Catch you on the flip side

Part Ten - To Bring Peace

The vast starry expanse of the galaxy spread out before him, filling the huge window of the X-303. Below, the planet of the long-dead Dionens spun, wild and uninhabited. P3X-663 was comparatively close to Earth, and it had taken just a few days to reach it by Asgard-modified space-plane.

Jack and Sam were in their beds in the ship's tiny infirmary, attended by Dr. Frasier, and the knot in Daniel's stomach tightened as he waited for the technician advise him that their latest wild plan could go ahead.

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c deep voice was distorted by the crackling intercom, "Everything is ready. I will join you on the bridge."

Minutes later, Teal'c stood beside Daniel as they listened to Hammond's 'proceed' order from the SGC and launched the jerry-rigged 'homing-pigeon-pod'; a tough, pressurised container which would survive deep space long enough to get the coin to the tiny dwarf star which glowed about a quarter million miles away.

On the monitor, they watched the pod's surface temperature increase rapidly. "Okay, it's starting to melt..." the tech beside them reported, "I've got the location, and... There, the pod has vaporised. There's only the coin left now."

The homing device was designed to emit a signal at the last possible moment which would help them to retrieve the Yia Mar after it had reached the requisite 1,000,000 degrees which Daniel had come up with in his desperate attempt to decide what 'purged' meant in modern-day terms. Ultimately, only Jack and Sam could tell him if he was right.

"Doc?" Daniel radioed the infirmary, "Any change?"

Seconds ticked by... Come on, come on! Daniel pleaded silently.

"I think they might be recovering!" Janet's voice was still low, but there was definite optimism there... "Colonel? Major?" Daniel could've sworn he heard the faintest mumbled reply from Jack. "Looks like it worked! You want to come down here?"

"On our way." Daniel turned to the engineer, smiling. The man looked relieved to hear the two members of SG-1 were all right.

"Are you sure you want that thing back, sir?" The tech asked.

"The Dionens left it to us. I think it would be disrespectful to just leave it there, don't you?"

The tech shrugged and flipped the switch to activate the powerful electromagnet which would hopefully attract the floating Yia Mar back to them.

Clapping the man on the shoulder jubilantly, Daniel hurried off to the infirmary with Teal'c following.

- - - - - - - - -

"How are you feeling?" Stupid question, Daniel thought, considering what they've been through in the last day...

Jack's sly smile was back, if a little weaker than usual. "It's soooo quiet in here." He tapped his forehead, sounding very content. Sam nodded in agreement.

Dr. Frasier, at the Colonel's whispered request, had stopped firing questions and hurriedly performing check-ups. She simply stood to one side, letting them recover in their own time.

Daniel radio clicked, "Dr. Jackson, we've retrieved the coin, sir."

"Thanks, put it back in the jar, err, you know not to touch it?" An affirmative from the other end.

"We are planning to destroy that thing, right?" O'Neill exclaimed, the most animated he'd been since waking up. Sam also looked worried.

Daniel sat on a stool and gave them a run-down of how he used the Yia Mar to speak to the Dionens, and how they instructed him to 'purge' it in the stars and then use it for their own purposes.

Janet spoke up, then, telling them, or mostly Sam, since the Colonel quickly lost the scientific thread, of the mind-enhancing properties of the metal.

Jack frowned, trying to get his tired mind round the situation. "So, now that it's been wiped or whatever, it's just a coin which makes people read minds?"

"That's my best guess." The doctor replied.

Janet quickly decided that the patients had had enough talk and needed to rest, and she shooed Daniel and Teal'c out, leaving Jack and Sam with the infirmary lights dim.

- - - - - - - - -

Jack dozed, half-conscious in the darkness. He looked across to a dormant monitor, the screensaver of which was a bouncing, tumbling digital clock. It was 3.20am.

In the silence, O'Neill could hear Carter breathing, deep and relaxed. Even through the din of all the voices in his head over the past day, he had been able to make out her thoughts, her tormented cries, and it had been a torture in itself to hear her suffer. Now, at last, she was peaceful, they both were.

He thought of their amazing night together, when they told each other the truth as they could never do out loud. All thanks to the object that had been at once so wonderful and so terrible.

But hadn't the doc said it was cleared of the problem, like a de-bugged hard disk or something? Apparently it might still be able to link two minds together in the way he and Carter had been, but without the side effects.

An idea began to form...

Minutes later, having thrown on the khakis that were folded neatly on a shelf in the infirmary, O'Neill wandered down the bland corridors of the space-place towards the lab. He was surprised he could find it, since it was generally a place he'd avoided, with the possible exception of the occasional trip to see Carter in her natural environment.

With red security lighting giving the place more of an eerie feel that ever, he moved quickly to the only cabinet with a key-pad lock. Tapping in his ID number, the door opened with a pressurised hiss. Jack glanced guiltily around before reaching in and seizing the jar with the coin.

"Ahem."

Oh-oh, He knew that cough. Dammit! He turned, head lowered like a dog who'd been caught chewing someone's best sneakers.

Major Carter looked as dishevelled as he did, wearing only her small green vest over camo-pants, and she was barefoot. She looked from his guilty face to the jar in his hands.

"I wish I thought you had a genuine reason for stealing that, sir." Carter tried to sound authoritative to her superior, but somehow it just came off as teasing. The Colonel lapsed into an impish grin.

"I'm conducting an experiment, Carter, surely you can't have a problem with that."

"You're trying to get into my thoughts!" she accused.

"Well we've gotta know if the thing still works, don't we?"

Carter stared hard at him, forcing indignation onto her face when really all she felt was curiosity and excitement, maybe tinged with annoyance that he'd beaten her to it. She let her frown fall, stepping silently closer. She looked from the glinting blue coin to his inviting smile.

"I guess we have to."

The Colonel laughed lightly. "Now, Carter, if I'm gonna concede and do science with you--"

Carter started to interrupt but was cut off.

"-- You have to agree to come fishing, fair?" He opened the jar and tipped the blue coin out onto his hand. He felt a tingling sensation in his palm, a strange clarity in his mind.

"Will there be grenades?"

"Oh yeah."

"Well, as long as we don't let it affect our working relationship..."

Colonel O'Neill extended his hand with the coin, and Carter grasped it firmly.

Deal.

The End