Author: BadgerGater

Email: [email protected]

Category: Missing Scenes to Abyss; Part of my Views of the Abyss series

Season: 6

Spoilers: Abyss, Frozen, probably more

Warnings: None

Summary: Jack's POV during the episode Abyss

Rating: PG

Pairing: None

Disclaimer: I don't own SG-1 and acknowledge the rights, privileges and power of those that do; I'm just borrowing the characters and concepts, and will faithfully return them.

Author's Note: Brackets < > indicate character's thoughts.

This fic acknowledges the incredible script for this episode.

___________________

<You can’t cheat death. I should know that. I should have let that virus kill me, because then I’d be dead and gone instead of hanging out here in this warped House of Pain, dying over and over and over again.

Endlessly.>

Somewhere above me a voice says, "The host lives, my lord."

<Waking up here was one nasty surprise. Last thing I remembered was dying of that virus. Why the hell I let myself get talked into getting a snake in the head <shudder> I don’t know. Guess I was sicker than I thought, *completely* out of my head. Insanity. That's my only excuse. So well, yeah, right, I’m always a sucker for the duty/honor/service thing.>

<A chance to retrieve important information, they said. For our allies, the Tok’ra, they said. The Tok'ra.>

<Oh shit. A moment of panic. The Tok’ra.>

<It’s gone? Or is it hiding in here with me? No, I search frantically through my gray matter and no, no snakes in here, friendly or otherwise.

<Big sigh of relief. Tok’ra left, just like it said it would.>

<Tok’ra.>

<Never should have done it. Shouldn’t have. Not even to save my life because I have a really, really bad feeling about this place.>

<Damn freakin’ Tok’ra hijacked me and brought me here, wherever the hell here is, and now I’ve been in the dead bed and the Devil only knows what’s gonna happen next.>

<I don’t think this is a ship. It doesn’t have that feel. Even those big motherships have that background hum, and the slightest sensation of movement, but I can't feel anything like that. Planet, then.>

<Thinking back, I have a vague recollection of waking up in the darkness, wet and cold, lying in the mud, agonizing pain shrieking through my back and shoulders…>

<Next thing I know, I'm here, inside some small, bright place, feeling groggy and weird, but the pain is gone.>

<A grating noise, and then the cover above me opens and right then I realized exactly where I was: in big, giant-sized trouble with a capital T.>

<Sarcophagus.>

<I'm still trying to shake the cobwebs out of my brain when a couple of big oversized grim-faced goons drag me out of the sarcophagus and start marching me through a maze of corridors. I try to memorize the route but after a few minutes, I’m totally confused. It's all that gold. Couldn't just one snake come up with an original color scheme? Green maybe, that's a nice color. Or blue. I like blue.>

I'm led into a room by the pair of Jaffa, forced up onto a sort of platform and pushed off it. Whooaaa. Instead of hitting the floor, the gravity seems to change and my stomach lurches sickeningly as I'm "sucked" forward. Now I'm caught in a metallic, spider-webish panel on the wall, like a fly on a web, my face mashed against the wall/floor.

<Whoa, this is odd, some weird sort of g-forces gravity trap, like being sucked up by a giant vacuum. Even cool, in a way; it would make one hell of a thrill ride at one of those theme parks. It's strong, but somehow I manage to turn to face whoever's just walked into the room. I never like to leave my back exposed to the enemy, so I struggle and squirm and finally turn over to face… shit. That's a Goa'uld. No doubt about it. The arrogant smile, the cruel smirk, and the over the top clothes give him away. Not a face I recognize, but then, I've never bothered to try to memorize names and faces. Seen one gould, seen too many, I say.>

"Who are you?" he asks conversationally.

"You go first."

Nameless picks up a large knife from a small table beside his chair, looks adoringly at the razor sharp blade and takes a seat on a bench on the platform.

"You claim you do not know me?" He seems surprised.

"Well...take no offense there, Skippy, I'm sure you're a real hot, important Goa'uld, I've just always been kind of out of the loop with the snake thing."

"I am Ba'al."

"That's it?...just "Ball"...as in Bocce?" <Okay, now I think that pissed him off.>

"Do you not know the pain you will suffer for this impudence?" Rising, he walks toward me, holding up the knife.

The weird gravity catches it, pulling it horizontal, pointing it right straight at me.

<I'm not liking this. Knives make me queasy. Too pointy, too sharp.> "I don't know the meaning of the word...Seriously, impudence. What does that mean?"

Ba'al releases the knife.

<The gravity doohickey sucks it toward me at high velocity, harder and faster than anything a human could throw. I try to pull away, but there's no where to go, I'm stuck like a fly on one of those old fashioned fly strips.>

<Oh god oh god oh god.>

<Don't flinch, don't scream, don't show him how it hurts.>

<Somehow, I manage not to holler when the blade buries itself in my left shoulder. Missed my heart, maybe even my lung. Hit bone, I think, collarbone I guess.>

<Lucky me.>

<I was impaled once before by that alien spike through my shoulder, kind of like this, stuck to the wall. That hurt, too.>

<Oh God. I don’t want to breathe, but I must, even though I know what the consequence is going to be. Just that small movement, my chest rising as my lungs fill with air, is excruciating as the knife shifts, biting deeper millimeter by millimeter as I inhale and exhale.>

The bastard picks up another knife. "I shall begin again...who are you?"

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, U.S. Air Force. Two "L's" in that."

"That may be who you once were, Tok'ra."

"I may be a lotta things...but I'm no Tok'ra!" I insist.

"It is true we were only able to capture the host. Your symbiote fled the body out of cowardice. But it is also true that Tok'ra share body and mind equally. You will know all that it knew."

<My mouth has suddenly gone dry as dust. I fight to swallow, to keep enough moisture in my mouth so I can talk. I will not show him my fear. Think I’m not scared? Huh. I get scared all right. I just make an effort not to let it show, never to let it show to the other guy.>

"I think I know less than you...think I know." <Hard to talk past the pain-induced nausea rolling through me in dizzying waves.>

Ba'al picks up another knife, pointing it at me once more. "Why have you come to this outpost?"

"Now, see, that's a perfect example right there...I haven't a clue." <I don’t. I really don’t. I don’t remember what happened after I got sick. But I can see from Basketball’s eyes that he’s not believing me. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Think Jack, think of something. Quick. Think.>

My eyes are fastened on that gleaming blade. Mesmerized, I can't look away. As if in slow motion I see him loosen his grasp and let the knife go. I watch helplessly as it flies toward me. I shrink away, but there’s nowhere I can go as it strikes home, burrowing into the right side of my chest. I feel the tip penetrate, feel the shock of cold deadly steel tearing into me, and then the blood is oozing warmly down my chill skin. Grimacing as I grimly try to hold on to consciousness, I watch helplessly as Ba’al picks up another knife. <How many of those damn things does he have?>

"You have been here before," the bastard insists.

"First time." I rasp, finding it hard to talk past the building agony. <Suck it up, flyboy. Don’t scream. Don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurts. Don’t. Concentrate.>

"You know your way to and from our most secret outpost. Clearly you have been here."

"What?"

"Did you really hope to escape my personal guard?"

"What?"

"Why did you abduct my slave?"

<I can't hide the pain anymore. It's too intense, too all consuming.> "All right...look...this is the last thing I remember, I swear to God. I was sick. I agreed to let the Tok'ra put a snake in my head or I would have died. Right now, I'm kinda wishing I had." <Hard to talk, when your chest is growing tighter and tighter, as air becomes a rare and precious commodity.>

Ba'al smiles. "A wish easily granted." He stares at the knife in his hand "What was your mission here?"

"No mission."

"Why have you returned?"

"I've never been here."

"What did you want with the female?"

"What female?" I choke out the words. I can't tell him, can't tell him, *can't*, because I don't know, I don't, I *don't.*

"Death will only offer a temporary escape. I can revive you again and again, a thousand times if need be. Only once you have told me everything I ask, will you be allowed to die..." Once more he raises the knife until the gravity catches it, pulling it up to the horizontal. "..one...last...time."

He releases the blade.

I close my eyes and prepare to die.

The razor sharp steel hurtles through the air and bites deep into the center of my chest. I can feel my heart shudder, the sudden agony so intense tears spring to my eyes. I want to scream but I don’t have enough air. My lung’s not working and my chest heaves in a desperate attempt to draw in life-giving oxygen.

I cough, trying to clear my lungs, and then I retch and gag as liquid bubbles in my throat. It’s blood, pouring into my lung, drowning me even as I fight to suck in air that has no place to go. My chest is squeezed unbelievably tight. <Did they turn up the gravity? Feels like a hundred G’s. Oh God, I’m gasping but there’s no air. No air. None.> I retch and gag, but my struggles only make the knives slide deeper.

<I can taste the blood now, coppery and sweet as it fills my mouth and trickles warmly down my chin. I cough and cough, but I can’t clear my throat, the blood is pumping out fast, so fast, way too fast.>

<Everything is going dim, bright dots of light sparkle against the darkness like stars in the night sky, but the blackness is winning, overwhelming me as there’s no longer any air left in my lungs, they’re too full… I feel my heart seize…>

*****

<Oh, God, I’m still alive. No, not still, again. There’s a moment of intense relief, and then I remember.>

<It wasn’t a dream.>

<Shot. Captured. Sarcaphagus. Ba’al. Torture. Died. Revived.>

<Not a good day, nope, not a good day at all.>

<This was my first death. No, wait. Not the first actually, just the first one that I can remember. I was dead earlier today, if it’s still today, outside, by the Stargate, or so I’ve been told. I have a big honkin’ hole in the back of my shirt, and if I took a staff weapon blast there, I was certainly dead as the proverbial doornail. For sure. Don’t remember it, though, so it doesn’t count right?>

<Just like I don’t remember being dead with the Nox. A staff got me that time, too. There was a moment of intense, all consuming, burning pain, and then whap! Nothing. Until I woke up in the Nox’s hut.>

<So this is at least death number three, if I was counting. Not that it matters, how many times you die.>

<One’s enough.>

<Or it’s supposed to be.>

<This one was.>

<This one had been, oh shit, you don’t want to hear this.>

<It was bad, okay?>

*******

<And each next one was worse.>

<Hard to believe, huh? How could dead be worse? Well, it’s how you get dead more than actually being dead that’s… never mind. You really don’t want to know. Take my word for it.>

The goons are back, pulling me out of the deadbed, marching me down a hallway. Finally, we stop in front of an opening on the wall, and I'm pushed through. I'm looking for the bars or the forcefield, and then one of the Jaffa pushes a knob-thing on the outside wall.

The room flipflops, floor becoming wall, wall becoming floor, the door I just came through is above my head now, way up, too far to climb. Bare walls, a couple of built-in benches, some lighted panels. Way up, out of reach, more lighted panels can be seen.

Bare. Efficient. One way in. No other way out.

Suddenly the silence is broken by a distant scream. Looking up, I can see a woman, dressed all in black, sitting at the opening.

"Is it you?" she asks.

<How'd she get up there? Who is she? Someone here to help? A Tok'ra maybe? I'm staring up at her, wondering...>

"Hi, Jack."

<Familiar voice. Can't be, but it is; that's Daniel, sitting on one of the cell's built-in benches, giving me a little wave.>

"Daniel?" <Where'd he come from? How'd he get in here? Where did that woman go?>

"I leave...and look at the mess you get yourself into."

<Hey, that's me. Always falling into it. Forgot already did you? Trouble is my middle, no first, no only, name.>

<Then it hits me. I've entirely lost it. I'm losing my mind. Hallucinating already. I know the sarcophagus warps your brain cells, but sheesh, I’ve only been in there twice, or so I think. Took Daniel a lot of times in the box to get weird. Me, took just once I guess, but then, yeah, lots of people have thought I've been weird for a long time.>

"It's good to see you," says my imaginary friend.

"Yeah...you too," I answer cautiously. <Hell, there's no one here to hear me talking to no one, so what should I care? Company's company, even if it's not real.> I walk over and sit on the bench across from Daniel. "It's a shame you're a delusion." <Or a trick. Apophis tried to trick us on Netu, with his Blood of Sokar stuff, made us see things, see people we wanted to see. Careful, Jack, this could be a trap, a ploy to get you to talk. Daniel's not here. Daniel's dead. Okay, right, he's sort of dead, more like dead-light, get the pun?>

"No, I'm here...I'm really here," my hallucination insists.

"Sure you are." Taking off my shoe, I toss it across the room. It passes right through him and bounces off the wall back toward me. <Okay, so much for the slight, very slight, impossibly slight possibility that Daniel is really here.>

"Here in the sense that my consciousness is here, if not here in the full physical flesh and blood sense, which is really...neither...here nor there. The point is...you're not imaging this."

"I just tossed my shoe through you."

"Yes, you did. That's because I've ascended to another plane of existence."

"Ohhh." <Well, if it's a delusion, it's a pretty damn clever one because it talks just like Daniel does. Did. Whatever.>

"Remember Oma Desala, the whole...glowing thing, you helped me out. I couldn't have done that without you, remember that?"

"Yeah." <How could I forget? It’s not every day you watch your best friend slowly dying of radiation poisoning, then turn into some sort of cosmic glow worm.>

"I'm, I'm energy now..." Daniel tells me.

"How's that workin' out for you?"

"Good, actually...very..."

"Good." <Glad that someone is having a good time, even if it's only this hallucination.>

"Very good. You...however..."

"Yeah, well...you know what it's like..." I go and pick up my shoe, "...comin' back from the dead. Takes a while to get the color back in the cheeks." <The brain cells apparently aren't quite up to snuff yet, either, it seems, conjuring up imaginary companions.>

"Yeah..."

Sitting back down, I wave the shoe in Daniel's direction. "So...not a delusion?"

Daniel shakes his head. "No."

<Woohoo. Daniel, er Delusion Daniel, to the rescue, though if he rescues me then I guess he's not really a delusion is he?> "Okay...show me your stuff. Bust me outta here."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I'm not allowed to interfere."

"You're interfering right now."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are." <He argues like Daniel, mirage or not.>

"No, I'm not. I am consoling a friend."

"What good's the power to make the wind blow or toss lightning around if you can't use it to spring an old friend outta jail?"

"I would if I could."

"You can't do that stuff?"

"I can. I just...I can't."

"Well, thanks for stopping by, then." <Arguing with your own delusion. Nuts, Jack, just plain nuts.>

"Ba'al is torturing you and I wasn't just gonna sit by. Look, all he wants to know is the reason you came to this planet. You really don't know?"

"Do you?" <Always answer a question with a question when you don’t have any answers. Or you don't want to give out any answers, because maybe this Daniel is my delusion, but then again, maybe he's some snake trick. Been there, done that, back on Netu. Special Forces motto, you know, never trust anyone, never trust anything, especially people you can throw your shoe through.>

"Well, all I know is that you...or more accurately, the symbiote the Tok'ra placed inside of you...congratulations, by the way...walked off undetected in the middle of the night and came here."

"I can't believe I actually let them put a snake in my head...my head. I agreed to this." <I've made some bad decisions in my life, but this one takes the cake, except of course for that unlocked drawer...>

"It never shared with you why it would walk alone into a heavily fortified Goa'uld outpost?"

"There was no sharing! I was sick." <I didn't really want to share, you know. Never have, all the way back to kindergarten. I said no to the snake in the head thing, and then Carter kept talking and I think right about then I'd have agreed to just about anything because I *really* didn't know what I was doing. And after, well, I sure as hell don’t want to know what that freakin’ alien reptile was thinking…ewww.>

"I know."

"They did the implantation...a word I intend never to use again...and I woke up here. That's...my week, so far." <And one hell of a week it’s been.>

"So you really don't know..."

<Sighing, I try to remember, but nothing's clear, though there was that weird image of the woman, floating up there on the wall.> "Uhh...something to do with one of Ba'al's slaves...I got a visual but I've never met her before." <Carter nearly went nuts over remembering stuff the Tok'ra left in her head. Is that what I've got to look forward to? If I live long enough to remember, that is?>

<Dead or crazy.>

<Great choices.>

"Nobody knows you're here."

<They don't? Shit.>

"Even if they did, they'd never be able to pull off a rescue because this place is a fortress. Ba'al is just gonna keep on torturing you to death and reviving you in a sarcophagus until...he finds out what he wants, which is impossible because you don't know anything...or until you're not worth reviving any more. But you'll cease to be the Jack O'Neill we know long before that."

<Oh, great, thanks for the pep talk, Daniel.> "Well...apparently, I've got a big day tomorrow."

"No, I'm not gonna let that happen. I won't let him destroy you."

"You just said you couldn't help."

"No, I can't stop Ba'al from torturing you any more than Oma could heal my radiation sickness, but...I can help you ascend."

<I look at Daniel like he’s just lost all his marbles because he must have misplaced each and every one. Going glowy must have shorted out his brain. Me? Ascend? Yeah right, Jack O'Neill as some floating ghost guy who can only look on and not help? Remember, I’m Mr. Action, Mr. Do Something, Mr. Can’t Stand To Watch But Got To Be In The Game.>

<Ascend? Yeah, right. This is Jack O’Neill we’re talking about here.>

"So...you wanna be my Oma?"

"You could put it that way, I mean, I wouldn't, but maybe that's just me."

"And then what?"

"Then...then, I don't know."

<Well, that's real helpful. I could use some information here.> "You don't know," I say slowly.

"No...no...ascension doesn't make you all-knowing. I mean, I really...don't know."

"If I'm catchin' the next plane of existence outta here, you gotta give me somethin'."

"It's your journey. No one but you can choose what you become or the path you take. All I can promise you is it will be an amazing journey..."

I throw him a disbelieving look.

"...once you release your burden."

<Sure. If I knew how to release my burden, I'd have done it a long time ago. I tried once, the only way I knew how, but Daniel and Skaara talked me out of it, back there on Abydos. That's the only kind of release I know.> "Daniel, so help me, if you start talkin' like Oma..."

"I'm not talking like Oma Desala..."

"Sounds like Oma to me..."

"No, no, no...see Oma would say something like...uh, uh, 'if you know immediately that the candle is fire then the meal was cooked a long time ago' or something like that."

"Why?"

"To open your mind..."

"Though a candle burns in my house...there's nobody home."

Daniel stands. "Okay...let's take this one step at a time. This has to be something you want. I can't do this for you."

"One step at a time," I suggest.

"One step at a time."

I glance around the cell desperately. "Oh, there's gotta be another way outta here."

"Jack..."

I stand and face Daniel. <Ascending isn't what I need. I need help, real help.> "What if you did a little scoutin' for me...that'd be all right wouldn't it?"

"No."

"I'm not askin' you to knock down walls or anything...just a little recon."

"Ba'al is just gonna torture you again..."

"Or...uh, a Zat gun...help me get my hands on a Zat gun." <Geez, Daniel, do I have to beg here?>

"The next time is gonna be worse..."

<I'm not listening. No, not, don't want to hear it, because I know it's true, know he's right.> "That's when we move...the next time they come for me."

"You can't fight your way out of this."

"Then help me!" <It’s the only way I know, Daniel, the only way, with my own two hands. It’s all I’ve got.>

"Not that way!"

Suddenly, there's noise in the hall. <Oh god, they're coming back already. Shit.>

Daniel looks up toward the entrance. "They're coming."

I'm getting desperate here. "They can see you, right? We can use that."

"I'll be back."

"A distraction...that's all I'm askin' for..."

"I promise."

Too late. I look up and they're here, and when I look back for Daniel, he's gone. Damn it. Suddenly, I feel the gravity waver, the floor and walls swap places and I'm slammed bruisingly to the wall…er, floor now. The Jaffa walk in, grabbing me roughly off the floor and steer me out into the hallway. Toward Ba'al and his knives.

*****

<Oh boy, back with my friend the snake.> The goons march me up onto the platform and push me toward the gravity vacuum thingy. Once again I’m sucked up tight against the wall.

“You know, you really ought to have some warning signs about this freaky gravity around here, Skippy. A guy could get hurt you know.”

“That is the purpose,” he answers solemnly in that resonate Goa’uld voice. He’s walking around on his little platform, opening up that little table, toying with stuff inside.

I’m trying to look like I’m not looking, but I really don’t want to be seeing those knives again.

He turns to stare at me, then nods and turns away. As if reading my mind, his hand moves past the daggers and picks up a little bottle.

“A demonstration, before we start?” he smiles, and tips the bottle, letting a single drop fall to the floor. The hard surface begins to bubble and smoke.

My heart misses a beat and I feel lightheaded.

<The next Tok’ra I meet is sooo dead.>

He points the bottle at me. "Tell me why you are here."

"I don't know. I was just a passenger."

"Tell me."

"I have nothing to tell."

Baal squeezes the bottle. A single drop of liquid forms on the bottle's spout, hanging there for an eternity, and then the gravity catches it and it flies toward my chest. For an instant, nothing happens, and then the heat begins to build.

Exquisite agony, burning, molten fire. I writhe silently as it eats its way ever so slowly through my skin, into my flesh, burrowing through bone and tissue, the pain is expanding slowly outward like ripples on a pond. <You know, those knives really weren’t so bad after all. There’s nothing quite like good old fashioned quality cutlery.>

Gasping for air, fighting to breathe, losing the battle.

"Tell me the name of your symbiote."

"I don't know."

He releases another drop. I bite my tongue not to scream when it hits my chest, burning quickly through the shirt, my skin, my collarbone…

"The Tal'vak acid will take some time to burn through all the way. Though it cauterizes the flesh as it burns...a very small amount often finds its way into the blood and begins to spread. Why have you returned here, Tok'ra?"

"I'm human."

"Hmm...betrayed by your symbiote."

<God, the stuff is moving, I can feel it spreading outward. It must be in my blood. I swear I can feel my veins being eaten away.> "It used me."

"To do what?"

"I don't know! And I don't care!"

"What did the symbiote call itself?"

Writhing, I answer, "I don't remember."

"Tok'ra retain the identities of both host and symbiote," Ba'al insists. "You are O'Neill. What was the name of your symbiote?"

"I...just told you," I stutter through clenched teeth.

"What Tok'ra secrets could a single name reveal?"

"Why protect the one who betrayed you, who abandoned you to...this?"

Giving up on hiding the obvious pain, I answer angrily, "If I knew the name...I'd give you the damn name! I don't care about protecting the Tok'ra!"

Angrily, Ba'al steps toward me and points the bottle at me again. "Tok'ra have been a nuisance for centuries."

Before I can stop myself, the word escapes my lips. "Don't..."

"Even when we thought they had been wiped out. They've become all the more...insidious. Like acid...burrowing their way into our empires."

"Kanan! That's the name."

Ba'al walks over and sets the bottle down. I sigh with relief and then with despair realize he's picked up another before walking back toward the front of the platform.

Weakly, trying not to beg, and failing. "I just told you..." <It’s all I know. Tok’ra bastards!>

Ba'al smiles. "Yes...you did." He squirts more liquid from this bottle and it floats toward my chest.

I recoil as the liquid hits me.

<He told the truth. This drop hits like ice cold water from a mountain stream, putting out the fire. The agony eases, fades, stops. For a moment, I can breathe.>

"This neutralizes the acid and numbs the pain. So you see, the truth is rewarded."

"I don't know anything else."

"There may be much more of this Kanan still in your memory than even you know. It'll come to you...in time." Ba'al reaches down and pushes a device on the table.

Dimly, through the pain, I feel the web panel open.

I'm falling, falling, fast, into the darkness, literally this time.

The antidote stopped the pain, all right, stopped the burning, flaming, flaring agony. But it didn’t repair the damage. Even as I fell, I knew that. I landed… somewhere, with a bone-snapping impact on the hard floor of some room I didn't recognize. I lay there, my back broken, my body slowly going numb.

<You’d think that would stop the pain, when your back is broken, the spinal cord severed. You can’t move, but you can still feel. Oh yes. Quite amazing.>

They left me there in the dark and alone, I don’t know how long, as I struggled to breathe, my body running on automatically long after my brain had ceased to care.

I watched the darkness slide inexorably closer as my body failed, bit by bit, slowly until the black wave washed over me and thankfully I was dead once more.

------------------

I woke in the bright light of the sarcophagus, confused, dazed, disoriented, filled with despair that I was still trapped in this living hell.

<Same old same old.> Wake in the dead bed, dragged out by the goons, forced back to my cell, a place I was beginning to think of as a haven.

Falling onto the newly reoriented floor, staring at the Jaffa in the doorway above. They walk away as I lie there, staring upward, too spent to move. Suddenly, she's there again, that woman, sitting in the doorway far above my head. Dazed, I wonder how she does that, appear from nowhere, hanging there in space, talking to me.

"Is it you?" she asks.

"What?"

"You shouldn't have come back."

"I don't remember..."

"If I leave with you...he will know."

"You..." Suddenly, a foot comes into view, beside my head.

"Jack, who are you talking to?" That's Daniel's voice again.

"The woman."

Daniel looks up at the entrance and now, when I look again, the woman's image is gone.

"There's nobody there."

"Look who's talking..." <Great, two delusions. Does this mean I'm twice as crazy as I was before?>

"Does it still hurt?" he asks.

Dazed, I move my hand from my chest, from the spot I'd been touching, to feel the newly healed flesh. "No." <But I remember how much it hurt, can’t stop remembering how much it hurt, and know how much it will hurt again. Soon.>

"Told you I'd come back."

"If the Daniel Jackson I knew was really here..."

"I am..."

"...then do something," I demand.

Daniel squeezes his eyes shut and drops his head.

Anger fueling me now, I roll myself up to stand facing him. <My anger gives me energy, anger at the damned Tok'ra for bringing me here without my consent, anger at this snivellin' Goa'uld for what he's doing to me, anger at Daniel for standing there looking contrite but not *helping* me.> "You listen to me. I don't wanna go through that again. If you were really my friend and had the power to stop it, you'd stop it!"

"The hardest part of being who or what I am is having the power to change the things I want to change and knowing that I can't..." Daniel ignores my puzzled look, and goes on. "Even when I'm certain, even when it's...absolutely clear to me, even when it affects the people I care about..."

Oh right, I think, rolling my eyes and turning my head.

"...because for all I can do, I'm no more qualified to play God than the Goa'uld are."

I turn away, frustrated, wearily leaning my head against the light panel.

"Ba'al will keep this up..."

"Yes, he will..." <He’s having too much fun to quit now.>

"So we don't have an unlimited amount of time..."

<Oh, we’ve got waaaay too much time, I’m thinkin’.> "Gotta be some place, do ya?"

"No. Look, there must be a reason that Kanan came back here. Was it for the woman? The one you were just talking to? She must have something to do with all of this."

Wearily, I answer, "You know... screw it...it doesn't matter. Carter and Teal'c'll think of somethin'..."

"Even if they could find out where you are..."

<Damn it, Daniel. Help me!> "...and you know...Jonas...he's at least as smart as you."

"There isn't always a way out, Jack."

"Hey, if that was true, I'd a been dead a long time ago!"

"How many more times do you think you can go into that sarcophagus before it starts changing you?"

I throw him an "I don't know" look, because I really don't know. <I think it's too late already, if the hallucinations are any indication.>

"How many times has it been already? It can regenerate your body, make you strong enough to go through that all over again, but all the time, it's destroying who you are...and once that happens...you won't be able to ascend no matter how much you want to."

"Hey...I appreciate what you're trying to do."

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe you could do it."

"This is me we're talking about!"

"Yes, it is. Now, please...just try...to open your mind."

"Oh...stop it, will you?" I order as I sit down, frustrated. <I don't have the energy for this, for fighting with my own delusion. Open my mind. Yeah right. If I open my mind what little is in there will probably fall out. Does he really think spending eternity with nonsense spouting Oma and the Glowboys wouldn’t be torture of another kind for me? I’d rather have a snake in my head. No. Wait. I’ve done that and that sure didn’t work out either. Damn. I’m running out of options here.>

"Come on, Jack. Y-You think the Asgard named uh, a ship after you because they thought it was a cool name? Now's not the time to play dumb. You're a lot smarter than that. They saw our potential in you...because of who you are and what you've done. Humanity's potential...that's the same thing Oma saw in me."

"I am not you."

"Yeah, when has that ever stopped you from doing anything?"

"Okay...put yourself in my shoes and me in yours..."

"You'd be here for me..."

"Damn straight!" I answer vehemently. "I'd have busted you out...blown this rat hole to hell and made sure that son-of-a-bitch suffered!"

"The Others would have stopped you..."

"They'd have had a hell of a fight on their hands..."

"You wouldn't do that..."

<Oh yes I would. Do it or die trying.> "Ba'al would be dead..."

"Jack..."

"...and don't think I'd stop there!"

"You're a better man than that..."

"That's where you're wrong!" I shout.

I stop and stare at him as he stares at me. <Me? Humanity’s potential? Only for the potential to annihilate itself. A better man? Better than whom? I don’t want that burden to be the poster boy for Homo Sapiens. I've got enough burdens of my own, thank you.>

After several seconds, Daniel nods his head slightly and turns away. "Right now, I can't imagine doing or being anything other than what I am. I see things, I understand things, in a way I never could have before. But I chose this. Even when Jacob was trying to heal me, I chose this. But you, in the place you're at right now, you don't have any other choices. This is not your life we're talking about, Jack! This is your soul! This is it. What I'm offering you is your only way out."

"You're wrong about that, too..."

Daniel looks at me, eyes narrowed.

"I have another choice."

Daniel closes his eyes and shakes his head. "What are you talking about?"

I look at him. I don't have to point it out to him. He knows.

Daniel shakes his head.

<There’s a long few seconds before he catches on. Daniel knows exactly what I’m talking about. He knows. It’s a choice I made once before, when I couldn’t go on in the face of unbearable pain, in a time when I had no hope, when I’d sunk into the deepest, darkest abyss a man can face.>

"No."

<Damn it, Daniel. Don’t go all noble on me. See the light. Hell, you are the light, how can you not see the light? How can you not understand me, after all these years? I did it for you, when you asked, I ended it for you. End it for me. Help me stay who I am. I don’t want to glow. If I can’t live on my own terms, then life means nothing to me. You know me. You know that. Don’t walk away. Don’t abandon me. Don’t help Ba’al keep doing this to me. You have the power to stop it, a power I don’t have. Please, Daniel. Don’t deny me this.> "Any minute, they're gonna come. Ba'al is gonna kill me again. You can make it the last time."

"Don't ask me to do that..."

"You can put an end to it..."

"I won't do it..."

We both look up as a door opens down the hall.

<Oh, God, they're coming again. Again. More pain, another death.> "I'd do it for you, and you know it." Walking away from him, I lay on the floor, feet a few inches from the wall so that when it becomes the floor again, I'm ready. "I don't wanna see this cell again, Daniel," I insist.

The Jaffa reorient the room and enter to take me by the arms and usher me out of the cell. <How will I die this time?>

All too quickly, I'm back in *that* room, pinned once more against the wall. The nausea roiling through my stomach isn't just from the weird gravity. My head is spinning and I'm afraid I'm going to be sick all over myself.

I close my eyes for a moment and when I open them again, I see her, the mystery woman. She's standing right in front of me this time, her face just inches from mine. <Who is she? Why is she here? Is she here to help me?>

Her face comes even closer. "Is it you?"

"You shouldn't be here." I whisper. <No woman should see this, be a part of this.>

She studies my face intently. "You look so different. How can you be Kanan?"

"I'm not."

"If I leave with you, he will know."

"He used both of us..."

She vanishes.

I blink, confused. <What the hell was that? Vision? Flashback? Memory? I don't know. I don't want to know. I just want this to end.>

Ba'al's speaking to me again, thinking I'd been talking to him. "He did use both of us. How long were you host to this Kanan before he convinced you to come here? Days...or merely hours?"

I'm too tired to care anymore, too exhausted to fight, too hopeless to spar with him. "I don't remember." <Even my own memories are jumbled and disjointed, nothing but bits and pieces with giant gaps. That must be what the sarcophagus does, turns your brain into Swiss cheese.>

"What did this Kanan share about his previous mission here?"

"Nothing."

"What did he want with my slave?"

"I don't know."

"Why did he return?"

"I don't know."

Ba'al rises and walks toward me again. "I believe you. You're a victim of this Tok'ra, just as I am. This Kanan took over his host's body...your body, just as I or any other Goa'uld would have done. He used you to come here...but to what purpose? I believe the answers are there in your mind. Even if you were host for a mere matter of hours, something of him will be left behind. Ah...an unfortunate inheritance for you..." He walks to the table and opens the panel revealing the bottles of acid and the knives. He picks up a knife. "...because, I will find them...if I have to...dig...them out."

I close my eyes and brace myself.

The first knife flies through the air and pierces my chest. The bright burst of pain is instantaneous and excruciating. Involuntarily, my eyes fly wide open and I only just manage to bite back the cry of pain, turning it into a gasp and a moan. <God, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, but it's not a fatal wound. No. He won't kill me. Yet. I know that. Baseba'al is too good at this, he enjoys it too much to end it prematurely with the first blow.>

He looks at me hungrily, licks his lips in anticipation, knowing I know what comes next, savoring the fear I cannot keep out of my eyes, no matter how hard I try.

<I close my eyes again, and say nothing, trying to find that place, that faraway place inside me where I have retreated before in the face of great pain, the place that takes my mind away from my body.>

<I can't find it. A side effect of the deadbed, maybe? I don't know, I only know that safe place deep inside where I could hide away is unreachable.>

He releases the second knife and it slices through shirt, skin, muscle, sliding between my ribs and into my lung.

"Arrrgghhh."

Now it starts all over again. Each breath a futile struggle, more painful than the last, as the blood starts to fill my lungs, pooling there until it begins gurgling up through my throat, trickling down my chin as my heart stills.

-----------------

Another awakening.

Bright lights.

I stifle the groan.

<Why won't he end it? Why won't he see that I can't answer his questions?>

<Why?>

The sarcophagus opens. The goons are there again, waiting, dragging me from the golden box, through the halls, back to my cell. I stand against the wall, which becomes the floor when they turn on their gravity doohickey.

I'm left alone to wait, to think, to anticipate.

<I know that's part of the torture. Give the victim time to think. But I'm too tired to think. I'm numb. My brain feels like it's swathed in cotton. I know they'll come again. And again.>

I sit, back against the wall, head lying on the arms crossed over my knees.

Waiting.

When they come, I don't resist.

Back to Ba'al's chamber of horrors, the gravity thingy sucking me against the wall.

Ba'al looks pissed this time.

I know I should be glad, should feel triumphant, but I don't feel much of anything anymore.

The questions start, same old, same old. I ignore him.

Suddenly, he is standing at my right side. The voice which has been so controlled, so calm, so oily, is filled with rage now.

"Tell me!" he demands.

Diffidently, I mumble, "Go to hell."

His sneer turns to a grimace of rage.

The end comes swiftly, a dozen gasps for air that can't flow through the crushed mess that was my throat, and the black wall is rushing at me, carrying me away, away from the pain, away from this place, away, far away....

----------------

Dead again. I know the routine, in the box, out of the box, down the hall, back to the cell, the gravity spinning walls to floor, floor to wall.

Wearily, I rest my forehead against the wall, drained, exhausted, filled with despair so deep, all hope gone. There's no way out, no rescue, no end. Slowly, I slide down the comfortless rock to sit with my back to the wall, cross-legged.

<I can't do this anymore. I don’t know if it’s the dying or the reviving that’s doing this to me, sapping my will and my strength, destroying me. They say the sarcophagus eats away at you, at your soul, at who you are. I don’t know. I think so, I think that’s what’s happening. I’m not sure I can tell anymore, though. Doesn’t matter. I can’t stop it. I can’t resist any longer.>

<I lasted four months in Iraq because I knew there would be an end. I knew that when it became unbearable I could give up and die and it would be over. I clung to that one tiny bit of control.>

<Death before dishonor.>

<I no longer have that option.>

<Ba’al has taken that decision away.>

<Does he know he’s found the one thing that will break me? Is breaking me? Is worse than death itself? I’m out of choices. I can’t die and I can’t live. God, please, no more. Let me die.>

<Daniel, help me die. You said you’d help me. You said you’d be here. Where the hell are you? Gone off with your glowy friends to do something more important? More important than watching your friend die and die again? More important than helping him?>

<Don't tell me you can't. How many times did I tell you not to do something and you ignored me and did it anyway? How many times did I give you orders and you refused to obey? Why start following the rules now, huh, Jackson? Why? You never cared about somebody else's rules before. You only cared about doing the right thing, as you saw it. You did what you thought was right and to hell with what other people thought or wanted. I admired you for that, for fighting the tide. Why go all conventional on me now? Is that what going glowy did to you? Then maybe glowing isn't all it's cracked up to be, either.>

<Help me, Daniel. That won’t be playing God. It’s what I would do if I could. And it won’t change anything. I’m going to die anyway, in a few more hours, a few more days. What difference can that make to anyone but me? What difference can that make but to save me from all that pain, pain to no purpose but to amuse the snake?>

<Save me the agony of more of this.>

<I’ve already done agony and I can assure you that it’s no fun at all.

I’ve been ready to die for a long time, since that long ago day I failed my son. Not that I’ve sought out death, not since that first trip to Abydos, but I’ve always known it was waiting out here somewhere, the penalty for my mistake. I tried to do my best until the time came, tried to make up for what I’d done.>

<I’ve always been living on borrowed time.>

<Now the time is up.>

*******

He doesn't come.

Soon the goons come back, though. They always come back, making the room spin, turning wall to floor, dragging me out, taking me back there to face him. Nothing changes. I still have no answers. He still doesn't believe me.

"What was its name?"

"Kanan." <It's so hard to think now. My mind is muddled, everything spinning just out of reach, every memory warped. I barely remember who *I* am.>

"There...you remember his name. What was his mission?"

"No mission."

"Was it to steal the slave from me?"

"I don't know."

"Did Kanan believe a slave could know my secrets? There's something else you're hiding from me." Ba'al points another knife at me, but I can't react anymore.

<It doesn't matter. Nothing matters, except ending this.>

"I sense it. I feel it." Ba'al insists.

"When are you gonna end this?" I whisper. <Daniel, where are you?>

"If you tell me what I wish to know, I will end this."

"Daniel?" <Where did you go? Where you ever really here? Please. Help me. his will never end, never, unless you help me.>

"Your mind is beginning to fail. It's time for the sarcophagus, but as you regain the strength to return here, consider this....hmmph...it will be far worse next time."

"Daniel?" <Daniel, you promised me. Were you nothing but a delusion all along? A figment of my desperate imagination? Please Daniel, how could you give me hope and then just disappear on me?>

<Hope is cruel.>

<I know.>

<Abandon all hope and you can endure.>

<You gave me hope, damn you.>

*****

I wake in the sarcophagus, groaning.

I'm half dragged, half carried back to my cell, dumped roughly to the floor, too numb in body and soul to care. <All I want is an end.>

"Daniel?" <Or is it just my delusion again.>

"I'm here."

<About damn time.> I sigh, looking straight ahead. "You were gone." <Or maybe you were never here, but it’s nice to have you back, delusion or not. At least a delusion is company.>

"I know, I'm sorry, there was something I had to do, but, I'm back now and I promise I'll stay with you 'til this is over."

I can no longer deny the despair. "It'll never be over..."

"Yes, it will."

"Daniel...you have to end this."

"Jack, you just have to hang in there a little while longer..."

"No...I can't go back in there. If I go back, I swear to God, I'll give Ba'al what he wants, I'll tell him." <I shouldn't be telling Daniel, if this is Daniel, but I can't stop myself anymore.>

"What?"

"That he loved her."

"Kanan?"

"He came back for her. He wanted to save her." <I don't know how I know this, I don't want to know how I know this, but I know. I just do.>

"Ba'al doesn't know this..."

"If he finds out, he'll do to her what he's doing to me. Daniel, if you don't end this...I'll tell him." <I'll tell him and there will be nothing left of me. I will dishonor myself. My body won't be worth saving. Failing someone innocent once before nearly drove me mad. I can't go through that again. I've crossed that bridge and I'm never going back. Stop me from destroying myself. Please. I can't go on like this, losing myself by bits and pieces, I can't go back into that place, look into that face, see those eyes bore through me, digging holes into my soul deeper than the holes torn in my flesh by his knives. You want to save my soul? This is how. Save me from the final shame of betraying another innocent.>

<I’m past saving myself.>

<Save her. Save me.>

"You won't have to...it's almost over, Jack."

I turn to look at him, afraid to let the hope blossom. "How?"

"You were right. There's always a way out...at least there's always a chance. You're journey isn't over, Jack, not yet."

I feel a tiny spark of interest flare deep inside. "What'd you do?"

"I didn't do anything...it was, um, Sam and Teal'c...and, uh, Jonas, too."

"What?"

"They thought of something..."

"What?" I leap to my feet. <Hope. Hope is back. My team will save me. There's an end in sight.>

Suddenly, I hear a distant explosion and the lights flicker. Daniel stands up from his kneeling position and walks over to stand beside me, looking up.

"This is it. All you ever wanted was a fighting chance, Jack, now you have it. If anyone can make it out of here, you can."

<Damn straight. I’ve failed at a lot of things in my life, but I’m a warrior, and even if I don’t make it, I’ll die on my own terms. Never bought into Bra'tac and Teal’c’s ‘we die well’ thing, but damn, this time I agree. I’m done with dying as a helpless victim.>

From somewhere down the hall I hear a shout amid more explosions. "Lord Yu attacks!"

The gravity starts to waver. Daniel is gone. Preparing myself for the gravity swapping thing, I lean into the wall as it becomes the floor again.

"Daniel?!" <Where'd he go?> Hearing no response and seeing the lights flickering, I cautiously step forward. There's nothing keeping me in. Guess Ba'al trusted his gravity doohickey to keep people confined. Out in the corridor now, I meet a Jaffa. Rage fills me, and I attack, knocking the surprised Jaffa to the floor, battering him.

<It felt good, really, really good. Even as I pummeled that goon I knew I was over the top, filled with rage I could barely control. I wanted to stay there, hitting him, over and over and over again, beat him to a bloody pulp and keep right on doing it. Freakin’ sarcaphagus. I remember Daniel after Shyla’s planet, totally out of control. That’s how I feel, but for the moment, I don’t care. It feels good to be on the move, to be Jack O’Neill, no longer helpless victim but a fighter, a warrior, me.>

<These guys owe me.>

<I have to struggle with myself to remember that escape is more important than futile revenge. Live to fight another day, that’s always been my motto.>

I snatch up the guard's zat and start down the hall toward the other cells. The woman, the Lotar, she's there, in the cell next to mine. Frightened, she backs away as I approach.

Holding out my hand, I ask, "Come with me."

"No. He'll stop us."

I don't have time to waste. Grabbing her hand, I pull her forward. "Come on."

We run as all around us the walls crumble, smoke begins to fill the halls, helping cover our escape. At last, we emerge into the darkness of night.

*****

<Home. The SGC. Soft lights, cool sheets, a bed, but a regular ordinary bed. I feel like shit, like the worst hangover you've ever had combined with the flu, jet lag and forty sleepless nights, but I'm alive.>

I hear their voices talking above me, familiar, comforting voices, and I lay quietly, drifting, listening desultorily.

Carter is talking to someone. "Dr. Fraiser says he'll probably suffer withdrawal symptoms from so much time in a sarcophagus, but otherwise she expects a full recovery."

"What happened to the woman he went back for?"

<Thanks for asking, Jonas, I'd like to know myself. Don't remember.>

"Her name's Shallin," Carter answers. "She decided to stay with the Tok'ra."

<Okay, she's safe. No more need to worry. Good.>

Teal'c's voice rumbles. "So she may continue Kanan's fight in his name."

Finally deciding to remind them I'm here, I mutter, "Hey...I'm tryin' to sleep here."

"Sorry, Sir...glad to see you're okay."

<Feel the same myself, Carter, though I'm not really so sure about the okay bit.>

I owe them for giving me my chance. "Listen...was a good idea you had there."

"Actually, Sir...we all contributed to it."

I hear Carter's footsteps approach, and her voice comes from right beside me now. I manage to open my eyes a tad and realize she's standing beside my bed.

"Do you need anything or..." she asks.

<I need a lot of things, I'm thinking, but start with a simple request.> "Water."

"Sure," she answers with a smile.

<I hear all three of them leave, but now, there's someone else there. I open one eye. My favorite delusion is back. Hi, Daniel.>

"I always seem to be saying good bye to you."

"Yeah, I noticed that. Why don't you stick around for a while?"

"I can't...really."

"You just did."

"Special occasion."

"Christmas?" I suggest.

"No."

"Ground Hog's Day?"

"Nooo."

"I've got my journey, you've got yours?"

"Something like that, yeah. Look, I know you don't think so, right now, I mean, I know you have your doubts, but uh...because you've been through something that no one should have to go through...I guess what I'm trying to say is...you're gonna be all right."

Jack: "How do you know?" <Because I don’t know. All I know is that what happened to me, all that dying, tore big holes inside me, holes I don’t know if I can ever fill, holes that seem to have drained all the life out of me like Ba’al’s knives drained the blood out of me. I feel empty. Lost. Detached. Like I know I’m supposed to be dead, but I’m not. I can’t even feel the anger anymore; it’s too much of an effort. Takes more strength than I can muster to feel or to care. Ba’al revived my body, but not my soul. It’s lost, I’m lost, and I don’t know how to find it again, how to reunite the shattered parts of me. And I’m not sure that I care if I do.>

"You're just gonna have to trust me."

"I can do that." <I think. Yes, I can. If I try. Daniel was right before, back on Abydos, when I thought I couldn't go on, he taught me otherwise.>

Daniel smiles a little and nods.

It's my turn to ask this time. "You gonna be okay?"

"I'm gonna be fine."

The door opens and Carter walks back in. Daniel is gone.

The Major sets the water on my bedside table, within easy reach. "Here you go, Sir."

"Thanks."

"Goodnight."

I turn my head slightly, to where I think Daniel is still standing, watching. Smiling slightly, I mumble, "Thanks."

-----END-----