OWING SILENCE PART FOUR BY BIBLIO

Slash:	Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.
Rating:	NC-17.
Category:	Action/Adventure.  Drama.  First Time.  Romance.
Season/Spoilers:	Season 5.
Synopsis:	Daniel has kept his silence for so long, he's not prepared for Jack to finally see him clearly.
Warnings:	Minor Character Death.  Violence.  Language.
Length:	615 Kb.  Download a printer-friendly PDF version of the story

“Everyone is certain of the runes they’re scanning the tablets for?” Daniel prompted, looking around at the excited faces of his audience.

Grania beamed at him.  “Ay!” she said emphatically.

“Ay,” Penarddun agreed.  She was a small sparrow of a woman, slim and possessed of a quiet dignity rather than beauty, but she had lovely grey eyes.

The other Scribes murmured their own agreement.  After several hours of patiently drilling the women in forming and recognising the letters of the Ancients writing system, Daniel had assigned each of them a group of letters and common runes to scan for, so he was sure they were confident in this part of it at least before he had to leave them.

Daniel dropped into the free seat at the head of the table and dove back into his own work, which was to transcribe some of the common runes for Grania to share with the others.  He was trying and failing to keep his mind off Jack and Keelin.  Or was that Keelin and Jack?  Keelin’s instincts certainly went from nought to potential mate in sixty seconds.  Daniel was annoyed with himself for being so damned petty.  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jack, they were committed to one another, that he was certain of, but trusting Keelin was another matter entirely.

The Chieftain of Weylyn wasn’t exactly overflowing with the milk of human kindness.  The sole flashes of warmth she’d shown had been towards Grania and Ove, and in that Daniel had seen her desire not just to please them, but to assure herself of their love.  It some ways it was calculating, as if she was striking a bargain, buying their affections with ruthless self-interest disguised as generosity, and because that otherwise shrewd observer Grania did love her sister, Keelin got away with it.  There was nothing Anwyl could say to Grania without it coming across as jealousy.

The people of the Dwelling Place were admirably pragmatic, but there was a point where acting for the greater good of each village collective conflicted with the welfare of the individual.  Intermarrying between the Places was the only way to ensure the viability of the gene pool, but as the people of each Place aggressively defended their territory and property, conflict was the norm.  Daniel wondered how those who had married into another Place were able to reconcile their loyalties if the Place they were born into attacked the Place they had married into, or vice versa.  There was always the risk in a raid you would find yourself fighting with a family member.  It was possible this was behind the gradual recognition among the villagers they needed to find another way, that trade was better than aggression.

“Daniel, will you come, please?” Penarddun asked quietly.

Everyone looked up hopefully as Daniel headed around to Penarrdun’s seat.

“This rune is correct, yes?” Penarddun asked intently.

Daniel eased his butt onto the table as he took the tablet from her hands and read carefully.  “Rigare, to wet.  The rune is correct, Penarddun, you’ve definitely found the letters you were assigned.  The tablet is describing a treatment for making paper…like in my notebook.”  Daniel looked again.  “Actually, it’s describing how to make papyrus, which needs a specific plant, the paper reed, Cyperus papyrus, which wouldn’t grow in this cold climate.”

“You are a great scholar, Daniel,” Penarddun observed quietly.  “You know much that we do not.”

Daniel looked into her lovely grey eyes, keenly assessing above the placid smile.  He didn’t know what it was, but something about this woman gave him pause.  She reminded him of Jack, always weighing the odds and working the angles, always looking for proof.  He smiled his thanks and took his seat again.  “A trip to another village can take days, correct?” he changed the subject smoothly.

“That is so,” Grania agreed.  “There have been travellers who have ventured past the outermost limits of settled land travelling for many days and returning to us knowing no more than the mountains that hem us in.  Our world is the mountains to us, Daniel.  Water we have, and we hope to have more…” She smiled at the emphatic chorus of ‘ays’ that rippled round the table.  “Our crops and animals suffice but even so…”

Daniel smiled back.  “You hope to have more.”

“We cannot send men questing if we cannot spare them and we cannot feed them,” Grania said with simple dignity.  “We try – we all of us try, and each year it grows easier.  We lose fewer children and our old ones live longer.  It is slow, Daniel,” Grania confessed.  “Though it is hard to admit to it, we struggle to feed the extra mouths.  For every slow, small step forward we take…”

“It would seem we leap back a larger,” Penarddun agreed sadly.  “We strive, always, but we no longer strive to suffice.  The Places begin to come together because we all of us want more.  We want to live to see our children grow strong and not pass their lives in fear of their fellows.”

“Our people were the same, and not as long ago as you might think,” Daniel admitted.  “Society as we know it - settlements and agriculture – has existed for tens of thousands of years.  Man has made progress in all that time, but most of our technological advancements have been made in the past hundred years.  One hundred of your cycles ago the majority of people in my own country lived as you do, and if anything I think our people were more lawless than your own.  You seem to have a stronger sense of community than is recorded in our history.”  Daniel returned the gratified smiles and murmurs that ran through the Scribes.  He walked back around to take his seat.  “Our problems were similar to your own, and we too have always struggled for survival.  Some parts of my world would look to the Dwelling Place with envy.  For all our technology, people starve every day.”

“That is a sorrow,” Grania sighed.  “Keelin and I lost our folks to disease and want.  Was an illness that swept through all the Places, took many from us, young and old.”

“Not even the strong were spared,” Penarddun agreed.  “My father was among those taken and left my mother bereft.”

“Penarrdun’s mother was Airic,” Grania observed gently, “Whose passing all Weylyn mourns.”

Penarddun flashed Grania a quick, wincing smile.

Daniel wondered if Penarddun had expected to be Chosen as Chieftain, if she resented that she wasn’t.  He could certainly see how she wouldn’t show to advantage next to the quick and charismatic Keelin, even though he sensed she was no less intelligent.

Daniel returned to his transcribing and wrote steadily, lulled by the quiet, professional approach of the women.  He had been too pressed for time to do more than skim read the tablets he’d been shown this morning, but there were tantalising glimpses of the daily lives of the first humans to come here, couched in terms that made him suspect the comments were about them, rather than by them.  “Can I see the oldest histories in your own language, please?” he asked.

“Of course,  Daniel,” Grania said at once, pushing back her chair to head over to the shelves on the opposite side of the Scrinium.  “This be our language in its oldest form,” she held up the first of many tablets.

Daniel took the tablet from her, angling it so they could both look together.

“Close it is to this Ancients tongue, but not enough the reading of the one follows in the reading of the other,” Grania explained ruefully.  She brushed reverent fingers over the sharp grooves carved deep into the stone.

“May I take a tablet home with me?” Daniel asked hopefully.  “To study?”

“Ay,” Penarddun called at once.

“The histories belong to all the Places.  What say you all?” Grania asked the Scribes.

The chorus of ‘ays’ that rang out heartened Daniel.

“Thank you,” he beamed at them.

Grania smiled up at him. “Our words as they are written changed over time, Daniel.  Was it thus for your people?”

“Oh, yes,” Daniel agreed, refraining from offering the ten cent linguistic tour because he didn’t want to interrupt the flow of confidences.

“These runes also we cannot read.  The way of it has been lost to us,” Grania mused, leading him over to the corner and another bay of shelves.  “Here we begin to write out our words as they sound to us,” she reached into the neat stacks and confidently extracted a tablet from the third shelf down, from the middle of the stack.  “This you may take also, if it is your thought to know us through our words.  The tablet is merely a tale of the old days, well known to us all, and written in the histories many times.  It is not a loss to give it to one such as you, Daniel,” she smiled up at him warmly.

Daniel would have liked to make an extravagant promise about bringing it back to them next year, but he kept his silence.  He knew what Jack’s reaction would have been to a request to head up a mission of this type.  At least, he knew what it would have been before they started sleeping together.  Part of Daniel hoped that wouldn’t change, that their personal lives wouldn’t impact on the team, but he knew Jack.  Jack would try, and he would insist he was succeeding, but he’d only wind up being more – more Jackian than ever before.  Daniel had to accept he’d pretty much handed over his pink slip the moment he’d kissed Jack, at least as far as Jack was concerned.  Jack had many admirable qualities, but ability to share was not one of them.  He teetered on the knife-edge between protective and possessive and Daniel never quite knew which side of the blade Jack was going to land until he was jumping all over Daniel or all over everyone else on Daniel’s behalf.

Jack’s current ‘honeymoon’ indulgence would last exactly as long as it took them to have their first fight, and then Daniel was certain the shit would hit the fan.  Colleagues, even friends could walk away after a blazing row, or from a sullen, on-going disagreement.  Daniel followed Grania around to the next lot of tablets she wanted him to see, ruefully admitting that maybe battle of wills was more accurate for these rows that blew up between he and Jack.

Their sleeping together changed that dynamic.  Daniel couldn’t, and shouldn’t walk away from Jack if they were sharing their lives as well as a bed.  How Jack would react if he did so was something Daniel couldn’t predict.  Jack was wild for him, wild for the sex too, his aggression only checked by his feelings when they made love.  Throw anger into the mix and Daniel really didn’t know what would happen.  All those feelings, raw and powerful, boiling up to overwhelm them would give an edge to their arguments that had never been there before.  As little as Daniel could imagine walking away from Jack could he imagine Jack allowing him to do so.  Jack wanted Daniel in his life.  This was not negotiable, whatever the circumstances.  They still weren’t comfortable on this new, untested level of intimacy.  It was strange to be so familiar, so easy with one another in the familiar paths of their friendship and still to have that edge to every look and word, an edge that spoke of sex and wanting.

Grania pulled out tablets from stacks scattered throughout the Scrinium, pointing out where their language began to resemble the spoken word.  Daniel carried the pile over to the table to study them.  He didn’t recognise some of the letters in the earlier tablets but it seemed almost between one tablet and the next he found recognisably Old English words, which suggested to him the Ancients had been taking people from Earth concurrently with the Goa’uld.

“Grania?” Daniel prompted.  “Are there stories of men from the Dwelling Place leaving here to fight?”

“Ay,” Grania answered, flashing a quick smile at Daniel.  “Our people always were warriors.  It is my thought ‘tis why we war thus.  What is bred in the bone…” Grania shrugged helplessly.  “The histories have it that Barrecis took our men away to fight and peace reigned in this land among the women, the children and the old folk.  The men would stay away for many seasons and fewer children were born for long and long.”

“The men went to war,” Penarddun supplied.  “They fought the snake-limbed demons and came back us when their war was done, if they lived.”

“Ay,” Grania agreed.  “The men went warring no more with the passing of Barrecis from us.”

“And then the population started growing, you needed to expand, and the people scattered from Weylyn to the other Places,” Daniel said rapidly.  “You said the histories were shared among all the Places?” he prompted inquisitively.

“The oldest tablets were found in Barrecis Hlaew,” Penarddun offered quietly, dropping her eyes to the tablet she was reading.  “And given to us by the first Scribe of Weylyn.  We knew the marks even then, Daniel,” she told him proudly.  “Barrecis taught the marks to a few of our people long ago, the knowledge handed down to their children, Penarddun among them.  She well knew what she was about.”

“Penarddun?” Daniel asked.

“Ay,” Penarddun bowed.  “I am named for her.  All our people are lettered now, it is our way,” she said proudly, smiling a little as the others nodded measured approval.

“’Found’ is not the right word for what Penarddun did,” Grania said slowly.  “Barrecis Himself forbade us to go to the Hlaew, and Penarddun still took the tablets.”

“It is not your place to judge,” Penarddun flashed, “for the Barre themselves used the taking of the tablets against Penarddun and the Weylyn.  Belenos forbade any to settle here but the Barre took it for their home despite that, and have held it though the rest of us have warred with them for despoiling a Place sacred to us all.”

“Ay,” Grania snapped, stiffening.  “And did not the people war on Weylyn to get Penarddun to part with any of the tablets she took from Barrecis Hlaew?  You cannot have it that only we Barre are in the wrong of it.”

“The Barre were the ones to take the tablets from Weylyn and share them with all the Places.  You named yourselves Barre in honour of the taking and the slaughter, a warning to us all,” Penarddun said bitterly.  “We have not forgotten.  And have we not struggled since to make sense of the histories?  If we had kept them together at Weylyn, we’d have solved the mysteries they hold long ago.”

“We of the Barre thought it better to share,” Grania snapped.  “We do not hold ourselves to be above all other Places, and we took Belenos’ Leth to keep it from Weylyn, as you well know,” she accused Penarddun.  “Weylyn fought against all those who left them to make new Places of their own, and when you had too many mouths to feed for your own Place, did you not look to this one?  There would have been no ‘sacred to us all’ about it.  It is the Weylyn way to take and keep.”

Daniel wasn’t sure how to help break the deadlock here and get the Scribes back on track.  There seemed to be a fundamental philosophical difference between Weylyn and the rest of the Places.  “Keelin is here now, though, Grania, and I heard her say that she wants all the Places to work together so everyone can benefit from fresh water and healthier crops,” he suggested tentatively.

Grania turned to him, her face softening.  “Ay,” she said quietly.  “Ay, you have the right of it.  Foolish to rake over the past when we have lived in peace for five cycles and begin to look towards our futures.”

“The Chieftain of Weylyn wants only what is best for all,” Penarddun said sincerely.  “I too regret my hasty words.  We are too quick fight, Daniel.  That too is our way.  We did not war thus when we were all of one Place.  I would like to see us all live in peace as one again.”

“This project is a good place to start,” Daniel agreed warmly.  “I’ve written out the common runes for Grania to copy onto tablets for each of you, along with the alphabet and the number system.  I’ve also made a list of any runes I think would lead you to information about the irrigation canals or channels.  I know it will be slow going,” he admitted, frustrated.  “But if you share information freely you’ll be able to piece it together between you all.  I only wish I could help you more.”

“It is my thought you have helped us much, Daniel, and we thank you for it,” Grania assured him with a fleeting touch to his hand.

“My thanks also,” Penarddun agreed.  “But not all Chieftains are as the Chieftain of Weylyn. It might be that we are not permitted to share what we have learned if it aids another Place.”

“Lie,” a voice ordered out of the blue.  Mor, the Scribe of Tuyet looked up at them, eyes gleaming.  “My Gall died happy in the knowing of my love for him,” she announced proudly.  “And my Don shared my bed in the knowing of it also,” Mor murmured dulcetly.

There was a shout of scandalised laughter from the Scribes.

“So we’re agreed,” Daniel called above the laughter.  “You work together and you…” he glanced at Mor.  “Lie,” he added wryly.

“Ay!” Grania agreed, wiping tears from her eyes.  “I must get me back to my Ove, or she’ll be warring on the Weylyn boys.  One she has her eye on, young Llyr who has but three cycles more than Ove and goes in fear of his life.  ‘Tis a fickle child I have,” Grania sighed.  “Loving Daniel in the one breath and Llyr in the next, and not a breath to spare for my poor Anwyl.  I bid you goodnight all, and we meet again on the morrow, ay?” she asked briskly.

“Yes,” Daniel agreed crisply.  “Thanks,” he said gratefully to them all, taking the hands held out to him, bidding good nights as the Scribes headed down the steps, chattering excitedly.

“It is well, Daniel,” Grania smiled gently once they were alone.  “And it is our thought it will be better.  Ginebra will talk to the other Chieftains before they leave us.  She will arrange all that we may work together freely, I am sure of it.  She grows old, and to leave us with a great gift such as this will please her greatly.”

“I hope so.”  Daniel headed over to the table, scooped up his tablets and headed down the stairs with Grania.  He hadn’t seen Penarddun leave, but he guessed that was who was on Grania’s mind as she bit her lip then stepped up to self-consciously lock the door.

“It goes against me not to trust, Daniel,” she confessed, shame-faced.

Grania walked Daniel to his door, chattering brightly as they walked, bubbling over with enthusiasm, plans and determination.  When they reached the Way Place, Grania stopped and stared gravely up at him.  “We must make this work, Daniel.  We can war no more.  We must live,” she said fiercely.  “It is in us to be all that you are, if we are but given the chance to make us so.”

“I agree,” Daniel said warmly.  “I like your people, Grania, I like your ways, and more than that, I respect you.  We have governments and laws, and police to enforce them, but what we lack is what you have.  Community.  I wouldn’t want you to be like us, but I too want your people to live and not merely survive.  I’ll do everything I can to help you,” he promised.

“It did not need the words for me to have the knowing of it, Daniel,” Grania told him simply.  A sudden wail had her spinning on her heel.  “That child of mine!”

Daniel chuckled as she stormed off, skirts snapping with the force of her march.  Ove was gonna get it.  And so was Daniel.  He gaped at the spread on the table, enough to feed Jack, Sam and him three times over.  Deoch and her cronies had been busy.  Jack was out at evening meal for the Council and would no doubt appreciate a light snack when he got back, but Sam should be here by now.

“Sam?” Daniel called towards the curtained chamber as he set the pile of tablets carefully into a clear space in the centre of the table.  “Sam?”  He headed over, carefully twitched the curtain back.  No sign.  Daniel headed over to the stairs and called up in case Sam was taking a bath.  Such as it was.  Nothing.  She must still be with Hueil.  Daniel shrugged.  He was a little disappointed, so much had happened he wanted to discuss and Sam had a way of firing her logic at him that helped focus his mind…

Daniel ambled absently over to the teakettle, remembered the herbal stuff and the ale, and plumped for ale.  He was about as off-duty as they got off-world, so the hell with it.  He had heaped plates of meat and gravy, something that looked like mashed potatoes but wasn’t which he was eating anyway,  plus pie, which Jack would definitely be finishing when he got home.  Daniel curled up in his chair, went to the bottom of the stack and the oldest tablet, and began to read intently.  The runes were a hybrid of the Ancients and Old English runes he felt sure he could puzzle the meaning from.  He knew both runic scripts, after all.  He’d translated texts with far less to go on.

Jack had no hesitation in just walking away from Keelin the moment Ginebra bid them the ritual goodnight.  He wanted to smack Keelin one, so he hoped Daniel would be suitably proud of his restraint.  Christ, what a bitch that woman was.

Ginebra had been dodging barb after sweetly voiced barb, finally looking at Jack with naked appeal. He had remembered he was of Ginebra’s household and he had refrained from smacking Keelin one, but that was as far as it went.  He’d already done the sperm donor thing once, and once was too often for him to ever get in line to do it again.  He didn’t know what the hell Keelin’s hang-up was with the guys around these parts, but Jack wasn’t about to get jiggy with her in an effort to find out.

If his archaeologist had something along those lines in mind, then that was entirely different.  His archaeologist.  Jack smiled involuntarily.  He liked how that sounded.  Not that he’d ever thought of Daniel as anything but his, but it was good to know it was official.  Not that Jack was possessive or anything.  Daniel wasn’t his property.  He just had certain inalienable rights now to look after Daniel’s welfare and best interests without Daniel endlessly bitching and whining about it.  It wasn’t even that Daniel couldn’t take care of himself, because he could.  It was just that Jack could take care of him better and the sooner Daniel realised that and stopped bitching about it, the happier Jack would be.

The soon-to-be-happier Jack decided he needed to check if Carter was happy right now and swung over towards the smithy.  The doors were wide open and Hueil was hard at work, flushed and sleek from the pounding he was giving the white-hot metal.  Carter was also flushed from the pounding but she jumped up when she saw Jack and trotted out.

“Hueil is making a mould to Daniel’s design.  I made some improvements,” Sam said brightly.

“Or course you did,” Jack said lightly.  “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t,” he added casually by way of explanation, which didn’t seem to help.  Carter’s cool blue eyes got a lot cooler.  “You coming?” Jack asked abruptly, jerking his head at the oblivious Hueil.

Sam followed his gaze for a moment, smiling a little.  “No, Sir,” she said pleasantly.  “Hueil and I have some plans to go over for the first phase sanitation project.  I’ll stay here and have supper.”  As in, don’t wait up.  Not that he would.  The colonel would be hustling Daniel into bed the instant he walked through the door.  Sam felt that same odd pang of desire she got every time her mind took her back to that image of the two men making love.  She couldn’t explain why she found it so erotic, but she did.

The colonel looked at Hueil, quirking an eyebrow, then he nodded and turned away without a single snide comment.  Sam watched him stroll away, obviously a man with a song in his heart, and was pissed off she didn’t know whether he’d just paid her a compliment or insulted her.  Did he realise she was planning to fuck Hueil like a crazed weasel or did he just not care?  Or, almost impossible to believe, did he simply trust her judgement?

“If you need us,” the colonel called back casually.

Sam had a radio and a P-90.  She thought she could just about manage to make her way back to her own bed if it came down to that.

“Samantha?” Hueil called, turning to smile at her.

Hueil was a clever, kind man who was attracted to her, and had nothing but for respect for her.  Those feelings were mutual.  She’d played the officer with Narim, had never let her attraction to him rule her.  Her feelings for Martouf had been impossible to distinguish from those of Jolinar, at once as familiar and necessary to her as breathing, and yet alien and stifling, her mind, her heart it seemed were not her own.  Sam had been as much repelled as she had wanted, unable to reconcile herself to the loss of control, the choice that had been taken from her.

And the whole mess with Orlin, whom she had liked more every day he’d been with her.  An impossible situation to resolve, but if she had been free to choose, if he had been the man he pretended to be, Sam knew she would have chosen him.  In a way she had, deliberately putting her career at risk to help him, fully accepting the consequences.  Part of her was still ashamed and relieved to know she even had it in her, after the way she pushed the colonel away.

What she felt now was clean and clear, and so very, very simple.  Would it be so wrong to just be herself for once, to let herself go with another person?  Hueil didn’t pretend to love Sam; he wouldn’t be hurt by this anymore than she.  It was honestly meant, by both of them.

Was that so wrong?  For once, she didn’t think so.  Sam slowly returned Hueil’s smile and walked into the smithy.

When Jack glanced back, Carter was already strolling into the smithy.  As team leader he should have ordered Carter to return to the house after her duties were done, but the hypocrisy stuck in his throat given his own plans for Daniel the minute he walked through the door.  If he thought there was any danger, he’d have given the order regardless, but in the circumstances, the best he could do was to trust Carter’s judgement, and his own.  He got nothing but good vibes from Hueil.

Jack headed confidently through the darkening streets, wryly wondering what his reaction to this would have been even a week ago.  He remembered standing on Carter’s porch with Teal’c in tow, ready to do the concerned friend thing, which he’d hoped couldn’t in any way be confused with the C.O. checking up on his 2IC, witness in tow thing.  He’d watched Carter squirming at the door, justifiably surprised to see them, their presence there being – well, unprecedented wasn’t too strong a word for it.  He’d realised she had a date and even then had been surprised at the mildness of his own reaction.  He had felt curiosity more than jealousy or anger, and he’d pissed Daniel off royally by being a tad too task oriented when Daniel wanted the hearts and flowers run down on Carter’s state of mind.

Jack remembered with more clarity his own gut response to Teal’c’s Jell-o-Maniax suggestion.  His mind had gone instinctively to Daniel.   Jack grinned reminiscently and opened the door to the Way Place to find Daniel at the table, head bowed over some stone tablet he was working on, hair lit to soft gold where the lamp and firelight played on it.   Jack closed the door just as quietly behind him, set down his weapon, and stood watching Daniel in that state of grace he always found in the written word.  Maybe Jack didn’t get the words part, maybe he never would, but he got the feelings just fine.  He’d seen those from the start, had always been drawn to Daniel that way.

“I always figured if we met under different circumstances, you would have been my friend,” Jack said softly, breaking the spell.  Much as he loved to see Daniel in this intellectual-cum-spiritual fugue, he loved to see Daniel naked and coming more.  He wanted Daniel lost in him, not words.  “I’m just not so sure I would have been yours.”

Daniel sat back and put his pen down, smiling up at Jack.  He stretched and Jack was behind him a moment later, hands reaching confidently for tense muscles.  Daniel relaxed into the massage at once.  “Resistance is useless,” he sighed.

“See?  That’s what I like about you,” Jack grinned.  “You get stuff without me having to say it.”

“Don’t think I don’t know the only thing on your mind is getting me naked and horizontal ASAP,” Daniel said tartly.

“What I said.”

“What did you say?” Daniel prompted him, leaning shamelessly into the massage.  “About us being friends?”

“Remember me?  Joe the suburban schmo?  I do not know people like you, Daniel.  I never have.  All our friends were Air Force or neighbours.  Sara’s best friend was a realtor who lived a block over, and on the all-too rare occasions I was home, I hung with her friends or my fellow officers.  If you’d erupted into my life I don’t know what I would have done.”  He looked down at Daniel’s upturned face, stooped to drop a swift, gentle kiss on Daniel’s lips, grinning as Daniel’s hand darted out to clasp his neck warmly until he pulled away.  “Playing hard to get, huh?”  Damn.  The smile was even cuter from this angle.  “Happily married man should not go around being attracted to another guy…attracted in the pure sense,” Jack tried to explain.  “Not sex, you know?  But wanting to be with you, seeing something in you I didn’t and couldn’t get from anyone else.”

“You do?” Daniel asked, flushed and embarrassed at Jack’s sincerity.

“Sure I do,” Jack said lightly.  “Took me a long time to recognise that, and if we hadn’t been working together, I’m not sure I would have given you the time of day.”

“You didn’t,” Daniel reminded Jack gently.  “You thought I was full of shit.”

“I thought you were full of something,” Jack smirked.  “I’m just saying that I’ve always been attracted to you in the sense of just wanting you around.  Up until a few days ago, I had no goddamn idea why,” he admitted, embarrassed.  “Guess it makes you happy as hell to have a lover who’s so closed minded and repressed.”  Jack dropped into the chair next to Daniel’s, heartlessly ignoring his groan of protest.  And the scowl.  And…”The pout is incredibly sexy.  Keep it.  You are going to need it.”  With that he reached out and yanked Daniel onto his lap, still vigorously protesting, even when Jack stroked his thighs, which Daniel liked, and kissed him, which Daniel loved.  He fully accepted the arm flung around his neck was solely for balance, and the cheek nestled against his was purely so Daniel was close enough to whisper creative insults into the ear he was nibbling.

“Sam?” Daniel murmured.

“Pulling an all-nighter,” Jack replied uncommunicatively.  “She’s good.”  He tightened his arms as the tension seeped out of Daniel, a tension that had always been there, so much a part of him that Jack was still surprised he could coax Daniel free of it.  Jack chuckled.  “I was just thinking about Jell-o-Maniax.”

“Kidnapping is a felony offence, you know,” Daniel grumbled into Jack’s hair.

“I know,” Jack agreed happily.  “We asked.  You can’t say we didn’t ask.”

“I said no.  You can’t say I didn’t say no,” Daniel riposted.

“I think it was more like ‘Jack!  No!!  N-o!!!  Nonononono!! Teal’c!  Help me!  Jaa-aack, noooo’,” Jack pointed out helpfully.  “And Teal’c said he was helping.” Jack kissed Daniel’s cheek.  “Which he was, in the sense he was helping carry you out of the loft.”

“I drew with Teal’c,” Daniel reminded Jack sweetly.

“He went easy on you,” Jack said unkindly.  “He’s crazy about you, you know that.”  He looked up at Daniel’s inquisitively quirked eyebrows and parted him from his glasses.  “And no, I’m not jealous.  Not at all.  Under control,” he said firmly.  Absolutely.  Teal’c ever looked at Daniel like he wanted to get jiggy wit’ him, Jack would fucking kill him, in a controlled way, of course.  And quickly too; they were brothers after all.

“Oh?” Daniel snapped.  “And what does that say about you?  The guy I’m sleeping with?  At the time I thought you were just pissy because Teal’c kicked your ass royally, but you were all over me, Jack, you kept pinning me to the flo…“ Daniel snapped upright, glaring at Jack, who winked at him flirtatiously.  “You were having sex with me!  Repressed vicarious sex!” he accused Jack indignantly.

Jack thought about this.  “Old news,” he smirked.  “I’ve been having repressed vicarious sex with you for years, you just weren’t paying attention.”

“Neither were you!”

“Hence…repressed,” Jack drawled.  “I’m not repressed now though,” he said softly.

“Oh, yes,” Daniel agreed.  “I can feel how repressed you aren’t.  Poking me in the behind here.”  He caught the look on Jack’s face and blushed.  “Oh, no, Jack, I can’t.  I’m sorry, but I just…”

“I hurt you,” Jack winced.

Daniel hung his head.  “A-a little.  I want to make love, I do.  You were so gentle Jack, but still…” he trailed off, embarrassed.

Jack took Daniel’s hand in his, idly stroking Daniel’s fingers.  Maybe he’d been gentle, but he had also been insistent, inside Daniel for a long time, maybe too long, and definitely too deep for his first time.

“I loved it,” Daniel whispered.

Jack looked up at him then, relaxing, face breaking into a broad smile.  “I won’t exactly be beating you off with a stick myself.”  He felt a small ache at Daniel’s obvious surprise, his shy pleasure, reminded again how little in Daniel’s life had been uncomplicated.  Even this, them, together, was a mass of complications and consequences.  The only easy thing in Daniel’s life was the way he got lost in the words.  Daniel’s work was the only thing he was sure of; the clarity of his own intellect, and even that belief had been hurt in him by the actions of others.  It wasn’t fair.  Jack couldn’t understand why Daniel of all people had to be proof positive that nice guys finished last, why he never, ever got what he wanted or deserved.  Never had, right from the moment his parents had died in front him and life had shit on him from a great height relentlessly from that moment on.  No more.  Daniel had Jack now, always fighting his instincts to get between Daniel and the world, but here and with him regardless.  “Let’s make love,” Jack asked gravely, getting his answer in the smile that lit Daniel’s face.

“In a minute,” Daniel promised.  “What happened at the Council?” he asked intently.

“Keelin was all over me in that Jell-o way you know so well,” Jack said at once.   “And for the life of me, I can’t work out why.  What the hell is so wrong with the guys around these parts?  Anwyl?  Hueil?  They’re good men, Daniel.  Her majesty there can’t find one who suits her?”

Daniel straightened up, but his attempt to gain some distance prompted Jack to tighten his grip emphatically.  Daniel subsided, grumbling under his breath.  He was completely embarrassed by just how much he liked being this close to Jack, how much he wanted and needed Jack’s affection.  He turned his hand in Jack’s clasp and returned his grip.  “Maybe it was a feint.”

“Point of information,” Jack replied briskly.  “It gets me hot when you talk tactics, so keep that in mind for when I least expect it, and yeah, it crossed my mind too.  But a feint for what?  If I hadn’t been mauled in the Council I would have been mauling you in the Scrinium, so what’s the big deal?”

Daniel shrugged.  Posing the question didn’t mean he had the answer.

“How’d it go anyway?” Jack belatedly remembered his responsibilities.  “An apple for the teacher and all that.”

“All the Scribes are confident about recognising the alphabet, I’ve transcribed a list of the core common runes and anything I thought might help them in locating the irrigation channels. It’s a very small beginning,” Daniel said deprecatingly.  “The histories are scattered throughout the Places, so they are going to have to work together on it.  Grania is going to talk to Ginebra about it, get a commitment from all the Chieftains to full disclosure.  The way the Places have fought for generations, they won’t succeed without it.”

“The old hag will have her way,” Jack snorted.  “She wants to go out on a high note and preferably over Keelin’s dead body, so relax.  Carter is talking Phase I plans, so she’s making out too,” he said straight-faced.

“Good,” Daniel said gratefully.  “It’ll be good to walk away for once without having hurt the people we’ve come into contact with, you know?”

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean…” Daniel caught himself up.

“I know that too.  Sometimes we get in over our heads so far and so fast it’s a goddamn miracle any of us walks out,” Jack admitted quietly.

“Not this time,” Daniel smiled.

“Our luck had to change sooner or later.”  Jack reached out to prod the tablet Daniel had been so focused on when he’d got back.  “What’s this?  Ancients plumbing for dummies?”

Daniel unobtrusively removed Jack’s hand from the tablet, then smacked it hard when Jack felt up the tablet again.  Jack glared at him.  “You smacked my ass, Jack, right there in the ring.”

“I said I was embarrassed,” Jack complained, shaking his stinging hand.

“And repressed,” Daniel reminded him mischievously.

“Whatever,” Jack said loftily.  “What is this?”

“It’s a story,” Daniel said consolingly.  “A blockbuster as clay tablets go.  Basically, the story describes how Barrecis defeated the snake-limbed demons in battle with a great spear of Belenos’ Leth.”

“The Goa’uld were here?” Jack asked, startled.

“They had to have been at one time for the legend to become part of both the people’s oral tradition and their recorded history.  Most of the early written records are reports on the progress of the humans the Ancients were guarding.  They only took the men away to war when their own situation began to be desperate, though that’s supposition,” Daniel admitted.  “I haven’t had time to do more than get a feel for the way the language here has evolved, but I’m making some very exciting discoveries about…”

“What else does the blockbuster say?” Jack prompted.  He wanted Daniel to back up to the great spear of light, but Daniel’s fingers were in his hair, and Daniel’s eyes were soft, and he soo didn’t want to spoil Daniel’s mood just before they took this growing tension upstairs.

“Well, the story also explains why the Chieftains are said to be Shielded when they are Chosen to lead, and why they each wear the shield as a badge of office,” Daniel murmured absently, dropping his head to kiss Jack’s brow.  “The story goes on to say that after destroying the snake-limbed demons, Barrecis cast Belenos’ Shield – customarily represented as a wheel of fire – over the Dwelling Place, and the people have sheltered free from harm beneath it ever since.”

“So.  Not just a great honkin’ space gun, but a planetary defence system,” Jack observed coolly.  When Daniel tried to straighten up, Jack held on to him.

“A tale, Jack,” Daniel emphasised.  “The people don’t read the language of the Ancients, the story is one that was passed down from generation to generation until the Ancients withdrew and the first Scribe of Weylyn put the runes for their own language onto clay.”

“A chance there’s a cache of hot Ancients toys,” Jack corrected flatly.

“Which won’t do us any good,” Daniel said stiffly.  “I don’t have time to review the histories of Barre let alone those scattered throughout the other Places, so there’s no chance we’ll find this…” Daniel faltered.  Barrecis’ Hlaew came into his mind, the hollow hill.  If the records were found there, the odds were in fact good the technology might also be concealed, but if the people didn’t read the language, and the technology was protected in any way, they wouldn’t be able to find it or use it.

“Daniel?” Jack said warningly as Daniel bit his lip and dropped his head.

“I’m sitting on your lap, Jack,” Daniel sighed.  “Am I talking to my lover or my colonel?”

“I’m both, Daniel,” Jack said gently.  “You know that, just like we both knew going in this was never going to be easy.  We both have duties and responsibilities that aren’t going to go away because we happen to have fallen in love.  And for the record, Dr Jackson is making his report to Col O’Neill.”

“And I just bet the Colonel is going to make the Doctor feel like a petty two-year old if he wants to get up off the Ccolonel’s lap and sit on a chair to make his ‘report’,” Daniel snapped.

“Oh, I think that goes without saying,” Jack snapped back, tightening his grip on Daniel if anything.  “Report, Doctor.”

Daniel scowled at Jack.  “There’s a possible location, again a matter of folklore.  The recorded histories were found inside a mountain near Weylyn called Barrecis’ Hlaew.”

“That’s English.  They got those ‘Laws’ all over the north,” Jack commented knowledgeably.

“I was excited by the parallels I found between the Ancients culture and that of the Ancient Britons,” Daniel admitted quietly.  “I thought I had a good chance of establishing a timeline for their involvement with the humans on Earth and with the Goa’uld.  I thought maybe the Stargate was sited in Britain, and the stone circles were…” Daniel glanced at Jack’s intent face.  “Sympathetic magic,” he admitted reluctantly.  He knew Jack’s exact opinion of mythology; he’d had it yelled at him pointedly enough.  It was the same mythology that put language into context, and helped Daniel to better understanding of long dead cultures.  In a way, he knew Jack’s opinion of his work, the study and passion of half his life written off as rumours, myths and fairy tales.

“And this helps us to locate a cache of Ancients technology how exactly?” Jack asked politely.

Daniel sat back, letting Jack hold his weight while he held Jack’s eyes with his own.  It wasn’t possible to disguise his disappointment, so Daniel didn’t try.  He would have liked a little longer to just be glad he’d found Jack before reality intruded and he had to deal with this new life.  He’d just wanted to enjoy it, for a little while.  He had what and whom he wanted, but he knew Jack was no more a perfect package than he.

“It doesn’t,” Daniel said even more quietly.  His far from perfect package was bored by his passion for his work, and he realised now this was not going to change materially.  No point hoping Jack would be interested just because Daniel was interested, or would allow Daniel any more licence to chatter on than he ever had.

Jack was painfully conscious from Daniel’s shuttered face he wasn’t just killing the mood; he was fucking up royally, hurting Daniel’s feelings.  He was just as conscious he had a responsibility here, and obligations to his command, and off-world, those came first.  What Daniel wanted wasn’t always what he needed, and it rarely coincided with what Jack could give him.  It looked like they’d keep doing the same damn dance even when they were sharing a bed.

“Even if there is a weapons cache, Jack, which I think unlikely,” Daniel explained rapidly, dropping both his hands to rest on his own lap, “We have no way to transport a big honkin’ anything off this world.  Do you think someone like Keelin or Ginebra would stand idly by and let us steal their technology?”

“Thank you for refraining from pointing out the moral ambiguity of theft,” Jack responded.  “I’ll ask if we can explore this cave and then we can ask if we can take back anything we find for further study.”  They liked Daniel, trusted him.  He was fairly confident they’d give Daniel anything he asked for that didn’t go against their laws.

“Keelin won’t give us a damn thing,” Daniel contradicted.  “The cache is in Weylyn territory, and they have made it clear they are looking for any kind of advantage they can find.  The people don’t just want to survive, Jack, they want to live.  We point them at a weapons cache and maybe they’ll decide the best way to live would be at the expense of others.  They’ve warred and raided their fellows for generations.  They’ve only known five years of peace out of all those generations.  In a time when they are finally beginning to see that they need to work together for the things they all want, something we’re helping them to start with these irrigation and sanitation projects, do we really want to hand one Place a weapon that would allow them to annihilate enemies they are just realising could be friends?” Daniel asked earnestly.  The Scribes got it, he was sure they did.  He’d seen how easily they dropped into that mindset, the aggressive protection of the community they identified with so completely they lost sight of themselves as individuals, but they’d pulled themselves back from it.  This balance was so hard won and so fragile, Daniel shuddered from the consequences of what Jack was proposing.

“I take your point,” Jack began, “But realistically, how much could they…”

“Do you?” Daniel interrupted angrily.  “I’m teaching them the language, Jack.  Me.  Grania and the others are clever, capable and very, very determined.  Penarddun is totally focused on Weylyn and it would fall to her to translate.  I’ve already begun the process.  Maybe it would take Penarddun a year or two or three, but she would master the language.  And that’s presuming the Weylyn last that long,” he tossed out passionately.  “Look at the atmosphere in the meet ‘n’ greet this morning.  Keelin had no friends there.  They’re the first settlement, maybe the biggest, but I doubt they’d withstand a concerted pre-emptive strike from the other Places.”

“So we check it out covertly,” Jack ordered calmly.  “Carter can stay here, keep working with ‘em, and haul ass up to the Leth if it goes bad.  You and I can check out that cave, see if there is anything there.”  He stilled Daniel’s instinctive protest.  “You said it yourself, Daniel.  You taught them the alphabet.  Even if we walked away now, how long would it be before those clever, capable women put it all together anyway?  Best we know what we’re dealing with.”

“And then?” Daniel demanded.

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted honestly.  He doubted Daniel would buy his gut feeling that they should take anything they found because anything they left behind would be used against the other villagers sooner or later.  It was too close to a comfortable rationalisation to be entirely believable.  Daniel probably would buy the landmine analogy, but only when he was significantly calmer than he was right now.

Jack did feel sorry for spoiling it all, for taking Daniel’s accomplishment of something tangible and positive for these people, because however it went down, Daniel would walk away from here wondering what the consequences would be.

Jack sighed and didn’t protest this time as Daniel pushed away from him.

“I’m going for a walk,” Daniel told him quietly.

“Want some company?” Jack asked, keeping it natural, easy, knowing the answer would be ‘not yours’ regardless.  “Take your radio and your sidearm, and don’t head out towards the Great Fair,” he ordered when Daniel stood silent, stiff and resistant.  “Radio check in 30 minutes, if you miss I’ll come get you.”  Jack regretfully watched Daniel scoop up his radio and strap on his holster with clumsy, nervous fingers.  The only thing he was likely to get in bed tonight was a stiff, resolutely turned back.  He watched Daniel walk out without another glance to him.

Reality bites, huh?

Daniel slumped onto a boulder looking out over the darkly glinting river.  He’d vented most of his anger and disappointment storming through the village without a clear thought in his head.  He felt calmer, but his head was no clearer.  In fact, he was beginning to feel dizzy and just a little disoriented.  He lurched over sideways as his head swam, tumbling off the boulder to land hard on the loose shale.  It took Daniel a moment to catch his breath; then he scrabbled for his radio.

“Jack, come in,” he asked weakly.

//Daniel?//

Must have been sitting with the radio ready, Daniel thought muzzily.

“I don’t feel so good,” Daniel sighed, closing his eyes to stop the moonlit sky from spinning.  “By the riv…-“

//Daniel! Where by the river?  Daniel?  Come in!//

“Fishing plaaaaace…”

“Carter, come in,” Jack ordered as he snatched up his vest, the med kit and his P-90 before bolting out into the street.  “Come in, dammit.”

//Sir?//

“Get your ass out here, Carter.  Daniel is down by the river, passed out cold and trust me, he was fine when he left,” Jack said grimly.  “I gotta swing by you to get down to the fishing spot.  Be ready.”

//Yes, Sir.  Over.//

Jack broke into a run, but even so Carter was out and waiting for him, Hueil at her side, both of them grim faced.

“Sir!” Sam ran over to the colonel’s side.  “If Daniel was fine, and he ate alone, maybe this is food poisoning.  We have basic meds in the kit but if it’s anything serious,” she said helplessly.

“We have to consider the possibility he was drugged,” Jack said curtly.  “This whole Weylyn thing stinks, it’s been wrong from the start.”

“Ay,” Hueil agreed.  “A moment, Jack.  It is my thought we will need help.”  He stalked over to the smithy door, dove inside and emerged a few moments later with a horn he raised to his lips and blew in a series of sharp, defined notes.  Doors opened all along the street, men and women tumbling out from all directions tossing on clothes and juggling weapons as they converged on the Hueil.

Jack was relieved to see both Anwyl and Grania arrive at a dead run, each clutching a bow.

“Smith!” Anwyl demanded.

“It is Jack’s thought Daniel is ill and in need of us.  We must search…” Hueil looked to Jack.

“The fishing place, by the river,” Jack ordered tersely.  “He might not be ill, he might have been drugged.”  Jack glanced at Grania momentarily.  “Weylyn,” he said flatly.

Grania stiffened for a moment, then nodded tightly.  “Daniel is under the Chieftain’s hand.  If harm has come to him thus, it means war between Barre and Weylyn.”

“Ula, Una, Hueil, with us,” Anwyl ordered.  “The rest of you take up your positions.  We’ll not spread panic through the Great Fair, but we look to our own.”

The crowd scattered at once, with ease that spoke of long practice.  Jack unclenched enough to bring him back from the brink of panic.

“Daniel.  Daniel, come in,” Sam tried her radio while the colonel was conferring with Anwyl.  She got a little static then…”Quiet!” she hollered.  Soft, muffled scuffling.  Feet?  Feet slipping on the loose shale of the riverbed?

“Carter!”

Sam chopped her hand viciously.  Quiet.  The scuffling grew closer, then the radio whined and the signal was cut.  “Daniel’s in trouble,” she snapped to the colonel.  “I heard footsteps, impossible to tell how many.  His channel was open and someone just hit the kill switch on the radio.”

Anwyl turned to address a young man waiting behind him.  “Glyn, get you to the Chieftain, tell her lawful pursuit is declared in her name and her honour.  Hands have been raised against her household and Barre will not stand the loss.  We go now to fetch Daniel and bring him safe home to us, and we will have his honour price in the heads of those who betrayed the Ancient laws and took him.”

Deoch and her cronies arrived with water skins and rations wrapped tight in leaves.  Sam accepted hers with muttered thanks and shoved them into her pack.  She was glad the colonel always stuck to protocol, always kept them armed and ready no matter how safe it looked, how peaceful and welcoming.  Crap.  She wanted to be up and doing.  She felt giddy.  They had food and water for several days but in two days they had to be gone.  If they missed their window…the colonel would do his duty.  He’d send her back and continue the search for Daniel himself, and they’d wait a year to know.  No way.  No fucking way.

Jack caught Anwyl’s arm.  “I lead,” he said flatly.  “He’s mine.  I lead.”

“No, Jack,” Anwyl refused absolutely.  “You are not skilled in our ways of war and your heart is too close to Daniel.  Better for him I lead, but now even I must follow.  Grania?”

Grania didn’t miss Jack’s instinctive refusal.  Her face, already stark and pale in the moonlight, tightened.  “I was Weylyn born.  If it be Weylyn who took Daniel, it is to me to find him and bring him back.”

“Your sister!” Jack snapped, angry and disbelieving.

“Daniel is Barre, Jack,” Grania snapped back.  “I would kill my sister where she stood if she raised her hand to my Ove or to Selma or any Barre.  She would expect no less of me.  It is our law.  Now, we go.”  With that she turned on her heel and took off down the street at a swift, economical run, Ula and Una dropping into step behind her.

Jack glanced at Carter as she dropped into step beside him as they ran after the women.

“I won’t leave you,” Carter told him flatly.

It was an empty threat, and they both knew it.  There were people waiting for them already, people who didn’t know, and Carter wouldn’t shirk her duty for all the brave words.  She’d do it.  Jack felt something warm inside him round that knot of fear for Daniel.

“Sir?” Carter prompted him as they left the village behind, bewildered children being escorted to the safety of the old folk all around them as the Barre quietly, efficiently mobilised.  “A smith of the Weylyn joined us today.”

Jack heard the regret in her voice but waved it off.  “Spill,” he ordered.

“Allyn, of the Weylyn,” Sam called, hating herself for not being suspicious.  “If Penwhatsit was watching Daniel, and Keelin was watching you, maybe they had something specific in mind all along, and they were trying to determine which of us they were going to take, for whatever reason.”  She didn’t have a clue what that might be, they’d been teaching the people all they could about…Sam caught the hard look the colonel directed at her as they raced full pelt down the winding path to the river. O-kaay.  He knew something she didn’t, and this wasn’t the time.  He’d better make time and soon, though, if Daniel’s life depended on it.

Jack was cursing a blue streak as they ran.  He had a bad feeling about all of this.  A very bad feeling.  He was starting to think the people of Weylyn knew exactly what they had, and what they’d lacked was a way to access it.  Jack had handed them his kids on a platter.  Carter was rejected presumably because she didn’t speak that mumbo jive, and Jack because he would be so fucking hard to take and keep.  Daniel was the linguist, the shy scholar, and the most lightly armed.  The vulnerable one.

The Weylyn were in for a hell of a shock if that’s what they thought.

Jack saw the moonlight hitting the river among the trees ahead and got a fresh burst of speed.  His knees were hurting like crap, his lungs burning, but he picked up the pace regardless, Carter grunting with effort as she matched him step for step.

Ula, Una and Hueil fanned out on the shale, bows at the ready, keenly scanning the perimeter as Jack followed Anwyl and Grania towards the boulder, and Carter covered their rear.

Grania dropped to her knees and handed Jack the radio as he skidded to a halt beside her.  It was definite Daniel had been here but this was shale for Chrissake.   The Marine Band could have marched up and down for an hour and they still wouldn’t have seen anything.  “At least there aren’t any sinister moonlit bloodstains,” Jack drawled, hiding his sick relief.  “That would have been too clichéd.”  They needed Daniel unharmed or they wouldn’t have drugged him.

“Jack, there are only two ways out of Barre.  The first would be to take Daniel the length of the river and out past the guard at our gate,” Anwyl said.  “The second is to cross the valley floor and up towards Belenos’ Leth.  Two hours climb above there is a little known trail that wends through the mountains and down into Tuyet.  It is narrow and treacherous, and many a man has died in the climbing of it.”

“It is my thought that if Daniel has been given the sleeping draught, he will not awaken soon and must be carried,” Grania interjected.  “A guard is kept on the flocks and none could pass if they were on horseback, for Daniel could not be carried by those on foot.  What say you?”

“I say they’ll try to skirt along the river to avoid the fair and take out your guard,” Jack judged.  “The whole Weylyn contingent probably camped right by the gate, huh?”

Anwyl nodded.

“They’ll be expecting pursuit if that’s the law, so I think they’ll ride hell for leather to get out of here,” Jack fumed.

“Then we will catch them,” Ula called.

“Ay,” Una agreed.  “Horses must rest, Jack and Sam, and the way is hard.  We do not need rest, and we will catch them.  It has been done before.”

“We go now?” Ula prompted, her sweet face tight with tension.

“Jack?”

“Sir?” Carter called.

“We go,” Jack agreed.  “And you can explain to me how we can catch horses on foot as we go.”

“That is how,” Hueil grinned.  “We will run twenty paces and march hard twenty paces more, then we will run, and march, and run…”

“We of the Barre are not beaten in battle,” Anwyl told him, eyes alight.  “If we were soft, we’d not have held our Place.”

“If we do not return in time, Ginebra will send a message through the Leht,” Grania assured Jack.  “To your people, one of ours if she must, to tell the tale.  Come.  We must go now, else the gap will be too great to close in time.”

“I am too old for this,” Jack sighed, getting to his feet and obediently sprinting twenty paces, then double-timing twenty more, then sprinting again.  He was annoyed to see Carter smoothly accelerating and decelerating ahead of him, on point with Ula and Una, while he stumbled a step every time he slowed and got a small fist in his back he just knew belonged to Grania.

Why was he doing this again?  Oh, yeah.  He was out of his mind crazy in love with the guy.

Daniel’s head swam sickeningly as he came to, fading in and out of consciousness, so the world appeared to him as a series of still images.  The jolting didn’t help, even though the hard body he was clasped to steadied him.

Daniel processed slowly as his senses steadied.  His hands were tied.  He was shivering in the cold of early morning as the sun’s first rays streaked the sky.  A man behind him, arms around him, sitting silent.  A horse.  A bloody big horse, one he could tell from here had an attitude problem.  And teeth.  Big teeth.  Other horses.  Other riders.  Streaming auburn hair and a brown cloak now.  Keelin.  And there, a small sparrow of a woman.  Penarddun, leading the way.  The rest of the riders were Weylyn men and women, and Daniel knew none of them.

“Our prize is awake,” the man holding him called out.

Penarddun held up her hand and the group reined in to allow her to make her way back, Keelin at her side.

Daniel was drugged, kidnapped and confused but not stupid.  “You’re the Chieftain?” he asked at once.

Penarddun smiled.  “Ay,” she said simply.  “I was Scribe, true enough, but I was Chosen and Shielded only days ago.  It was in me to see the lay of this land and none knowing why.  Our Keelin is known and not liked, but she is Servitor in Weylyn, not Chieftain.”

Keelin tossed her head back proudly.  “The only woman Servitor in all the Places.  I do not wish to lead except into battle.”

“Our Keelin wishes only to fight,” Penarddun said fondly.  “And it is my thought she will have her fill when your friends come after you.”

“Anwyl will come,” Keelin said tightly.

“Grania would never forgive you,” Daniel said coldly.

“Grania will learn to live without those she loves, as did I,” Keelin corrected him coldly.

“This one knows all you spoke of?” the man holding Daniel asked disparagingly.

“Peace, Allyn,” Penarddun soothed.  “He knows all and more.  I have seen it with my own eyes.  He is the key to all we want.  My thought had gone to the woman, but she does not know the language and is no use to us.”

“I won’t tell you anything,” Daniel said calmly despite the hammering of his heart.  Oh, very stupid indeed to think the Weylyn wouldn’t have found any technology there was, even if they couldn’t use it, and he had to waltz in and prove conclusively he could.  This was not going to be pretty.  All they had to do was wait Jack and Sam out, and Daniel was stuck here for a year.

Penarddun laughed at him, her grey eyes alight.  “I have given you to Allyn and he will make you tell all you know, and more,” she said caressingly.  “This one’s name is Daniel.  It is my order you do him no harm to his hands or his head, Smith, for we will have need of both.  The rest of his body is yours, you may have him to use as you please, Allyn.  Do him no harm that may not be undone, and I will wish you joy of him.  It is understood?”

“Ay.”

Daniel gritted his teeth.  Better and better.  Drugged, kidnapped, confused and now gift wrapped for a sadist.  Woo.  “If you tell me you like a man with spirit I’ll kill you,” he observed pleasantly to his putative owner.

“I like a man whose spirit I have broken,” Keelin said prettily.  “Men who thought they would have the mastery of me with the sword.”

Allyn snorted with laughter.  “You’ve not met the man who can best you, Keelin.  You’ll die unwed.”

Keelin bowed gracefully at the compliment, turning her horse to walk alongside Allyn’s.  “One man there was beat me.”

“Anwyl,” Daniel realised at once.

“At the Great Fair, eight cycles ago,” Keelin snapped, eyes kindling.  “A private challenge, when he dared to court my Grania.”

“He kicked your ass,” Daniel observed complacently, feeling slightly better.  He was in no mood to be the model prisoner.  In fact… “Kindly refrain from fondling my thigh,” he asked Allyn glacially, projecting his voice for the crowd.  He smirked as shocked heads turned.  Allyn flinched back from him momentarily, even though he’d been doing nothing of the kind.  There were times when the more ‘traditional’ societal mores were very useful weapons for an aggravated archaeologist.

Keelin dropped her head and chuckled.  “It is my thought the breaking of this one may best even you, Allyn.”

Daniel tilted his chin proudly as Allyn whispered to him that he would get what he so obviously needed in full measure.  Daniel wriggled thoughtfully.  “Full measure?” he queried gently.  “Kind of a glass half-empty thing, I would have said,” he offered helpfully.

Keelin chuckled again, and she wasn’t the only one.

Daniel sat bolt upright as his horse plodded on up the trail they were climbing.  He looked around intently, trying to fix the landscape in his mind.  The high mountain pass wound in and around on itself, climbing and descending steep gradients.  The ground was grassed and scrubby, with rocks and boulders strewn, and falls of scree here and there.  It was bleak and desolate compared to Barre.

He didn’t know what to do.  Jack and Sam only had until tomorrow and then they had to go.  Sam had calculated a twenty-four window before the Leht discharged and they were trapped, but that only gave them until the sun was at its height the next day.  Forty-eight hours at most, way less with every minute Daniel was taken further from them.  Jack had drilled it into him that he should sit tight and wait for rescue but the time constraint was weighing on Daniel.  He was sure the way Jack felt about leaving his people behind, Jack would stay, but he would send Sam back.  A year Sam and their friends would wonder if they were even alive.  Daniel had been through that, he knew the cost of that; no one knew it better.  He could not put anyone through the agonies of hope and fear not knowing meant.  He knew how hard Sam and Teal’c would work to get them back a day sooner, whatever it took from them.  Impossible.

He would follow protocol, give Jack and Sam every chance to come for him, and he would give these people nothing.  He glanced at his watch.  It was five am local time, six hours since he was taken.  He would count the hours until they arrived at their destination and if rescue didn’t come in time, he’d have to try to escape and make it back on his own.  He’d need to allow a third more time for being on foot, unless he could take a horse.  It was also time to needle the Smithly Sadist.

“Can you stop doing that?  You’re scaring the damn horse!”

Jack was beginning to hate Ula and Una with a passion.  Those two girls could run the ass off any Special Ops team he’d laid eyes on.  Carter was effectively on point, running at the head of the group as the girls sprinted off to scout ahead, circling just in or out of sight.

Jack glanced behind him.  Anwyl was seething.  Two guards dead and one dying, all at Keelin’s hand, and vital intelligence.  This Penwhatsit was Chieftain and Grania was beyond seething, in the grip of some killing rage that powered her through the brutal pace they were setting.

Jack was dead.  He’d been dying for about the first four hours, but he’d given up and died as the sky lightened and it finally sank in they meant what they said about resting.  Those twenty paces double-timing gave him exactly the amount of time he needed to get his breath back, maybe snatch a drink, then they hauled ass again.  He and Carter had shucked their jackets to tie around their waists and everything they didn’t need from their packs was gone because they were both sweating like pigs and these people were running the legs off them.  It was only Daniel keeping them going, and deep down, way down, a tiny speck of professional pride.  Jack was absolutely certain that properly armed, the Barre could kick the ass of every goddamn army on Earth, and he and Carter were keeping up.  It was bred in the bone, Grania had told him sadly.

Ula and Una loped into view, circling round so they came up behind the group.  Jack got it.  The minute you stopped, muscles seized up.  If you went down, you wouldn’t get back up.

“Dung,” Ula reported.   “Nine horses at least.”

“More,” Una suggested.  “Still warm.”

“Go,” Anwyl ordered.  “And take care.”

“Ay.”

“Always.”

“I hate you,” Jack wheezed sincerely as they drew level with him.

The girls each blew him a saucy kiss and tore away, laughing.

“I hate you more,” Jack hollered.  He was convinced in his own mind they were going to find and retrieve Daniel, make it back in time for the Leht, make it home in one piece, where he would have a heart attack and die, right there at the foot of the ramp.  He was not tough enough for this.  He was gutting it out, just like Carter, and there was no fucking way they’d come out the other end able to fight a battle.  They’d drop where they stood.

Why was he doing this again?  Oh, yeah.

Daniel was sure he was going to pay for this later, if Jack didn’t…though Jack would, it was only a matter of time.  It had occurred to him that the only kind of torture that worked on the hoof was psychological torture.  Maybe he was just channelling Jack in some spooky X-Filey way, but he simply could not leave Allyn alone.  Daniel reflected on half an hour of ‘nervous sheep’ jokes.  O-kaay.  No maybe about it.  He was channelling Jack.

It also hadn’t escaped his attention that prisoner or not, he was considerably higher up the food chain than Allyn.  The smith wasn’t worth as much to Penarddun as Daniel, with his unique knowledge of the Ancients.  Hmm.  They were still walking the horses and Penarddun was calling for rest and food.  Daniel saw why.  A small stream tumbled down the mountainside, spilling across the trail.  The erosion wasn’t significant, suggesting the season was possibly unusually hot, melting more of the snow than normal.  The Weylyn had marked its presence though, so they could water the tiring horses.

Daniel waited until their horse pulled in or parallel parked or whatever it was you did with horses, waited until Allyn’s punishing grip slackened, then smacked his head smartly back into Allyn’s face, heard the satisfying crunch of bone, and rolled neatly off the horse to land in an apparently winded heap as Allyn crashed to the ground behind him and the horse kicked him.  The horse went up several notches in Daniel’s estimation.

Allyn was up and on him before Daniel could recover artistically from his fall, dragging him up by his hair, one huge fist cocked and…

“Smith!” Penarddun raged, storming up to join them.  “You dare to cross me!”

“He struck me, Chieftain,” Allyn argued hotly.

“He fell, Smith.  I did see him fall.  He is not accustomed to riding thus.  If you cannot guard him, I will give him to one who can,” Penarddun snarled.  “Touch Daniel again without my word and I will have your head for it,” she warned.  “Servitor!”

Keelin came running. “Ay?”

“Guard Daniel until we reach the Hlaew,” Penarddun snapped.  “It is in Allyn to defy me and I’ll take no risks.  We have come thus far, risked all, and I will not lose Weylyn to a fool.”

Keelin bowed respectfully, then stepped lightly over to help Daniel to his feet.

He didn’t miss the sly humour in her eyes.

“Think you to best me, Scribe of Earth?” Keelin asked softly.  “Seek it not.  My Chieftain has not warned me against the harming of you.”  She fingered the hilt of a knife thrust through her broad leather belt.  “There are many ways to tame a man, even one who must live and service his Chieftain.”

Daniel didn’t like the lingering way Keelin drawled out ‘service’ as she hauled him to his feet and smiled up at him.  It brought to mind a lot of memories he wished he could bury.  Daniel sighed, following Keelin obediently.  He also drank the water and ate the food he was given.  Grand gestures weren’t practical.  He’d stick with rations and constructive cowardice.

Daniel watched Penarddun, sitting high and proud on a rock above them all.  Keelin was right.  She was watching him intently.  He had a weird feeling Allyn was supposed to soften him up so he’d be grateful when Penarddun rode in on her white charger and swept him off the rack or whatever.  Jeez.  This was just his luck.  No longer drugged, but very definitely a kidnapped, confused, potential fuck toy.  Psychopaths, snakes and Air Force colonels.  He really needed the colonel to get to him before the psychopath did.

Daniel sat in the middle of the crowd, smiling brightly as Allyn shot him killing looks, watching as the Weylyn watered, fed and tended their horses.  It was obvious they’d ridden hard, and equally obvious they were going to be here for a while.  Daniel glanced at Keelin, chewing on some tough meat, and took a chance.  “May I speak with you?” he called out to Penarddun.

Keelin’s head shot up, she followed his gaze to Penarddun, then to his surprise winked at him.  “More fool you,” she said thickly round the meat.  “She killed her mother.  Got tired of waiting for the old crone to die so she could rule openly.”

Rule?  Daniel noted that odd choice of word.  Ruler was not how the Chieftains saw themselves.  They were Chosen by the people, their individuality sacrificed for the greater good of the community.  Ruler?  Penarddun Choosing herself?  As Daniel made his way carefully across to Penarddun’s side, he remembered the way she’d been in the Scrinium.  Maybe what she wanted was all the Places united under rule by Weylyn.  The Irish and the Scots had a strong clan tradition, but they had been ruled over by a High King.  If Penarddun had any suspicion of what was in those caves, and her comments about the first Scribe were fresh in Daniel’s mind, then she was planning to use him to give her access to what she was hoping was weapons technology.

Penarddun didn’t smile as he stood before her, but she allowed him to sit at her side, something that was noted by everyone in the group.  Way to be discreet, huh?

“What is it you want from me?” Daniel asked quietly.

“What I have always wanted,” Penarddun answered sincerely, her eyes lighting.  “To help my people.”

“The people of Weylyn or the people of all the Places?” Daniel asked just as quietly as before.

“All are people of Weylyn, Daniel, they have just forgotten it,” Penarddun said gently.  “You will help me in the teaching of the lesson.”

“Do you think there are weapons hidden inside the Hlaew?” Daniel responded carefully, fighting to keep his tone sincere and respectful.  “Do you plan to attack the people of the other Places?”

“It is possible,” Penarddun said doubtfully.  “But if I kill them all, who will be left to rule?  The first Scribe’s tales talk of all the wonders Barrecis performed with his machines.  The Spear and the Great Shield were but a part of it.”  Penarddun swept her hand out at the vista of cloud shrouded snow capped mountains before them.  “What would I not give to feed all my people, to have them live free from want and hurt?  Machines that can heal the wound from a man’s body, Daniel, and so many wonders, too many to count.”

Kill them all?

“You were right in what you said to us, that we should be as one,” Penarddun praised him.  “It is my thought the people will be one in me and all I shall give them.  We can no longer live for petty raids and warring over flocks.  All who see the need for us to be at one and be at peace will have their wish granted.”

“And those who want to go on as they are?”  People like Hueil and Grania who thought knowledge should be earned.

“There is no place for such as that,” Penarddun explained kindly.  “I will not have warring among my people.  If they cannot live together in peace…” she shrugged easily.

They can’t live period.

“It is so little to ask,” Penarddun told him sweetly, reaching out to take his hand.  “Your words will be as fire in the grass, Daniel.  All who listen to you will believe, and no harm shall come to them if they believe.  We will all be Weylyn, and live in an age of plenty.  We want the same, do we not?”

Daniel could say no, and be strapped back to his horse and beaten until he died or co-operated, whichever came sooner, or he could humour this woman and maybe, just maybe, buy himself enough time and freedom to stop her.  He was going to have to kill her.  He couldn’t think what else he could do.  All the others, the Barre could contain, but Penarddun…He’d made a terrible mistake when he’d written her off as lacking charisma, she in fact possessed a terrifyingly compelling sincerity that made her value system all the harder to comprehend.  The Weylyn believed.  Penarddun didn’t bluster or bully, she warned and then she made good.  Everyone here among her people knew it.

“Yes,” he said flatly.  “We want the same.”

Jack tensed as Ula and Una crested the rise and dove to the ground.  Carter actually quivered, but managed to pick up her pace and catch them, dropping flat and belly crawling her way forward, reaching for her binoculars.

Jack dropped to his knees and held up his fist, the Barre dropping where they stood.  Anwyl made his way to Jack’s side, then they eased up towards Les Girls, and yeah, every fucking muscle, bone, nerve, tendon, ligament and cell in jack’s entire body was screeching a protest.

Carter rolled to make room for him as he slipped into place beside her.

Sam took a deep steadying breath and reported.  “Ten hostiles, roughly 150 metres ahead of us, Daniel among them, bound but not obviously wounded.  The horses are exhausted; this secondary trail has been hard going so they must have dropped to a walk whenever possible.”  She was giddy with relief and exhaustion, had never kept up a pace like this one.  She was heartily glad of her P-90 because she had nothing left.  “I would not recommend an assault at this time.  There’s too much open ground.  Ditto for any kind of ambush.”

Jack edged up to the rise, taking Carter’s binoculars.  Daniel was sitting on a boulder talking to some woman while the rest of the hostiles were eating, drinking and tending to the resting horses.  Carter was right.  They were too far away; it was too exposed out here.  They’d never get ahead of the Weylyn if they had to use the same damn trail and sooner or later they’d be spotted and all hell would break loose.  He could practically reach out and touch Daniel and…

“It is doable,” Una’s insistent hiss to Anwyl broke into Jack’s concentration.

He looked at Carter.  “What?” he asked with dignity.  They were all leaving their mark in different ways.  His legacy was merely linguistically colourful.

“Ay!” Ula snapped.  “They are but ten.”

Sam leaned over the colonel.  “At this range?  This distance?” she asked the twins intently.

“Ay, Sam, did you not see with your own eyes?” Ula whispered indignantly.

Sam looked at the colonel and nodded.

“You’ve got to be kidding?” Jack snapped.  “I can use a bow myself, Carter…”

Sam shook her head emphatically.  “Not like these.  You have no idea, Sir.  None.”

“A few hours hence we be in Weylyn proper and all our lives at risk,” Anwyl judged.  “Do it.”

“Wait!” Jack snarled as the Barre people unslung their bows, reached for an arrow and rose to their feet, drawing as they turned side on, anchored, picked their targets and fired in one smooth motion, each already reaching for a second arrow as the first wave arced through the air; drawing, aiming and firing in that smooth, practiced glide, reaching for a third arrow as the first wave slammed into the Weylyn, men and women dropping dead.

Jack and watched as the woman Daniel was sitting next to called orders to her people as Daniel wisely took cover.  He noted Ula and Una dancing ahead, both tracking the woman as the first Weylyn unslung their own bows and began to return fire.  The twins fired then ran ahead, the rest of the Barre following as the second wave of arrows hit and took out a few more targets.

With Daniel hunkered down behind the boulder, the Barre formed line and fired repeatedly, breaking off to dodge aside as the first wave of Weylyn arrows slammed into the ground behind them.

Jack watched in mild disbelief as the woman the twins had targeted went down with both arrows in her back and then the horses started falling.  He turned to Carter.  “Let’s get down there, mop up the survivors.”  His frickin P-90, which fired eleven shots per second, was totally fucking useless at this range.  The Barre with their arrows could have taken his whole team out without them getting close enough to get off a single shot.

“Survivors?” Sam called sceptically.  She and the colonel more or less helped each other to their feet and took off after the swiftly moving Barre, tearing down about fifty yards down the trail ahead of them, where they formed line and opened fire again.  Sam could see about three people still moving, one of them Keelin.  She was looking edgily behind her, to where Daniel was hunkered down, then she yelled something at Allyn – Sam recognised the smith – and the two of them took off after Daniel.

Ula, Una and Hueil stepped back as Anywl and Grania exchanged a fleeting look.  Grania hung her head, then turned, tracked Keelin as she drew her sword, sited and fire without hesitation as Anwyl drew down on the smith.  Ula and Una’s arrows slammed into him a beat behind Anwyl’s and he dropped to his knees, balanced awkwardly on the shafts of the arrows as Grania’s first slammed into the ground a few steps behind Keelin.  Sam watched as Grania’s second arrow sliced through Keelin’s neck and she staggered, falling heavily to the ground.  Crap, she was still moving, still alive.  Grania was desperately pale, but she stood tall and fired again, and again, sure of her target.

Sam didn’t hesitate, stepping forward to lay a hand on Grania’s shoulder.  Grania shrugged her off harshly, but turned at Sam’s quiet murmur.  “I know,” Sam said steadily.  She would never forget Martouf calling out to her, never.  Never let herself off the hook for killing him.

Grania’s face twisted.  “Ay,” she said gruffly, her hand touching Sam’s for a moment, then they all turned and tore along the trail to Daniel, just emerging from cover and dazedly checking the bodies, just like he’d been taught.  It came as no shock that this time the colonel left them all behind.

“Daniel!” Jack hollered.

Daniel staggered, slipping on the slick blood pooling at his feet from the body he was checking.  He waved unsteadily at Jack to show he was okay and mechanically went right on doing what Jack had painstakingly taught him.  Three dead, and one a few shallow breaths from it.  Some woman he didn’t even know, gasping and gaping up at him.  Daniel dropped to his knees and cradled her head in his lap, taking the blindly reaching hand in his, crooning comfort and reassurance as the blood bubbled in her chest and she drowned, her green eyes wide and staring, panic stricken, fixed on his.  There was nothing he could do but hold her as she died, a minute at most, staring into her eyes and holding her tight so she knew she wasn’t alone.  Daniel checked her pulse and closed her eyes, getting up awkwardly to move on to the next.  He should have checked the rest and come back to her, Jack would be…

“Daniel,” Jack cried again as he dropped to fumble for the pulse of the first body, “I’m here, I’ve got you, just gimme a minute…” he grated.  “Carter!”

“Sir,” Sam yelled, peeling off to the right to check bodies.  After the third she looked up and shook her head at the colonel’s questioning look.  The horses were screaming in agony.  Sam sighed and turned at the colonel’s signal to finish them.  The P-90 wasn’t a good weapon for this.  It relied on rapid firepower, multiple shots aimed at the target’s torso at close quarters to be effective.  It took eight to be sure of a kill.

Jack left Keelin to Grania and Anwyl and darted over to yank Daniel into a comprehensive hug.

“Shit,” was all he got by way of greeting.

“That’s overly harsh,” Jack said gently.

“I’ve read about…of course I have…the Egyptians from 3500BC, their bows stood taller than a man and of course their arrowheads were of flint and later bronze.  The Assyrians, the Parthians – they could shoot backwards from a moving horse you know,” Daniel mumbled into Jack’s shoulder.  “Hence the term Parthian Shot which at 1200BC meant…”

“Yadda,” Jack said tenderly.  He decided his audience, to whom he was extremely grateful, could go fuck itself, wrapped both arms around Daniel so tight he almost lifted him off his feet, then he just clung until the shooting silenced the screaming horses and that godawful shivering wasn’t convulsing Daniel with every breath, and still he clung a little longer.  He was scared shitless.  Through all of this he hadn’t forgotten for one single fucking moment that Daniel had stormed out angry with him, angry and disappointed and he had let Daniel go.  If he’d lost Daniel, he would have lost him hurting.  Now he had him, and Daniel was still hurting.  “Still mad at me?” Jack whispered.

“My position has not changed,” Daniel insisted.  He was in no rush whatsoever to emerge from Jack’s embrace while the Barre were retrieving their arrows from the bodies.  “However, it was naïve to assume the Weylyn at least had not discovered the cache of Ancients technology.  All they needed was someone to translate it for them.”  Daniel heard Sam’s gasp at the same time as he heard soft weeping, and that shifted him, first to return to himself and then to return Sam’s fierce, glad hug, and finally to drop to his knees at Grania’s side, Sam’s hand still on his shoulder.

“Carter,” Jack called.

Sam left him with a final pat.

“I’m so sorry,” Daniel said gently, aching for her misery.

Grania sniffed and straightened up, dashing her hands across her eyes.  “There was no choice, Daniel.  You are of Barre.  The law must be for all else it be for none and we cannot live without the law.”

“I understand, I do, but your sister…” Daniel sighed.

“She went wrong, did she not?” Grania asked, not disdaining Anwyl’s supporting arm around her shoulders.

Daniel nodded regretfully.  “I think it was Penarddun’s doing.  They believed in her vision of all the Places being part of Weylyn and under her rule, and Keelin at her side as Servitor.”  Enforcer, Daniel thought, not protector.  “It wasn’t enough for Penarddun to be Chieftain, she wanted to be the ruler of you all.”

“It would have meant war, Daniel,” Anwyl said forbiddingly.  “None of the people would stand for that.”

Daniel turned hesitantly to Jack, just drawing up beside him, Sam in tow.

“It’s okay, Daniel, I know,” Sam told him reassuringly.  She wasn’t annoyed it had taken so long; this was the first deep breath any of them had taken since Daniel had been kidnapped.  Sam turned to the colonel.  “So what do we do about it, Sir?  If the people of Weylyn have been infected by this dream of ruling all the Places, then it’s only a matter of time before they try something like this again.  They have no Scribe who can speak the Ancients language, but Daniel has been teaching the others the alphabet.  How long until Penarddun’s successor as Chieftain comes after Grania or one of the other Scribes?”

“Thanks, Carter,” Jack said witheringly.  He looked down at Daniel, still hoping he’d do the right thing.  Unfortunately, Jack didn’t know what the right thing was in this situation.  As much as he loathed the idea of stealing technology, he didn’t want these people going up in flames fighting over it if they left it behind.

“What is it you keep from us, Jack?” Grania asked compellingly.  “What is it I killed my sister for?”  She rose to her feet and stared at him challengingly.

“Jack?” Daniel asked him hopefully.

Jack nodded sharply, conscious of Carter too relaxing, slipping away from him to stand at Hueil’s side.

Daniel looked at all the Barre, gathered close around him.  “Some of the machines used by Barrecis and the other Ancients are still here.  The great spear and the shield of Belenos are both real.  The Weylyn have known of them for a while but hadn’t the knowledge of the language to retrieve them and use them.”

“Until you came to us,” Grania nodded her understanding, impatiently waving Daniel to go on.

“I only discovered the truth when I read the tablet you gave me, Grania,” Daniel admitted.  “We didn’t have time to tell you.  I went out for a walk to think it all through,” he said steadily.  “I wound up at the river and passed out.  The next thing I knew I was on a horse.”  Daniel looked at each of them earnestly.  “Penarddun was ready and capable of using the weapons against the other Places if they resisted her.  They’re powerful weapons, more powerful than anything we possess.”

Startled looks were cast at the P-90s and the Barre shifted edgily, grim-faced and nervous.  Anwyl swallowed hard.  “It is your thought that as long as these weapons remain, the people of all Places remain in danger?”

Daniel looked at Jack hopefully.  Jack nodded, grimacing.

“It is,” Jack said firmly.

“What are we to do?” Ula asked, wide-eyed.

“You could give the weapon to us,” Jack suggested.

“And what would you do with it?” Una asked intently.

“Study it,” Sam replied honestly.

“Defend ourselves against our enemies with it,” Jack said calmly.

“Is this what you would have us do, Daniel?” Grania asked.

“I don’t think it matters what I want,” Daniel said honestly.  “You are the people of the Dwelling Place.  It’s your home and your future at stake.  I think you should make the decision.”

“If we do nothing, in time, the Weylyn will likely take a Scribe and use her to make this weapon work,” Ula mused.

“If we do not teach the Scribes any more of this Ancients tongue, all the Places suffer for the lack,” Una suggested, looking to Grania.

“Ay,” Grania agreed.  “The first time in living memory all the Places might have come together to work for the sake of us all…” she bit her lip, eyes filling again with tears.

“I still believe it wrong to take knowledge we have not earned,” Hueil insisted.  “We are too quick to war.  If one Place held such a weapon, all the others would rise up against it, and though they were all destroyed by the machine’s power, we too would die, for there would not be enough of us alive to survive.”

“It is my thought we go to the place where this weapon lies hid and break it that it may never be used,” Anwyl said determinedly.

“It goes against our prime mission directive,” Sam observed punctiliously for the record.  If it came to a vote, she voted for blowing the shit out of it.  Too many people had been hurt already.  She didn’t want to walk away from here and spend a year wondering if any of the Barre were still alive.

“Yes,” Jack snapped.  “Thank you, Carter.”

“I agree, Anwyl,” Daniel said at once.

“It may mean war,” Grania sighed, “But I am with you, love.”

“And I,” Ula agreed.

“It is worth the risk.  Better to lose we few than to lose all Barre,” Una sighed.

“Better this than to lose ourselves,” Hueil said sorrowfully.

“Carter?” Jack prompted.

Sam tapped her pack meaningfully.  “Nothing a little judicious application of C-4 can’t fix, Sir,” Sam said crisply.

“It’s your decision, Jack,” Daniel said quietly.  The Barre had made theirs, but without the means to do it, they were helpless.

“Tell me we don’t have to do the running thing again, please!” Jack pleaded.  He had his reward in the smiles Daniel and Carter gave him, both of them relaxing visibly.  Oy.  His ass would be grass.  The fanciest spin in the world might not be enough to take the edge off this puppy.  Oh, not with the general.  Jack and his kids had an in with Hammond, but the likes of Simpson and Kinsey were that whole other thing.  He could imagine the reaction to a statement like ‘assisted the indigenous population in destroying a weapon proven effective against Goa’uld technology’.  Yeah.  That would go down a storm.  “Let’s go,” Jack ordered.  “And this time, I give the orders,” he told Anwyl.  “My weapons, my way of fighting.”

Anwyl grinned at him.  “Ay, Jack.  That was my thought also.”

Ula choked.  “He means he may then tell Ginebra in all conscience he merely followed his honour in rescuing you, Jack.  We of the Barre are honour-bound to protect you.  You are of the Chieftain’s household, under her hand and we must follow where you lead.”

“Though that is not difficult, Jack,” Una agreed innocently.  They both blew him another kiss.  “You are loud.”  Ula stamped off to take point.

“And slow,” Una agreed, trailing after her twin about an inch at a time.  “But verrry pretty.”  She blew him another kiss.

Hueil peered at jack interestedly.  “Wide was my thought,” he said sweetly, sauntering past with Sam at his side.

Wide?  Jack glared at Carter’s ‘impeccable service record’ innocent eyes as she sidled past him.

Sam waited until she was almost out of earshot, closing in on the giggling twins.  “Mine too,” she murmured to Hueil, grinning like a fiend.  She knew the colonel had heard that.  She wanted to say something about the bodies, but took her lead from the pragmatic Barre.  It wasn’t her place to judge.

Jack turned to Grania.  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he told her quietly.  He looked down at Keelin, one of the arrows still pinning her to the ground, its point buried, making it useless.  All warfare was brutal, all of it.

“The people of Weylyn must tend their dead,” Anwyl said gravely.  “The messenger alone will be safe from harm.  That is law.”  He drew Grania away and looked ruefully at Jack.  “Ove did not get a chance to bid us farewell.  It is my thought she will make me suffer forever.”

Jack smiled.  “Yes,” he agreed.  He waited until they’d moved ahead and glared at Daniel, happy to see he had some colour in his face at last.  “Not a word to the wide,” he warned, pointing a menacing finger.

Daniel dropped his head and moved out, feeling he should make the effort on Jack’s behalf.  “Verrry pretty,” he drawled.  He got about two steps before Jack drew level with him.

“Okay?” Jack asked searchingly.

“Yes,” Daniel said reassuringly.  “It’s not that I’m not used to the killing, I am.  I just…I know it’s naïve, childish even, but I really wanted to walk away from this one knowing we’d done nothing but good.  People dying…What?” he asked, concerned, as Jack frowned and looked away.

“I hate to hear you say you’re used to the killing,” Jack admitted.  He did everything he could to keep Daniel from it, but it wasn’t enough.  His attitude made no sense even to him, but he’d always felt this way.  Jack was the one who’d trained Daniel in the early days, drilling him relentlessly until he was sure Daniel could use any and every weapon that fell to hand, and he’d been nothing but grateful Daniel had chosen to carry his 9mm.  It was as if once Jack was sure Daniel was capable of defending himself and his teammates, Jack had to be the one to defend Daniel, and his attitude if anything had hardened over time.  Daniel using his P-90 with something approaching the skill and confidence of Carter was practical, and it saved his kids’ lives, but it also cost him a pang every time he saw it.  Like he said, nothing rational about it.  “I know,” Jack said dryly.  “It’s naïve, childish even.”

Daniel nudged Jack with his elbow, then they broke into a trot to catch up to the others.  Anwyl and Grania were talking in low voices, holding hands as they walked, but they broke off as Jack and Daniel joined them.

“How far is it to…” Jack prompted.

“Barrecis Hlaew,” Anwyl said equably.  “Four hours steady climb from here.  The trail will branch two hours walk hence, where we follow the smaller path and climb.  Barrecis did not want the meeting of Him made easy, lest we take Him for granted.”

“The trail will take us all the way, though it is not well-walked.  Beware of rock-falls in places,” Grania warned.

“Will we be above the snowline?” Daniel asked cautiously.

“Not on the Hlaew, no.  We must needs sleep in the Way Place beyond the Hlaew, Jack.  Even on Longest Day we’d die on the mountainside,” Grania warned.

Daniel shrugged.  “I’ll need time to get us to the technology anyway, see if Sam can’t deactivate it some way.”

“So, we run, fight and climb all day, we pull an all-nighter, and we haul ass back down to Barre tomorrow to catch the first Leth outta here?” Jack sought clarification.  “Peachy.  Just peachy.”  They’d be in some state if they ran into hostiles.  Jack was feeling punchy right now.  They’d been on the hoof – one of them literally – for about eight hours now, add four hours of climbing, and that gave them a walk that was going to take fifteen or sixteen hours, because there was no way he and Carter could make a run like that again.  Add to that three, maybe four hours to climb to Belenos’ Leth the day after?  They were going down to the wire on this one.  “Carter!” Jack called.

Sam looked back, then dropped back at the colonel’s signal.  She listened intently as he explained his reasoning.  “Sir, I’m sure about the window of opportunity.  Twenty-four hours from charge to discharge.  Noon to noon.”

“Ay,” Anwyl agreed.  “We will have you there, fear not.”

“Dead or alive?” Jack drawled.

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