Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.

Author's Notes: This is based on a real event. The thoughts are real (aside from the ones about the Goa'uld). I also did not have a Special Forces Colonel with me at the time. However, there may be some non-Daniel thoughts in here.

Wake-Up Call

I sat in the corner of the library, where I always liked to sit when I did research. No one could bother me, and it was quiet. I was surrounded on three sides: the wall to my right; a short wall, marking a division of the two sections of the main room, behind me; and the table covered with books in front of me. It was fairly secluded and there was only one side from which I could be approached, keepingdistractions to a minimum. Jack had taken the trip with me, and had long since gotten bored and started wandering. That was fine with me, since the fidgeting Colonel was much more distracting than any noise that might be present in the library.

I was lost in the "History of Myan Civilization" and barely paid any attention to the scuffling sounds behind me just beyond the short wall. I was startled out of my concentration when several screams rang out. I gently slid the chair back, and rose to see what was going on. When I peered around the wall, I saw a manstanding on the table in the middle of the room. At first, that was all I saw, and I wondered what on Earth the man would be doing on a table.

That's when I saw the knife. The man wheeled around, still on the table, tightly gripping a large pocket knife in his left hand.

A second man stepped toward him. "Hey, buddy. Don't do this, man. You don't want to do this."

That, however, did very little good, since several other men started to go after the first man. Where was Jack? The man jumped on and off of several tables, and lunged toward various people, flinging random books in the process. I quickly tried to assess my options. The only exit was on the other side of the man, whose movements were so random and unpredictable that I figured it was safer to just stay put. The man bolted past the two men trying to subdue him, looking for a way to escape. The man was frantically looking for a way to escape and bolted past two other men who were trying to subdue him. Obviously, he either didn't know his way around the library, or he was too frantic to notice that he was headed awayfrom the exit. He rushed toward me. I was frozen in place, still in the corner. I knew I had nowhere to go. I was cornered...literally. I face down Goa'uld and cosmic disasters on a daily basis, but, for some reason, I was paralyzed by a human with a knife. Maybe I was just getting to old for all this crap.

As the man moved toward me, I could see the panic and uncertainty in his eyes, and could feel it in my own. The man wheeled around several times, obviously not going after anyone in particular. However, it was also obvious that the man had gone so nuts- why, I didn't know, and at that particular moment, I didn't care- that he really didn't know what he was doing. He was just trying to get away from the men trying to stop him.

'Don't go after a crazy guy who has a knife! Just back away and call the cops!' The thought flashed through my mind, as did many others, while I tried to look as non-threatening as possible. I was shaking, yet completely unable to move; pressed against the corner, realizing that any second I could be lying on the floor bleeding to death. After all I'd been through with SG-1, I never would've imagined that this was how I was going to die.

A woman screamed from a few yards away. She was in the back corner, but the man hadn't noticed her; he was too focused on me.

'Shut up!' I thought frantically, though I knew it wouldn't do any good. 'You're just gonna draw attention to yourself, or panic this guy even more! Just shut up!' I noticed every twitch that the knife made, and every panicked turn the man took. I noticed nothing beyond the man in front of me.

Why was I so panicked? I had been in fights before, had my life hanging in the balance before. I'd been wounded, even killed before. Of course, that was all off-world and usually with another race of beings. Also, I was usually armed, which did at least a little to make me feel safer. With the Goa'uld, I knew what to expect. This guy, however, was out of his mind, frenzied panic the only thing present in his eyes. I knew I was physically unable to move, or speak, even if I wanted to. Where was the Special Forces trained Colonel I had come with? Jack would have this man on the floor in the blink of an eye, knife or no knife. With the man still in front of me - the whole thing most likely only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime- one thought kept playing over and over in my mind: just how doomed I was.

A relatively large man - where did he come from? - slipped in between me and the armed man, and grabbed him from behind, in a head-lock. The smaller man started flailing around, still with a death-grip on the knife, and I now feared for both my life and that of the larger man. Unable to hold him long, my would-be savior maneuvered him away from me and the woman in the corner, and released him into the wide walkway between the two sections of the room. The knifeman frantically ran into a large conference room to the side of the main room, and several men followed. I hadn't even realized there were that many people in the library, but then again, I tend to be pretty oblivious when I'm researching. I'm sure that's at least part of the reason Jack insisted on tagging along.

I was slightly relieved that the man was no longer in the room, but still scared half out of my wits, and sank back down into the chair. I didn't want to even attempt to leave while that mad man was still on the loose. I didn't know if I physically could move, even if I wanted to. I heard several more screams from the other room, but remained in place. A few minutes later, one of the men who had followed was being escorted out of the library, with a handful of blood-soaked paper towels pressed against his side. A renewed surge of panic raced through me, at the realization that that could've been me. Three police officers rushed past me and into the room where the armed man was still holed up.

I let my mind wander, feeling somewhat safe with three armed cops present. Every major conflict I'd experienced prior to that day, had in some way involved the Stargate program. I - as well as everyone else in the SGC - fought secret battles to keep Earth safe. But now I'd had a wake up call; first-hand experience that Goa'uld invasions weren't the only thing threatening survival. I never wouldv'e thought a library would've been a dangerous place. I was staring at the floor, still shaking, my mind still racing, when Jack finally came up to me. I flinched and snapped back to reality when I noticed the pair of combat boots moving toward me.

"Daniel?" Jack asked gently, as he stooped down in front of me. "I heard screams, somebody said something about a stabbing. What happened? Are you hurt?" He quickly looked me over, checking for any wounds, but I barely noticed.

"I don't think so." I paused, looked Jack in the eye and continued. "Jack, he had a knife! Why would anyone in their right mind bring a knife into a library? Of course, he didn't really seem like he was in his right mind. He just went crazy! He was jumping on and off tables. Jack, you should've seen his eyes!"

The military-hardened colonel let me vent before sliding a comforting hand onto my shoulder, causing me to stop talking. "Daniel, it's ok. Take a breath. Look, they caught the guy."

I looked up, and saw two cops escorting the man out in handcuffs. He turned and looked me directly in the eye, his face and hands covered in blood. A chill ran down my spine. Where had all the blood come from? Was it his? Was it from the man he stabbed? I snapped my focus back to O'Neill. "Jack, that's what we're fighting for, fighting to preserve."

Jack knew I had a point, so he quickly countered. "No, Daniel. We're fighting to preserve all of it. Everybody. They're not all bad. We're fighting for the decent people too."

"Yeah, so the decent people can be injured and killed by humans, instead of aliens." I interrupted.

"Daniel, that's life. But, not even the crazies deserve what the Goa'uld are dishing out." Jack paused, and decided to try for humor. "We should just give that guy back the knife and let him go after the Goa'uld." He cocked his head waiting for my reaction.

I grinned slightly, and brushed off the joke, to return to the serious moment. "Yeah, you're right. It just doesn't seem fair."

"You show me a planet where life is fair, and we'll move there tomorrow." Jack grinned, and I chuckled, knowing what he was trying to do.

"Yeah, you're right."

He gave me a cat-who-ate-the-canary grin. "I'm always right." He let me sit for a few more moments, and was obviously getting antzy, doing nothing, but was willing to let me remain, for as long as I needed. "Do you wanna stay, or get outa here?"

"Let's leave." I responded eagerly, and stumbled out of the chair, as I tried to get to my still shaking feet.

"Just wait 'till we tell Carter and Teal'c." O'Neill chuckled.

"Teal'c doesn't have a whole lot of faith in humans. He'll believe it." I conjectured.

"Carter'll think we're joking."

"Then, when she figures out we're serious, she'll demand we go see Janet." I continued the thought.

"And follow us the whole way like a little mother duck!" Both of us laughed at the imagined scenario. That, of course, was Jack's intention- to get my mind off the scare I had just had. He knew that without the distraction, I would simply have let myself fall to pieces. I had been halfway there, by the time Jack had gotten to me. I'd been shutting down, and Jack knew that talking about it, as well as his patented 'make everything a joke' tactic, had pulled me back from the brink, and helped put everything in perspective. He realized that I had just had a wake-up call. Jack's had come long ago. Anyone can snap, and you might not even see it coming. Anything can happen, anytime, anywhere, to threaten your existence. It doesn't take an alien to shove the realization in your face, just how fragile life really is.

End