Prologue
His head was killing him, and all he could think was; "Is the mission
over already?"
He opened his eyes, strained against the bright lights of the SGC
infirmary. He turned his head, and fought through the blurry vision to see Janet Fraiser standing not far away. "Janet?"
The short woman rushed to his bedside, "Daniel?" She reached over
and picked up the phone that was placed on the wall, telling whoever was on the other end that Daniel was awake. Once she
hung up, she came right back to Daniel--checking his pulse, his heartbeat, and shining her penlight in his eyes, "Daniel,
can you hear me?"
"What happened?" He muttered, sucking in a deep breath. He felt
like he'd been drugged and slept for three days, "The mission..."
Janet smiled softly down at him, "Daniel, the mission was over a
week ago. You've been in a coma ever since then."
Daniel's eyes widened, his vision finally clearing and fixating
on the kind face of Janet Fraiser, "A week?"
She nodded, "Shortly after arriving on P8-115, you disappeared.
SG -1 and -9 immediately returned to the SGC, and put together a search party. However, they couldn't re-establish a connection
with 115's gate. Two days later, you were sent, unconscious, through the gate and landed safely in the gateroom."
"And I've been unconscious ever since?"
She nodded, "I'm afraid so."
Daniel frowned deeply. He remembered prepping for the mission, and
stepping through the event horizon. He didn't even remember reaching the other side, much less the forty-eight hours he'd
apparantly been missing. He looked up at Janet, "I can't remember...any of it."
"Nothing?" Janet looked as disappointed as Daniel felt.
"Nothing." He searched his memory banks frantically. Maybe his mind
was just foggy and it would all come to him eventually. He shook his head and sighed, "A week..."
"You weren't the only one, either." Janet said quietly, "Captain
McCoy went missing the same time you did."
Daniel's eyes widened in surprise. Captain Autumn McCoy was the
second in command of SG-9, under Colonel Thomas Erickson. Daniel knew her fairly well, as she was a fan of his archaeological
work pre-Stargate program and had a keen interest in archaeology itself. "Is she awake yet?"
"No, I'm afraid not. You were both returned unharmed, yet her condition
was worse than yours."
Daniel's heart sank. That didn't seem fair, and it caused him more
worry about where exactly they had been and who or what their captors were, if there had been any. "How so?"
"It's...hard to explain. Basically, the coma she's in is much deeper
than yours was. So much so we had to intubate her in order to keep her from suffocating due to lack of muscle control."
Daniel closed his eyes, willing any kind of memory to surface about
those forty-eight hours. However nothing came. He only remembered that day, getting ready to head out. He remembered talking
to Sam in the embarkation room, as they stood at the end of the ramp waiting for SG-9. Jack had been talking about the previous
night's hockey game to Teal'c, who had seemed less than amused. After that, all he had was nothingness.
"Dr. Frasier?" A voice rang out, followed by a long monotonous beeping
sound. Janet rushed to the commotion, and let out a cry, "She's coding. Get the paddles!" She barked. Daniel propped up on
his elbows, straining his neck in order to see what was happening. Janet and several nurses surrounded a single bed. He could
hear the electrical charge, Janet yelled "Clear!" and then the horrible sound of someone's body being shocked back into life.
Only it hadn't worked.
"Charge to 200!" Janet told them, "Come on, McCoy, you can do this..."
Then the same song and dance as before.
"What's happening?!" Daniel yelled, though he knew deep down. He
and Autumn had both gone missing, both fallen into comas, and only one of them was going to survive.
