One More Time
One More Time
by Panther
TITLE: One More Time
AUTHOR: Panther
EMAIL: hockyfan_99@yahoo.com
CATEGORY: Drama, angst
SPOILERS: There But for the Grace of God, Fire & Water, Children of the Gods
SEASON / SEQUEL: Season 2, "Scars" follows this story
RATING: G
CONTENT WARNINGS: Character Death - sort of
SUMMARY: Daniel's adventure in a second alternate reality. What if the mirror brings him face to face with another SG-1?
STATUS: Complete
ARCHIVE: Heliopolis
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. We have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the authors. Not to be archived without permission of the authors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Comments are welcome!
Daniel Jackson stood in the control room, red strobes flashing throughout the complex and a palpable tension rising steadily with each passing moment. Glancing briefly through the glass at the stargate in the other room, he quickly turned his attention back to the gray haired woman at the computer, hurriedly entering coordinates. The coordinates that would take him back to the mirror. Back home to a reality that made a little more sense than the one he found himself currently standing in.
"You helped reunite me with Ernest in the other world." She said with a shrug and a twitch of a smile. "I guess in the grand scheme of things this makes us even."
In his mind it made them much more than even. All he'd done was step through the gate and bring the man back from a 50-year mission. Sacrificing nothing but a few hours of his time. She was about to sacrifice much more than that. He wanted to tell her how much her help had meant to him. Thank her for being willing to listen in the first place, despite how completely insane his story must have sounded. For pulling Jack's attention away from the disaster at hand long enough for him to at least try to explain. Not to mention helping him to convince them to use what little time they had left to send him home. However, there weren't really words to express his gratitude, 'thank you' feeling incredibly inadequate, and no time to say them anyway. Heading toward the stairs, he made his way down to the gate room, the self destruct sequence counting down the final moments of the complex and Jaffa swarming into the building from the ship perched on top of the mountain. He waited anxiously for the last chevron to lock in place, praying it would be before one or the other stopped him. Casting one last glance back toward the control room, he saw it suddenly fill with armed serpent guards, Catherine trapped against the control panel with nowhere to run. She stood, turning her back to him and slapped a button on the console, the blast shield in front of the window sliding silently down in a last effort to protect him from the reality he didn't really belong to. Maybe, just maybe it would keep the goa'uld from noticing that they'd established a wormhole until after he was gone. An explosion to his left turned him from the view of the gray metal shield as a hole suddenly appeared in the blast door. He'd had no idea until that moment that a staff weapon could do the same kind of damage to a solid steel door that it could to a human body. Two more blasts followed, opening the hole even wider. Daniel saw a head coming through the opening just as the wormhole behind him engaged, reaching out in a wave of energy before settling into the bright, shimmering pool he'd come to know so well. At that moment that pool was the most welcomed sight he'd ever seen. Turning his attention back toward the gaping hole in the blast door, he watched in fascination as a very familiar hulk of a man climbed through the hole and stepped into the room with him. Teal'c. Daniel stood rooted to the spot, uncertainty squelching the relief he'd felt at seeing a face he knew. He'd seen a lot of them over the last few hours, though it hadn't done him much good. This man might have his friend's face, but he was just as much a stranger to him as the rest of them had been. He watched, wanting to make a run for the wormhole while it was still engaged, but something in the big Jaffa's expression keeping him still. Teal'c stared back at him through a mask of determination, a flicker of confusion in his eyes, as if he'd seen Daniel's face before, knew it somehow, but couldn't recall why. Both men stood in silence, the battle between their people momentarily forgotten as they gauged one another, Daniel only able to assume that Jack had been able to show him the video tape and wondering what effect it had had on Teal'c. The Jaffa battling an odd feeling of brotherhood attached to the Tau'ri in front of him. Daniel shifted his gaze to the wormhole for a brief second, attempting to calculate the distance and whether or not he would have enough time to reach it if the stalemate between them came to a sudden end. Teal'c watched as blue eyes slid away from him to the shimmering portal on the other side of the room and suddenly the confusion was gone. He had been sent to destroy the race that had angered his god as well as pay retribution for the death of his people on Chulak. He did not know this man, had never seen him before and was certainly not his brother in any sense of the word. Anger rising once again to the surface, he leveled his blast lance on his soon to be victim. Daniel caught the change in his expression as he turned back, w! atched the anger fill his eyes and knew that the moment had passed. Turning toward the gate he ran as fast as his legs would move, hearing Teal'c behind him, but not wasting any time looking back. Making a final dive toward the wormhole, he heard the staff weapon discharge, but it was too late. Pushing through the event horizon, he was free.
Daniel landed with bone jarring force on the hard floor at the other side of the gate. P3R233. He'd made it, though the intense pain in his shoulder let him know he hadn't made it unscathed. None of that mattered now. He had to get home. Had to warn Jack about the attack he knew was coming. For some reason, whatever god was watching over the stargate had allowed him to see that the fate of his planet was sealed and every living thing on it doomed unless they acted quickly. It was a warning he fully intended to heed. Pushing himself up from the floor, he stumbled back through the maze of crates and containers, clutching at his arm as he headed for the mirror. Bypassing the table full of artifacts that had so completely captured his attention hours earlier without even a glance, he steadied himself and reached out, touching fingers to the mirror. The jolt of electricity he'd felt the first time, washed over him again, an unwelcome sensation in his injured shoulder. The already intensely burning fire in his arm increased to a raging scream of pain causing him to cry out even as his vision dimmed. Before he knew what had happened he was on the floor. He had to get up. He had to find Jack. The last thought that crossed his dazed mind before he lost consciousness was that he most definitely didn't have time for this.
Daniel opened his eyes some time later and found himself very much alone and still lying on the floor in front of the mirror. His shoulder was throbbing angrily while the rest of his body voiced protests from the none too gentle landing on this side of the gate. Dragging himself wearily to his feet, he shuffled back out of the alien lab into the other room.
"Jack?" he called into the darkness, all of his equipment, including his flashlight, having been left on the far side of the gate in his mad dash to get away in one piece.
There was no reply.
"Sam? Teal'c?" he called, not surprised to find it also met with silence. "Not again." He muttered to himself, groping through the dim light toward the DHD.
What if he was still in the same twisted reality? Dialing the address for earth, he sent up a silent prayer that he'd ended up in the right place this time. If he hadn't, he had no idea what he was going to do. He no longer had the control for the mirror, not that he would have known how to use it if he had. And dialing home would do no good at all because the SGC in that reality was most likely nothing more than rubble. Pressing the orange globe in the center of the DHD, he held his breath, almost giddy with relief when the gate sprang to life, creating a wormhole. Using the only piece of equipment he'd managed to get back before Catherine had begun dialing, he sent through the signal identifying him as a member of SG-1 and stepped through the gate.
"No one's due back this morning." General Hammond said, frowning at the suddenly active gate on the other side of the glass.
"We're receiving a signal, Sir." Lieutenant Harriman announced. "It's SG-1."
"SG-1?" Hammond echoed. "That's not possible. They're here already."
The idea that someone had gotten hold of their codes dawned on him and he scowled at the gate. It wasn't as if they'd never expected that to happen. All the planets they'd visit, people they'd encountered, times teams had been taken captive, especially SG-1, made it somehow inevitable. Sooner or later it was something they'd have to deal with. He'd just hoped that it would always be later.
"Heads up, people." He announced over the intercom into the gate room filled with armed men.
Every breath was held as they waited for whoever had activated the gate to appear. Colonel Jack O'Neill casually strode into the control room, staring out at the yet undisturbed event horizon. It wasn't more than a few seconds before he began to feel the tension in the room, his CO so uptight he was practically vibrating.
"What's going on, General?" he asked, standing beside him and noting the room of armed and very tensed soldiers below.
"We just received an SG-1 signal through the gate." He said, cocking an eyebrow at the colonel.
"You what?" Jack replied. "That's not possible. My team's here already, Sir."
"I know that, Colonel, but apparently not all of your GDOs are."
"All of our equipment is present and accounted for, General." He assured him.
"Then explain this."
However, before Jack had a chance to come up with a reasonable explanation, or at the very least, someone else to blame, a figure stepped through the gate, immediately becoming the target of 30 armed men.
"What the hell?" Jack gasped, staring transfixed at the man standing on the ramp below, hardly noticing when the wormhole disengaged.
It was far from a mystery guest that had decided to pay them a visit. In fact, the face was very familiar to both men. The only problem was it belonged to a dead man. It wasn't possible. He wasn't seeing what he was seeing! Daniel ... alive and well and coming through the gate from ... where? A goa'uld trick? If it was, it was like nothing they'd ever seen before. It wasn't very likely that they'd swooped down and yanked him out of his grave to use him as a Trojan horse of some kind ... was it? They'd pulled some pretty underhanded stunts in their time, but this was just not possible. Shaking himself from the trance that had him nailed to the floor, his mind reeling, Jack suddenly sprang to life and tore down the stairs toward the gate room intending to get an explanation before someone in the room used him for target practice.
"Jack, what's going on?" Daniel asked, glaring at the numerous barrels aimed at various parts of his body as the colonel made his way into the already crowded room.
Jack honestly didn't know whether to grill him for information or hug him.
"That's what I'd like to know." Jack replied, looking him over and noticing the fresh wound on his shoulder. "Get a medical team in here." He said to the nearest soldier. "Stand down." He added to the rest, causing the entire room to relax. "Who are you?" he finally asked, face twitching into a scowl as he fought to keep any emotion, other than ones that the man in front of him would find intimidating, hidden.
"Not again." he moaned, the color draining from his face. "Daniel Jackson." He sighed.
"Funny, that's what I thought you'd say." Jack replied with anything but humor.
Jack knew who he was? Than what was with the third degree?
"Look, I don't have time for this, Jack ... "
"Then you'd better make time." The colonel snarled. "You may look like him, but you sure as hell aren't Daniel Jackson," Jack informed him in a quiet tone full of anger. "because he's dead. I carried him back through that gate myself a year ago. So unless you managed to find a way to crawl out of the hole I watched them put you in, you'd better come up with a hell of a lot better story than that and I mean now!"
Daniel was stunned to silence. He'd been dead a couple of times in his life, but never actually buried. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he'd stumbled out of one alternate reality and right into another one.
"Airman." Jack bellowed to the nearest armed individual. "Escort this ... man ... to a holding cell."
"Yes, Sir." The young man replied eagerly, motioning Daniel away from the ramp with his weapon, a second escort falling in beside him.
"Colonel O'Neill, in my office." Came a less than pleased sounding voice over the intercom.
General Hammond had been more than willing to let Jack handle greeting the very unusual guest who'd arrived through the gate, knowing that there was no way whoever that was was going to get anything past the Colonel. That and his own mind had been spinning so fast in so many different directions he hadn't been able to form complete words let alone sentences coherent enough to use in an interrogation until the moment he'd bellowed for the Colonel.
"Find Major Carter and Teal'c, Lieutenant." He instructed Harriman with a sigh. "Have them meet me in the briefing room ASAP."
"Yes, Sir." He answered, shaking himself from his thoughts.
He'd known Daniel Jackson. The one they'd buried. So had a lot of them. The space he'd left behind after that fateful mission had been felt through much of the SGC for a long time. So how on earth ... or any other planet ... did you explain what he'd just seen?
"Major Carter, report to the briefing room immediately." He spoke into the intercom, the announcement being made all over the base before repeating the same one for Teal'c.
That was one briefing he desperately wished he was going to be in on.
Major Samantha Carter strode into the briefing room a few minutes later to find Jack sitting in a chair at the far end, staring transfixed at the wall across the room. She'd been curious about the announcement when the call came over the intercom, but the look on his face brought a sudden knot to her stomach. Whatever was going on, it was apparently not pleasant.
"Colonel?" she said, approaching the table with Teal'c a few steps behind.
Pulling himself out of the trance, he looked at her, blinking, an expression made up of equal parts pain, anger and confusion coloring his face.
"Have a seat, Carter." He instructed.
"Is everything OK?" she asked, sliding into a chair near him.
"No." he admitted.
His lack of sarcasm made her even more nervous.
"Good, you're all here." General Hammond said with an almost pleasant tone of voice as he strode into the room through the other door. "Teal'c will you close that?" he asked, motioning toward the door they'd just come through. "We have a situation that needs clearing up and since you people are the only ones with the answers I thought we might as well start here."
Sam swallowed and stared back at him, waiting for the explanation she was pretty sure she didn't want to hear.
"We need to clear a few things up about your mission to P5M886." He sighed.
There was no further explanation necessary. That planet designation was all that was needed to conjure up the memory of the loss of Daniel Jackson. The pain that flashed across Carter's face at the mention of it confirming that fact. Teal'c, as always, remained expressionless.
"That was, um, a long time ago, Sir." She said, clearing her throat.
"I realize that, Major." He said gently. "We don't need to go over every minute detail, just the basics. I can have a copy of the mission report brought in if that will help."
"I don't think that'll be necessary, Sir." Jack mumbled.
"Begging your pardon, Sir, but is this really necessary?" Carter asked.
It had been nearly a year, 10 months to be exact. Daniel had died, they'd buried him and life, in one form or another, had gone on without him. The details of how and why he'd died seemed unimportant. The only thing that mattered was that he was gone. So why was General Hammond now so interested in them?
"I'm afraid it is, Major."
She nodded with a sigh and cast a glance at Jack. One of them had to begin the awful tale. Who was it going to be? The pain and anger in his face told her that it most likely wasn't going to be him. She knew he still blamed himself and would probably take that guilt to the grave. She also knew he didn't deserve it, but the only one who had ever been able to get through to the Colonel and make him see the futility of taking responsibility for things that were out of his control had been Daniel.
A lot of things had changed for the team and each of its members when he'd died. Not all of them good. Not all of them bad either, though she was hard pressed to find anything that she could honestly say had changed for the better. Teal'c seemed to be the least effected by it, but then he was also extremely good at taking things in stride. She was sure he missed him, but Daniel was far from the first friend he'd lost in the line of duty. She'd watched with her own eyes as he'd turned his blast lance on his fellow Jaffa on Chulak what seemed like ages ago in an effort to free the innocent people taken hostage by Apophis. Not all of those who had fallen that day at his hand had been enemies. Sam had often wondered if his daily meditation wasn't responsible for his unfailingly even keel. If it was, maybe they should all give it a try.
Jack had closed off almost completely after that horrible mission to P5M886. For months he'd never smiled, never cracked a joke, never laughed, Colonel O'Neill having replaced him almost entirely. All business and no play might make Jack a dull boy, but the Colonel liked it that way. Slowly he'd come out of his shell, tucking the pain away far enough to allow a little healing, but not so far that it wasn't readily able to blanket him with guilt at the mere mention of Dr. Jackson's name. He still didn't laugh much and the sarcastic humor she never thought she'd miss had almost completely dried up. In its place he'd developed a fierce determination to protect those under his command from any and all possible threats. Even from themselves, if necessary. That new attitude had lead to numerous arguments between he and his team, other officers and even the General. None of it, however, came as any shock when you considered how Daniel had died. She only hoped that time would wear off some of the jagged edges and leave them with at least a recognizable version of Jack O'Neill, a man who had been missing from the SGC for as long as Dr. Jackson. For the time being, however, he'd taken on a close resemblance to the tyrant of a colonel she'd heard about when she'd first joined the SGC, though, until lately had never seen. There had also been another change. One that only she noticed. A side of him she missed the most. A silent understanding had developed after their first face to face encounter and what, to others, might have seemed the low hum of friction between them had actually been a carefully hidden attraction which had eventually transformed into sincere affection. She had grown used to the glances and twitched smiles he'd thrown in her direction when he thought no one was looking. Drawn a peculiar sort of comfort from them. They hadn't really fooled anyone for very long, but as long as they didn't act on it, the general had been willing to overlook it. After all, regulations were regulations, but they were far from able to restrain the human heart. After Daniel's funeral, however, that had all come to an end. Any intimate connection that he might have allowed in the past had been severed leaving her with no other choice, but to play Major Carter to his Colonel O'Neill when what she needed the most was Jack.
Her own reaction to the loss of one of her closest friends had been somewhere in between her two team mates. She missed him, even now. Part of her still hoping that he'd come wandering into their briefings, arms loaded with books, files and papers, glasses sliding down his nose and a carefree smile that portrayed an innocence she hadn't thought would be possible in a man who had seen everything he had. Sometimes it felt like the heart and soul of their team had been buried with him. Jack had once described him as being the conscience of the SGC in a eulogy that had turned out to be nothing more than a trial run. Sam supposed he was probably right about that, but the conscience in him was missed far less than his heart. He'd been haunting the halls of the facility long enough to have rubbed of on nearly everyone there, leaving behind a notion that doing the right thing had to take priority over military agenda whenever possible. Even if it meant taking the long way around a problem to do it. Even the General himself possessed a sprinkling of it. What she missed was his compassion. A heart full of tenderness that had him showing up at your door when he knew you were hurting, despite your best efforts to hide it. Offers of a listening ear or, if needed, a shoulder to cry on even if it meant pulling him away from the artifacts that so readily claimed his attention. His attentiveness to the details in the lives of those he called his friends and a refusal to let the fact that most of them were full blooded military keep him from offering the emotional support he knew they needed even when they didn't realize it themselves. All of it had been uniquely Daniel and despite the fact that his place on the team had been filled, the other voids he'd left behind hadn't. General Hammond had given the team a week off to mourn, clean out his apartment (for the second time) and attempt to regroup. When they'd returned he had presented Captain Brent Marx as the new member of SG-1, an anthropologist to serve in Dr. Jackson's place. He didn't have the extensive linguistic or archeological background that Daniel had, but he was still able to help with translations, identify artifacts and muddle his way through conversations on alien planets fairly well. Sam liked him. He was funny, and a good sense of humor was exactly what they needed to counteract the gloom that had settled over all of them. She'd never really expected Captain Marx to fill Daniel's shoes. It would have been an impossible request. Instead they'd let him take over what he could and attempted to compensate for the rest. She had thought things had turned out fairly well for their little team, until now. Staring the memories in the face, she realized all over again just how much they'd lost.
Pulling herself from her thoughts, Sam took a breath and began to recount a tale she had hoped never to have to tell again.
"SG-6 had been missing for, um, several days." She began, clearing her throat. "We learned they'd been taken captive on P5M886 by Heru'er. SG-1 volunteered to be on the rescue mission."
Even now she could recall the animated discussion between Daniel and Jack. They'd all agreed that their place was on that rescue mission, an attempt to repay the favor done for them on numerous occasions. Jack had ushered she and Teal'c into the locker room to suit up, conveniently neglecting to inform Daniel. He, however, had shown up anyway, walking through the door looking more than a little annoyed and making a b-line for his locker without a word, intending to sidestep the inevitable argument.
"Daniel?" Jack had questioned, stating his entire argument in one word.
"Jack, I'm going." Daniel had stated determinedly.
Jack had sighed.
"They've saved my life at least as many times as yours. I'm part of this team and I'm going on the mission."
"It's not that we don't want you on the mission, Daniel. It's just that you don't need to do this. We don't need an archeologist for this one and I know you have other things to do." He argued, trying to do it gently. "Don't worry. We'll bring 'em back."
She still remembered the way Daniel had pulled himself up to his full 6 feet and marched over to where Jack stood, looking him right in the eye. Funny, she'd been sure that he'd been about to meet his doom right there in the locker room.
"Is that all I am to you, Jack? An archeologist?" he'd asked quietly, but with a tone that said he was obviously angry. "After all we've been through you still think of me as just a geek with a fetish for rocks? What makes this any different than any of the other tactical missions we've been on? If I'm part of this team then I go where the team goes." He'd stated, not allowing Jack time to answer. "If you don't want me with you then maybe it's time you decided whether or not you really want me on the team at all."
"It's not that I don't want you on the team." He'd sighed.
The problem was that this was different from their other missions. Sure, Daniel had come along every other time they'd set out to blow a goa'uld out of the sky, but it had been because they'd needed him. This time they didn't. SG-3, 11 and 12 were along for the ride as well. It had nothing to do with him being an archeologist and everything to do with him being a civilian. They were about to walk into a very dangerous situation where if they were lucky they'd make it back in one piece and if they weren't ... well it was better left unsaid. Daniel didn't have the military training the rest of them did. Sure, he'd learned a lot since stumbling bewildered back into the SGC, demanding the chance to rescue his wife, but Jack would rather not be responsible for taking him into a situation that might very well be over his head. Especially not when he was fairly sure that he wouldn't be able to devote any of his attention to watching out for him once they got there.
"You don't have to do this." He'd repeated, trying to communicate the rest without words.
"Yes, I do." Daniel had responded, making his point very clearly.
He was no longer just the resident archeological expert. He was a soldier and in being one he wanted to be treated like anyone else in the SGC, not given special consideration. Not treated like some fragile, helpless kid. He'd proven his ability to hold his own over and over again. It was time for Jack to stop watching over him so much, protecting him, sheltering him. It was time to let him grow up. In the end Jack had reluctantly agreed and the four of them had joined the other SG teams in the gate room.
"We went through the gate at about 1000 hours." Sam continued. "By 1030 Daniel was dead."
She paused for a moment, swallowing the lump in her throat and wishing that someone else would take over.
"Take your time, Major." General Hammond advised.
"The gate was clear when we got to the other side, but it wasn't more than a few minutes before the place was crawling with serpent guards." She said, pushing ahead. "We were starting to break through their line when they launched gliders from a ship we hadn't been aware was in the area. Colonel O'Neill ordered us to take cover in the trees and we started running. Teal'c was in front of me and Daniel was behind me, the Colonel on our 6. The glider made a pass and started firing. We'd almost made it. We were so close." She said, tears springing to her eyes. "On the second pass a blast from one of the gliders hit behind me. It landed almost right on top of Daniel."
Sam tried to continue, but didn't trust herself to be able to finish the tale without bursting into tears. A very unmilitary response and not one she intended to let the general see.
"His injuries were extensive." Teal'c chimed in. "We were not able to reach the stargate in time to bring him back for medical assistance. He expired on the planet a few moments later."
Expired. The word stuck in Jack's mind. Expired ... like he had been a carton of milk or something. None of it should ever have happened. He never should have let Daniel go on that mission. Should have ordered him to stay behind, not that it would have done a lot of good. Damn him. He'd been so determined to play with the big kids that he hadn't seen that he was way out of his league. Now it was too late. Too late to save him. Too late to tell him what an idiot he'd been. Too late to hug the stuffing out of him the way he had the other times when he'd managed to cheat death. Or was it? Their presumed dead and buried archeologist was in fact, at that moment, sitting in a cell just 1 floor above where they were, probably pacing the room and pounding on the door in alternating bursts. It wasn't really him, was it? It sure looked like him. Walked like him. Sounded like him. Even had the same scowl on his face when he was annoyed. If it wasn't him then he'd like to know who the hell it was.
"I hate to put you through all of this again." General Hammond apologized, interrupting Jack's thoughts. "But were you absolutely sure that Dr. Jackson was dead?"
"Yes, Sir." Jack answered glumily.
Sam stared at the general in disbelief. What did he mean 'absolutely sure'? She'd held his bleeding, battered body in her arms trying to keep him quiet while the enemy soldiers had marched by practically over the top of where they'd hidden. She'd watched helplessly as the life drained out of him. Had been witness to his final breath, which surprisingly, was much less dramatic than she'd thought it would be. One minute he was breathing, the next he wasn't. No fan fair, no tremors, no traumatic gasping for air like they showed on television. Just silence and stillness. She could still remember the odd feeling of disappointment that a life that had had such an incredible impact on all of them would end so quietly. Hammond nodded in response to Jack's answer and pushed himself up from the table. Disappearing into the other room, he picked up the phone.
"Bring our ... visitor ... down to the briefing room." He instructed.
"What's going on, Sir?" Sam whispered to Jack, keeping one eye on him and one on the door the general had just disappeared through. "What does he mean are we sure Daniel's dead?"
"Just checking all the options, Major." He said, sitting back in his chair and refusing to look at her.
"Sir?"
"At ease, Carter." He sighed, finally giving her a quick glance. "We'll explain everything in a minute."
He and the general had spent several long minutes discussing the sudden resurrection of Dr. Jackson. They were fairly positive that the body they'd buried had been his. The only way to tell for sure if he was still down there would be to exhume it, but at the moment that seemed a little extreme. They hadn't had the time to do much more than let Jack harass him at the gate before the General had called in the rest of the team. Word was going to get around pretty fast that someone matching Daniel's description had just walked through the stargate. He wanted to break the news to them himself before the grapevine beat him to the punch. Now was their chance to find out exactly who this was and if by some bizarre happenstance it turned out to be the real Daniel he'd better have a damn good reason for letting them all think he was dead. But first they were going to question him into the floor and let Janet run every test in the book on him twice ... Jack's train of thought stopped dead in its tracks at the mention of her name. Janet. What in the hell were they going to tell Janet?! For the moment all he could do was thank whatever patron saint watched over the SGC that she hadn't been on duty when the time had come to patch him up.
Daniel pounded on the door with his fist yet again. To be honest it was starting to hurt his hand, but at the moment he didn't much care. He did not have time for this. His reality was about to be obliterated and he was the only one who knew it. He needed to get back to that mirror and try to find a way to warn them. He'd been thinking as he'd paced the small room. The control device he'd lost had belonged to his reality. He'd been holding it when he'd touched the mirror the first time. He hadn't bothered to check the contents of the table after touching it the last time. Since the room he stumbled out of belonged to this reality there might be another one there. The whole concept was making his head hurt. If he was going to figure this all out he was going to need Sam. That was, of course, assuming that Sam existed in this reality and that she was a part of the SGC ... or whatever they were calling it here. If not, then he was going to have to figure it out himself, never mind how. Pacing back toward the door, he gave it a swift kick with the toe of his boot, giving his hand a rest. To his surprise, the door opened and two armed airmen escorted him out into the hall. He couldn't help but notice as they marched him through the complex, that a lot of the people they passed seemed to recognize him. They also wore nearly the same expression. Something like shock, but not the pleasantly surprised kind. But then, he was supposed to be dead. To them he was probably the most lifelike cadaver they'd ever seen.
"Where are we going?" he asked as they stepped into the elevator.
"Briefing room." One of the airmen replied.
Good. It probably meant he was going to see the general. Sighing he steeled himself for the explanation he was sure he was going to have to give ... again. Hopefully this one would go better than the last one had.
Sam sat back in her chair, dropping the topic when the general returned and finding it obvious that Jack intended to keep their little secret to himself for as long as possible. The door on the other end of the room opened, drawing the attention of all 4 people seated at the table. Sam had suspected that the new arrival was going to have something to do with the bizarre debriefing they'd just had, but in no way was she prepared for what she saw. There, standing between two very young looking airmen, was none other than Daniel Jackson.
"Daniel!" she gasped, taking in every detail of him right down to the new bandage on his shoulder in less time than it took her to blink. "You're ... "
Giving up on the idea of putting her tumbling thoughts into words, she jumped up from the table and bolted over to him almost before anyone knew she was moving, throwing her arms around him. Swaying slightly before steadying himself, he hugged her back. This was definitely a much better reception than he'd received in the other reality. Teal'c, also on his feet, the same look of shock everyone else had been wearing, merely nodded to him.
"Good to see you're here, Teal'c." he commented warmly.
Sam clung to him for another moment, unable to bring herself to let go. It felt like him, smelled like him, even sounded like him. It was Daniel. He was really alive. But ...
"How?" she asked, pulling away from him in the hopes of finding the answer somewhere on his face.
The relief that had washed over him suddenly disappeared when he saw hers. A pain so intense it made his own heart ache and tears she rarely ever cried coursing down her face.
"I, um, realize this must seem a little, um ... strange." He began, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and handing it to her.
"Strange isn't exactly the word I'd use, Dr. Jackson." General Hammond replied. "Or whoever you are."
Daniel sighed heavily.
"It's me, general." He assured him. "Sort of. Look, this is probably going to be a little hard for you to understand so, just bare with me, OK?"
Teal'c sat down again in his chair, Sam took the closest seat she could find, still wiping at her eyes. Jack sighed, an obviously skeptical glare on his face.
"I am Dr. Daniel Jackson, but not the one you know ... knew." He corrected with a slight shake of his head. "I'm part of an alternate reality and somehow ended up in yours by mistake."
"Alternate reality?" Jack echoed, his face twitching with growing anger.
"Yeah, or at least that's what Sam theorized ... the other Sam." He added, in response to her confused expression. "In the other reality."
"Yours?"
"No, um, actually another alternate reality that I just left. An alternate alternate reality, I guess ... "
"OK, that's enough." Jack interrupted, pushing out of his chair. "You honestly expect us to believe this?"
"Honestly? No, Jack, I don't." Daniel sighed. "You didn't believe it the last time either. If it hadn't been for Sam and Catherine ... "
"Catherine?" Jack interrupted again.
"Yeah, Catherine Langford ... the woman who originally set up the stargate program ... or at least she did in my reality ... and the last one. I supposed you could have a completely different history here ... "
"I know who she is." He said. "But, like you, she's dead ... unless you're planning to bring her back to life too."
"How?" Daniel asked, ignoring the comment, the concern in his face not abated by the knowledge that she hadn't been "his" Catherine.
"She had a stroke a few years ago." Sam answered quietly.
Daniel nodded.
"I'm sorry, Dr., uh, Jackson." General Hammond interrupted. "But you're going to have to prove to us that you are who you say you are. Otherwise I'll have no choice but to consider you a threat to national security and have you dealt with accordingly."
"And how would you suggest I do that?" Daniel replied growing impatient. "You can ask me whatever questions you want, but I can't guarantee that my answers about your Daniel are going to be right. We haven't lived the same life."
"What do you know about the goa'uld?" Jack asked, scowling at him.
Daniel glared back at him remembering a very similar conversation they'd had in the other reality.
"Everything you do, Jack." He replied. "I know that we killed Ra on our first mission to Abydos 3 years ago. That Teal'c used to be first prime of Apophis until he rebelled on Chulak. That two of them now possess my wife, Sha're and her brother, Ska'ra. And that we spend a damn lot of time chasing them all over the universe, praying to god they don't stomp the hell out of us one day ... and that hope is running out." He concluded, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Your wife?" Jack questioned.
"Yes, my wife. What? I'm not married in this reality?"
"Oh, you're married, just not to Sha're." He shrugged, a look of smug satisfaction crossing his features that could be roughly translated as 'gotcha'.
"What do you mean 'hope is running out'?" Sam interrupted before Daniel could respond to the statement.
"I came back through the mirror trying to get back to my reality to warn them that the goa'uld just destroyed earth in the other reality and are probably going to do the same thing to ours."
"Mirror?"
"Um, yeah, this tall piece of rock. You activate it with this little device and it turns into a mirror." He explained, speaking as much with his hands as his mouth. "As far as Sam and I could figure out, it's a portal to another reality ... or something. Anyway, you touch it and it transports you to a different version of earth."
"This is rediculous." Jack snorted.
"Actually, no, Sir, it's not."
"Major?" he warned.
"There's a theory in quantum mechanics that deals with alternate realities and it's exactly like what he's describing."
Daniel smiled. Once again, Sam to the rescue.
"Go on." General Hammond coaxed.
"The theory states that there are an infinite number of realities possible, all existing at the same time. Some are very similar to the one we live in and some are completely different."
"Right." Daniel interrupted. "Both this and the last one are very similar to my reality, but there are differences in each of them."
"Like?" Jack inquired. c"Like Teal'c." he said, motioning to the Jaffa. "In the last reality he was still First Prime of Apophis. Sam was a civilian astrophysicist and the two of you were engaged. Um, you were a general. Hammond was a colonel and I wasn't part of the program at all, but Catherine was."
"Engaged?" Jack replied, glancing over at the Major.
"And we've already seen that there are differences with this one." Sam added, ignoring the colonel.
"Right." He agreed. "In my reality you're a Captain and, well, I'm still alive, though by now I'm assuming they're probably wondering what happened to me." He sighed.
"So it is possible that he really is Dr. Jackson?" General Hammond commented.
"Yes, Sir." Sam nodded.
"I still want to have Dr., um ... " he paused, glancing at the colonel. " ... have you checked out in the infirmary. Make sure you're not harboring any little surprises we should know about."
Daniel nodded with a sigh. Great, that meant a head to toe, inside and out physical inspection of pretty much every square inch of his body. Not exactly a pleasant thought.
"Janet." Sam said suddenly, eyes wide. "General, what are we going to tell her?"
"Major let's just keep a lid on that for the time being." He advised. "I want to make sure he checks out first."
"You mean Janet Frasier?" Daniel asked, looking from one to the other. "What about her?"
"Airman, escort him down to the infirmary." Hammond ordered the guard who had been present in the room during the entire exchange.
"Sam, what about Dr. Frasier?" Daniel asked again as they led him out of the room. "Sam?"
She watched them drag him out into the hall before collapsing against the back of her chair with a sigh. This was all just too bizarre. Thoughts and emotions swirled around in her head like a tornado. It was good to have him back, even if he wasn't really their Daniel and even if they didn't get to keep him, but how on earth were they going to get him back where he belonged? She needed to find out more about that mirror.
"Do you think he's telling the truth?" General Hammond asked, staring in confusion from the door to Jack.
"Well if he's lying that's definitely the most creative story I've ever heard him tell." The colonel sighed.
"Major?" Hammond inquired.
"According to the theory it's more than possible, Sir." She shrugged. "I think we need to get a look at that mirror he was talking about."
"Alright." Hammond nodded. "Find out where it is. If he can give us the coordinates I'll send a team through to retrieve it."
"Are you sure that's wise, General?" Jack cautioned.
"Colonel, he looks and sounds so much like our man that if we weren't sure he was dead none of us would have known the difference. Unless those tests show us something other than the fact that he's human we're going to need some way to explain this." Hammond argued. "Major I want you to get every bit of information you can out of him."
"Yes, Sir." She nodded.
"You're all dismissed."
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