Chapter Text
Strange Interlude
One would be in less danger
From the wiles of the stranger
If one's own kin and kith
Were more fun to be with
Ogden Nash
I: The Wiles of the Stranger
It was like a garment fraying down the seam, another stitch pulling loose every day, the rent a little larger, then a little larger still. Soon there was going to be nothing but an ugly tear, too jagged to ever mend…
"Off-world activation…"
The warning alarm rang throughout the SGC to resound through the office cluttered with archaeological artifacts and piles of books. It sounded urgent and serious; an interruption to peaceful research, but Daniel exhaled in relief. "Saved by the bell," he murmured.
Having been interrupted mid-lecture, Jack darted him a suspicious glance. "What?"
Daniel looked up at him innocently. "What?"
"Did you take in what I just said to you?"
"Yes."
"About following orders, not touching things when you don't know what they do, shutting up when I tell you to shut up, and generally doing as I damn well tell you?"
Daniel moistened his lips. "Jack, you are getting seriously cranky in your old age."
"And you came this close to being killed!"
"We made a difference. We got through to Ephazion. The people of that world will now…"
Jack grabbed Daniel by the front of the jacket and hauled him to his feet. "Daniel, I swear to God I am so close to hitting you right now."
Looking into those familiar brown eyes in disbelief, Daniel realized Jack wasn't exaggerating. The man clearly was very close to taking a swing at him. He was as shocked by it as he was confused. He didn't know where all this rage was coming from or even if it was truly aimed at him, only that it was starting to eat into their friendship like acid. "But, Jack, it all worked out fine for – "
The grip on Daniel's jacket tightened in unmistakable warning. "There are only so many times you can go and tap dance your way along a tightrope over a swimming pool of man-eating sharks and make me watch it. Sooner or later I am going to stop caring or I am going to kill you myself. You told me it was death to argue with the – king of that place. You told me that about ten seconds after we got through the gate."
Jack was like a wall at the moment. A blank façade with nothing behind it. It wasn't like talking to anyone he knew, more like a stranger, yet one who had inexplicably built up four years worth of hostility towards him. Daniel shifted uncomfortably. "Don't you want to know who's visiting?"
The man's chocolate-colored gaze didn't so much as flicker. "You told me that because – and I quote – you didn't want me 'mouthing off to a tyrant' and getting myself killed."
"I heard General Hammond say 'open the iris' but there aren't any teams off-world at the moment so it must be the Tollan or the Tok'ra…" Daniel offered. He was starting to see how his behavior on P74-659 might possibly have been perceived as 'reckless' by Jack even though he didn't actually agree with him. Jack had been getting very strict about what he called 'reckless' behavior recently. Actually Jack had been getting strict about everything recently, and he seemed to have had a sense of humor bypass along the way. Daniel was trying not to get into yet another fight with the man because he was exhausted with fighting with him, but when Jack was in this mood it was difficult not to snap back at him. He'd worked hard for his current position in this friendship as an equal and he wasn't prepared to give it up without a struggle.
Jack, however, seemed determined not to give him an inch. All he was showing to the world was the military guy he'd used to be; the human being had vanished somewhere and Daniel missed him, and in missing him seriously resented this stranger with his face who was blocking his access to his good-humored kind-hearted friend. Stranger Jack was still talking and his face was an unreadable mask:
"But you still went and gave that guy a lecture about why he was wrong to continue the war against the Dedrazari even after he'd told you he was going to have you executed if you said one more word."
"I just thought he was a reasonable man who was clearly capable of – "
"Well, I used to be a reasonable, man, Daniel, but a few more missions with you where you pull that kind of stunt and I am going to be getting very unreasonable. If you'd been within punching distance I would have decked you on 659, and if you ever ignore me when I've told you to shut the hell up again I will damned well shoot you myself. Do I make myself clear?"
Daniel darted a reproachful glance at his friend but Jack had his dead-eyed Black Ops face on. He had to admit he could never entirely suppress a tiny twinge of fear when Jack looked like that. He muttered resentfully, "Yes, Colonel O'Neill, sir."
A finger was waved under his nose. "Don't push your luck."
"What luck?" Daniel retorted.
O'Neill abruptly let him go then walked out into the corridor, into the comfort of unchanging grayness. He didn't even look back to see if Daniel was following. He knew what that last crack had meant. There had been a time when Daniel had been enjoying himself working for the SGC. When the SGC had seemed like family to him; when SG-1 in general and O'Neill in particular had seemed to provide everything Daniel had lost when his parents had been killed, then lost again when he'd been forced to leave Abydos to look for his wife. Even after Sha're had died, Daniel had received comfort, company and support from the man he considered his best friend. But in recent months Jack had withdrawn from him, and O'Neill knew that as well as anyone.
What he didn't know was why. His annoyance with Daniel was like a permanent itch he couldn't scratch and he had no idea what was causing it. He couldn't think of anything Daniel had done to him to make him so resentful but his temper was fraying at the slightest provocation, and every time it happened he was hammering another nail into the coffin of their friendship. The thought of losing Daniel's friendship would be enough to make him bite his tongue for a couple of hours or even days after a particularly bad outburst on his part, but then the annoyance would well up once more, like pus from an infected wound, and he would snap at him again, slowly bludgeoning what had once been trust into wariness, affection into an answering resentment. He was driving Daniel away, telling him with words and body language to keep his distance, but he had no more idea why he was doing it than Daniel did, and he didn't seem able to stop himself. He kept telling himself their friendship was still there waiting for him, like a ready meal in the deep freeze, he'd just dig it out and defrost it and it would be every bit as good as when he'd put it on ice. But all Daniel was seeing was that the guy who had used to be his friend was now freezing him out.
And in the meantime the fear of losing Daniel's friendship was making him kill it even faster. He was like someone without enough gas in the car putting his foot down so he'd have the worst over with as soon as possible. He was losing Daniel's friendship every day, deliberately pushing the guy away. So far Daniel had come back after each little rejection. Or at least hung around waiting to see when he was going to be allowed back into the warm glow of their previous relationship. But he didn't know how long that was going to last. Daniel had a lot of patience but it wasn't infinite. O'Neill knew that if things went on like this Daniel might ask for a transfer, and his fear of losing what he had was making him impossible. He was having nightmares about his team dying every night now. And in particular about Daniel dying, which he suspected was because Daniel was so freakin' reckless even his subconscious had obviously made a note of it.
An inner voice kept telling him: O'Neill, piss or get off the damned pot, but he didn't know what pot it was his subconscious thought he was sitting on and it wasn't telling him squat.
***
Daniel knew there was something seriously up with Jack. He just didn't know what. He'd tried talking to both Sam and Teal'c about it but they'd insisted they couldn't see any difference in him. And when he'd observed Jack with Sam and Teal'c he didn't seem any different with them. Suggesting it was only Daniel Jack had a problem with because Jack had certainly become a much chillier person to know recently if your name was Daniel Jackson. Lots of little gestures Daniel realized he had pretty much taken for granted had been withdrawn in recent weeks. Those little pats on the shoulder, the enquiries as to whether Daniel was okay, Jack turning up at his office insisting he come out for a meal or a drink or to watch yet another hockey game. He presumed that he and Jack were still supposed to be friends. Jack hadn't told him otherwise. But all the little ways by which Jack showed him they were friends had been withdrawn.
"Daniel?"
Daniel collected himself and looked across at Jacob who was gazing at him in some surprise. When Daniel looked around the table he realized everyone was staring at him. He hadn't even known he was in the briefing room for a minute there. He really did need to cut back on the coffee and get a little more sleep. General Hammond was frowning. Sam was looking as though she would have liked to pass him a note under the table to help him out but wasn't sure which question he was stuck on. Teal'c was raising an eyebrow at him. Jack was looking irritable and almost out of patience. No change there then.
Daniel decided to be straightforward. He gave Jacob an apologetic glance. "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening."
"Are you feeling unwell, Doctor Jackson?"
Daniel saw the immediate concern in General Hammond's eyes and felt better. Guilty, but better. He decided a white lie for both their sakes might be in order. "I just have a headache."
Oh, that was clearly the wrong thing to say. Jack had evidently interpreted that as Daniel being a smartass and making a complaint about all the yelling he'd been doing at him recently. Daniel refused to look in his direction but was very aware of that glare lasering his cheekbone.
Sam said, "Actually, Dad, I had a little trouble following what you were saying as well. You're telling us you've sent three Tok'ra operatives to this Stargate address and because none of them have come back you want us to go?"
There was a lot behind her words that Daniel understood all too well. Their relationship with the Tok'ra had always been complicated but it had definitely become more so in recent months. The Tok'ra's less than loveable habit of using their Tau'ri allies as human guinea-pigs still rankled. But, while it had been annoying when Anise had done it, it was downright upsetting to think Selmac and Jacob would also agree to it.
"Not SG-1," said Jacob quickly. "A different SG team."
"Why?" Jack's tone was not encouraging and Daniel didn't blame him. He wondered if having a Tok'ra inside you made you start thinking like a Tok'ra after a while. If you started believing any sacrifice was worthwhile if you struck a blow for the right side in the battle against the Goa'uld.
Jacob returned the man's gaze unflinchingly. "Because we have reason to believe there is a Goa'uld killing device operating around that Stargate. Perhaps a form of defense shield, which is activated when any Goa'uld or Jaffa steps through it. That automatically disqualifies SG-1, but as yours is the only SG team with a Jaffa among it members, it doesn't disqualify anyone else."
"How do you know it isn't just zapping everyone?"
"Because a human who was about to be blended with a Tok'ra volunteered to step through the gate and no harm came to him. But he found no trace of the Tok'ra who had been through before him. He made a quick survey of the area and then came home. Unfortunately his health was too poor to allow him to return for a second visit and he had to blend with Karesh to save his life."
Daniel looked back at Jack. It seemed to him that Jacob was keeping things from them but he would just like it confirmed he wasn't the only one assuming it. One look at the way Sam was frowning and Teal'c's expression told him he was definitely not alone in his suspicions here. Jack's incisive words gave him more confirmation: "Okay, Jacob, now how about you tell us all the things you're not telling us?"
Jacob sighed and looked at Hammond. "I told you there was no reason to bring SG-1 in on this. All I need is your authorization to borrow a different SG team."
Hammond shook his head. "Sorry, Jacob. I brought SG-1 in on this because I happen to trust their judgment. I'm not lending you any teams unless I know what you want to borrow them for."
"Okay. Bottom line. There is a signal emanating from that gate which offers help to any enemy of the Goa'uld. Before he was forced to return by his rapidly worsening health, the guy who went through managed to 'film' for want of a better word, a lot of the interior. There was something that looked like a quantum mirror in an inner chamber but one that was much larger than anything we've seen before and with a different control device. We're presuming this might be the weapon. Or if not the mirror itself then something else made by the same people. As these are clearly people whose technology is far in advance of anything shared by the Goa'uld, we want to make contact if we possibly can."
Sam shook her head. "I don't know, Dad. It sounds like a trap to me. Whoever these people are they clearly don't want to make friends with the Tok'ra, and they might already have killed or kidnapped three of your operatives."
"Except the Asgard have also left devices in place which might well be dangerous to the Tok'ra," Teal'c put in impassively. "We have no proof that the hammer device on Cimmeria would be capable of differentiating between a Tok'ra and a Goa'uld, and yet the intentions of the Asgard were undoubtedly good. And they have proven themselves to be powerful allies against the Goa'uld in the past."
Daniel saw Jack sigh and couldn't help feeling the same way. It hadn't seemed that long ago that everything was going their way. Sokar was dead. Apophis was dead. Earth was part of the Protected Planets Treaty, and they had the Asgard on their side; pretty impressive allies by anyone's standards. Since then they'd had to face the fact they'd been instrumental in giving Apophis Sokar's powerbase on a plate. Their agreement with the System Lords was not going to help them against Apophis. And the Asgard had so many problems in their own galaxy it was unlikely they were going to be able to help them in a war that was now seeming inevitable. There were days when even the Tok'ra seemed like the kind of allies they might be better off without.
Teal'c seemed to be thinking along the same lines. He looked at Jack and continued quietly, "I do not see that we have any choice, O'Neill. Now Apophis has the army of Sokar at his disposal…"
"I know." Jack turned to General Hammond. "Sir, I think Carter, Daniel and I should go take a looksee."
"Not Sam."
Daniel was pleased by the swiftness of Jacob's interruption, glad of the proof that Jacob didn't want his daughter exposed to unnecessary danger.
Jacob looked embarrassed and shrugged. "We don't know how sophisticated this equipment is. It might be able to detect even a protein marker."
Jack glanced across at Daniel for the first time in much too long. "Looks like it's you and me."
Jacob said urgently. "George, you can't just let the two of them go. Send a different team."
Jack returned his gaze unflinchingly. "According to you this is a walk in the park. Daniel and I go over there, pick up the mirror, come straight back. What's the problem?"
"What's your problem, Jack?" Jacob retorted. "I never took you for a glory hunter. So why don't you let someone else have a turn?"
"Because I don't trust the Tok'ra," Jack returned harshly. "And while I don't think Selmac would sacrifice Daniel and me unless he absolutely had to, I think he just might sacrifice a bunch of humans he doesn't even know. Is that clear enough for you?"
There was a shocked silence in which Daniel could hardly bear to see Sam's face. He risked a quick look in her direction, trying to put as much support and sympathy into it as he could, but she was staring at Jack like she'd never seen him before. Daniel darted Jack a glance and saw his mask slip just for a second, the way it had after he'd told Daniel to shut up on Euronda; that bitter grimace as he wished he could take back what he'd said. There was the briefest flicker of an apologetic look in Sam's direction but then Jack was turning to Hammond, saying more quietly, "That's my recommendation, sir. You send Daniel and I or you don't send anyone at all."
Jacob said dryly, "You know, Jack, you could be overestimating my fondness for you."
Jack flashed him a brief glance in return. "Oh, I'm using Daniel as a human shield here, Jacob. Everyone loves him."
Daniel couldn't bear to see the expression on Sam's face and spoke to Jack tersely. "Selmac wouldn't sacrifice anyone in the SGC and you know that as well as I do."
"Do I?" Jack didn't look at him. "I think what I know is that the Tok'ra were willing to blow us up on Netu, and have experimented on people from this facility twice while trying out their new toys. I'm hoping they'd draw the line at killing you and me but I'm not confident enough I'm prepared to risk an entire SG team." He looked back at Hammond. "Permission to gear up, general?"
Hammond nodded. "We'll send a MALP through now." His gaze was gentler as it rested on Daniel. "You and Doctor Jackson get ready to leave in half an hour."
Jack inclined his head. "Yes, sir." He walked from the room and didn't look back at either Sam or Daniel. Darting a sympathetic look at Sam, Daniel also got to his feet and made to follow him.
Jacob said quietly, "Daniel, as far as I know there is nothing to hurt you on the other side of that gate. I give you my word."
"I know that." Daniel did glance across at him then. "Jack knows it too."
As Daniel closed the door he heard General Hammond say, "Jacob, if I didn't trust you I wouldn't be letting Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson go."
He didn't wait to hear Jacob ask why if that was the case he hadn't agreed to send a different SG team. Daniel had a sneaking suspicion there was just no answer to that.
***
O'Neill tried to crick his neck back into place as he waited for the chevrons to engage. So far it hadn't been one of his better days, he had to admit. He'd threatened to hit Daniel then insulted Carter's father right in front of her. She was now looking at him like she didn't like him very much. He'd also probably pissed off both Jacob and Selmac. Teal'c hadn't looked particularly thrilled with him either. Neither had General Hammond. Apart from that he was being Mister How To Win Friends and Influence People all the way.
He looked at the returned MALP without liking. It had shown a big empty chamber with a smaller chamber beyond. There had been no weaponry and certainly no exciting alien disintegrator beam. When the MALP had rolled its way into the smaller chamber the mirror had been hard to miss and he really hoped he and Daniel didn't give themselves hernias trying to lift that thing. He was starting to think his insistence on not sending another SG team had as much to do with his unwillingness to be alone with his thoughts as it did with trying to protect Ferretti and his people. Perhaps he was just so afraid of having nothing to do and so maybe having to think that he had manufactured a trust problem with the Tok'ra where one didn't exist. His judgment seemed so screwed up recently he wouldn't have put anything past himself. He'd heard one of the nurses murmuring to Fraiser the other day that Colonel O'Neill seemed to have the first documented case of male PMS, and it had taken all his self-control not to throw something at her.
As Daniel appeared, pulling on his vest and with one bootlace trailing, O'Neill felt his irritation crank itself up another notch. How many missions had they been on now? Why did Daniel always leave it to the last minute to get himself geared up? "Ready to go?" he said shortly.
"No." Daniel retorted. "I'm actually sunning myself on a beach in Honolulu. That would be why I'm standing here with you waiting for the wormhole to engage."
"Your bootlace is undone."
"So is your fly."
O'Neill automatically checked his fly before he could stop himself then looked up at Daniel with something close to murder in his heart. The face Daniel made at him didn't improve his temper one little bit. "Do up your damned bootlace!" O'Neill snapped.
"You know, you are turning into such a miserable son-of-a-bitch, Jack." Daniel spoke conversationally as he knelt and knotted his lace. "I've met System Lords who are better company than you are right now."
"Well, four years of babysitting a hundred and a seventy pounds of deadweight can do that to a guy, Daniel."
He knew he'd gone too far before he'd even finished the sentence, but he made himself look anyway, the way he made himself look at traffic accidents when he drove past them. Daniel had jerked his head up and was just staring at him now, mouth open, eyes big blue and full of hurt disbelief. If he'd just reached out and slapped Daniel across the face he couldn't have looked more shocked.
"Chevron seven engaged."
They didn't even look at it as the blue light billowed out at them before settling back into the glassy pool of the event horizon. They were locked into their own frozen moment.
O'Neill opened his mouth to apologize and then realized this was probably not something you could apologize for. This was something you simply didn't say. Saying it made it sound like you'd been thinking it. And the really stupid thing was he hadn't thought it, not ever. Other SG leaders had murmured it in the past, before they'd got to know just how damned special Daniel was; but he never had thought it more than one day into their first mission. But he would never be able to convince Daniel of that now. He swallowed hard. "Daniel, I'm – "
Daniel's face was white and set as he marched past him without a word.
"Shit." O'Neill put a hand up to his head.
General Hammond's voice came through from the control room. "Colonel O'Neill is there a problem?"
"No, sir." He collected himself and headed after Daniel. "No problem." I've turned into a miserable self-pitying bastard who my team are finding it increasingly hard to either like or respect, and I've just insulted my best friend so completely that even he is not going to be able to forgive me. Apart from that everything is just peachy.
As he stepped into the event horizon after Daniel, O'Neill wondered if he was ever going to be able to make this right.
Daniel decided the only way to get through this was not to think about what Jack had just said to him. He had to bear in mind that Jack wasn't acting like Jack at the moment and was lashing out at everyone. He would never have insulted Jacob like that if he'd been himself. The Jack O'Neill he knew was a good-humored reasonable man who – if not exactly 'tactful' – did usually make at least some effort not to actually wipe his feet on people he cared about. The Jack O'Neill who'd just said – that – to him in the 'gateroom was not the one he knew. Sooner or later the one he knew was going to come back. This guy was a stranger and it didn't matter what a stranger said to him. Daniel wondered why, when his logic was so impeccable, it was still taking all the self-control he had not to sit down on the floor and start crying. Jack withdrawing from him had been hard enough to cope with; Jack positively driving him away was almost unbearable.
He heard the wormhole disengage behind him followed by Jack saying tentatively, "Daniel…?"
Daniel swallowed hard before saying briskly: "The chamber with the mirror on it is over here." Not looking around so he wouldn't have to see Jack's remorse or lack of it, he pointed his flashlight determinedly at the doorway. He thought there were glyphs at the far end of the room and at any other time he would have been down there trying to video them but he was at the stage when he couldn't bear the thought of one more petty argument with Jack. There was a definite irony there. The last planet they'd been on he'd made such an impassioned speech about the evils of tyranny he'd managed to get a tyrant to change his point of view. But he wouldn't go and look at what could be important information in the battle against the Goa'uld because if he did, Jack might lose his temper again and say something else that would hurt Daniel's feelings. Well, that was impressive.
"Daniel, I didn't mean – "
"Here it is." Daniel said it loudly, deliberately drowning him out. Don't say you're sorry and don't ask me to forgive you. You saying you're sorry isn't going to cut it this time and, no, I don't forgive you. Right now I'm not sure I'm ever going to forgive you. I'm fed up with you taking everything out on me. Actually, Jack, I'm just plain and simple fed up with you.
As he stepped through the doorway into the smaller chamber, he saw the mirror. It was even larger than the one on 323 and it dominated the room; a beautiful object in its own right as well as a portal to literally infinite possibilities. For the first time Daniel thought about just quitting this dimension and not coming back. He'd been dead in the last two alternate universes they'd visited so if that was a common pattern in other dimensions he wouldn't have to worry about entropic cascade failure. Of course he might want to worry about why so many Daniel Jacksons seemed to end up dead at such a relatively young age but that was a different problem.
There were a lot of reasons why he'd stayed on at the SGC after Sha're's death and not all of them had to do with Jack. He did still love this job, after all. Did still want to defeat the Goa'uld, and Apophis in particular. Did want to find Sha're's child again and know that he was safe. Did still want to explore other worlds and see how those transplanted civilizations had evolved. But he had also stayed because he'd thought he'd found a home here, a place where people cared about him, respected him, appreciated him. What Jack had said to him in the 'gateroom had made him realize that it didn't matter if everyone else in the SGC respected him and cared about him, if Jack didn't, it all seemed pretty meaningless.
It had taken him a long time to realize he had Jack's respect; that the man did rate his opinion as well as caring what became of him. He'd been worried about forfeiting that by some act of stupidity. To have lost it because of something he'd done would have left him devastated. But to lose Jack's respect for no reason, just because Jack had arbitrarily decided Daniel was no longer worthy of it; that made him angry as well as miserable. As first an orphan and then a fostered child he'd grown used to small injustices. His life had been full of them. He hadn't bitched about it, he'd just put up with it. He'd still been reeling from the major injustice of his parents having been taken from him after all. He hadn't bitched about his wife being turned into a Goa'uld either. Or Teal'c having to kill her to save his life. But Jack being unjust to him for no reason was not something he felt required to put up with.
Daniel wondered if the size of the mirror was significant in some way. Did it mean more dimensions to visit? More chances of finding one where he could be happy? Perhaps in some of those Sha're was still alive. His parents were still alive. Apophis was really dead. And Jack didn't treat him like something he was trying to scrape off the bottom of his shoe. He began to look for the remote. There were a few objects scattered across long stone table but none of them resembled the control device he'd found on 323.
More to himself than Jack he murmured, "That's odd. It doesn't have a remote. I wonder if it was left switched on like the one on…?"
"Danny?"
The nickname shocked him; it was so long since he'd heard it. He jerked his head round in surprise and saw Jack standing in the doorway behind him, utter desolation on his face. Jack held out his hands in a gesture of helpless apology. "I'm sorry."
It was rude and short-sighted and I'm sorry...
Daniel remembered Euronda and almost the same words spoken, the same look on Jack's face as now. For a second he almost weakened but this was the third time Jack had done something terrible to him in a matter of months. He'd told him their friendship was meaningless; then he'd told him to shut up in front of everyone; now he'd told him he was excess baggage Jack had been dragging around the universe for the past four years. Sometimes sorry wasn't enough.
"So am I," Daniel said tautly. He turned to look at the mirror again.
He'd barely even focused on it before Jack was lunging, throwing himself across the room to grab Daniel's arm and pull him away from the mirror before he could even think about touching it. "Don't." Jack's fingers dug into him painfully, his brown eyes apparently intent on hypnotizing him into obedience. "You're not a quitter. Don't let some ungrateful bastard who needs his ass kicked turn you into one."
Daniel pulled loose from his grip. "I wasn't going to – do whatever you thought I was going to do."
"You thought about it."
He met Jack's gaze unflinchingly. "I've thought about punching you in the nose but I haven't done that either."
"None of this has anything to do with you. It's nothing you've done wrong."
Daniel hated both of them because that made him feel so much better. He remembered his grandfather saying 'It wasn't your fault' and felt a spike of fury with himself for being the kind of person others had to reassure about his own blamelessness when they wronged him. He pushed Jack away. "I know, damnit!"
"It's me. It's just me. I'm having some problems with who I am and what I do. This is nothing to do with you."
"Don't keep saying that." Daniel backed up towards the mirror. "I don't care about your problems and I don't need reassurance this isn't my fault. I need reassurance you're going to stop acting like someone I don't know and can't trust. And if you can't give me that reassurance consider this an official request for a transfer."
Jack looked at him sadly. "Please, Daniel. Don't run out on me just because I deserve it."
Daniel almost hated Jack for making him feel so lousy. How could Jack still matter so much to him when the guy had been acting like a shit for so long now? He said tersely, "Why not? You'd still have Teal'c and Sam. And they're not deadweight you'd have to drag around with you. And I think for future missions I'd really prefer to have a CO who doesn't try to blow me up just because I disagree with him."
And now they'd both said something unjust and unforgivable. Daniel watched the shock and disbelief flare in Jack's eyes and wondered if that was how he'd looked in the 'gateroom. He wondered if Jack had felt as sick inside about putting that look on his face as he did right now for putting that look on Jack's. The small part of him that wasn't reeling from the shock of how deeply he'd wounded his best friend by throwing one of his worst experiences in his face, could observe the scene dispassionately. That must be why that voice in his head was saying with such quiet surprise: 'So this is the end then.' All those years. All those missions. All the strength and comfort they'd given and received from one another. And it was going to end like this: with something so ludicrously like a lover's tiff he was embarrassed for both of them.
They were still gazing at one another over the still-smoking wreckage of their friendship when another voice cut through the silence.
"Stay still."
It was automatic to turn around and see who was talking to them. Daniel's eyes widened in disbelief: "Teal'c?"
For a second he thought their teammate must have been worried about their recent estrangement and have followed them through to try to make them patch things up. Teal'c hated them arguing and could be even sterner about it than Jack was about 'reckless' behavior. Except why would he be wearing his serpent guard uniform –?
A strong hand shot out and fastened around his throat. He was yanked back against Teal'c's armored body, head pulled back at an unnatural angle while the Jaffa examined his face expressionlessly. Daniel gazed up at this other Teal'c in shock. There was nothing but cool indifference in this Jaffa's dark eyes, and the fingers around his throat were seriously limiting his oxygen. His uniform was fingered, his insignia checked, then the grip around his throat tightened even more. "You are a new variation," Teal'c said coolly. "You will repay questioning."
"Let him go." Jack sounded like his teeth were gritted.
The Jaffa glanced across at him as though he was of no importance. "If you fire, you will strike your companion. You are of no interest to me. You may return through the chaapa'ai."
"Let Daniel go!"
Teal'c glanced back at Jack with lazy contempt and then reached back to touch the mirror. As the blue light washed over him, the last thing Daniel heard was Jack shouting 'No!"
***
O'Neill threw himself into the blue vortex of the wormhole, and even though it disintegrated him in milliseconds it still wasn't fast enough, was nothing like fast enough. As he ran down the ramp of the SCG he was already yelling, "Get a rescue team in here!"
"Colonel?" He turned to find Hammond, Jacob, Carter and Teal'c still in the 'gateroom. With a sense of shock, O'Neill looked at his watch. He and Daniel had been on that planet for barely twelve minutes. Hammond's voice betrayed his concern. "Where's Doctor Jackson?"
"Teal'c took him." Seeing the Jaffa's expression, O'Neill impatiently amended, "Another Teal'c, one from a different dimension." He looked back at his watch. "He must have been waiting for us. He didn't want me, just Daniel. I tried touching the mirror but nothing happened."
"What about the control device?" That was Carter and he was relieved to see she was thinking her way through her shock not just reeling from it the way everyone else seemed to be.
"It wasn't there. I think the other Teal'c must have it."
He could practically see the cogs in her brain working. "He must have taken the remote through with him the same way Doctor Carter and Major Kawalsky did when they came here."
He was aware of Hammond issuing orders, telling SG-2 and SG-3 to gear up for a search and rescue now, but it seemed to be happening a long way off. O'Neill put a hand up to his head, remembering that moment, the Jaffa giving him a last glance of contempt with Daniel limp in his arms then reaching across to switch off the mirror. He looked around at the others. "There has to be a way to get that damned thing working without the remote. To find Daniel."
The worried glance Teal'c and Carter exchanged told him this wasn't going to be easy. He really didn't want to hear that right now.
Teal'c said, "If the mirror in our dimension was still switched on, O'Neill, you would have been transported to where Daniel Jackson was taken. The version of myself who took Daniel Jackson clearly has control not only of the mirror in his own dimension but of the one in ours."
Carter nodded. "Teal'c's right, sir. He must have both control devices. The second he was back in his own dimension he must have switched off the mirror in our dimension. Which is good in some ways as it means we can pick it up and move it without being sent to a different universe but it's going to be difficult learning how to operate it without a remote. And the – channel will have changed when the mirror was switched off. Did you see anything that would help us fix that dimension?"
O'Neill shrugged helplessly. "A big chamber with stuff on the walls. I only saw it for a second. Look, can we talk about this later? We need to go and get that damned mirror and bring it back here."
"Not here, Colonel." Hammond sounded regretful but determined. "I'm sorry, but as Teal'c and Major Carter have pointed out, we have to assume it can be activated by Jaffa from a different dimension. We would effectively be giving them a way into our world. We simply don't have the safety precautions in place to make that something I can agree to."
"But he took Daniel!"
There was no disguising the unhappiness in Hammond's eyes. "I know that, Colonel. But I still can't authorize you bringing that mirror here. You have my permission to take it somewhere else and to try to get it to work again, but you can't bring it here."
"Sir, the general's right." Carter seemed to know he was going to start yelling and was quick to head him off. "We'll take it to Voresh. Teal'c and I can – "
"No." He'd been in such a state of panic about Daniel it had been difficult to think, but now his brain kicked back into gear. "Not the Tok'ra."
"Why not?" Jacob put in quietly.
O'Neill met his gaze. "Because the Tok'ra's priorities are not the same as mine. If we give you that mirror you're going to be using it to try to find a way to defeat the Goa'uld. Looking for Daniel is not going to be uppermost in your thoughts."
"Tollana then." Teal'c said it quietly.
Carter nodded. "Good idea."
O'Neill tried to collect his thoughts, concentrate, damnit he had to concentrate. "Okay, general, can I have your permission to send Carter, and Teal'c to Tollana, to ask for their help?" As the man nodded his assent, he turned to Carter. "Ask if we can bring the mirror through to them. Tell them we're not interested in using it as a weapon and they can confiscate the damned thing the second we've got Daniel back."
As Hammond gave the order to the technician to start dialing Tollana, O'Neill looked at Jacob. " I don't think there is a Goa'uld killing device on that planet at all. The whole thing is just a big trap. Those Tok'ra were grabbed for questioning and are probably dead by now. Daniel certainly wasn't the first guy that Teal'c had kidnapped."
Jacob nodded. "An Apophis from a different dimension is clearly thinking bigger than the one we know. He must be trying to get information on how he's been defeated in other dimensions to try to stop that happening in his own and so is kidnapping representatives of his enemies from alternate universes. I hate it when a Goa'uld starts thinking laterally."
"That other Teal'c said Daniel was a 'new variation'." O'Neill closed his eyes as he remembered the way the first prime had so casually taken possession of Daniel. As if he was his property now. His to do with as he liked. "He seemed to be the first Daniel he'd come across. I don't know why he wasn't interested in me." He stared at the chevrons. "Can't they dial that thing any faster?"
"Maybe he already has one of you, sir."
As he looked at her in non comprehension, Carter grimaced. "Entropic cascade theory would mean they could only hold one representative of each person in their dimension at any given time. If the Teal'c you described had already captured a Jack O'Neill from another universe he wouldn't then be able to – "
"Aren't you gone yet?" O'Neill demanded.
"We're on our way, sir." Carter gave him a look of compassion but he didn't want her compassion right now. He wanted her out there making that damned mirror work. Using those brains to get Daniel back while he was still in one piece.
The wormhole whooshed and then settled back into the rippling blue light. Carter and Teal'c were already heading up the ramp as SG-2 and SG-3 came into the 'gateroom at a run. O'Neill turned back to Hammond. "Sir, with your permission I'd like to leave now. SG-2 can help me carry the mirror through to Tollana."
Out of the corner of his eye O'Neill glimpsed Teal'c stepping through after Carter. Hammond also looked across at the Stargate. "Colonel, Teal'c and Major Carter won't have been able to explain the situation to Counselor Trevell, never mind obtained her permission to – "
"I don't care." O'Neill told him. "They owe us. If I can't bring it here I'm taking it there. They might bitch about it, but they'll still help us."
Jacob said, "He's right, George. They won't refuse to help in a situation like this, and SG-1 did save their entire planet. Can I have your permission to tag along?" As O'Neill darted him a look, he put his hand on his shoulder. "Look, Jack, the Tok'ra are not the enemy here. This is going to be a Tollan project but it sounds like we may have lost three operatives through that mirror so we'd like to offer any assistance you and the Tollans can use, okay?"
O'Neill shrugged. "That's okay with me."
"And on a personal note, I'd like to help get Daniel back. So, once you've headed off I'd like to go back to Voresh, get some help from the Tok'ra and meet you on Tollana."
"Dial up the planet Colonel O'Neill just came from." Hammond gave the order over his shoulder and then turned back to the other two. "Jack, I'm going to cut you a lot of slack on this one, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't alienate too many of our allies in the process of recovering Doctor Jackson."
"Understood, sir."
"Jacob, I am designating this a joint initiative between the SGC and the Tollan – presuming you and Colonel O'Neill are correct in your assumptions and the Tollan are willing to assist us in this matter – however I would also be grateful for any help the Tok'ra can give us."
Jacob nodded. "I read you." He reached out and patted O'Neill on the shoulder. "We'll get him back. And if they took him for questioning that means they need him alive."
O'Neill wondered how you got a face to smile because his seemed to have forgotten the motions. "Where there's life, there's hope, right?"
"Daniel's good in survival situations," Jacob reminded him. "Everyone loves him, remember? And we know better than anyone that Teal'c is a good man at heart. Daniel might be able to get through to him."
O'Neill nodded, but when he closed his eyes he saw that other Teal'c with those cold dead eyes, tilting Daniel's head up to examine his face dispassionately. He'd seen not a flicker of compassion in that Teal'c's face, but he was very much afraid he might have seen the barest glimmer of lust. And if that was the case he thought this might be one cultural interaction Daniel had no experience in dealing with.
"What's going on, Colonel?" He turned to see Ferretti geared up and ready to go.
O'Neill drew himself up straighter as the sixth chevron engaged. "I'll tell you on the way." Mentally he was telling himself that they were going to get Daniel back before anything nasty happened to him. He wasn't even going to consider any other possibility.
***
"Look, can we talk about this…?"
Daniel winced as he was slammed down onto something that bore an unnerving resemblance to a dentist's chair. He had been told several times by different people that he talked too much. He'd been told it fondly, indulgently, tetchily, and with real menace, so he presumed it was probably true. However, what none of these people ever took into account was that talking was his only defense mechanism. Others might have weapons or right hooks at their disposal, but all he had was his ability to communicate.
"In the dimension I come from you actually turned against Apophis to help us. I know you're really a good man at heart and – "
The hand around his throat choked the end of his sentence into a splutter. Teal'c gazed into his eyes and he could see nothing of the man he knew in that expression. He saw intelligence, certainly, but it was of the cold, calculating kind; and he had certainly never seen Teal'c look at him in that way before. Cats looked at mice the way this Teal'c was looking at him. A finger was stroked contemptuously down the side of his face and Daniel flinched from it in surprise.
"You will be silent and obedient."
Daniel moistened his lips. "Well, I wouldn't say those were two of my defining characteristics but – " The backhand took him completely by surprise. He gasped with the shock of it as pain thrummed through his face, the sound of that slap still ringing through the silence, then stared at the Jaffa with his mouth open.
Teal'c ran his finger across Daniel's bottom lip and then held it out so Daniel could see the blood. "Silent and obedient."
"But – "
Daniel cried out as he was backhanded again, even harder this time. He opened his mouth to say that okay he got the message, he wouldn't – then closed it again. He was starting to feel a little panicked now. The only way he could get through to this Teal'c was by talking. If he wasn't allowed to talk, then – he was in serious trouble.
He looked around at his surroundings. There was the mirror but its surface was blank. It was obviously switched off from this end. The chamber was large and imposing and there were hieroglyphs all over the walls. As he tried to focus on them, Teal'c reached forward and removed his glasses. Daniel opened his mouth to protest but then closed it again as the Jaffa shot him a warning look. He thought this Teal'c might just crumble them in his hand in front of him as proof of his superior strength but he actually found the way they were handed to another Jaffa to be labeled slightly more chilling. Daniel remembered what this Teal'c had said about him being a 'new variation'. Something to extract the information from and them presumably either kill or toss back through the mirror.
"Remove your jacket."
"Why?" The word was out before he could stop it.
This time Teal'c grabbed him by the hair and slammed him back down onto the chair, kneeling over him in a way that Daniel would definitely have categorized as intruding on his personal space. As those fingers tightened in his hair and he smelled sweat and something else, Daniel had a sudden awareness of Teal'c as someone…male. He'd never really thought about that before. Jack was Jack. Teal'c was Teal'c. Sam was Sam. He was aware, yes, that two of his teammates were male and one was female, that sometimes technicians or aliens got serious crushes on Sam and this could be useful or not as circumstances dictated. But he didn't go around thinking of them as people with genders very often; they were just – them. But now he was very aware that this Teal'c was very male indeed; that he smelled of male sweat; had the kind of strength only very strong men had; that his groin was on Daniel's eyelevel and was at least semi-aroused. Not for the first time Daniel decided that his own dimension was a lot nicer than all the others and he would really like to get back to it as soon as possible. He liked his Teal'cs calm, comforting, and on Daniel's side. Definitely not as a scary bully with a hard-on. He'd had a bellyful of those at college.
He spoke rapidly. "I'm sorry but I work with you every day. It's difficult for me to see you as an enemy. In my dimension we're friends."
"Friends?" This Teal'c seemed positively amused by that. He pulled Daniel's head back and examined his face again, turning it from side to side. Then he asked Daniel something in the coarsest form of Goa'uld that silenced Daniel more effectively than another backhand.
After he'd gasped for the breath that question had shocked out of him, Daniel said, "Um – no. He doesn't. Ever."
"Does O'Neill?"
Daniel gaped at him. "No!"
Teal'c abruptly released him, letting Daniel's head smack against the chair. "Then you must have other uses. You will tell me what they are."
Daniel wondered if he'd just made a serious miscalculation. Perhaps he should have answered 'yes' to that question. As in 'Yeahsureyoubetcha. That's my only function on the Stargate program so you needn't bother asking me about anything else because Teal'c and Jack always tell me not to bother my pretty little head with that technical stuff and just get my butt back on the bed…' Then he looked at the Jaffa again and realized that if he'd answered 'Yes' this Teal'c would have decided he wasn't worth keeping alive and would probably have killed him. After sampling the goods he would then believe Jack and Teal'c were getting. Yes, after due consideration, he thought he'd played this one right after all. There were worse things than being tortured for information.
"Take off your jacket."
Daniel did so albeit reluctantly and while shooting this AU Teal'c a lot of wary glances. He wondered what the hell he was supposed to do if that order was followed by 'Now take off the rest of your clothes'. Obey, he supposed. The only way back from here was through that mirror and quite apart from the fact he wasn't sure how to switch it on, there were several Jaffa and a Teal'c between him and it so escape wasn't an option. And if he said no, this Teal'c seemed very willing to rip his clothes off anyway, and the struggle would not only get Daniel seriously slapped around but might turn on this clearly very easily-arousable Teal'c. Which might not be the best idea he'd ever had. Actually Teal'c seemed more interested in the jacket he'd taken off than the body it had been removed from. Which was about the best news he'd had all day.
As Teal'c held up his jacket to the light to examine it better and then tossed it to another Jaffa, Daniel said, "You're trying to assess our level of development, aren't you? That's why you need my glasses? And an example of my clothing? And my weapons, of course. You're trying to build up some kind of – database on enemies of Apophis from different dimensions – "
As Teal'c raised his hand, Daniel ducked, hunching up his shoulders. "Or I could be quiet," he said meekly.
The other Teal'c gave him a glance of contempt. "Take off your boots."
This time Daniel decided he would do what he was told before he got hit. Silent and obedient, right? Perhaps he could do that after all.
***
O'Neill had never felt so useless. Right now he really needed to be doing something. He wanted to be out there fighting to get Daniel back from that son-of-a-bitch. Instead he was stuck in a laboratory on Tollana watching bubbles rise and fall in some pillar that made him think of lava lamps he'd gazed at through the smoke of countless joints at parties in the seventies. They'd sent SG-2 home within the first hour. There was nothing for them to do and SG-8 was late for their call in to the SGC. He almost envied Ferretti having something to do. Anything had to be better than this waiting around.
The Tollan had been predictably uptight about him bringing the quantum mirror through without so much as a by-your-leave, but after registering a token protest and pretty much threatening to send a note home about him to General Hammond, they had then been as predictably helpful.
He'd never had a lot of time for the Tollan. They way they were so damned superior usually made him want to toss a chair at them, but his usual hostility couldn't sustain itself when Narim was being so helpful. Narim had first argued passionately for all the reasons why the Tollan should be helping them to a pissed off Counselor Trevell, and then sat down in front of that quantum mirror and gone all out to try to get Daniel back alive. That was when O'Neill had found himself really liking the guy despite everything.
At the moment Narim and Carter were trying to hotwire the mirror without a remote, talking gobbledegook at each other and scribbling incomprehensible calculations on little bits of paper like schoolchildren cramming for a science exam.
"We know that the mirrors lose their previous 'channel' for want of a better word, when they're switched off, so without a remote…"
"Yes, Samantha, we are aware of this as well, although we have not actually had an opportunity to study…"
"There has to be a way to – backwards engineer a control device for this. All we need to do is find a way to switch it on and find the last dimension it was linked to…"
O'Neill knew he had to sit this one out, but it was all he could do not to yell at them to just solve it! Now! He went and sat down next to Teal'c. The Jaffa was looking about as happy as he felt. O'Neill said, "It's not your fault."
Teal'c said, "I do not take responsibility for every action committed by my counterparts from different dimensions, O'Neill."
O'Neill darted him a sideways look and decided that you could have fooled him. "Glad to hear it, because that guy is nothing to do with you. I know that. You know that. Daniel knows that."
When he saw Teal'c grimace, he realized he'd guessed right. "Daniel knows that better than anyone, Teal'c."
"Daniel Jackson will attempt to reason with this other version of myself because he has found me to be a reasonable man…" Teal'c left the sentence unfinished.
O'Neill grimaced. "And you think that equation works both ways."
"Does it not?"
"No, it doesn't. Whatever that Teal'c is doing to Daniel right now isn't anything to do with you. It doesn't mean you're capable of it. And Daniel knows that."
Teal'c looked him in the eye. "What do you think he is doing to Daniel Jackson right now, O'Neill?"
O'Neill turned his head away, trying to keep his tone light. "Well, I'm not kidding myself Daniel is enjoying it too much, but it still has nothing to do with you."
"I know." Teal'c got to his feet and moved away. O'Neill watched the tall Jaffa walk over to the quantum mirror, gazing at it fixedly as though he could will it do spring into life. In a few minutes O'Neill knew he would have to do the same thing. They didn't understand how it worked, had no idea how to make it do what they needed it to do, but neither of them could keep away from it for any length of time because it was their only way to find Daniel.
"Here." He looked up to find Narim offering him a glass of something purple and hot. "This drink is supposed to relieve tension. And I think we would all benefit from some refreshment."
O'Neill nodded his thanks and accepted it. The first sip was a pleasant surprise. He'd been expecting something like cranberry juice whereas this was much more like single malt.
"Your friend is a most impressive ally." Narim looked at Teal'c. "Our world owes him much. His courage, determination and intelligence were all critical in saving us from the Goa'uld."
"But you wouldn't want him as an enemy. No." O'Neill finished his drink. "Neither would I."
Narim nodded to him and went back to the table where Carter was still bending her head over her calculations. The purple liquid was cooling by her elbow, already forgotten.
O'Neill had another flashback to that other Teal'c and flinched inwardly. Daniel, just do what he says. Don't you remember what Teal'c said the last time we had trouble with mirrors? Ours is the only dimension that matters. You can tell those guys anything you like because as long as there isn't a mirror into our universe there's no way they can ever use it against us. But inside he knew Daniel wasn't going to be thinking like that. In Daniel's position he wouldn't be thinking like that either. That was the problem with alternate universes; logically you might know the others were all shadow worlds with no real substance, but to the people who lived in them, the people you knew who lived in them, they felt pretty damned real.
***
Daniel flinched as the other Teal'c abruptly grabbed him by the wrists and forced them down behind his head. The movement brought their faces very close together, Teal'c leaning across his body, gaze locked onto Daniel's gaze, a hot gust of Teal'c's breath warming Daniel's mouth. Daniel swallowed hard. Teal'c slowly pushed his left wrist up higher and Daniel twisted his head round to see a leather strap tightened across it. Teal'c seemed to enjoy pulling it unnecessarily tight. Even though Daniel didn't offer any resistance – what would be the point? – Teal'c still slammed his right wrist down extra hard before tightening the strap around it. Daniel decided this was now looking less like a dentist's chair and more and more like an out and out torturer's chair. He was still uncomfortably aware of how much bigger and stronger than him Teal'c was. He could see the man's muscles rippling under his skin, could smell the musty scent of his arousal; that hard powerful body barely an inch above his as Teal'c continued to loom over him.
He had already noticed the serpent guard uniform was different here. There was the same wide metal chest and shoulder protection, but the torso and arms were left bare, so were the legs. More importantly, so was the 'womb' area. He presumed it was a bravado thing, like going into battle naked. Proof that the Apophis of this dimension was so all powerful his Jaffa didn't need to armor themselves against their enemies. He wondered if leaving the vulnerable pouch exposed was the ultimate act of machismo, or just an oversight because in this dimension the larval Goa'uld was considered too holy to threaten so it had never occurred to Apophis or his Jaffa that anyone would. Although he was filing a possible weakness away for future reference, at the moment Daniel was much more concerned with how much of Teal'c's bare flesh was on display. Not to mention the fact there was nothing stopping that symbiote wriggling its way inside him if it should get a hankering for a change of address.
When Teal'c's hands began to trace a line down his arms, Daniel started violently. He tried not to shiver as Teal'c continued to stroke his fingers down his arms to his shoulders then down across Daniel's chest. The black material of his t-shirt felt as if it was much too thin a barrier between himself and the Jaffa's hands but he still jolted with the shock of it when Teal'c abruptly tugged up his t-shirt and ran warm but cruel fingers up across his ribs. Daniel flinched again as fingers probed at his appendix scar. "Is this your only battle scar?"
Daniel tried to remember any wounds he'd received after his last trip through the sarcophagus. There was one on his thigh but he certainly wasn't going to offer to show the Jaffa that. "It's not really a battle scar."
"What is it then?"
The urge to say 'I was savaged by a mountain lion in Sierra Leone but I managed to beat it off with my toothbrush' was almost overwhelming. Daniel counted to ten, told himself firmly that smart mouths too often turned into split lips, then said: "It's from a medical procedure. One of my internal organs malfunctioned." Exploded like an overripe grapefruit to be more accurate. "It was removed by a doctor under an anesthetic." And yes, having a burst appendix was agony, but at least it got me out of having to go fishing with Jack.
"You cannot be a warrior."
Daniel moistened his lips. "Actually, I'm a doctor of archaeology. I study the past. How many SG teams have you…studied?"
"Speak only when you are spoken to."
Daniel grimaced, the effort of swallowing retorts almost choking him. When this Teal'c had managed to catch a few more Daniel Jacksons in his quantum mirror butterfly net he'd know that 'speaking only when spoken to' was something any Daniel Jackson found almost impossible to do.
Teal'c pulled down Daniel's t-shirt again, throwing it back across his abdomen contemptuously but Daniel wasn't going to quibble about the manner in which it was done. He held his breath as those powerful fingers continued their downward exploration. There was an endless moment when they hovered over his belt buckle and he closed his eyes.
Please, Teal'c, you really don't want to do this…you're a good man at heart…don't do this to me, please…
Then the fingers were on his thighs, Teal'c was running his hands down his legs. There was a nasty smile hovering around Teal'c's mouth and he could feel the heat of those bruising fingers straight through his pants, but he didn't care; he was still buttoned up. This Teal'c clearly enjoyed scaring him. Well, fine, he was scared. He would look as scared and act as scared as the guy liked, just as long as he didn't actually have to find out a lot of things about Teal'c he really didn't want to know.
The strong hands continued their journey down his legs, lingering over them in a way that Daniel knew was supposed to worry him. It did. Then Teal'c abruptly seized his bare ankles and jerked his legs open. Daniel flinched in anticipation while still gazing into those familiar and yet so unfamiliar dark eyes. That unpleasant smile got wider and the moment hung frozen between them; the fingers biting into his anklebones; Teal'c's eyes full of arrogance and amused contempt. Daniel tried to tell himself there wasn't any lust there despite the unmistakable burn in the Jaffa's gaze. Teal'c was just – threatening him. Getting off on the power he had over his Tau'ri captive who so clearly didn't want to get raped by six foot four of merciless first prime. Then leather was tightened around his ankles and he let out the breath he had been holding for so long.
Teal'c was strapping him down to a torture chair. Fine. Absolutely fine. The guy hadn't removed any of the clothing he would have to remove if he was going to do anything…else to his prisoner. That was very good news. That was in fact the best news Daniel had been given all day.
Daniel was so weak with relief he barely registered the orders Teal'c was snapping out to the Jaffa. He did notice the way they jumped to it when the man spoke to them. This Teal'c definitely seemed the type who didn't take failure well. If – when – he got back to his own dimension Daniel was going to get Dra'yac to teach him how to cook something Chulakian, then he was going to make Teal'c dinner and ask him to tell him every Jaffa joke there was. Then laugh at every one like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.
"You will tell me about your dimension. You will tell me about your victories and your defeats in your blasphemous war against your God Apophis."
Daniel looked him in the eyes and said coolly, "No, I don't think so."
The backhand was so hard it felt as if his left cheekbone had exploded. For a few seconds the room definitely lurched and spun. There was a moment of white noise and hissing in his ears, and then he managed to fight his way back to consciousness. He gazed up at Teal'c; this stranger with his friend's face; and said quietly, "The Teal'c I know would never hit a man whose hands were tied. The Teal'c I know is a warrior of great honor and courage."
Teal'c grabbed a good handful of his hair and jerked his head up, putting his face very close to Daniel's as he breathed softly, "Would the Teal'c you know fuck you until you begged for mercy, slave?"
Daniel moistened his lips, tasting blood from an earlier blow. "That would be a 'no'."
Teal'c slammed Daniel's head against the chair as he released him. "I would."
"You know, I sensed that about you."
He could almost hear Jack hissing at him, Daniel, shut the fuck up! You do not want to piss this guy off any more than you have already. Daniel made an imaginary salute to this imaginary Jack. Message received and understood, Colonel O'Neill, sir. Definitely no mouthing off to big scary Jaffa from this anthropologist.
The other Jaffa were wheeling up some kind of big screen thing… Daniel's heart sank a little lower. Oh he knew what this was. He'd seen this before. In Hathor's mock-up of the SGC. But the spinning ball of lights Teal'c was carrying, that was something new. Teal'c released it and the ball floated in front of him, the lights flickering and glowing. He knew he should look away from it but it was hypnotic; colors dancing in front of him; swirling patterns which reminded him of the kaleidoscope his grandfather had given him when he was a child. His mother had told him he'd put himself in a trance one day with that thing. He was very afraid that day might just have arrived.
He was dimly aware of Teal'c advancing on him, then a sharp pain pierced his temple and he automatically tried to put up his hand to pull out the memory device. Leather tightened around his wrists, thwarting him easily. He was aware that Teal'c was smiling, leaning in close to adjust the dial on the memory device, turning it to maximum; but he couldn't drag his gaze away from the swirling ball of flashing lights. Images licked across the larger screen, confused and jumbled, but each one a small betrayal
When Teal'c said, "Tell me how you were recruited to the SGC…?" Daniel could feel the images of his last lecture spreading across that screen like water spilled across old parchment. His past an open book that even the enemy could read.
***
"How is it going, Colonel?"
O'Neill looked up to see Jacob offering him a tunafish sandwich. He blinked in surprise then took it. "Thanks."
"I stopped off at the SGC," Jacob explained. "Nothing against the Tollan or the Tok'ra, but their catering leaves a little to be desired. I figured as we were in for the long haul on this one we might as well have something good to eat." He put a flask down on the steps. "That's Daniel's coffee. For when we get him back."
O'Neill was very grateful for that 'when'. Not for the first time he was reminded that Jacob had commanded men in the field in his time and knew how to boost morale when it was slumping. O'Neill had been the one boosting other people for so long he was surprised to find how comforting it was to have it done to him. He took a bite of the sandwich, murmuring another 'Thanks' as he chewed. He was unexpectedly reminded of the way Daniel ate waffles like a little kid, taking too big a bite then having to chew around it, quite often talking with his mouth open as he did so: a characteristic he'd used to find kind of sweet and endearing and then lately had begun to find annoying. He'd recently begun to find almost everything Daniel did annoying; an irritation with himself that he'd had to project somewhere. Not for the first time he wondered why the hell Daniel had put up with him for as long as he had.
He almost told Jacob the truth then. Almost said 'Daniel thought about going even before that other Teal'c came and grabbed him. I saw the way he looked at that mirror and I know what he was thinking. He was thinking he wanted to get the hell away from me and maybe only another dimension would be far enough.'
When Jacob said, "Jack, I think you and I need to have a little talk," O'Neill gaped at him in surprise.
"I've been wanting to talk to you for a while." Jacob leaned back against the pillar that reminded O'Neill of a lava lamp. That was ominous. Jacob seemed to think this was going to take a while. "Last time I was at the SGC, General Hammond told me he wasn't too happy about the way SG-1 was functioning. He said you and Daniel didn't seem as close as you used to be and I have to say I thought the same thing. Have you had some kind of argument?"
"Not exactly."
"Are you angry with him?"
"No." O'Neill looked up in surprise. "Of course not. Daniel hasn't done anything wrong."
"So he hasn't done anything wrong but you've been freezing him out anyway?"
"I haven't been…" He broke off because what else had he been doing but that?
"Jack, I have known you for a couple of years now, and I know that the friendship you and Daniel had is nothing like any friendship I have ever had. To be honest, it's nothing like any other friendship I've ever encountered."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean you were close."
"Yes."
"But the last visit I didn't see that closeness. I saw Daniel reacting to you the way he always has done but I didn't see you reacting back. I saw him left out in the cold while you ignored him. What did he do, Colonel?"
"I told you. Nothing."
"I asked Teal'c about it, he said your 'affection for Daniel Jackson remained undimmed'."
"He said right."
"He said that anyone who had 'observed your behavior when Daniel Jackson was in danger would be aware that your feelings for him were unchanged'."
O'Neill turned his head to look Jacob in the eye. "Well, he's in danger right now. Do you think Teal'c was speaking the truth?"
Jacob looked at him for a moment and then patted him on the shoulder. "I guess Teal'c was right. Jack, I don't know what's got that bug up your ass at the moment, but whatever it is, maybe you should be asking yourself if it's worth what it's costing you. And him. And SG-1. There's a whole war against the Goa'uld going on out there which I think might be just a little bit more important than whatever you are letting screw up your team right now."
Jacob sounded as if he had a lot more to say but Carter chose that moment to call across, "Dad, we could really do with Selmac's help over here."
Jacob sighed and got to his feet. "How about that? My own daughter has more respect for my symbiote's opinion than she does for mine." He nodded at O'Neill. "Think about what I've said, Jack."
"Oh Jeez…" O'Neill groaned and put a hand up to his head. His crappy behavior to Daniel was so obvious that even Jacob had noticed it? No wonder Daniel had thought about walking out on him. But as for thinking over what the cause of his bad temper was, he just didn't know, and if anyone else knew they weren't telling him.
Carter turned around at once, concern in her blue eyes. He wondered if anyone had gotten her a sandwich. She'd been wrestling with that mirror for hours now and when her mind was engaged by a problem, as with Daniel, food and drink too often went by the wayside. "Are you okay, Colonel?"
"I'm fine." He took off his cap, ran a hand through his hair, then put the cap back on again. "How are you doing with that thing?"
"We're getting there, sir." He heard and appreciated the determination in her voice.
"I know you are, Major." He nodded briskly, giving her the good CO impression as well as he could. It evidently satisfied her because she gave him a nod in return before turning back to the mirror. That was when he slumped back against the pillar, seeing that dead-eyed Teal'c in his mind's eye again. The one who'd taken possession of Daniel like it was his God-given right to kidnap anthropologists, while looking Daniel over like he was just another piece of meat. Mentally he was adding 'But not fast enough, Carter. You're not getting there anything like fast enough…'
***
You have great mental strength, Daniel Jackson…
He remembered Teal'c telling him that. The Jaffa had been trying to teach him to meditate his way through his grief after Sha're's death. He'd been so frustrated by his own inability to escape from his misery, he'd kicked over one of Teal'c's candles and sent it rolling across the floor to spill spots of liquid wax; the flame's reflection leaving a dancing pattern of light and shadow against the wall. "I can't do this. I can't."
Teal'c had reached across to set the candle upright once more. His gaze had been hypnotic, quiet with conviction. "Yes, you can."
That was when Teal'c had told him he had great mental strength. Daniel had looked up at him and felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth for the first time in days. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Teal'c?"
There had been no answering smile from Teal'c, only compassion in those dark eyes. "No, Daniel. I never would."
It gave him a strange little shiver of pleasure when Teal'c called him 'Daniel', perhaps because it happened so very rarely. It felt as good as if Teal'c had put his arms around him and hugged him close. Except not just him – Doctor Daniel Jackson, aged thirty-five – but little Daniel Jackson who had, since the death of his parents, been denied all the comforts of touch. Teal'c calling him 'Daniel' made that orphaned child feel so much better it almost hurt. He got the same feeling when Jack called him 'Danny'. He pretended not to like it but the fact was it always felt like a present, and it could warm him from his toes all the way to the top of his skull. He guessed anthropologists and linguists weren't the only people who understood the resonance of names.
Now Daniel closed his eyes and concentrated. He had to think about something but he didn't have to look at that ball of swirling lights and he didn't have to think of things Apophis might find useful. He could think about the Rosetta Stone. There it was. A homage to Ptolemy Epiphanes which had unlocked the key to hieroglyphic writing. He could remember his mother telling him the story of it. How he'd envied Champollion being born into a world which had such discoveries yet to be made. To think that at seven he had been afraid that by the time he grew up there might be no mysteries left for him to solve…
"Answer me! What happened after you traveled through the Stargate to the ship of your god Apophis?"
Standing in a corridor, running on panic, bravado and adrenalin; serpent guards approaching; kill or be killed; fire, Daniel! Fire now! Oh God the pain of that blast as it slammed into his shoulder. Hard to believe anything other than the kick of a mule could hit so hard. Death coming closer in the shape of that sparking staff weapon; gathering the last of his strength to fire again, then slumping back in time to see Jack arrive. He'd read the truth in Jack's eyes. Up until that moment he'd been trying to hope it wasn't as bad as it felt but the expression on Jack's face had told him the worst. That was the moment he'd known he was dead and this time even Jack couldn't save him…
No. Not that. Think about the Rosetta Stone again. Hieroglyphs. Demotic. Greek. What did he remember about demotic? That it was so named by Herodotus. The official government of the Ptolemies called it enchorial, from enkhorios meaning native –
Daniel was jolted back into the present by a hand in his hair slamming his head down against the back of the chair. "You will obey me." Teal'c's voice was harsh with anger and frustration. He clearly hadn't enjoyed Daniel's attempt to recite the first four chapters of The Book of Coming Forth By Day earlier either. Or his mental dissertation on the Kushites. Daniel had done one of his many college essays on Piankhi, the Kushite prince, who had been more Egyptian than the Egyptians, reviving rituals of worship that probably hadn't been carried out since the days of the Old Kingdom. Trying to remember the entire essay paragraph by paragraph had proven a very useful distraction but Teal'c had clearly not appreciated his efforts.
The way Teal'c leaned across him to undo the leather strap around his wrists seemed more than a little ominous. Daniel was once again made uncomfortably aware of the bigger man's strength and size. The first strap was jerked loose and then the second. Daniel darted a quick glance at his wrists and saw the fresh red marks overlaying the previous bruises. He'd clearly been strapped into this damned thing for quite a while. Time had a habit of getting away from you when your memories were being put through a blender. The leather restraints were jerked loose from his ankles as well. Daniel tried to tell himself this was a good sign. They had allowed him to rest in between sessions when he had been Hathor's prisoner, presumably because the mind was more open and vulnerable when the memory device was first inserted. After that the subject developed a little more resistance and was able to manage his or her thoughts. A trick which had to be relearned each time a new session began. So it made sense that Teal'c should be unstrapping him from the chair. It didn't necessarily mean something ominous. All the same, trying to get on this guy's good side might not be a bad idea round about now.
Daniel winced as the memory device was pulled from his temple then moistened his lips before looking up at the angry Jaffa. He gave him his most winsome smile. "You know, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I'm sure that if you met me half way we could definitely become friends."
A hand was clasped to his throat again, jerking his head back at an unnatural angle. Teal'c brought his face very close to Daniel's, the pitiless dark eyes gazing into his with only disdainful dislike. "Is this friendly enough for you, Slave?"
The tongue was forced into his mouth before he had time to react, invading and demanding. Shocked, he tried to spit it out but fingers pressed hard into each side of his jaw keeping his mouth open. The tongue explored his mouth with thrusting contempt, making him accept this intrusion, letting him know how futile his struggles were. What made it worse was that this was Teal'c. His assailant was wearing the face of someone he knew. Someone he trusted. Someone whom all his instincts had told him almost from their very first meeting would never hurt him or humiliate him like this. This son-of-a-bitch had no right to be living in Teal'c's body, borrowing Teal'c's face and voice, when he so obviously wasn't Teal'c.
Rage flared inside him. Uncontrollable desire might have been different, albeit frightening, but this was just the other Teal'c's way of showing him how worthless he was; fit only to be fucked if nothing better came along. Teal'c was grinding his groin against Daniel's, not because he was genuinely finding Daniel arousing, just to signal how low down the food chain he thought him. Daniel tried to tear himself loose but Teal'c's body effortlessly forced him back down against the couch. He couldn't get up a knee to push the man off either. In desperation he remembered the vulnerability of that pouch and the symbiote within it. He closed his eyes then slammed his fist into Teal'c's pouch with all his might.
His fist hit something that wriggled and squealed and he snatched his hand away at once. The way the tongue was withdrawn from his mouth in the same instant the body weight lifted from his, told him that for once he'd managed to land a punch his enemy had actually felt. Daniel took one look at he fury on Teal'c's face as the Jaffa staggered backwards, clutching a hand to his abdomen, then threw himself off the couch and dived for the mirror. The other Jaffa seemed too stunned to intercept him and Daniel managed to get a hand onto the chill surface of the rim. Nothing happened.
Daniel saw the two control devices lying by the mirror and snatched up the first one. Even as he was pressing the first colored panel, he was realizing there were two remotes here because there had been no remote back on that planet. Meaning Jack had no way of finding the dimension Daniel had been taken to without some means to change the 'channels.' This time no one else could come and rescue him. This time he had to get himself home. The next second the device was knocked from his fingers; a hand seized his hair and jerked his head back.
The last thing he saw was the mirror coming up to meet him as his face was slammed towards it with great force.
***
"Hey…?"
Daniel slowly groped his way back to consciousness. Before he was even properly awake he realized he was cold and he was hurting. Damn, he hated waking up to that. He remembered Teal'c…Not Teal'c. Or rather a different Teal'c. One he hadn't been able to get through to; a man as cruel and proud as the Goa'uld he served. Daniel had been dazed from that crack on the head, which had been good because while Teal'c had been pretty much beating the crap out of him he'd been sinking quite swiftly towards blissful unconsciousness. Passing out had never felt so good.
He groaned aloud as his bruises woke up with him and light sliced straight through his head like a sword. He saw stone walls, iron bars, and someone bending over him.
"Hey? Sleeping Beauty? You okay?"
Daniel blinked, eyes watering as the dim light of the cell stung them. The face looking down at him was familiar yet out of place. But those brown eyes were immediately recognizable, as was that anxious expression. He felt hands on his shoulders gently easing him up. Daniel licked his lips. "Jack?"
He was propped against the wall of the cell, felt fingers against the side of his face gently holding his head up. A familiar voice murmured conversationally, "And just how do you know my name, Blue Eyes? You were unconscious when they threw you in here."
Daniel blinked again, the cell tilting then coming back into focus. Jack also came into focus. The man had a bruise across his right cheekbone, and a cut by his left eye. Jack had clearly been mouthing off to the enemy again – Daniel mentally 'tut-tutted'; he would have thought by now Jack would have learned not to do that – but Jack also looked subtly…different. Daniel frowned in confusion as he took in those little changes. "You grew your hair again?"
He saw the man lick his thumb and then press it gently to his forehead. "You are really out of things, aren't you, kiddo? That must have been one hell of a crack to the head. And you have got to wonder about the mentality of a guy who'd mess around with a face like that. No appreciation for art, clearly." There was a pause and then the man sighed. "Are you hearing anything I'm saying here or are there just a lot of bells ringing in your head?"
"I hear you." Daniel sat up a little straighter, blinking at the man as he tried to get him to come into focus. "You are Jack, aren't you?"
The man pulled over a pail of water and dipped a rather grubby looking handkerchief into it. "I'm a Jack. Not the one you know though, because I don't know you. Although judging by your uniform I'm thinking I should. Are you part of the Stargate program in your dimension?"
Daniel held out a hand which he noticed left a trail when he moved it. "I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson. I'm on SG-1."
A callused but warm hand clasped his in return. "Colonel Jack O'Neill, also of SG-1, but then you apparently already know that." The next moment the damp handkerchief was pressed very gently to his head.
Daniel winced. "Ow."
"Easy, Doc. You've got a nasty cut here. Did that big guy work you over?"
"His name is Teal'c. He's first prime of Apophis."
"Snakeboy I know, but I can't say I've ever been on first name terms with any of his goons." The damp handkerchief was applied to his cheekbone and then dabbed to his mouth. "How's the head? How many of me are you seeing right now?"
"Just the one."
"That's good. What about your ribs?"
Even though he'd only known this man for a matter of minutes, because he was a Jack even if he wasn't the Jack, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Daniel to let the man pull up his t-shirt and take a look. This Jack was as competent and gentle as his own would have been; feeling over his ribcage carefully, responding when Daniel winced, examining his bruised skin carefully. He wasn't Jack though and that stopped him wanting to share that name with this man, even though he undoubtedly shared Jack's face. Daniel thought back to his first meeting with Jack; back to when the man had still been 'Colonel O'Neill'. It was a long time since he'd thought of Jack as that, but it seemed appropriate to this man.
"Well, I'm seeing Jaffa boot marks here, so I'd say he probably kicked you when you were down, but I don't think you've busted any ribs. He seems to have given you the regular serpent guard slapping around but I don't think he's done any permanent damage." As Daniel shivered, Colonel O'Neill pulled down his t-shirt and gave him a look of concern. "Where's your jacket?"
"He took it."
"And your boots?"
"He took those too." Daniel darted a glance at the man's feet and saw he still had his boots. That didn't seem fair to him.
O'Neill took off his own jacket and put it around Daniel's shoulders. "There you go. If I'd known I was going to have company I would have saved you some of that gruel stuff they dish up here, but I went and ate all of mine. You sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine. Thank you." Daniel snaked his arms into the man's jacket and it felt strange to have the scent and warmth of Jack wrapped around him even though he was now in a different universe. Strange but oddly right as well. It was certainly comforting to have a Jack O'Neill on his side even if it wasn't the one he knew. He focused on O'Neill properly for the first time and took in the few differences between them. There weren't many. This Jack wasn't as gray as the one he knew, just a few strands of silver amongst the brown, and his hair was a little longer. He had a slightly more devil-may-care look about him as well. More like the Jack he'd known when he'd first joined SG-1. With a jolt Daniel wondered if it was true. Perhaps it was his fault Jack had all those gray hairs.
O'Neill dipped the handkerchief back into the water and then squeezed it out. "So, you and me are both on SG-1 in your world, right?"
Daniel nodded.
"Okay, let me guess who else is on the team in your dimension. Kawalsky?"
Daniel shook his head and then winced at the pain it caused. "Ow. No. Kawalsky's dead in my dimension. He was taken by a Goa'uld."
"Tough break. Are you his replacement?"
"No, Kawalsky had his own unit."
"Oh." O'Neill pressed the damp cloth to Daniel's forehead again. "I was just thinking if you were his replacement I'd have to make sure I killed Kawalsky the second I got back to my dimension, and ordered up one of you instead."
Daniel blinked at him in confusion. "Isn't Kawalsky your friend in your dimension?"
"My best friend," the man assured him, still dabbing at his head. "But what can I say? You're cuter." His grin was infectious but Daniel was too dumbfounded to respond. As Daniel's jaw dropped, O'Neill shook his head. "Well, given the way you're staring at me like I just grew an extra head or something, I'm presuming the me in your dimension is a little slow on the uptake or only likes his bread buttered on the boring side. Okay, so no Kawalsky on your SG-1. Did you get Ferretti? Carter?"
At least that was something he recognized. "Ferretti leads SG-2 but Sam's on SG-1."
"So the me in your dimension has Captain Knowitall spouting astrophysics at him and you being a Doctor? All that and a hocked libido. Poor guy. He must have a permanent buzzing pain in his head. What are you a doctor of, by the way? Medicine?"
"Archaeology. But I'm also a linguist."
"Well, that makes sense. Who doesn't want a grave robber at his back in a fire fight?" Seeing Daniel's expression, the man touched him gently on the mouth. "Hey, don't pout, I was kidding. They went with the three soldiers and an anthropologist idea in your dimension then?"
Daniel nodded a little dazedly. "Yes."
"Who's your fourth if it isn't Ferretti?"
"Teal'c."
"Teal'c?" O'Neill stared at him in disbelief. "What you mean the first prime guy? Big scary Jaffa with the tattoo on his head? Jeez. That is one screwed up dimension you come from."
"We like it," Daniel told him primly.
"Well, you're welcome to it. I got Kawalsky, Ferretti, and Carter on my team. No grave robbers and definitely no Jaffa."
"So you don't have a linguist?"
O'Neill shrugged. "I speak a little Goa'uld. Enough to get by. I mean I can order a beer and ask my way to the railway station. And I know how to tell a Jaffa that his mother mated with camels of very low birth. That can be useful on occasion as well." He tilted up Daniel's head to examine his cut again, his fingers very warm against Daniel's bruised jaw. Still looking at his injury, he said conversationally, "So, you and me are just teammates then? In your dimension? Nothing more?"
After the way the Teal'c in this dimension had turned out he didn't feel like taking anyone on trust. Daniel pulled his head away from the man's touch and darted him a suspicious glance. "You are so unlike the Jack I know I can't even be certain which side you're on."
"The one that opposes the Goa'uld. Trust me, Doc. I may seem like I'm full of it but I am truly an okay guy. I'm actually not a bad soldier either. You really would be better sticking with me."
"Look, the credo of the Jack I know is pretty straightforward. He wants to defeat the Goa'uld preferably without killing anyone who doesn't deserve it. What's yours?"
"My philosophy? I guess that would be live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse. Special Ops seemed a damned good way to achieve it. And the Stargate program was more of the same only much more interesting."
"Because of Charlie?" Daniel looked at him with new sympathy.
O'Neill frowned at him. "Who?"
"Your – son?"
"I don't have a son, Doc. Never have had."
"No son? What about Sara? What about…?" Daniel realized O'Neill wasn't covering up. "So you never married Sara in this dimension? You never had Charlie?"
"Uh, that's a big fat negative. Definitely not the marrying kind. Much more the playing the field kind. Hey, you may only live once but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try everything that's fun as many times as possible."
"Don't you think that's a little – immature?"
"Never claimed to be deep, Doc. Just fascinating." He gave Daniel a grin that Daniel had to admit almost qualified as 'charming'. Almost.
Daniel moistened his lips again. "Okay, so in your reality, you're not married, you never had a son, and you joined the Stargate program because it was – dangerous and exciting and you're an adrenaline junkie."
If O'Neill had any shame about who he was he was disguising it well. He held up a finger. "Well, actually – technically – I am married, just not in the usual way."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, I sort of married this girl on Abydos. Kind of. Sweet girl. Real looker. She taught me some of the native lingo – real tongue-twister, but then you would know that, being a linguist."
Daniel felt rather faint. "Sha're?"
"Yes." O'Neill looked at him in surprise. "She's in your dimension too?"
"She was my wife."
As the room began to revolve, he felt a strong hand on his elbow. "Hey – put your head between your knees. I guess that Teal'c character worked you over more than I realized. You okay?"
"No." Daniel put his hands up to his face. "How could you marry her? You don't even love her."
"I'm very fond of her." O'Neill said it apologetically. "Like I said, she's a sweet girl. But it was one of those weird ritual things. I didn't even know we were married until the next morning. Hey, don't look at me like that. I visit. Every three months they unbury the 'gate and I go and check on them all to see how they're doing. Take some toys for the kid, that kind of thing."
"You have a child?"
"Little girl. I'd show you a photograph but I figure if I do that I'll be bound to get my head shot off in the next half an hour. I've seen those war movies."
"Oh God." Daniel wrapped his arms around himself and rocked backwards and forwards.
"Hey, look, I'm sorry."
"Damnit, don't you see?" Daniel stared up at him fiercely. "Sha're would have been better off marrying you. She's still alive in your dimension because she married you instead of me. She's still alive because you didn't stay on Abydos and open the damned gate."
"So in your dimension, she's…? O'Neill winced. "Not alive? Okay." He felt a hand rubbing his back gently then familiar fingers tightened on his shoulder. "And that's a no, Doc. She's still alive in my dimension because it's a different dimension and things happened differently there. That's all." It was the first time the man had really sounded like the Jack he knew. Daniel looked up in surprise and saw that familiar compassion in the man's brown eyes.
He found his voice. "If you're anything like the Jack I know, you're a much better man than you think you are. There are certainly worse people Sha're could be with in your dimension." Like me.
"Can you tell me what happened to her in yours?"
Daniel did so, in as few words as he could, determined not to crumple again in front of someone who was, after all, a comparative stranger.
There was a pause before O'Neill said quietly, "That sucks." He patted Daniel on the shoulder again. "Sounds like the me in your dimension hasn't been taking care of you too well."
"That's not Jack's job."
"Yes it is." O'Neill got to his feet and dusted himself off. "You're a civilian, he's a soldier, that makes it his responsibility to take care of you. I'd say he was definitely falling down on the job."
"I'm sure Jack would say you were welcome to try to do any better," Daniel said dryly.
"Well, I think I probably could, you know." O'Neill held out a hand to Daniel. Daniel sighed and took the proffered hand. The colonel gave him such a firm tug to get him up that Daniel ended up in the man's arms. "I'm not saying I'm more efficient than the O'Neill you know. I think I'm just – better motivated." As he held Daniel against his chest, the man gave him another broad smile.
Daniel felt a little uncomfortable as the moment lingered. "Um – could you…?"
O'Neill set him back on his feet. "There you go." He reached behind him and brushed off Daniel's seat. "You got a little dusty there."
"Thank you." Daniel pulled back out of reach and darted the man a quick look.
O'Neill was looking simultaneously innocent and pleased with himself. Daniel found his behavior more than a little disconcerting, especially as he looked so much like the Jack O'Neill he knew but acted so very unlike him. He couldn't help liking this man – he was Jack after all – but he was trying to fight his instinctive tendency to trust him completely just because he happened to share the name, face, and genetic code of his best friend. The Teal'c in this dimension hadn't turned out to be anything like the one he knew, after all. There was nothing to say this Jack didn't have evil twin tendencies as well.
As though he'd read his mind, the man said, "You can trust me, you know." As Daniel looked unconvinced O'Neill grinned at him. "Want to blow this popsicle stand?"
"You have a plan?" Daniel asked warily.
"Don't I always?"
Daniel opened his mouth to say 'No, actually in my experience your idea of having a plan is to yell at Sam and me until we come up with something' but then bit it down. He felt a curious unwillingness to say anything that could be construed as criticism of 'his' Jack in front of this Jack. Carefully he said, "Sometimes."
O'Neill gave him an amused glance. "You know I'm getting the distinct impression your dimension got the short straw when the Jack O'Neills were being handed out."
Daniel gave him a dark look. "Well, I'm starting to think I never appreciated the Jack and Teal'c in my dimension anything like enough."
O'Neill slapped him gently on the shoulder. "Hey, like Carter said to me when I first met her – you really will like me when you get to know me." He turned and looked through the bars. "Now let's get the hell out of this place."
An hour later Daniel couldn't help noticing they were still very firmly behind bars but not wanting to play the part of the peanut gallery he hadn't yet pointed it out. On the positive side, his head had stopped bleeding.
"Do you think serpent guards have any honor codes?" O'Neill enquired over his shoulder.
Daniel blinked at him from his place on the floor. "According to Teal'c they have a very complex honor system."
"I mean do you think they're gentlemen at heart?"
"In what way?"
"Well, if I pinned you up against the bars and started acting like I wanted to make little anthropologists with you – "
"I'd be seriously worried about your grasp of basic biology."
" – and you yelled for help. Do you think they'd come running and open the door so they could drag me off you? Or do you think they'd just stand there and enjoy the show?"
Daniel narrowed his eyes. "Here's an idea – let's not find out. Let's think of a completely different plan instead."
"Well, I could just play tonsil tennis with you, but that would stop you being able to yell for help."
"I said a completely different plan."
"You can't blame a girl for trying." There was a pause while the other Jack hummed quietly and rocked on his heels, apparently trying to think of a new strategy. Daniel closed his eyes and tried to think around the thumping in his head. After a moment's silence the other Jack said, "How long is it since your wife died?"
"Almost a year."
The other Jack nodded. "Right. So – are you – seeing anyone?"
Daniel looked at him in disbelief. "Are you – hitting on me?" First, scary Teal'c sticking his tongue down his throat, and now Jack O'Neill flirting with him? Was there something in the water in this dimension?
O'Neill shrugged. "Pretty much."
Daniel looked around at their surroundings pointedly. "Do you ever act like an Air Force colonel, Colonel?"
"Hey, just because the me in your dimension is clearly remedially slow on the uptake that doesn't mean every Jack O'Neill in every alternate universe has to be as boring as he is."
"Well, the Jack O'Neill I know may have his faults but he'd never get distracted in the middle of a mission just because his hormones started jumping."
O'Neill glanced at Daniel. "I hate him already."
O'Neill had given him the damp handkerchief and told him to keep pressing it against his forehead until the bleeding stopped, and Daniel had spent the last half an hour surreptitiously watching the man testing all the bars and checking out all the possible weaknesses in the walls. He couldn't deny this Jack seemed as efficient as the Jack O'Neill he knew. In between his search for an escape route, O'Neill had also told him about the way he and his team had been lured into the quantum mirror trap by a fake distress signal.
As he tugged at the base of the last two bars, O'Neill said over his shoulder, "You have to admit this Teal'c character has pretty good taste. You are clearly the pick of your team and I am definitely the pick of mine."
"And yet so modest with it." Daniel took the handkerchief from his head and looked at it. It had so many red stains on it, he couldn't work out if his head was still bleeding or not. He decided that he liked 'not' best and so would go with that assumption.
"Cute and funny. You know I definitely think whichever Jack O'Neill finds you first should get to keep you. Which, for those people not keeping up on current events, would be me."
Daniel looked up to find O'Neill giving him a shit-eating grin. That made such a change from having his head bitten off when he said something remotely waspish that he couldn't help smiling back. Then he collected himself, coughing quickly. "Well, fun as I'm sure entropic cascade failure is to go through I think I'll pass."
The man came back over to where he was sitting and crouched down in front of him. "How's that head doing? And Carter was yapping on about that ECF stuff but I have to say it was so damned boring I kind of tuned her out."
"The Jack I know does that too, all the time. To Sam and to me."
Tilting up Daniel's head, O'Neill peered at the cut on his forehead intently. "At least the bleeding's almost stopped. Are you getting any double vision? Trails?"
"I just have a headache."
"And I would never tune you out by the way. Not ever."
Daniel looked into two warm and amused brown eyes and had a painful memory of his Jack looking at him like this; as if he liked Daniel; enjoyed his company; wanted to share a joke with him before anyone else. The days when they'd both been so much on the same wavelength that Daniel hadn't imagined it would ever alter.
O'Neill must have seen his expression, because he put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, what's wrong? You okay?"
That gentle touch and sympathetic tone was a little hard to take as well. Daniel remembered all those times Jack had asked him if he was okay; those sympathetic fingers patting his arm or squeezing his shoulder. He felt abruptly desolate at the loss and had to turn his head away.
"Hey?" O'Neill's voice was almost too gentle to bear. He put a finger under Daniel's chin and eased his head back round. "What sonofabitch put that look in your eyes? Tell me his name and I will turn him into an ugly stain on the floor the next time I see him."
Daniel couldn't help smiling, despite himself. "There is the little matter of you and me having to go back to our own dimensions when we get out of here, Colonel."
But for once O'Neill wasn't smiling. His hand tightened on Daniel's shoulder. "It was me, wasn't it?"
"What?" Daniel looked up at him in surprise.
"Has the me in your universe been treating you badly?"
"No! Jack would never…"
O'Neill held up his hands in supplication. "Okay. Okay. Keep your boxers on, Doc. You clearly have an inexplicable fondness for the evidently IQ challenged O'Neill in your dimension so I promise not to criticize him again."
Daniel collected himself, embarrassed by his own vehemence. "Thank you."
When O'Neill touched his bare feet, he couldn't help giving a little jump, those fingers unexpectedly warm against his cold toes. The man began to rub his feet briskly; doing it as though this was so much the most natural thing in the world that Daniel didn't quite have the nerve to object. As he rubbed, O'Neill said conversationally, "It's because he's disabled, isn't it? That's why you're defending him?"
"What?" Daniel stared at him in confusion.
Sable eyes glanced up at him innocently. "Well, I'm presuming he's sight impaired in some way. Is it a problem having to take his Seeing Eye dog with you on every mission?" Before Daniel could object, O'Neill added smoothly, "And has anyone ever told you how doable you look when you sit around with your mouth open? You know a guy with a lot more self-control than me could definitely take that as an invitation to kiss you…"
Daniel promptly closed his mouth with an audible meeting of teeth. As O'Neill continued to rub Daniel's feet with the most innocent expression on his face, restoring the circulation and delicious warmth to his frozen toes, Daniel opened his mouth, realized he was already three protests behind, and closed it again. After a long pause he said in a voice that sounded a little breathless, "You are nothing like the Jack O'Neill I know."
He got sideways grin. "Good. And just for your information, I think you should know I'm definitely more fun than your average O'Neill and I'm bound to be much better in bed than all the boring hetero versions because I'll have had so much more practice than they have. You might want to file that away for future reference."
"I don't think that's information I'm going to have any use for, thank you, Colonel," Daniel told him sternly.
O'Neill stopped rubbing his feet, stood up and held out a hand. As Daniel automatically took it, he pulled Daniel up again; once more managing to yank him into his arms. This time Daniel couldn't stop himself from breathing in a lungful of the familiar smell of aftershave and sweat that he had come to associate with safety, comfort and strength. It was so long since he'd been this close to Jack that it had extra power over him. He had an almost unbearably vivid memory of sobbing in Jack's arms while the man rubbed his back and rocked him like a child. He missed Jack so painfully it was like a stab wound.
"Hey." Strong fingers tilted up his chin. "You've got that look in your eyes again. You know I'm just marshmallow on the inside and you are going to break my heart if you keep looking like that."
Daniel's voice come our hoarse and a little shaky. "Just been kind of a tough day, Colonel."
A hand was stroked through his hair, very gently, and a callused thumb traced a line underneath his left eye. He could feel that his lashes were wet now it had been pointed out to him, but if he refused to look up and see the compassion in those brown eyes, he could pretend he hadn't cried just because his Jack didn't care about him as much as he used to. That was too humiliating to bear so he would just avoid dealing with it. Although the fingers carding through his hair couldn't have been gentler, he was even more appreciative of the matter-of-fact tone the man used. "Let's see if we can't make this a better day."
Daniel swallowed hard. "Good idea."
He lifted his gaze and found O'Neill looking at him with nothing other than kindness in his eyes. The man seemed to get it in an instant that he needed things kept light or he was in serious danger of losing it. He stopped stroking Daniel's hair and squeezed his shoulder instead. "We're going to get out of here and we're going to get you home, okay?"
"Okay."
The man moved away to give him some time to collect himself, deliberately turning his back on him to stare out through the bars as though lost in thought. Daniel hastily scrubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his borrowed jacket, thoroughly embarrassed by the damp trails the action left on the cloth. After a long enough pause for Daniel to sort himself out, O'Neill turned back round. "Right, I've always found the old ones are the best so why don't you play dead, I'll yell for help, then I'll lay the guy out when he comes in?"
Daniel blinked. "It took you an hour to come up with that?"
"Well, you vetoed my threatening-your-virtue plan – which would still be my personal favorite – and anyway I've thought of an interesting variation."
"They won't care that I'm dead." Daniel pointed out as he lay back down. He tried not to shiver as the chill damp of the stone floor seeped into his skin.
"I'll make 'em care, the bastards."
As he unwillingly stretched out on the cold floor, Daniel realized that was now twice this man had got him up on false pretenses then pulled him into his arms for apparently no reason other than to – pull him into his arms. He didn't know if he was finding it annoying or flattering to have someone going through all these little maneuvers just to make physical contact with him. With a sudden shock of recognition, Daniel realized it was so long since Jack had put a hand on him he was actually neither annoyed nor flattered, he was just grateful to be touched at all.
"Ready?"
Daniel nodded.
"Here goes nothing."
As Daniel played as dead as he could, O'Neill clattered his food plate across the bars, yelling, "Hey! Hey! Get a medic in here! The kid's stopped breathing! Hurry, damnit!"
Daniel had been afraid the man's anxious yells would just meet with the silent indifference of an empty corridor, so when a serpent guard turned up, even if he was moving at a decidedly leisurely pace, it was one better than he'd hoped for. But he still thought Colonel O'Neill was being over-optimistic if he thought appealing to their compassion was going to work. In a universe where Teal'c was a cold-eyed sadist who looked more than willing to rape him just because he could, Daniel didn't hold out much hope for the humanitarian instincts of the ordinary Jaffa. It wasn't even as though the information he had was that important. If this Daniel died, Teal'c could just spin the dial on the quantum mirror and go grab another Daniel Jackson from a different dimension.
The serpent guard confirmed his fears by saying only, "You will be silent."
"Damnit, I told you, the kid's stopped breathing. I think he's going into a coma. He needs some help in here."
The serpent guard sneered. "You must think I am stupid."
"No, I just thought you might remember how it felt to be human. You know from the days before they put that worm in your gut. Christ, your boss grabbed him for a reason, didn't he? He must want him alive."
This time the serpent guard came right up to the bars to ensure that his indifference could not be made any clearer. He curled his lip disdainfully. "There are plenty more where he came from."
O'Neill acted so fast Daniel didn't even see his hand move. It was only as the guard cried out in shock and the other Jack sprang back from the bars with something long and white wriggling in his grip that Daniel understood what he'd done. His mind was still trying to process the realization that the man had just put his fist through the bars, snatched the larval Goa'uld from the Jaffa's pouch and was now retreating to the far side of the cell with the furious symbiote as a hostage. That, he now realized, had always been the true plan.
O'Neill stood at the back of the cell and waved the symbiote at the serpent guard who was still clasping his abdomen in shocked disbelief. "Don't think there are plenty more where this came from though are there, tinhead? You want wriggly back you're going to have to unlock the damned cell."
The serpent guard jerked up his staff weapon. "Give the symbiote to me!"
Grasping the furious symbiote firmly behind the head so it couldn't bite him, and holding it in front of himself as a shield, O'Neill gave the serpent guard an unpleasant smile. "You blast me, you kill the snake baby. How long is it you guys can go without one of these, I always forget? I think the Tok'ra give you about an hour, tops, but hey I always think those guys are optimists."
The serpent guard primed the staff weapon and pointed it at Daniel. "Give it back to me or he dies."
"Yeah well that's a very scary threat." O'Neill shrugged. "Quite apart from the fact the poor kid popped his clogs at least an hour ago, I don't even know who the hell he was. Now open the damned cell or I am going to kill your little pal here."
As the serpent guard hesitated, the other Jack tossed the symbiote onto the floor and then planted his boot squarely on top of its tail. As the creature lunged and writhed under his right foot, he lifted his other foot and prepared to bring his heel down on its head.
"No!" The serpent guard fumbled for the key device he carried then wrenched at the door.
Daniel had seen Jack do this enough times to know what was expected of him in this situation. He had to wait until the guy was inside the cell and then he had to hit him low and hard. He tensed as the door swung open, muscles bunching in readiness, then as the serpent guard stepped across the threshold Daniel launched himself at him with all the force he could. He managed to hit him in the midriff with the force of his upward trajectory, and sent the guard crashing into the far wall. The key device skittered across the stone floor to rebound off the bars. As the Jaffa tried to bring up his staff weapon, Daniel seized his arm and slammed it hard against the bars. The staff weapon hit the floor with a clatter just as the guard got his other arm free and knocked Daniel across the cell.
As Daniel crashed to the ground, he saw O'Neill snatch up the staff weapon and drive the end of it straight into the Jaffa's abdomen; as the Jaffa crumpled O'Neill used the staff weapon like a baseball bat to hit the guy with everything he had. Daniel flinched at the sound of bone snapping. When he looked again, the Jaffa was lying on the ground with blood trickling from his mouth, eyes open but unseeing, neck clearly broken. He saw a wriggle of something pale and malevolent coming towards him and then O'Neill was stamping hard on the ground; something crunched under his boot; but he slammed his foot down twice more for good measure. Daniel shuddered as the man lifted his boot to reveal a sole sticky with the green ooze of dead symbiote's blood. He knew he ought to be voicing some objection to the man having just effectively murdered a hostage, not to mention having killed an immature specimen of a sentient species which…
It was no good. He couldn't even pretend he believed it. He could argue for the rights of any other species in the galaxy, but Daniel couldn't find any part of himself which was anything other than relieved that damned symbiote was dead. He was sure Sam thought that he regretted it but if he was faced with another tank of those things he would still pull the trigger.
O'Neill strode across to where Daniel was and held out a hand. Daniel automatically took it and was yanked to his feet. The man gave him a look all too reminiscent of his own Jack when not in the best of tempers. "What the hell was that?"
"What?" Daniel stared at him.
"What were you doing tackling that guy?"
Daniel blinked in confusion. "I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I thought that was the plan: you lured him in here and then I tackled him."
"You think I'd come up with a plan that involved an unarmed archaeologist with a concussion throwing himself at seven foot of freakin' serpent guard armed with a staff weapon?"
"Well, what was I supposed to do?"
The man gave him a look of exasperation. "What I told you to do. Lie there and play dead."
"While you fought off a serpent guard and his larval Goa'uld single-handed?"
"I'm a soldier, you're a civilian. Civilians do not take on serpent guards, okay, and do you know why?"
Daniel fought the urge to stick his tongue out at him. "Why?"
"Because they could get killed!"
Daniel looked at him for a moment. "Colonel, how old do you think I am?"
"Right now I'm more concerned with your life expectancy, Doctor Jackson. Which I would put at about five minutes if you try any more dumb stunts like that." He took Daniel's arm as though he was a naughty child and towed him after him, picking up the staff weapon without even needing to look down to see where it had landed. Daniel barely had time to snatch up the key device the guard had used to open the cell door before he was being hauled out into the corridor after a Jack O'Neill who was suddenly reminding him all too much of the one he knew.
The stone passageways were lit by torches but their flames had a greenish light; the walls composed of square cut stone blocks illustrated with scatterings of unusual glyphs, the air vibrating with the low hum of an unidentified heat source. With a jolt Daniel realized this mixture of apparently ancient Earth civilizations overlaid by advanced Goa'uld technology had become so familiar to him that he barely noticed it any more. Was it really only a few years since he had seen his first Horus guard in Ra's pyramid ship on Abydos? Sometimes it was difficult to remember there had ever been anything but this. He would have liked to study the hieroglyphs here and see if they had evolved any differently in this dimension, but the other Jack was striding along at considerable speed and despite his own long legs, Daniel was hard put to keep up with him.
Only when he had checked down all the passageways and led Daniel along several identical corridors before taking temporary shelter in an alcove did the man look at him again. "Okay, kiddo, I think it's time we laid down some ground rules for you doing what you're told and generally making a little more effort to not get yourself maimed or killed."
"Look, Colonel, I've been on SG-1 for almost four years. What do you think I usually do in combat situations?"
The man glanced at him in surprise. "The O'Neill where you come from takes you into combat situations?"
"What, you think Jack, Sam, and Teal'c send me home every time some Jaffa appear?"
O'Neill blinked. "I don't know. I was sort of presuming they took you if there were any ruins or stuff that needed translating and took a soldier if it looked like they were going into a war zone." He looked Daniel over again. "How old are you anyway?"
"Thirty five." Daniel made sure he accompanied the words with a 'Don't you dare look surprised' glare.
As O'Neill stared at him in unconcealed astonishment, Daniel realized he was going to have to work on fine-tuning his glares. Having gone to college at an unusually young age he'd had a bellyful of wiseass comments from jocks about it surely being way past his bedtime if they saw him out after seven thirty. And the word 'babysitter' could still get his hackles up even now. The word 'geek' didn't thrill him too much either.
The way the other man's jaw was still hanging was downright annoying. Daniel narrowed his eyes. "As I told you, I go on every mission SG-1 goes on. Not just the ones to uninhabited worlds that have been declared danger free zones, okay?"
For a second O'Neilllooked genuinely taken aback by both Daniel's words and his obvious annoyance, but then he rallied and gave Daniel an assessing glance. "You know, you're beautiful when you're angry."
Daniel wrenched his arm free from his grip and held up a warning finger. "Don't start."
"Sorry, couldn't resist, you look so damned hot when you're glaring at me. And hey, we just had our first fight. If we were a couple we could go and have some make-up sex now." He gave Daniel a winsome grin. "What do you say? There's bound to be a bedroom around here somewhere."
Shaking his head in disbelief, Daniel said, "You never give up, do you?"
"You have to admit it would be more fun than playing stamp on the symbiote in a confined space. Those things squick the hell out of me. The second I get back to base these boots are going straight in the incinerator." O'Neill took Daniel's arm again and towed him after him.
"Where are we going anyway?" Daniel demanded.
"We need to find our gear. Then we need to find the mirror thing. Then we need to figure out how to use it. Then we need to get you home."
Daniel stopped. "No. We need to find out who else is being held prisoner here." He held up the key device. "Then we need to rescue them."
"Oh Jeez. Come on, these guys are soldiers, they can get themselves out. You're a – "
Daniel just looked at him and the other man swallowed the end of his sentence before trying again. "I was going to say, of course, that you're a fully-fledged member of an active field unit with several years of combat experience under your belt."
"I'm so glad that's what you were going to say, Colonel."
O'Neill sighed heavily. "Okay, well there's no one else here from my dimension that I've heard about. What about yours?"
"Three Tok'ra operatives unaccounted for."
He groaned. "I hate the freakin' Tok'ra. Whenever they show up there's always trouble. They never share information with us. They use us like guinea-pigs every time they have a new bit of technology to try out. Apart from Carter's dad and Marty they're all a complete pain in the…mikta."
Daniel couldn't completely hide a smile and the man looked at him suspiciously. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing." Daniel led the way down the corridor. He knew O'Neill too would dive in front of him in a minute and start making with those annoying hand signals Jack always used, but for the minute he was going to go in front. "I've just realized you're a lot more like the Jack O'Neill I know than I thought."
***
"Please, tell me you've made some damned progress?" O'Neill rested his hands on the table and glared between the three of them. They all looked stressed and twitchy and they'd been working for hours without a break, but he didn't care. What he wanted right now were results and all they were giving him was head shaking.
"Sir, none of us have ever had the opportunity to study a quantum mirror before. NID would never allow us to look at the one held at Area 51 and General Hammond ordered – "
"Carter, don't tell me things I already know. Tell me you're going to be getting Daniel back soon."
She looked up at him in mingled reproach and misery. "We're doing the best we can, sir, but this is a little more complicated than trying to jerryrig a remote for your VCR."
O'Neill couldn't even say that was a low blow. If anything he was kind of pleased she was still capable of slamming him when she had to. He'd been so bad tempered recently even Daniel had gotten so he didn't like to make him angrier than he was already.
Selmac said, "And it is not only Daniel's whose life is at stake here, Colonel. Three of our operatives are also missing."
"Colonel O'Neill, we are endeavoring to grapple with extremely complex trans-dimensional physics," Narim put in quietly.
"All you have to do is work out how to switch the damned thing on!" O'Neill retorted.
Narim looked up at him in some exasperation. "Colonel O'Neill, all our research so far suggests that this mirror cannot be activated without a remote device. We do not understand the technology we are dealing with, and we do not know any way to deduce its composition while it is inoperative."
"So, you're saying that you can only work out how it works well enough to knock together a home-made remote once it's switched on, and you can't switch it on without a remote?"
Carter nodded. "Pretty much, sir. We'll keep trying, but at the moment any breakthroughs we make are going to have a lot more to do with luck than judgment. If you or Teal'c can think of any alternate strategies I think now would be a very good time for you to share them."
She appeared and sounded exhausted. He supposed futility could do that to you. The three of them had been beating their heads against this thing for hours now and all they'd come up with was more and more proof that they weren't going to be able to do what they had to do to get Daniel back alive. It was so unlike her to admit defeat that he was a little taken aback. She met his gaze. "Sir, bottom line: by the time we work out how to do this I don't think there will be anything of Daniel left to save."
Her statement hung there in the silence and he felt his guts twist cruelly. For a moment he couldn't get anything out, and then he forced himself to say something, anything, to prove he wasn't going to crumple: "Kind of a shame we destroyed that mirror, huh?"
Her eyes told him she would have thought more of him if he'd just admitted how devastated he was, but he couldn't; the truth was she didn't know how devastated he was by the prospect of losing Daniel. It wasn't something he could talk about, or even acknowledge, only avoid and deny.
"You destroyed a quantum mirror?" Jacob demanded in disbelief.
Carter darted him a look of annoyance. "Dad, you're the one who is always telling us we shouldn't play with technology we don't fully understand. Two people came through from another dimension, they happened to be friendly but they could just as well have been hostile. We didn't have any choice."
"Are you certain that it was destroyed, Major Carter?" Teal'c put in.
"General Hammond gave the order."
Teal'c returned her gaze evenly. "But you did not personally supervise its destruction?"
"No, it was packed up and shipped back to Area 51 where I presume Colonel Maybourne – " Her eyes widened. "I see your point, Teal'c."
"Colonel Maybourne?" Narim enquired.
"He's the guy currently awaiting trial for treason for selling out our Stargate program to the Russians." O'Neill ran a hand through his hair. "The one who before that was running an off-world operation to steal technology from your good selves and our other allies."
Narim regarded him steadily. "Not the most reliable of men, then?"
"Indeed." Teal'c glanced across at O'Neill. "I do not think it likely that a man of Colonel Maybourne's character would truly have destroyed a valuable alien artifact that might be of some benefit in the battle against the Goa'uld."
"Now that you mention it, I think you're right." O'Neill put his hand on Carter's shoulder. "Teal'c and I are going to ask Hammond to send someone to check out Area 51, see if they don't have a quantum mirror filed under lost property somewhere. With any luck Maybourne might actually be helpful for once. He's got nothing to lose and quite a lot to gain by cooperating with us, after all."
She made a face. "That won't help us with the remote. The one that went with the mirror Daniel found on P3R 233 was destroyed in the other dimension, and Doctor Carter took her remote back with her."
O'Neill tried to restrain his impatience. "Carter, you're not thinking like Maybourne – and thank God for that. Do you think a guy on the stealing spree he was on, with access to a quantum mirror, will have restricted himself to this dimension? Anything that wasn't nailed down, and he could carry, he'll have grabbed. I bet he has a remote. He probably has three. We just need to persuade him to admit it and then tell us where it is."
She nodded. "Yes, sir. We'll keep trying with this one, but I'd have to say that right now I think Daniel's best hope of a rescue is Colonel Maybourne having stuck to his track record as a – "
"Weaselly piece of scum?"
Carter gave him a tight little smile that told him on any other day she might have found that funny but right now she was feeling too damned sick inside. "Yes, sir."
He gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze and then nodded to Teal'c. "Let's go talk to General Hammond, shall we?"
***
Daniel took one look at the cell then turned his head away. He didn't know the names of these Tok'ra but their faces were vaguely familiar; and they were people from his own dimension, which somehow made their pain even more real.
"And here's some they did earlier." Although the words sounded callous, Colonel O'Neill's face was a grim mask.
Daniel made himself look back at them. "I presume the memory device didn't work on them."
The three Tok'ra were lying dead in a cell. At least Daniel was pretty certain they were dead. They had obviously been tortured and they were all lying there very still, covered in blood, and with their eyes open. All the same, he knew he had to go in there and check. It might be that their symbiotes were still alive. If they were, what the hell was he going to do? They couldn't live outside a host body for longer than a few minutes. As he stepped forward, the other Jack caught his arm. "I'll do it."
"I have seen dead bodies before."
O'Neill looked him in the eye. "So have I. Lots of times. That's how I know it doesn't get any easier however many times you have to do it." He held up the staff weapon. "You watch my back."
Daniel nodded and took the weapon. As O'Neill went to check the Tok'ra for any lingering signs of life, he couldn't help thinking how much like the Jack he knew this one was after all. Not the flirting, obviously; his Jack had never tried to come onto him during a mission – for which he supposed he should be grateful as it was very disconcerting; but in other ways this Jack O'Neill was a lot more like the man Daniel had been working with for the past three years than the man who had told him he was deadweight only that morning.
For the first time it occurred to him that Jack would be worried about him. There had been real anguish in that last 'No!' and them having had that stupid disagreement wouldn't be helping. Sam would be trying to figure out how to make the quantum mirror work while Jack got in the way and asked lots of questions then didn't let her tell him the answers. Teal'c would be overdosing on guilt. He remembered the look in Jack's eyes after Daniel had staggered through the first quantum mirror with his shoulder smoking. Oh crap, the guy would be going nuts. Daniel had to get back there and let them know he was okay; that the Bad Teal'c hadn't raped him or killed him or even tortured him. That they were still home to him and he'd never doubted for an instant they were doing all they could to find him.
"This one's dead."
O'Neill sounded brisk, emotionless, but Daniel saw the way that muscle jumped in his jaw. He wondered what it was about soldiers that they felt they had to hide their feelings all the time. It was no wonder so many of them ended up being divorced by their exasperated wives. The miracle was that any woman put up with them for longer than a week. Or any normal person, come to that. Into which category he was definitely putting himself.
He watched the man move to the next Tok'ra and check his neck for a pulse, then hold a hand in front of his mouth to see if he could detect any breath. "This one too."
"What about their symbiotes?" Daniel said awkwardly.
The man shrugged helplessly. "I don't know how to tell without an MRI and to be honest even if they're still alive in there, what the hell could we do for them? I'm not being host to anyone. I'm sorry but – squick city and then some."
Although Daniel privately agreed he couldn't help thinking of Selmac and Lantash. He didn't exactly have warm fuzzy feelings towards them but he did know them; they were allies. It had been Lantash as well as Martouf who'd accompanied them into hell. And it had been Lantash as well as Martouf who'd died in the SGC right in front of him. He shuddered at the memory.
"Okay, this one's had it too, let's get the hell out of here – " As O'Neill straightened up the dead man's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.
Daniel didn't blame the guy for almost jumping out of his skin. That was very obviously a dead man and yet it was very clearly looking up at the other Jack through gold-glowing eyes. The voice grated quietly: "Colonel O'Neill."
"Hey…" He gave the Tok'ra a sickly smile. "How are you doing?"
"My companions and my host are already dead and I am dying. Nothing can be done for any of us. But the information which has been gathered from the enemies of Apophis must not be allowed to reach him. This Apophis is intending to make an inter-dimensional alliance with his other selves. He intends to use the resources of all of his counterparts to defeat the System Lords and any enemies of the Goa'uld in each dimension in turn. He intends to be not just master of this universe, but of every universe. He must not be allowed to proceed with his plan. He must be stopped."
"How?"
The Tok'ra used his dead host's face to perform one last smile. "Despite your attempts to hide it, you are a clever man, O'Neill. You will think of something." The glow faded from his eyes and the body slumped dead and already cold.
"Oh Jeez – " O'Neill snatched his wrist away from the other's fingers. "I just had a conversation with a corpse."
Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "Well, this day just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"
"Oh it's been fun all the way." He got to his feet and backed up. "Any ideas for this saving the universes stunt we're supposed to be pulling off with just you, me, and a staff weapon?"
"We destroy the information he's already gathered, then we hope Apophis only has one mirror and we destroy that too."
"Then we can never go home."
Daniel swallowed hard. "I know. But what choice do we have? This Apophis is thinking a lot bigger than the one I know and despise. If he ever met up with his other selves every dimension would be in – "
"Deep shit. I know." He looked at Daniel and said quietly. "Do you have anyone to go back to?"
Daniel opened his mouth to say that yes, he had Jack and Sam and Teal'c and the SGC to go back to, then collected himself. "Not really. My parents are dead. My wife is dead. My academic career is dead. My grandfather is off with an alien race learning how to defeat the Goa'uld. I'll be mourned, I'm sure, but I won't really be missed." He hadn't meant to sound that brittle and bitter.
"What about me?"
Daniel blinked at him. "What?"
"What about the me in your dimension? Don't you think he'd miss you?"
"He'll get over it. He's suffered worse losses and got over them."
O'Neill caught his arm. "Doc, I've only known you a couple of hours and I'd miss you like hell. We don't both need to stay here. I can send you back to your dimension and then blow up the mirror."
"You have a wife and child. I don't. If anyone needs to go home, it's you."
"Sha're could pick up a better husband at any yard sale than I've been to her."
"Not the point. She loves you. So does your daughter. You have an obligation to them not to get yourself killed." As O'Neill looked unconvinced, Daniel said, "Take it from an orphan, Colonel, losing a parent is not something you get over in a hurry. And if you're anything like the Jack O'Neill I know, then you must be one hell of a father. You owe it to your daughter to get yourself home."
O'Neill took the staff weapon back and looked up and down the corridor. "Let's argue about this later, okay? For the moment we still have to check out the rest of these cells and find our gear. If I don't get my grenades back neither one of us is going to be blowing up anything. Although of course, if you let me, I could still blow – "
Daniel held up a warning finger. "Don't even think about finishing that sentence."
"Has anyone ever told you that you're very sexy when you're strict?" O'Neill automatically took point again, carrying the staff weapon as though it belonged in his hand. "In fact, you're very sexy all the time. How the hell does your O'Neill keep his hands off you?"
Daniel thought of all those little pats on the shoulder Jack had used to give him; the man ruffling his hair as he limped beside him on their way back to the Stargate; rubbing his back; taking his hand to pull Daniel up… Then he thought of how long it had been since Jack had met his eye, let alone squeezed his shoulder or given him one of those reassuring little touches on the arm. He gave the other man a bleak smile. "Oh, believe me, Colonel, the Jack O'Neill I know doesn't find that any problem at all."
They had searched every other cell and found them empty. Some had ominous bloodstains on the floor but there had been no more bodies, for which Daniel at least was feeling eternally grateful. It had been bad enough to see those tortured Tok'ra, if he'd found a Jack or Sam like that, he really didn't think he could have borne it.
Now they were hiding across the corridor from what they both hoped was the room where their gear was being kept. They had watched a serpent guard walk in there carrying a pack which O'Neill had whispered might be his, and then come back out again almost at once, so they were hoping for the best. Daniel had never thought he would feel odd without a weapon, but he had to admit he would have welcomed the weight of a sidearm against his thigh right now.
There was only the one serpent guard standing outside the chamber. O'Neill let Daniel get a quick look at the lie of the land and then pulled him back out of sight. "Okay," he whispered. "We don't know if there's anyone within earshot so we don't want to use the staff unless we have to. I'll go out there and see if I can – "
"No." Daniel sighed. "Look, Jack and I can do this one in our sleep. I go out there, the serpent guard says 'Kree!' I put my hands up and look scared. You sneak up behind him and – disable him."
Their eyes met and Daniel let the older man know that he knew what 'disabling' was going to entail in this instance, that he didn't like it, but he could live with it. They were fighting for a lot of realities here and sacrifices were going to be inevitable.
"Your O'Neill uses you for bait often, does he?"
Daniel returned his gaze levelly. "Jack's got a hundred percent record of not letting the bad guys permanently kill me, Colonel. I'm just hoping you're as good as he is."
"Under the circumstances, so am I. Has anyone ever told you you're too damned trusting?"
"Jack tells me that all the time."
"I'm starting to think this guy has more brain-cells than I gave him credit for." He shrugged in resignation. "Okay, we'll do it your way, but I warn you, if I screw this up and you get killed I am never going to forgive you."
"Seems fair enough." Daniel took a deep breath and then wandered out into the corridor looking as dazed as he could.
"Kree!"
He did as good an impression as he could of a man too dopey to have noticed there was six foot six of serpent guard standing ten feet from him until that instant, jumped violently then put up his hands.
A second later he turned his head away in revulsion as O'Neill put his hand over the Jaffa's mouth to stifle his cry then drove his knife into the man's back. Still keeping his eyes firmly averted, Daniel waited until he had heard the sound of the knife slicing again and so knew the symbiote was also dead. He realized he knew why O'Neill had stabbed the guard in the back instead of cutting his throat, because although death was usually a little slower, there would be less blood and they could hide the body without leaving a telltale trail. He wondered when the hell he had started absorbing all this information, and if there was any way he could ever manage to forget it. Thinking of all the Daniel Jacksons out there who had never been recruited to the SGC, never got to travel through the Stargate, but also never had to learn all these things, he didn't know if he pitied them or envied them.
He went back and picked up their staff weapon, picked up the one the dead Jaffa had dropped as he was murdered, waited until O'Neill dragged the dead guard in through the doorway, then followed him in and closed the door. Then he turned around and saw what was waiting for them.
Daniel's first thought was that it looked like a garage sale. All those tables around the side of the room. Clothes on one. Weapons on another. It was only when he saw the labels in Goa'uld that he started thinking about the holocaust. That was when the room began to spin a little.
O'Neill strode over to the table where the weapons were lying. The way the man snatched up that P-90 like a long-lost lover reminded Daniel vividly of the Jack O'Neill he knew. The man squinted down the sights of his P-90, ejected the clip, checked it then jammed it back in again. He picked up another and checked that one then held it out to Daniel. "Here you go, Doc."
He had to go into the room to take it but it sent little shivers up and down his spine to do so. O'Neill didn't seem to notice his reluctance, his attention already captured by the next table, but as Daniel's fingers closed on the weapon he could have sworn the metal felt as chill as though it knew its true owner was now a ghost.
Picking up a jacket, O'Neill grimaced. "Hey, what do you know? It's my size. I mean what are the odds?"
Daniel saw the bloodstains on the front of the jacket and felt the bile rise in his throat as he realized who it must have belonged to. "Oh God."
The next jacket O'Neill picked up had a burnt hole in the back which suggested its owner had died from a staff weapon blast. Daniel saw the older man's jaw clench, then he put that one down and picked up another one. He spoke quietly. "Find yourself some boots that fit."
Daniel automatically recoiled and the man looked at him over his shoulder. "They're all dead, Doc. They really don't need their gear any more and there are good reasons why people don't go into combat situations barefoot. There are packs over there. There should be spare socks in them. Go find yourself some socks and some boots, put them on, then sit down and take some deep breaths. Okay?"
It was actually easier to do what he was told than not in this instance. At least it gave him something to do that didn't involve watching O'Neill go through those bloodstained and staff-weapon blasted clothes. He wondered how many Jacks had died here. How many Sams. How many Kawalskys and Ferrettis and entire SGC units had been tortured and killed so that a parasite inside a poor captive scribe could dream of ruling the galaxy.
When Daniel pulled the spare socks from a pack lying on the table something skittered out with them to roll across the table. It was automatic to catch it before it rolled off the edge. He opened his hand and stared at the lipstick in confusion, wondering what it was doing with all this Air Force equipment. The realization that this must have been Sam's pack hit him like a punch in the guts and this time he couldn't stop the physical reaction ripping through him. O'Neill caught him as his knees gave out, helping him down onto the ground.
"It's –"
"I know." The man's tone told Daniel that this Jack was every bit as gutted as his own would have been by the realization that at least one Samantha Carter had died here. But even knowing they were both devastated didn't make the situation feel any better.
Daniel wrapped his arms around himself and rocked backwards and forwards, still clutching that lipstick. It was the same shade his Sam wore. He remembered the first time he'd seen her apply it with such swift expertise after they'd finished gearing up and were about to head out. Her embarrassed little grimace in response to what must have been his look of surprise. "It stops my lips from chapping." The grin he'd tried to hide as he followed her out. His relief that she was human and fallible enough to have a little personal vanity when he'd been thinking of her as some kind of superwoman up until that point. "Oh God… Sam.…"
"I know, Doc, I know." He felt a hand rubbing his back gently. "Look, let's just get what the hell we need and get out of this chamber of horrors."
Daniel nodded, keeping his head down. He was just going to focus on these socks, not where they'd come from. As he pulled them onto his cold feet, he was aware of O'Neill next to him, picking up boots from the table and trying them against his own. When he put a pair back with a shudder, Daniel realized they must have had blood on them. He wondered if this Jack had any idea how close he was to losing it right now. The Jack he knew would have done. He missed that Jack with a sudden fierce longing that even having another man with his face and voice and inherent kindness couldn't lessen.
"Try these." The boots were put down next to him before the man crossed over to the table where more weapons were lying.
As he pulled on what was probably a dead Jack O'Neill's boots over a dead Sam's socks, Daniel scanned the line of equipment and felt even sicker as he saw how much this Teal'c had managed to accumulate. A lot of people seemed to have died so that Apophis could be master of the universe. If they didn't stop him it was obvious that a lot more people would die as well. He remembered how it had felt to be invisible; unable to be heard or seen by the people he cared for; how desperately he had wanted to get 'home'. And he still did, that was the trouble, he still wanted to get home. But Apophis had to be stopped and the only way he could think of was to destroy the quantum mirror. Something you had to be in the same dimension to do.
"You okay?"
Daniel looked up to find O'Neill had already pulled on his vest, strapped on a sidearm, and a knife, and was stuffing extra rounds into his pockets. As Daniel nodded, the man picked up a pack and upended it over the table, scattering its contents before swiftly beginning to repack it with new equipment. Daniel knew he had to follow his example. He had to stand up, put on a vest, strap on a sidearm, pick up the P-90 the man had given him, and get ready to blow up that mirror. As soon as it was discovered they'd escaped there would be serpent guards all over the place. This was a brief window of opportunity and they needed to make the most of it. There was no room on this mission for an anthropologist who couldn't deal with the fact that some people who shared the same genetic code as his friends had died here. The only way to stop that ever happening again was to destroy that mirror. Sitting around trying not to throw up on these borrowed boots was not going to get that done.
Daniel determinedly got to his feet and went over to where O'Neill was stuffing things into a pack. The boots felt odd but his feet were certainly warmer and he felt more efficient than he had when he was barefoot. He found another vest which looked very similar to his own, trying not to think about who it had been taken from but unable to stop his mind asking the question. Another Jack? Another Sam? Another Kawalsky? The thought made him feel sick inside but he determinedly picked up a sidearm.
O'Neill was impatiently pressing buttons on a gold-colored box until the top dissolved into the sides with an audible hiss. "Hello. This looks interesting." He held up some discs and Daniel crossed over to look at them. "Have you seen these before?"
"No. Have you?"
"I think so." O'Neill tapped one of the disks against his P-90. "Last time we were over at the Tok'ra HQ – and boy do those guys so not know how to throw a party – there was a big argument going on over this project Marty was trying to get off the ground. Because of the Tok'ra having so much trouble getting hosts they keep losing a lot of important information when their hosts die and the symbiotes have nowhere to go so die with them. So, Marty had come up with this idea for the elders to stick a memory device in their heads and then record their knowledge for the good of the Tok'ra nation. Apparently there's quite a lot of opposition to the idea and most of the Tok'ra thought it was a lousy plan because– "
"If that information ever got into the hands of the System Lords…" Daniel grimaced at the thought.
"Exactly. Last thing I heard the Tok'ra High Council were having another meeting and were probably going to pull the plug on the whole project and make Martouf destroy the disks he had so far. Carter was trying to mediate between Lantash and Selmac who were going at in hammer and tongs. At which point I have to say I got very bored with the whole discussion and went off to – "
"Play some – tonsil tennis with Freya?" Daniel enquired innocently.
O'Neill blinked at him. "She has a thing for me in your dimension too?"
"Apparently."
"Well, how about that? Not that it's ever going anywhere because having Anise watching from the peanut gallery tends to dampen my ardor more than somewhat. Anise thinks Freya could do better and tends to mention it. Often."
"Given the fact you have a wife already and have been trying to get into my boxer shorts since you first met me, I think Anise has a point." Daniel picked up one of the disks. "So you're saying you think this could be the information this Teal'c has been getting from the people he's captured?"
"I think it's definitely possible."
"Then we need to destroy these as well."
O'Neill tossed one onto the floor and stamped on it but it didn't so much a crack. "Damn."
Daniel frowned. "Do you know anything about explosives?"
The man looked at him in disbelief. "Do I know anything about…? I was in Special Ops for crying out loud!"
"I take it that's a yes. I was just thinking that if there was some C4 around here somewhere we might be able to blow up the mirror with a timed device that would give us time to get out of this dimension before the explosion. Then we could take these disks with us and destroy them on the other side."
"Or use them ourselves."
Daniel darted him a straight look. "Colonel, the information on these disks was obtained under torture. I don't think anyone has the ethical right to use it for any purpose whatsoever."
"Not even to defeat Apophis?"
"Not for anything."
"The Tok'ra won't agree, you know."
"Do you?"
O'Neill grimaced. "In theory – probably. In practice – no. I think we have to use any advantage we get. Sorry."
"Fine." Daniel picked up the disks and started pushing them into the other man's pack. "Then you take them back to your dimension and you use them any way you want to. But I'm not having any part of it."
Snatching up double handfuls of the disks and shoving them into his pack, O'Neill said, "Where you come from, do you and I have these sort of moral dilemma-ethical disagreements a lot?"
"Every now and then." Daniel picked up another handful and shoved them into the pack.
"Just as a matter of interest, do I ever win?"
Daniel moistened his lips, tossed the last disk into the pack and then met the man's gaze. "About as often as you beat me at chess, Colonel."
The man narrowed his eyes. "You think I'm going to take these home with me and then destroy them without looking at them, don't you? You think I'm going to realize you were right and do what you think I should do just because it's the right thing to do?"
Daniel shrugged. "I think what you do in your own dimension is your own business, Colonel, and has absolutely nothing to do with me."
The man's hand shot out so fast, Daniel was taken completely by surprise; fingers closed on the front of his vest and yanked him forward so they were barely an inch apart. The other Jack gazed into Daniel's eyes, breathing huskily, "You know if you came back to my dimension with me, I'm sure you could teach me to be a better man, Doctor Jackson. And seeing as how your Jack O'Neill is so damned perfect he doesn't even put the moves on you, I'd say my need was definitely greater than his."
Daniel felt the man's breath against his mouth, smelled the familiar comforting scent of Jack's sweat and aftershave, felt the warmth of those strong fingers tracing an encouraging tattoo against his arms, and realized why people experimented sometimes. He realized too that he had been given the scenario here he had rather envied Jack over that time loop business: no consequences. He could do anything he wanted with this Jack O'Neill. He could even do things he didn't think he wanted but might like, and it would have no impact whatsoever on his relationship with the Jack O'Neill back home.
Except it would, of course. Even leaving aside the fact they were pretty much in the middle of a suicide mission here and this was definitely neither the time nor the place, he couldn't let a man who was to all intents and purposes his best friend take what Daniel was inclined to think of as a fairly major liberty with him, then go back and act exactly the same with a Jack O'Neill who had no idea aforesaid liberty had ever been taken. If Daniel didn't like what this Jack was clearly very eager to do to him, it was going to be weird being around Jack, and if he did like it, it was going to be even weirder.
He dropped his gaze, trying not to look at the man's mouth or eyes, or to inhale the scent of him any more than he could help. "I can't." After a pause he added, "Not while there's a chance I might be able to go home."
O'Neill slowly released him. "But…?"
Daniel shrugged and raked up a smile from somewhere. "Well, let's just say that if we both wind up in the same different dimension, I give you permission to buy me dinner."
There was a pause before O'Neill gave him a slow-burning smile, which Daniel had to admit, did leave him feeling a little breathless. "I'll hold you to that."
Daniel collected himself. "We need explosives."
"Right." O'Neill continued to gaze at him.
"We have to destroy the mirror, Colonel, or Apophis is going to take over the whole damned universe."
"Right." O'Neill was still looking at him like he was hypnotized.
Daniel could feel a strange warmth creeping through him as those brown eyes seemed to gaze straight into his soul. He had never been so aware of the sound of another human being's heartbeat, the warmth of another man's body heat only a breath away from his own.
"We have to do it now."
That seemed to get through and O'Neill put a hand up to his head. "Right. Do you know what C4 looks like?"
Daniel bristled in indignation. "Yes."
"Okay, then you look down there and I'll look up here and we'll just have to hope that some of these poor bastards were on their way to blow up something when they got caught."
***
He was going to expunge the last few hours from his memory. The waiting. The yelling because everything was taking too long. The more waiting. The more yelling. Major Davis trying to calm him. General Hammond trying to calm him. Teal'c trying to calm him. The yelling when the calming had failed. And then, finally, success.
"You've got to love a rat who always runs true to form." O'Neill couldn't stop that grin breaking out as he and Teal'c carried the quantum mirror back into the chamber on Tollana. Well, Teal'c carried the mirror, and he carried the remote, but then Teal'c didn't have anything wrong with his back.
He saw Carter jerk her head up, see what he and Teal'c were carrying, and her face dissolve into the biggest smile of relief he'd ever seen. Narim also looked a lot happier than he'd done even a few seconds before. "Colonel O'Neill, you were successful."
Jacob was already clearing them a place on the desk so Teal'c could set the smaller mirror up beside the larger one. "Let's chalk one up to the right hand never knowing what the left hand is doing."
"Not to mention helicopters so fast they're still only at the prototype stage and General Hammond having all those favors he could call in for an emergency."
"Um – sir, it was actually only the remote we needed. You didn't need to bring the mirror as well."
O'Neill waved a hand at Teal'c. "The deal was it was destroyed or it was taken off world so we thought it was better to leave it here. Just in case, you know." He tossed Carter the remote.
She caught it easily. "So, Maybourne did manage to steal a remote? I never thought I'd say it, but I'm feeling quite well disposed towards him right now."
"You and me both, Carter."
She was already turning the dial on the remote device, Goa'uld-blasted dimensions flickering across the screen like someone else's bad dreams. "Colonel, you're the only one who saw what the reality Daniel was taken to looks like so you're going to have to identify it." She pulled out a chair for him and held out the remote. "According to Daniel, you have to turn it in very small increments or you miss out entire dimensions."
O'Neill unwillingly sat down in the chair and took the remote. He was very eager to get after Daniel, but he'd hoped someone else could do this fiddly stuff then he and Teal'c could go and kick some alternate dimension Jaffa butt. As he turned the dial what he considered a very small amount, about six dimensions rushed past in a blur. He grimaced. "Whoa, this is harder than it looked when Daniel was doing it."
"Very small increments, sir."
O'Neill tried again and this time saw an SGC building, a beach, an Area 51, and what looked like an airplane hanger flit past. "None of those." He glanced up at Teal'c. "This could take some time."
Teal'c's face was grave. "Time is exactly what we do not have, O'Neill."
"I know." O'Neill turned the dial again and got a blur of three SGCs. "I know."
***
It was as they were heading for the chamber with the mirror that they saw the golden sarcophagus. Daniel tugged on O'Neill's sleeve to stop him. "Look."
The man raised his P-90 in automatic response. Daniel could practically see his hackles rising as well. "Do you think Snakeboy's sleeping in it?"
Daniel blinked at him. "They're not vampires."
"But they do need to – renew themselves or whatever, don't they? I figure we go over there. Blow up the sarcophagus along with whoever's inside it. Then blow up the mirror."
Wishing he'd never pointed it out to him now, Daniel tightened his grip on his arm. "Colonel, how many serpent guards do you see in that room?"
The look of exasperation he gave Daniel was exactly like the Jack he knew. In fact, the more Jack O'Neills Daniel got to meet the more he came to the conclusion they were all the damned same under the skin. "None, Doc, that's my point."
As the other man made to stride into the room, Daniel hung onto his arm. "And how many do you think there would be if there was a royal Goa'uld in there?" As O'Neill looked at him blankly, Daniel added, "And how many serpent guards do you think there will be after you've used a hand grenade to kill Apophis even if he is in there? The mirror is the problem."
"Apophis is the problem," the man retorted. "Kill Snakeboy and the whole scam is over. If we blow the guy to pieces there's not a sarcophagus in Goa'uld Town that can put him back together again."
"Kill Apophis and his loyal first prime is definitely clever enough to go and contact the Heru'ur in this dimension and offer him the same plan, not to mention going through the mirror to find another Apophis and offering him the same plan."
"Why would he bother if his god's dead?"
"In my dimension, Teal'c's primary motivation is his desire to free his people and he would walk through fire to do that. I'm guessing that in this dimension Teal'c's primary motivation is revenge. He wants Cronos dead and he thinks Apophis is the right Goa'uld for the job. For all I know he might want every Cronos is every universe destroyed."
O'Neill frowned in obvious confusion. "What's his beef with Cronos?"
"Cronos murdered Teal'c's father in my dimension so I bet it's the same here. And as Greek mythology tells us, that's always been a major incentive for long drawn out revenge plans that take a lot of other people down with them. The fact is, we can't know for sure what the Teal'c in this dimension wants, but we do know he is aware of the mirror's capabilities and we have no guarantee he's going to stop using it even if Apophis is dead. So, as I said before, the mirror is the problem, not Apophis."
O'Neill looked at him for a moment and then gave his head a little shake. "Damnit, are you always right about everything?"
"Can we please get on with this?" Daniel led the way down the corridor but the other man caught him up in a few swift strides and overtook him.
"As a matter of interest, have I ever slugged you in your dimension?"
"Once. When you had a virus. I mean when Jack had a virus. It made him act like a – caveman."
A look of disbelief flitted across the other man's face. "I had a virus that made me act like a caveman and I ¬hit you? What ever happened to that primal club-him-over-the-head-drag-him-off-by-the-hair-and-hump-him instinct?"
Daniel glared at him. "Well, luckily for me, it didn't take Jack that way."
"Why did he hit you?"
"Because he was the alpha male and he wanted to make sure I didn't think about mating with Sam."
"Carter?" The other man spluttered in disbelief. "Captain Knowitall? No way in hell!"
"Look, she tried to – mate with him, Jack took her to the infirmary. I saw the scratches on his neck and asked him what happened. He told me Sam had attacked him. I expressed concern about her. He got angry and hit me. End of story. And why am I even telling you this?"
"Hah!" O'Neill held up a finger. "What I'm hearing is – Carter tried to mate with your O'Neill. Your O'Neill didn't want to know. You showed an interest in Carter. He got jealous and decked you. But of whom he was jealous is entirely open to interpretation…"
Daniel looked at him for a moment open-mouthed and then narrowed his eyes. "Don't start on Jack. I told you, we're friends."
"You have to admit my interpretation of his motives also fits all the facts."
"No it doesn't."
"Yes, it does."
"Doesn't."
"Does."
"Doesn't."
Daniel gave him a glare as he emphasized the word and the other man shrugged. "Okay, have it your way. If you want to think your Jack has a thing for his 2IC you go right ahead. It makes me look a lot shinier for one thing. I may cheat on my wife and sleep around a little but at least I don't sexually harass my own subordinates."
Daniel almost rose to the bait then gave himself a mental shake. This Jack was clearly thinking that if they only had enough fights they would get to that make-up sex eventually. Well, he wasn't going to play that game. He decided to change the subject and asked conversationally, "How come Sam is still a Captain in your world anyway? She's a major in mine."
"Perhaps because where I come from her commanding officer doesn't want to fuck her?"
Daniel promptly forgot all good resolutions, grabbed the other man by the front of the jacket and slammed him up against the wall. "Don't you ever say that about Sam or about Jack, you son-of-a-bitch! Sam earned her promotion ten times over and Jack would never let his judgment be affected by – "
"Hey! Okay, I'm sorry." O'Neill held up his hands in supplication. "I was out of line and I'm sorry. But we're on a mission here, remember? Universes to save? A mirror to destroy? Remember that?"
Daniel collected himself, counted to ten, then held up his own hands in apology. "Sorry."
"That's okay." Before Daniel had time to react, he was grabbed, one hand clasped to the back of his head as he was bent backwards over the man's arm until he was practically horizontal. He squeezed his eyes closed as a face swooped down to meet his, then warm lips were pressed against his open mouth, a wet tongue demanded entrance, and he found himself being thoroughly kissed by a very determined Jack O'Neill. Sixty oxygen-starved seconds later, he was pulled up and set back on his feet, breathless, disheveled, and for the moment at least, speechless with surprise.
The other man gave him an apologetic shrug. "Sorry. Had no right to do that but I couldn't resist. You're just so damned hot when you're angry."
"But – !"
O'Neill grabbed his arm and pulled him after him. "No time for that now, Doc, you can yell at me later."
Daniel could see the man was already totally focused on the task at hand. How could the guy do that? Just kiss him and then be back to being completely intent on their mission a couple of seconds later? Daniel looked around dazedly and realized they were right outside the chamber where the mirror was. He was still trying to stop his mind from shrieking at him that Jack had just kissed him, and not a fraternal kiss either: that had been an exploring-his-tonsils felt-like-it-was-trying-to-suck-the-lungs-out-of-his-chest, jangled-every-now-very-mixed-up-hormone-in-his-body, kiss. He could still feel that damp heat on his lips, could still taste that tongue in his mouth…
"Doc?"
"What?" Daniel jumped when the man touched his arm and then stared at him in still rather breathless confusion.
O'Neill frowned. "You okay?"
"No!" he hissed at him indignantly.
O'Neill looked at him in surprise. "Christ, you must have been kissed by a guy before."
"Why must I?" Daniel demanded.
"Because you're thirty-five and you're so damned – hot."
"Well, the men in my universe obviously have way more self-control than the ones in yours, Colonel, because up until thirty seconds ago I had never been kissed by a 'guy' and didn't want to be, thank you very much."
"Hey," the other man held up a finger. "If it hadn't done anything for you, you wouldn't be so mad at me."
"You are so unbelievably full of –!"
As the other Jack held up the C4 in a silent reminder of what they were here for, Daniel choked on the end of his sentence, glared at him horribly and stamped into the chamber. As he saw a flicker of light cross the mirror he increased his pace, but there was no sign of the remote and his heart sank.
"Where is it?" the man asked.
Daniel shrugged. "Not here. But I think the mirror might be switched on."
"Okay, then we set the C4, go through to wherever that mirror is linked to and hope we can find a remote there. I'm going to get you home one way or another."
Daniel recognized that tone so well: a Jack O'Neill determined to believe everything was going to come out all right despite the all the evidence to the contrary. Standing in the doorway to guard their exit, gaze raking the corridor, and P-90 at the ready, this Jack O'Neill looked every inch the Air Force Colonel and despite the way he had just grabbed him and kissed him, Daniel noticed all the habitual trust he had for the Jack O'Neill he knew was automatically aligning itself to this man as well. It was as though any Jack O'Neill anywhere was magnetic north to him, the compass point of his trust being drawn to that direction in a way Daniel couldn't seem to control.
Daniel had to put his P-90 on the table to take out the C4 and prime it. He put the explosive as close to the mirror as he could get it without actually touching it, setting the timer for ten minutes as he did so. The image in the mirror was of a corridor in a SGC somewhere. There was staff weapon damage but no one in sight. He wondered if the first prime had gone through it again. If he was out there now, kidnapping more Jacks, more Sams, perhaps even other Teal'cs, driven by his lust for revenge, or his loyalty to his false god. If they blew up the mirror, that Teal'c would never be able to get home with his captives, but it wouldn't really solve anything to trap the other Teal'c on the wrong side of the mirror. It occurred to Daniel then that the truth he had been skirting round all this time was not just that the mirror needed to be destroyed but that this Teal'c needed to die.
Despite the fact the Teal'c in this dimension had come very close to sexually assaulting him earlier and had undeniably smacked him around more than somewhat when he'd tried to escape, he still felt chilled through inside at the thought of it. There had to be another way because there had to be good in this Teal'c somewhere, there just had to be. There was so much good in the Teal'c he knew he couldn't believe there could be none in any Teal'c, whatever universe was from. He just needed to reach the man he knew inside the stranger with his friend's face…
At the sound of a staff weapon charging, Daniel wheeled around in shock and found himself looking into the cold brown eyes of the first prime of Apophis. Teal'c said softly, "When I have finished with you, Slave, you will beg me for the mercy of a quick death."
***
"When we find the right dimension, Teal'c and I are going to go through alone." O'Neill kept turning the dial gingerly. He was getting the hang of it now even though it was tricky. Made you wonder what kind of fingers it had been built for in the first place. Maybe it hadn't ever been meant for humans at all. Maybe it was something else built by the Ancients or the Asgard. Just one of a lot of things he'd have to ask Thor the next time he ran into the little fella.
"What? Why?"
He glanced up from the mirror to see Carter looking less than thrilled with him. He raised an eyebrow at her and she collected herself before protesting more politely, "Colonel, I just don't think this is a two-man mission."
"The last two-man mission you staged wasn't exactly a howling success, Jack," Jacob put in.
"General Carter has a point, O'Neill," Teal'c put in.
O'Neill glanced up at them in annoyance. "Thank you for the show of confidence, people, but the point is that I know how far out of my depth I am on this one. That's why I don't want Carter coming with us, because I need someone on this side of the mirror with enough brains to come and get me, Teal'c and Daniel back if I screw up again. Is that clear enough for you all?"
Carter looked unconvinced. "Understood, sir, it's just that – "
"I have no idea what I'm doing, okay? Anyone here who didn't get that the first time? I don't understand alternate universes. I don't like thinking there are other versions of me out there anyway, I like to think I'm unique." O'Neill jerked the dial as he finished each sentence. "And I really don't like thinking there are other versions of Teal'c out there who keep killing the other versions of me. But I would like to get Daniel back in more or less the same condition in which I lost him, so I am going to touch this damned mirror and go through to the damned other side, and Teal'c is going to come with me so I have someone with me who might be a match for the other Teal'c. Then I am hopefully going to find Daniel, bring him back home, and, if I have anything to do with it, never have to so much as look at one of these damned mirrors ever again. But if I should screw up – which is perfectly possible, I want the Tok'ra, the Tollan, you, Carter, and the best brains you can beg borrow or steal from anywhere else figuring out a way to come and get us all back again, because I do not want to be stuck in the wrong dimension – "
"Sir. You need to be looking at the mirror. You're the only one of us who knows what we're looking for." She did look all the same. As she bent down to stare into the mirror, he smelled her perfume, the faint scent of it. He waited for it to impact upon him, braced for it, like roll of thunder after lightning, but nothing happened. He smelled it, her perfume, a trace of talcum powder, was aware of a strand of her newly shorn hair almost touching his eyelid, but he felt nothing at all. He didn't know if he was relieved or disappointed to discover that whatever it was affecting his judgment and shortening his temper, it didn't seem to be his 2IC.
"Colonel – "
The hint of impatience in her tone jolted him out of his thoughts, and he looked up. For a moment his heart leapt as he thought he recognized the chamber and then he saw the painted blue lotuses on the walls. There had been no lotus flowers on the world Daniel had been taken to. Daniel. He gritted his teeth. Better not to think about Daniel as a three-dimensional, vulnerable, human entity, with a voice and a heart and a mind of his own. Otherwise the thought of him in the hands of some evil twin version of Teal'c was just too unbearable. Better to think of him as a mission that had to be accomplished. That way he might be able to hang onto his sanity for a few hours longer.
"Keep turning the dial, Major." His voice sounded brittle, harsh, as if he didn't care. But he was afraid of how much he cared; afraid that if they didn't find Daniel in time and this terrible anxiety turned to aching loss that he wasn't going to get over it. Ever. "He's out there somewhere. We just have to find him…"
***
Daniel hadn't known anyone could move so fast. Even as O'Neill was spinning around to fire and Daniel was still thinking about snatching back his own P-90, Teal'c was across the chamber and grabbing him, jerking Daniel in front of his body as easily as though he was rag doll. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Daniel found himself being used as a human shield to hold off the fire of a desperate Jack O'Neill. Teal'c had his left arm wrapped in a choke grip around Daniel's throat, pulling him up so high Daniel was having to stand on tip-toe, the occasional gulp of oxygen getting through to keep him conscious, but so little the blood was beginning to make rushing noises in his head, like seawater on shale.
"Let him go!" O'Neill was gripping his P-90 so tightly Daniel could see his fingers were white. He could see everything very clearly in that moment. The red numerals on the explosives winking their way lower second by second. The unblinking brown gaze of the other man, the muscle in his jaw clenching as he tried to stare out a Teal'c who knew damned well he'd won this hand.
He heard the staff weapon charging and his eyes widened in horror. "No!" He tried to grab at the Jaffa's arm, but Teal'c turned sideways, jerking his right arm away from Daniel's grip, while pulling Daniel in hard across his chest to cover as much of his body as possible.
Jack had told him so many times that in battle even a second's hesitation could prove fatal. As he cried out a warning, Daniel saw the proof of it right in front of him; saw O'Neill falter, saw him jib at pulling the trigger when some of his bullets might hit Daniel, saw that instant of indecision cost him everything as the blast from the staff-weapon smashed into his chest and threw him back against the wall.
"No!" Daniel desperately tried to pull loose, but the other Teal'c kept hold of him, dragging him, still struggling, across the floor as he strode over to where O'Neill was lying with a smoking crater where his chest should have been.
Daniel met his gaze and saw a terrifying blankness come into those familiar brown eyes; life and light leaving them. "Colonel?"
"Hey, Doc…" It was a barely audible whisper.
Although he was clearly dying, the other man was still trying to reach for his P-90. But as his fingers groped for it weakly, Teal'c kicked it contemptuously out of his reach. He pointed the staff weapon at the dying man again and then lifted it. "No. Enjoy your last seconds. I only wish you had lived long enough to watch me take my pleasure with your catamite."
"Get your hands off him, you son of a…" There was murderous warning in O'Neill's voice, but he couldn't even coordinate his movements now, his fingers still groping for a gun that wasn't there. Blood trickled from his mouth and when it dripped onto his other hand he stared at it as though he didn't know what it was.
Daniel said desperately, "Please, you have to listen to me. In my universe, this man is your closest friend. You've defeated Apophis together. Freed your wife and child. You're closer than brothers. Please don't let him die. Help me take him to the sarcophagus – "
"Be silent, Tau'ri whore." Teal'c's voice was soft and murderous but Daniel barely even heard him. His gaze was fixed on the man who was dying in front of him. Now he knew how Jack had felt on that ship; how it felt to be so helpless when someone you cared about was losing the fight right in front of you.
O'Neill coughed, a rush of blood welled from his mouth and then he slumped quietly to the floor.
"No…!" Daniel struggled like a maniac, trying to pull himself loose from Teal'c's implacable grip and when he realized that was hopeless, words tumbled from him, trying to make this Teal'c hear him, trying to make him believe that in the dimension Daniel came from the man he'd just murdered mattered to him more than any other. All the hopes and fears of the Teal'c he knew spilling from him in a torrent as Daniel told him that he knew he couldn't really want to do this; to serve Apophis, to remain a slave; knew his courage, his integrity, his compassion –
"Be silent!"
Daniel kept pleading with him as Teal'c dragged him across the chamber, trying to twist his head round to look at the dead Jack O'Neill lying slumped on the floor in a growing pool of his own blood, Daniel repeating over and over again that Teal'c's people could only be freed if he joined forces with the man he'd just killed, the man who could be revived, please, please, please, if Teal'c would only help Daniel take him to a sarcophagus. Daniel invoked, Drey'ac, Ry'ac, Shau'nac, Bra'tac, Teal'c's father, all of those men and women on Chulak just waiting for the day when they could be freed from the yoke of Goa'uld oppression –
Teal'c slammed him down onto the chair he'd bound Daniel to before and Daniel read in his eyes that he had succeeded only in turning the man from arrogant and contemptuous to furious and savage. These home truths were clearly ones this Teal'c did not want to hear.
"You're better than this," Daniel told him breathlessly. "I know you. And you're so much better than this. Apophis isn't fit to lick the boots of the man I know you're capable of becoming. Please, help me to help Colonel O'Neill. Help yourself to become the man you could be – "
The blow nearly took his head off. The room tilted up and spun; then as another backhand slammed across the other side of his face; tilted the other way. Head ringing, only hanging onto consciousness by a fingernail, Daniel was dazedly aware of his borrowed jacket being pulled down and twisted tightly to trap his arms, his t-shirt ripped, then his belt was unbuckled, his fly unbuttoned. As he tried to struggle he was slapped again and then again, blood welling from his nose and mouth as he pants were tugged down from his hips.
"No, Teal'c, don't – " He was too full of despair to panic. A universe where Teal'c would murder Jack in cold blood and then rape him just to punish him for speaking the truth, was a universe he would have been so much happier never knowing existed.
As he struggled desperately to free his arms, Teal'c moved in on him with hatred as well as lust in his eyes. The Jaffa's mouth was pressed against his, teeth biting his lower lip cruelly as his mouth was bruised and bloodied in a punishing kiss. Then Teal'c was biting the soft flesh of Daniel's throat; one hand in Daniel's hair, jerking his head back so Teal'c could worry at his exposed jugular like a vampire, the other hand thrust into Daniel's boxers, jerking against Daniel's groin. Goa'uld words of husky contempt were breathed into his ear. There was real loathing in Teal'c's voice as he told Daniel how hard he was going to fuck him, how loudly Daniel was going to scream, how much the miserable Tau'ri whore was going to like it even though he'd beg for mercy he wasn't going to receive as that erect cock was thrust into him harder and deeper, over and over again.
This had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with power, Daniel knew that. But as Teal'c bit a punishing trail down Daniel's chest, across his ribs, then cruelly bruised the soft skin of his abdomen with more savage bites, Daniel realized that knowing this wasn't about sex didn't really help him when he was about to be raped. He couldn't see the red numerals of the C4 counting their inexorable way down to zero; had no idea if Teal'c had seen him set the timer or not; but he did know that the explosion wasn't going to come in time to save him from this. Even if the bomb went off and saved those other dimensions, the last image burned into this Daniel Jackson's mind was going to be the sight of a Jack O'Neill dying in pain in a puddle of blood, and the last sensation burned into his body was going to be a Teal'c thrusting into him with savage contempt.
He was abruptly seized by his trapped arms and thrown onto his front; the air knocked out of him as he was slammed face down onto the leather upholstery. "Please, Teal'c, please…"
He knew it was futile but one part of him still couldn't believe Teal'c would do this to him; any more than he could really believe the man wasn't going to at least try to revive the Jack O'Neill he'd just murdered.
"Be silent…" There was real malevolence in that hiss in his ear and the blow to the back of his head set it ringing again. He was still trying to pull his arms free but without success, the panic rising as he wriggled and struggled and they remained trapped by the confining jacket. There was terrible irony in the fact he could still smell Jack on the cloth; still, absurdly, felt comforted by the scent of a man who Daniel knew was never going to be able to protect him or help him again.
He felt his pants tugged down further, his boxers dragged from his hips, a chill breeze snaking across his exposed rear. He heard the sound of something being undone and realized Teal'c was making himself ready; cruel fingers bruised the back of his thighs, forcing his legs open.
"Don't, Teal'c! Please, don't…" Daniel tried not to sound as desperate as he felt but his voice cracked. It wasn't just the prospect of being raped that was making the bile rise in his throat, but the prospect of being raped by Teal'c. Overlaying the scent of Jack's sweat and aftershave so resolutely clinging to that jacket, he could smell Teal'c's scent as well, and against all logic a part of him still found it comforting. But in a few seconds, all he was going to associate with that scent was pain and humiliation.
"Scream all you want to." Teal'c breathed the words into Daniel's ear as he pressed against him. "Your O'Neill cannot save you now."
Braced for the searing pain of being penetrated, it took Daniel a second to realize the weight was abruptly gone from his back.
He heard strangled words in Goa'uld; shock and murderous hatred overlapping like waves on a beach.
"Daniel!" The voice was so unexpected he jerked his head round in disbelief.
He read horror, pity, and guilt in those familiar brown eyes and then Jack was tugging at the jacket, swearing, untwisting, and finally wrenching it back up with a rip of cloth so he could get his arms free. Then there were strong hands helping him to sit up, steadying him. "Christ, Daniel, I'm so fucking sorry."
"Not your fault, Jack." The second his arms were free Daniel hauled his boxers back up over his ass then yanked up his pants. It was only when he found he couldn't button his fly that he realized how violently his hands were shaking.
"Christ…" Jack looked scared to touch him. He put a tentative finger to Daniel's jaw, wincing as he looked at his face. Daniel saw Jack's gaze traveling down Daniel's body, taking in the torn t-shirt revealing those angry red marks already darkening into bruises where the other Teal'c had –
"Where's…?" Daniel jerked his head round and at the look in his Teal'c's eyes felt his blood temporarily run cold. He thought he was quite experienced in self-hatred but as he looked at the Teal'c he knew so well, he realized he was just a beginner.
Teal'c had his alternative dimension counterpart jammed up against the wall, fingers digging into the flesh of his throat as he crushed his windpipe. Over his shoulder, Teal'c said tautly, "Daniel Jackson, did he –?"
"I'm fine, Teal'c." Daniel said it quickly, still hoping he might not have to watch Teal'c kill himself for the second time. "He didn't – I mean, you don't have to – "
He heard Teal'c's soft hiss as he said murderously, "Be grateful O'Neill and I arrived when we did. Had you dishonored Daniel Jackson as you intended, your death would have been much slower…"
"Teal'c, don't – " Daniel saw the flash of a blade and then Jack was between him and Teal'c blocking the view although he still heard the other Teal'c make an inarticulate sound as the knife was plunged into his heart.
As Daniel flinched, Jack pulled the jacket across Daniel's bruised and bitten chest, saying tersely, "He had it coming."
Daniel jumped off the couch, staggering as his legs tried to do an impression of spaghetti. Jack caught him at once and helped him up. "Easy there, big fella."
There was the soft thump of a body hitting the ground. Daniel darted a glance in that direction and saw the other Teal'c lying dead, eyes open but unseeing. He quickly averted his gaze from the bloodstained knife in Teal'c's hand and turned to Jack. "You have to help me get you to a sarcophagus."
"What?"
Daniel was already staggering across the floor to where the dead O'Neill was lying. Behind him he could hear Jack asking Teal'c if he was okay, reminding Daniel he was going to have to take several hours to convince Teal'c that everything was still okay between them and that Daniel knew Teal'c wasn't responsible for the actions of his other selves. But right now he wanted that soul-stealing piece of Goa'uld technology to work its dark magic one more time, and he needed the help of Jack O'Neill to save Jack O'Neill. "Jack!"
"I'm coming."
Daniel had to tell himself very firmly that death was only a temporary state because looking at that bloody corpse with half its chest missing, it was almost impossible to believe this man would ever breathe again.
"Christ!" Jack recoiled in horror.
Daniel was crouched down next to the other man, lifting his head. It was a dreadful sensation to stare into those sightless brown eyes and he wasn't surprised his Jack had gone white as a ghost; he was probably feeling like one.
"Help me, Jack, you're too damned heavy to carry by myself."
"Daniel, he's had it."
"I told you, there's a sarcophagus. You have to help me get him there." As Daniel caught hold O'Neill's body under the arms, he called across to Teal'c. "There's C4 by the mirror. I don't know how long we've got left but it might not be enough."
"I will attend to it, Daniel Jackson."
Jack grabbed his dead self's feet, saying over his shoulder to Teal'c. "That mirror's our only way out of here, so…" He let a shrug finish the sentence and a brief nod from Teal'c took the place of a reassurance that the Jaffa was aware of the importance of guarding this chamber and securing their retreat.
As they staggered along the corridor with the dead O'Neill between them, Daniel couldn't help noticing how drawn with anxiety the living Jack looked. "You okay, Jack?"
"Peachy." Jack hoisted the dead man's legs up a little higher. "Any word on the Tok'ra?"
"They're all dead. Which reminds me, the pack he was carrying has vital information we mustn't let fall into Apophis' hands. And we have to destroy the mirror in this dimension, and…" Daniel filled Jack in as fast as he could on their current situation and the danger that mirror represented as they carried the body into the room with the sarcophagus.
Daniel didn't even see the guard, he just saw Jack drop the feet of the man they were carrying and then the flash of something silver. A gurgle followed by a thump behind him told Daniel that someone else had just died. He was starting to feel as though his skin was coated in other men's blood today. Jack must have seen him grimace because as he picked up his portion of their burden he quietly said, "Daniel, in our dimension I like to think that guy I just offed is alive and well and rebelling against Apophis. Remember what Teal'c said before."
"Yes. I didn't agree with him then either. Every reality is of consequence." Daniel hit the panel on the sarcophagus with his elbow to make it open, hating the part of himself that could still remember how good that thing had made him feel, hating the sarcophagus for being what it was, yet needing it now as he'd needed it so badly in the past.
As they lifted the dead O'Neill into it, Daniel flinching from his sightless eyes as they laid him gently in the bottom of the casket, he remembered how it had felt to hold Sha're, dead in his arms, as he asked Jack to wait for him; remembered dragging himself down the corridors of that ship, trying not to black out despite the pain of his wound. The sarcophagus grated closed, like a giant maw swallowing the dead man whole.
Daniel wrapped his arms around himself and sat down on the steps in the chamber. He didn't know how well it worked; how long you could be dead and still be revived; he only knew he needed it to work as much as he ever had in the past; that the only thing which would obliterate the memory of Jack dying right in front of him was if this O'Neill got up and walked out of that sarcophagus.
His Jack seemed torn between guarding the exit from any serpent guards and darting anxious looks in his direction. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," he said it with a sigh. I've just seen way too many people die today.
Jack hoisted up his P-90 and looked at him in exasperation. "Daniel, a guy who looks exactly like one of your closest friends just beat you up then tried to rape you, no one would be 'fine' under those circumstances."
Daniel met his gaze. "If the other you survives, I'll be fine. If he doesn't, I won't be."
He saw confusion closely followed by surprise in Jack's eyes. "You and him – hit it off then?"
"He's you, Jack. I was pretty much pre-disposed to like him."
Jack made a face. "The way I've been acting recently I would have thought you'd be pretty much pre-disposed to smack him in the mouth."
Daniel bent his head to hide a smile. "Well, that too of course."
O'Neill wondered if he'd ever get used to the way Daniel could always surprise him. It didn't seem right that he should be able to when they knew each other so damned well. But for a guy who had so consistently sucked at all sports throughout High School, Daniel still pitched one hell of a curve ball sometimes.
As they'd turned around from that mirror and he'd seen what Teal'c's evil twin was trying to do to Daniel, he'd thought he'd definitely be the guy who got there first, but Teal'c had been across that chamber faster than a hurricane. O'Neill reckoned that other Teal'c had known he was dead from the second he saw the look in his counterpart's eyes. O'Neill had seen the shocked disbelief on the other Teal'c's face as he saw himself in a SGC uniform turn to realization that this Teal'c was going to kill him. There had been that brief glance in Daniel's direction and then Teal'c had slammed him against the wall. The only real surprise was that Teal'c had knifed him instead of just twisting his head off his shoulders, he'd certainly looked ready, willing, and able to.
He was still feeling sick inside about how close Daniel had come to that…fate worse than death thing but Daniel seemed to be waving it aside as unimportant. He'd buttoned up his fly and rebuckled his belt as though his mind was on something else entirely – which it did seem to be. He was now gazing at the sarcophagus with feverish intensity, as though he could will it to work better and faster if he only concentrated hard enough.
O'Neill wasn't sure how he felt about seeing Daniel all knotted up inside about the death of a different Jack O'Neill. It felt – weird. It was probably at least partly on his behalf that Daniel was so upset about that guy dying – hell, it would certainly upset him to see a Daniel from a different dimension dying, so he could understand that – but there was also the thought that Daniel might have got attached to this O'Neill on his own behalf as well.
In the back of his mind, there was a little niggling worry that Daniel might have met a Jack O'Neill he liked even more than the one he knew.
When the cover of the sarcophagus began to grate back slowly, O'Neill checked the corridor outside again, torn between looking out for serpent guards and watching the way Daniel reacted to this version of Jack O'Neill.
He remembered how he'd felt waking up in that thing himself after Hathor had tried to turn him into her first prime. It was like coming back from a deep, drugged sleep underwater; one with lots of nightmares you couldn't quite remember but whose atmosphere still lingered.
Still standing in the doorway, O'Neill watched himself sit up, blink dazedly then focus on Daniel, eyes widening in disbelief. "Doc?"
"Colonel." Daniel still had his arms wrapped around himself but he was grinning like an idiot. He didn't seem to care about his bitten lip, those bite marks on his body, that soon-to-be-black eye or those nasty bruises on both cheekbones and on his jaw. In fact Daniel was looking like all his Christmases had just come at once.
O'Neill watched his other self rise unsteadily to his feet in the sarcophagus; watched Daniel hurry forward to support him, putting his arm around the other O'Neill's waist, while the man automatically put his arm around Daniel's shoulder as though it was the most natural thing in the world. "How the hell…?" As he was helped to the ground, the other O'Neill gave his head a shake. "The last thing I remember that Teal'c guy was planning to fuck your brains out and I was – dead."
"Yes." Daniel nodded gravely. "I decided I didn't like that plan."
The other man put his fingers up to Daniel's bitten lip and winced, then lifted back the jacket to look at Daniel's body. When he ran his fingers gently across the bite mark across Daniel's chest, O'Neill took a half step forward although he wasn't even sure exactly what it was he was objecting to. It just felt like a liberty had been taken that he didn't want Daniel to allow. Wanted proof that these two didn't already have the kind of relationship where Daniel put his arm around this guy to take his weight as though it was the most natural thing in the world, and where he thought nothing of this guy running his fingers across Daniel's bare and recently bitten flesh. The other O'Neill glared at the marks on Daniel's body. "Looks like that son-of-a-bitch was pretty keen on Plan A to me?"
He gave Daniel a searching look and Daniel gave him a reassuring smile in return. "The Jack and Teal'c from my world dropped by and decided they didn't like Plan A either."
"Oh."
O'Neill saw the other O'Neill notice him for the first time; saw himself subjected to a searching glance, suspicious and slightly hostile. Very like the way he was probably looking at the other O'Neill right now. He stepped forward. "Colonel Jack O'Neill, I presume?"
"Well, before we found the quantum mirror, I could have answered 'the one and only' to that. Now I have to tell people we come cheaper by the gross." His doppelganger held out a hand. "Colonel."
It was disconcertingly like his own, those long fingers which took people by surprise sometimes, the thumb which had stuck out a little ever since he'd broken it one too many times. He remembered some woman at a party who claimed to be able to guess people's professions had told him he was a concert pianist; he'd been feeling drunk and nasty enough to tell her actually he was a hired assassin for the US Military; luckily for him, people had assumed he was joking.
For the first time in a long time O'Neill felt like squeezing the hand he was shaking very hard and seeing which one of them winced first. He gave himself a mental reprimand and just shook it firmly. His nerves were clearly still shot. He said, "Colonel," in return, but flatly, no inflection.
The other O'Neill released his hand and turned straight back to Daniel. "So, Doc, what's happening with the C4? How long have we got? Did your friends bring a remote for that mirror with them?"
Walking behind them in the corridor as they hurried back towards the mirror room, O'Neill felt unpleasantly excluded. He couldn't help noticing how at ease Daniel was with this O'Neill. It was like watching movie footage of Daniel and himself together, but this time it wasn't him in the picture, it was just someone who happened to look like him. He felt a childish urge to point out to this other O'Neill that all he was doing right now was reaping the benefit of a relationship he and Daniel had been working on these past few years. Daniel trusted him because Daniel trusted him. And he trusted him because he had earned Daniel's trust, damnit, just like he'd earned Daniel's friendship. They'd been through all kinds of shit together. They'd weathered bad days and dreadful days and truly appalling days in each other's company. He'd seen Daniel through his wife being kidnapped, the aftermath of being raped, the aftermath of being addicted to the sarcophagus, and the aftermath of being left a widower. He was the one who'd been there for Daniel on all those occasions. He was the one who'd just happened to stop by his office all those times. Who'd taken him out for pizza. Taken him back to his place. Played all those chess games with him. Drunk all these beers with him. Made all those totally futile attempts to make Daniel comprehend the rules of hockey. He was the O'Neill who had been the guy putting all the man hours into this friendship over the past four years. And okay, recently he'd dropped the ball on his friendship with Daniel, failed to be there for him a couple of – okay more like a couple of dozen – times, but that didn't just erase all the friendship that had gone before.
That guy had only known Daniel for a few hours; he was just getting the run-off from Daniel's relationship with him. So there.
He decided he hated the way this counterfeit O'Neill called Daniel 'Doc'. What kind of dumb name was 'Doc'? 'Daniel' was a perfectly good name and you could say it in all kinds of ways. But perhaps it was just as well Daniel and the Xerox O'Neill had picked these different names for each other. It would have given him an even weirder feeling to hear Daniel calling this guy 'Jack', and he might have resented it if this guy had been calling Daniel 'Daniel'. He might have kept wanting to insist the guy call him 'Doctor Jackson' instead. He was on the point of insisting the guy call him 'Doctor Jackson' now, except Daniel was the one who would have to object, and Daniel wasn't objecting. Damnit.
"…I can't believe that fucker messed up your face again…"
He was touching Daniel's face again now, looking at those bruises and wincing like it really bothered him Daniel had been smacked around. Well, the guy might think he minded but there was no way in hell he minded as much as this O'Neill minded; that was what four years of friendship did to you; it made you mind a lot when your friend got hurt. He didn't make a big fuss over Daniel when Daniel got clobbered because that wasn't his way and anyway he'd always got the feeling Daniel would rather no one made a big fuss, but that didn't mean it didn't burn him up inside every time Daniel was injured. This latecomer couldn't possibly care as much as he did about how close that other Teal'c had come to doing what he'd so nearly done. He was sure Daniel knew that, of course. He must know as well as O'Neill did that he and Daniel were way closer than Daniel and this joker could ever be. But Daniel still wasn't pushing the man's hand away or anything and some of the stuff the other O'Neill was saying was downright…flirtatious.
"…sure you don't want me to kiss anything better, Doc…?"
Son-of-a-bitch! How insensitive could a guy be? Didn't he get it that Daniel had just been nearly raped? The last thing Daniel needed right now was some asshole paying him compliments that had all the subtlety and finesse of a skydiving elephant.
Daniel looked mildly amused. "Even coming back from the dead doesn't slow you up, does it, Colonel?"
"Hey, you can't blame a guy for knowing what he wants. And if I ever end up permanently dead I know whose bathroom I'll be haunting."
"Why my bathroom?" Daniel frowned.
The man shrugged. "That's the best place to watch you take a shower, right?"
Okay, that was way more than enough of this kind of crap! O'Neill strode forward, saying shortly, "Let's try to keep our minds on the mission, Colonel."
Daniel said mildly, "I think we all know what's at stake here, Jack."
"Some of us seem to need a few reminders."
Daniel met his gaze then said quietly, "I'm wearing a dead man's boots right now, and Colonel O'Neill is wearing a dead man's jacket. I have a dead Sam's lipstick in my pocket. He has the disks from three-dozen interrogations in his pack. I really don't think we need any reminders."
Before O'Neill could protest that comment hadn't been aimed at Daniel, his evil twin said casually, "You might want to lose the lipstick, Doc. Even in my dimension, the Air Force can get a little sticky about things like that."
O'Neill felt something twist inside him as he saw that little smile on Daniel's face. There had been a time when he was the only guy who could get Daniel to smile after a really bad day. The other guy held out a hand. "Come on, give it here. We don't want your CO thinking I've been teaching you too many bad habits."
It was galling too to see Daniel reluctantly hold out his hand as asked and let the object be taken from him. O'Neill heard the man say gently as he pocketed it, "You have to keep telling yourself that in our own dimensions those other versions of us never even existed."
"That's supposed to make me feel better about them having been tortured and murdered?"
"Yep," the other man nodded. "That was definitely the idea."
Another flicker of a ghostly smile from Daniel. How come this guy had the knack of handling him already? It had taken him years to learn how to handle Daniel and even now he often had to wing it.
"We've got company." The man said it urgently, jolting O'Neill out of his thoughts and he looked over his shoulder to see the serpent guards advancing down the corridor.
"Damnit." He automatically reached out to put his hand on Daniel's shoulder to urge him forward, but the other O'Neill had already grabbed Daniel's arm and was towing him after him. As Daniel stumbled in his ill-fitting boots, the other O'Neill hauled him up, giving him a hard tug to keep him moving just as a staff weapon blast passed through the place where Daniel had been even seconds before.
Obscurely annoyed about everything, O'Neill wheeled around and sprayed P-90 fire across the corridor, sparks flying up as the bullets bounced off the serpent guard uniform.
When Teal'c appeared in the doorway of the mirror chamber with a staff weapon in his hand, Daniel barely grabbed the other O'Neill's arm in time, forcing the man to jerk up the weapon to send bullets stuttering across the ceiling. "No! That's the Teal'c from my dimension. He's a friend."
The colonel looked doubtful, but the calm way Teal'c sent blasts of staff weapon fire down the corridor behind them seemed to convince him. He shrugged. "Whatever you say, Doc."
Teal'c beckoned them into the chamber urgently. O'Neill ducked another blast of staff weapon fire, then sent more bullets chattering down the corridor. As he continued to fire, Teal'c grabbed his arm, hauled him into the chamber and then slammed the door. A zat blast a second later sealed the lock for the moment.
"Where's our C4?" his doppelganger demanded.
Teal'c turned around and strode across the chamber. "Major Carter was unconvinced that C4 would prove a powerful enough explosive to destroy the material from which the quantum mirror was constructed. She has provided us with an alternative."
"Naquada enhanced, I suppose?" The Xerox O'Neill peered at the new bomb suspiciously. "Carter thinks you can soup everything up with naquada. I think she's trying to get her Harley to run on the stuff."
"It's an Indian, not a Harley."
As they all looked at him in surprise, O'Neill realized that might have come across as a little on the petty, nitpicking, and inappropriate to the middle of a mission, side.
After raising a fairly withering eyebrow at him, Teal'c took a device from his pocket which had to be the remote for the mirror. From his other pocket he took something else, which O'Neill recognized at once and which sent an immediate shudder down his spine. One of Carter's detonators. The kind you stared at and stared at knowing you were going to have to push that button or else a whole bunch of innocent people would die. Knowing that if you did push that button you'd be killing your best friend. The no-winner to end all no-winners. He collected himself. "How much time do we have, Teal'c?"
"There is a thirty second delay, O'Neill. I will press it only as we are about to touch the mirror."
As the serpent guards hurled themselves against the doors, Daniel grabbed the pack that was lying on the ground. The other O'Neill was looking across at the dead Teal'c with murder in his eyes. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," he said softly.
Daniel tugged him away from the body, saying, "Something must have happened to him that didn't happen to our Teal'c to make him turn out like that. It's all forks in the road, Colonel."
"Let's have the philosophy lesson later, Daniel," O'Neill pleaded. "Have you got everything?"
"Yes." Daniel still had hold of the other O'Neill's arm, he couldn't help noticing. He seemed to be afraid the guy was going to get killed again if he let go of him. He knew how that felt from both sides of the equation. There was a time when Daniel had done that with him. He'd trailed around after him like his own little shadow after they'd got back from Hathor's planet, apparently needing twenty-four hour reassurance that he really was Jack O'Neill and not a Goa'uld. It had been annoying but sort of touching as well. But seeing Daniel fuss over this other O'Neill was just downright annoying.
They all stood around the mirror together: Teal'c, Daniel, himself and his double from a different dimension. "On three." O'Neill nodded to Teal'c. "Press it now."
Teal'c did so and Daniel said, "One-two-three," rapidly. They all pressed the mirror simultaneously. Blue light flickered across them.
Then they were in Tollana with Daniel saying, "Switch it off, Sam, quickly – "
The mirror went blank and O'Neill darted a look at Daniel to check that he was still safe, a glance at Teal'c to ensure that he was also in one piece, then looked at the man who had no right being in his universe, damnit.
The other O'Neill was looking at Daniel and Daniel was looking at him. There was something about their expressions O'Neill really didn't care for; not just Daniel's amused resignation, or the other man's full-of-himself grin; the things beneath that. The things that spoke of a depth of relationship that had no right existing after only a few hours together. As he watched them, he saw the other O'Neill lick his thumb, reach out and wipe a trickle of blood from the side of Daniel's mouth. Daniel just stood there and let him do it, just the way he would have let O'Neill do it; but they'd known each other for over four years now while Daniel and this guy had been strangers up until about four hours before.
He kept watching them as Sam hugged Daniel and he hugged her back; holding her as tightly as though she was the one just plucked safely from the jaws of a hostile dimension, in fact squeezing her so hard there was serious danger of her ribcage cracking. He heard her murmur, "It's okay, Daniel," gently into his ear as she held him just as close in return. "You're home now."
As he reluctantly disentangled Sam from his grasp, Daniel said, "So are you."
His eyes looked suspiciously bright and O'Neill realized there was a whole story there he was going to have to coax out of him later and see if he could fix. He hated these damned alternate universes. They messed with your head like the Blood of Sokar.
He watched Jacob slap Daniel gently on the shoulder. Saw Daniel hold out a hand to Narim and shake it, thanking them all for their help in rescuing him. But all the time he was aware of an invisible thread stretched between Daniel and the other O'Neill; an awareness of each other as though they had both taken up residence in the corner of each other's eyes.
As Daniel finished both being hugged and thanking everyone for their help, his gaze went not to the O'Neill he'd known for the past four years, but to his counterpart. As though they were sharing a joke that only they knew.
Perhaps for the first time since he'd known Daniel Jackson, O'Neill felt as if he had become somehow less than necessary to the younger man. Yesterday he'd felt like an essential. Today, he had a feeling he might be only an optional extra. He didn't like that feeling. He didn't like that feeling at all.
Daniel looked at Colonel O'Neill and realized there was no good reason for his heart to be beating this fast right now. He hoped no one else had noticed, but standing amongst a circle of some of your closest friends on an alien world having a weak-kneed moment over another man was probably not the most discreet thing he could have done.
Unfortunately, ever since the man who was and yet so definitely wasn't 'Jack' had died in front of him he'd been wishing he'd said 'yes' to this guy; thrown caution and commonsense to the winds, let the man drag him into a chamber somewhere in that wrong dimension, and do whatever the hell he wanted. Being seconds away from being brutally raped by another Teal'c had brought it home to him even more strongly that sooner or later sex with a man, with or without his consent, might be something life decided he was going to experience. Life had made him experience a lot of things he hadn't been ready for in the past after all. Perhaps he should get a jump on life and the next nasty trick it might have up its sleeve and ensure his first time with a man wasn't a consequence of being sent to some intergalactic prison, being chained to a bed by a leering Goa'uld, or handed round a bunch of serpent guards while Apophis got to watch. Maybe he should get the jump on life right now by letting this other Jack jump him. Except, unfortunately, he'd left it too late. He'd had his chance back in that other universe but it was gone now. He might be a linguist but it was painfully obvious that Carpe Diem was only ever going to be a Latin phrase to him.
Daniel darted another glance at the man sipping something hot Narim had handed him and tearing into a tuna sandwich from Jacob's store of supplies. Jacob had already provided Daniel with a large mug of coffee and was hovering in case he needed a refill. Not for the first time, Daniel had a sharp pang of envy of Sam for having Jacob. A few people in the SGC had murmured negative things about having your father turned into a Tok'ra and what that must be like but Daniel knew what it was like to have a big empty space where someone who loved you ought to be and he would have taken having a Tok'ra for a father over a death certificate and some old photographs any day of the week.
Teal'c was explaining what had occurred in the other dimension to Sam and Narim. Daniel suspected that Sam, Narim and Jacob must have seen quite a lot of it. The mirror had been switched on the whole time after all so the first prime's attack on him had probably been as visible to them as it had been to Jack and Teal'c; but they were all being much too tactful to admit they had seen anything at all. Narim was nodding gravely as Teal'c told him what had occurred and Daniel felt another spasm of gratitude towards these people who had worked so tirelessly to rescue him and were now working just as tirelessly to protect his and Teal'c's feelings. He made another mental note to spend some quality time with Teal'c once they got back to the SGC. Seeing yourself doing something you would never do in a million years was probably even more traumatic than having something nasty done to you by someone you would never have expected to do it.
Colonel O'Neill returned Daniel's gaze, a quizzical look on his face, that little smile tugging his mouth again. He held up his steaming glass. "You okay, Doc?"
"Peachy," Daniel told him with an ironic smile.
"I bet your Fraiser keeps you in the infirmary for a week."
"Janet likes me," Daniel assured him. "She'll let me go home to rest."
Jack might argue to the contrary but Daniel really wasn't a reckless person; he just believed in the things he believed in and he couldn't switch that belief off at will; and if you believed in things you tended to act on those beliefs. It didn't mean he wasn't aware of any dangers that might be around, or that he didn't care about physical pain or the prospect of violent death. He didn't like pain and he didn't want to die. He really wasn't reckless. But right now he was wishing he were; he was wishing he'd been braver or dumber back there in that wrong dimension and let this wrong Jack do all kinds of wrong things to him because that really had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and now it was gone…
"Well, the Fraiser in my dimension doesn't like me one little bit. I swear I don't need half those injections she keeps jamming in my butt."
"And just as a matter of interest, Colonel, how many of her nurses have you slept with?"
He was aware of Sam and Teal'c staring at him in surprise, but the other Jack only looked mildly abashed. "Hard to keep track. They keep leaving." He gave Daniel another of those slow burn stares that made Daniel's skin feel fever-hot. "You want to come visit my universe, Doc? I could give you a quick tour of the SGC. We could compare – stuff."
"No." Jack said it so fast Daniel jumped. He'd been so busy gazing at the newly-found Jack O'Neill he hadn't realized his accustomed one was standing right by his elbow.
Sam looked at him in surprise. "Actually, sir. Even assuming there is a Daniel still alive in Colonel O'Neill's dimension, Daniel wouldn't be harmed by a visit. For the first forty-eight hours Samantha wasn't affected by – "
"I said 'no', Carter."
The colonel shrugged. "No problem." He gave Daniel a look Daniel couldn't decipher. "I'd better get back to my own world. I've got a few changes to make."
"What kind of changes?" Jack sounded downright suspicious.
His twin looked the picture of innocence. "I've come to realize Major Kawalsky really deserves to be leading his own SG-unit. Daniel told me he did a very good job on Chulak in your universe. Obviously I want to get some feelers out there to see if the Teal'c in our dimension is a good guy and if so see if I can't recruit him. And, of course, working with Daniel has made me realize that I was wrong about a lot of things. I opposed the three soldiers and an anthropologist idea Major Davis was proposing because I didn't think we were ever going to find a grave robber who could pull his weight in a firefight. Now, I know that isn't true I'm going to change my recommendation to General Hammond, see if we can't get some more balanced teams going out through the 'gate to meet and greet those brave new worlds."
Daniel gave me the man a level look. It all sounded perfectly reasonable, of course. And he thought the Stargate program in the other universe would be improved by those alterations, but he still suspected the high-sounding motives. Going by that wicked grin the man was flashing him now, he was meant to.
Thinking of the person he had used to be, Daniel winced in sympathy for his unknown other self. That poor kid was going to get eaten alive by this wolf in colonel's clothing. He moved over to where the man was standing and murmured quietly, "Look, if you're thinking of contacting the me in your world…"
"I'm certainly going to try."
"I just think you should know I wasn't too – good at the soldier stuff at first. And I would have found you very – intimidating."
"Hey," he brushed a piece of fluff from Daniel's jacket. "I know I come over like an asshole, Doc, but I really do have more decency than to start putting the moves on some innocent little archaeologist who's never stuck his nose outside academia. I'm not going to invite the other you into the SGC so he can sit on my lap. Having seen you in action I just don't think we can afford to be without you."
"So, you're not going to try to – " Jack was still so close he might be able to hear this conversation, and Sam looked like she had her ears strained to catch what they were saying as well. Daniel pulled a face. "You know…?"
"Seduce him?" The man looked as though nothing could have been further from his thoughts. "Certainly not."
Daniel nodded. "Good."
"Not on our first meeting anyway. I thought I'd give it at least a week. Tell me, Doc, how much of a head for alcohol do you have?"
Daniel looked him right in the eye. "I can drink you under the table, Colonel."
"Do you like sports?"
"Love them. Especially hockey."
"What about fishing?"
"Next to hockey it's the thing I enjoy most in all the world."
"Has anyone ever told you how cute you look when you lie? Your nose actually twitches."
Jack stepped between them and pointedly looked at his watch. "Better get you back to where you come from, Colonel."
"If you say so, Colonel."
Jack's hostility was barely disguised but the other man was concealing his behind easy charm. All the same, Daniel wouldn't have wanted to leave them alone together. They were like a pair of pitbulls who kept walking around each other then pissing on the same lamppost. He didn't know exactly what this was about but presumed it had something to do with there being nothing worse than seeing your own faults mirrored in someone else. The visiting Doctor Samantha Carter hadn't taken to this world's Sam at first either; there had been definite hostility on her part. He wondered how he would feel about another Daniel Jackson from a different dimension? If there were Daniels out there happily married to Sha're and he ever had to meet them would he dislike them because they still had what he'd lost? He actually thought his own Jack was probably a much better man, and certainly a more complex man, than the Jack O'Neill he was currently wishing he'd slept with. He had more respect for the Jack he knew than this man. And obviously he cared for the Jack he knew much more deeply than he did for the one he had only just met. This one was just more…fun to be with.
Daniel realized there were days when he wanted his friend Jack O'Neill to be a complicated, sometimes moody, sometimes caring individual, with his own inner demons to work around; someone Daniel knew so well it occasionally felt as though Jack couldn't graze his knee without it stinging Daniel too. Then there were days when he just wished he could start all over again with a clean slate and a different, much less complicated, relationship with a Jack O'Neill who had no inner demons to speak of, and had never had to forgive any of Daniel's mistakes or ask forgiveness for his own.
He hadn't realized that was something he wanted, of course, until he met a Jack O'Neill who just enjoyed Daniel's company and didn't mind mentioning the fact. This other Jack also happening to think Daniel was clever, attractive, and worthy of pursuit was something Daniel also found surprisingly flattering. He wasn't sure why he was pleased as well as disconcerted to have a Jack O'Neill making such efforts to…woo him, but he had a sneaking suspicion it was to do with being thought worth the effort. Being flattered because his best friend's double wanted to get him into bed just at a time when his best friend wasn't paying him any attention wasn't exactly the most complex or admirable reaction Daniel could have had to the situation. He admitted that freely. But it didn't alter the fact that he liked being the focus of this other man's attention; liked the way the guy kept catching his eye; giving him little smiles; sharing a secret with him no one else was a part of. Compared with the relationship he and Jack had used to have, it was a poor substitute; compared with the relationship he and Jack had been having recently, it felt pretty damned good.
"Colonel, can you help me to locate your dimension?"
Sam spoke to their guest but her gaze rested on Daniel, and he saw amusement but also concern in her blue eyes. He knew he was going to have to explain to her later why he'd nearly squeezed all the breath out of her body with the relief of seeing her alive and well when he'd stepped away from that mirror. It was going to take him a long time to forget that chamber filled with all those bloodstained SGC uniforms. He knew the Colonel had taken that lipstick away from him so he'd forget about it faster but even without a physical reminder of what he'd seen in that room, he didn't think it was going to fade very quickly.
O'Neill peered over her shoulder to shake his head at the world she was offering him. "No. Too drab. Find me something with more orange in it."
Sam smiled despite herself. "I was hoping to find you the dimension you came from, Colonel."
"Must you? I'm sure there's one out there where the SGC was relocated to Maui. Can't you find me that one?"
Daniel darted a glance across at Jack who was pulling the kind of face usually associated with bad smells. Daniel frowned. "You okay?"
"Fine." Jack looked pointedly at his watch. "I'd just like to get you back to the infirmary and have Fraiser check you out."
"I'm really okay, Jack."
"Well, you look like shit." He grimaced straight after he'd said it. "Sorry, I didn't mean – you just look a bit rough, Daniel, and that wasn't a pleasant experience you went through back there." There was an awkward pause before he said, "You look nice. It's just your bruises that don't – look nice I mean."
Daniel blinked at him in surprise. If there hadn't been all those other people around, most of whom were now looking at Jack as though he'd gone nuts, he would have said 'Jack, you really don't have to pay me compliments just because another you does. Just acknowledging my existence is fine.' He settled for giving him a grateful smile. "I'm fine but thank you anyway. I appreciate your concern." That sounded too formal. This was getting very weird. He met a second Jack O'Neill, and suddenly he and Jack were acting like strangers on a blind date?
Jacob looked between them as though he'd never seen them before, then gave his head a shake as if to clear it. "Daniel, while Colonel O'Neill is finding his own universe again, do you want to fill me in on what happened over there?"
It was a useful distraction even though he was still much too aware of their visitor making Sam giggle despite her best efforts to remain stern as he gave his assessment of each dimension she was finding.
"…look at that one, Beige World… Jeez, that SGC certainly took a hammering. So far it seems to be Apophis one hundred and seventy, Good Guys about three… Hey, a beach, go back to that one. You are such a spoilsport. The Carter in my dimension never lets me have any fun either… Yeuch – let's skip past the ones with dead bodies in the corridors, shall we…? Hey, Carter, you've got long hair in that one… Oh there's me again, Christ, I certainly look pissed about something – Wave, Major, let's see if I wave back. Oops! No sense of humor…"
"Daniel?"
He recalled himself to the question Jacob had asked. "Yes, we destroyed the information the other Teal'c had gathered for Apophis. No, I don't know whether it was a pyramid ship or a permanent base. I didn't see if there was a Stargate. There was a royal sarcophagus but it might not have been Apophis'. I'm sorry about the Tok'ra who died. There was nothing we could do for them…"
"Please, Carter, go back to that one…Yes, my SGC does have a sunken bath in the 'gateroom, why wouldn't it? And yes, it generally has attractive naked people washing each other's backs. Did I mention that I love coming into work? Damnit! You're a hard woman…"
"They made this guy a colonel?" Jack was positively glowering at his counterpart.
"He wouldn't be the first O'Neill to conceal his light under a bushel, Jack," Jacob said dryly. "And from what Daniel tells me, it sounds like he handles himself pretty well in the field."
Jack grunted something that sounded suspiciously like 'Humph'.
"That's it!" Abruptly the colonel sounded so much like their Jack at his most 'Air Force' that everyone stared at him.
The other Jack grimaced apologetically. "Okay. Maybe a very small part of me does actually want to go home." He looked at Sam, "Can you go back? It was right there. They must have taken the mirror through the gate and put it in my office. Kawalsky was biting his lip, Ferretti was looking anxious, and my version of you was looking at her watch and yawning, you can't miss it."
Hiding another smile, Sam turned the dial back. Static flickered across the screen and they all looked at it in surprise, then Sam's face cleared and she turned to address her teammates. "That must be the dimension your abductor came from. I think this proves the mirror was destroyed."
"That's good to know," Jack said quietly.
Sam turned the dial again and there were Kawalsky, Ferretti and another Sam all staring intently at the mirror. Daniel noticed that, despite the other Jack's words, the other Sam looked just as worried as the men did. He saw her mouthing the word 'Colonel?' anxiously.
"Hi, kids. Miss me?" He held up a hand in greeting. "Hope you were good while I was gone."
"Sir, you do know they can't actually hear you, don't you?" Sam gave him an amused look.
"Hey, I'm teaching them to lip read." He held out a hand for her to shake. "It's been a pleasure, Major. Thanks for all your help and I'll even listen to a whole explanation from my Carter out of gratitude."
"Thank you, sir. I'm sure she'll appreciate it."
Daniel hid a smile but then looked up to see their visitor beckoning to him. He went over as the man pulled the pack with the disks in it onto his back then addressed Jack over his shoulder. "It's been – weird, Colonel."
"Likewise, Colonel."
"But the rescue is much appreciated. Dying kind of sucks, and I hear there's nothing to do on a Friday night in Heaven."
Daniel blinked at him. "You think they'd let you into Heaven?"
"What, you think they wouldn't? Damn. I'd better make sure I don't die again then. If hell is anything like Netu I definitely think I'll pass." He held out a hand to Jacob, saying, "General. Always a pleasure, in any dimension. Give my regards to the Tok'ra."
"Will do, Colonel." Jacob looked only amused by this new O'Neill, Daniel was pleased to note. It only seemed to be Jack who thought he was taking a damned liberty every time he opened his mouth.
"Teal'c." He stretched out a hand to the Jaffa. "Pleasure to meet you. Less of a pleasure to meet the other you, I admit, but you are an entirely different matter. Consider me an admirer of your work."
"It was a pleasure to meet you also, Colonel O'Neill." Teal'c shook his hand gravely.
"I'll look out for you in my world. Got any hints for ways I could make you come over to our side?"
"Remind the Teal'c in your dimension that as long as he serves the Goa'uld his people will always be slaves."
"Will do." He nodded to Narim. "My greetings and thanks to the Tollan. I still think you could let us have an ion cannon or two but I'm not going to quibble about it here."
Narim inclined his head, hiding a smile. "You are welcome, Colonel. I am relieved to hear that you have also made contact with the Tollan of your world. And even more relieved that they are also not allowing you to share their technology."
"Some days you really have to hate these guys," the man observed.
From the mirror, Sam, Kawalsky and Ferretti were beckoning anxiously, clearly not sure what the hold-up was. Their CO sighed and turned to Daniel. "I guess this is goodbye."
"I guess so." Daniel felt a strange tightness in his chest. He really didn't want this Jack to go and yet there was no way for him to stay.
"See you around?"
Daniel nodded, trying to force his face into a smile as he did so, but he couldn't think of anything to say. This man leaving hurt and the thought of never seeing him again hurt unbearably.
"So long then, Doc."
Daniel moistened his lips. "So long, Colonel."
As the man reached out a hand for the mirror, Daniel was aware of Jack relaxing behind him while he felt as empty as a hollowed out egg. Suddenly a hand seized his and the other Jack said quickly, "I'm just borrowing him. You can have him right back when I'm done."
Before anyone could object, he touched the mirror and the blue light fizzled through both of them.
"Colonel!"
Daniel blinked in surprise as he found himself staring into the surprised blue eyes of a different Samantha Carter. He looked around the room in confusion, then looked back at the mirror. Sure enough, there in the glass was the Sam he knew staring at him open-mouthed.
"Captain." O'Neill nodded to his Sam then slapped Kawalsky on the shoulder. "Major." He grinned at the third member of his team. "Ferretti."
"You okay, Colonel? What happened after that Jaffa guy grabbed you?"
"I'm fine, and I'll tell you later. Right now, I'd like you all to meet Doctor Daniel Jackson, also of SG-1, and on a temporary visit from another dimension." He pulled Daniel forward, easing him away from the mirror. "This is actually the active combat Daniel Jackson but we're hoping to get our own model as soon as I put in an order with the manufacturers. Ours will probably be a slightly less advanced version but I hear they train up beautifully."
"Sir?" Sam was looking between them in confusion. Her hair was a little longer than the Sam Daniel knew and she had the rank of Captain, he noticed.
"In his world they went with the anthropologist on each team idea, Carter. I'm now a convert." He looked around at them all. "Doctor Jackson and I need to have a little…chat before he goes back to his dimension. Can you tell General Hammond I'll be along to the debriefing in five minutes?"
Kawalsky glanced between Daniel and O'Neill then gave Daniel a friendly but salacious wink. "Pleased to meet you, Doctor Jackson."
"Likewise, Kawalsky." Daniel couldn't help grinning back at him. He nodded politely to the Ferretti and Sam, who were staring at him with suspicion in the first instance and dawning realization in the second. Sam was having to put up a hand to hide a grin by the time she went through the doorway. As the door closed, Daniel gave his friendly abductor an enquiring look. "This is your idea of being discreet, is it?" He looked at his watch. "And 'five minutes'? I have to admit I'm a little disappointed in you, Colonel. I took you for a man with more stamina."
O'Neill looked at him in surprise. "Hey, even I am not quite so crass as to actually 'do' you in full view of your teammates. Not that it wouldn't be tempting, of course, especially if I could get to see the look on your O'Neill's face while I was doing it. That guy has such a hard-on for you, and the tragic thing is he doesn't even know it."
"You just judge everyone by your own standards."
The man pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto a chair. "Well, when the guy is in fact me I think that makes sense."
"So why did you bring me here?" Daniel looked around the room and was a little disconcerted to find how similar it was to Jack's office in his dimension.
"To say goodbye." The man looked across at the mirror then took Daniel's elbow and gently tugged him into a corner that was sheltered by a filing cabinet from any prying eyes. "Some things are better without an audience."
Daniel had to swallow as his mouth went suddenly dry. "We already said goodbye."
"Not properly."
"And by 'properly' you mean…?"
He put his hands lightly on Daniel's shoulders, that slow burn back in his brown eyes. "I mean this…"
Warm fingers lightly stroked the side of his face before tightening very gently in his hair, but this time the mouth didn't move in to claim his and those brown eyes looked straight into his, asking for his permission. O'Neill's expression told him very clearly that he wasn't going to kiss Daniel against his will this time. There was a second where time seemed to hang suspended. An infinite number of variations diverging in every choice we make like forks in the road. Daniel could actually see this road forking. There was the turn-off he had never been meant to take and never would have taken, never even thought of taking, if that other Teal'c hadn't pulled him from his own familiar world into that unsafe one. Back there was the road he was meant to be on and he wasn't sure he was ready to leave it yet.
On the other hand he saw no harm in a small detour.
Daniel gave a barely perceptible nod and O'Neill smiled. He leant forward, very slowly, and then brushed his lips across Daniel's so gently it didn't disturb the bite mark the other Teal'c had left.
Long warm fingers furrowed through Daniel's hair, their grip tightening a little as he was pulled in for a deeper kiss. Opening his mouth to Jack O'Neill's tongue seemed like the most natural response in the world and Daniel no longer felt any wish to fight it. He'd spent his life talking and thinking too much and just for once he was going to switch off his logic circuits and put his brain in neutral. He'd just made a new rule: anything that happened in an another dimension didn't matter. He liked that rule and he was going to stick to it. And besides, his whole body felt as comfortable and relaxed in O'Neill's arms as though he was floating in a warm bath. As the man's fingers gently massaged his scalp, and a skilful tongue explored his mouth with increasing passion, Daniel closed his eyes and just let it happen.
"What the hell!" As O'Neill dived across the room it was Teal'c who caught him by the arm and held him back from touching the mirror.
"Damnit, Teal'c, that son-of-a-bitch just kidnapped Daniel!"
The Jaffa looked at the image on the mirror but did not slacken his grip on O'Neill's arm. "Daniel Jackson did not appear unwilling to accompany Colonel O'Neill to his dimension, and Colonel O'Neill did give us his reassurance that he would return Daniel Jackson to us very shortly."
"Sir, Teal'c's right. I think the Colonel just wanted to say goodbye to Daniel in his own universe instead of this one." Her gaze held his, her expression saying pointedly Just like the other Samantha Carter wanted to say goodbye to you in hers…"They do seem to have gotten pretty close."
O'Neill looked back at the mirror and saw himself putting his hands on Daniel's shoulders. "Yeah, well that's too damned close for me."
Teal'c again pulled him away as he tried to get to the mirror, saying sternly, "But not, it seems, for Daniel Jackson, O'Neill. The decision is his, not yours." He cast an enquiring glance at Carter. "Do you not think we should give them their privacy, Major Carter?"
She nodded. "Yes. I don't dare switch off the mirror or we could lose that dimension, but there's no reason for us all to sit here and watch."
"Damnit, Carter, this guy is me!"
"But he's not you, sir. And there's no reason why he should have the same relationship with Daniel that you do. After all, the Samantha Carters and Colonel O'Neills we've encountered in other universes have a very different relationship from the one you and I have, or would ever want to have."
He knew that she, like him, was thinking of those other dimensions where apparently they were husband and wife. A part of him had been thinking of their way as the brave path; the unusual way to go, thought of those O'Neills and Carters as the ones with the courage to dare to love again; but now he thought about it, he realized how much more courageous her way was. They'd chosen to be astrophysicists who stayed at home while 'their man' went out into danger. Carter had chosen to put herself in danger rather than give up her dream. She hadn't settled for being someone who stayed where it was safe and worked on theories. She'd stepped through the 'gate with a gun in her hand; she'd shed blood; lost some of her own. She hadn't elected to wait and pray for the people she cared about to come back to her safely, she'd gone with them and watched their backs. He wondered how many other women there were in any profession who had managed to get a PhD in theoretical astrophysics while attaining the rank of Major at as young an age as the Sam Carter he knew.
He realized how lucky he was to have her as not just a 2IC but as a friend. As lucky as he was to have Daniel as a friend. They were both brilliant and beautiful, and had more integrity, loyalty and courage in their little fingers than most people had in their whole bodies. He was damned lucky to know them, he was luckier still to have them on his team, and he was luckiest of all that despite all the dumb things he'd said and done to both of them, they still gave him their friendship so wholeheartedly and without reservation. He met her gaze steadily and gave her a little smile to show her he knew what she was talking about. "You're right, Carter. What works for people from other dimensions, doesn't work for us. It's all…forks in the road, right?"
"That's right, sir. Like General Hammond once said, some lines aren't meant to be crossed."
He was still nodding as he glanced back at the mirror and saw what the other O'Neill was doing to Daniel. He thought he was out of sight but there was a picture behind his desk and the glass was showing exactly what was going on behind that filing cabinet. Anger, and something that if he hadn't known better he might have mistaken for jealousy, spiked through him. "And that's one of them! The son-of-a-bitch."
"Sir, I don't think Daniel's object – "
But he'd already yanked his arm free from Teal'c's grasp and slammed his hand onto the mirror.
No one had affected him like this since Sha're had thrilled every atom in his body on Abydos with what had turned out to be her farewell kiss. He was drowning in a sea of Jack O'Neill and the water was simply wonderful.
Daniel could feel the man's fingertips still gently carding through his hair as that clever tongue explored his mouth minutely, and the unexpectedly sensitive lips pressed themselves against his. Every now and then the man would pull back enough to let them both breathe before returning to the kiss with undimmed enthusiasm. Daniel was swaying, dizzy with it now but still wanting it to go on. He hadn't realized how desperately he had missed this; being kissed; being desired; just simply being touched. This wasn't love. Having been married to Sha're he knew the difference between mutual attraction and affection, and real love. But it came damned close. And it felt so good to have those lips brushing feather light kisses onto his; that tongue curling around his; sucking his tongue into the other man's mouth before dueling with it playfully. This was the kind of kiss that teased, aroused, and satisfied all at once.
Daniel was so lost in the moment he hardly knew where or who he was, so it came as a double shock when a hand closed on his arm and wrenched him out of it without any warning.
"That is way more than enough with the goodbyes, Colonel."
As he was yanked out of the kiss and half way across the room, Daniel opened his eyes to find himself face to face with a very angry Jack O'Neill. "But, Jack – "
"I don't want to hear it."
Jack looked furious; mouth tight with anger, skin very white around the eyes. Fingers wrapped tightly around Daniel's arm, he was glaring at his doppelganger as though he would have liked to empty a round into him. His voice was clipped. "Say goodbye, Daniel."
Daniel looked across at the other Jack wistfully, still feeling the warm fingers in his hair, that skilful tongue exploring his mouth, those hard dry lips pressing against his. "Goodbye, Colonel."
"Bye, Doc." He said it with a sigh. "Take care of yourself. If you ever get bored with your own universe you know where to find me."
Jack made an inarticulate sound that bore an unnerving resemblance to a snarl then pulled Daniel the rest of the way across the room. "But, Jack, I – "
Jack's hand slapped down onto the mirror like it would have liked to be striking flesh and Daniel felt the blue light fizz through him again. When he opened his eyes, he was back on Tollana with everyone staring at him and Jack. Braced for their disapproval he was relieved to see that they seemed to be reserving that for Jack. Teal'c was looking down his nose at the man, as were Jacob and Sam. She darted Daniel a look full of sympathy before turning on Jack with a flash of anger in her blue eyes.
"Sir, I really think Daniel knows whether or not he wants to – "
"Don't want to hear it from you either, Carter."
Daniel looked into the mirror and saw the other Jack standing on the other side of it. Daniel waved, sighing regretfully. "Bye, Colonel."
O'Neill also waved, no mockery in his eyes now, only sadness on his face.
Looking at him, a hole opened up inside Daniel that felt as though it could never be filled.
"Damnit!" Jack snatched up the remote and stabbed the first button he came to. The image faded and Daniel couldn't entirely repress a little gasp of regret as the other Jack disappeared into a blank screen.
"Sir!"
"O'Neill!"
"Christ, Jack, you really are a son-of-a-bitch sometimes, aren't you?"
Daniel had to swallow down the terrible sense of loss still hollowing him out before he could drag his gaze away from the blank mirror. Jack was standing there like a stag at bay, defiant and angry. His stance had 'I don't care' written all over it. He glared right back at them and said shortly, "The mission, for those of you with very short memories, was to get Daniel back. I got Daniel back. Now let's go home."
He turned on his heel and strode out of the room with his spine very straight, and indignation emanating from him like aftershave.
"What the hell is biting him?" Jacob demanded of no one in particular.
Daniel felt Sam's fingers squeeze his arm gently. "Are you okay, Daniel?"
He collected himself and dredged up a smile. "I will be."
"I could find that dimension again if you want to talk to the other Colonel…?"
He shook his head. "Thanks, Sam, but what would be the point? In a way Jack was right. Once you've said 'goodbye' there's not really anything else left to do except leave." He made a better attempt at a smile, wanting to banish that anxiety from her eyes. "I really am glad to be home, you know. This is definitely the universe I want to be in."
"Are you sure?" It was Sam who asked it but he could see the same question mirrored in Teal'c's eyes.
Daniel thought of the room with the bloodied uniforms, the lipstick rolling across the table. "Yes. I'm certain. This is where I want to be, Sam. You're the people I want to be with."
She squeezed his arm again. "Glad to hear it."
"As am I, Daniel Jackson."
He touched Teal'c gently on the arm. He was never sure how well Teal'c understood him. He sometimes caught the Jaffa looking at him as though Daniel was a particularly difficult puzzle he was trying to solve, so perhaps Teal'c didn't know how completely Daniel trusted him. Or that it would take a lot more than one bad experience with one bad Teal'c to make him forget how good a man his friend was. Daniel made a mental note to make sure he joined Teal'c for meditation on a regular basis for the next few weeks.
"We'd better get Daniel to the Stargate before Colonel O'Neill pitches another hissy fit," Jacob put in. "And I need to tell the Tok'ra what happened to our operatives. Teal'c, can I have a word with you about the situation on Chulak…?"
Teal'c gave Daniel a last searching look and Daniel gave him a gentle pat on the chest. "I'm fine, Teal'c, you go ahead with Jacob."
He pretended a deep interest in the bubbles in the pillars while Sam said goodbye to Narim. He didn't know if there was still any attraction on her side or not, but there was undoubtedly great affection for her on his part, one look at the Tollan told Daniel that. He thought of Martouf again and felt another pang of loss. The Tok'ra had taken his body away so quickly so they could study it, Sam had barely had a chance to say goodbye. It occurred to him what a terrible temptation that mirror could be if you let yourself start edging down that road.
There might be dimensions where his parents were still alive but he was dead and he could have them come and join him. Universes where Charlie was still alive but Jack was dead and so father and son could find one another in different dimensions. Sha're. Kawalsky. Martouf. Rothman. All of them out there on other worlds, alive and well, but missing people who were alive and well in this dimension. With enough time and patience you could mend every fractured relationship, get back every friend you'd ever lost, but where did you stop? If his parents hadn't died and his grandfather hadn't rejected him would he have ended up being recruited to the Stargate program in the first place? It was partly because he had appeared so utterly alone and friendless that Catherine had chosen him. And if Kawalsky had lived, would Daniel and Jack have ever achieved the depth of friendship they had? And Jack would never have gone through the Stargate in the first place if his son hadn't so recently killed himself. He and Daniel would never have met. Sometimes good things happened because of terrible events. They were all a product of their pasts, of their tragedies perhaps even more than their triumphs. Much as he might hate it, Sha're's death was a part of him, the loss of her now another dark thread in his personal tapestry. If he changed that he would undo something else. Yes, the mirror was a terrible temptation, but only if you let yourself start playing God with it. All the same, Daniel couldn't help but feel a little relieved it was staying on Tollana rather than coming back to the SGC with them. Recent events had taught him he was even less good at resisting temptation than he'd thought.
"Daniel?"
He turned around to find Sam waiting for him. As she looped her arm through his and led him gently towards the exit, he realized he probably looked a lot worse than he felt. His bruises would all be darkening up nicely now, giving him the appearance of someone who'd…well someone who'd gone ten rounds with Teal'c and lost.
"I was just thinking about all those permutations and combinations." As he explained, he thought again how lucky he was to be in a universe where he had Jack, Sam, and Teal'c for friends. He didn't know anyone else in the SGC except those three who would understand the temptation the mirror offered those who had suffered losses. Sam's mother would be out there somewhere too. He certainly knew how the loss of the woman who had given birth to you felt. It was another of those invisible threads that kept him linked to Sha're's son; a child with whom he had no possible biological connection and yet who felt like a part of him all the same.
"You're right." Sam nodded as they passed along a corridor in which weapons-disabling equipment glowed at them amicably. "As a method of trying to undo old wrongs and sorrows, the quantum mirror sounds like a very good way to drive yourself insane. Some things just aren't meant to be. Not in our universe anyway."
When she sighed, he knew she was thinking of Martouf. He wondered if her life was blighted by that loss. If Martouf had been the only guy for her and anyone she settled for now just second best, or if there was someone out there she just hadn't found yet. That was probably why it was a good idea not to be able to cross dimensions, because you just never knew what the future held in store for you in your own universe. Perhaps some losses were meant to be endured, some wrongs left forever unrighted. All the same, once you knew those other dimensions were out there, it was difficult not to wonder sometimes 'what if'.
"Ready to go home, Daniel?"
He turned to find her looking at him anxiously and knew he was probably acting a little strange for a guy who had escaped from being trapped in another universe by the skin of his teeth. Perhaps she thought he was traumatized from almost being raped; from meeting a bad version of Teal'c; from seeing a Jack O'Neill killed right in front of him. Perhaps she was right. He was certainly feeling more than a little shaken up and his heart was still beating faster than it should have been – especially when he thought about that other Jack's mouth against his, that kiss. No one had kissed him like that since…Sha're. How ironic. He had been working alongside the world's equal best kisser for all these years and never even known it. And now he did know it. Or at least knew that in another dimension there was a Jack O'Neill with the power to make his heart go pitter-patter and his hormones get up and do a little dance. Unfortunately, the Jack O'Neill in his dimension hardly even saw him as a friend these days and there was no way back to that other universe and that other Jack O'Neill. Perhaps it was just as well. Perhaps some forks in the road weren't meant to be taken.
He found a smile for Sam, who was looking at him anxiously now. He suspected his smile was a little sad and not quite meeting his eyes. There was an ache in his heart that wouldn't quite go away although he hoped that it would fade. Now, added to the feeling that his best friend wasn't his best friend any more and was never going to touch him with affection again, was the realization that his best friend might have a good reason for withdrawing from him. If not in this world then certainly in another dimension he had shown himself to be someone all too ready, willing, and able to develop an unseemly crush on a Jack O'Neill. Perhaps the resolutely heterosexual Jack O'Neill in his world was keeping his distance from the flaky affection-starved archaeologist for a very good reason. It didn't mean they couldn't work together, of course. The memory of that kiss would fade. He'd stop thinking about the way that Jack from another universe had looked at him with all that affection; eyes crinkling with it; so much warmth there; so much kindness. The Jack O'Neill he knew had come and found him, saved him, the way he so often did; done as much for friendship as any man could be expected to do. His was hardly a wretched life. He loved his work and he loved the people he worked with; and in their own way he did think that they loved him. That wasn't to be sneezed at – not even by a man with allergies.
He made a better job of the smile, linking Sam's arm through his and squeezing it gently. "Yes, Sam." And this time he meant it. "I'm ready to go home."
***
Doctor Daniel Jackson shifted uncomfortably again. This chair was hard, the corridor was surprisingly draughty for a place underground, and the Airman standing there with a gun was making him feel distinctly uneasy. He was also feeling more and more aware of the fact that he'd managed to put his boots onto the wrong feet. He thought about changing them over to the right feet but was too embarrassed to do so in front of the airman. He wished they'd given him a bit more time to get ready, as he was sure half of the paperwork they'd asked him to bring was still back in his tent. In fact he wished they hadn't come and plucked him from the desert at all. Perhaps that dig had been insignificant in the wider scheme of things, but it had been familiar, and completely free of big men with big guns.
He had no idea why he was here. No idea why the Air Force had invited him here and even less idea why he had consented to come. When a helicopter turned up in the middle of the night and men with automatic weapons came and roused you from your tent, you tended to go with them even when they told you it was purely voluntary, you could refuse if you wanted to. Now he wished he had refused. Just because his career was in shreds and his theories about the pyramids being so much older than anyone realized were being treated as a joke, that didn't mean he had to sell out to the Government. He'd had a brilliant career ahead of him once, even if that road was now closed, there were still enough glittering fragments from old triumphs to get him something better than this….
He'd risen to his feet, determined to make a bolt for it, when the door in front of him opened and a tall man in uniform stepped out. "Doctor Jackson?"
Daniel hurriedly shifted his briefcase into his left hand to hold out his right and managed to fumble it. The briefcase hit the floor, spilling papers in a white tide across the corridor. He couldn't believe that at his age this stuff was still happening to him. Anyone who looked like a jock or an authority figure could clearly still play hell with his most basic hand to eye co-ordination. As he dropped to his knees and scrabbled for the papers, he was already flinching in anticipation of the man's contempt.
"Here, let me." The tall man knelt down next to him and handed him a sheaf of papers, then held out his hand. "And let's have another go at that introduction. Colonel Jack O'Neill."
Daniel looked up into amused but definitely kindly brown eyes. "Doctor Daniel Jackson." He held out his own hand tentatively and the man gave it a firm shake, fingers unexpectedly warm against Daniel's skin.
O'Neill looked about forty, with hair greying at the temples, cut up short at the sides but longer on top. He was almost unnecessarily handsome, something the uniform did nothing to disguise. There was an ease and an air about him which Daniel recognized at once: someone totally comfortable with his own body, someone with 20:20 vision who knew where his feet were at all times and consequently never tripped over them; who could handle himself in a fight and didn't need to swagger about it. Daniel recognized the type because it was one he'd always been aware of. These were the guys who'd never run in packs at high school or college; who'd always been the interesting loners everyone wanted to know. As opposed to the geeky outcasts no one wanted to know. They'd owned motorbikes when others were still borrowing their father's cars, taken drugs when everyone else was still experimenting with cigarettes, and had sex when others were still practicing their courting strategies by stealing their sister's bra and slipping it over a chair to better understand how to undo its straps in a hurry.
Daniel hadn't even aspired to those dizzy heights, of course, while men like these had been as far removed from Daniel's ink-stained book-filled experiences as the Mongols were from the Maya. He had just preferred them to the jocks because they'd never picked on him. Of course, they'd probably only never done anything to him because he'd been such a tiny speck on their horizon that they'd never even known he existed, but he'd been grateful for their indifference all the same.
Daniel realized this was the first time someone like O'Neill had ever given him his full attention and it was an unnerving experience. The man was looking at him with such intensity, almost as if he already knew him, those brown eyes studying his face with a strange kind of…tenderness. There was the sort of warmth in his gaze you got from a relative. Well, other people got from relatives. It had been so long since Daniel had seen Nick he couldn't really remember how that relative thing went. As far as he recalled it seemed to have a lot to do with there being a big hole inside you which you kept hoping would be filled by a few kind words, some indication that you were loved after all, which you never got to hear.
While he'd been gaping at the man like a beached fish, O'Neill had collected up the scattered papers, shoved them into Daniel's briefcase, picked it up in a way that stopped the broken lock from spilling them again, put it back in Daniel's arms, and was now rising to his feet, a hand under Daniel's elbow effortlessly taking him with him.
"I'm very grateful you took the time to come here, Doctor Jackson."
Daniel found he had now been ushered into the man's office and pushed gently into a chair. He also seemed to be clutching his briefcase like it was a shield, although against what he couldn't decide. O'Neill sat on the desk in front of him and swung ridiculously long legs as he gazed at him for a moment. Then he leaned forward and plucked the briefcase from him, putting it down on the desk beside him. "You'll want coffee?"
A steaming mug was put into his hand before he'd finished nodding.
"I expect you're wondering why I wanted to see you?"
Daniel nodded again. "Yes. I – was a little surprised that you…" He had no idea how to finish that sentence.
Colonel O'Neill didn't seem to mind at all. He nodded as gravely as though Daniel had just said something that made sense. "I know, and I'm sorry for dragging you away from that dig, but I wanted to offer you a job."
"A job?"
"It's top secret so if I tell you about it and you don't want it you'll still have to promise not to tell anyone else. Okay?"
Daniel waited for the threat to follow, the one about how if he did think about telling anyone else, the CIA, or the FBI, or someone even nastier would come and get him. When he looked up at O'Neill the man was just waiting politely for his response. "Don't you want me to…I mean, don't I have to sign…?"
"Your word's good enough for me. If you weren't a man of high principles you wouldn't be stuck in the academic equivalent of Siberia."
Daniel blinked at him in surprise. Something was seriously wrong with this picture. This O'Neill guy was just the type who ought to be regarding Daniel with unconcealed suspicion, not to mention contempt. Instead he was looking at Daniel as if he really…liked him.
"Do you want to hear about it?" O'Neill prompted.
Daniel looked around at the man's office, the gray walls, the citations or whatever those certificate things were on the wall. This was undoubtedly a military man's office. This was not the office of a man who ought to have any time at all for someone like himself.
"Why did you pick me?" Daniel looked around the room again. None of this made any kind of sense and the only attribute he had that he could think of was that if he disappeared no one would notice.
"Long story." The man poured himself a cup of coffee from the jug on his desk. "Want to hear it?"
Daniel's curiosity was undoubtedly aroused now. "Okay."
O'Neill grinned at him, looking him right in the eye as he did so. "That's my boy." For a reason Daniel couldn't completely fathom, he found himself slightly short of breath. O'Neill took a swig of coffee then put down the mug. He gave Daniel another smile then said, "Okay, here goes. Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away…."
Daniel's head was spinning from so much new and impossible information but he was also feeling… He was almost afraid to say the word. It was a long time since he'd felt happy. And even longer since he'd felt as though he belonged anywhere. He'd managed to lose himself in archaeological digs and find at least a certain peace and contentment. But there hadn't been a real sense of belonging. This was the last place on Earth he'd ever expected to feel at home but it was creeping through him with each minute he spent in this USAF rabbit warren. It was almost as though he'd been here before.
Colonel O'Neill seemed to know without being told that Daniel needed a lot of coffee to wash down all this new and impossible information. He actually seemed to know an awful lot of things without being told. Daniel wasn't sure how to take O'Neill, if he was honest; the man was just so damned…nice to him. He even had a bag of Daniel's favorite chocolate walnut cookies in his desk drawer and shared them with Daniel while he was talking as though they'd done this a dozen times before. Despite the fact this man was all the things Daniel usually found intimidating: older than him, taller than him, probably the kind of guy who knew how to kill people with his bare hands, military in every way, Daniel found himself at ease with O'Neill in a way that took him completely by surprise.
After a couple of hours of telling him lots of things about the 'Stargate program' that were clearly so highly-classified Daniel suspected he would never be able to leave the building again, never mind the country, O'Neill said, "I'll get Carter to give you the guided tour. Fraiser doesn't like me, and you'll need to see the infirmary."
'Carter' turned out to be a tall and beautiful blonde woman who seemed to be a Doctor of something and a Captain of something else. She wasn't at all frightening either. She took him around the labs and pointed out their research facilities, told him about all the foibles of the people they were passing, insisted that the scary bald guy called General Hammond was really a 'teddy bear' and that he wasn't to mind Ferretti, the guy was just jealous. Of who or what he was jealous hadn't been made clear. She also introduced him to a petite and very attractive woman in a white coat whose lustrous brown eyes were in direct contrast to her no-nonsense attitude and crisp speech. "This is Doctor Janet Fraiser, Daniel. She takes care of us when we get injured."
"Not accident prone are you, Doctor Jackson?" Doctor Fraiser enquired.
Daniel looked around the infirmary open-mouthed. After years in places with poor medical facilities, it was a shock to his system to see so much equipment that was new, bright and shiny. He couldn't help thinking of how much good these medicines could do in some of the developing worlds he'd visited. He recalled himself to her question with an effort. "Um – no, Doctor. Not at all accident-prone. I've never even broken a toe, which is pretty unusual for an archaeologist. Most of us drop a rock on our feet at some point."
She nodded in satisfaction. "Keep that up and you'll soon be my favorite patient, Doctor."
He jumped when the alarm sounded. Someone announced: "Off world activation! Off world activation!" It sounded alarming, important, and pretty exciting.
Captain Carter – she'd told him to call her 'Sam' but he didn't think he'd be able to do that – looked around at once. "It could be the Tok'ra."
Doctor Fraiser raised an eyebrow, a smile tugging at her mouth. "Martouf did say he'd drop by, didn't he? Something about a conference on Voresh he was going to fill us in on…?"
"I was hoping it might be my father," Captain Carter returned, but although she was clearly trying to sound lofty, her grin was infectious. She whisked him back to Colonel O'Neill's office in double quick time, taking his hand as though it was the most natural thing in the world when he got a little confused about the green lines they were supposed to be following. In fact she treated him as if he was her younger brother and she'd always looked out for him when they traveled together. He felt so safe in her company he was almost embarrassed by it. She rapped on the door, said, "Here's Daniel back again, sir. I think it's the Tok'ra," then scooted off at a run.
O'Neill looked after her and shook his head before handing Daniel another mug of coffee. "Carter and Martouf are at that walking-around-it-like-it's-a-magic-carpet-and-they-don't-know-if-it's-going-to-fly stage of their relationship. I'm wishing they'd hurry up and take it into the bedroom so they'll stop being so damned starry-eyed with each other."
Intrigued, Daniel asked about the 'Tok'ra' and O'Neill gave him an explanation of sorts but either he hadn't explained it very well or Daniel's brain had reached its capacity for new information that day because he couldn't really understand it.
O'Neill shrugged. "Don't worry about it. You'll understand better when you meet Martouf and Jacob. I'll get them to do the glowing eyes thing for you. Makes it a lot easier to grasp once you've had Lantesh or Selmac bawling you out."
A dark-haired powerful-looking officer arrived half way through Colonel O'Neill's explanation of the differences between the Goa'uld and the Tok'ra ('Basically, they're a lot more like each other than the Tok'ra like to think, but it's probably not a good idea to tell them that…') The newcomer acted as though he couldn't stay away any longer, sticking his head around the door to say, "Is he in? What did he say? Does he look like the other – ?" Noticing Daniel, he swallowed the end of his sentence. A second later he'd recovered and winked at Daniel as though there was a joke he was going to fill him in on later.
Daniel expected O'Neill to start barking lots of orders or complaining about protocol but he just said lazily, "Clear off, Kawalsky. Go find your own anthropologist."
The way Kawalsky still came into the room and held out his hand to Daniel made Daniel dart a nervous look at O'Neill. The man shrugged. "Well, we might as well get the introductions over and done with. This is Major Charles Kawalsky. He's the leader of SG-2, who are a bunch of lowlifes you should have nothing to do with. He hasn't got himself a linguist yet so he's on the prowl for one. But I saw you first so I get to keep you and he doesn't."
Daniel was a little surprised by O'Neill's choice of words. That 'get to keep you' had been a little…open to misinterpretation. He'd always thought military men were very hung up on things like that, but this particular military man didn't seem to be hung up on anything. In fact he was so laid back he was practically horizontal.
He liked Kawalsky a lot, the man had a directness and good humor which were very appealing, and if Colonel O'Neill hadn't been so easy going he might have been tempted by the offer the man made him to jump ship from SG-1 and come over to his team. It was very strange to find these hardass military types having a mock-argument about which one of them could have him. Daniel hadn't had people actually wanting him for anything in a long time.
"Kawalsky, suck it up: I saw him first, he likes me better than he likes you, and, I outrank you. Ergo: Daniel's mine."
It gave him the strangest sensation to hear O'Neill call him 'Daniel'. He looked up at him in shock and the man raised an eyebrow. "Sorry. I'll call you 'Doctor Jackson' if you like. It just takes longer to yell if you're in danger."
"It's fine, Colonel." Daniel answered quickly; still trying to deal with the way it had affected him to hear the man say his name. He supposed he just thought of Colonel O'Neill as the sort of man who would call him 'Jackson' or 'You there!' It seemed to put their relationship on a strangely intimate footing to have the man call him by his first name.
Kawalsky shrugged, patted Daniel on the shoulder, said: "Good to meet you…Doc-Daniel. Hope you're going to be joining us", then left them alone together.
Daniel ran a hand through his hair. Colonel O'Neill was looking at him again. He knew he was being silly but it made him feel – not exactly uncomfortable, just a little hot and bothered when the man looked at him like – that. It was the way the man was gazing at him as though he…mattered that was so disconcerting. As though he wanted to keep him safe. And yet as they'd only known each other for a few hours there was no reason for this man to mind if a piano dropped on Daniel's head tomorrow. If he hadn't known it was impossible he would have said O'Neill was a relative of his; some long-lost brother who hadn't got around to telling him about their family connection.
Darting another quick glance at the man, Daniel realized for the first time that they could be related. O'Neill was a couple of inches taller than he was and had brown eyes instead of blue – and it was odd because Daniel hadn't really noticed the color of anyone else's eyes today but he was very aware that O'Neill's were a rich dark brown and their expression was unexpectedly gentle – but they were of similar build and there were even similarities in their faces. Perhaps the man was a long lost older brother Daniel had never realized he had and that was why he was being so kind to him?
Finding his voice with some difficulty, Daniel said, "I know you've explained about the Stargate and the other cultures you keep encountering, and I can see why you would find a linguist and an anthropologist useful. And, given that these – Ghould – you keep talking about have adopted the identities of our ancient Egyptian gods I can see that a specialist in Ancient Egyptian dialects would be of use as well. I'm just a little worried that…."
"You won't be able to cut it if we run into any trouble?"
He wondered how O'Neill had known that. But the man seemed to have the knack of anticipating all Daniel's most difficult questions; putting them into words for him so that Daniel didn't have to. "Yes. I don't even know how to fire a gun, Colonel, and I'm not sure that I want to learn. But I don't want to endanger you, or Captain Carter or – " he didn't know Ferretti's rank he realized and he knew he couldn't call him 'Mister' but it seemed rude to just refer to him by his surname, " – or anyone else," he finished lamely.
"That's not your job," O'Neill assured him at once. He leaned forward for extra emphasis. "Your job is to decipher, translate, interact, communicate – all that anthropological stuff. It's up to the rest of us to keep you safe while you're doing it. You can't let us down, you see. We can only let you down." O'Neill ran a hand through his greying hair and Daniel noticed all the different colors there were in it, fascinating as wolf fur. "I promise I'll do my best to keep you in one piece but I'm not going to lie to you. As I said before, this is dangerous work. You could get seriously hurt or seriously killed. And when we're out there you're going to have to trust me to take care of you. If you can't trust me, there's no point in you stepping through the 'gate."
Daniel nodded. "I understand." He didn't really. He figured that 'stepping through the 'gate', like shaking hands with someone who had a 'symbiote' in his head, was one of those things you couldn't read up on, you just had to do, and he wasn't going to know if he could be a useful part of this team O'Neill kept talking about until he tried it. But what he did know was that he wanted to try it.
"I can give you some basic self-defense lessons, and Carter can take you down to the range and teach you how to use a sidearm well enough for you to get your certificate. You might want to get a haircut too."
It was the first 'military' thing the man had said to him and Daniel was surprised by how much it hurt. He darted him a reproachful glance while putting a hand up to his hair defensively. "Is that an Air Force requirement, Colonel O'Neill?"
The man held up his hands in supplication. "Hey, it's not policy or anything. You're a civilian. I just thought it would…suit you better short."
"I don't think it would." Daniel hadn't thought about his hairstyle in years. It had been like this for as long as he remembered. It kept the sun off the back of his neck when he was working on an excavation and his ears warm in the winter.
"You'd look great with short hair." O'Neill wrapped one of those strangely gentle smiles around his words as a softener. "Trust me."
For no reason that he could think of, Daniel found that he was blushing. He hastily dropped his gaze, looking at his feet as though they were fascinating. A plan which backfired when O'Neill appeared right in his line of vision and started matter-of-factly unlacing Daniel's boots. "You've got these on the wrong feet."
"It was the middle of the night in Egypt." He said it defensively but he'd been hoping the man hadn't noticed his boots. He didn't want O'Neill thinking he was an idiot. He didn't want him thinking… With a sense of surprised recognition, Daniel realized he already cared a lot about what O'Neill thought of him.
He had no idea why he just sat there and let the man remove his boots. Then put his boots back on the right feet for him. He supposed it was just exhaustion. As O'Neill finished tying his laces for him, the man looked up at him. "So, Daniel, do you?"
There was that 'Daniel' again, and that weird little reaction he had when he heard it, sort of breathless but pleased. He had no idea what that was about. "Do I what?"
"Trust me?"
Daniel found himself staring into those eyes again and it was astonishing how familiar this man already seemed to him; like a missing piece in a puzzle that had just clicked into place. He was aware that his heart was beating too fast but there was no doubt about the emotion he was feeling as he realized he really was going to be a part of this secret team that went to other worlds. That he really was going to be part of something again. This was definitely how it felt to be happy.
"Yes, Colonel." It was Daniel's turn to smile as he realized it was true. Looking into those eyes, he knew this man would keep him safe if he possibly could; that for whatever reason, Daniel Jackson mattered to him more than Daniel Jackson had mattered to anyone in much too long. "I do."
O'Neill held out a hand and grasped Daniel's, a smile lighting up his face as he said, "Welcome to SG-1, Doctor Jackson."
***