CHAPTER FIVE

"So, did you actually think that I'd agree to let you go through with such a harebrained plan?"

Daniel lifted his head from his hands and looked at Jack, who was presently standing in the doorway of Daniel's office.  He'd been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn't felt the colonel's approach.

"What?"

"Don't play dumb, Daniel.  Just answer the question.  Did you think that I'd let you sell your soul to the Tok'ra in exchange for the use of one of their ships?"

"I didn't think about it.  It was a sudden idea."

"You sure seem to do that a lot, don't you, come up with these insane ideas, then go off and do them without considering what I might have to say about it."

Daniel heard the anger in Jack's voice.  "Jack—"

Jack held up his finger.  "No, Daniel.  Not this time.  You are going to hear me out.  What is it with you and this self-sacrifice complex that you've got going on?  Every year you seem to find more ways to get killed or nearly killed rushing in to save someone, regardless of whether or not you should.  You tell me that you don't want to die, yet you seem bound and determined to get yourself killed one way or another."

"Jack, the Tok'ra wouldn't deliberately put me in an extremely risky situation.  They'd know that, if they got me killed, they and the SGC would lose my abilities."

"Yeah, and what about if they make you do too much, and you end up frying your own brain?  Oh, sure.  Maybe you wouldn't die.  You'd just be a mindless vegetable for the rest of your life.  With the exception of Jacob, the Tok'ra don't care about you personally, Daniel.  You're just a . . . a commodity to them."

"Did Hammond tell you about my dream?" Daniel asked.  "Did he tell you that the hull of the Prometheus is corroding and, sooner or later, will fail?"

"Yes, he told me."

Daniel arose from his desk and moved around to the side, glaring at Jack over the top of it.  "Then what do you expect me to do, Jack?  It may be within my power to save Sam and all the rest of the crew, hundreds of men and women who fight beside us against the Goa'uld.  You want me to just turn my back and do nothing?"

"No, I expect you to wait and see if another alternative presents itself before leaping into making a deal that makes me ill just thinking about it!"

Fury erupted inside Daniel.  "Dammit, Jack!  Don't you dare take away my ability to save someone I care about!"

The monitor on Daniel's desk suddenly exploded with a shower of sparks.  At the same time, everything else on his desk went flying through the air to smash against the walls and bookcases.  Dead silence followed.

"Oh, God," Daniel whispered, stunned and horrified by what he'd just done.  He backed away from the desk.

"Um . . . that was. . . ."  Jack's voice trailed off.  Okay, so what in the hell could he say about this?

"I could have hurt you."

Jack looked at Daniel, who had backed up to the wall, his face pale, wide eyes staring at the destruction he had unintentionally wrought.  Jack immediately stepped toward him.

"No!"  Daniel held out a hand as if ward Jack off.  "Get out of here, Jack.  Just leave.  Please," he begged.  "Before I. . . ."

"Before you what, Daniel?  Hurt me?"

Daniel's eyes clamped shut tightly.

Jack took a slow step closer.  "You didn't hurt me, Daniel.  You're not going to hurt me.  That would never happen."

"How can you be so sure?" Daniel asked in a small, scared voice that tore Jack apart to hear.

"Because I know you, that's why.  I know that, no matter what happened, you would never harm me or anyone else you cared about."

A single tear escaped from beneath Daniel's eyelids.  "God, Jack.  I don't want this," he whispered.

Ignoring the earlier command to stay away, Jack strode forward and took hold of Daniel.  Feeling the tremors that were shuddering through his friend's body, he pulled the man into his embrace.

"I know, Danny.  I know," Jack murmured soothingly, speaking the name he hadn't used in that way in so very many years.

A small part of Daniel wanted to hold on and let his friend comfort him, but the bigger part wouldn't let him.  It had been so long since Jack had comforted him like this that he had learned not to rely on or even hope for it, no matter how hard life kicked him in the teeth.  He could not start to depend on it now.

Daniel only let Jack hold him for a few seconds, then he pulled out of the man's arms and moved away, wiping the tears he'd shed off his face.

"I'm sorry," he said in a low voice.

"For what?  Yelling at me, blowing up your monitor, or letting yourself cry?"

Daniel drew in a shaky breath.  "All of them, I guess."

"Well, in regards to the monitor and the mess you made of your office, I'll just have to remember in the future not to seriously tick you off.  I'll draft a memo to the rest of the personnel.  I'm sure they'd like to be informed of the new rule.  As for the crying . . . I think you're entitled, Daniel.  Your whole life has been turned upside down, and you're understandably scared by it all.  I cannot even comprehend the weight of such a responsibility, to know that you can destroy with a mere thought.  You're also exhausted.  You couldn't have gotten more than a couple of hours' sleep this time.  On top of all that is this thing with Carter, which you're scared about, too."  Jack paused.  "I'm sorry about what I said, Daniel.  It was wrong.  I don't have the right to deny you the opportunity to save her and the others.  If you feel that you have to make that offer to the Tok'ra, I won't stop you.  I'm just asking that you give it a little more time.  Please?"

Daniel did not answer for a moment, then he gave a nod.  Jack relaxed a bit.

"Um . . . what about me yelling at you?" Daniel asked.

"That was covered under the apology I gave you.  Besides, I'm man enough to take it."  Jack cast his gaze about the room.  "Now, about this mess. . . ."

"Yeah.  I guess I'm going to be busy for a while."

"I'd love to hear the story you're going to tell when you put in your requisition for a new monitor."

"That it fried from overuse?"

"Well, maybe if it was Carter's monitor."

A smile flitted across Daniel's face.  "Do you think that, if I switched monitors with her, she'd be interrogated less when she asks for a replacement?"

"Could be."

Daniel shook his head.  "It probably wouldn't work.  One of her assistants would notice the switch."

Jack looked down at the monitor.  There was a gaping hole in the screen, and the case was severely blackened.  "Nah.  I think you can get away with it."

Daniel's smile grew a little.  "It's a good thing I didn't have any artifacts on my desk."

"Whew!  What a relief!" Jack said with mock exaggeration.

A thought occurred to Daniel, and he started searching through the mess on the floor.  He found one of the items he was looking for and was relieved to see that it was still intact.  He set aside the framed photo of his wife and resumed his search.  When he found the other item, he froze.  The glass covering the picture of SG-1 had shattered.  A large, jagged tear marred the photo, right across the image of Sam.  He touched the photo, heedless of the sharp pieces of glass.

All at once, a cascade of images bombarded Daniel's mind.  He saw the Prometheus surrounded by glowing ribbons of color, its hull translucent, as if it was only partly in that dimension.  An image of Osiris with a ribbon device flashed like lightning through his brain.  He saw Sam running in fear, blood on her face and leg.  Then there was a huge battle on the ground, SGC forces fighting to survive against a large force of Jaffa.  Daniel saw Jack fall to the ground, and there was a brief cry as someone's life was snuffed out.  The scene changed again, and he was witnessing a battle over a frozen wasteland between ships from Earth and Goa'uld craft.  Still more images came, too fast and too many for him to see, filling his mind with sights, and sounds, and smells, and sensations. . . .

"Daniel!"

Daniel's mind was jerked back to the here and now.  A sharp pain made him look down at his hand.  There was blood all over it.  The archeologist stared at it dumbly.

Jack grabbed the injured hand and wrapped his handkerchief around it to staunch the flow of blood.  He looked into his friend's eyes.  "Daniel, what the hell just happened?"

"I-I-I don't know.  I had a . . . a vision.  But it was . . . there were so many things all jumbled together.  Too much.  I couldn't make sense of it all."

"Well, come on.  We've got to get those cuts treated.  Doc Fraiser's gonna just love this."

"Unscheduled off-world activation," came the announcement over the P.A.

"Crap!" Jack exclaimed.  "Talk about lousy timing.  Daniel, go on to the infirmary.  I'll see what this is all about."

Daniel wanted to go to the control room as well, just in case it was a message from the Prometheus, but his hand was really hurting now and was bleeding like crazy, so that needed to be taken care of first.

Jack was right.  Janet was not thrilled to see what Daniel had done to his hand.  She took pity on him, however, when she saw the slightly shell-shocked look in his eyes.  As she took care of cleaning and stitching the cuts, she asked what happened.  Daniel told her, knowing that, one way or another, she'd find out anyway.

"Your anger released the power?" she asked gently.

"Yeah.  It really scared me.  I thought I had this thing under control.  I had no idea something like that could happen.  Jack was being unreasonable, and I . . . kind of blew up.  Well, actually, it was the monitor that blew up."

"I doubt it was just the anger, Daniel.  You are extremely sleep-deprived.  That was probably a big factor in you losing control like that.  So, what was the colonel being unreasonable about this time?"

"He didn't want me to do something that might help Sam and the Prometheus."

"What did you want. . . ."

Janet didn't finish her sentence, for, just then, Jack walked into the infirmary.  He headed straight over to where she and Daniel were.

"So, is he going to live, Doc?" he asked.

"I believe so.  It's a good thing that it was his left hand, though.  It'll be too sore to do much of anything with for a few days."

"Well, I have some good news."  He turned to Daniel.  "The Tok'ra have a ship available.  It'll take them a while to get to the search area, but they're on their way."

A relieved smile brightened Daniel's features.  "That's great."

"Things are looking up, Daniel."

The archeologist nodded.  "Yes, they are, and I have this feeling now that Sam and the Prometheus are going to be all right."

---

Things were getting crazier and more desperate by the moment.  First, Sam learns that the gasses of the cloud were corroding the ship's hull.  Then she sees that little girl again and is visited a second time by the Teal'c hallucination, who suggests that everything she's experiencing is an illusion created by the aliens to find out about the Prometheus' technology.  After that, while venting the pressurized atmosphere from one of the sections of the ship in an attempt to push the Prometheus out of the cloud, she nearly blows the child, or the hallucination of the child . . . or whatever, out into space.  Then she bumps into Hallucination Daniel again, who excitedly tells her his latest theory, which is that the gas cloud is actually a sentient being.  That one had thrown Sam for a loop since it sounded more like something that the real Daniel would suggest rather than an idea coming from her own subconscious mind.

Sam looked down at the little girl who was walking beside her as they made their way to the mess hall.  Could Daniel be right?  Could this little girl be the physical personification of an alien creature that exists in the form of a gigantic gas cloud?  Sam supposed that it wasn't impossible for the cloud to be alive.  They'd already encountered creatures that were made of pure energy and another creature that could live inside the memory banks of a computer.  Why not one that was a humongous cloud of gas?

'Daniel, you would be so proud of me,' Sam thought to herself, hoping that she'd survive long enough to tell her friend what she had been thinking.

---

It had now been four days since the Prometheus disappeared, and everyone at the SGC was getting progressively more concerned, especially Sam's teammates.  Daniel, Jack and Teal'c were now in the briefing room with Hammond after finding out the latest news.  The Tok'ra had just completed an initial search of the Prometheus' planned route and found no sign of the ship at any of the designated cool-down coordinates.  They were now expanding their search, conducting long-range scans of several systems near the route home.

"Did they check the gas cloud?" Daniel asked Hammond.

"Yes, they did, but there is no sign of the Prometheus in that area, and their sensors are not picking up anything within the cloud, though they are having some trouble getting readings for some reason."

Daniel frowned deeply.

"What is it, Doctor Jackson?"

"I just have a strong feeling that the Prometheus is inside that cloud.  One of the images I saw could have been of the ship within it."

Jack was now also frowning.  "So, Daniel thinks that the Prometheus is in that cloud, but the Tok'ra can't detect anything inside it.  Maybe there's something about the cloud that is fooling the sensors."

Hammond nodded.  "That is, of course, a possibility."

"Sam told me that the cloud has unusual properties," Daniel informed them.  "It isn't like anything else that has ever been found by us."

"Ah, well, no wonder she just had to go see it," Jack said.

"Sir, I'd like to attempt to reach Sam again," Daniel told Hammond.

"Are you sure that's wise?  You said that the last vision you had was pretty intense."

"That was different.  What I saw that last time were images of the future.  I'm going to try to see what's happening now, maybe contact Sam.  The last time I tried, she felt me somehow, though she couldn't see or hear me.  Maybe I can break through to her this time."

Hammond considered it, then gave a nod.  "All right, Doctor Jackson, but, if possible, I'd like you to do it here, just in case you have difficulties."

"I can try."

Daniel closed his eyes and slowed his brainwave pattern to where he needed it to be.  Then he again went in search of Sam.  This time, however, he kept the gas cloud in his mind, concentrating on it.

All at once, he saw it, huge and breathtakingly beautiful, a bright spot of color in the blackness of space.  He took himself inside it, trying to find Sam.  But, instead, he found something else, an awareness of a vast, utterly alien presence.  He felt the presence touch his mind curiously.

"Who are you?" he asked but received no answer.

Then Daniel saw the Prometheus, along with another ship, the same ship he'd seen in his earlier vision.  Daniel attempted to find Sam, but the image began to fade.  Then, all at once, he felt the presence again.  Thousands of images, words and feelings flooded into his mind in a matter of seconds.  With a gasp, he opened his eyes.

"What did you see, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.

"I was right.  The Prometheus is inside that cloud."  He met Jack's gaze.  "And I think I know why the Tok'ra couldn't detect it."

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