Faces, names, voices all whirled in his head as he vainly attempted to put them together in their proper places--correct faces with the correct names, with the correct voices, trying to imagine the voices that were screaming as they should be; quiet, lilting...human. It was an impossible task, as Syrus continued to surface, casting him off as weak, as a liability, grouping him with those the Nihilists deemed unable to continue their fight.

No.

Not unable. Unworthy.

He moved restlessly between the soft, cushioning layers of warmth, his voice caught in his throat even as he summoned the words to deny them, to deny what he feared lay beneath his own surface--fear and cowardice. 'No.' He wasn't the one who was flawed; it was the entire rebellion, the method of insurgence. It was suicide at best, a ritualistic suicide. If he could only get through to them, to make them see...but those who would begin to see his point of view wound up dead; murdered by their fellow rebels or their fellow people--the 'Loyalists'. He was poison; that was what was whispered to him in the deepest recesses of his mind, his subconscious. Nothing worthwhile could withstand his influence; naivety, earnest ignorance.

"Daniel."

It was a name he knew, but one that was rarely used aside from those who knew him best and a select few who had all ended up the same way--bloodied and battered, either in the thick, inconquerable forest or buried in a cluttered grave standing anonymously in the corner of a hidden clearing. He had become nothing more than one of the masses and had, for the most part, been treated as such, set apart only to be verbally ripped apart, to have his self-confidence torn to the extreme--

"Daniel, wake up, damn it!"

The name he knew. The voice he knew. Even through the thick, oppressing haze of fever that he instinctively knew burned in him, he recognized the voice--the voice that had meant safety, salvation, when the attack had come through the darkness and assailed him without any further warning aside from a spine-chilling shriek. He cleared his throat, attempting to dislodge the barrier that held back his words. "Jack?"

It was hardly better than a croak, he knew, but a new warmth surrounded his right hand, offering a grip that he weakly attempted to return. His muscles didn't feel like they were under his control; any slight movement forced a tight, rippling pain up and down his arms, across his shoulders and sent lightning bolts of agony down his legs. "Yeah, it's me," the voice--Jack's voice--assured him, tinged with relief. "C'mon; show us all you're in there. Open your eyes, willl ya?"

An effort, at first blush, sounded like it should be simple...but as they say, easier said than done. His gritty eyelids felt like they were anchored closed, and it took monumental exertion to force them open even the tiniest slit--a slit he crushed closed when light assailed it. "Ow," he mumbled unnecessarily--he heard Jack mutter something, turned away from him, and even through his closed eyelids he could tell it had just gotten darker.

"Sorry about that. Try again." No room for argument. Daniel tried again, managing to bring four fleshy blobs into mangled focus before he lost his tenuous grip on his own motor control.

"Hey," he breathed. He should at least let them know he'd seen them. A hand rifled gently through his hair, letting him know his efforts were appreciated.

"Atta boy. Doc here forced us to wake you up--"

"I did no such thing, Colonel!"

"Indeed, it was all your doing, O'Neill."

Daniel smiled slightly as his friends' voices washed over him, arguing a point that, for the most part, was moot; arguing for the simple fact that it was an outlet for their relief, and Daniel could imagine the grins on their faces--mirror images of the one that was making its own attempt at escape from him. A smaller hand--fingers, to be more precise--pressed against his neck briefly. "Get some sleep, Doctor Jackson," Doctor Fraiser's voice ordered without the same iron behind it that had been in her retort to Jack. "We were all very worried about you."

"Sorry." Daniel wasn't sure if it had actually been voiced, but the hand that briefly tightened in his hair let him know that the sentiment was understood--and not needed. He pushed himself, ignoring, as best he could, the discomfort caused by the ventilator, to open his eyes again and focus on Jack. He felt a thrill of alarm, dulled by what had to be a hefty cocktail of pain meds, at the sight before him. "...Look like shit," he managed.

Jack nodded. "Yeah, you do, as a matter of fact."

Daniel grinned drowsily around the tube at his friend's deliberate misunderstanding. "No. You."

"Gee, thanks." Jack's dry tone was offset by the hand that gently tousled Daniel's hair. "You okay?"

Daniel blinked up at the infirmary's ceiling then let his head dip to his opposite side, where he presumed Janet was standing. "Dunno. Am I?"

"Well not quite yet, Doctor Jackson, but you will be soon enough." He finally got a look at Janet as she moved closer and peeled back the bandaging on Danilel's right shoulder. "Looks good," she announced to Daniel and the rest of SG-1, then warned him with a gentle smile, "Don't try moving that arm for a while; it took serious repair work to let you keep it."

Eyes wide, Daniel looked to Jack for confirmation, his attention drawn to Sam, who squeezed his covered foot reassuringly. He found a grateful smile for her when she quietly said, "It was close, Daniel, but no one dared give up on you." Janet called for a nurse, who approached immediately.

"Feel like getting rid of this?" Janet asked, indicating the tube that was making its presence known more irritatingly by the second. Daniel nodded eagerly. "Okay, when I tell you, blow as hard as you can, all right? You may have to cough; try not to fight it, even though it might aggravate your injuries a little." Daniel nodded, drawing strength from Jack's grip on his shoulder and Sam's on his foot. Teal'c held out a cup of ice chips as Fraiser counted down from three, Daniel's countdown to exhale--a cup which Daniel was extremely grateful for when his abused throat wrenched and tickled when the tube was efficiently drawn out. Janet nodded to the nurse, who vanished, taking the ventilator with her. When his coughing fit was finally under control and he laid back, panting and with a sweat broken out on his forehead, Daniel gratefully allowed the ice to melt and soothe his throat.

"How'd we get out?" he could finally ask, hoarse as his voice was.

"Actually, Fahrn helped," Jack said, his tone not hiding his surprise or lingering disdain for the woman. "Oh, and I think she owes you the equivalent of fifty bucks or so, 'cause she said you were one hell of a soldier." He nudged Daniel's shoulder gently. "Told you."

"Hmm....must've been in really bad shape," Daniel muttered, returning the banter.

"Nah, she was right," Jack said seriously. "You did one hell of a job out there, Daniel. We're--I'm--proud of you."

Daniel blushed. "Thanks Jack," he said warmly. It meant a lot to him; the approval of his teammates. So often he felt like a hindrance to them--he always had his doubts that they allowed him ont eh team at all because of his ability in the field; a lot of the time it felt like it should just be pity. "Poor Daniel lost his wife; cut him some slack." For Jack to so openly praise him was a gift unto itself. "And what about their government?" he asked earnestly. "Everything worked out all right?" Sleep was beckoning him again, the muted hum of pain slowly rising into a dull ache, but Daniel felt he badly needed the closure; needed to know that what they had gone through wasn't in vain.

Jack, though, frowned, obviously dismayed at having to answer that sort of question so soon after Daniel's waking up. He exchanged a look with, presumably, Sam and Teal'c, then sighed heavily, resignedly. "I don't think so," he said finally. "We sent a MALP the day after we got back, and it...well, to make a long story short, it didn't make the trip back. We had a minute or so of video feed, and some--a lot, actually--of the Nihilists were laid out in front of the 'gate. Looked like a warning."

Daniel gaped at him, willing it to be some kind of sick joke. But no, Jack wouldn't dare joke about anything like this, not in a million years. "Fahrn?" he choked out. "Syrus? The others?"

Jack shook his head reluctantly. "They're all dead, Daniel," Sam said quietly from the foot of the bed. "All of their bodies were put on display."

Ignoring the spark of pain it sent down his spine, Daniel pressed his head deep into the pillow beneath his head, expelling a harsh sigh. "So we didn't even make any difference whatsoever," he said bitterly. "All those people that died..."

"We freed their people from Durga, false god she was," Teal'c said, as some obscure form of reassurance, Daniel supposed. "What they did with their freedom was their own choice, DanielJackson."

"Fahrn sent Pege and Mica back to report what happened when we got the control crystal back," Jack continued. "They knew they didn't have to serve the Goa'uld anymore. We did everything we possibly could, and it wasn't even our war."

Daniel tried to roll away from his friends' effort to comfort and reassure, but his shoulder prevented the movement. So hot, bitter tears welled in his eyes, and he thought of all the people he'd seen killed for that cause--for the cause that no longer existed. "We made it our war," he mourned, "and we didn't even finish what we started."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jack nod, and Janet gave his right shoulder a light pat, avoiding causing him any more pain. "If you need anything just call," she said quietly. Daniel nodded numbly. When she was gone, Jack's hand landed in his hair again, and another chair screeched on the cement floor as Sam moved up to the head of the bed, taking Janet's place and picking up Daniel's hand. Teal'c assumed Sam's former position at the foot of the bed, standing like a sentinel over his teammates. Daniel found he couldn't meet any of their eyes, just kept his gaze fixed directly above him and silently mourned an entire race lost.

"We're all alive, Daniel," Sam said softly. "You're alive. That's all that matters to us, as horrible and inhumane it may sound from the Nihilist point of view. It's all we hoped to achieve there...and we achieved it."

Daniel nodded again, acknowledging her words, her thankfulness that he was alive. Jack's hand began an absent stroking, and the hand squeezing Daniel's tightened a little more, but for the first time, the presence of his friends, alive and well, their strength and support, wasn't enough to keep the guilt from following him under the pull of sleep.

The End

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