Journeys (1b/5)
Title: Journeys (Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Part Ia
Present Time
Ra's Pyramid, Abydos
"You hold tightly to them," Oma Desala said. Daniel turned away from the vision of his friends and his family around him. Well, they were the reality, technically; he was the one in a vision now, while they were the ones who were real. "As they do to you."
"They're...everything," Daniel explained. She folded her hands in front of herself but didn't answer. "Do you understand?"
"You must release your burden if you are to continue your journey," she told him.
He looked around himself. He knew he was in the catacombs of an Abydonian pyramid, physically, but everything looked and felt like his office. Robert's office, at first, and then both of theirs, and then Daniel's, and soon no one's. There was even a report he hadn't finished--he'd put it aside when Ren'al had come with news of the System Lords' summit. Daniel picked it up, aware of Oma Desala still standing near him, even as occasional whispers trickled through from his friends, just out of sight.
"Continue my journey," Daniel said. "What does that mean? What's after all this?"
Oma's expression didn't change. "If you know immediately the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked long ago."
He resisted the urge to rip apart the phantom paper in his phantom hands. "I'm dying," he said. "I really don't think I have time to figure out what you mean now."
"One cannot reach enlightenment by running from death," she chided.
"Right. Right, okay," Daniel said, knowing he couldn't be more than a day from death, though he didn't know how time flowed here. "Then...then tell me what to do."
"Many roads lead to the great path," Oma said. "Only the willing find their way."
"I'm willing," Daniel said. "You're talking about Ascension, right, to another plane? Like what you told me about on Kheb? I'm willing."
"The river tells no lies," she said, "though, standing on the shore, the dishonest man still hears them."
Daniel clenched his fists and realized there was nothing in his hands--his desk and everything had returned to the way it had been. "Okay," he said, steeling himself and deciding that, if he was about to die, he really had nothing to lose by being absolutely truthful. "Fine. You want the truth? I don't want to die--I don't want to leave, not while this war is still going on, and if that makes me a coward or...or...or unenlightened, then I guess that's going to be a problem."
Oma gave him a tiny smile but didn't speak.
Feeling stubborn and terrified all at once, Daniel folded his arms.
In the end, she was more patient than he was and he was still dying, so he said, "Anubis is out there. I don't know much about him and how he got so powerful or..." Oma narrowed her eyes. "You know! You must know what I'm talking about, right, with Anubis and everything? All you...big...glowy octopuses..." Daniel stopped. "I sound like Jack."
"Daniel?" Jack's voice said.
The room began to fade around him. Daniel felt the beginnings of pain and shied away reflexively, pulling the illusion more firmly around him.
And then, "Daniel, are you--can you still hear us?"
Turning toward Jack's voice, Daniel felt the peaceful vision slip away, and then--
...x...
It hurt to breathe.
Perhaps, if he had been required to do anything aside from breathing, Daniel might have understood more clearly what else was hurting; for now, he only knew it felt like he was being crushed every time he took a breath. Janet's blurry face hovered just at the edge of his vision.
"Jack," he managed. He knew his lips were moving, but he didn't hear the words. He couldn't think. There was something wrong with him, more than just medicine and pain clouding his thoughts.
"Hey," Jack said, kneeling beside him on the floor of the pyramid. His knees probably hurt. Others were spread in the background, and if Daniel's eyes had been working properly or his head less fuzzy, he might have been able to identify them. "Look. Uh, I just wanted to...say..."
Daniel felt his lips twitch as Jack trailed off and scratched his head. But Daniel thought he knew everything he needed to know and hear from Jack, and he still had something to say himself. "Not...your fault," he said, fighting past the pain to draw enough air to speak. "I had to."
Jack's expression went carefully blank. "I almost adopted you once," he said, almost to himself. "Feels like a long time ago."
They didn't talk about that much; things had changed. It wasn't something they could afford to have between them, interfering in the field or on the job or in their lives. It had been easier in some ways when they had been rescuer and rescued or the colonel and the kid, but being Jack and Daniel was better, even though it was harder.
"Didn't need...father," Daniel said, frustrated that he couldn't explain it properly. He had the words somewhere, but they wouldn't come out, and he didn't have the strength to say them. They would have been caught in a loop of father and child, and he'd needed Jack more than he'd needed a father.
And he only needed Jack's expression to remember that neither of them really needed words anyway, not for this. "I, uh," Jack said quietly. "You know...that I--"
"Mm," Daniel said, despite not knowing exactly what Jack had been about to say. Whatever it was, he knew it already, and if he didn't, it wasn't worth saying. "Yes."
"Dan'yel," his brother's voice said, and Daniel fought his drooping eyelids and the creeping black bliss long enough to see Skaara join Jack at his side and hear him say, "Sinu'ai--"
...x...
Daniel sighed in relief and disappointment when he found himself back in his office, dressed as if to go back to work, free of pain and with his friends nowhere in sight.
"Your name will be known to all," Skaara was saying, somewhere just out of view.
"I don't want that," Daniel said. "Skaara, you know better than that."
"But I will remember you as you were," Skaara finished. "You are our brother." Daniel turned around to see Skaara kneeling just before the desk in his mind. Sha'uri stood just behind, almost as much mother to Daniel as she had been sister, and for a moment, he imagined that she met his gaze, but she was looking past him.
"Maybe I'll see Shifu," Daniel said, Sha'uri's face reminding him of that possibility.
They disappeared.
He touched a desk that wasn't there with fingers that didn't really feel and wondered aloud, "Why are we here? Why my office at the SGC?"
"The journey was begun years ago," Oma Desala said.
Deciding to take that at what passed for face value for Ascended beings, Daniel said, "And my journey began at the SGC, in this office. Well, not if you count the part about being kidnapped and carried through the Stargate..." Oma raised an eyebrow. "Willingness," he amended. "It's about choices. When I chose this life, it was at the SGC, not in a prison on Chulak."
She didn't answer. Then again, there were a lot of other journeys to which she could be referring. He'd started another journey a few years ago, too, on Kheb, although he'd fooled himself about so many things that time that he wasn't sure that had been real, either.
The point was that the journey wasn't over. He hadn't finished whatever he'd thought he'd started on Kheb, and this, here... He looked back down at his desk and couldn't avoid the wave of mingled nostalgia and urgency that swept over him. "I'm not done," he said.
"At the end of one path, another begins," Oma said.
"There is such a thing as a cul-de-sac," Daniel quipped, but then the idea that he might have reached a dead end was almost unbearable. He could face anything ahead, he thought, except the possibility that it was all over.
"Not all paths are easy to reach," she acknowledged.
Daniel bit his lip. "We killed Apophis," he explained, needing her to understand. "And we always knew that wasn't going to be it, and even the Goa'uld wouldn’t be the end, not really, but now, with Anubis...he's back, and it's worse. You have to know that, right?"
"All things are known to those who have achieved enlightenment."
"So then you know," Daniel said. "You know how much we have to do. I can't leave now." He sighed, frustrated. "Can't you...heal me? Or something?" Mother Nature could surely heal if she could kill the way that Daniel knew she could.
She tilted her head slightly. "Some paths," she said, "bear greater fruit than others."
"Is that a 'no?'"
"Your bodily wounds are not for me to heal. But for those who have achieved Ascension, physical form has no meaning."
He started to ask exactly what Ascension entailed--if that was the path with more fruit--but decided to avoid another warning about cooking meals on a candle. "Why me?" Daniel said.
Oma spread her arms. "The journey is for all who are willing. You have taken the first steps on the journey."
"No, that's not good enough," Daniel said, too annoyed to care (yet) that he was wasting time arguing against this when he'd been pleading for her to help him just moments ago. "I can Ascend just because I happened to be the one who went to Kheb? People are dying all the time. People have died to save hundreds--millions of others. They've died for me. How are they not worthy?"
"The path is not smooth," Oma said. "Nor is it easy to find."
"What makes me so special? That I was on that one mission? That I knew Shifu? Is this some...some sort of otherworldly nepotism? What?"
"When you came to Kheb," Oma said, "you took the beginning of an unknown journey when it was offered to you. Perhaps you do not realize how few people are willing to take that step."
"Well, then, why don't you show the path to them?" Daniel snapped.
"I show it now to you," she said calmly.
"Daniel?" Sam said. He looked around to see his friend kneeling, touching her fingers to what must be the edge of a stretcher where his body was lying. She'd been crying recently. Daniel sighed. "I don't know if you can hear me."
"He's in a coma, Sam," Janet said.
"I can hear you," Daniel said, even though he knew his lips weren't speaking, and she didn't hear.
Sam bit her lip, looking over her shoulder, then turned back to him, reaching out one hand. Daniel closed his eyes and imagined he could feel her fingers gently smoothing his hair, the way she did when he was hurt. "I don't know if you, uh, heard before," she said, "but my dad's okay. He told us all about Anubis."
"Good," Daniel said, genuinely relieved.
"We still don't know exactly what happened to you. I mean, we can guess. But you were pretty worried about Anubis, so..." She cleared her throat. "I thought you should know."
"What about Selmak?" he said.
"You're probably wondering about Selmak," Sam said, and Daniel allowed himself a moment to think of how much he'd miss these moments when he could barely tell where his thoughts ended and hers began. "He, uh, didn't make it." Daniel bit his lip hard. "But Dad says he died doing what he thought was right."
"He died because I killed him," he said.
"And he says to th..." She stopped, rubbed her nose, and tried again. "...to thank you for...for saving us and not letting Selmak's death be for nothing."
But he knew that look on her face; he knew something was missing. "Sam? What aren't you telling me?" Was Jacob alive but gravely wounded? Had they had to do something drastic to save him?
She took a deep breath. "Um. I want to...thank you, too. I've learned so much--we've learned so much together, Daniel. You've...you make me think about things that I would never have thought about before. You changed me. You change people. And I'm sorry we let this happen."
"Don't be sorry," Daniel said, anxious that he might die knowing that all of his friends felt bad about it. Everyone had always felt vaguely guilty about his situation, he knew that, and if they thought he was dead because they hadn't guarded him well enough... "Sam, don't."
But her specter was fading already, and the last he saw of Sam was her miserable expression as she stared at his broken body, still talking, but her words fading, becoming too muffled for him to hear.
And Oma was still watching. He wondered what she saw--him, here, whole and healthy in his mind, or a weak and dying man surrounded by those holding a last vigil. Maybe she could see both and knew just how close he was to being gone. "You hold fast to this world," she observed again.
Daniel stared at the spot where Sam's image had vanished. "It's my world," he said. "They're my people."
"Beyond this plane," she said, "the worlds are endless."
"All of that can be mine," he said, half in question.
She nodded once. "If you choose it."
"I'm not ready," he said honestly, and if it was selfish or cowardly, it was at least true. "I don't... There's so much left to do." There was so much life left to live. He was smart, young, and strong. He'd seen more war than many of Earth's seasoned veterans. By the time he was no longer the youngest member of the SGC, only people like Teal'c, Jack, and Sam would be more experienced, either at a desk or in negotiations or in battle, and he would have been just reaching the peak of his abilities. He could have done so much, and now he never would.
"You believe your journey here is not yet over," Oma said.
"I could have done so much more," he said.
"You have saved many lives and helped countless people," she said.
"I've hurt just as many," he said. "Every time I helped someone, I hurt someone else. I thought the Goa'uld war was beginning to end, and now, I find out that it's only going to get worse, and..." He gestured around himself. "How many millions of people have already died because of me? Or how many are going to die because I didn't do enough?"
"Your people--the Abydons--believe that a soul is weighed in the afterlife," Oma said.
Daniel took a breath and nodded. "You're saying my soul wouldn't pass. I can't say I'm entirely surprised."
"A soul cannot be weighed--" she started.
"Oh, that's--that's great," he said. "So my people's religion isn't even valid."
"Then it is your people's and not yours?"
"What difference does it make?" he said, meaning 'yes.' It had been a long time since he had dared to believe anything the myths said.
"You are the only one who can judge yourself," she said. "Your belief will decide your fate."
"So...I have to believe I'm worthy of Ascending," Daniel clarified. "That's what you mean? I play the role of Ma'at and my belief is the scale that measures my worth?"
How could he be worthy of this chance when no one had offered it to his parents and his brothers who had died to protect Abydos, or to Robert Rothman who had died for him, or Lieutenant Elliot who had been so eager to serve Earth and had died on his very first mission? How could she think Daniel deserved a reward for all he had done in life?
"Did you see what I did?" he said. "I walked into a room full of men and women and wanted to assassinate them, even the ones who were innocent victims. I argued that it was the best way."
"Do you regret it now?" Oma said.
"I don't know," Daniel said. "I didn't realize I'd become..." He stopped, remembering that day when he'd sat in the briefing room, feeling so numb that he was utterly calm, and actually told Jack that they were all killers already. He had trained to fight and kill because he had needed to in order to find his brother or his sister or Shifu; he hadn't realized until then what would be left of him when he had nothing to look for anymore.
In the end, he'd balked at killing a room full of System Lords because he'd seen a single, innocent, salvageable host and remembered that that wasn't who he was supposed to be. Still, he had no doubt that he would have done it--would have pushed the button and killed them all--if it hadn't become strategically unwise. When had he begun to judge a life by its strategic value?
"What if I don't think I did enough to balance the things I did wrong?" he said.
Perhaps Oma could read his thoughts, or perhaps he had said them aloud here in his mind. "Your successes and failures do not add up to the sum of your life. There is only one thing we can ever truly control: whether we are good or evil."
Good or evil. There was no such thing as good and evil, because good for one person was evil to another. Saving a thousand people usually meant killing one or letting one die. Sometimes, they killed thousands and saved one. "I don't know which I am," he said.
"What you have done is not who you are," she said again. "Who are you, Daniel?"
"I've tried to be good," he said.
"Yes," Oma agreed, but they were still there, and he was still dying.
"How can I leave all of this behind--unfinished like this?"
"How can you not?" she pointed out. "You hold what is no longer yours. You cannot go back. You can only decide how you will go forward."
"What is forward?" he asked.
Smiling faintly, she said, "Do you want to know?"
"Yes," he couldn't help saying. She smiled a little wider, and Daniel looked back down at the image of his desk, running his hand once along its surface. "If there's something there...how can I not want to know?"
"Do you fear it?" Oma asked. "That you do not know what lies before you?"
Daniel nodded, but even as he did, he thought of the spark of excitement he felt each time he waited for the computer screen to show him the latest MALP telemetry, or the way it felt to stand in front of a Stargate and know that something wondrous could be on the other side.
"But that's part of the fun," he said as lightly as he could, thinking that that was what Jack might have said. It wasn't quite a joke, not for him or any of them. Experience meant that some of the instinctual fear of the unknown manifested as anticipation instead. Fear never disappeared completely, but it sharpened things, too; Daniel thought that, if they stopped being just a little afraid of what they might find and of what might happen when they found it, it would mean that it didn't really matter anymore.
"Then," she said, "you have only to decide."
Oma Desala had rained lightning and death on a thousand Jaffa and had carried Shifu on a storm and given a life to a baby whom others would have condemned to experiments or death. She understood things and saw things no one possibly could without being like her. Maybe he could do more this way. He was so limited now--he was one man translating texts or shooting a gun, and when one Goa'uld fell, another rose to take its place. Now, more than ever, they needed someone who could do more.
And enlightenment meant knowing, too. If Daniel had one purpose that he had tried to hold onto at the SGC, even through all the turmoil, it was to know--to learn and to want to learn. What if he could be that person again?
He had to commit to it, though, or it wouldn't count. Teal'c always said that it was better not to act at all than to act halfheartedly.
Even knowing the answer before he said it, Daniel had to ask, "Are my parents there?"
Oma shook her head gently. "No."
"What about my brothers from Abydos, my friends from the SGC?"
"No, Daniel. This path is not that of the dead."
"What about Shifu?"
She paused, then said, "Yes. Shifu has been watching over you, Daniel. He is waiting. But do not take this journey forward to seek out your past."
"No, I--I know. I'm not," he said, realizing that he was speaking now as if the decision were already made. Perhaps it was. "But I'll take comfort in what I can. I can do that, right?"
"Then you have chosen?" Oma said.
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.
He turned and saw his friend, his teacher, his brother standing before him, holding an Abydonian funerary statue. "Tek'ma'tae," Daniel said.
"I promised you once that I would speak the words for Skaara or Sha'uri if they fell in battle, to carry their souls home," Teal'c said. "We did not know then that you would join us in the fighting. I did not know that your brother and sister would be saved and you would fall."
"No one knows that kind of thing," Daniel said. "You couldn't know."
"Know this," Teal'c said. "In you, we will have lost a great warrior in the fight against the Goa'uld."
"Bad timing, then," Daniel said helplessly. "Because it's about to get a lot worse."
Teal'c opened his mouth, then closed it again, his throat working. Daniel had seen Sam cry before, and he had seen Jack in his own sharp, jagged rituals of grief, but Teal'c always grieved alone, in meditation, not like this. The Jaffa took a breath and said, in a low voice, "And I will have lost my chal'ti and my brother."
As Teal'c set down the statue and faced Daniel's body and began to speak, Daniel turned to Oma and said, "He called me a warrior against the Goa'uld. I wasn't always."
"Do you wish to be?" she said.
"I want...to do good."
She smiled again.
Daniel took a breath. "I want to do good," he repeated, weighing the sentiment and looking for cracks, but it was true, through and through. He had done things in the past that he wasn't proud of, he had made mistakes, and he had sought selfish revenge and found it lacking. But he had always tried to be good, not evil, and now, at this moment, he could accept that it was so.
"I know that," Oma said.
"I want to Ascend," he said, relieved once he had said it. "I do. And...once it's over, I'll be completely and utterly for it. But is it...would it be okay if I waited until...until the end? Just...let me have whatever I have left?"
"Your body has entered a deep sleep," she said gently. "It won't be long...and I cannot see what good it would do you."
"I know," he said, as Teal'c said, return to your home on Abydos, you will see many worlds, you will be remembered, we will remember you.
Then Teal'c stopped and looked up, past Daniel. "Jacob Carter!" he said, sounding surprised, and his image disappeared.
"What--" Daniel said, not sure what was going on. He turned around, looking for the ghosts of his friends, but no one was there.
"It'll save his life," Jack's voice snapped.
"What will save--" Daniel said.
"I will not allow it," Teal'c answered in a growl.
"Get out of the way, Teal'c," Jack said.
"He would not want this," Teal'c insisted. "Anything but this."
"I don't give a damn--he's dying!" Jack yelled. "He can't choose right now. I don't care if he hates all of us for it--"
"Lantash, you're too weak," Sam said, her voice strained almost to shaking. "And even if you could...would Daniel survive? Would you?"
And then Jacob's blended voice--not Selmak, because Selmak was dead, and now Daniel understood what had happened to Jacob and who was now blended with him. "I am doubtful that I could heal him completely," Lantash said through Jacob. "There will be much residual damage, but I believe he will live."
"And Dad?" Sam said desperately.
"Toxin's gone," Jacob said. "I'm willing. We both are."
"I. Will not. Allow it," Teal'c repeated.
"He would not wish this," Sha'uri spoke up. "Stop this, all of you."
"The symbiote can be removed after he has healed," Skaara spoke up, and Daniel thought, no, not you, too.
"That's right," Jack said. "That's right! Just temporary. They'll switch right back when he's better. Won't even have the protein to show for it."
"No," Janet's voice said. "You don't understand. There's too much damage for a Tok'ra to heal completely. He'll need constant care, constant therapy, and if it's provided by a symbiote..."
"It is likely that we would have to remain blended if we survive the procedure," Lantash said.
"Then you cannot," Sha'uri said. "If you are a true Tok'ra, you will not take an unwilling host."
"You would rather him dead?" Lantash retorted. Even after living on Earth for over a year, he shared the same blind spot as most Tok'ra--he didn't seem to understand how someone could be so violently against a blending that death would be preferable. "He cannot speak for himself--"
"But he has a living will," Janet said over the bickering voices. "And I will not defy--"
"Just give him a chance to say it himself!" Jack snapped. "If this works, he'll still get his choice, and we can deal with it then."
"No," Daniel said, horrified. "No, please, don't! I'm ready! Don't do it!"
Oma turned around.
"Oma? You're leaving?" Daniel asked her. "But you can't leave now--"
"The rest is up to you," Oma said.
"They're talking about implanting me," he said.
"Then your journey will continue as before," she said.
"I don't want it to," Daniel said, and he found that it was true. He had made his choice, like he had made so many choices to move on before that, and he would follow the path where it led him. "Not like that. Not anymore. I've decided."
"Walking the great path brings great responsibility," Oma warned. "You cannot fear it nor hesitate in your resolve."
"I understand," Daniel said, gritting his teeth when it felt as though his entire body were tingling. Were they moving him--preparing to implant him?
"Then stop them," she said.
...x...
"Jack," Daniel said.
Jack stiffened but didn't turn around--his eyes were fixed on Daniel's body, lying on the ground, Jacob standing beside him, half of the people trying to stop the transfer and half trying to stop the others from stopping it. There were more Abydons here now, drawn by the commotion, and if something didn't happen soon, they were going to start yelling again and fighting, and Daniel was so tired of people fighting when they didn't have to, not them, not over him.
Daniel looked away from his own body, found Skaara, and grasped both his brother and Jack by the shoulder.
They resurfaced in the embarkation room at the SGC--empty but for themselves and Oma Desala, sitting quietly on the ramp. "Jack," Daniel repeated. "Skaara."
"Dan'yel," Skaara said in disbelief. "What..."
"Don't do this," Daniel said, looking at both of them.
"Daniel?" Jack said. He didn't even look confused. He wore a distant expression that meant he thought he was dreaming and he didn't much care, but he stared hard at Daniel all the same. "What's going on?"
"Let me go," Daniel said. The look in Jack's eyes sharpened until the look became wariness and stubbornness. "You wanted to give me a chance to speak for myself. So tell Jacob to stop. Leave Lantash where he is."
"Why?" Skaara said. "This Tok'ra can save your life."
"I don't want it," Daniel said.
"It's Lantash," Jack said. "You like each other. Mostly. It'll be okay. Carter's dad isn't as old as Martouf; he'll be fine, too."
"No," Daniel said. "I'm ready to move on."
Jack's face became angry for a moment, and then it disappeared into the emptiest expression he had. "You're just giving up?" he said, and Daniel understood, because Teal'c had taught him what war was and Sam had shared with him the love for learning that gave it all a purpose, but it was Jack who had taught him to fight, always, and never to give up.
"I'm not giving up," Daniel said, looking between them both. "Believe me, it's not that." He glanced past them. Both of them turned around to see Oma on the ramp. "Oma Desala," he said, because they might not recognize her in this form. "The one who's been caring for Shifu."
"I remember," Jack said.
"Dan'yel..." Skaara said.
"I think I can do more this way," Daniel said, fixing his gaze on Jack. Jack would understand this--he had to. "Please. Let me go. I don't want what they're about to do. You know that. For me--tell them to stop."
Jack stared at him a moment longer. Without looking away, he said, "Jacob, don't do it. It's what he wants."
Daniel turned. He saw nothing but Oma on the ramp and the Stargate shimmering behind him.
"No, father," Skaara said, and Daniel turned again to see his brother add a voice to something he couldn't see. "It is what he wants."
"Just let him go," Jack said.
Then they fell silent.
"Are...did they...?" Daniel said when a minute had passed. "I don't feel anything."
Skaara dropped his face into his hand. Jack looked at him and didn't speak.
"Time of death, 10:08," Janet's voice echoed softly from a distance.
Now, Oma's voice echoed in his mind, though the others didn't seem to hear it. This is it.
The realization was like a breath of air when he hadn't breathed in years. Daniel closed his eyes and saw--he was in the 'gate room on Earth, and he was in the desert in Abydos; he was here, clearheaded and real, and he was there, dead. His sight was clearer than it had ever been, and he thought he felt Oma's hand on his shoulder, pulling him away until he was high enough to see them all. This was the conversion, he realized--this was how Mother Nature manipulated the material world, and now she was making his physical form irrelevant.
Sam was staring right at him, wide-eyed and with an arm around her father's shoulders and Janet's face frozen in shock. Skaara stood with his arms out in front of all of their Abydonian brothers and sisters and their father, silent, watching. And Jack turned to him--
"Gonna miss you," Jack said.
Daniel took a look back at the ramp, where Oma was now standing in front of the wormhole, as if to say he had to leave. But if this was to be the last time, and if he could have one last act before leaving...he grabbed Jack's hand, and, before Jack could ask what he was doing, placed it in Skaara's.
His throat was too tight to speak, but Jack said, "We get it. 'Gate's always open."
"Don't feel bad," Daniel managed to say calmly. "Tell them that. And that I miss them."
A soft sound behind him told him Oma had disappeared through the wormhole. Daniel stared at the event horizon and took a breath, and then another, and walked up the ramp.
"Where are you going?" Skaara called before he could step through.
"We'll see you around?" Jack asked.
Daniel turned around and found that they were blurry in his vision. "I don't know," he said, and he accepted the fear that boiled in his gut at that, because encased within it was the excitement of finding a new world. He turned away for the last time and stepped through the Stargate.
...x...
"We've been waiting for you," Oma said on the other side. Daniel turned around, but the Stargate was gone. Below him was a crowd of his family, looking up, a few faces wet and the others dry with shock or numbness. His body was gone, and he was here, not dead, but here.
"I did it," Daniel said, not sure what to feel, or if he even could still feel anything. "I..."
And Oma held out her hand. "Come," she said. "It is time."
XXXXX
Two Days Ago
Revanna; 1930 hrs
"It's time, Daniel, now," Jacob snapped, and was shoved to his knees for his trouble.
Already swaying on his knees himself and shivering with pain, Daniel only managed a sympathetic wince. "Jacob--"
Pain blossomed in his side as a foot knocked him into the grass. He bit back a moan and fought the urge to push himself upright until he could drag enough air into his lungs. Something was wrong with his chest, and the rest of him felt like it was on fire, but he couldn't worry about that now. That was for later.
He didn't dare to move his hand, gripping the vial of symbiote poison. If he opened his fingers, just a little, Zipacna would see it. If he closed his fingers, just a little, Selmak would die, and Jacob with him. He'd been willing to do it with the System Lords and their hosts, and even with enemy Jaffa, but Jacob and Selmak?
Time was ticking. The longer they knelt here together under Zipacna's ship, the more chance that someone would discover what he was holding. If they lost the poison, they lost SG-1's chance of escape, and the System Lords would have the Tok'ra's symbiote poison. They'd discover the formula from there.
Jacob turned to him and insisted, "Can't both die."
One of them had to live. Zipacna and his Jaffa had to die for SG-1 to live, and someone had to warn the SGC that Anubis was alive and powerful and coming for Earth. If Daniel had the best chance, he had to take it. If he didn't, they were both dead, anyway.
He started to shift his grip--
"What is this?" Zipacna said. "Jaffa!" Hands grabbed Daniel's arms and pulled him forward. Panicked, Daniel started to squeeze and break the vial--
He heard the sharp crack of bone before his arm was overtaken by fiery agony, and he screamed.
By the time he'd fought his way out of the haze of pain and caught his breath, staff weapons had snapped open all around him.
"If you move again, you will be killed," Zipacna said, taking the poison from the Jaffa who had wrested the vial from Daniel's broken arm. If it weren't for the fact that Daniel didn't think he could move, he might have been scared.
"Daniel...dammit," Jacob whispered.
"I'm sorry," Daniel managed. He coughed, wincing when the movement reverberated through his aching chest and down his limbs.
Zipacna examined the vial and smirked. "Ah," he said. "So this is the secret the Tok'ra have been hiding."
"I can save him," Selmak said suddenly. Another staff weapon snapped open, but Daniel turned and found the Tok'ra staring at him, his eyes glowing bright. "I can save Jacob."
In that moment, Daniel knew he was going to die.
If he did nothing, the System Lords would have the poison, Zipacna would kill them anyway, and then SG-1 would never make it back to safety. The only hope was to get the vial, crack it open, and let the poison kill the Jaffa before they killed him. He twitched his legs experimentally, and they both still seemed to be working--but if he moved, if he tried to reach the vial, he would be killed instantly, even if he could grab it.
And if Daniel was killed...
Selmak said he could save Jacob. That could only mean one thing for the symbiote--suicide--but Jacob would carry some or all of Selmak's memories, unhindered by the conflict Sam felt when trying to access Jolinar's knowledge, and Jacob would be alive to tell the SGC that Anubis was coming. Daniel could die killing Selmak if it meant one of them lived. That was what it meant.
He met Selmak's eyes and nodded.
Without warning, Jacob choked. "No," he whispered, his eyes becoming panicked as he clutched his throat. "No!" Some of the staff weapons swung away from Daniel to him--
Daniel lunged to his feet and barely felt a staff blast crashing into him until he'd landed on top of Zipacna. Nothing moved the way it should--he couldn't take the time to figure out what was injured--but he saw the vial in Zipacna's hand, and he slammed himself against it--his hand, his knee, his head, his body, whatever part of him still worked.
The last thing he saw before his eyes blurred was Zipacna's shocked expression. He heard cries from Jaffa dying around him, and Jacob was crawling toward one of the Jaffa, reaching for something, yelling for Jack.
Daniel closed his eyes. 'This is it,' he thought. 'I'm done.'
Part II: Ascension