Ascension. He’d now been witness to three separate circumstances of a living, flesh and blood human being managing to do what he’d have thought impossible not even three years before and move on to a higher realm, a place where a person could exist as pure energy. Daniel Jackson’s ascension had, of course, been the most painful to watch, tearing him up inside when he’d made the decision to honor his friend’s wishes and let him go by stopping Jacob Carter’s attempt to heal him with the Goa’uld healing device. And now there was no way to be sure Daniel was even still with them on the plane of existence Oma Desala had led him to. Jack cursed himself yet again for pushing the archaeologist so hard to break the rules.
“Colonel O’Neill?” Jonas asked, finally coming out of his own little world once he reached his desk and noticing the older man standing in the doorway. “Are you all right?” He flinched at the question; of course the man wasn’t all right. He’d just lost an entire civilization of people that he’d had an amazing emotional tie to, as well as any chance at a concrete answer to what had happened to Doctor Jackson during his confrontation with Anubis.
“Hmm, what?” was the not so coherent reply, brown eyes blinking furiously with the sudden return to reality. “Oh, sorry, Jonas. Just... thinking.”
The Kelownan nodded. “Yeah. So am I.”
O’Neill pointed at the broken tablet that rested in a prominent place in the middle of the main workstation of the room. “You really think you’ll be able to make any headway on that? Even if...” His voice trailed off, unable to complete the qualifier.
“With the... resources I still have at my disposal I believe I can,” Jonas confirmed. His eyes fell to the floor as he forced himself to continue, “Even without Doctor Jackson’s direct assistance I should be able to get what we need out of it. It’ll take me longer, of course...”
A long moment of silence descended on the two men, neither one speaking or looking at the other, each caught up in his own thoughts. It was finally brought to an abrupt end when Major Samantha Carter stepped up beside the colonel, taking up the remaining room in the doorway. “Sir, Jonas,” she greeted them quietly. “What’s going on?”
“Not much,” the alien replied softly, realizing Jack wasn’t about to say anything. “I have a feeling we’re still in shock over what’s happened on Abydos.”
Sam nodded and moved into the room proper. “I know I am,” she confirmed. “To know all of those people have ascended, and not know what’s happened to Daniel...” The Air Force major shook her blonde head. “It’s too much to take in all at once. And I’m afraid...”
Jack finally took notice of his second in command as she fought back the tears in her pale blue eyes and the sob in her throat. “I think we all are, Carter. Daniel crossed the fine line he’d told me about more than once. And I forced him to do it.”
“No, sir...”
“No, you didn’t, Colonel...”
“Daniel Jackson made his own decisions, O’Neill,” a new voice added from behind the silver-haired man. Teal’c acknowledged the other members of his team before firmly ushering Jack into the office and shutting the door behind them. “It was apparent that Daniel Jackson was aware of the possibilities when he chose to confront Anubis. While distressing, I believe it was the only course of action possible in that situation. I would have done the same.”
Jack couldn’t help but give a short, rueful laugh. “Then I guess you’re about as ready for ascension as I am, Teal’c. I would have gone to kick Anubis’ ass, too.”
“I think we all would have, sir,” Sam agreed, Jonas’ nod casting his vote.
“However, that doesn’t change the fact that Daniel’s probably in big trouble right now for trying to help.”
A tiny pinprick of light that had previously gone unnoticed in the far corner of the room suddenly stopped doing so, growing quickly to something human sized. As the four members of SG-1 turned sharply to face it, hope flaring up in all of them, the distinctive tentacled form of an ascended being coalesced into a human body - but not the one that they all wanted to see. “You are correct,” the woman that now stood before them said simply. “Daniel Jackson is indeed about to be disciplined for his actions.”
“Oma Desala,” Jack said darkly, the only one of the quartet to have seen the dark haired woman before. She wore the same blue dress suit she’d had on when she stood on the ramp of the Stargate in Daniel’s mind, that transitional plane she’d created to speak with the dying man and where Jack had felt it necessary to let his friend go.
The other three sharpened their gazes. “Is Daniel okay?” Sam asked quickly. “Anubis didn’t hurt him, did he?”
“Anubis did not harm Daniel, nor did Daniel harm Anubis. It was not allowed,” Oma said. “Now he must face the consequences of his actions. Which is why I am here.”
“Okay, either I’m dreaming or I’m missing something big. You’re here - interfering, I might add - to tell us what’s happening to Daniel, and you’re not talking in riddles. What’s going on?” Jack scowled and crossed his arms across his chest.
“I do not believe this is a matter that will benefit you more to think upon more deeply, nor does Daniel have the time for you to do so. He is before the Others as we speak, and I believe he may benefit greatly from what you would say in his defense. Will you come with me?”
“What, you mean go all glowy and stuff?” the silver-haired man queried.
“We should tell General Hammond,” Sam said as she shared a look with everyone but Jack, not giving Oma a chance to respond to the question even if she’d wanted to.
Teal’c bowed his head in acquiescence to Carter’s point as Jonas frowned in thought. “Are you sure we can help Doctor Jackson? The last thing any of us wants is to make things worse for him. I guess I’m just not seeing what help we can be.”
Jack pointed at the younger man, a little surprised he hadn’t considered that himself. “What he said. And I think Hammond’s going to get the picture when we go rushing off though the mysteriously activated Stargate.”
“There will be no need for that,” Oma corrected him. “In fact, it is impossible to arrive where you are needed through the Stargate. I must take you to the Others in a different manner, but we must hurry. Leave a message here if you must; time is of the essence.”
“I’ll write a note,” Jonas said quickly, grabbing a scrap of paper and pen before scribbling a few sentences.
“I just hope people think to check this office,” Sam muttered.
Teal’c moved over to the door and opened it slightly. “This door is not often left this way; it should attract the appropriate kind of attention.”
“I think that about does it, then,” Jack announced as Jonas placed his completed message on top of the Ancients’ tablet in the center of the table. “Take us to Daniel.”
Oma smiled at the four team members, impressed by their loyalty and reassured of the veracity of her opinions of them. She was even more sure that they would be able to sway the result of the Tribunal toward a more favorable conclusion, one that would be carried out in a much more timely fashion. For now, she approached the quartet, her expression softening even further before allowing her form to slip back into its natural state and causing SG-1 to squeeze their eyes shut against the brightness. When the light faded, the office was devoid of any people, the handwritten note the only sign anyone had been there at all.
* * * * * * * *
When Jonas opened his eyes again, he was sure he was seeing an afterimage of the light of Oma Desala’s energy. He blinked furiously, hoping to clear it, but quickly came to the realization that there was nothing wrong with his eyes - he was actually standing in the midst of a plane of light and energy. The young man looked down at himself instinctually; he was still solid.
So were his friends. Sam was looking around, her expression one of wonder and awe, yet at the back of her gaze lingered the worry she felt for Daniel. Teal’c subtly checked their surroundings for any threat as well as their missing friend, his stance one of wary readiness. Colonel O’Neill was an interesting cross between the two, obviously attempting to be prepared for surprises of any sort and find any sign of Daniel while checking out the beauty of the place with an appreciative eye. Jonas himself wasn’t sure what to think. He was still wondering what possible help he, the man who was responsible for Doctor Jackson’s being in this position in the first place by his lack of action with the overloading reactor on Kelowna, could be to Daniel’s case. He barely knew the man, except by reputation, the brief talks they’d had before the accident, and what he’d read in the other man’s journals.
“You know, I always wondered what heaven looked like,” Jack quipped after a few moments. He gave the rest of his team a quick once-over and nodded, satisfied.
“You are not in heaven, Jack O’Neill,” a disembodied, masculine voice replied, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “You have merely been brought to the place of the Tribunal.”
Sam’s expression was now as wary as her male counterparts. “Tribunal? So this is where Daniel’s being judged?” She kept looking from side to side hoping to catch a glimpse of the being who now spoke to them.
“It is.”
Suddenly it was though the four team members were standing on a balcony looking down on a large circular pavilion. In the center was a lone being of light, while along the edges were gathered more of them, uncountable in number, completely surrounding the one standing alone. The space between the two camps was extensive, almost as though it was believed the ones that milled around the outer fringes might catch something incurable if they came too close. The singular entity’s tentacles flickered and twitched, and great amounts of emotion could be sensed coming from it.
“If that’s Daniel, I’d say he’s seriously pissed off,” Jack commented, noting the distress. His eyes were wide and filled with a wary hope, an emotion mirrored in his team’s eyes.
“We must go to him,” Teal’c declared firmly, his tone brooking no argument.
Jack wasn’t thinking of giving him one. “You got it, T.” He looked around, eventually turning in a complete circle. “So how do we get down?”
“I think we have to be invited to join, sir,” Sam answered reluctantly, just as anxious as the others to join their ascended friend.
Jonas’ eyes narrowed as he considered it. Maybe there was another way... He concentrated on a stairway to the lower level, picturing it leading down from just in front of his feet. His eyes slid shut with the effort, and when they opened he found he had been successful. “Well, either they’ve extended that invitation, or things work by thought around here,” he announced, a grin splitting his face.
The other three spun around and saw what he was talking about. “Sweet,” Jack said with a low whistle. “Let’s move.” He hurried down, the rest of them on his heels.
“How did you figure that out?” Sam asked Jonas along the way.
“I just thought that if these creatures were beings of energy, they’d have to manipulate their surroundings in some other way than physically. Thought just seemed the most obvious.”
“Way to go, Jonas,” Jack called back over his shoulder. “You get the gold star for today.”
The shock and surprise of the Others at their appearance washed over them as they approached the outer ring on the floor level. “It appears the Ancients did not believe we would be capable of reaching this level and participating in their trial,” Teal’c commented, sensing as the others did the emotions aimed in their direction. “How will we join Daniel Jackson?”
“If thought’s the way to go, I say we mentally define our personal space and ram our way through,” Jack proposed.
“That just may work, sir,” Sam said thoughtfully, considering it. “We’ll think personal shields around ourselves.”
“I don’t think we’re going to win any friends if we just go barging through the crowd like that, though,” Jonas argued.
“I don’t think I really care about that at this point,” the colonel refuted, his eyes growing cold. “They’ve got Daniel in there, surrounded like they’re getting ready to stone him to death or something. That is so not happening while I can do something about it.”
Jonas bowed his head in concession of the point. “Then let’s do it, before they reach a decision.”
“Now that’s what I want to hear. Everybody ready?” Jack made eye contact one by one with the other three members of his team, and at their nods straightened up to his full height. With a picture of a personal shield around him like the Goa’uld used firmly in place, he led the way into the glowing mass of energy beings, his final destination his friend’s side.
* * * * * * * *
How many times were they going to make him explain his motivations? How many times were they going to avoid answering his own questions regarding Anubis and his half ascended state? How long were they going to surround him in a seamless circle of energy, waiting to pass judgement on him? Daniel Jackson would have sighed if he’d had a physical body with which to do so. He’d been placed in the center of this mess soon after he’d been pulled away kicking and screaming - almost completely figuratively speaking - from Anubis’ ship, and asked the same questions over and over as more and more of the Others joined the circle.
Why did you try to interfere? You knew you were not allowed to interfere. Why did you reveal what you learned of us to those who are unenlightened? You know what too much knowledge too soon can cause. Why did you not heed the warnings you were given before it was too late? Twice before you were called to task for your interference. Why? Why? Why? You know, there are twenty-five other letters of the English alphabet. Maybe you should try one of them, expand your horizons, he thought to himself snarkily, shielding it from the others. He didn’t think it would do his case any good if he gave them a lot of attitude.
He was brought out of his thoughts by a disturbance amongst the beings that surrounded him.
“Make way! Coming through! Man on a mission here! Out of my way!”
No. It couldn’t be.
“Excuse us, we’d like to get through, please. Excuse us.”
Her too?
“Sorry about that. Excuse us. He didn’t mean it that way, I promise. Pardon us.”
That’s three...
“You will all move... NOW!”
As Daniel flinched from the sound of the bellow that echoed around the Place of Judgment, he made a mental note to never get in Teal’c’s way if it could conceivably be avoided. To his everlasting surprise, as the echoes died, the glowing ring split, allowing four corporeal forms to enter the inner circle, the man in the lead grinning widely. “Thank you, Teal’c,” Jack said graciously over his shoulder. “I knew it was a good idea to let you watch ‘The Princess Bride’.”
“Didn’t you say that was the last movie you ever wanted to watch with us?” Jonas asked as he moved up to the older man’s side.
“Not now, Jonas,” was the quick, dismissive reply.
Sam hurried forward, getting a few steps in front of the colonel and Quinn. “Daniel? Is that really you?” she queried, gazing in his direction with a desperate hope.
Daniel quickly realized there was no way for his friends to be sure of him if he stayed in his now-natural form and immediately slipped into his former physical one. “What are you guys doing here?” he asked incredulously. Hearing the actual sound of his words come out of his mouth instead of just acknowledging the automatic exchange of thought made him understand once again just how much he missed the sensation.
There was another aspect of having a physical body that he missed just as much, as was demonstrated to him when Sam closed the distance remaining between them and threw her arms around him in a fierce hug. He could only be glad he’d decided to make himself completely solid. He reveled in his sense of touch as his arms instinctually returned the embrace. “How did you get here?” he murmured into his friend’s blonde hair, the scent of it filling his nostrils and sparking a number of pleasant memories of similar previous experiences.
“Oma brought us,” Sam replied, smiling into his shoulder, relieved that she didn’t pass right through him. “She said that we could help you by speaking in your defense.”
“What?” Daniel blurted, ending the hug with an involuntary jump backward.
“Just call us your aces in the hole,” Jack said with a grin, coming up to the startled man and patting him on the shoulder. “We’ve got one for every suit: Teal’c’s the club, Jonas the spade, Carter would obviously be the heart, and I’m the diamond.”
The archaeologist smiled. “You’re the diamond, huh? How do you figure that?”
Jack puffed out his chest and gave his friend a cocky smirk. “Well, I’m the most valuable, of course, being the leader and all.”
Daniel chuckled as Sam and Jonas rolled their eyes and Teal’c raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You keep thinking that, Jack. I suppose I should just be grateful I got a hug from Sam instead of you throwing another shoe at me. While I miss my old sense of touch, I don’t think getting a bruise would be the best way to experience it.”
“Which of the two times you saw Doctor Jackson before did you throw a shoe at him, Colonel?” Jonas asked, intrigued. “I know you didn’t do it on Abydos.”
“I wanted to on Abydos,” Jack grumbled.
“You had every right to on Abydos,” Daniel agreed, his expression turning serious.
“Which returns this Tribunal to its original subject,” the masculine voice that had greeted SG-1 earlier said suddenly, making the five people in the center of the circle jump. “Now that these humans have made their way here, we will hear their testimony.”
Jack waved his hand slightly, still unsure of where the voice was coming from. “Uh, you do realize that Teal’c’s actually a Jaffa and not a human, right?”
“Jack, don’t,” Daniel murmured.
“We will begin with the woman,” the voice continued, ignoring O’Neill. There was a flash of light and Sam was gone.
* * * * * * * *
Sam felt like she had been thrust into the air and now stood upon a tall pedestal. The feeling also closely paralleled that of a bug under a microscope. Looking around, she saw the male members of her team as though from a distance, and they did not look happy. “Just so you know, you might want to give the next person a little bit of warning. This was a bit abrupt.”
“State your name.”
“Okay, not much for pleasantries, gotcha.” Sam cleared her throat and straightened to her full height. “My name is Samantha Carter. I’m a major in...”
“How do you know the accused?”
“Before he ascended, he was a member of my team, SG-1. We traveled through the Stargate together, exploring...”
“What is your experience with those who have ascended?”
Blonde brows furrowed in confusion. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You will answer the question.”
“Well, yeah, of course, but what about mine?”
“You will answer the question.”
She released an explosive breath of frustration. If this was what Daniel had to deal with on a regular basis, no wonder he finally got fed up. “I’ve had multiple experiences actually. Which one would you like to hear about?”
There was a long pause. “A valid question,” a different voice finally replied, this one soft and feminine. “The first, if you would.”
“We were on a planet called Kheb. There was a priest at the temple there who was shot by a squad of Jaffa that had come looking for the Harsesis child we were also there for. His body crumpled to the ground, then turned into a ball of glowing energy and flew away. We didn’t get a chance to talk.” Oh, wonderful, she thought ruefully, what a time to be channeling the colonel.
“So you witnessed this priest’s actual ascension?”
“Yes.”
“Have you witnessed any other ascensions?”
Sam was confused again. Apparently the Ancients weren’t as all-knowing and all-powerful as rumor made them out to be. “Um, yes. Three others.”
There was another long pause, and Sam could feel the shock and dismay from her questioners. “Describe these events,” the male that had spoken to her first demanded.
“Okay...” She narrowed her eyes as she glanced around, still unsure of which direction she should be aiming her responses and growing wary of this line of questioning. Why was this so important? “I met an ascended being named Orlin. He’d been banished for interfering after the people he’d interacted with blew themselves up with the advanced technology he’d given them. We stumbled across the weapon during our exploration and tried to get it to work. Orlin ended up sacrificing himself to save me and the other people from the SGC when it was about to do the same thing to us, but I can’t be sure if he survived the blast, ascended or not.”
The pauses after Sam’s testimony were becoming a bad habit. “And the other two?”
It was Sam’s turn to hesitate as she considered the circumstances of the next ascension she had witnessed. No matter that it had been a little over a year now; it was still very much a sore spot on her soul. “I was there when Daniel ascended,” she murmured quietly, her eyes downcast. “I saw him die from radiation poisoning then become a glowing being of energy that drifted away through the ceiling.” She fought to blink away the tears that remembering the event continued to cause. “I have to admit that’s one I wish I hadn’t had to see.”
“And the last?”
Not much for sympathy, were they? Sam cleared her throat and lifted her gaze before answering. “Assuming my sense of time hasn’t been completely thrown off, eight or so hours ago I saw one of the Abydonians, Daniel’s brother-in-law Skaara, ascend after succumbing to a staff weapon blast to the stomach. I suppose I should also mention I saw evidence of the rest of the Abydonians’ ascension as well.”
“But not their actual ascensions?”
“No.”
“Very well. That will do for now.” Sam was blinded by another flash of light.
* * * * * * * *
The four men, past and present, of SG-1 were once again blinded with no warning. When the light cleared, Sam had been returned, but now Teal’c was gone. “You okay, Carter?” Jack asked, blinking furiously.
“Yes, sir, I’m fine. They just asked me a bunch of questions about the ascensions I’d seen. They seemed surprised and a bit upset about it.”
Daniel nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me. The Others that I’ve talked to let this existing on a higher plane thing go to their heads, and anyone stuck on the physical plane isn’t considered good enough to know about it.”
“Wait a minute,” O’Neill interrupted with a frown and a waggle of his right index finger. “I thought you said you hadn’t met any of the Others.”
“Look around you, Jack. I’d say I’ve had a chance to meet some the Others since we last talked.”
“Doctor Jackson?” Jonas asked politely. “Is it true that the Ancients aren’t supposed to help people ascend?”
“Even though Oma does it on a regular basis,” Jack added under his breath.
Daniel looked at his counterpart curiously, ignoring his older friend. “Yes, it is. Why?”
The Kelownan took a deep breath before continuing. “If they aren’t supposed to tell anyone about ascension or help anyone do it, how are people supposed to accomplish it?”
The three Tau’ri blinked in surprise. “You know, Jonas has a point,” Sam conceded. “If ascension is supposed to be the next great step, the next goal for humanity, why can’t they know about it? It’s hard to work toward - or even appreciate - any kind of end if you don’t know what it is.”
“I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it, but it might be one of those things that humanity as a whole has to be more advanced to appreciate. I mean, the Ancients themselves didn’t start looking at this as an option until the plague started wiping them out.” Daniel frowned in thought. “And if you look at it that way, it’s not all that glorious an accomplishment, is it? They didn’t start ascending because they reached some wonderful level of consciousness; they did it to avoid death. It just so happened that this way worked.”
“But there has to be some level of higher thought,” Jonas refuted. “I don’t think most people want to die, but we don’t hear story after story of men and women turning into balls of light on their deathbeds.”
“Yeah, I think that’s something that would make the evening news,” Jack put in.
The brown-haired archaeologist shook his head. “It’s not just a desire to live when you’re dying. There’s a self-awareness, an ability to think beyond the physical without accepting that there is death beyond the physical. It’s hard to describe.”
“You will be silent!” a chorus of bodiless voices cried out, the words echoing almost endlessly around the chamber the four people stood in the center of.
“I don’t think they like where that conversation was heading,” Jack whispered into Daniel’s ear as even the glowing circle cringed from the volume of the reprimand.
“To quote you, ya think?”
Go to part two
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