Stargate SG1: What Dreams May Come (19/21)
All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: What Dreams May Come
Chapter Nineteen
Daniel looked at himself, through eyes narrowed in pain and suspicion. He'd have felt better if Jack had stayed beside him rather than going to talk with Sam and Teal'c. Actually, he'd have felt even better if all three of them were standing closer to him. He didn't want to seem weak and helpless by asking them to, but he could admit it to himself. He still didn't understand what was going on; he'd thought he'd simply been Belos' prisoner and Jack had come back to rescue him. Being told that only his consciousness had been captured, that his body was dead, that Jack-and apparently Sam and Teal'c-could leave their bodies at will, and that this person he was looking at-this person with his face and his voice that wasn't actually him-was another version of him ... it was rapidly becoming too much for his weak and tired mind to process.
"You don't have to be afraid of me," the other him said.
Daniel straightened up as much as he could, which admittedly wasn't much, and stuck his chin out. "I'm not afraid of you."
The other him smiled. "Of course you are. I would be, in your place."
Daniel looked away from the other him, toward his friends, trying to draw as much strength as he could from the fact that they were simply there. "Yeah, well ... you're not me."
The other him shook his head. "No, I'm not. But I was."
Daniel refused to answer him and did his best imitation of ignoring him entirely.
The other him sighed. "Look, Daniel, we really don't have time for this, okay? I know there's a lot going on right now, and you don't really understand any of it, but you have got to trust me."
Daniel blinked and turned toward the other him slowly. "The last person who tried to help me ... Belos killed him right in front of me," he said softly.
"I know," the other him said with a slow, sad nod. "I felt him die."
Daniel closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall again. "I don't want that to happen to them," he said. "I won't let that happen to them."
"Then trust me," the other him said.
Daniel opened his eyes.
"Because that's the only way we're going to be able to prevent it."
Sam saw the shadow first, moving across the ceiling slowly. "Colonel," she said, looking up.
Jack turned and looked up, too, and his shoulders sagged slightly. "Crap," he muttered. "Oh, Daniel!" he called out. "Time to move!"
The three of them watched as the other Daniel waved his hands across Daniel's arms, and suddenly he was free. Daniel pulled his arms away from the wall, looked down at his hands, and then looked back up at Jack with a weak smile.
Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the floor.
"Daniel!" Jack yelled.
"No!" Sam cried out.
"Daniel Jackson!"
All three of them started forward, but the other Daniel held up his hand for them to stop. "You worry about Belos!" he called to them. "Let me worry about Daniel!"
"How about you worry about Belos?" Jack yelled back. "This whole thing was your idea, after all!"
"Jack!" the other Daniel shouted in anger.
Jack swallowed his protests when he realized that Belos' shadow had lowered itself to the ground in front of him and had changed shape. Instead of a formless shadow with glowing eyes, they were facing what had once been a Goa'ulded Unas, claws and all.
Jack glanced over his shoulder at Daniel's unmoving form on the floor, and realized there could be no question what exactly had caused those gashes.
"Claw marks," Jack whispered.
"O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.
"Those gashes - they're claw marks. Belos used him for some sort of scratching post." Jack's eyes narrowed in hatred as he turned to face Belos once more.
"Show time," Jack muttered. He looked at Teal'c and Sam, and he jerked his head in Belos' direction.
Teal'c charged forward with a roar and hit Belos straight on; Jack and Sam came at him from the sides. They fought as hard as they could, with everything that had, but it wasn't nearly enough. Belos raised his arms and all three of them flew in opposite directions, slamming into the walls, and found themselves pinned to them just as Daniel had been. The difference was that they were suspended by their invisible restraints three feet above the floor.
Belos snorted indignantly. "Insignificant little humans," he growled, and he started walking toward Daniel.
Jack saw and felt Sam and Teal'c struggling against their invisible bonds, and heard them both calling out Daniel's name in desperation.
Daniel was still lying where he'd fallen, and Belos was stalking toward him unimpeded. The other Daniel was nowhere to be seen-again. Whatever it was that he had planned, Jack somehow doubted that it involved the real Daniel lying on the floor, defenseless against Belos, while the rest of SG-1 hung from the walls, powerless to help him.
Jack drew a deep breath and did the only thing he could think of to postpone what seemed to be inevitable.
"You can't have him!" he cried out, letting his anger, fear, and frustration pour out of him. "He's ours, not yours!"
Belos laughed, the haunting sound echoing against the dull gray stone walls. "And if your god Belos were to humor you, O'Neill, what would you ask of me now? Ask your god, no, beg your god for that which you desire above all else."
"Daniel's life," Jack stated quietly.
"What is this life worth to you, human? Is he worth your pride? I would see you grovel at my feet."
"I don't do groveling," he returned with passion in his voice.
"You will," Belos answered evenly. "Or he will die."
Jack closed his eyes and drew in a ragged breath. "You'll kill him anyway," he finally whispered without opening his eyes again. "You'll kill him, and then you'll kill me, and then you'll kill them. And then you'll steal one of our bodies and kill everyone else, and there's nothing we can do to stop you." Jack looked at the alien in front of him, his eyes hard and cold and filled with hatred. "But if you want to see me beg, snakehead, you're going to be waiting a real long time."
"I can wait, O'Neill." Belos stopped his forward progression, but never took his eyes from Daniel's still form. "Four thousand years I have waited for this one to arrive. Four thousand years I have been trapped here, with only that pitiful Aynad for company. You know nothing of my patience, O'Neill." Belos turned away from Daniel to narrow his eyes at Jack. "If I wish to wait another four thousand years, I will do so. But I see no reason to wait." He turned back to Daniel again. "Not when the one I have waited all this time for is waiting right there-for me."
Jack saw something from Daniel, just a hint of movement, but enough to give him hope. What he was hoping for, he didn't know. He, Sam and Teal'c together hadn't been strong enough to so much as phase Belos-what could Daniel do against him alone, particularly as weak and hurt as he was?
Belos turned his back on Daniel and approached Jack menacingly. "Did you truly think to take my prize from me so easily? Did you truly think you could save him at all?"
Daniel moved again. Jack knew he had seen it that time, and he concentrated on keeping Belos talking. As Daniel pulled his arms up underneath him and started pushing himself up from the floor, Jack looked Belos directly in the eyes and said, "You've kept him alive this long. Where's the fun in killing him now?"
"I have kept him alive to amuse me," Belos answered. "While I waited, patiently, for you to return my new body to me. I never doubted that you would be returning. The fact that the other left with you was all the proof I needed of that."
Daniel had his feet beneath him and was starting to stand, slowly and awkwardly, as though he were having trouble controlling his own limbs. Or as though ... as though he was being controlled by something, or someone, that wasn't used to controlling him.
The other Daniel hadn't disappeared. He'd merged himself with theirs.
Jack had to hide the smile that threatened to creep across his face, and he glanced at Sam and Teal'c to make certain they were seeing what he was. The looks in their eyes convinced him that they were, and he turned back to Belos once more.
"That body doesn't belong to you," Jack said.
"Not yet," Belos answered. "But it has always been meant to, and it soon will."
"No," Daniel's voice argued. "It was never supposed to, and it never will again."
For the briefest of seconds, Belos' face showed his surprise, but he'd wiped it away and replaced it with a carefully constructed air of boredom before he'd turned to fully face a now upright, steady, and faintly glowing Daniel Jackson.
"You have tried this before, young one," Belos said with a smile. "It has never worked."
Daniel lifted his chin and stood straighter, his eyes hard and defiant. "Oh, but this time it will work, Belos, because I've got something the others never had. I know something that they never knew."
"What is that, little one?"
Daniel smiled back at Belos-a cold, calculating, malevolent smile that Jack thought he'd never see on that face.
"We have to do it together," Daniel answered. "Or we can't do it at all!"
As the last word crossed his lips, Daniel thrust his arms out to his sides with his palms facing up toward the ceiling. He threw his head back and closed his eyes.
And screamed.
A blinding flash of light filled the room. Jack, Sam and Teal'c closed their eyes and turned their heads away, but the brightness burned through their eyelids. It was less than a second before the flash had faded away, but it seemed to Jack that the room was still brighter than it had been before. He opened his eyes and blinked away the last remnants of the flash, and he saw why.
The room was filled with thousands of energy clouds, each burning with an intense white light. Jack, Sam and Teal'c looked on in awe as Daniel raised his arms above his head, and the clouds danced around him, seemingly at his command.
Belos roared in anger.
"You can defeat one of us," Daniel said. "But you cannot possibly defeat all of us. It's time for you to see the true power that you've been chasing for the past four thousand years-the power that you could never achieve for yourself, but that you gave to us."
Daniel let his arms fall to his sides, and the energy clouds flew toward Belos. They surrounded him and swarmed around him; lightning danced between them and arched out toward him. Belos roared again, this time in pain and frustration. Jack could see the small burn marks that appeared on Belos everywhere the clouds struck him with their energy. He began to believe, once again, that his team would survive.
He looked directly into Belos' eyes only to realize that the alien was staring back at him, with eyes narrowed in hatred. "Your words were truth, O'Neill. I will kill you all. But I will start with you!"
Jack felt an invisible hand wrap around his throat. He opened his mouth to yell out a protest, but before he could the invisible fingers had tightened, stealing his breath and his voice. His arms fought against the restraints that held him to the wall; he wanted nothing more than to pry those choking fingers away from his throat so he could breathe again, but his struggles were useless.
"Belos!" he heard Daniel cry out. "Leave him alone!"
Jack's vision was starting to darken around the edges. He was losing this battle, and he was losing it quickly. His ears were muffled, as though he were underwater. His lips were numb, his head felt as though it were going to explode, and his lungs were screaming for air. He struggled harder against the restraints, knowing that he was wasting what precious little oxygen he had left but too far gone to stop himself.
"Damn you!" Daniel screamed. "Not again!"
Jack didn't know if he'd actually seen what he thought he saw, or if his oxygen-starved brain was hallucinating, but he could have sworn that lightning flew out of Daniel's fingers.
The fingers around his throat disappeared, and Jack drew a ragged, heaving breath. His ears opened back up enough that he could hear Sam and Teal'c yelling his name, and he wondered how long they'd been doing that. From the hoarseness of their voices, it had been quite a long while.
Jack opened his eyes slowly and blinked at the scene before him. The multitudinous energy clouds had retreated to the corners of the ceiling, and Belos was lying sprawled on the floor with a positively livid Daniel Jackson standing over him. Daniel was breathing heavily, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly. His face was flushed with anger and exertion. Small bolts of lightning still danced randomly across the ends of his fingers.
"Let them go," Daniel ordered, his voice low and haggard. "Now!"
Jack barely had time to register the words before the invisible restraints vanished as quickly as the fingers had, and he found himself crashing to the floor. He bent his knees just before his feet landed on the stone and threw himself into a roll to absorb the brunt of the impact. He looked to his right quickly and saw Teal'c and Sam descending in much the same way.
"Sir, are you all right?" Sam was on her feet and heading toward him before he'd even gotten back to his knees; Teal'c was right on her heels.
"O'Neill?"
"Fi ..." Jack was shocked at how weak his voice sounded. He took a deep breath, thrilled to be able to do so, and cleared his throat. "I'm fine," he replied. He was still a bit hoarse, but it was better than the alternative.
"Jack?" Daniel called across his shoulder. "You okay?"
"Yeah," he answered. "You?"
In response, Daniel took two steps back from where he was standing. Sam gasped when she saw another Daniel, their Daniel, lying on the floor at his feet. At some point during the confusion, they had apparently separated again.
Jack was running forward before he ever realized he was moving, and Sam and Teal'c were right behind him. Jack fell to his knees at Daniel's side and rolled him over gently. Even if he hadn't known from across the room that this was their Daniel, the slashed face and chest would have made it obvious.
"What happened to him?" Jack demanded of the other Daniel, looking up.
The other Daniel looked back down at theirs sadly. "He took control when Belos threatened you. He shouldn't have been strong enough to do that, but I ... I couldn't stop him. He was so weak to begin with, and attacking Belos like that ..." he broke off and looked Jack directly in the eye. "It took everything he had left, Jack. I couldn't stop him."
"He did that for me?" Jack asked incredulously. He looked down once more at Daniel's battered face, and then up to Sam and Teal'c. "No ... he did that for us. He saved us. All by himself. Didn't he?"
The other Daniel nodded. "He did the one thing that none of the rest of us have ever been able to do."
A moan pulled their attention back to their Daniel again. Jack leaned forward and placed his hand against the side of Daniel's face. He was completely focused on Daniel, but he couldn't help but notice how right the contact felt. How had he not realized that the Daniel they'd had at the SGC had felt completely wrong?
"Daniel?" he said quietly. "You with us?"
Daniel's eyes fluttered a few times before opening slowly. The blue eyes were cloudy and unfocused, and he blinked.
"We're right here, Daniel," Sam said as she knelt at his other side. She reached out and wrapped her hand around his upper arm, biting back the tears that she felt forming in her eyes. How long had it been since she'd been able to do something so simple, so ordinary, as touch Daniel's arm?
Teal'c looked down at his teammates on the floor. He saw that Jack and Sam were somehow affected by their ability to touch Daniel, but there was more to it than that. Daniel was drawing all of his strength from them. The other had said that Daniel had nothing left; the other was wrong.
Daniel had them.
Without another thought, Teal'c knelt beside Jack and grasped Daniel's hand firmly. "We are united, Daniel Jackson."
Daniel blinked once more, drew a ragged breath, and finally focused on the faces around him. "You're okay," he breathed.
"Thanks to you," Jack answered. "How'd you do that?"
Daniel looked from Jack to Sam to Teal'c, as though he were only just realizing that they were there. He couldn't help but smile at the feeling of safety and security that came over him. Belos hadn't killed them-the nightmare wasn't going to come true-and he wasn't alone any more.
"I don't ... I don't know," he answered truthfully. "I just did it."
"Can you sit up, Daniel?" Sam asked.
"Um ... yeah, I think so."
Daniel tried to lift himself up, but found that he didn't have to work very hard. Teal'c's grasp on his hand tightened, Sam's hands gripped his arms firmly, and Jack's arm was suddenly behind his shoulders. Together, they managed to lift him into a sitting position and then, slowly, back to his feet again.
Teal'c glanced back down at Belos, where he still lay on the floor, and saw the Unas' form begin to stir. "O'Neill!" he said urgently. "Belos appears to be waking. We must leave this place."
Jack turned to look behind him, and was not surprised to see the other Daniel had stepped between them and the fallen Goa'uld. The energy clouds had descended once more, hovering right above the other Daniel's shoulders.
"What do we do now?" Jack asked him.
The other Daniel didn't turn around, didn't move his head, didn't remove his attention from Belos.
"You take Daniel and run," he answered.
"What about you?" Jack asked.
Daniel turned his head, looked Jack straight in the eye, and spoke very slowly and very carefully. "Take Daniel and run."
They took Daniel and ran.
Chapter Nineteen
Daniel looked at himself, through eyes narrowed in pain and suspicion. He'd have felt better if Jack had stayed beside him rather than going to talk with Sam and Teal'c. Actually, he'd have felt even better if all three of them were standing closer to him. He didn't want to seem weak and helpless by asking them to, but he could admit it to himself. He still didn't understand what was going on; he'd thought he'd simply been Belos' prisoner and Jack had come back to rescue him. Being told that only his consciousness had been captured, that his body was dead, that Jack-and apparently Sam and Teal'c-could leave their bodies at will, and that this person he was looking at-this person with his face and his voice that wasn't actually him-was another version of him ... it was rapidly becoming too much for his weak and tired mind to process.
"You don't have to be afraid of me," the other him said.
Daniel straightened up as much as he could, which admittedly wasn't much, and stuck his chin out. "I'm not afraid of you."
The other him smiled. "Of course you are. I would be, in your place."
Daniel looked away from the other him, toward his friends, trying to draw as much strength as he could from the fact that they were simply there. "Yeah, well ... you're not me."
The other him shook his head. "No, I'm not. But I was."
Daniel refused to answer him and did his best imitation of ignoring him entirely.
The other him sighed. "Look, Daniel, we really don't have time for this, okay? I know there's a lot going on right now, and you don't really understand any of it, but you have got to trust me."
Daniel blinked and turned toward the other him slowly. "The last person who tried to help me ... Belos killed him right in front of me," he said softly.
"I know," the other him said with a slow, sad nod. "I felt him die."
Daniel closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall again. "I don't want that to happen to them," he said. "I won't let that happen to them."
"Then trust me," the other him said.
Daniel opened his eyes.
"Because that's the only way we're going to be able to prevent it."
Sam saw the shadow first, moving across the ceiling slowly. "Colonel," she said, looking up.
Jack turned and looked up, too, and his shoulders sagged slightly. "Crap," he muttered. "Oh, Daniel!" he called out. "Time to move!"
The three of them watched as the other Daniel waved his hands across Daniel's arms, and suddenly he was free. Daniel pulled his arms away from the wall, looked down at his hands, and then looked back up at Jack with a weak smile.
Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the floor.
"Daniel!" Jack yelled.
"No!" Sam cried out.
"Daniel Jackson!"
All three of them started forward, but the other Daniel held up his hand for them to stop. "You worry about Belos!" he called to them. "Let me worry about Daniel!"
"How about you worry about Belos?" Jack yelled back. "This whole thing was your idea, after all!"
"Jack!" the other Daniel shouted in anger.
Jack swallowed his protests when he realized that Belos' shadow had lowered itself to the ground in front of him and had changed shape. Instead of a formless shadow with glowing eyes, they were facing what had once been a Goa'ulded Unas, claws and all.
Jack glanced over his shoulder at Daniel's unmoving form on the floor, and realized there could be no question what exactly had caused those gashes.
"Claw marks," Jack whispered.
"O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.
"Those gashes - they're claw marks. Belos used him for some sort of scratching post." Jack's eyes narrowed in hatred as he turned to face Belos once more.
"Show time," Jack muttered. He looked at Teal'c and Sam, and he jerked his head in Belos' direction.
Teal'c charged forward with a roar and hit Belos straight on; Jack and Sam came at him from the sides. They fought as hard as they could, with everything that had, but it wasn't nearly enough. Belos raised his arms and all three of them flew in opposite directions, slamming into the walls, and found themselves pinned to them just as Daniel had been. The difference was that they were suspended by their invisible restraints three feet above the floor.
Belos snorted indignantly. "Insignificant little humans," he growled, and he started walking toward Daniel.
Jack saw and felt Sam and Teal'c struggling against their invisible bonds, and heard them both calling out Daniel's name in desperation.
Daniel was still lying where he'd fallen, and Belos was stalking toward him unimpeded. The other Daniel was nowhere to be seen-again. Whatever it was that he had planned, Jack somehow doubted that it involved the real Daniel lying on the floor, defenseless against Belos, while the rest of SG-1 hung from the walls, powerless to help him.
Jack drew a deep breath and did the only thing he could think of to postpone what seemed to be inevitable.
"You can't have him!" he cried out, letting his anger, fear, and frustration pour out of him. "He's ours, not yours!"
Belos laughed, the haunting sound echoing against the dull gray stone walls. "And if your god Belos were to humor you, O'Neill, what would you ask of me now? Ask your god, no, beg your god for that which you desire above all else."
"Daniel's life," Jack stated quietly.
"What is this life worth to you, human? Is he worth your pride? I would see you grovel at my feet."
"I don't do groveling," he returned with passion in his voice.
"You will," Belos answered evenly. "Or he will die."
Jack closed his eyes and drew in a ragged breath. "You'll kill him anyway," he finally whispered without opening his eyes again. "You'll kill him, and then you'll kill me, and then you'll kill them. And then you'll steal one of our bodies and kill everyone else, and there's nothing we can do to stop you." Jack looked at the alien in front of him, his eyes hard and cold and filled with hatred. "But if you want to see me beg, snakehead, you're going to be waiting a real long time."
"I can wait, O'Neill." Belos stopped his forward progression, but never took his eyes from Daniel's still form. "Four thousand years I have waited for this one to arrive. Four thousand years I have been trapped here, with only that pitiful Aynad for company. You know nothing of my patience, O'Neill." Belos turned away from Daniel to narrow his eyes at Jack. "If I wish to wait another four thousand years, I will do so. But I see no reason to wait." He turned back to Daniel again. "Not when the one I have waited all this time for is waiting right there-for me."
Jack saw something from Daniel, just a hint of movement, but enough to give him hope. What he was hoping for, he didn't know. He, Sam and Teal'c together hadn't been strong enough to so much as phase Belos-what could Daniel do against him alone, particularly as weak and hurt as he was?
Belos turned his back on Daniel and approached Jack menacingly. "Did you truly think to take my prize from me so easily? Did you truly think you could save him at all?"
Daniel moved again. Jack knew he had seen it that time, and he concentrated on keeping Belos talking. As Daniel pulled his arms up underneath him and started pushing himself up from the floor, Jack looked Belos directly in the eyes and said, "You've kept him alive this long. Where's the fun in killing him now?"
"I have kept him alive to amuse me," Belos answered. "While I waited, patiently, for you to return my new body to me. I never doubted that you would be returning. The fact that the other left with you was all the proof I needed of that."
Daniel had his feet beneath him and was starting to stand, slowly and awkwardly, as though he were having trouble controlling his own limbs. Or as though ... as though he was being controlled by something, or someone, that wasn't used to controlling him.
The other Daniel hadn't disappeared. He'd merged himself with theirs.
Jack had to hide the smile that threatened to creep across his face, and he glanced at Sam and Teal'c to make certain they were seeing what he was. The looks in their eyes convinced him that they were, and he turned back to Belos once more.
"That body doesn't belong to you," Jack said.
"Not yet," Belos answered. "But it has always been meant to, and it soon will."
"No," Daniel's voice argued. "It was never supposed to, and it never will again."
For the briefest of seconds, Belos' face showed his surprise, but he'd wiped it away and replaced it with a carefully constructed air of boredom before he'd turned to fully face a now upright, steady, and faintly glowing Daniel Jackson.
"You have tried this before, young one," Belos said with a smile. "It has never worked."
Daniel lifted his chin and stood straighter, his eyes hard and defiant. "Oh, but this time it will work, Belos, because I've got something the others never had. I know something that they never knew."
"What is that, little one?"
Daniel smiled back at Belos-a cold, calculating, malevolent smile that Jack thought he'd never see on that face.
"We have to do it together," Daniel answered. "Or we can't do it at all!"
As the last word crossed his lips, Daniel thrust his arms out to his sides with his palms facing up toward the ceiling. He threw his head back and closed his eyes.
And screamed.
A blinding flash of light filled the room. Jack, Sam and Teal'c closed their eyes and turned their heads away, but the brightness burned through their eyelids. It was less than a second before the flash had faded away, but it seemed to Jack that the room was still brighter than it had been before. He opened his eyes and blinked away the last remnants of the flash, and he saw why.
The room was filled with thousands of energy clouds, each burning with an intense white light. Jack, Sam and Teal'c looked on in awe as Daniel raised his arms above his head, and the clouds danced around him, seemingly at his command.
Belos roared in anger.
"You can defeat one of us," Daniel said. "But you cannot possibly defeat all of us. It's time for you to see the true power that you've been chasing for the past four thousand years-the power that you could never achieve for yourself, but that you gave to us."
Daniel let his arms fall to his sides, and the energy clouds flew toward Belos. They surrounded him and swarmed around him; lightning danced between them and arched out toward him. Belos roared again, this time in pain and frustration. Jack could see the small burn marks that appeared on Belos everywhere the clouds struck him with their energy. He began to believe, once again, that his team would survive.
He looked directly into Belos' eyes only to realize that the alien was staring back at him, with eyes narrowed in hatred. "Your words were truth, O'Neill. I will kill you all. But I will start with you!"
Jack felt an invisible hand wrap around his throat. He opened his mouth to yell out a protest, but before he could the invisible fingers had tightened, stealing his breath and his voice. His arms fought against the restraints that held him to the wall; he wanted nothing more than to pry those choking fingers away from his throat so he could breathe again, but his struggles were useless.
"Belos!" he heard Daniel cry out. "Leave him alone!"
Jack's vision was starting to darken around the edges. He was losing this battle, and he was losing it quickly. His ears were muffled, as though he were underwater. His lips were numb, his head felt as though it were going to explode, and his lungs were screaming for air. He struggled harder against the restraints, knowing that he was wasting what precious little oxygen he had left but too far gone to stop himself.
"Damn you!" Daniel screamed. "Not again!"
Jack didn't know if he'd actually seen what he thought he saw, or if his oxygen-starved brain was hallucinating, but he could have sworn that lightning flew out of Daniel's fingers.
The fingers around his throat disappeared, and Jack drew a ragged, heaving breath. His ears opened back up enough that he could hear Sam and Teal'c yelling his name, and he wondered how long they'd been doing that. From the hoarseness of their voices, it had been quite a long while.
Jack opened his eyes slowly and blinked at the scene before him. The multitudinous energy clouds had retreated to the corners of the ceiling, and Belos was lying sprawled on the floor with a positively livid Daniel Jackson standing over him. Daniel was breathing heavily, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly. His face was flushed with anger and exertion. Small bolts of lightning still danced randomly across the ends of his fingers.
"Let them go," Daniel ordered, his voice low and haggard. "Now!"
Jack barely had time to register the words before the invisible restraints vanished as quickly as the fingers had, and he found himself crashing to the floor. He bent his knees just before his feet landed on the stone and threw himself into a roll to absorb the brunt of the impact. He looked to his right quickly and saw Teal'c and Sam descending in much the same way.
"Sir, are you all right?" Sam was on her feet and heading toward him before he'd even gotten back to his knees; Teal'c was right on her heels.
"O'Neill?"
"Fi ..." Jack was shocked at how weak his voice sounded. He took a deep breath, thrilled to be able to do so, and cleared his throat. "I'm fine," he replied. He was still a bit hoarse, but it was better than the alternative.
"Jack?" Daniel called across his shoulder. "You okay?"
"Yeah," he answered. "You?"
In response, Daniel took two steps back from where he was standing. Sam gasped when she saw another Daniel, their Daniel, lying on the floor at his feet. At some point during the confusion, they had apparently separated again.
Jack was running forward before he ever realized he was moving, and Sam and Teal'c were right behind him. Jack fell to his knees at Daniel's side and rolled him over gently. Even if he hadn't known from across the room that this was their Daniel, the slashed face and chest would have made it obvious.
"What happened to him?" Jack demanded of the other Daniel, looking up.
The other Daniel looked back down at theirs sadly. "He took control when Belos threatened you. He shouldn't have been strong enough to do that, but I ... I couldn't stop him. He was so weak to begin with, and attacking Belos like that ..." he broke off and looked Jack directly in the eye. "It took everything he had left, Jack. I couldn't stop him."
"He did that for me?" Jack asked incredulously. He looked down once more at Daniel's battered face, and then up to Sam and Teal'c. "No ... he did that for us. He saved us. All by himself. Didn't he?"
The other Daniel nodded. "He did the one thing that none of the rest of us have ever been able to do."
A moan pulled their attention back to their Daniel again. Jack leaned forward and placed his hand against the side of Daniel's face. He was completely focused on Daniel, but he couldn't help but notice how right the contact felt. How had he not realized that the Daniel they'd had at the SGC had felt completely wrong?
"Daniel?" he said quietly. "You with us?"
Daniel's eyes fluttered a few times before opening slowly. The blue eyes were cloudy and unfocused, and he blinked.
"We're right here, Daniel," Sam said as she knelt at his other side. She reached out and wrapped her hand around his upper arm, biting back the tears that she felt forming in her eyes. How long had it been since she'd been able to do something so simple, so ordinary, as touch Daniel's arm?
Teal'c looked down at his teammates on the floor. He saw that Jack and Sam were somehow affected by their ability to touch Daniel, but there was more to it than that. Daniel was drawing all of his strength from them. The other had said that Daniel had nothing left; the other was wrong.
Daniel had them.
Without another thought, Teal'c knelt beside Jack and grasped Daniel's hand firmly. "We are united, Daniel Jackson."
Daniel blinked once more, drew a ragged breath, and finally focused on the faces around him. "You're okay," he breathed.
"Thanks to you," Jack answered. "How'd you do that?"
Daniel looked from Jack to Sam to Teal'c, as though he were only just realizing that they were there. He couldn't help but smile at the feeling of safety and security that came over him. Belos hadn't killed them-the nightmare wasn't going to come true-and he wasn't alone any more.
"I don't ... I don't know," he answered truthfully. "I just did it."
"Can you sit up, Daniel?" Sam asked.
"Um ... yeah, I think so."
Daniel tried to lift himself up, but found that he didn't have to work very hard. Teal'c's grasp on his hand tightened, Sam's hands gripped his arms firmly, and Jack's arm was suddenly behind his shoulders. Together, they managed to lift him into a sitting position and then, slowly, back to his feet again.
Teal'c glanced back down at Belos, where he still lay on the floor, and saw the Unas' form begin to stir. "O'Neill!" he said urgently. "Belos appears to be waking. We must leave this place."
Jack turned to look behind him, and was not surprised to see the other Daniel had stepped between them and the fallen Goa'uld. The energy clouds had descended once more, hovering right above the other Daniel's shoulders.
"What do we do now?" Jack asked him.
The other Daniel didn't turn around, didn't move his head, didn't remove his attention from Belos.
"You take Daniel and run," he answered.
"What about you?" Jack asked.
Daniel turned his head, looked Jack straight in the eye, and spoke very slowly and very carefully. "Take Daniel and run."
They took Daniel and ran.