Daniel got shot today.

Colonel O’Neill - I’m sorry, General O’Neill - didn’t have any other choice, and as it turned out, he may have saved Daniel’s life. His action prevented Teal’c from having to use the zat’nikatel for a second time.

The blood loss was frightening. Dark red liquid pooled under Daniel’s shoulder and Jack’s face went pale when he saw it. For a moment, he almost looked old. It’s easy to forget that he really is aging - that he’s not the young soldier he used to be - until moments like this. Moments when one of his team members is lying on the cold concrete, bleeding.

I suppose they’re not officially his team members any more, but at heart those four people will always be a team. I know how they feel about each other. Beyond the sometimes childish teasing and bickering is a connection, a fierce loyalty, an intangible something that makes them a family. I’ve seen members of SG-1 hold a beside vigil for a wounded comrade, sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs until their eyes drooped with exhaustion. I’ve seen them sacrifice for each other, cry for each other. I’ve seen them willing to die for each other.

The new doctor, Dr. Brightman, worked quickly and efficiently to save Daniel’s life. As much as I sometimes resent her presence, I had to appreciate that.

I shouldn’t really be so resentful, I suppose. It isn’t as if they had a choice. They had to replace me with someone.

I am, after all, dead.

At times, I don’t feel dead, but I know that I am. I remember dying with a smoking hole in my chest, with Daniel screaming for a medical team. I know I didn’t ascend, because I saw them bury my pale, lifeless body.

Now I’m here, just beyond the living, just beyond the reach of those I love. I’m dead. But I’m still me.

And, somehow, I can still see into the SGC. I don’t know how or why. I’m no guardian angel; if I had been, I could have stopped Anubis, could have at least warned the SGC. I could have saved Daniel the pain, Jack the guilt.

I couldn’t do anything, because I am dead.

At times I miss the life I led and the friends I had, but for today, all is well, because once again, SG-1 has been granted its place among the living.