Ouroboros, by Amaranth Traces

-- Chapter Seven --

Sighing heavily, Daniel tore the page off his notepad and crumpled it up. He clipped his pen onto the pad and rolled his head around on his shoulders. Cool fingers touched the tense muscles of his neck, gently massaging them into relaxation. He leaned into the familiar hand, grateful for Sam’s silent support.

“You know what I keep thinking?” he asked.

“What?”

“I don’t even know where I’d be or what I’d be doing if I hadn’t met her.” The news of Catherine Langford’s death had come as a surprise to Daniel. He had been even more surprised to be asked to speak at her funeral. The only thing that hadn’t surprised him was that the call had come to Sam’s lab. Daniel didn’t even think twice anymore about how people knew to find him in Sam’s office or lab.

Now, here he was, on the way to Denver with Jack, Teal’c and Sam, completely incapable of coming up with anything even remotely appropriate.

“If she hadn’t brought me onto the Stargate Program, I might be...” Daniel searched his mind for something he couldn’t imagine himself doing. “I don’t know. Teaching English as a second language or something.”

“Perhaps that is what you should say, Daniel Jackson,” said Teal’c from the front seat.

“Teal’c’s right. It’s perfect.” Sam gave him a small smile, nodding. “He’s pretty good at this sort of thing.”

Daniel looked at the blank page on his lap and picked up his pen again. And he began to write.

--

Daniel straightened his tie and smoothed his suit jacket, studying his reflection. Sam’s arms wrapped around his waist, her face appearing in the mirror as she rested her chin on his shoulder.

“You look great,” she said.

He exhaled heavily, puffing out his cheeks. “I’m a little nervous.” Even though he had given dozens of presentations and speeches to a wide variety of human and non-human audiences, Daniel’s stomach still got a little queasy before each one. Of course, that wasn’t something that he was willing to admit to just anyone.

“You’re gonna do great.” She kissed his neck. “Whoops.” Sam began gently rubbing the spot she kissed with her thumb. She glanced at him sheepishly. “Lipstick.”

Daniel watched her in the mirror, enjoying her attentions. When she finished, he turned around and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m glad you’re here, Sam. Thank you for coming.” He kissed her temple.

“Don’t be silly.” She squeezed him tightly. “I love you,” she said, as if that explained her presence here.

He smiled and rested his cheek against her head. “I love you too, Sam.”

--

“She said Catherine thought of me as a son,” Daniel said, absently running his thumb over the Eye of Ra amulet that Catherine’s niece had given him. It was strange to have it in his hands again. He hadn’t seen it since he had visited Catherine before embarking on the mission where they found Ernest. Before that, it had been on Abydos. He had sent it back to Earth with Jack after deciding to stay with Sha’re.

Sam looked up from the laptop on her lab bench. “What’s so strange about that?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”

She frowned at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Daniel smiled. “What are you working on?”

“Nothing really. Just finishing up some reports. Since we’re still on stand-down, I’m finally catching up on my paperwork.”

Her phone rang, and Sam picked it up. “Carter,” she said. Her eyes moved over to Daniel. “Sure.” She handed him the receiver. “It’s the General. I don’t know why I bother picking up my phone anymore.”

Chuckling, Daniel put the receiver to his ear. “Jack?”

“Daniel. You wanna come down to your office?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. That’d be good.”

“Be right there.” Daniel walked around Sam’s lab bench and hung up the phone. “Seems Jack needs me in my office.”

Sam smiled. “We still on for lunch?”

“You bet.” He bent down for a quick kiss. “See you then.”

Rounding the corner to his office, Daniel nearly ran into an airman with an empty dolly. Jack was leaning casually against the wall in the hallway.

“Jack?”

“Daniel.”

A second empty dolly rolled by. Daniel watched it go and crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s going on?” He frowned as yet another airman pulling an empty dolly behind him left his office.

“You been shopping online lately?”

Siler handed Jack a clipboard.

“Whatcha talkin’ about?”

Jack gave the clipboard a passing glance and then handed it to Daniel. “Well, you’ve got a little delivery here.”

Daniel looked over the document on the clipboard. “It’s from Catherine’s estate.”

“Yeah, kinda looks like she sent the whole thing.”

Daniel glanced briefly at Jack before returning his attention to the inventory list in his hands. He walked into his office and looked up. “Holy...buckets!” Every surface in his office was covered in boxes and books. Daniel couldn’t even see his desk. “Looks like her entire collection!” He stood there, his eyes roaming over the various artefacts that were sticking out of boxes and the many piles of books that were scattered around the room.

“I prefer stamps,” Jack said, patting Daniel’s shoulder as he left.

Daniel stared at the room for another long moment in shock. Finally, he looked back at the pages on the clipboard, examining the inventory list in earnest. “She said odds and ends. A few odds and ends,” he muttered to himself. “Why would Catherine leave all of this to me?” He looked around again and laughed softly. “This is incredible!”

He looked around his very cluttered office, not knowing where to start. Moving a pile of books out of the way, Daniel opened his closet and pulled out a blank notebook and a bag of artefact tags. With a deep breath and a broad grin, he opened the first box to begin cataloguing the collection. This was going to be fun.

Three crates and two and a half piles of books later, Daniel barely registered a knock at his door.

“Whoa,” said a familiar voice.

He looked up and grinned at the woman standing in his doorway. “Sam! Look at this. It’s–it’s—” At a loss for words, Daniel simply gestured at the wealth of knowledge and artefacts that currently filled his office.

She looked around, her eyes wide. “Where’d it all come from?”

“Catherine. She left it all to me. It could take months to go through everything.” He picked up the next book on the pile and examined its cover and spine before opening it. “Oh God, this is an original 1889 edition of ‘The Eye of the Sun’.”

She moved to look over his shoulder. “Judging by your tone, I’d say that’s a good thing?”

He laughed excitedly, glancing at her quickly before turning his attention back to the book. “It’s fantastic! It’s the only copy known to exist. I can’t believe Catherine had this!” His fingers moved over the text on the page before him as he read.

“Well, while you look at that, why don’t I go get us something from the commissary and bring it back here?”

Daniel looked up from the book. “Hmm?” Sam was smiling pointedly at him, and his eyes widened. He checked his watch, wincing as he realised he had missed their lunch date. “Oh, Sam. I’m sorry, I lost track of time.”

She just laughed. “Don’t worry about it. You’re excited, and it’s adorable. I’ll be right back.”

Before he could promise to make it up to her, Sam had kissed him on the cheek and left. Not for the first time, Daniel shook his head in wonder at how lucky he was to have her in his life. He smiled and turned back to the book in his hands. Flipping a few pages, an etching caught his attention. “Oh my God,” he said before running out of his office.

“Jack!” Daniel shouted as he neared the briefing room. He ran inside. “We need to talk! Oh!” He stopped, realising that Jack was in the middle of a meeting with SG-22. “Sorry for interrupting.”

“No!” Jack grabbed Daniel’s arm, making him jump.

Daniel looked from Jack to Balinsky and back again.

“It’s okay. If it’s important, you must interrupt. You must.” Jack squeezed Daniel’s arm hard.

Daniel made a mental note to teach Jack the art of subtlety. They had known each other for nine years. They knew each other well enough now that he didn’t have to inflict pain to get his point across.

“I think we may have found a ZPM,” said Daniel, trying to clear his expression of the pained wince he knew it currently held.

Balinsky didn’t seem at all impressed that his debriefing was being interrupted.

“Yes!” Jack stood up quickly, not letting go of Daniel’s arm. He patted Balinksy’s shoulder and gestured to the mineral samples on the table. “Great stuff with the rocks.”

Daniel hopped a little, trying to squirm out of Jack’s vice-like grip. Finally, his friend released him.

“Go!” Jack said, smacking him on the back.

Daniel took off at a run down the hall, with Jack following. Along the way, they ran into Teal’c.

“Is there some emergency?”

“Teal’c!” said Daniel. “Everything’s fine. But come on! You’ve got to see this.”

Daniel skidded to a halt outside his office and hurried inside. Sam was already there.

“Where’d you go?” she asked, laughing.

“Sam, you’re not going to believe it!”

Everyone conveniently together, Daniel explained the significance of the image that he had found in the book. The ZPM that it depicted might still be somewhere in Egypt, buried in a tomb. Sam started to join in Daniel’s excitement. She told them that they should be able to scan the area by satellite to try to find the Ancient power source.

“Nice,” said Jack. “Carter, you do your scanning thing. Daniel, see if you can find out anything more about what Ra knew about the ZPM and where it might have gone.” He glanced at the tray of food sitting on one of the filing cabinets near Daniel’s office door and looked back at the scientists. “After you’ve eaten.” Then, Jack slung his arm over Teal’c’s shoulders as they headed out of the room. “So, T, how are things on Dakara these days?”

Daniel couldn’t stop grinning. He turned back to the piles of boxes in his office, wondering what secrets the next one might hold.

“Hey, before you jump back into the fray, you need to eat something.”

He turned to Sam and accepted the lunch tray she offered him. “What would I do without you?”

“Oh, probably get so lost in all this stuff that you’d forget to eat, then several days later, we’d find you unconscious on the floor from low blood sugar.” Sam grinned mischievously at him as she picked up her sandwich.

Daniel laughed. “You’re probably not wrong.” He picked up half of his sandwich and took a bite. “Mmm. Thanks for this.”

“You’ll probably have to do the same thing for me next time I get some really cool piece of technology to study.”

“True enough.”

Sam grinned at him. “So, tell me about this ‘Eye of the Sun’ book.”

--

Sam pushed an open file toward Jack then crossed her arms and looked at Daniel apologetically. “We did an extensive satellite sweep of the Giza plateau searching for an energy signature like the one given off by the ZPM we found at Taonas. Even if it’s buried under dirt and rock, we should have been able to detect it. We found nothing. I’m sorry, Daniel. But if it’s there, it’s probably been depleted.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Daniel shook his head. “According to the text, it was a religious artefact. An icon. It was never used as a power source.”

“It is possible Ra simply took the device with him when he left Earth,” said Teal’c.

“In which case,” said Sam, “it could be anywhere by now.”

Daniel had been afraid of that. But he had an idea of how they could still get their hands on the ZPM, even if Ra had taken it with him. He just had no idea what Sam would think of it. Actually, he did know what Sam would think of it. And that was the problem. “We don’t know where it is now, but we do know where it was,” he said slowly, dropping his gaze to the table before him. “ Giza, three thousand BC.” He looked up at Sam to gauge her reaction.

She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “You can’t be serious.” She opened her eyes to look at him again.

“What?” asked Jack.

Daniel ignored him. “It’s the only way.”

“What?”

“No, we agreed.” Sam looked at him pointedly.

“If I have to say ‘what’ one more time, heads are gonna roll!” Jack said loudly.

“We have a time ship,” Daniel explained. “We can go back and get the ZPM.”

Jack leaned forward closer to Daniel. “She wouldn’t let me go back and watch the Cubs win the World Series!”

Daniel rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Jack, this is a unique opportunity. Ra never knew what he had, which means we can go back and take it without adversely affecting the timeline.” He looked at Sam, trying to make her realise that he had thought a lot about this plan.

“Actually, sir,” she said, bobbing her head slowly. “He may be right about that.”

Daniel blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected her to agree so quickly.

“You’re on board with this?” Jack asked, clearly as surprised as Daniel was.

“I’m not happy about it, but we don’t have any historical evidence to show that any Goa’uld has ever used a ZPM.”

Daniel looked triumphantly at Jack as Sam made his case for him.

“In which case, it wouldn’t be missed,” she continued. “We would have to be extremely careful to minimise our interaction with the people of the period.”

“Yeah, there’s that,” said Jack. “But I thought you said you couldn’t get it to work.”

“No one at Area 51 has been able to engage the time device. In fact, they’ve barely got the ship off the ground. But you were able to fly it without too much difficulty.”

“Indeed,” said Teal’c. “You have demonstrated an exceptional ability to control Ancient devices.”

“Jack, think about it,” Daniel said excitedly. “With a fully functional ZPM, we could power Earth’s defences and open up a wormhole to the Pegasus galaxy.” He stared anxiously at his friend.

Jack looked at Sam, and Daniel smiled when she nodded.

“Now, hang on a sec.” Jack glanced at Daniel and back to Sam. “This plan is a little zany, even for us. Carter, are you sure you’re not just agreeing to this thing because you’re...” He waved his hands vaguely in Daniel’s direction. “Sleeping with he who proposed it?”

Sam’s eyes flashed with anger, her mouth opening in clear indignation. Daniel spoke up before she said something she’d regret. “Jack, I think you know us better than that by now.”

“Hey. It’s a valid question. There’s a reason for the frat regs, you know. They ensure objectivity.”

“General,” said Sam, her voice low and even. “Like I said, we’ll have to be careful, but it’s a good plan. Daniel’s right. Ra wouldn’t have even known what it was. If we go in, get the ZPM and get out, avoiding contact with the people there as much as possible, we should be fine.”

Jack nodded. “Okay then. I’m in. After all, if the brain trust agrees on something, what could go wrong?”

Daniel caught Sam’s wince as he gave one of his own. Nothing good ever came of asking questions like that.

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