Brotherhood (18/27)

[nightspear]

Title: Brotherhood (Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.

Chapter1	Chapter2	Chapter3	Chapter4	Chapter5
Chapter6	Chapter7	Chapter8	Chapter9	Chapter10
Chapter11	Chapter12	Chapter13	Chapter14	Chapter15
Chapter16	Chapter17	Chapter18

XXXXX

Brotherhood

XXXXX

26 December 1999; SGC; 1200 hrs

"Merry Christmas, sir," Daniel said when he stopped through, much happier than the last time. "Well, belated, I mean."

General Hammond chuckled. "Happy holidays to you, too, son. I trust your brother's doing better since the last time you called?"

"Yes, sir, Skaara's much better. He's back home and back to...normal. More or less."

"I'm glad to hear that--I understand how these things go. Let's step into my office."

SG-1 wasn't in the briefing room--he supposed they must be on a mission at the moment--so it was just him and the general in the office. "I've written down more things that Sha'uri and Skaara have remembered," Daniel started. "There's a bit about Heru-ur's army and other things that might be useful, but they're not sure about the details." Daniel handed his notebook to the general. "I have a summary in here. If it's too messy, I can type it up before I go back."

The general opened it and flipped through. "That's all right; we'll have someone transcribe this. Anything urgent that we need to act on immediately?"

"Uh, no, sir. As we suspected, Heru-ur was weakened by war with Sokar several months ago, but Sha'uri says he went into hiding, trying to rebuild his strength, and only surfaced once word of Sokar's death reached him. Other than that, I think it's mostly Skaara's news about Apophis's survival and a possible alliance with Heru-ur that we should worry about."

Shaking his head, General Hammond said, "At least now we won't be surprised next time he shows up. And without Apophis's son and queen, I don't see what other bargaining chip Heru-ur could use if he's still looking for that alliance."

"Yes, sir," Daniel said. "Oh! Another thing...in the last page of that book"--the general flipped to the end--"those coordinates lead to the abandoned planet where Sha'uri and Amaunet piloted an udajeet in escaping Heru-ur. She says she ringed from Heru-ur's hatak to Klorel's, which was relatively empty since Klorel was meeting with Heru-ur, and then took a death glider from there, landed on the closest planet with a Stargate, and 'gated to Cimmeria."

The general looked up at him. "Are you... You're saying there's an empty death glider just lying on an abandoned planet?"

Daniel grinned. "Yes, sir. She only remembered the last glyph yesterday, or I'd have brought it to you sooner. It's probably a lot less damaged than the one that landed on Tollana, and it's one of Apophis's two-man gliders. It doesn't fit through the Stargate, but..." He shrugged. "I'm sure someone could find a way without damaging it too much."

Smiling, the general set the notebook down. "Well. I don't need to tell you how much we value this information, son. I'll send an engineering team there as soon as possible. Is there anything we can do for you?"

"Not...for now," he hedged. "There's something I've been looking at in Ra's Pyramid. It might be nothing the SGC is interested in, but considering its location next to the Stargate... I'd like to try a few more things, but if I find anything, can I ask for help?"

"You do that. But if you suspect it's Goa'uld, Mr. Jackson, I'll remind you to be very cautious about what it might do if disturbed. If you remember, opening the tomb where Hathor was in stasis resulted in the deaths of the archaeologists who opened it."

"Yes, sir, we'll be careful," Daniel said. "That's all I have, really. But, uh...is SG-1 off-world? Can I leave something for them?"

The general sighed. "They've been in quarantine for almost a week." Daniel's eyebrows shot up in alarm. "They're all right. They've had a program implanted in their brains, which is using them to experience the world through a shared hallucination that calls itself Urgo. It doesn't seem to be harming them, but until this is resolved, I need to keep them here."

Daniel opened his mouth, then closed it, thinking that over. "Uh...wha... Oh."

"We think we're close to a solution," the general assured him. "They're in Level 22 Isolation."

That room wasn't a medical facility or even a holding cell so much as a room where they put people when they needed to keep track of them, so Daniel relaxed a little. "Yes, sir," he said. "Uh...can I visit them? Or I can leave a note for them in Teal'c's quarters, for when they're back to normal."

"I think they'll be glad for some company," the general said. "Go ahead."

Scooping up his backpack and thanking the general, he made his way to Level 22. In the isolation room, Sam was typing at the desk, Teal'c was reading in a chair, and Jack's back was turned to him as he worked on something that had a screen like a small computer and made occasional beeping noises. Or maybe he was playing. It was hard to tell.

"Hi," Daniel said. "Did you miss me?"

Without turning around, Jack snapped, "No, we did not miss you."

Sam looked up, saw him, and coughed sheepishly. Teal'c saw him as well and even went so far as to give him a smile that wasn't warm so much as relieved, which was...odd, but then, they had apparently had an odd few days. Daniel cleared his throat and said, "Okay, Jack. Should I just go, then?"

Jack finally turned around and brightened considerably to see him standing there. "Daniel! I thought you were Urgo."

"Well, I'm not," he said. "General Hammond told me about this whole...Urgo thing. Sorry."

"You're not sorry until you've had Urgo in your head," Jack said darkly.

Daniel slipped his bag off his shoulder. "I brought a present, but if it's okay, I'll just leave it in your quarters, Teal'c. I don't think you all should be drinking alcohol while in quarantine."

"What's this?" Jack said, sounding interested. "You brought us alien booze?"

Daniel debated whether to warn further, then decided against it. "It's Skaara's, from before...you know, before everything happened. He's very good at it. It's famous in the village, in fact."

"I guess we can assume everything's fine at home, then?" Sam asked. "You're looking well."

"Yeah," Daniel said grinning broadly. "It's great. Skaara's better, and...it's relaxing."

Jack's face became serious. "I'm glad he's okay. Must've been rough."

"We managed," Daniel told him. "Sha'uri had been through it before--with Amaunet, of course, but she knew a little of what to expect. Honestly, just having them there..." He couldn't seem to make himself stop smiling these days. "All of us are...really grateful. Anyone who had doubts about the Tau'ri before basically worship you these days."

"Are you returning immediately?" Teal'c said.

"I've got an hour or so. General Hammond said I could visit you."

"Oh, not again," Jack said.

Daniel raised his eyebrows. "Uh...?" he said.

"Why won't you just go away," Jack snapped, then told Daniel, "Not you. You stay."

Daniel looked at Sam and Teal'c. "Him," Sam said ruefully, pointing at an empty chair.

"Oh," Daniel said, turning to the chair and waving. "Hi, Urgo."

"Do not encourage him," Teal'c growled.

"No, Urgo, we don't," Jack snapped. Daniel scratched his head and wondered what would happen if he tried to sit where Urgo was appearing, then decided against it, since that would put him in the way of Jack's glare. "No smidgen," Jack added after a pause.

Sam hooked a foot around a chair and pulled it out for him. "Here. We'll explain some other time," she said. Daniel wished he could stay and figure it out with them, and then remembered he had brothers and sisters waiting for him a Stargate away and settled for just visiting for a short while.

Later, he borrowed Teal'c's ID and stopped at Level 25. Inside Teal'c's room, he pulled out a small jug from his pack and another smaller one, checked to make sure they were both tightly closed, and scrawled a quick note to leave with them that read,

'To SG-1: Happy Solstice. Partake in moderation. Smaller container non-alcoholic for Teal'c. From Daniel and Skaara.' 

XXXXX

27 December 1999; Pyramid Catacombs, Abydos; 1800 hrs

"...power...from the sun," Daniel read aloud. "Ra...rays of the sun will reveal..." Finally, he kicked the wall in frustration. "Open, yi shay!"

"Now who is trying to smash the wall?" Skaara said from behind. "So this is how the SGC defeats its enemies: they kick stone with their toes."

"There has to be something here more than this wall," he said for the umpteenth time, turning and pulling Skaara by the arm. "Look, come with me--I will show you."

"Gods," Skaara sighed, trotting along with him. "Seventeen years running through this place was not enough for you?"

Daniel felt his lips twitch into a smile. "Unless I was born able to run, I did not spend seventeen years running anywhere on Abydos."

"No? I was the one who chased you when you slipped away; I would know. I think you were running before you ever left the womb."

"Fine, stay there, but listen," Daniel insisted. "I have measured this place many times, the inside and out. There is more space outside than there is inside." It had taken some work, but he was certain his crude methods--involving his notebook for a straight-edge and right angle, some chalk, a lot of running, and odd stares from the 'gate guards upstairs--were good enough to show there was a lot of missing volume that was not accounted for by the width of the bricks. "There must be something behind that wall. You can see it from outside, but not from here."

Skaara frowned, looked around the chamber, then ran back out of the catacombs.

It was a while before he came back in. "You see?" Daniel said.

"I see," Skaara said. He looked curious now, and he led the way back to the wall. "Fine. There may be something there, but we still do not know that we can reach it from here. It may be sealed without an entrance. Mel and Claire searched this pyramid for years, Dan'yel."

"But," Daniel said, "they knew very little about Goa'uld technology and tactics."

"That is true." They stared at the wall together for several moments before Skaara said, "So?"

"Let me think."

"Perhaps your mind will open the wall for us."

"Be quiet, Skaara."

Skaara snickered but quieted and returned to examining the wall. "What do you think is behind here? The wedjat, the eye of Ra, as it says everywhere?" He gestured around them--the walls of the catacombs leading down here made several mentions of the wedjat.

"I have no idea," Daniel admitted. Speaking of eyes of Ra, however...he pointed to the center of the wedjat painted onto the wall in front of them. "Does this look like a delmak crystal to you? The text says that the rays of the sun will reveal all--in the painting, the rays are pointing toward the eye. That has to mean something."

"There is no sun in here," Skaara pointed out.

"I think it simply needs some signal," Daniel mused. "Everything is a signal that something else receives, yes? The sun shines and we see, or I talk and you hear, or--"

"You talk," Skaara countered, "and everyone hears."

Daniel rolled his eyes and pressed on, "Goa'uld technology is always this way--there is a device that must be caused to work by a trigger. If it makes so much mention of the sun..."

"Must it be the sun?" Skaara said. "Perhaps another light." He picked up one of the lamps around the room and brought it close to the wall.

"Yes, yes, you're right, it could be," Daniel said, hovering anxiously, watching and berating himself for not having tried it sooner.

Nothing happened.

"Perhaps not," Skaara amended, lowering the lamp.

Unfazed, Daniel found his flashlight where he'd left it in the corner and shone it at the bright red center of the eye of Ra depicted in the stone--if it wanted rays of light from the sun, perhaps rays of another light might do it. When that didn't work, he pulled off his glasses and tried to focus the light, but in vain--maybe his lenses were shaped wrong--so he slapped his glasses back on and tried holding the flashlight at different distances instead...

Skaara gasped excitedly and sprang forward, leaning his hands against the stone and pressing his ear to it. "What?" Daniel said eagerly, lowering the light and pressing his own ear to the wall as well, inches from where Skaara stood. "What did you hear?"

"Hush!" Skaara commanded, squeezing his eyes shut in concentration. Daniel strained to hear, holding his breath and watching his brother--

Skaara snapped his eyes open and screamed into Daniel's face.

"Ahh!" Daniel yelled, reeling back in surprise and stumbling to the floor on his rear. Skaara let out a shout of triumphant laughter. Daniel stared at him with wide eyes.

"Your...face..." Skaara managed as he struggled not to choke on his laughter.

Daniel looked at the wall, which stood unchanged and utterly unmoved by their antics. "I cannot believe you!" he said.

"Ay, your face!" Skaara crowed. "You are too easy to...ih!" he said, hopping away as Daniel lunged toward him. He laughed harder as he turned and fled the catacombs. Daniel grinned, then pushed himself to his feet and ran after him, catching sight of the Guards' startled expressions as he rushed past them and tackled his brother to the sand.

XXXXX

1 January 2000; Nagada Proper, Abydos; 1300 hrs

"That is impossible," Sha'uri was scoffing as Daniel carried a load of the day's grain from the silo for the women to grind. Someone needed to travel soon, to trade for food from one of the villages built on more fertile ground.

"But Dan'yel told me," someone else said, working next to her.

"Uh-oh," Daniel said, setting the container down as he tried to decide mentally how much grain they would need and how much they could buy. "What have I done now?"

"Merii says that your mind changed places with the mind of another man and resided in his body instead," Sha'uri said, clearly disbelieving.

Daniel shrugged. "Well, we changed back afterward. It was not so bad for me; the mind of my teacher, Dr. Rothman, was trapped in the body of a dying man. It was almost too late for him."

This time, Sha'uri wasn't the only one who snorted. Daniel smiled and returned to the threshing floor, where one man was sweeping the loose straw from the floor.

Skaara was trying to convince one of the mastadges there that it had trampled the ground quite enough and should stop crushing things. Daniel joined his brother in coaxing the animal back to its pen. "This one is strong--we can trade him," Skaara said, patting the animal on its flank. "Perhaps those two as well. A party will be sent to Badari tomorrow."

"Do you want me to go with them?" Daniel offered. "I have negotiated for the SGC before, and there may be something among my personal Tau'ri gear that can be of value in trade."

But Skaara shook his head. "Kasuf and Sha'uri will do that, as they have always done before. Tobay says there have been thieves hiding along that road lately, but I will send some of the men to guard them."

"Well, I could also help with that," Daniel said, thinking that an Abydonian highwayman would think twice before attacking people armed with SGC-level weapons. He hadn't lost the habit of carrying his zat'nik'tel and pistol with him in his pack whenever he left Nagada proper these days, especially when he took his turn on watch at the Stargate.

"It is not necessary," Skaara repeated. He finished latching the animal pens and gestured for Daniel to rejoin the men finishing their work on the threshing floor.

As a breeze blew through, Daniel tried to shake a few strands of hair from his eyes and instead found something dropped onto his head to a round of laughter from a few boys around him. Blinking at the sudden darkness over his eyes, Daniel reached up and pulled off a square of cloth, then turned to see Skaara smirking at him.

"Have you finished?" Skaara said, dusting off his hands. "Come with me."

"Why?" Daniel said suspiciously.

Skaara widened his eyes comically. "Would I do anything bad to you?" he said to renewed laughs around them. "Come, Dan'yel. I want to show you something."

Raising his eyebrows, Daniel brushed his hands off and followed, ducking out of the house. "If this is a trick..." Daniel warned.

They ducked alone into Skaara's home, a small room in one of the larger, shared buildings in the village. Skaara grabbed the cloth out of Daniel's hands and tied it roughly over his head, knotting it in the back. "You have forgotten these things already. Cut your hair short or tie it out of your eyes when you are working," Skaara ordered, oddly serious for having been joking minutes ago.

Bemused, Daniel touched the top of his head, where his hair was now tucked tightly under the cloth, and readjusted the simple, makeshift headwear that he usually didn't need on base, where he'd fallen into the habit of keeping his hair short.

"Someone must teach you these things," Skaara said.

Uncomfortable, Daniel said, "Teach me what?" In answer, Skaara turned, picked up a knife, and handed it to him. "What?" Daniel said, confused, taking it and turning it in his hands.

"Are you in mourning?"

"What?" Then he recognized the shaving blade he was holding and said, "Oh. But..." He raised a hand to his face self-consciously.

"You are not in mourning and you are not an elder. Unless you wish to look like a wild man with hair on his face," Skaara said, poking Daniel's upper lip with a finger, "you must learn to do this. I see that no one on Earth has taught you."

Daniel batted Skaara's hand away, flushing in embarrassment as he imagined Jack or Teal'c's expression if he'd asked one of them how the Tau'ri or the Jaffa shave. They probably would have taught him if he'd asked, but it would have been...very strange. Too awkward.

"Your father is not here," Skaara said matter-of-factly, setting a shallow bowl of water before him, "so I will show you." When Daniel didn't move, Skaara pushed him to his knees before moving to kneel next to him and guide his hand on the razor.

There was a rather pathetic amount of any hair at all to shave off his face, in truth, but Skaara simply slapped him on the arm when he protested and said he had better learn now, because he'd need to eventually, anyway.

"Women will not like you with pieces of fur on your face," Skaara teased afterward, as if to diffuse the awkwardness. Daniel felt his cheeks redden again. Skaara snorted. "You cannot tell me you have...never..." He trailed off, head tilting to one side. "Perhaps not. But you are almost twenty years old, Dan'yel. You do not have to blush at the mention of a woman."

"I mention women all the time," Daniel said defensively, then blushed even darker at the inanity of his words. "Stop laughing at me."

"I am not laughing."

"I was still a boy when I went to Earth, and I live at the SGC there, and sometimes with Jack, but there is no chance to see anyone outside of work, almost, which means--"

"I am not laughing at you, brother; I understand," Skaara repeated in exasperation. Then he blinked. "You live with Jack? O'Neill?"

"Yes. I stay at his house sometimes when we are both not busy."

Leaning forward a little, Skaara said eagerly, "What is he like?"

"He is a good man, like the stories say. Well, no," Daniel amended, "not like the stories at all--it is difficult to describe him. But..." he shrugged. "He was very good to me after...in the beginning."

Skaara dropped the smirk and said, "After your parents died, when you could not come home and we were not there."

"I missed you, Skaara," Daniel blurted. "When I was on Earth, the whole time, I missed you. Have I said that since Tollana? I might have forgotten to say it."

"I know," Skaara said, sitting back on his heels to study him.

"How are you? Do you still have nightmares?" Daniel said.

Skaara fixed him with a hard stare. "Do you?"

"No," Daniel lied.

"You are lying," Skaara said.

"Perhaps," Daniel admitted, but they were the normal ones he'd gotten used to over the last couple of years, the ones that came with growing older and knowing there were things to fear. "Are you certain you--"

"I am fine, brother. You know that."

And it was true that Skaara had bounced back from Klorel and the sarcophagus addiction with admirable alacrity. If he sometimes thought a little harder about things than he would have before, or if he'd frozen once at the sight of a snake, he shook his head and managed to laugh afterward. There was a darkness in some of his words and thoughts that had never been there before, but all the light that had been there existed still. Daniel supposed nightmares were unavoidable, and perhaps Sha'uri was right--if he was free to dream, it meant he was free.

"Do I know that?" Daniel countered with a smile, waggling his eyebrows. "I have not seen you so often recently; Seinah has been taking much of your time, yes?"

Utterly unimpressed, Skaara said, "Ah, now you wish to talk about women?"

"No," Daniel said quickly.

Skaara laughed and flopped backward onto the floor with his eyes closed. Daniel watched him lie there happily for a moment, then flopped onto his back as well. "I would not ask to take Seinah as a wife before I am more certain of...things," Skaara confided. "It is too soon--it would reflect badly on Nagada to her father in Kalima if I could not provide a good life for her. But there is no need to hurry now."

Daniel nodded in understanding and said, "You should stay here."

"It will be time for the meal soon."

"I mean, stay on Abydos." He held his breath and waited to see what would happen.

It was another long, agonizing minute before Skaara opened his eyes and sat up again to look down at him, puzzled and a little alarmed. "What?"

Daniel picked at the band on his wrist and said, "Some of our people have asked to join the Tau'ri to fight the Goa'uld. I think you have done your part already and should stay on Abydos."

"Oh," Skaara said, looking utterly terrified for a brief moment before settling on disturbed and serious. "I hope you told them that they should not go. We are fortunate that most of the System Lords have forgotten Abydos, but if many of us go to Tau'ri--"

"Of course I told them. I do not know if they will listen to me; they would listen to you, though. Tobay knows it isn't safe, and that will be enough for now, I think, but not forever." He fiddled with the fraying fridge of Skaara's blanket, trapped partly under his back. "I understand why--I felt the same way, but perhaps that desire will not be so strong now that you and Sha'uri have returned. I thought you should know, in case someone speaks of it."

"You should also be careful of the stories you tell. If they hear too much of our Dan'yel the Traveler and his adventures to exciting places, they may wish even more to join the Tau'ri."

"Oh," Daniel said. "I had not considered that." He had been ambushed by crowds of small children already, asking for new stories about Earth and the Stargate, but he was fairly certain he hadn't told the most exciting ones at all. Still, curiosity was a powerful motivator. "I will be careful."

"You felt that way?" Skaara said. "You do not now?"

"What?" Daniel said.

Skaara chewed his lip. "Do you still wish to join the Tau'ri again?"

"I have not been home for an entire cycle of the moons, Skaara," Daniel said, stretching his arms over his head. "I am happy to lie here and be lazy."

"No, you would not be happy. Your parents were not. They unburied the chaapa'ai."

Daniel breathed very slowly for a minute. Skaara wasn't looking at him anymore and was staring at something near his foot. Daniel sat up and said, "If they had not, Apophis would have been crushed on the rocks when he came here."

"No, no--" Skaara started quickly.

"Yes," Daniel said.

It was a breathtaking thought, really, the way things would have been if they hadn't been so curious about the Stargate. Earth would have been left knowing nothing about the dangers of the galaxy around them, but if Abydos had buried the Stargate after the Rebellion and then simply left it alone, Apophis might have died that night. Even Earth would have assumed the Stargate only went to Abydos and might have destroyed their own, leaving them defenseless, but the Goa'uld wouldn't be trying so hard to kill them now. If they'd just left it alone...

"Gods," Daniel breathed.

"That was not why I said that," Skaara said, looking apologetic.

"But is still true."

"Teal'c would also be dead. The rocks would have killed Apophis and Teal'c also."

Skaara was still not looking at him. Daniel had the sudden thought that Shifu wouldn't have been born, either, and then he plunged his head into his hands, because how could he make a choice like that--two years of Skaara's life against the life of his captor, a friend? How could he think it was good to have had that time with Shifu when his sister had been raped to make him?

"Gods," he repeated. Part of him remembered there was more than that--there was the death of Hathor, and the survival of some of the Nasyans and Jacob Carter...but there was also Major Charlie Kawalsky's loss, and the first team of SG-7 who'd died on Hanka with Cassandra's family and her world, and his parents...

"It is not a choice," Skaara said. Daniel didn't move. Skaara sighed in exasperation, grabbed him by a handful of hair, and dragged his head up. "It is not for us to choose between what is real and what could have been."

Daniel thought of the mirror on P3R-233 and wondered if there were worlds, somewhere, where none of this had ever happened. He shook Skaara's hand off his head. "Do you blame them for opening the chaapa'ai?"

"No. But...sometimes I do," Skaara admitted. "Then I remember how much they did for us, that they died trying to do more. I loved them, Dan'yel."

"But..."

"Do you blame them?"

Daniel tilted his head to think. "I think I would have done the same," he allowed.

Skaara nodded. "I think so as well." He stood. "Hungry?"

With a smile, Daniel accepted Skaara's hand to pull himself to his feet and followed him back to the public areas for the evening meal.

XXXXX

7 January 2000; Nagada Proper, Abydos; 1100 hrs

Eventually, Skaara stopped spending every minute of the day with Daniel or watching over Sha'uri, occasionally seeking Seinah or other friends' company instead, as was usual. Sha'uri seemed happy enough and increasingly healthy each time he saw her--she was staying with Kasuf and spending days with the other women who'd been her friends before--so Daniel stopped spending every minute of the day wondering and worrying, too.

At a loss for what to do--there wasn't even anything new to report to the SGC--he returned to the schoolhouse, sifting through the books still kept there. So when a group of young children found him and swarmed on him to demand stories, he settled on the Asgard. Those stories tended to end happier than anything he knew of the Goa'uld--without ending in an assassination or a massacre--and he could keep it vague enough to seem like histories rather than memories.

"No, Thor is not a giant," Daniel said in answer to a question, schooling his expression into an imitation of Teal'c at his most serious. "He is a great warrior who slays evil Goa'uld giants. Thor himself is of the Æsir, the great beings of Asgard. He rides across the sky in his chariot--"

"Like the chariot driven here over a moon cycle ago," a boy said. "I saw it myself."

Reminded of the teltak, Daniel said, "No, the chariot of Thor is much, much greater than the one you saw--even bigger than the pyramids--"

"No!" two of them said at once, one amazed and the other skeptical. They, of course, had been born and raised in a time when even Ra's pyramid-sized hatak vessels were only memory.

"Yes," Daniel said solemnly. "Even vessels as big as the pyramids can be defeated by only one of Thor's great chariots."

The slithering of cloth on cloth made him look up to see Seinah push the curtain aside, then pause when she saw the impromptu gathering.

"But...now I should leave you to your reading lessons," Daniel said quickly. He stood to the sound of protests. "Listen to Seinah," he admonished.

"You do not have to leave," Seinah said, hovering a bit like a mother over her brood.

Daniel almost stayed, but the children were looking at him a little too hopefully; he suspected that they were more likely to ask him about Norse mythology than to read their lessons. He supposed he wasn't helping by feeding them legends.

"No, no," he said, backing out of the doorway. "I can go. Study hard," he added to the children.

He found Skaara playing ball with some of his friends. Daniel hesitated; he'd never ­liked this game very much and wasn't very good at it anyway. "Dan'yel!" one of the boys called, waving him over. "Skaara needs help--his side is losing!"

"We are not," Skaara protested breathlessly from the bottom of a pile of bodies.

"No, thank you," Daniel called back, watching them tussle. "Have fun."

"Wait!" Skaara said, emerging with some difficulty. "You can stay. You do not want to play?"

"Uh...I was going to...uh...read," Daniel said, waving at them.

Eventually, they turned back to the game as Daniel wandered off in search of something to do.

He found himself at the burial ground, but, at his parents' graves, he couldn't think of anything meaningful to say or do or think. He tried, "Hello," and then "um," and then gave up on saying anything useful and stared.

Some time later, he wandered into the Stargate cartouche room. He considered the wall of addresses, mentally striking off the ones he recognized and wondering what was at the others.

XXXXX

13 January 2000; Stargate Room, Abydos; 1300 hrs

"What did you mean?" Daniel asked Skaara when they were alone on Stargate watch together. "You said that my parents opened the chaapa'ai, but that you did not say it to cast blame."

"When?" Skaara asked.

"Several days ago."

"Have you been thinking of that all this time?" Daniel shrugged. "Only that they would not have been truly happy here knowing there was something more, and I wonder if you would be."

"I could be," Daniel said defensively.

"But you are not."

"I am."

"You have not been lately."

"I have!"

With a shrug, Skaara bent into the corners of the room to check the weaponry. Daniel put down his notebook and went to help, picking up one of the submachine guns to start checking that it was loaded and stored to be both accessible and as safe as possible.

"Dan'yel!" Skaara pulled it away. "That is dangerous."

Daniel looked at him in surprise. Defiantly, he took the gun back. Check safety; remove magazine; pull back cocking handle; check chamber--empty; slide back.

He held up the mostly empty magazine. "I can ask for supplies from Tau'ri. We should clean these, as well--there should be a bullet in the..." He didn't know an Abydonian word for the 'chamber,' so he pointed instead. "That it is empty may mean that something is caught inside."

Skaara watched him as he reattached the magazine with a sharp tap, racked it carefully (it clunked sluggishly as a round was chambered; he really needed to clean these), and replaced it on the ground, safety back on. "Ah," Skaara said. "So they taught you that."

Daniel wasn't sure if he'd been looking for approval or showing that he could be independent, but suddenly neither was particularly appealing. They stared at the guns on the ground for a minute, the automatic guns lying together and Daniel's usual sidearms off to one side.

"Jack taught me," Daniel said.

"Ah."

"So I would not hurt myself," he clarified.

"Good," Skaara said, still sounding unsure of himself. Then he dropped decisively into a crouch. "Fine. Then I can ask you something I have been wondering--what is this?"

Daniel crouched next to him, where he was pointing at something next to the barrel of one of the guns. This weapon was newer, brought to Abydos around the time of the iris installation, not during the 1982 mission. It might have been left by accident, even, perhaps the one dropped by Major Ferretti when he'd been hurt here, since it was the only one with a laser on it.

"They call it laser sight," Daniel said. "It shines a light to make it easier to shoot accurately." He fiddled with the mount until he found how it slid out, less familiar with the non-essential functions of automatics. He freed the sight and found it wasn't exactly like the kind of lasers people sometimes used around base while giving presentations; it was connected by a short cord to something else. He followed the cord to another piece that was attached near the trigger guard and pressed on it. A red point of light appeared on the floor, so apparently the batteries were still working. He released the switch, and the laser turned off.

"A red beam of light," Skaara said, turning the sight around to see where the light came from.

Daniel frowned. "Yes," he said absently, thinking of lights and beams and rays and red red red... "Do not shine it into your eyes. Sam says that--oh!" he exclaimed, grasping the thought at last. "Our wall! The eye, with the wall, the rays of the sun--the painting--the sun--"

"What?" Skaara said, and then, "Ih! The sun was red in the painting."

"Mm-hm," Daniel said, fumbling with the mechanism holding it onto the gun. He pulled the whole thing off, squeezing the switch a few times to make sure the laser light still worked. "Yes! Come, we have to see--"

"We have not yet finished our shift here," Skaara said.

"What do you think will happen?" Daniel said impatiently. "There is an iris, and the only people who are likely to come through--"

"Dan'yel, this is what I was saying!" Skaara interrupted. "Wait for an hour until someone takes our place. If your curiosity cannot wait, go without me. I will not leave this room unguarded!"

With the red light beam in one hand and their secret wall just down a winding passageway, Daniel had an urge to do just that--to let Skaara stay here and take off on his own toward the pyramid. Then he remembered the last time the Jacksons had let curiosity defeat caution here.

"Sorry," Daniel muttered. He sat down and picked up his notebook, deciding he could compromise and wait while writing about their idea about the light and the secret wall and the words that lined the catacombs. "I can wait."

It was another long time before Skaara said, "You are bored here."

"Yes, because I am waiting to try this in the catacombs," Daniel pointed out, waggling the laser sight in his hand.

"On Abydos," Skaara clarified. "Are you bored on Abydos?"

"We may be about to open a secret chamber, Skaara. Boredom is not in my mind."

"What if we do open it?" Skaara said. Daniel groaned aloud. "I am being serious, Dan'yel! I have not seen you so excited in days, and it is because we may open a chamber and you think the Goa'uld did something to it. It is what you were doing on Earth. Do you wish you were there?"

"We have been trying to open that chamber as long as I can remember--of course I am excited!"

"I know that, but your parents left Earth for Abydos and stayed here. Sometimes, I wonder if you will leave us for Earth and stay there. You told me that I should stay here on Abydos. Does that mean...were you saying that you will not stay?"

Daniel put his pen aside, annoyed. "What do you want me to say?"

Skaara grimaced and said, "I am not trying to accuse, brother. I only want to know." Daniel moodily turned the laser in his hands. "Your parents had a child to raise. Perhaps, if they had not had you, they would have left sooner."

Daniel wasn't sure which part of that bothered him more--the idea that his parents would have left Abydos, the idea that he had been holding them back, or the guilty, apologetic way Skaara said it, even though they both knew it was true. And then there was that idea that he might be in the same position now, but in reverse, which he really wished he didn't have to consider.

Finally, Skaara sighed. "I understand, Dan'yel."

"Really?" Daniel said hesitantly. "You would understand?"

"I do not wish to see you hurt," Skaara said. "But I understand. You are thinking about it?"

He swallowed. "Yes," he admitted. "But I have not yet found the will to leave. It is...good, being at home."

But I don't belong here anymore, he thought, and he looked away before Skaara could see his expression. He didn't belong on Earth, either, not the way that the six billion Tau'ri on the surface did--how could he, knowing what he knew? He had had a place on Abydos as his parents' son, but what was he now that he had become a man light years away? He could become a teacher, as he had always assumed he would, but Seinah competently held his parents' old post now, and his presence was only ever a distraction to excitable children. He had hoped to accompany Sha'uri and Kasuf on a routine trading run as a guard because it would have let him see something other than the walls of the village. Was that what he would become in a year? Had his parents always felt this restless?

He wondered what they would have said to him now and found that he honestly didn't know.

"You will always have a home here," Skaara told him quietly. His tone was sincere but sad, as if he could hear each of Daniel's thoughts. "With me, if nowhere else."

Nabeh arrived in the doorway with three other Guards--the next shift. Daniel leapt to his feet, eager to head to the catacombs and to give himself more time to think about Skaara's question without having to look at Skaara's uncertain expression.

"Come, hurry," Daniel said, pulling Skaara toward the catacombs, laser firmly in one hand with his personal weapons and pack juggled in the other. To his relief, Skaara only made something between a laugh and a scoff and followed him, not pursuing his question.

It was only once they'd left the 'gate room that Daniel realized a two-man 'gate shift was unusual; Skaara set the shifts, and he was warmed to think his brother might have wanted to spend time with him. Or perhaps he thought Daniel would leave for good soon and wanted as much time as possible before that. He wasn't sure what to think of that, so he put the thought aside.

Their wall still stood silent in the empty chamber. Daniel touched a fingertip to the little spot in the middle of the painted eye of Ra that looked like a Goa'uld crystal, the red rays of the sun in the illustration reaching down to touch it. "The rays of the sun will reveal all," he read aloud for the hundredth time.

Skaara grabbed the sight from his hands, aimed it at the crystal, and squeezed the switch to shoot a line of red into the wedjat.

"I would have done that," Daniel grumbled.

"Be quiet," Skaara said, concentrating on holding the laser steady.

The stone creaked.

They froze, staring at each other.

The stone creaked again, groaning as it began to move, to swing open like a door on hinges...

The wall opened completely, revealing musty air and another dark chamber beyond it. "Chel nak," Daniel said, laughing aloud and rushing ahead. "Skaara, come, we have to see it!"

"Wait," Skaara said.

"What? No," Daniel protested, not caring that it sounded like he was whining.

Skaara thumped him on the head, picked up a lamp and Daniel's zat'nik'tel, and said, "Have you learned to see in the dark as well? Bring your Tau'ri gun."

"Oh. Right," Daniel said, remembering with chagrin General Hammond's warning to be cautious and running back to pick up his pistol.

...x...

"Ay," Daniel said, looking around the room. "Look! Look at all of this!"

The chamber was empty of people or Goa'uld but full of artifacts. Some of them were similar to the tools and art created today on Abydos, while some were very different--some seemed even to be of cultures distant from Egypt, from other parts of Earth--but all of them were ancient.

When he said as much, Skaara laughed at him. "That is obvious, since this door has not been opened in many years."

Daniel made a face at him. "Look at this writing--the way words are used," he said, pushing his glasses higher on his nose and bending as close as he could to a tiny but elaborate stone sculpture without touching it. "It looks older than anything I have seen on Abydos--as old as the oldest texts I have seen from Egypt on Earth." He moved to another. "What is this--"

He stopped.

"What?" Skaara said, looking around the room as well. Daniel didn't answer. "What?" Skaara repeated, this time coming toward him.

"This is Ancient," Daniel breathed, still staring at a tablet.

Skaara threw his free hand in the air. "You just said that."

"No, no; Anquietas. It means 'Ancient,' but it was a race of people who...well, we do not know who or what they were, exactly. But they fought the Goa'uld--we have been searching for traces of them. Do you know what this means?"

"No," Skaara said. "Do you?"

Daniel paused. "Well. No. But something. It has to mean something."

Footsteps sounded behind him, and Teal'c said, "Daniel Jackson."

"Teal'c, you have to see this!" Daniel said, turning around with a grin. "This is in Ancient--Anquietas! I mean, why would it be here? I have to tell Robert. Can you imagine what he will say when I tell him about this place? Ancient Egypt and SGC research all at once!"

Teal'c didn't answer. He didn't smile, either.

Then Daniel frowned. "Teal'c? What...what are you doing on Abydos?" He chanced a glance at Skaara, who seemed just as surprised as he was. Teal'c wasn't frowning, though--he was...emotionless. Stoic. "Oh--oh no. What happened? Jack? Sam?"

"I came alone," Teal'c said in his accented Abydonian. "I have news that you must hear. The Guards told me I could find you down here."

"Something happened to them," Daniel said, panic rising. "What happened?"

"Major Carter is at Stargate Command. She is unharmed," Teal'c said. "We are uncertain of the fate of Colonel O'Neill."

"What does that mean?" he demanded. "Where is he?"

Teal'c looked around the dim chamber, stale with ancient, musty air and almost too dim to see. "Come outside," he said, then stepped quickly into the main chamber.

Daniel and Skaara both followed, Daniel barely stopping to scoop up his pack first. Teal'c began to explain as they made their way out of the catacombs.

"For over a week, SG-1, accompanied by Dr. Balinsky, was on a planet known by its inhabitants as Edora," Teal'c said, striding up the stairs that would lead them out. "Although they were initially reluctant to trade with us, they seemed amenable after we communicated that we wanted only their unused naquadah. We were finalizing an agreement with them when Major Carter discovered that their planet would undergo a rain of fire. That was four days ago."

"Was she right? Did it happen?" Daniel asked, hoping for once in his life that Sam was wrong. Rain of fire...he had no idea what that was, but there was no way it could be anything good.

"Indeed," Teal'c said grimly. "The rain struck yesterday. Many Edorans chose to evacuate to Earth until it was safe to return. However, O'Neill was delayed during the evacuation. Major Carter and I sent Dr. Balinsky ahead of us and waited until the last possible moment, but we were forced to leave without O'Neill. The Edoran chaapa'ai has been buried."

They emerged into the Stargate room to curious and worried faces, the moons of night just beginning to show themselves in the sky outside. Daniel leaned against the rim of the Stargate, feeling half-numb. "So Jack is still there. But he lives?"

"We cannot know," Teal'c said. "However, I believe he does."

"But the Edoran chaapa'ai is buried. He cannot return."

"The chaapa'ai is buried."

Daniel swallowed, wrapping his arms around himself. "Then...there is no way for us to reach him from our side..." He stopped, staring off into the distance, at the spot where a Tok'ra teltak had landed months ago. "Wait. The Tok'ra have ships."

"Precisely," Teal'c agreed, his voice intent.

"Tok'ra. Tollan. Nox? Do the Nox or...or the Orbanians have ships?"

"We will ask them. The Asgard, as well," Teal'c reminded him. "Major Carter is attempting to devise a method to penetrate the barrier blocking the Stargate. I came to inform you and to ask you to come with me to seek help from our advanced allies in retrieving O'Neill by ship."

"Of course I will help," Daniel said without thinking. It was only when Skaara twitched that he realized it was different now that he wasn't at the SGC, now that he was with his family here--

But was it? Was it any different, really?

Decision time, Jack would have said, but Jack wasn't there, and so there was no choice at all.

He turned to Skaara, took a breath, and said, "A brother of mine is missing. I have to help."

Something flickered in Skaara's expression, and then he nodded solemnly in understanding, with no trace of jokes or smirks. "We will tell Kasuf," he said. "What should we do with the chamber we have just opened?"

Daniel tried to think, but Jack's face kept floating across his mind. It was another moment before he could straighten his thoughts enough to say, "Guard it." Loud enough for the rest of the Guards to hear, he said, "Be careful with what is inside. Do not enter the chamber alone. I will ask my teacher to come. Remind the Tau'ri that this is Abydonian ground, but some things may be very important or dangerous. Perhaps Kasuf, you, or Sha'uri can decide what happens to the artifacts."

Skaara nodded. "We will help them. Will you be coming with...your teacher?"

"Perhaps," Daniel said. "If I can. That is all I can tell you now." He opened his pack and pulled out the notebook he'd been writing in while on Stargate duty. "Give this to the SGC personnel--my notes on the writings in the catacombs are all in this book."

Without warning, Skaara reached up to pull him into a tight embrace. "Be safe, brother," he whispered fiercely. Before Daniel could respond, he turned to Teal'c. "You will protect Dan'yel," he said, part-order and part-question.

Teal'c inclined his head. "I will."

"I will return," Daniel said to Skaara. "But for now...I need to--"

In response, Skaara said firmly, "Come back when you can. Defend us from Tau'ri. I will meet you when you return home."

Daniel decided to take that as his brother's blessing. He straightened his robes, shouldered his pack, and said, in English, "Let's go. I'm ready."

---

From the next chapter ("Absence"):

The only thing Daniel's frozen brain could think of to say was, "Jack's missing."

With a sigh, the general said, "And anyone who can possibly help in bringing him back will be doing so, but our operations have to go on in the meantime, Mr. Jackson."