous sentient crystals on the planet they went to last month. Jack gave her a geode paperweight after they got back.) But the problem is going to be a real one if they're meeting non-Goa'uld-enslaved non-human people. She thinks about drafting a memo to General Hammond. She's pretty sure he's tired of reading her memos by now.

"No, wait, wait, wait. Um…you helped us. You…saved us," Jack says.

"Jack, what are you doing?" Dani asks him in an undertone.

"Yes," Tall Male says to Jack.

"How?" Jack asks.

He has to ask this now? This is the one thing she is better at than anyone else on their team and he just decides to fucking wing it?

"Our ways," Tall Male says.

"We're from a race of people that want to learn about your ways. Your medicine. Your culture," Dani says hopefully.

"No," Tall Male says.

"Will you at least tell me your name?" Dani asks desperately.

"I am Anteaus," Tall Male says. "This is Lya, and Ophir."

Okay, now she knows that Lya is the female and Ophir is the shorter male. That's progress.

"Have you seen the—" Goa'uld, before? she wants to ask, but once again Jack barges in.

"Is there anyone else we could talk to? Do you have a leader?" ("I'd like to speak to the manager." Yeah, Jack, that really doesn't play well when you're trying to get people to talk to you.)

"They have no wish to see you," Anteaus says.

"So there are others," Jack says.

"You will go," Anteaus says firmly, and walks away.

"Well, that went well," Jack says in disgust.

"Okay," Dani says spitefully, "I have an idea. From now on, I'll go around murdering large groups of people, and you can handle all the first contact situations. It's what I'm trained for, but if you want to switch jobs—"

"Well, why didn't you say something?" Jack demands.

"How do I get you to shut up?" Dani asks. Suddenly all her fear and frustration boil up and Jack is an easy target. "Everybody we meet anywhere this side of the Gate you're all gimme-gimme-gimme. Weapons, technology, more weapons: that's all you want. Well you said yourself that advanced races don't share, so why not let me do my job, goddammit, and see if there's some way around that."

Jack stares at her. Probably thinking about hitting her over the head with a rock. "This isn't an advanced race," he finally says.

"How. Do. You. Know?" Dani answers.

"Fine," Jack says, which is not an answer. "We'll go. You can talk to them along the way."

"If you wish us to leave," Teal'c says to Lya and Ophir, "should we not depart now?"

"Your brother won't revive until later," Lya says. She hands Jack a bowl of pottage and prepares to follow Anteaus.

"Excuse me?" Jack says. Lya stops and turns to face him.

"Whose brother?" Jack asks. It's actually a really good question since all four of them are here and presumably Apophis and his three Jaffa are elsewhere. "Brother?" he asks Teal'c.

Lya beckons for them to follow her. They go to the farther of the three huts. Lya pulls aside a curtain. On the bed is one of Apophis's Jaffa, asleep. Apparently another Prime, as he has the gold forehead thingy.

"Shak'l," Teal'c says.

"He resisted our attempts to help him heal," Lya says. Anteaus comes to stand by her side. Dani wonders if the two of them are a bonded pair, and Nefrayu their child. Ophir could be a brother, uncle, father—their ages are too hard to read.

"He may yet survive. The Goa'uld he carries is healing him even now," Teal'c says.

"That is good," Anteaus answers.

"How is that good? I mean, he works for the Goa'uld," Jack says, just as if any of these people have any idea what he's talking about. Of course, maybe they do.

"He is like him," Anteaus says, nodding toward Teal'c.

Jack opens his mouth to answer. Dani delivers a paralyzing kick to his ankle. "Teal'c is of the same race as Shak'l, that is true. But his loyalties lie with us. He knows Apophis to be a false god, and—"

"And that's not important right now," Jack interjects blightingly.

"Perhaps you can convince the injured one to join you as well?" Lya asks, turning to walk out of the hut. Anteaus follows, and so do they.

"Oh, I don't think so," Sammy says.

"Maybe," Dani says. "But he will have been taught Goa'uld ways by Apophis. The Goa'uld take life and use it for their own purposes."

"And their ways are not your ways, believe me," Jack says.

They're back in the clearing again.

"They do not know the Nox," Anteaus says.

"That's you? You're the Nox?" Dani asks. Anteaus nods. (Now if she could just bury Jack under a great big rock somewhere she could get on with an anthropologist's basic questions. Do you always live here? Are there more of you? Do you farm? How are your clothes made? Do you have gods?)

She wrenches her mind away from this happy fantasy with an effort.

"The ones you speak of come to hunt the Fenri," Lya says, sounding mildly disapproving.

"What—" Jack says.

"That's probably the giant flying invisible thing with teeth," Dani says.

"Yes. Fenri," Anteaus says.

"All right, look. Do you have any …elders… I could speak with?" Jack asks. "I don't think you're understanding what I'm—" ("Hey, kid, is your mom home?" Dani bets they understand what he's saying perfectly well.)

"Ophir is one of the oldest of the Nox," Anteaus says.

Ophir, whom she originally tagged as "Short Male" smiles at them. Anteaus takes him by the shoulders and lifts him to his feet.

"If Shack'l does not die, they will be in even greater danger than they are now," Teal'c tells Jack quietly.

"There will be no more death," Anteaus says sternly. Lya rushes to his side, touching him comfortingly.

(Okay, Dr. Jackson, what do we have so far? Vegans. Anti killing. Able to raise the dead. Able to light a fire with the wave of a hand. What else can they do? What do they believe? Who the hell are they?)

"I have no intention of killing him," Teal'c says firmly. "However, if Shak'l does heal, and leaves here, he will tell Apophis where to find you."

"Look, obviously your medicine is very..." Jack looks as if he can't come up with the right word. Incredible? "Well, it's very effective. But how do you defend yourselves?"

"We don't," Anteaus says. And yeah, Dani can't imagine Anteaus and Ophir together taking Jack out hand-to-hand, let alone Apophis and his Jaffa with weapons.

"But at least let us help you in exchange for what you did for us," Sammy says.

"You must go," Anteaus says again. She wonders if he's getting tired of saying the same thing over and over to idiot Tau'ri.

"Right," Jack says firmly. "Well for now, we'll just go over here." He points at the other side of the clearing. "Excuse us."

He walks to the other side of the clearing. The three of them follow. It occurs to Dani that she's withholding important information from the others by not sharing her opinions of the sophistication of these people, but she's gotten really tired of "not now, Indiana," from Jack.

"All right," Jack says to Teal'c. "Do you know this, ah, Shackle?"

"He served in my command when I was first prime of Apophis," Teal'c says. And Dani is learning that if the Jaffa worship their masters as gods, they are fiercely loyal to their brothers in arms. Teal'c rejected more than his gods when he joined the Tau'ri. She wonders if that will make a difference to Shak'l.

"Jack," Dani says, "I think we need to ask—"

"Well, we can't just walk away. I mean, if we hadn't attacked Apophis, he wouldn't even be here," Sammy says.

"And we can't just kill him," Dani snaps. Everyone stares at her in shock (well, okay, Teal'c just stares).

"I wasn't considering it," Dani protests. "But what if we moved Shak'l back to where the Nox took him from before he wakes up? He wouldn't know about them then. And we can ask the Nox how they deal with the Goa'uld the rest of the time. Teal'c was here before. He didn't see them."

Jack shakes his head fractionally. "We'll take Shackle back to Earth with us. It's not as good as having Apophis, but it's a start."

"Apophis will not allow us to leave this world alive," Teal'c says gravely. "You have challenged him, and I have betrayed him. Even if we were to locate the Stargate, leaving this world will be difficult."

"Anteaus says he'll take us to the Gate," Dani says. "And if you're thinking of the Nox as a primitive race. I am telling you, with my mouth, using words, that they're not. All you have to do is look at their clothes. And not only are they not primitives, they can do a number of things we can't do—like learn a language telepathically in fifteen minutes. This is only a small family group. Where are the rest of them? What else can they do?"

"That's a problem for another time," Jack says dismissively.

(No goddammit it's not a problem and it's for right now!)

"So we're back to square one," Sammy says. "We can't leave Shak'l here and we'll never get him back to the Gate without running into Apophis."

"Is anybody listening to me?" Dani asks plaintively.

"Okay, we'll try and find out as much as we can about the Nox. It's part of why we came here, right?" Jack says.

(No it isn't. How can it be part of why we came here when we had no idea these people were here until about an hour ago? Yeah, Dr. Jackson, details.) "Yes," Dani says brightly, "I'll see if Anteaus and Lya and Ophir will talk to me."

Jack turns to Teal'c. "In the meantime, I think you better check on your buddy. Whatever we end up doing, I don't think he's going to wake up in a very good mood. Know what I mean?" Jack claps Teal'c on the back. Teal'c goes off in the direction of the hut that holds Shak'l.

"Now," says Jack, "Let's get to work. He leads them off to where the underbrush starts getting bushy and twiggy. "We don't have our weapons, and I don't think the Nox are going to give them back. So we'll need to make some."

Dani cannot prevent herself from rolling her eyes. "With what?" she asks. "To do what?"

"With what's here," Jack says. "So, if we run into Apophis again, we'll be prepared."

"Yeah, I'll just build a trebuchet and get right back to you," Dani says. "C'mon, Jack, even if you can build a spear or a bow, what good is it going to be against the kind of firepower Apophis has?"

"Any weapon is better then no weapon when it comes to survival," Sammy chimes in.

Yeah, Sammy, I remember my wonderful SERE vacation fondly. "You guys just don't want to give up, do you?"

"No," Jack says. He leaves and returns with a bow and a bark quiver of arrows. He sits down on a stump to inspect the bow. She wonders what he used for the bowstring. She wonders when he found time to make it.

Nafrayu enters the clearing. "Is that a weapon?" he asks eagerly.

"Yes—and you can't have it," Jack answers. (Dani thinks of Charlie O'Neill, the ghost at every feast. Jack simultaneously loves children and is terrified for their safety.) Jack gets to his feet and strides off. Nafrayu scampers after him.

Suddenly there's a buzzing noise overhead. Through the trees, Dani can see a Fenri. It's hovering. It looks like a scorpion with dragonfly wings, and it's about the size of a full grown tiger. She hears Jack shout to Nafrayu to run, then hears the muted twang of the improvised bowstring.

The arrow misses.

The Fenri, unimpressed, flies off.

Dani goes back to the encampment. She doesn't see Anteaus or Lya, but Ophir is there. He's moving among the trees, almost petting them. Finally he seems to find what he's looking for. He dabbles two fingers in the oozing sap, then licks his fingers. He looks at Dani and gestures toward the tree. She locates the spot and takes up some of the sap on her fingers, then puts her fingers in her mouth like he did.

The taste is very sweet and strange.

"Is this where you get your medicine? From the forest?" she asks. Is this how you brought us back from the dead?

"We get life from the forest," Ophir says. "From everything."

"But you brought us back to life. You must have a way to do that. Medicine. Or some knowledge that we don't have."

Ophir walks away, ignoring her. She follows him, because she's idiotic like that. "I guess what I'm saying is, we could learn a lot from you. I wish we could be friends. Can you teach me your ways?"

"You have much to learn," Ophir says. He motions to her to follow him this time, and she does.

"Can you teach me how you read minds? Do you learn it? Are you born with it?"

"Knowledge takes time. Over the years we teach the young to be wise," Ophir says.

Is he saying she's too old to learn? Not old enough?

"How old am I?" Ophir asks. "How do you mark time?"

"Ah... hours, days, years. A day is one revolution of our planet. A year is one revolution of our planet around its sun. We have 365 days in a year."

Ophir regards her thoughtfully. "Then, I am four hundred and thirty-two years old," he says.

Dani stares at him. This could be a case of punking the anthropologist—and she hopes it is—but she really doesn't think so. She thinks Ophir really is that old.

"You look great," she says weakly.

"Thank you," Ophir says. He continues through the forest. She follows.

"How long have the Goa'uld been coming here to hunt?" she asks.

"Oh, as long as I can remember," Ophir (who just said he's more than 400 years old) says.

"Why haven't you buried your Stargate?" Dani asks. "It might stop them."

Ophir nods. "And they would know someone had buried it."

Yeah. There's that.

After that she goes back to the main clearing. Jack apparently has enough arrows because Sam is there too. Dani sits down beside her and starts peeling a brightly-colored something from the bowl on the table. "I wonder if they'd mind if we took a bunch of this stuff back with us?" she says wistfully. Teal'c comes out of the hut with Shak'l in it and follows Jack as he walks over to them. (Dani heard shouting earlier. She thinks Jack must have been "talking" to Anteaus.)

"Ophir is 432 years old," she says, as Jack arrives.

"Guess what? They're not human," Jack says.

Nobody listens to me. Nobody. "No they aren't!" Dani says, with escaped lunatic good cheer. "Humanoid, parallel evolution, definitely far more advanced than... us. Different species!"

"That creature we came here for? That Fenri? It has no power at all. Zip," Jack says.

Sam has been watching their parallel monologues with a kind of bemusement. "Then how does it become invisible? Sir?"

Jack looks over his shoulder. "They do it," he says, sounding somewhere between exasperated and haunted. "The Nox hide it from us."

Of course they do.

"They make it invisible to protect it? That makes everything even worse," Sammy says.

"If Apophis finds out about the Nox, and what they can do..." Dani says slowly.

"He will try to possess their power. If he finds he cannot, he will bombard this planet's surface from high above. What Apophis cannot possess, he destroys," Teal'c says.

"So we have to get Shackle out of here," Jack says.

Anteaus appears out of nowhere standing beside the table. All of them jump but Teal'c.

"Will you stop doing that?" Jack yelps.

"We will not allow you," Anteaus says. "You cannot be trusted with your enemy."

Teal'c walks away, back to the hut where Shak'l is.

"Look, if we don't take him away from here, he'll tell the Goa'uld—the bad guys—all about you," Jack says, in a voice that passes for reasonable. (Barely.)

"We are not afraid," Anteaus says.

"Well, get afraid!" Jack snaps.

"Jack," Dani says, getting to her feet. Jack glares at her sullenly.

"Anteaus, it is our fault that this has happened. We know that and want to correct it," Dani says. "If you could just take him and leave him here in the forest where he won't see you when he wakes up—"

"Shak'l won't be hurt, you have our word," Sammy says. (This is a flat lie considering what almost happened to Teal'c when the NID wanted to dissect him but they can always hope.)

"We'll just... take him away with us. Back to our planet. You'll be safe then," Jack says.

"Only if that is his wish," Anteaus says, inflexibly.

"O'Neill!" That's Teal'c. Shouting. Jack turns and runs.

When they get to the hut—Shak'l's hut—Teal'c is clinging to the doorframe, looking ill. "The Nox woman," he says.

Teal'c's knees buckle and Jack catches him. Dani runs inside the hut.

Lya is lying against the wall of the hut, motionless and cold. She looks like a life-sized toy, so unnatural that Dani backs out of the hut. Jack has Teal'c's arm over his shoulders and is walking him carefully back across the clearing. Dani doesn't know what to do so she goes back to stand beside Sam. When Jack gets Teal'c seated, Sammy goes through her vest and looks for medical supplies. She finds a roll of gauze and some antiseptic and begins to clean Teal'c's wound. Dani can see the line a knife made going in, but there's very little blood.

Dani watches the hut as Ophir and Anteaus enter and come out with Lya. They disappear between the two huts.

"Where'd Ophir and Anteaus go with Lya?" she asks.

"Who knows where they ever go?" Jack says, clearly done with talking about the Nox for the day.

"I trained him well," Teal'c says broodingly, and once more they're talking almost at cross-purposes.

"Is he going to be all right?" Jack asks Sammy.

"Missed the symbiote," she says gamely.

"My wound will heal. We must find Shak'l."

"We will," Jack promises.

There's a noise.

It's a strange kind of noise, different from all the others in a day full of strange noises. She and Jack turn to see Lya lying on a bier, the other three Nox standing over her. Their arms are crossed in front of them, as if this is some sort of childrens' game, and they're holding hands. Their eyes are closed.

They fade in and out of visibility, like a heat mirage, and when the sight of them finally becomes stable, Lya slowly sits up. She smiles when the comforting hands of her fellow Nox touch her shoulders. Ophir and Nafrayu lead her off to one of the smaller huts, presumably to rest.

Anteaus comes over to the four of them, presumably to keep them from causing more trouble. Dani can't say he's wrong.

"You brought us back the same way?" Jack asks.

"Yes," Anteaus says.

"You become visible during the ceremony," Teal'c says.

"When we are performing the ritual of life we are unable to shield ourselves," Anteaus says. Dani thinks he likes Teal'c best.

"A weakness," Teal'c points out.

Anteaus nods. "We are hidden again."

Jack decides to take Teal'c to track down Shak'l, capturing him (hopefully) before he reaches Apophis. They're the two best trackers, and Jack is the only one who's armed, if you count the rattan bow and twig arrows. Dani and Sammy stay behind. Dani, with permission from Ophir, fills her pockets with Nox fruit to take home with her. She thinks of Secretary of Defense Brown and his "exotic spices" sneer.

Aside from the giant flying scorpion and the party of Goa'uld headhunters, it's really very peaceful here. About an hour later Jack and Teal'c return at a brisk trot.

"Shackle's found Pops and given him the good news," Jack says to Anteaus. "And now he's going to lead him right back here."

"Nothing has changed for us," Anteaus says. "We will take you to the doorway."

"Look, Anteaus, we can come back. We can bring reinforcements to help you," Jack says. (Yeah, and by the time they've cut through all the military red tape, the Nox will be extinct.)

Ophir joins them. "Anteaus, where is Nafrayu?"

Dani scrambles to her feet, the panic of certainty making her heart hammer.

"I told him to go home," Jack says. Nafrayu must have followed the two of them when he and Teal'c went to track Shak'l.

"I told you the same," Anteaus says. "The very young do not always do what they are told."

The very young and stupid Colonels, in other words.

They split into teams to search for Nafrayu; Sammy and Jack with Lya, Dani and Teal'c with Anteaus. Sammy and Lya find him first. Lya runs to him. Dani and Teal'c come out of the brush just in time to see that. Anteaus leads them over to the body.

It's a body because Nafrayu is dead. He lies jumbled half over a log in the bonelessness of death. His skin is colorless except for the faint pink circle on his forehead where Apophis burned his life away with his kara-kesh.

Jack with his bow and Sammy with her quarterstaff are looking around the area for threats. "Feel like a trap to you, Captain?" Jack asks.

"Yes, sir," Sammy says. Of course she does. If it's a trap you get to use your weapons. If it's a trap anything you do is justified. Dani doesn't want to hate her best friend, but can't Sammy see that she's been brainwashed into playing soldier?

Antaeus picks up Nafrayu. He glares at Jack. They follow him back to the Nox camp. It isn't far. Nafrayu was the bait, and they took it because they didn't have any choice.

When they reach the camp, Ophir takes Nafrayu's body and lays it on the bier where Lya was brought back to life. Lya says they must begin the ritual.

Jack approaches the bier. Antaeus steps in front of him. "Wait," Jack says.

"Jack, they can bring him back," Dani says urgently.

"Shak'l has told Apophis of your ritual…that you cannot remain hidden when you perform it," Teal'c says.

"But we must," Antaeus says simply.

"The minute you start that ritual, they'll attack," Jack says flatly.

"Give us our weapons. We can defend you," Sammy urges.

"There will be no killing," Antaeus says.

"All right, fine," Jack says, in a towering snit. "We'll find our own way back to the Stargate. We're certainly not going to sit around here and watch a slaughter."

He glares at Antaeus, then turns to leave. "Let's go."

"Jack, what—?" Dani says "You can't mean that—!"

"That's an order," Jack says, and that alone is enough to stop her dead in her tracks.

"You Neanderthal thug," she says. "If you think I—"

"That desire I originally had to shoot you is coming back, Dr. Jackson," Jack says. "Move it."

She turns to Antaeus. "Please," she says. "We were just... We were trying to help."

"Goodbye, Dani," Antaeus says.

Jack is walking away and the other two have followed. Dani walks quickly to catch up. Rebellion is a cold knot in her stomach. She doesn't like anyone on her team right now. (Except maybe Teal'c.)

"Think they bought it?" Jack asks, when they're away from the camp.

(What?)

"Almost believed it myself," Sammy says.

(Sammy is no longer her friend.)

Jack has taken a small object out of a pocket, binding it to one of his arrows with some black string.

"So you basically just lied to the Nox," Dani says.

"Well, Doctor, it was that or see them all killed. This way they have a chance," Jack says.

"What chance?" she asks.

"We ambush the bad guys. Shak'l thinks we're unarmed, Apophis thinks he's invulnerable."

"I think I've found a flaw in your plan. They're right," she says.

"The Colonel is guessing that the shield's deflection capability is directly proportional to the amount of kinetic energy being directed at it," Sammy says.

"Right," Jack says, too quickly. "So we hit the Jaffa with sticks and stones, and shoot Pops in the butt with a tranq. Everybody ready?"

She isn't. She wants to go back to the Nox. She isn't afraid. She's angry. What right does Jack O'Neill have to take away so many choices from so many people?

But she's complicit, hating herself as she covers Jack with forest debris to conceal him. Complicit as she hides behind a tree so she won't be seen. She thinks about all the Nox who will die because the four of them have come stumbling through the Stargate and screwed everything up. Maybe—if she gets through this alive—she should just go home and resign.

Apophis and the three Jaffa approach. Apophis sends Shak'l and another Jaffa on ahead. Teal'c springs out of concealment, decking his target with a large log and grabbing his staff weapon. Sam springs out of hiding and boots her victim in the crotch, and then hits him on the head with a rock as he doubles over.

Dani catches the staff weapon when Teal'c throws it to her. The absolute clarity of Us versus Them descends on her and she fires at Third Jaffa, then at the one pointing his ma'tok at Sam. It makes her feel vile and excited. She thinks she's going to be sick.

"No!" Jack shouts, and she turns to look at him. "They'll be back! They won't leave you alone!"

Dani looks around. All three Jaffa and Apophis have vanished. She sighs, and offers the staff weapon to Teal'c. He takes it.

They're right back where they started.

"Let's go," Jack says, wearily. "Teal'c, you take point."

They head down the trail and up a steep hill. Across a long meadow, then up another hill, and at the top...

"This is where the Stargate should be," Teal'c says.

Before she can ask Jack how she dials our on an invisible DHD, Anteaus appears.

"We have sent your enemies through the doorway," he says.

"They'll be back," Jack says dully.

"When you are gone, we will bury the doorway, as Dani suggested," Anteaus says.

(At least someone's been listening to her today.)

"They'll come in ships next time. They'll bring an army," Jack says. She doesn't know why he keeps saying the same things over and over. Maybe he can't stop, just like Anteaus couldn't stop telling them to leave.

"Perhaps," Antaeus says noncommittally. Nafrayu appears beside him. "He wanted to wish you farewell."

Dani kneels down before Nafrayu and hugs him. He smells like fresh hay and flowers. He's alive.

"I'm glad you're okay," Jack says to Nafrayu as Dani stands again. Sammy kneels to get her own hug. Dani's heart aches.

"And you are too. We sent your weapons back through the doorway," Nafrayu explains. (Yeah, they must be really thrilled back at the SGC right about now.)

"Speaking of the Stargate," Jack says, because it's still conspicuous by its absence and for that matter so are the DHD and the FRED.

"You fear for us, yes?" Anteaus asks.

"Yes," Jack says simply.

"Why?"

"It is our way that the strong defend the weak," Teal'c says.

"We're afraid you'll be hurt," Jack adds.

"Then before you go, O'Neill, there is something we would have you see." Anteaus waves his hand. In the clouds a floating city appears. Several Fenri are circling it like birds.

"My God," Jack says quietly.

"Fear not," Antaeus says simply.

Dani hears a kawhoosh behind her. When she turns, the Gate is visible and activated.

"Maybe one day you will learn that your way is not the only way," Anteaus says.

"We're sorry," Dani whispers. "Please. Can't I come back?"

But she's talking to nothingness. Anteaus and Nafrayu are gone.

All four of them look at the floating city.

"Why didn't he tell us about this before?" Jack says.

"In their own way, they did," Dani says. As she watches, the floating city vanishes again.

"It appears they possess a form of technology far greater than that of the Goa'uld," Teal'c says in satisfaction.

"They looked so helpless," Sammy says.

"And now they're going to bury their Stargate and we can never come back," Dani says bitterly. "We should've listened." You should've listened.

"'The very young do not always do as they're told,'" Jack says. "Just a little something Anteaus told me. Something worth taking back with us."

He gestures toward the active Gate, and they follow him up the stairs.

She's silent through most of the debriefing. The pile of Nox fruit she brought back sits in the middle of the conference table like an accusation. But who's being accused, and of what? She can't decide. Did she do her job? And what was it, exactly?

"That's what happens when you spend half your life in Special Forces," Sammy is saying cheerily. "Any weapon is better then no weapon when it comes to survival." Dani didn't hear what came before that. She wonders what it was.

"Dr. Jackson, what are your views?" General Hammond asks. "In your opinion, is there anything you could have handled differently?"

She thinks about it, but she doesn't have to think for long. "Not really, sir. We were blindsided. We've had no preparation for dealing with a truly advanced race like the Nox. We could have done better, yes. But we didn't do too badly."

"Faint praise," Jack says.

She gives him a basilisk look. Do not try my patience, Space Boy. "Nafrayu wanted to say goodbye," she points out. We did not traumatize the kid. We just got him killed. Temporarily.

"Well, I guess we'll have to chalk this one up to experience," General Hammond says. "And hope we can do better next time."

"Yessir," Jack says.

She's back in her office. She's cleared space on her desk for the teddy bear Jack gave her a year ago (it's wearing fatigues and a tac vest; Amelia in AA&T needle-pointed it miniature unit patches) and surrounded it with her collection of shrunken heads (Cognitive dissonance). They were out to kill the Jaffa—she was out to kill the Jaffa—and she can't make it all make sense in her mind. Is killing people wrong or not? Are the Jaffa people, or just the ones she likes? "You're no help," she tells the teddy bear.

She picks up the nearest shrunken head. "You aren't either."

Does it make a difference—why does it make a difference—that the Nox are safe and not all about to be slaughtered? "On the one hand, Nafrayu," she says to the shrunken head. But they didn't get Apophis. "On the other hand, Skaara," she picks up a second shrunken head.

"I'm losing my mind," she says.

"Hm?" Jack says from the doorway. She jumps and clutches the shrunken heads, then sets them down.

"When is it okay to kill people?" she asks plaintively. "I don't know that, Jack. How do you decide?"

He walks in and stands in front of her desk, fiddling with the shrunken heads. "Witch doctor," he says, mostly to himself. "You kill people when they're bad people. I'd like to tell you you'll never be in that position again, but you will. Then you can shrink their heads," he offers hopefully.

"Don't think I won't. I know how. I did one of these here when I lived with the Jivaro. That's what I do, Jack. I blend in with people. I learn 'how'. I become their friend. Then they teach me."

All the things I didn't do today.

"I don't think the Goa'uld want to make friends. And you already know what they want to teach you."

"Yeah," she says unhappily. She opens her desk drawer and scoops in three of the shrunken heads, then leans over the desk to grab the fourth one away from Jack. He immediately transfers his attentions to the bear.

"So we're good?" Jack says to the bear. He looks up at her.

"We're okay," she says. Because they are. And they aren't. And because other things are more important.