Author: Sapphire (e-mail: telcontar@dunedain-of-the-north.de)

Title: Coming Home

Contains Spoilers for: 'Stargate: The Movie', 'Children of the Gods', 'Fire and Water', 'Solitudes'

Okay, okay, there is not much plot to the story. Just a little bit musing, mostly on Daniel's part, some memories of previous trips through the 'gate, that's it. I just thought that the end of 'Solitudes' was a good opportunity for Daniel to think about his relationship with the team and all.

Legal stuff: Stargate SG-1 doesn't belong to me. *Sigh*. I think it belongs to Double Secret Production and Gekko Production. I borrowed the guys (and Samantha) for my, and hopefully your, enjoyment only for a short while and don't plan to make any money with them. Though I do have some more plans with them, I return them for now.

Comments, criticism and blue/gray eyed linguists are more than welcome.

COMING HOME

A prologue to 'Solitudes' by Sapphire

The vast whiteness seemed to stretch into infinity. The only other color present -- if you could call white a color to begin with -- was the blue light of an endless sky. The glacier was, as far as glaciers went, not especially large, but absolutely sufficient for the two persons trapped inside.

Colonel Jack O'Neill had lost consciousness half an hour ago and only the fact that Samantha could still feel his heart beating, though weakly, assured her that her superior -- and friend -- was still alive. She had snuggled up to the Colonel, sharing what little heat her body could offer with the dying man. There was absolutely nothing sexual about what she did -- Jack was her friend, and though she thought he was a very attractive man, she had never really entertained the idea of an sexual relationship with him. And even IF she had -- deep down in her subconscious and maybe her dreams --, right now was not the right time to begin with one.

She knew they would die here. Wherever the stargate had brought them and whatever planet it was, she knew it would be their grave. Alone, thousands or even millions of light-years away from home, away from her friends and her family. The Colonel had told her, or rather ordered her, that she should find a way out, get away in the hope she would find some kind of civilization, but what's the bother? There was nothing, only ice and snow and an endless sky. There was no way out. For some strange reasons the stargate here didn't work though it should and without it .... there was no place to go.

Her last thought, before exhaustion overcame her and she also slipped away into unconsciousness, was for Daniel and Teal'c. Hopefully those two had found their way home and weren't also stranded on a strange planet alone and without hope.

The distant sound of helicopter blades had to be in her imagination.

**********

Daniel Jackson was shocked how pale and small Samantha looked. Intellectually he had always known that Sam was a fairly petite woman, but then she had usually been so full of energy that that fact never had really registered.

Now, the young scientist was wrapped in several layers of blankets, only her face open to the cold air. The doctors had said that all she had was moderate hypothermia and that she should be okay in no time.

The Colonel was another matter altogether. Daniel Jackson almost couldn't bear to look at him. The normally so powerful man was terribly quiet. He was also wrapped in blankets and they were ready to get him up to the surface of the glacier where he would be airlifted to McMurdo Air Force Base. What the doctor could discover during a quick examination was that Jack had hypothermia as well, though his case seemed to be much more severe. His right tibia was broken and also several ribs. And there was some internal bleeding. If they didn't get him into a hospital soon, the chances for his survival were not good.

Daniel wished he had the same certainty that Jack would make it like he had had the last two days that Jack and Sam were still alive, somewhere. It had not been the denial of the possibility that they might be dead -- though most likely any psychologist who was worth his money would have told him exactly that. He simply had *known* that Jack and Sam were alive. There had been no logic to it; it had gone deeper than that.

This 'knowledge' had been what had driven him not to give up, even when the General had called the search off. That and the equally strong conviction that Jack and Sam were in danger of sorts and that it was imperative that they found them.

If he had only thought earlier of the idea that they were not stranded on a foreign planet, as everybody thought, but on Earth. But how could he have known that there was a second stargate on Earth? And then ... how could he not have thought of it? With this one simple idea, many, many questions which had plagued him in the last months were answered. Like, how could it be that on many of the planets they had visited, Earth cultures from eras long after the stargate at Giza had been buried had evolved? How had they gotten there? How come they had found a nomadic culture almost identical to the tribes of Kublai Khan on P3x593 -- or what ever the number had been. This culture was only a thousand years old on Earth, and the stargate in Egypt had been buried more than 2000 years ago! And there had been other examples.

His only excuse was that he had simply had not enough time. With all that gate traveling his hands had been rather full. And this had almost cost Sam and Jack their lives. And it might still.

Suddenly Samantha's eyelids began to flutter. Daniel turned to her.

"Sam. Sam! Come on ... It will be okay. You will be okay."

The woman didn't seem to hear Daniel's voice. Her eyes flickered around, searching for something.

Teal'c realized what she was looking for. "So is Colonel O'Neill." This might not be true, as Daniel knew very well, but Teal'c's words managed to calm her down a little and that was all that mattered.

From behind General Hammond stepped forward. While he went to Samantha's side, he ordered the rescue team to hurry up in bringing them to the waiting choppers.

Samantha's eyes moved to the General. "The Colonel. He is bleeding internally."

"We know, Captain. No worries. He's going to be all right," the General calmed her down.

For a moment it looked as if Samantha would slip back into unconsciousness, but then her eyes cleared up. "General, you came through the stargate for us," she mumbled.

"Not exactly, Captain," the General told her. Then he turned to the people in the cave. "A team from the SGC will be arriving within the hour to secure this area. In the meantime let's get these people home."

Daniel followed the stretcher that brought Sam to the surface. He watched as she was lifted into the helicopter that already had Colonel O'Neill on board. Then he followed.

**********

It had been more than three hours since they had brought Jack O'Neill into the OR. The General and Teal'c were both with the SGC team at the side of the Second Gate -- as they had started to call it -- while Daniel Jackson spend his time walking a trench into the carpet of the tiny waiting room of the base's sickbay. In regular intervals a nurse would come in, telling him that it would be several hours before they would know anything and asking if he wouldn't rather rest somewhere. But Daniel would always incline his head, state that he was fine and that he'd rather wait here. After that the nurse usually left without another word.

He was tired, sure. After all it had been more than 48 hours since he last had seen a real bed to sleep in, and this had been the bed in the infirmary at Stargate Command, when he had woken up after his tumble through the gate. But he knew exactly that even if he went to bed he wouldn't be able to sleep. He had to see that Jack would be all right first, that he would pull through.

Samantha was in a room close-by, sleeping. At least in her case he could be reasonably sure that she would be okay. Rest and good food, and in a week she would be as good as new.

One burden off his soul.

While he waited Daniel began to wonder when those people had stopped being simply people and had begun to became friends. And then even more, almost family. He had never known a real family. His real parents had died when he had been very young and his foster parents had never really known what to do with the overly intelligent boy that had been given in their care. After he had discovered the fascination of ancient languages at the age of twelve, he had never had time for friends and he had never really known what he had missed.

Until he was brought to the Stargate project by Catherine Langford two years ago and met Jack. Or rather, Colonel Jack O'Neill -- he never would have thought he would start to think about him as simply 'Jack'. Or a friend for that matter.

They both hadn't had a very good start. He still remembered the day when he had first met the Colonel. Military from the soles of his standard issue shoes up to the tips of his close cropped hair. He had instantly disliked the guy. Hell, there was nothing to like about him. Catherine Langford had just shown him the coverstone of the stargate for the first time and there this guy walked in, saying that though Daniel was supposed to translate the glyphs on it he would get basically no information to help him with it. O'Neill had probably had no idea what that had meant for him. Daniel thrived on information. He *lived* for information. And there was this guy effectively cutting him off from all sources.

Also, the Colonel had emitted a coldness, an indifference, that had given the impression that he was more a machine than a man. What Daniel hadn't known then was that Jack's son, Charlie, had killed himself only a few weeks earlier, using his father's gun. And he also hadn't known that basically O'Neill had been brought in in case he actually managed to decipher the glyphs and that they would be able to use the stargate. It was generally accepted that this would be a suicide mission and the Jack O'Neill of then had been just the man for one.

But that had been a long time ago, and Jack had been a different man. Hell, *he* himself had been a different man. So ... naive, he had to admit. He had conned his way into the first stargate team, stating that he would be able to get the team back, without really having any idea how. He only knew that this was probably the only chance he would ever get to prove his theories about the language of ancient Egypt right. To hell with the consequences.

Abydos had changed him. And Shar're had changed him. And Jack had had a part in that change as well.

Daniel had to shake his head when he thought of the man he had been once, seemingly such a long time ago. Sometimes he wondered what Jack had thought of him then. Strangely enough the word 'dweep' popped into his mind. He would have to ask him one day. When Jack was better again.

He didn't dare to entertain the possibility of the word 'if'.

The door to the waiting room opened and the nurse stuck her head in. She was still fairly young and for a moment Daniel wondered how a young woman like her got to an outpost as remote as this base. Antarctica was not really famous for it's entertainment values. But then he saw the small golden band on the ring finger of her left hand and figured that she might be married to one of the members of the base.

"Dr. Jackson?" she inquired politely.

Daniel managed a weak smile, colored still by the memories he just had indulged in. "Any news?"

"The operation is still going on. You really don't want to sleep an hour or two?" Honest concern colored her eyes darker.

Daniel shook his head. "No, thank you, I'd rather stay here."

The nurse sighed. "Okay, if I can't persuade you to sleep, how about a visit to your other friend, Dr. Carter."

"She is awake?"

"Yes, and I think she wants to ask some questions I probably can't answer." Her smile showed that she knew the need for secrecy the military was so fond of. Though she probably would like to know how it came that their quiet base was suddenly overrun by all branches of the military, she knew she was better off not knowing.

It took only a split second for Daniel to decide. "Show me where she is."

The nurse brought him to a door not far away from the waiting room. It opened into a small room, which held barely enough space for the bed, a small night table and a chair. Samantha had her eyes closed when the nurse opened the door, but looked up when she heard the sound.

"Daniel!" she exclaimed relieved by the presence of a familiar face. "How ..."

Daniel held up his hand to indicate that the nurse shouldn't hear anything about stargates and travel to faraway planets. Though Daniel was the last one to care about red labels and top secret security, it was not necessary to give the impression that he and Sam were some loonies or something like this. Daniel turned back to the nurse and asked her to inform him the moment she heard something new about Jack. Then he all but pushed her out of the room.

Samantha waited till the nurse had left the room. Then: "Daniel, I thought for a moment this had been a dream. What had happened? How did you find us? Where are we? Where are the others? And, most important, how is Jack?"

"It is a long story. Do you really think you are up to it?"

"I'm fine. But tell me, how is Jack? He was badly off the last time I remember." Worry showed in her eyes.

Daniel sighed. "They are operating on him right now. The prognosis seems to be good, but still.... He bled internally when we found you, and his leg ... you probably know more about this than I do."

"But he will pull through? Won't he?"

"I don't know." Daniel lowered his head and, studied a spot on the ground intensively for a few seconds. "We have to wait." His eyes locked with Sam's; in both pairs the same worries and the same weak flicker of hope.

For a moment both remained silent. Then the silence became unbearable.

"I seem to remember that the General said something like you didn't come through the 'gate to get to us. How is that possible?"

Daniel was glad Sam had changed the topic. To distract himself -- and her -- , he began to explain about the second gate. He told her how he and Teal'c had been flung out of the gate in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and how they had postulated that if the wormhole that connected two gates had been cut off on one end, it would automatically search for another gate to anchor itself to. How they had theorized that this new anchor had to be somewhere along the line between P4A771 and Earth. And how they searched one world after another without success.

" ... and suddenly it hit me. All the time we had been looking at the wrong planets. You and Jack, you didn't go to another planet. You went to Earth! I asked Teal'c and he confirmed that if a gate was lost the Goa'uld might put a second gate on the same planet. Only, as this second gate had the same address as our gate, we couldn't dial into it."

"That's why I couldn't get it to work! I tried several times, but I couldn't understand why it didn't work. It should have, but as I always dialed home ... " For a moment Sam and Daniel had totally forgotten where they were. The second stargate on Earth proposed a fascinating scientific problem, and if there was one thing those two loved then it was a scientific riddle.

"Exactly. When you tried to get through to us, all you got was a 'busy signal'. However, your gate doesn't have the dampers our gate does and when you dialed home, the vibrations registered on a seismometer. This made it possible for us to pinpoint the location of the second gate and thus finding you."

"But why would the Goa'uld place a gate in Antarctica? It's a little bit lonely, I would say. Even when they were still around."

Daniel hesitated for a moment. "Hmmm, that is a good question. Maybe they were looking for a remote location. Here nobody would come and bury it. And with their ships and gliders they could get everywhere on Earth they wanted to."

"But then the glacier came."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, and this gate got buried as well. Or maybe something else happened. I guess we'll never find out."

Silence stretched between them for a moment while both of them thought about what could have been the reason for the Goa'uld to abandon the second gate, or what else could have happened.

Sam was brought out of her thoughts by a sigh from Daniel. Only that that sigh almost sounded like a sob.

"What's the matter, Daniel?" she asked in a soft voice.

Daniel sighed again, his eyes downcast as if he couldn't bear to look Sam into her eyes. "I only wish I had thought of the second gate earlier. That we found you earlier. You would be all right and Jack ... " He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.

Sam put her hand on Daniel's arm. "Don't worry, he will pull through," she said with more confidence than she felt. "The most important part is that you didn't gave up."

"We could have rescued you much earlier," he protested weakly.

"Daniel, we could be dead! I could be dead, and Jack wouldn't have had a chance whatsoever. But you didn't gave up!" She gave Daniel a smile.

Daniel took a deep breath, then he looked Sam in the eyes. "You and Jack, you wouldn't have given up either. You didn't give up when I was on Oannes. And you *knew* then that I was dead." In his blue eyes the memory of that incident played.

It had been a little over three months ago when Daniel had been taken prisoner by a creature called Nem. Nem had thought that Daniel had knowledge of the fate of his mate, Omoroca, who had been on Earth in Babylon 4000 years ago. To cover that he had kidnapped a member of the SG-1 team he had planted the memory of Daniel's death in the others' mind. Eventually the others had managed to discover that their memories had been tampered with and they had returned to Oannes. There they found Daniel who, in the meantime, had given the information Nem had wanted and together they had returned home.

Sam shook her head a little. "We knew you were dead. And then we knew you weren't. Maybe we couldn't accept it or something, but we all knew something was terrible wrong. You should have seen the Colonel and Teal'c ... we were all in shock."

"I saw you." Daniel said quietly.

"You did?" Sam looked up, surprised.

"Remember, you were video-taped in the debriefing. I wanted to know and one night I went to the library and watched the tapes." He studied a spot on the wall for a moment before he managed to look Sam into her eyes again. "Thank you. For not giving up."

For a moment it seemed as if Sam couldn't decide whether she should be angry because Daniel had watched to tapes without her knowing, or flattered because of the compliment. Within a moment the second notion won. She smiled. "Thank you, Daniel. For still being alive then."

Daniel also had to smile. "You know I had never much of a family. Only when I met Shar're ... " his voice faltered when he thought of his missing wife. Then he pulled himself together. "When I met Shar're, it was the first time ever I really felt as if I belonged to somebody. And then she was taken away from me ..."

Daniel hesitated a moment before he continued. It was not his way to bare his soul so easily. Sam smiled at him encouragingly.

" ... when she was taken, I wanted to die. I have to admit that at first I only wanted into the team because I hoped to find her again. I knew Jack, but ... well we didn't have the best possible start as you can imagine." He smiled at the memory. "You, you seemed to be okay, but still.... And Teal'c ... after all, he was a Jaffa, the enemy."

Again he stopped for a moment.

"But over the time something changed. It is still very, very important for me to find Shar're. But being with you, you all ... this became very important for me as well. You are as close to me -- no actually closer -- than any family I've ever known."

Almost embarrassed he looked down until he felt Sam's hand tightening its grip on his arm.

"Daniel," the scientist looked up into Sam's blue eyes. She smiled. "Thanks." It was not much more than a whisper, but it still contained a world of emotions. He knew she felt the same he did.

A smile lit up his face.

The two sat in companionable silence for a while. After some time Sam, who still was very exhausted from her ordeal, drifted off into sleep.

Daniel also must have fallen asleep, because when the door opened he found that his head and his arms rested on the bed. Adjusting his glasses he looked up.

"Dr. Jackson," the young nurse almost looked sorry that she had to rouse him. She continued in a whisper so she wouldn't wake Sam. "You wanted to know when Colonel O'Neill was out of the OR."

Daniel shot up, almost kicking the chair over in the process. He steadied the chair then he checked his watch. He had slept for almost an hour.

With a last glance back at Sam to make sure that she was still asleep, he left the room and joined the nurse outside in the small corridor.

"How did it go? How is he?" he asked urgently.

"I don't know, you have to speak to Dr. Parker." She pointed at a tall man in green scrubs down the corridor. While he was pulling a hairnet off his head he was talking to somebody in uniform. From his experience at SGC Jackson could identify the man as a Air Force Captain.

"Excuse me, Dr. Parker?" Daniel barreled right into the conversation. "Could I have minute?"

The Captain looked slightly annoyed when his conversation with the doctor was interrupted, but Daniel ignored him. Without waiting for an okay, he asked the doctor how Jack was.

The doctor looked tired, but when he saw the need in Daniel's eyes for news on his friend, he apologized to the Captain -- his name batch identified him as a Captain Robertson -- and took Daniel aside.

"The operation was a success. We stopped the internal bleeding and fixed his ribs. His heart stopped once, but we managed to revive him. He has some frostbites at his feet, but we think they will heal as well. The next 24 hours will tell if he will recover completely." He smiled when he saw Daniel's shoulder sag. "I think he will pull through, don't worry. He's a healthy man, and I expect him to run around in a couple of weeks."

"Thanks, doc," Daniel said, the relief evident in his voice. "Is it possible to see him?"

"I'd rather not ..."

"Please, doctor. I really would like to see him."

It would have taken a stronger man than Doctor Parker to resist the pleading Little-Boy- Lost-look of a Daniel Jackson. He sighed a little, then smiled. "Okay, but only for a few minutes. He is still under anesthetics and he won't know that you are there," he tried once again, but Daniel didn't really hear him. "Nurse McCafferty will show you to him. If you excuse me now."

Daniel followed the nurse to another small room. Because the environment had to be kept as sterile as possible he had to dress in some paper scrubs and put on a hairnet and a mask. He felt a little strange in the outfit, but this was nothing compared to some of the things they had had to wear on some of their missions through the 'gate. And this was a small price to pay for seeing Jack.

Finally the nurse gave her okay for him to enter the room.

Jack was surrounded by machines. Cables went from his hand and chest to a machine at the side of the shuttered window. An IV-drip went to his left arm, a bag with a clear liquid hanging from a stand. Jack looked pale, his face a stark relief against the green blankets of the bed. Still, he already looked much better than he had when Daniel had last seen him. Somehow the specter of a cold death had been pushed back and it showed in every line of his face.

Only now Daniel allowed him to entertain the hope that Jack would get through. He cast a glance at the nurse, asking her without words if it would be okay to hold Jacks hand. The nurse hesitate a moment then she nodded.

Jack's hand was warm and that, more than anything, assured Daniel that everything would be all right. Many small cuts and abrasions covered it and Daniel could only guess where they came from. As he knew Jack he hadn't let himself being stopped by a broken leg and cracked or broken ribs, but had tried to help Samantha to dig up the Dial Home Device out of the block of ice it had been covered with. The signs of their work had been all over the cave they had been found in.

"Jack, you're going to be okay." Daniel squeezed the unresponsive hand one last time then he let go. "You're going to be okay," he whispered once more. Then he left the room to return to Sam to tell her the good news.

**********

It was five weeks later. The glow of the active stargate filled the embarkation room.

In front of the gate four people stood together. Colonel O'Neill and Sam stood in the center while Teal'c and Daniel made up the flank. It was their first trip together since they had come back from Antarctica. Though Daniel and Teal'c had partaken on two trips with other teams it just hadn't been the same. This group, these people, they were his family and without them Daniel hadn't felt complete.

"People, let's see what's on the other side." Jack made the first step. His wounds had healed very well and he had finally given a clean bill of health the previous day.

Daniel smiled when he stepped through the gate. As absurd as it sounded, going out into the universe, off to a new, strange, and foreign planet, he finally felt like coming home again.

Then the wormhole grabbed him and off they went.

The End