Jack had never much liked the Mission Impossible movies. He'd enjoyed the old ensemble series, but Tom Cruise had turned the movie into a solo-hero movie. Still, one line in the original movie seemed frighteningly appropriate to him at this instant: Jim Phelps' final pronouncement on Jack-the-computer-geek's death: "Man down, Ethan. Man down."

Man down, indeed.

He stared out the control room at the Stargate. Carter's coffee was still untouched beside her, steaming away as she worked on the control room computers, running through...whatever she was running through to try to get their team-mate back. She'd pull an all-nighter to work out how to get Teal'c out of the Stargate - and all Jack could do was offer her coffee.

Besides which, his head hurt.

It was times like these he became well aware of his uselessness.

Hell, even Daniel was on his way to Moscow with Paul Davis, to negotiate with the Russians and get the off-world teams back safely. Of course, Jack would have been about as useful there as a bicycle to a fish. Some hatreds and habits were just too ingrained to change.

Too old, too stupid, too blunt to be of any use to his friend who was stuck in the wormhole.

"Hey," he touched Carter on the shoulder to get her attention.

"Sir?"

"Do you want anything to eat?"

Her smile was grateful, but the answer was negative. "I'm fine, sir. I'll grab something later."

"You sure? Not even a bowl of Jell-O? Last chance..."

"I'm sure, sir." A hand gesture indicated the computer. "I'll keep working on this."

Jack nodded and fervently wished he could help; but headaches, and thoughts of fish and bicycles kept intruding. "Okay. Get some sleep, okay?"

"You, too, sir."

So he went down to the cafeteria to have a bowl of red Jell-O which he ate by himself, feeling increasingly isolated. When he came in for something to eat, he usually either took it back to his office or had his team around him.

As he consumed the sweet, he let his thoughts consume him. By now, Daniel and Davis should be in Moscow, negotiating with the Russians. While the Russians would probably let the off-world SGC teams back, they'd be snippy about it. Jack grimaced into his Jell-O. The last meeting with General Chekov had been less-than-stellar - as had most of Jack's experiences with Russians. And they had the balls to call the Americans 'imperialists'! The important question was whether they'd let the SGC teams go off to find anything which could help Teal'c.

Carter was working on the problem, and he had faith in her ability to find a solution. How the woman did it, Jack didn't know.

Man, he was tired! And another headache threatened.

He pushed the Jell-O away, and put his head down on his arms in the vain hope that the headache would recede.

Next thing he knew, someone was talking to him from a long way away. "Colonel?" He lifted his head from his arms, and the voice became abruptly nearer and more familiar. It was Hammond. "Colonel, go home."

It wasn't the most dignified way to be found by your CO, but Jack figured he had a good enough excuse for falling asleep in the commissary that Hammond would overlook it. "No, I'm all right sir, just got five minutes of quality sleep."

Hammond sat down opposite him, "Everything that can be done is being done."

And that was exactly the problem. Jack was useless. A fighter with nothing to do. A leader who couldn't help his team.

Teal'c wasn't the only 'man down'.

Jack was down, too. Pinned by his inability to usefully contribute to the solution, he was stuck.

Suddenly, Jack understood how Hammond felt watching the SG teams come and go through the gate, never knowing which of them would come back alive, or which of them would come back dead, or if they'd come back at all.

Hammond must hate it.

Jack certainly did.

It was petty to take his frustration out on Teal'c, especially since the big guy wasn't here to defend himself, but Jack was tired, angry, and unable to do anything to help his friend. "You know, this wouldn't be happening if Teal'c had just obeyed orders. It's that damned Jaffa revenge thing."

Maybe there was a glint of black humour in Hammond's eyes - Jack wasn't exactly well-known for following orders, after all. Still, the essential grimness of the situation remained. "Get some rest, Colonel. That's an order."

So Jack went down to the control room one last time to check on Carter and passed the order on. One of the perks - or possibly curses - of command: looking after your people.

Naturally, she protested.

He insisted. "At least a couple of hours, Carter. Preferably more." So the woman was the energizer bunny in human form - she just kept going - but Jack knew his 2IC would keep going until she dropped. With Teal'c stuck in the Stargate, and Daniel off in Russia, he was the one responsible for seeing that she didn't work herself into a state of collapse.

"Sir..."

"You won't be any use to Teal'c if you fall asleep on your laptop."

She half-smiled, and nodded. "Yes, sir." Her tone of voice was faintly indulgent.

"And don't humour me, Carter."

"Yes, sir."

"See, you're doing it even now!"

He saw Carter off to her quarters, and Jack went home to bed.

Next morning, he woke up and stared at the ceiling for nearly twenty minutes before he showered, breakfasted, and drove in to the gas station to fill up his empty tank.

Okay, so his reaction to Maybourne might have been a little overboard, but Jack was angry on so many levels he didn't care what people thought.

Teal'c was stuck in the Stargate, Daniel and Sam were working on solutions, and Jack could do...well, jack about the situation.

So when Maybourne turned up at the gas station, Jack saw red - until the rat began defending his position, and Jack began believing him. Sure, Maybourne was slippery, but Jack trusted him. Certainly more than Jack trusted Simmons.

"I'll be in town for a couple of days. I'd like to see how things turn out." The little sneak made it sound like the outcome of a series. "I'm at the Accent Inn checked in under the name Cassidy."

"David?" Jack asked sarcastically, "Or Shaun?"

Maybourne grinned mockingly as he turned around and chided Jack, "Butch."

"You know, Simmons says you're the one who sullied the good name of the NID."

The response was gratifying: instant turnabout. Maybourne was angry. It was nice to know that Jack's good opinion was worth something to Harry. "Do you believe him?"

Between believing Maybourne and believing Simmons, there was no competition. "No."

"Trust me, Jack." The words were unnecessary and both men knew it. They trusted each other in their own ways, or they'd never have worked together. Whatever differences they had in their ideologies, they had the same goals and purposes at heart - just different ways of getting to those goals. "I know him well. I'm the one who recruited him."

Yeah, that figured, too.

Driving up to the mountain, Jack reflected on Harry Maybourne.

Maybourne wasn't an honourable man. At least, not the way Jack understood it. Harry's personal code was very different to Jack's...and in some respects much the same.

Which was, possibly, why Jack had a soft spot - a very small one - for Maybourne.

Oh, okay, he actually liked the rat.

Sometimes.

An hour later he listened grimly to Hammond's report on Simmons and his pet geek.

Heck with liking Maybourne, he'd take the rat over the snake anyday. And the geek sounded like the worst kind of scientist - the type Jack had loathed with an almighty passion until he met Carter and Daniel. Thank God he wouldn't have to deal with him.

Three hours later, Jack was ready to punch something. Preferably Simmons. It would make Jack feel so much better, even if it meant a court-martial. And taking Simmons out of the equation might prove more helpful to Teal'c - and Carter and Daniel who were working to get him back.

Forty-eight hours, Jack's ass!

He was in his office trying to work out a way to word 'damned Jaffa revenge thing' in an official manner when the phone rang. Shuffling through folders and papers and pens, Jack hoped it was Carter taking him up on his offer of a coffee break. He could so do with a break.

It wasn't. It was Hammond. "I'll meet you up at the start of the mountain trail in twenty minutes, Colonel."

Outside the mountain, it was a beautiful day. Sunlight illuminated Jack's shadow clearly on the ground ahead of him as he climbed the hill to where Hammond was staring north, away from the sun. "Sir?"

"Colonel Simmons came to my office earlier," Hamond said without preamble. "He has the information about how to retrieve Teal'c from the Stargate."

"What? How..." Then the penny dropped, and Jack's fists clenched. Simmons had the Goa'uld who possessed Adrian Conrad, which made him a prime candidate for the person who'd shot Jack. It looked like Maybourne was right and Simmons was in this up to his eyebrows. "What does he want in exchange?"

Hammond looked at him, "A Goa'uld hand device."

"When hell freezes over," Jack snorted before he saw Hammond's expression and realised what his CO was thinking. "Did he say how he got the information?"

"No. I'm hoping you can track down..." Hammond coughed, "...a certain friend of yours and look into the situation..."

Jack snorted and stared out over the scrub. "He's already in town. Saw him this morning."

One corner of Hammond's mouth pulled up, "Good. The last report we had from Dr. Jackson indicated that the Russians are stonewalling us. They want more out of the Stargate project than we've been giving them. Major Davis and Dr. Jackson are trying to negotiate for the DHD, but haven't had much success as yet."

"Carter still thinks the DHD might be a part of the solution?"

"She does. So we're still talking to the Russians about that DHD. Simmons is the one with the info we need, and short of letting him blackmail us, we're not going to get it out of him. If it came down to Teal'c's life, then I'd do the deal with Simmons - but I need you to give me another option, Jack."

His name hung in the air between them, signalling that this was not an order from a commander to a subordinate, but a request from one man to another.

"Okay." Jack left off the 'sir' since Hammond had addressed him by name. "I'll be on it." He turned on his heel then turned back, "Would you keep an eye on Carter, sir? She has a tendency..."

"...to get lost in her work. I know, son. I'll make sure Major Carter gets some rest." Another unspoken agreement between them: take care of their people

Jack started back down the path, only to pause when he realised Hammond wasn't following him. "You're not going back in?"

"No. I think I'll walk off the urge to have Colonel Simmons escorted off the base."

A feral grin crossed his face. Right now, Jack would love the chance to 'escort' Simmons off the base - preferably tossing him through a wormhole to a Goa'uld-inhabited planet... "Right, sir."

As he descended into the mountain to grab his odds and ends before heading out to find Maybourne, Jack felt a renewed sense of purpose.

He wasn't useless anymore.

He'd leave his team-mates to do what they did best.

And that left him doing what he did best.

Action.

At last, Jack had something to do.