Satyricon au go go

No infringement of the following characters and situations is intended.
Warning: Rated [MA] Mature Adults only. Contains m/m sexual scenes and violence.
Title: Bug Catchers
Series: Stargate SG-1
Author/pseudonym: Hellblazer
E-mail address: havisham06@yahoo.com
Rating: MA
Pairing: J/D
Date: 10 June 2001
Disclaimers: Don't own these characters, MGM, Showtime and the rest do. No copyright infringement is intended or inferred.
Warnings: violence, mild m/m hanky panky, adult themes
Spoilers: none
Summary: This time the team are the aliens.
Notes: This nasty little fic sprang from my fever boiled brain after being left alone all weekend with instructions to tape endless episodes of SG-1 and Macgyver for friends. Inspired, obviously, by the X Files & Roswell. Daniel’s blather is thanks to all those National Geographics I got through in the waiting room when I was really sick. The Clash reference is from Bravo Two Zero.

Bug Catchers

The doors of the operating theatre burst open.

"What the -" demanded the surgeon, but he never had the chance to finish his outrage as Teal'c and Daniel zapped the entire surgical team.

Teal'c checked the room was clear.

"Oh, God - " Sam was stopped in her tracks.

They'd found Jack at last. It had taken them days to track down where the authorities on this planet had taken him. Jack was strapped to the surgical table, laid open like a high school science project.

Sam staggered into the corner, doubled over and was sick.

"We are too late," Teal'c announced with regret.

Daniel slowly stepped closer, eyes widening. "We're not too late," he realised. "He's still alive." Jack's heart was still beating. Daniel could see it twitching clearly. This wasn't an autopsy, it was a vivisection. Jack's head moved.

"Oh, God, he's conscious."

Jack weakly tried to turn his head to the sound of Daniel's voice.

"Jack, don't try to speak. Daniel covered Jack's eyes with his hand. "Don't look." Daniel reached over and cut the straps that held Jack's wrist down. He freed Jack's hand and held it. Jack's other hand had been cut down to the bones. Daniel still covered Jack's eyes, not wanting him to see the damage.

Daniel glanced at Sam. "Quickly. Pull him together and bind him up."

"With what?"

Daniel kicked the tray of bloody surgical instruments towards her. "Bandages, fucking electrical tape, I don't care. Just do it!" he demanded. He turned back to Jack, holding Jack's hand, still covering Jack's eyes with his free hand. "Hold on, Jack. We've got you now. Just hold on."

"Oh, god," Sam groaned again as she bound Jack's insides together. Daniel glared at her to be quiet, and she tried.

"Teal'c." Daniel summoned Teal'c from his position on the door. Teal'c understood. He tossed his zat gun to Daniel and swept Jack up in his arms. They were walking out. Daniel paused to fire two more shots into the surgeon. Teal'c raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

The corridors were still littered with dead or unconscious men.

"Someone will know we're here," Sam insisted.

A moment later the alarms sprang to life. Daniel glared at her for jinxing them. They ran down the corridor, down the fire stairs and into the car park.

Sam found their stolen car still unlocked and slid behind the wheel. Daniel helped slide Jack into the back seat while Teal'c squeezed himself into the passenger seat, riding shotgun.

"Go!" Daniel ordered and Sam gunned it, screaming out of the car park, smashing through the barriers with guns blazing.

Jack made a noise that might have been a whimper in Daniel's arms. The bandages that held him together were already soaked through with his blood. Daniel rubbed Jack's cheek. "Not long now," he promised tenderly.

They swung onto the highway, speeding aggressively through the traffic. Daniel twisted around in the back seat. He couldn't see anyone following. That wasn't to say they wouldn't catch up. Especially as the getaway car was this world's equivalent of Ma Brady's station wagon.

"What if they have the area sealed off?" Sam asked, driving hard.

"We punch our way through, or die trying," Daniel insisted. Or end up like Jack. Death was preferable. Sam put her foot down all the way to the floor.

Jack started to convulse in Daniel’s arms. His skin was ice cold. He was in shock. No surprise there.

"Step on it, Sam. We're losing him."

Sam nodded, her face pale and blotched, and pushed the car as fast as she could coax it. They were faster. Trees sped past.

Jack's head rolled back against Daniel's arms. Daniel felt desperately for a pulse in Jack's throat and found none. He lay Jack flat on the back seat and knelt down in the foot well.

"What's going on?" Sam demanded.

"Just keep driving," Daniel shouted back. He pressed his palm down hard on Jack's chest and to his horror he sank right in. Then he felt Jack's heart and he knew what he had to do. He held it gently and squeezed. He squeezed again, and again, and tried not to think of what he was doing.

"Don't leave me, Jack. Don't leave me," he pleaded as he squeezed.

The car fishtailed wildly as she spun it into the park, tyres kicking up mud just as a squad of cars crested the hill like Indians in a bad Western, lights flashing, shots firing.

Bullets shattered the rear window. Daniel threw himself over Jack as the window exploded inwards in a million pieces, trying to protect him from the flying glass.

"Get us out of here, Sam."

The car bounded down the hill towards the Gate. A dozen men in black ringed the gate, armed and ready to stop the escaping aliens. Teal'c leant out the passenger window and knocked them down like nine pins with his staff weapon in a display of shooting that would have taken Daniel's breath away if he hadn't been huddled over Jack.

They skidded to a halt in front of the DHD. Teal'c leapt out, firing back at their pursuers.

"Make it fast, Teal'c," Daniel called as Teal'c dialled. The Gate burst into life. Teal'c dived back into the car as shots splattered around them like hailstones.

"Go!" Daniel screamed to Sam.

Looking wild and keeping low, Sam threw the car into reverse, scattering their pursuers, then revved for a second before shooting forward.

"Brace yourselves!" She screamed back, roaring up the steps and through the Gate.

The car burst through the Gate on the other side, slamming into the concrete wall, throwing them back into their seats.

"What the hell -" Hammond started, then a bullet whizzed through the Gate and smacked into the glass above his forehead.

"Close the iris!" he ordered, and watched the metal shield contract and shut tight.

Dr Jackson climbed out of the back seat covered in blood, screaming for a medic. A stretcher arrived and Jackson helped pull O'Neill from the back seat and Hammond saw where all the blood was coming from. O'Neill was listed onto a guerney and Jackson climbed on top of him. Dear God, Jackson had his hand deep in the Colonel's chest.

Fraiser saw what Daniel was doing immediately and understood.

"OR4," she ordered, following the guerney.

Two medics remained to pull Carter and Teal'c from the car, dazed and bleeding.

Daniel stayed on top of Jack and wouldn't move until Janet ordered an orderly to pull him off.

"Get him out of here."

"Why? I've already had my hand in his chest. Infection is rather moot now, " Daniel countered, and Janet didn't have time to argue.

"Oh my god." As she cut away the blood soaked bandages she realised what they'd done. Adrenalin, blood, oxygen and several shocks administered directly got Jack's heart started again.

"He was conscious when they did this," Daniel added, resisting the orderly’s efforts to remove him.

Dear God, Janet thought, as she looked down at Jack.

"Did I," Daniel had to ask. "Did I get everything? Is he all there? There wasn't time to check. They'd already started."

Horrified, Janet ran a quick inventory. "I think so."

Jack's heart faltered again.

"He's tachycardiac. Go to 170."

Nothing. Fraiser administered the shock again. Nothing. Daniel watched helplessly. Then, again, there was a beat.

"Will he die?" Daniel had to ask.

"I don't know. Daniel, you're in shock and you're in my way. Get out of here," she ordered.

Daniel ducked his head, beaten.

Daniel left, unable to stand any more.

Sam was waiting outside the doors when Daniel pushed through them. He was covered head to toe in Jack's blood, the smears bright red and vivid across the pale skin of his cheek and brow, where he must have rubbed his face without realising. Daniel had that blank look he wore when Jack was in trouble, or things had progressed beyond his ability to cope with them, the two situations usually running concurrently, like now. Daniel looked like he'd been shot, but he hadn't felt the bullet yet. He just seemed...surprised. He didn't speak. He just leant back against the corridor's wall, closing his eyes. It was bad, really bad.

Sam braced herself. After all this, they were going to lose him. Oh, Jack...

She turned away, unable to face it. She'd wait in her office, for the news, when it came. They were unable to make eye contact and passed each other without a word.

Hammond watched them and realised his people were in shock. He still needed answers.

"Dr Jackson."

Daniel paused, as though on hold.

Hammond sympathised. "Get yourself cleaned up, son," he reminded gently.

Daniel glanced down blankly, and nodded.

Hammond watched him go, making a note to get an airman to follow Dr Jackson and make sure he actually did. Hammond couldn't have Jackson wandering about the corridors in a daze covered in O'Neill's blood. It was bad for morale as well as being in bad taste.

Several hours later the surviving members of SG-1 were gathered around the briefing table, joined by Dr Fraiser.

Teal'c looked like a stone carving, Carter looked shattered and Jackson was quietly furious.

Sam rested her head on her hands, then looked up. "They cut him open. Those butchers cut him open." Her jaw was set tight.

"Vivisection," Daniel elaborated. "What members of our own Government wanted to do to Teal'c, given half the chance," Daniel reminded.

Hammond looked at him. "And that excuses what they did to Colonel O'Neill?"

"No," Daniel maintained a controlled calm. "I do not condone their actions. I'm merely pointing out the parallel behaviours. They are very close to us in developmental terms, and just as paranoid. They captured Jack as an extraterrestrial, which he was, and they wanted to see what made him tick. We have done the same."

"Our alien autopsies were performed on deceased subjects," Hammond argued back.

Daniel was pretty sure hat wasn't entirely true, given what he knew about some sections of Area 51, but said nothing.

Hammond turned to Dr Fraiser. "Colonel O'Neill?"

"Lucky to be alive. I'm surprised we didn't lose him to shock on the table. As far as I know they used no anaesthetic on him at all.' She skimmed her notes. "He's still in critical condition, Sir. There was massive trauma and blood loss.They cracked his ribs open and took tissue samples, but all the major organs appear reasonably intact. I estimate they'd only begun an hour or two before our team got to him."

"Will he survive?" Hammond pressed

"It's too soon to say, but given the stubborn refusal to die the Colonel has shown so far..." She didn't say any more, but her eyes said hope and pray. She saw Daniel bow his head. Hope and pray.

"He's had the equivalent of major surgery. He should recover, but it will be slow and painful." Fraiser finished.

"They cut into him without any form of anaesthetic? That's barbaric." Sam wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Not really," Daniel interjected quietly.

Sam stared at him.

Daniel tilted his head slightly. "Well, yes it is barbaric, but it's done more from ignorance than cruelty. Until very recently, and I'm only talking in the last decade or so at most, anaesthetic wasn't widely used during surgery on animals, or even during major surgery on infants. The doctors believed that children that young couldn't feel pain. When they started using anaesthetic the death rate from infant open heart surgery dropped nearly 75%. The infants had been dying from shock and pain. It's no different to what was done to Jack. They just didn't credit him with the ability to feel pain."

"And that makes it alright?"

"No." Daniel was still eerily calm. "I was just trying to explain why they did what they did. That's what I do. It's all I do."

"Thank you, Dr Jackson," Hammond cut him off, knowing Daniel well enough to sense a shift in moods, a shift for the worse.

"The question is," Hammond continued. "Will Colonel O'Neill be alright psychologically? He was systematically tortured."

Janet shook her head. "I just don't know, Sir. He's been tortured before, several times according to his file, and shown excellent coping mechanisms. They had him for several days though, Sir. There's no telling what they did to him. From the physical evidence, it looks like the sort of experimentation Nazi doctors performed on Jewish prisoners in World War II."

"He'll be fine," Daniel insisted doggedly. His eyes challenged them. "Jack's always fine."

Hammond leant forward. "How did this happen?" It wasn't a question, it was an order to make their report.

They'd gone through the Gate, like they had so many times before. None of them ever knew if this was 'the one' where they bought it. They tried never to think of it. This world had been so like their own, so deceptively close that they'd let their guard down. They'd gotten careless. They'd forgotten how their own world operated, in the rarefied surroundings of the SGC, and it had bitten them in the arse.

Unlike their world, when the Gate here had been unearthed in an archaeological dig it had merely been thought of as ornamental, rather than useful, and so had been classified as a religious artefact of unknown origin or purpose, much like Stonehenge. A big round archaeological curiosity. Military applications for the pretty stone ring never even entered into the wildest philosophies or imaginings. Until one night when the stone ring, preserved in the field where it had been found as a heritage tourist attraction, had suddenly sprung to life and four strangers and a MALP had walked through, startling the dogs on the local farms and sending out a jolt that scrambled the nearby military base into immediate action.

They'd been walking about the area like tourists on a Sunday jaunt. They deserved to be captured. Daniel had been so amused by the alternate application of the Gate he'd gone into the gift shop and lifted a couple of postcards and a fridge magnet, having discovered the one place where American dollars weren't accepted. Jack's eyebrow had raised over the ease and cold calculated study of Daniel's thievery. He sometimes wondered about that boy. The food vendor had been an easier sell on foreign currency and with a gold coin specially minted and solely intended to bargain for food and shelter in enemy terrain handed over, Jack had found himself leading a pack of three school children with icecreams. They really had been asking for it.

Army jeeps had roared over the hill and SG-1 had tried to blend into the sparse crowd of sightseers, but the gift shop clerk had helpfully pointed out the group of foreigners with the funny accents, funny clothes and funny money. They'd made a break for it into the nearby parkland. Jack had stayed back to cover them as they'd gone to ground. Daniel hadn't even noticed Jack was gone. One moment he was behind them, the next, he wasn't. Jack's radio had gone dead, he wasn't answering Daniel's increasingly desperate calls to check in. They'd laid low for a while, still unable to contact Jack over the radio, then moved out as the light began to fade. Sam had found the highway and that's when they'd seen the convoy of army trucks heading West.

Jack had been surrounded and surrendered and the last thing he remembered was putting his rifle down, his arms up and the smack of another rifle butt hard across the back of his head. He'd gone down on his knees, sick, then another crack and nothing.

He was awake now. Awake and curled into a ball. He put a hand to his head and winced. He moved. Cold. Cold tiles. Cold white tiles everywhere and he was naked. He tried to sit up but the tiles were slippery and he was woozy and there was a video camera in the far corner, moving slowly, watching him. Oh, crap.

He had a vague memory of being strapped to a chair and questioned endlessly by military types demanding identification, as best he could work out. They were speaking some Norse dialect that Daniel understood but Jack only caught one word in a hundred, if he was lucky. All he could say was no, and it didn't please them much. They'd examined his clothes and weapons. He'd struggled and been slapped back into the chair. Then the lab coat guys had shown up with needles and test tubes to take blood, hair and skin samples. An hour or two of having the crap beaten out of him later the lab coat guys had rushed back, stuck him with something and that had been all she wrote. The memories were so vague he would have dismissed them as nightmares, if not for the bruises that covered him from head to toe.

Jack shifted into the corner, huddled over, very unhappy and all too vulnerable. He glared at the camera that tracked his movements. He could hear it's pneumatic whine as it moved in for a close up. He gave them the finger. Let them work out what that meant. He studied his cage. Four gleaming walls and a solid steel door that probably led to an airlock on the other side. No windows. No mirrors. Just a camera. No furniture, no utensils and none of his kit. He was stuck here, until they decided otherwise.

Shaking his head to clear it, he crawled over towards the camera, pulled himself up and examined it. What some of the companies back home would give to see how the other folks did things, but as far as Jack was concerned, it was basically the same. No cables to pull out though, damn. It was solidly constructed, the way all military equipment was designed to be thrown about a battlefield. It had only one vulnerable spot, as far as he could see. This was going to hurt, but it was so worth it. He pulled his hand into a tight fist and punched the lens, hard. That hurt, but at least it gave him a purpose, something to do. He punched again, and again, and again until a fine mist dropped from the ventilation grid in the ceiling and Jack slumped back down to the floor, unconscious.

There was a light in his eyes. He stared at the light for a long while. He tried to move but realised with an increasing feeling of dread that he was strapped down very firmly to some sort of metal table. At least, it was freezing his butt off. His arms were held outstretched and his legs had gone numb from being pinned down like this for so long, he couldn't tell. He lay there for a very long time, telling himself to breathe normally, trying to control the panic. All he could hear was his heart pounding. He was scared, he admitted it. This wasn't good. He could see shadows. From the corner of his eyes he could see shadows of men moving behind glass, discussing him, obviously.

A decision must have been made because the next thing he heard was the hiss of a door opening and people moving into the room. Protective suits rustled and equipment was rolled closer. More lights had switched on, almost blinding him. He tried to turn his head away, but found himself held very firmly. A camera was brought down close and position. Then one of the suited men had leant over him with a knife and started cutting.

Daniel fiddled with the paperclip on his folder. "So we managed to steal a car and follow the direction the trucks had gone. We couldn't get into the base at all, the perimeter was too well guarded. We had to wait until they moved Jack to a research facility in the nearby city. So we managed to steal a car and follow the direction the trucks had gone. The security there relied more on locks than armed guards, and we managed to break through the mostly electronic locks with the zat guns. By the time we found the floor they were keeping Jack on it was - they'd already started." Daniel hung his head.

"You did your best, Son." Hammond assured. In fact, he'd been very impressed with the way Dr Jackson had handled the situation, taking charge of the rescue mission by Major Carter's own admission.

"Dr Jackson, do you honestly think we should try and contact these people again. Do they have any technology we could use that you observed?"

"Sir!" Carter was outraged.

"It's alright, Sam" Daniel placated. He adjusted his glasses and gazed down at his notes. "They appear to be on a level of parallel development to us, give or take, speaking a Nordic based language in a society that seems to be run on the same religious, military and economic lines as Nordic settlements found here. In other words, a society very much like much of present day Europe and North America. They maybe more advanced than us in some areas, but there are significant risks involved in further contact. They treated us much as we'd treat anyone who strolled through our Gate unannounced. Any further emissaries sent to their world are likely to be captured and possibly killed out of a not entirely irrational xenophobia - the destruction of many a culture was brought about by strangers from another land. We could kill them more easily with the air in or lungs and the soil on our shoes than bullets. Just look at smallpox in the indigenous populations of Australia, syphilis and leprosy in Tahiti, the black plague, the current foot and mouth outbreak in Europe. These people have every right to act the way they did, no matter how dreadful it seems to us." Daniel looked up. It is my belief that further contact will escalate the perceived threat from the Stargate and they would most likely try to send a bomb through, like we did," he added pointedly. "Teal'c would have ended up like Jack, had not Jack not gone to great lengths to protect him. What they did to Jack is no worse than what we would have done, had the situations been reversed."

"I take it you believe we should lock out these co-ordinates?"

"Yes, unless we want to contaminate them any further with the same level of paranoia and hysteria some sections of the Government and public here already have with regard to aliens."

"Daniel, how can you defend them?" Carter was incredulous.

"I'm not. I just understand where they're coming from. I saw what Maybourne wanted to do to the Tollan, remember?"

Sam remembered.

-0-

General Hammond looked through the window into the ICU, and was not happy with what he saw. Dr Jackson, hunched over by the bed of Colonel O'Neill, his eyes never leaving Jack's face, his hand never leaving Jack's hand.

"He's been here the whole time?"

"He only leaves for toilet breaks. He gets my nurses to fetch him coffee. They'd fetch him bed pans too if I hadn't put my foot down."

Hammond looked perplexed. "This can't go on. Dr Jackson has work he needs to do. We don't pay him to sit by someone's bedside all day and all night and do nothing."

"Do you want to tell Daniel that?" Janet pressed gently.

Hammond switched from harassed General to indulgent father in a single breath. "No. He'd be no use to anyone anyway right now." Hammond glanced through the window again. Jackson looked so utterly forlorn.

"Will O'Neill recover?" Hammond had to ask again, more personally this time, worried what effect it would have on his leading translator.

Dr Fraiser shrugged. "He's suffered massive shock and trauma. I've sewn him up as best I could. Right now I'd say it depends on the Colonel's will to live as much as my skill with a needle and thread."

The General gazed again through the window. "Jack's a stubborn SOB. He won't let this keep him down." Hammond had read O'Neill's file. He almost had it memorised. This was tough, but O'Neill had lived through horrors if not worse, then almost as bad. He'd pull though - Jack O'Neill was too stubborn to die. He'd proven that before, too many times.

Daniel rested his chin on the cold steel bar of Jack's hospital bed, too exhausted for words or thought, just the need to be here, with Jack. His thumb stroked Jack's hand through the gauze bandages. Don't leave me, Jack, he pleaded again soundlessly. Please don't leave me.

-0-

Daniel was slumped fast asleep in his chair beside Jack's bed in the ICU. Exhaustion from his never ending vigil had finally claimed him and he slept oblivious to the hiss and pips of the machines that were keeping Jack alive.

Gently, Sam separated Daniel's hand from Jack's. Daniel still didn't stir, so deeply asleep was he.

The alien metal was oddly warm as Sam slipped her hand against it. It was the Go'auld healing device she'd snuck out of the lab. She needed to do this, and she knew no one would trust her to try. So here she was in the dead of night, hovering over Jack's bed with an alien device that could kill him or cure him.

She held out her hand and thought of Jack, thought warm happy thoughts for Jack, and the palm device began to glow. She passed it slowly up and down Jack, feeling more powerful, more comfortable with each sweep. She could do this, she could make him better. She wept silently with joy as she held the device over him. She could save him.

Jack's eyelashes fluttered, and Sam smiled. She was doing this, she was fixing this. Jack's chest rose and fell deeply, taking a shaky breath. He choked on the tube down his throat, the sound bringing Daniel instantly awake.

He saw what Sam was doing and understood, saying nothing. He leant forward and gently pulled the tube from Jack's throat, stroking his cheek softly. "It's alright, Jack. You're safe. Home. We're here for you."

Jack took another breath. His eyes snapped open and he screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

Daniel held him down but he kept screaming and screaming until Janet rushed in and sedated him.

"What did you do?" she demanded of the two of them.

Sam held out the Go'auld device.

"I didn't mean to hurt him. I just wanted to help," she was crying.

Janet patted Sam's arm. "I know." She understood Sam's motives. She pulled back the sheet and closely examined the skin where she'd sewn the Colonel back together. It had healed, completely. He'd been sliced open from neck to groin, but now there was no sign but for the stitches still neatly in place that had held him together like a cheaply made rag doll. She pulled a light down close and began to tweeze out the stitches, leaving nothing but healthy pink skin behind.

"Did it work?" Sam asked, stepping closer. "I think it might have. I'll have to run tests."

Sam sank back in relief.

"Next time, see me first. You might have done more harm than good," Janet lectured.

"I just wanted to help."

Janet understood that, but Jack was her patient. She shooed them out of her ward and turned back to Jack. At least he longer looked worse than some corpses she'd autopsied in medical school. That had bothered her, more than she cared to admit.

-0-

"Should have put money on that one, Jack," Daniel teased. Daniel had the Chicago sports pages spread out and was reading the results aloud to Jack.

Jack, swathed in a regulation issue blue robe, stared straight ahead, unseeing, unreacting. He'd been like this for nearly a week. At first, he'd just screamed, and Fraiser had kept him drugged. Now, he'd just gone somewhere else and left his body behind.

Daniel understood. Jack had been horribly tortured. He'd been fully awake and aware when those people had strapped him down and started cutting into him. Daniel just wished there was some way to get Jack back, to tell him it was all over, because if Jack didn't come back soon he'd be shipped off to a VA hospital and that would be the end of it.

"Not interested in the sports pages?" Daniel put the paper away. "Okay, how about a game of cards then? You could always take me at cards. This way at least I have a sporting chance." Daniel took out the packet of well-worn cards from his pocket, Jack's pack, shuffled them a few times and dealt himself and Jack a hand. He turned him over, grinning. Two eights. "Lets see you beat that," he grinned, reaching forward to turn over Jack's cards. Three queens.

Daniel slumped. "I don't believe it. That's so not fair. You cheated," he accused.

The curtain twitched back. It was Sam.

"General Hammond wanted to know about that translation?" she formed her request as an apology.

"I'm on it," Daniel nodded absently, turning to shuffle his own papers.

Sam nodded sadly, and let the curtain fall back into place.

Daniel cracked open his book and bent over it, trying to read the words but seeing nothing of it.

Through it all, Jack kept staring blankly ahead.

Daniel slumped forward over his book, and on the monitor Janet could see his shoulders were shaking. Daniel was sobbing silently at Jack's feet. Her face pinched with sympathy. Poor Daniel. This was harder on him than anyone knew.

-0-

Daniel studied Jack's eyes, so sure Jack was still in there, somewhere, hiding. Just a flicker would give Daniel hope, but there was nothing in the dead eyes. He looked dead. He was pale and thin and he wasn't Jack at all. He didn't even look like Jack. He was a stranger without the light in his eyes, whether sparking in mischief or burning in outrage. It wasn't Jack. It didn't look like Jack, it didn't smell like Jack. Daniel rubbed Jack's cheek softly. It didn't even feel like Jack.

Momentarily revolted, Daniel tidied Jack's robe, arranged his sheets, and put on another CD of Jack's music. Daniel slipped the headphones carefully over Jack's ears. Jack's blank gaze never wavered. Hysterical, crazy or brain damaged, either way, Jack was retreating further and further away from the living. Away from Daniel.

Jack had been curtained off from the rest of the ward for various reasons: to give him some peace, to afford Daniel some privacy, to hide Jack from the general populace of the base. Jack was the man, and to see him lying helplessly in a vegetative state had plummeted morale. So now Daniel attended Jack alone, occasionally spelled by Sam, when she had time.

Another wave of despair and loneliness swept over Daniel. He returned to Jack's side, hugging him and kissing the top of his head fondly. "God, I miss you," he murmured. What he wouldn't give, just to hear Jack tear into him for the sheer heck of it. He missed their fights as much as their flirting. It was all one and the same, really, and they knew it. "Come back to me, Jack," he murmured.

The curtain twitched back and Daniel released Jack, rearranging him slightly on the pillows. It was only Janet.

The first thing Janet noticed was Jack, washed and fresh shaven, and Daniel, who was neither. Daniel in fact was looking alarmingly bad, not merely rumpled but exhausted and malnourished as well. She wondered when was the last time he'd seen sunlight or breathed fresh air.

"You can't stay in here, Daniel, it's not healthy."

Daniel instantly glanced back to Jack, and Janet understood. "He's not going anywhere. Why don't you take a break while I run through some tests."

Daniel's face twisted. "Do you have to, run the tests I mean?" Hasn't the poor man suffered enough? Daniel's eyes pleaded with her. "He's in one piece, isn't he?" Sam's device had done its' work, and sewn humpty back together again, without even leaving a scar. Thank god for incredibly vain Go'aulds and their alien technology.

Janet regarded Daniel compassionately. "I'd still like to run another MRI. Just to make sure he's still in there somewhere." The last one had shown bright spots of activity that Daniel clung to as beacons of hope. Jack was in there. Daniel just had to reach him.

"I'll stay," Daniel decided, against Janet's better judgement. Daniel couldn't leave Jack to be fed into the machine alone. It was too clinical. Too much like what 'they' had done to him.

"Any sign of life?" Janet asked, noting Jack's vitals down on her clipboard.

Daniel bowed his head. That'd be a no, then. She wanted to hope, like Daniel hoped, but the longer this went on, the less likely it was. Daniel knew it. That's why he looked so awful.

Jack could easily die if he didn't recover soon. The drugs weren't working and Daniel had yet to consent to ECT. In fact, Daniel was vehemently opposed to such a "cruel and barbaric" treatment. Time was running out. Two more days, at most and Jack would either be a permanent vegetable or dead.

"I want to take him home." Daniel’s announcement came suddenly.

Janet gave him an indulgent look.

"Are you sure you know what you're asking, Daniel."

Daniel looked offended. "I can feed and change him, if that's what you mean. I'm going to have to get used to doing that by myself anyway. The familiar surroundings might help. This place," he gestured widely, "It's too institutional. It's too much like...there."

Janet nodded. She could see what Daniel was getting at. She just didn't want to give him too much hope.

"Alright. I'll have someone check up on you every couple of days or so, though." She saw his look. "He's my patient too," she reminded.

Daniel visibly relaxed. If Jack were to recover, or die, at least it would be in his own bed, the way he'd wanted. Daniel owed Jack that much, at least.

-0-

Daniel was sitting at the counter with his coffee and toast, pouring over an old textbook from the Twenties on Aramaic. The smell of the old book was comforting, and familiar, and was actually enjoying himself. Jack was propped on the couch as usual, with the television on and the sound down low. Daniel had the radio on. Not that he was listening, it was just noise to fill up the silences. His elaborate one-sided conversations had started to convince him that if there was a crazy person here, it might not be Jack. An old song came on and he started to hum it, then turned it up when it began to remind him of high school, a much more innocent time, even though he'd hated it and been persecuted as a geek, even more so than now. At least then the biggest threat in his life had been MacInnes and his pack of meatheads. Daniel had always hated a bully. Funny, then, that he loved Jack as much as he did. Jack would have made his life miserable back then. He still did, but it was tempered with a humanity and humour Daniel never ceased to be charmed by.

This song reminded him of sitting under the big old tree with his books and his Walkman and he found the memory oddly comforting. He turned up the radio and half sang tunelessly along with the words as he read.

The same song meant something entirely different to Jack. "Rock the Kasbah" had been their unofficial anthem during the war. The song had played over and over, blaring out of every speaker, so much a part of those days. Even the Iraqis had played it, rattling from tinny speakers and echoing around the dark filthy hole of his cell.

He woke with a start, breathing hard, and looked around. He was home, he realised. He'd just been dreaming again, lost in nightmares. He threw off the blanket and tried to stand, but found himself curiously weak.

"Charlie? Sara?" he called in a voice that sounded like a rough whisper. "Sara?" he called again.

Daniel had spilled his coffee over his book at the first sound. The second pierced his heart. He wasn't the one Jack had called for.

Jack was awake. Sitting up and awake. He tracked Daniel's movement and looked at him first in confusion, then hostility.

"Where's Sara? Where's Charlie?" Jack demanded with violence. "Where are they?"

Daniel stayed where he was, unmoving, not entirely sure Jack couldn't get up and throttle him if he rally wanted to, and Jack looked like he really wanted to. There was no recognition in his eyes at all.

"Jack," Daniel began slowly. "Sara and Charlie aren't here."

"Where are they?"

Okay. Daniel took a moment to think. Did he tell Jack now or later? Would it hurt more now, send him spiralling down again?

"Jack, what year is it?"

"93," Jack answered, wondering why he was being asked, and why everything looked so wrong. This wasn't the house, but this was all his stuff. Something was wrong, something he couldn't remember.

Daniel shook his head sadly. "It's 2001, Jack. Charlie died and Sara left you. Five years ago. You're in command of SG-1 and we work together. We're friends. You were hurt very badly on a mission and I've been looking after you."

Jack tried to process this rush of information. Sara, gone? After everything he'd done, he'd gone through, he'd survived just to get back to her, and she'd left him? Charlie, dead? The image suddenly rocked him, like a kick in the gut - Charlie's body - Charlie's brains splattered up the wall - No!

He covered his eyes. He flashed again on a cell, a stinking dirty hot cell with flames and sulphur and his leg, so much pain...no, that was wrong. This cell had been gleaming and white with shiny stainless steel surgical instruments - he looked down at his chest and screamed.

Daniel covered the distance in an instant and held him tight.

"It's okay, Jack. You're safe, and well. You're back home. It's real. I'm real. I'm here and I won't let them hurt you any more. Come back to me, Jack. Please come back."

Jack shook in his arms, terrified and wanting to fight, but he was no match for Daniel and Daniel managed to hold him until he calmed.

"See," he held out Jack's hand. "No scars. All gone. You're safe here."

Jack's breathing slowed. It was over. It was over. He gazed up into blue eyes.

"Daniel?"

"Yes."

Thank god. He buried himself in Daniel's arms, breathing his familiar scent. Daniel kissed the top of his head softly. It was going to be all right.

"He's awake. Confused and disorientated, but aware of his surroundings. He was kind of messed up over what year it was at first, but he seems to be adjusting. I think he just wanted to stay somewhere safe, in his head. It's just traumatic memory loss, nothing more. It should all come back to him, in time. He almost seems to be reliving the time he came back, after the war." Daniel paused, studying Jack who was now out on the veranda in the sun. Daniel didn't want to take his eyes off him for a second.

"Look, come over, check him out. I don't want to leave him alone right now. He didn't remember Charlie was dead. He's still kind of shell shocked. I just don't want to leave him alone." Daniel was terrified Jack might try something. He had that crazy look in his eyes.

Daniel put the phone down and went back out to the veranda. Jack was basking in the sun, in such a familiar attitude Daniel's heart leap. Jack would get through this. He was as tough as old boots. At least, he'd always seemed that way. It distressed Daniel terribly to see Jack so broken. He hadn't realised he'd put Jack on such a pedestal, not until he'd seen the naked human fear in Jack's eyes this morning. Jack was meant to be the strong one. Jack was meant to laugh this off like everything else he'd endured in his life. This had been one horror too many, too much, too personal.

"Who was that?" Jack asked, somewhat suspiciously.

"Dr Fraiser. She's worried about you. You haven't been well."

"I cracked up, right."

Daniel nodded. "You were tortured, horribly."

Jack's eyes glazed over. He didn't, couldn't, he pushed the memories away.

"I lost it," Jack repeated.

"It's okay. It was very bad. Everyone understands." Daniel fumbled. What could he say? Nobody thinks badly of you because you couldn't deal with being cut up like a frog? He knew how much Jack had prided himself on not breaking in the war. It was as if he'd broken some promise with himself. He probably had. It wasn't just Jack's body that had been cut into. He'd been raped, Daniel realised, violated, and this time he'd broken and he couldn't forgive himself. There was nothing Daniel could say. Jack would just have to learn to live with it, live through it.

"You'll get over it. You always do," Daniel reminded him. "You were too stubborn to die, and I know you're too stubborn to let this keep you down. "

Jack looked at him. "You sound so sure." Jack sounded so broken. It bit into Daniel's heart again.

"I am sure. I don't want to tell you to suck it up, Jack, but I know you," his blue eyes were intense and held Jack's like a mesmerist's, "and I know just how strong you are. I know you can pick yourself up and carry on. You know how to, you've been trained to survive. You've done it before. It's not easy but you can do it. I've seen you do it so many times before. You know what you need to do to put this behind you."

Jack looked almost convinced.

"Enough for now, though. Let's just enjoy the sunshine," Daniel instructed, indicating the warm and sunny veranda.

Jack tilted his head back into the sun, making Daniel smile. He propped Jack's feet up in his lap, feeling Jack tense for a long moment at the sudden contact, then waited. Gently, Daniel began rubbing Jack's feet. He knew Jack loved it. After several unsure minutes he felt Jack relax. Daniel rubbed firmly through Jack's socks. He wouldn't take Jack's socks off. Jack liked to be covered up right now. It was a protective thing and Daniel respected that. He felt Jack begin to sink back into his chair, pliant and happy. He trusted Daniel; he trusted Daniel a lot to let himself go this much, this soon.

Daniel's thumb stroked down Jack's arch. Jack gave him a lazy look.

"Are you trying to come onto me, Sailor?" he teased.

Daniel flustered a little. "Yes and no."'

"Good, it's working," and Jack flashed him a smile that was pure old Jack. Lecherous Jack.

Daniel brightened. Jack had his sense of humour back. That was the best possible sign, as far as he was concerned. He smiled up into the yellowing leaves that hung against the bright blue sky and marvelled again at how pretty Jack's back yard was. He rubbed the warm and living socked feet in his lap and he revelled in his deep belief that they'd be okay.

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