• SPOILERS : Gamekeeper, There But For the Grace of God, Legacy, Point of View.
• Story/Series info: Third season, following the events of Legacy and Point of View.
• SUMMARY : Where would the Stargate program and the Earth be in a universe without Daniel Jackson?
• G [A]

Damn. This was another one.

Claire leaned her forehead wearily against the palm of her hand, elbow propped on her work table.

‘It’s just a job. Just a way to put food on the table. Just a job.’ The litany twisted through her brain.

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? It *wasn’t* just a job. What they were doing was… bizarre. And these texts… Nothing made sense; the parts didn’t seem to belong to the same entity. The text itself looked ancient, closely allied in form and construction to the Egyptian and other northern African and middle eastern languages and dialects she’d studied for more than forty years. But the symbols were printed—in the most modern of senses—on a material that she’d never seen before. It was much too smooth and sophisticated in formulation to be as old as it *had* to be, and the edges were smooth and sharp in a way that could be produced only by modern machining.

But worse than the asynchrony of the parts, the information was highly disturbing. This was the third such text they’d given her in the last week. There was no question that the subject of the writing was weaponry design. She was far from an expert on the tools of war, but she was sure nothing she’d ever encountered—neither in her life-long devotion to the early history of the planet nor in her modern life—had been anything like the device described in this text. And there were a number of words and expressions which were completely new to her as well. One—apparently a material component of the weapon—appeared repeatedly, both here and in the other two similar texts they’d ordered her to translate. ‘N-A-something-something-D-A-H.’ That was the best she could do so far, and she couldn’t come up with any clues to help with the rest.

She sighed and lifted her head, returning her gaze to the problematic pages. Strange as the materials were, they weren’t really what bothered her the most.

The worst thing about everything was… everything. Leaning back in her chair, she let her eyes drift closed. How had they come to this? Working deep underground, under the control of the Air Force. Two very small, uninformed cogs in a Big Secret government enterprise. They’d been the best. Just what was it that had started their feet down the path that ended here?

Fiercely, she closed off that avenue of thought. She knew. It hadn’t been immediate, but she knew. One fraction of a moment in time. She knew.

Shaking her head sharply, Claire reached out to pull a couple of surgeon’s gloves from the pop-up box at the back of the work table. Enough wasting time. She carefully picked up the mysterious sheets and carried them over to her preparation bench. Laying them on the readied plate of glass, she pulled a second plate from the rack and set it gently atop the pages, holding the stack together with one hand while her other placed clips around the edges to keep the sandwich stable.

She’d been doggedly working on the translation for an hour when a tap on the open door brought her head up. She smiled as her husband entered the workroom. He looked mildly excited—rare for a man who could be used for a dictionary illustration of ‘calm.’

"Claire, can you leave that? I want to show you something."

Her brows arched. "Oh? Something interesting?"

"Something… unexplainable. Come?"

She stood and arched her back, suddenly feeling the strain of an hour bent over the table. "Yes, please. I could use a break."

She hummed in pleasure as his big hands rubbed gently over her aching back. "Or not, if you’re willing to keep that up for another thirty minutes or so."

He laughed gently and kissed the side of her neck. "I’d be delighted, except… I really want you to take a look at this, Claire."

Sighing in mock-disappointment, she turned and slid her arm around his still-trim waist.

"All right. Five minutes, then I want some more of that back action. I don’t bend as well as I used to."

He pulled her snugly against his side and murmured into her hair as he guided her steps out the office door, "You bend just fine, as far as I’m concerned."

Claire sputtered in astonishment. "Just tuck that thought away and save it until we’re home, Dr. Jackson. I definitely think we can do something with it."

As the elevator door hissed back, revealing a pair of airmen, she reluctantly pulled free of his hold, then slipped her arm through his. A feeling of warmth washed through her body. No matter what… regardless of larger impacts… this remained strong. To heck with deep dark political/military secrets. This was more real than any plots and machinations.

<<<<<>>>>>

His lab was two floors above hers. Even more distant from Whatever It Was that periodically rumbled deep down in the bowels of the facility. It wasn’t deemed necessary, so they’d never been told just what Whatever was. Somehow, it was tied to the amazing artifacts and texts they’d been given to work on. But her imagination wasn’t sufficient to suggest the nature of Whatever.

Mel unlocked his door and ushered her in, gesturing toward a strange object sitting in the corner.

"What…?" Claire approached slowly. The artifact was about four feet tall, a heavy, crudely fashioned base supporting something that looked like a wide, irregularly shaped frame. The area within was dull and non-reflective..

Gently, she brushed her fingers across the rough surface of the ‘frame’ part of the artifact. Then she moved around to look at the back. It looked just the same as the front.

"Well, it’s strange. An ugly picture frame? Target for some weird game?" She looked at Mel and shrugged.

He smiled and held up an odd, triangular device. "Move away and watch." When she was safely away from the frame, he fiddled with one of the small dials on the triangle… and the matte surface of the interior of the object flickered, then settled into an image.

Exclaiming in surprise Claire moved closer.

"Careful! Don’t touch it!" Mel’s grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "I tossed a pencil at it, and it, well… I guess it ate it. Anyway, the pencil vanished."

She stared at the image in the frame. It was pretty uninteresting. Just an empty room, possibly a store room. Certainly not something you’d consider decorative.

"What’s it for?"

"Haven’t any idea. But look here…" Mel fiddled with the other knob on the triangle, apparently the control for the frame. The image flickered again, and when it settled down, the image had changed. Another room, brightly lit, showing a table with several odd, tagged artifacts placed along its length. He nudged the dial again, and they both exclaimed at what appeared to be a perfect replica of Mel’s lab. If the image hadn’t been so emphatically missing their own bodies, Claire would have sworn it was simply a mirror’s reflection.

"That’s… interesting," she said slowly.

Nodding, he continued to fiddle with the small knobs. "Hadn’t seen that one before."

Another twist, and the image became a smoking, shattered hallway. Another, and what appeared to be the same hallway, but without the damage or the smoke.

"Good heavens!" She moved closer again, reaching out but not quite touching. "How many images are stored in it?"

"I haven’t seen quite the same one twice. Honey, back away. I’m not completely convinced that we’re looking at stored images. I mean… who’d record these particular pictures?"

She moved back to stand beside him, still staring at the odd apparatus. "I don’t know. But what else could it be?"

"I haven’t the… Claire!" He grabbed her as a strangely armored figure appeared in the image. They gaped at the creature, who seemed as stunned as they were. Abruptly, it lifted a long stick and pointed it in their direction. The teardrop-shaped tip flared. With a cry, Mel dropped to the floor, dragging Claire with him, as a bolt of fire erupted from the picture in the frame. Desperately, Mel scrambled to his feet, pointed the triangular control at the image, and twisted the first knob. The surface immediately dulled to its original state.

"Dear God!" Claire scrambled to her feet, eyes glued to the scorched wall opposite the device. "Just where did that thing come from?"

Mel grimaced. "Do you actually think they would have told me? Dr. Carter brought it in with this lot…" He gestured toward a collection of oddities jumbled together on his light table. "The rest seem to be simply inanimate artifacts. Unusual, some of them, but none has offered to stand up and shoot at me!"

Cautiously, Claire again approached the frame. Other than its odd appearance, it seemed perfectly normal, now that the center was again dull and pictureless. She reached slowly toward the matte surface.

"Claire! Don’t!"

"I don’t think… I think it’s inert when it’s dull like this."

"You think! Please, honey. Let’s not get adventurous."

Sighing regretfully, she pulled her hand back. "Heaven knows we wouldn’t want to take any risks…"

He moved close and pulled her into his arms, rubbing his nose in her salt and pepper hair. "I know, I know. This wasn’t what we’d planned for ourselves."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and tilted her head up to kiss him. "We are what we made ourselves, Mel. It’s just that… lately I’ve been thinking a lot about things. About… well, about Danny."

He stiffened and turned his face away, gazing vaguely at the frame. "Don’t, Claire. We put that behind us thirty years ago."

"Did we? Or did we let it bleed the fire out of our lives? I just can’t help thinking…"

He silenced her with another kiss. "Let it go, love. Just let it go."

For a long moment, they held each other. Then Claire pulled free and reached up to stroke Mel’s silvered hair. "So… what are you going to tell them about that artifact?"

"Right now? Nothing. I’m not about to turn this over to an idiot like Makepeace until I know more about it. I can just imagine his eyes lighting up at the thought of getting his hands on a box full of pet… fire breathers, or whatever that thing was. Not only am I not telling them about it, I’m not even going to admit the existence of that control device.."

"What about Dr. Carter?"

"Well… I’ll deal with that when it becomes necessary. I’m not completely convinced that she’ll agree that we should keep it quiet; they’ve got her pretty indoctrinated into their philosophical position about this stuff. She might feel obliged to go to West. No, on the whole I think it best that we keep it between us for now."

She nodded, then stroked his lined cheek. "I’d better get back to those documents. They’re going to be bad enough without adding this little toy. I’m sure they’re all about weapon designs, though there are some concepts and terms that I can’t make any sense of. I’ll…"

She was interrupted by the raucous clangor of alarm bells and buzzers. They hurried out into the stark hallway, wincing from the volume of the alarms and the harsh flashing of red and yellow lights.

Considering the racket, the calm of the hallway should have been odd. A head popped out of a door further down the hall, then immediately disappeared. But that was all.

Claire and Mel exchanged a bemused look, then grabbed each other as the floor beneath them vibrated rhythmically. Abruptly, it all stopped. As if a master switch had been pulled somewhere, the noise, the lights and the vibrations ceased. Whatever had once again spoken.

"It… ah, shouldn’t there be something we’re supposed to *do* when this sort of thing happens?" Claire shook her head in confusion. "Mel, we really need to get someone to *explain* some things to us. I’m not happy working in the dark like this."

He nodded, mouth grimly tight. "There’s secrecy, and then there’s *secrecy*. I never imagined the kinds of things they were going to ask us to work on when we signed those agreements. I think it’s just about time to have a little discussion with General West."

Claire sighed, looking again up and down the deserted hallway. "I agree. There are other places we can hang our shingles; I’d hate to be responsible for translating something that will end up putting some of the weaponry I’m reading about into the hands of our military. Especially since the election."

Mel grimaced. "There is certainly that. Ah, well…" He kissed her gently, then gave her a little push toward the elevator. "We’ll talk about it at home tonight. For now, off to your lovely words, my dear. I’m going to play with my Bizarro frame. See if I can figure out what it really is. Take care, sweetheart."

She stroked his face one more time, then headed down the hall. Stairs. She didn’t need an elevator to go down two floors.

<<<<<>>>>>

A muffled invitation answered Claire’s tap on the lab door. Mel looked up as she slipped through the door. His face was uncharacteristically flushed with excitement, the control for his strange frame clutched tightly in his hands.

"I thought you might like to take a break and have a cup of tea with me. Looks like you’re having much too much fun, however." She laughed at the slightly guilty expression on his face. "I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that you’ve made some progress."

"Yes! Ah… that is, I think so. Come here, love, and look!"

Eagerly, he grabbed her hand and pulled her beside him. The device was activated; the scene depicted was one of the several images of a storeroom Mel had found as he explored the library of photos, or whatever they were, in the frame.

Mel was pointing a slightly unsteady finger at a pad of paper lying on the floor in the pictured store room. She looked at him in puzzlement, then back at the picture. "So… they were a bit sloppy that day, were they?"

"Um, no. Not at all." He wrapped his arms around her from the back, tucking her body into the curve of his. "That notebook… it didn’t start out there. I mean, it wasn’t there when I… ah, hmmm." His irritated murmur vibrated against her back. "I put that there."

She pulled away far enough to twist around and look into his face, her own brows arching in surprise. "You mean, you’ve figured out how to manipulate the pictures? Is this some kind of… Photoshop for artists with no imagination?"

"No! No, no, no. I…" Looking around the room, he reached quickly for a small calculator sitting on the side counter. "Watch!"

He tossed the calculator at the surface of the image. There was a sort of slow flare of light, then the little machine appeared… in the image. It arced a few feet into the pictured room, then dropped soundlessly to the floor, slid a few additional feet, and came to rest against the shelving along the back wall.

Claire stared at the altered image, jaw hanging. That was just… impossible.

"Mel…? What… how…"

He tightened his arms again, pulling her firmly against his chest. "I’m not sure, but… actually, I’ve got an idea. A really wild idea. And I’m afraid I’m going to have to talk to Doctor Carter about this."

"Talk to Dr. Carter about what?"

They jumped at the unexpected question, spinning around to see Doctor Samantha Carter standing in the open doorway, elegant brows arched quizzically.

<<<<<>>>>>

'Damn. Double damn.'

Sam Carter shook her head, darts of frustration twitching at the strained muscles of her back and legs. She let her body relax, plopping onto her butt and staring resentfully at the ugly artifact.

She'd been examining this dratted thing for more than two days now, and was nearing the deadline of General Hammond's reluctant grace period. Approximately another thirty-six hours, and she was going to have to let them attempt to destroy the mirror.

It wasn't that she didn't agree with him… It was a very dangerous device to leave intact, especially in the hands of bozos like the ones the NID seemed determined to recruit. It was just that… well… she just couldn't stand to let them incinerate it before she'd figured out how the blasted thing *worked*. But it just sat there, silently mocking. It was an insult to her training and intellect.

So far she hadn't even figured out how to get into the frame, let alone discovered the first thing about the tantalizing dimension-bending function of the mirror. She'd carefully dissected the control device, and even reassembled it so it functioned apparently normally—well, normally for a joystick for an inter-dimensional Playstation. But she hadn't actually discovered anything from the small remote. What she'd understood of its innards hadn't revealed anything really novel. And the rest… well, she'd have a far better chance helping Daniel translate all twenty-whatever of his languages.

All she'd figured out for sure was that the technology was completely different from that which drove the 'Gate. And, though her knowledge of Tollan and Asgard applications was limited, this thing just had a different 'feel' to it. Her instincts with regard to technological style were as sound as Daniel's to linguistic and cultural nuances. She just knew this was unrelated to the others.

She'd discussed her findings with Daniel, and they were agreed that in all probability they were looking at the product of a civilization which they hadn't yet encountered, either artifactually or personally. His excitement matched hers, though it was driven by different imperatives. He was busily applying himself to the scant materials they'd gathered which hinted at new, advanced races, looking for anything that seemed to suggest knowledge of a device which allowed one to step from one reality to another.

She let her body rest against the wall, closing her scratchy eyes and tilting her head back tiredly. Besides the obvious siren song the mirror sang for her ears, she was perversely glad it had dropped back into their laps. It had led to some serious shaking up, what with meeting alternate selves and men apparently risen from the dead, and the guys had gotten a bit bashed around doing their 'save the world' act for a brand new universe. However, it was now providing an excellent distraction for Daniel..

Her throat tightened as she recalled their all-too-recent and devastating encounter with Machello's obsessive hatred for the Goa'uld. Stupid, stupid, brilliant man. Had he *never* given a thought to anything beyond exacting his revenge in as thorough and destructive a way as possible? Had he never thought about the innocents who could be caught in the recoil?

Innocents like Daniel.

She'd experienced many moments of horror in her life. She still felt touches of the intense sorrow she'd experienced at losing her mother. Her father's difficult acknowledgement of his own mortality had struck hard. And she'd thought nothing could match the devastation of having her body appropriated by another as her own consciousness was shoved into a dark, windowless corner.

But she'd been wrong. Nothing equaled the desperate sorrow and hopelessness of seeing her dear, brilliant friend stripped of his intellect and identity. Seeing Daniel curled up in the middle of that awful white room, hands, feet and face bare. Watching him crush himself into that corner, tears spilling from eyes that had clearly already shed so many. And that last sight as they'd been firmly ushered out of the room, of the hulking orderlies pinning his helplessly struggling body to the floor as he'd been injected with the drugs that were robbing him of himself.

She figured that was the ultimate.

And it was almost worse to watch Daniel try so hard to pretend it had never happened. Other than an absolute refusal to allow any psychiatrist or psychologist near him, he'd tried hard to return to business as usual. No accusations, no recriminations. But also no smiles. He'd never been one to smile a lot, but since the white room he'd withdrawn into himself with all the stubborn determination so characteristic of the man. And she hadn't seen the corners of that lush mouth curl up in an honest smile since they'd returned from the Linvris chamber.

So it was a joy and a relief to see him throw himself at a problem like the mirror. He still wasn't smiling, but at least he was talking to her; at least he was allowing himself to become absorbed in something other than the fight to appear "normal."

Sighing, she shook herself out of her reverie and turned her attention back to the mirror. Once she'd lost custody of the infuriating thing, she'd have a war council with Teal'c and the colonel. Surely Daniel couldn't hold out against the three of them.

In the meantime, she was down to thirty-five hours.

<<<<<>>>>>

Claire felt the nails of her interlaced fingers dig into the innocent flesh of her hands. Doctor Carter was glaring at Mel with impossibly wide, round blue eyes, her mouth slightly ajar.

Damn. She wasn't believing it. And Mel wouldn't want to demonstrate anything until she satisfied his requirements for discretion.

Tearing her gaze away from Mel, the physicist jerked her head around to stare at the squat, apparently innocuous object in the corner of the room. Claire found her attention ridiculously diverted to the smooth sway of the other woman's sleek blond bob.

'Wonder how she does that?' A lifetime of wrestling with stubbornly flyaway hair awoke a moment of absurd envy in Claire's thoughts. 'Maybe it takes advanced physics to make every hair behave.'

Cheeks warming, she forced her nervous attention back to the intellectual contest being waged between her husband and the younger scientist.

"You're suggesting that this… device allows a connection between… what? Different universes?" The skepticism dripped from her voice.

"Not exactly. Other versions of this universe." Mel leaned forward with his characteristic intensity. "I've read a few articles…"

"Articles?"

"Ah, yes. In… well, in //Skeptic//, to be precise…"

"//Skeptic//!"

Mel's cheeks pinked slightly. "Er… um… It's a… well… I guess you could say a guilty pleasure. But it's often quite scholarly!"

"A guilty pleasure." Doctor Carter shook her head in rather scandalized bemusement. "And based on this, you're proposing…"

"I'm suggesting that we consider the possibility that there's something behind those hypotheses about multiple, branching realities!" Mel snapped. "You're a physicist, Doctor Carter. You surely aren't going to suggest that you don't know very well about these proposals!"

"Of course I do! As a source of intellectual discussion and philosophical one-upmanship among my fringier colleagues! But none of them has been hare-brained enough to suggest that one could simply… take a stroll from one of their hypothetical universal steams to another!"

Claire fixed her gaze on Doctor Carter's outraged face. "And are you going to suggest that Whatever It Is that is producing all of these essentially impossible artifacts General West has been passing along to us is right in line with current main-stream physics?"

For a long moment, the atmosphere in the small laboratory shivered with tension. Slowly, Doctor Carter leaned back in her chair, staring at Claire and Mel.

"What do you know about that?" Her voice was hard.

"Nothing," Claire rapped. "Yet. But that is going to change if we're going to continue to work with this project."

Carter's head was shaking back and forth. "I'm afraid that just won't be possible. This is a high-security..."

"Bullshit." Mel slapped his hand sharply on the desktop. "There's no way we can continue without knowing more about what is going on here. In fact, if we're to continue discussing this… dimensional pathway, I want your assurance that you won't take anything to West or any of the other military personnel. At least not until we can figure out just what we have. You've only heard a fraction of what I've discovered, and you have no notion of the potential hazards of that thing if what I suspect is even close to the truth!"

Carter's mouth tightened. "This project's security coverage is absolutely essential. The military consequences…"

"Ah, yes. The military angle." The scornful edge of Mel's voice cut through the physicist's words. "Doctor Carter, you are a scientist. A very fine one, if rumor is to be believed. You certainly understand the absolute necessity that information be freely circulated if advances in scientific understanding are to be nurtured. This miasma of pathological secrecy taints everything we discover here."

"Doctor Jackson, you know…"

"Doctor Carter… Sam…" Claire leaned across the desk and grasped the younger woman's hand. "Let go of the military perspective for a moment. You've seen the translations. You've seen the analyses of some of the artifacts. We're talking extremely destructive forces, here. And we're very conscious of the potential devastation possible if our military gets control of such devices."

Back stiffening under her white lab coat, Carter jerked to her feet. "My father is career military. I don't appreciate…"

"Please. Think like the scientist you were trained to be! Let your conclusions be shaped by the data, not by your conditioning. Our military is not famed for its depth of analytical thought, nor for its contemplation of long-term consequences. And certainly not for consideration of the good of those beyond our borders."

"My father…"

"Your father is one man. Perhaps he's atypical for a military man, but he's *one man*." Claire stood and leaned her hands on the table, gaze fixed determinedly on Carter's face. "Can you honestly look at our country's military background—particularly recently--and say you're content to trust them to make deeply considered decisions about what appear to be devastatingly powerful devices?"

An uncharacteristically uncertain expression crept over Carter's face. A flush of color touched her cheeks as she flicked her gaze toward the frame device crouching, indifferent and vaguely malevolent, in the corner of the room.

Leaning back in his chair, Mel contemplated her grimly. "And, of course, there's the current political situation to consider as well. The recent election…"

Carter's eyes squeezed tightly shut, and she slowly lowered herself back into her chair. "Oh, God. You just don't even suspect…" She heaved a deep sigh. "God, who would have believed the American public could elect that man."

She opened her eyes and stared at the other two. "The president has some… strong opinions about this project. He also has strong opinions about the country's military position."

The sound Mel produced could only be described as a snort. "Ah, yes. What were the slogans? 'Security Through Strength!' 'Power Preserves!' And what was it he said at the inauguration? Something about the responsibility of the powerful to keep the weak under control?"

The moue of the physicist's mouth confirmed her agreement with his opinion of the new president.

Claire grimaced. "I'm sure we could get the Russians to confirm how grateful they were for the 'supporting' hand we offered after their government collapsed. Providing we agreed to return the materials we so glibly plundered. Not to mention the intellectual drain. How many 'resituated' Soviets are working here, Doctor Carter?"

"Actually, none. This project is too…"

"…Secret," Mel interjected. "Can't let anyone but true blue patriots get close to the Big Whatever, now can we? On the other hand, how much of the pilfered Soviet research and technology has found its way here?"

Cheeks flushing, Carter ducked her head. After a moment, she lifted rueful blue eyes and grimaced. "That's a rather touchy subject, frankly. And one which, at this time, I can't discuss with you. But… let's just say you're making your point fairly persuasively."

Mel tilted his silvered head, contemplating her with the calm reserve so typical of his approach to life. "So, you agree to keep what I show you to yourself?"

"You know I can't promise that."

Mel stood. "Then we are finished here. And we'll be tendering our resignations immediately. This has gone beyond anything to which we can, in conscience, devote ourselves."

Claire rose to her feet and moved closer to her husband, holding Carter's blue gaze with her own. "I know what it is that they've been having me translate, Doctor Carter. I'm not in the least inclined to help my government's military develop such terrible things. No more. Not without knowing in what you and General West have entangled us."

Carter's white teeth worried her lower lip as she contemplated their united front.

"All right. For now… I'll keep this frame thing to myself. We can discuss the other thing later. I'm still waiting for you to convince me that the frame is anything like what you're claiming it is."

For several seconds they stared at each other, then Mel nodded sharply. He reached into a desk drawer and drew out the triangular control device.

"Allow me to show you what we've discovered."

<<<<<>>>>>

Sam was once again examining the mirror's frame minutely, magnifying device cranked to its highest capacity. This made nine times. And she still couldn't find any seam or catch which would allow access to its mysterious interior.

"Sam!" The exclamation accompanied the archaeological whirlwind that slammed through the lab's door.

"Hey, Daniel," she greeted, gratefully straightening up from her infuriating task.

Eagerly, he dropped onto the floor beside her. His hands clutched an unruly stack of papers and books—some of his journals. The majority of the loose pages were covered with his precise notations.

Sam arched and stretched her back, listening to the vertebrae pop. She grinned up into his bright eyes. "You find something?"

"I… I think so." He dropped most of his burden onto the floor, carefully retaining one thin sheaf of papers. "Look…" He thrust the pages in front of her face. "This text style matches one of the Rosetta panels we found on Ernest's planet. I've been able to identify the Asgard script, and the Ancients'. I'm pretty sure I've figured out which of the other two comes from the Nox. This is the fourth. Which would make it…"

"The Furlings."

"Right! We've only found a few bits of text which match this. But look here…" He shuffled through the pages of his writing, finally pulling one out of the stack. "I'm making a bit of progress translating the language, based on the assumption that the four panels on Ernest's planet all carried the same text. And this… this bit right here…" His finger gently traced a line of what looked to Sam like imprints from a pigeon's feet. "I'm pretty sure this says something like, 'step across,' or 'over, the…' um… maybe 'threshold.' And this, 'self to self…' something something 'in time, destroy.'"

She nodded slowly. "Yeah. That could fit. Especially that 'in time, destroy' bit." She shuddered, remembering her alternate self assaulted by entropic cascades. "So…"

"So I think the mirror may have been made by the Furlings."

"Makes sense. Still doesn't help me figure the stupid thing out, though!"

She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. The eagerness drained from his face, leaving his features schooled into that mask she hated so.

"Daniel…"

He pulled away from her hand, carefully restacking his books and papers.

"Sorry, Sam."

"Hey, this could mean a lot, Daniel. First, you've got the rest of that text to translate. Maybe it'll tell us something about all of this. Maybe it'll even tell us how to control entropic cascade failure. And now at least we have a pretty good idea of just who made the mirrors."

He nodded tightly, then, clutching his papers, stood. "I'll just go back to my office and… work on this."

"Wait! I need a break. Come get something to eat?"

He hesitated, and finally nodded. "I'll drop these off in my office and meet you in the commissary."

As she watched his backside slip out the door, she curbed the irrational urge to stamp her foot in frustration.

<<<<<>>>>>

Claire felt the corners of her mouth twitch in rebellious humor. The expression on Doctor Carter's face would have rivaled any four-year-old on Christmas morning.

"Don't!" Mel exclaimed, grabbing a reaching hand. "I really don't think you want to touch the surface while it's activated, Doctor."

Carter shook herself slightly. "I… I guess you're right. But my God! I've never seen anything like this!"

"So… how are alternate time streams looking to you these days?"

She favored him with a small scowl. "Let's not be premature. We're a long way from such a conclusion." She turned back to the device, gaze rapt with fascination. "But, in my deeply considered scientific opinion… Wow!"

The three of them stared for a moment at the small collection of objects lying on the floor of the mirrored view. Mel had dialed to an image of a dimly lit room that looked like some kind of store room, and they'd been experimenting with sending objects of various types through to the other side, whatever the other side was. A pencil, a rag, a small metal block… even a rabbit's foot, showing the apparently safe transmission of organic material. Carter had been talking about stealing a rat from the zoology lab up on the eighteenth floor, just to see if it could go through alive.

Mel chuckled softly. "I guess 'wow' sums it up." Shaking his head slowly, he moved over to sit behind his desk. "And I'm sure you see why the last people we'd want to start playing around with this would be West and his team. Or, God forbid, Makepeace."

Carter winced, still staring at the frame. Idly, she began playing with the control device, changing the image visible in the frame. "I have to tell you, I'm pretty conflicted about this. My 'duty' says that something this important really needs to be reported. But my common sense, not to mention my scientific curiosity, is screaming at me that it needs to stay nice and secret, right here in this room."

Claire laughed softly. "Oh, yes. And you haven't seen the firebreather yet.."

The younger woman swiveled to look at her, silky hair again performing that impossibly smooth little sway. "Firebreather?"

"Indeed. He appeared in the image at one of the 'stations' of the control device." Claire gestured toward the scorched wall behind her. "He left this little present."

Carter set the remote on the desk and moved closer to the marred surface. "Just what kind of firebreather are we talking about, here?"

"Looked pretty much like a man in strange armor, carrying a very nasty staff or spear of some kind." Claire grabbed a tablet of paper from the jumbled worktable, and dropped to sit on the floor, using her raised knee to support the pad as she sketched. "Rather like this."

Carter leaned over her shoulder, examining the image of a tall man covered in metal and chain, with an improbably beast-like helmet covering his head.

"He pointed the fat end of the stick at us…" Claire gestured toward the appropriate part of her drawing. "It glowed, then *whoosh*! A bolt of fire shot out the end and… right out of the frame."

The physicist's mouth was again hanging open. "Holy Hannah!" She slid down to sit next to Claire on the floor, reaching out to take the pad into her hands.

Claire cast a ruefully triumphant little smile toward Mel. Somehow she didn't think Doctor Carter was going to be running to the General any time soon.

Carter slowly rose to her feet, dusting off her rear end.

"So… I think maybe you should let me take over testing this thing, Doctor Jackson. I'd say we're definitely looking at something more in my world than yours, if you'll pardon the expression."

Mel regarded her somberly for a few moments before replying. "Do you think that's a good idea? Frankly, your lab is under much closer scrutiny than mine."

Her mouth twisted ruefully. "You're right. Well… maybe I can work with it here. It'll be a bit awkward, and…"

The eruption of the claxons and flashing lights overwhelmed the rest of her words.

"Damn!" Mel shook his head in irritation. "I really hate those alarms."

Claire's eardrums noted the familiar low rumble as the floor beneath her quaked slightly. Sighing, she leaned back against the wall to wait out the racket.

Abruptly, the too-familiar noise of the sirens was augmented by a raucously amplified voice. "Unauthorized personnel on base! All guards to the Doorway room. Repeat… All guards to the Doorway Room! Unauthorized Doorway access! All SF personnel to the Doorway room!"

Doorway room? Claire shared a startled look with Mel, then accepted his hand pulling her to her feet. Carter had dropped the pad of paper and was already out in the hallway. Mel and Claire followed, only to be firmly stopped by the armed guard who normally yawned his way through each day posted at the far end of the hall.

"Sorry, Doctors! Stay in your rooms, please."

"But, Sergeant, I need to go to the…"

The man shook his head at Doctor Carter. "Wait in the lab, Doctor Carter. I'm sure this is nothing. You'll be told when all's clear."

"But… "

The soldier gently but firmly pushed the three scientists back into the lab, ignoring Carter's increasingly strident objections. As the door clicked shut, the physicist's fist pounded once against the innocent panel.

She spun from the door, blue eyes flashing in annoyance, and began pacing furiously back and forth, hands clenched fiercely.

"Where the hell do they find these idiots? If there's a problem with the Doorway, I need to be there! Damn, damn, damn!"

Mel and Claire exchanged quizzical glances. Doorway?

"Doctor Carter…"

She ignored him, still striding back and forth in frustration.

"Doctor Carter!" Mel stepped out into her path, arms extended. She twisted away from him, angrily pushing his hands out of her way.

"I know that Doorway better than anyone else involved in this project!"

As she stomped over her new pathway, Carter's foot landed on the discarded pad of paper, and slid. Her body lurched, and Claire reached out automatically to catch her. The impact of Claire's weight altered the trajectory of Carter's fall, driving both of them against Mel, who also toppled. Like clumsy, oversized dominoes, all three of them hit the floor and skidded across the slick linoleum tile. As they jerked to a stop, there was a little flash of light and a frizzy, tingly feeling.

Slowly, they sorted each other out, apologizing and cataloguing bruises.

"Holy Hannah!"

Their heads swiveled toward the source of the soft exclamation. Claire felt the shock shiver through Doctor Carter's body. She barely caught the other woman's whisper.

"H…holy Hannah."

<<<<<>>>>>

Sam threaded her fingers through her hair, then clenched her hands into fists, tugging in fierce frustration. At this rate, she wasn't going to have any hair left.

This thing was going to seriously compromise her blood pressure.

Her dinner break with Daniel had helped. Right up until she'd sat down and begun to review her diagrams and notes and realized once again how little progress she'd made.

Pulling her fingers free, she sighed and fitted her hands once more over the keys of her laptop. Maybe…

As she leaned forward, tracking the appearance of the little blue letters as she typed, she caught a flash of light out of the corner of her eye. She swiveled her chair to face the recalcitrant quantum mirror, just in time of see a tangle of bodies erupt from the flat surface.

Frozen in astonishment, Sam stared at the offerings spit out by the mirror, watching the three strangers free themselves from their entwined situation.

Her mouth snapped shut. Surely she'd seen that man before, though there was something…

Then the two women turned and she caught sight of their faces.

Oh, lord. Not again. Vaguely she was aware of hearing her own voice, and an echo of her own favorite exclamation.

Yes, again.

For a long moment, the four of them simply gaped at each other. Then Sam mentally shook herself loose and stood, stepping out from behind the table and moving slowly toward her unexpected… guests.

Smiling ruefully, she held her hand out to her Doppelganger. "I'd guess… Doctor Carter?"

"Ah… Y…yes." Predictably, the demands of courtesy conditioned into every social human prevailed, and the newly arrived Carter staggered to her feet and accepted the handshake. "And… and you?"

Sam grinned into that much-too-familiar face. "Me, too. Though Major Carter is really more proper."

"Major? B… but who… What…"

The man interrupted. "Dear God. I… I was right, wasn't I?" He surged to his feet, solicitously guiding the second woman up to stand beside him.

Sam turned her attention to this other pair. They were so tantalizing familiar… the tall man, with his heavy mane of unruly hair and his gentle, craggy features, and the smaller woman, flyaway salt-and-pepper hair tied back with a scarf. Though somehow Sam didn't think she should look quite so… frail. And surely the man's hair shouldn't be silver white.

"Well, that all depends on what you figure you're right *about*."

"Dimensions… alternate versions…" The older woman's fingers tightened around the man's forearm. "The frame…"

Sam turned back to her alternate self, meeting eyes both bemused and ecstatic. Oh, did she know *that* look.

"Hmmm. Why don't you three sit down over here. I think we're going to have a *very* interesting talk. In the meantime…" she grabbed the control device, twisting a knob to deactivate the mirror. "Let's make sure we don't get any more surprises."

Doctor Carter sank slowly into the chair Sam had vacated. Her face still wore an expression of stunned excitement. Her gaze was locked on the now-inert mirror. "Alternate time streams. We… we've actually…" Abruptly, she shook herself, dragging her attention away from the artifact and centering it on Sam. "You're in the Air Force?"

Sam sat on the corner of the desk, reaching out to close down the computer. "Yep. But you… not, right?"

"I thought about it, but no."

Sam nodded. "Well, I'm oh-for-three."

An elegant brow rose in query.

"Believe it or not, you're not the first of my 'alternates' we've encountered. So far, I'm the only one who went for the wings, so to speak." She laughed, shaking her head ruefully. "Though at least I'm *there* in the alternates. I'm doing a lot better than…"

"Carter!" The crash of the door flying open resounded in the small room. "What the hell are you doing still fucking around with that stupid mirror!"

"Ah, Sir. I see you're back. How was Minnesota?"

"You were just waiting, weren't you. Just waiting for me to get out of the way to go all scientist on me! Why hasn't that thing been cremated? You wanna treat us all to…" His furious tirade strangled to a halt as he took in the three people sitting around the desk. "Oh, shit!" His eyes squeezed shut. "Shit, shit, shit. You just had to do it, didn't you?

Indignant, she protested, "Hey, I didn't do anything! They came visiting me!"

He stepped closer to the desk, examining the three strangers with scowling intensity. "Just what we need. Yet another Carter."

Doctor Carter bristled, meeting his fierce eyes with studied insolence. "One of us is an asset. Two of us will certainly be superb. And you are?"

Sam clamped her teeth on her lips, clinching them closed to contain the threatening laugh. There were definite advantages to being a civilian.

"O'Neill!" the colonel snapped.

Sam freed her now reasonably well-behaved lips. "This is Colonel Jack O'Neill, Doctor Carter. He's my C.O."

Carter's brows arched. "*He* commands *you*?"

"He most certainly does!" O'Neill growled.

Sam's teeth were back in action, though she was sure they'd be inadequate to contain the eruptions of amusement currently making her chest feel too small to hold her lungs.

"Another example of military 'intelligence,' I assume?"

The colonel growled deep in his throat and deliberately turned toward the other two visitors, clearly dismissing Doctor Carter and pointedly ignoring the laughter Sam could no longer contain . He scowled at the elderly couple, scanning them up and down. "You two are new."

The two exchanged bemused glances. "New?" the man asked.

"But I've seen you before." Ignoring the man's response, O'Neill stared into the strong face. "Where… Younger. You had dark hair. Who…"

The older man's eyes widened behind the dark frames of his glasses. "Well, yes. My hair was dark when I was younger. But it went white at least twenty years ago."

"You got names?"

"Doctor Melburn Jackson. And my wife, Doctor Claire Jackson."

The names fell into a well of choking silence.

"Oh my God." Was that her voice? That scratchy, sandpaper whisper? No wonder they'd looked familiar.

//Chains straining, heavy stone swaying. The sour snap of the metal links, and the anguished cry of the man beside her…//

Voices from the hall broke the stunned silence—a familiar voice exchanging greetings with one of the Airmen. No. Not now, not now.

"Damn it!" The colonel lurched toward the door just as Daniel slipped into the room, eyes cast over his shoulder at the departing soldier and arms once again wrapped around a mass of papers, journals and books.

O'Neill grabbed him, pushing him back toward the hallway.

"Jack? Wha…? Wait! Let go!"

Behind her, Sam was vaguely aware of the Jacksons rising to their feet.

"Daniel, I think you forgot something! I'm sure you need… umm… Budge! You need Budge for… whatever!"

"Jack, what are you… Jack, I haven't needed Budge since I was ten years old."

"Well… well, you never know."

Daniel tugged himself out of O'Neill's hold, twisting to prevent the loss of his burden. "Jack, are you okay?"

As he sidled past the colonel, Daniel pivoted, puzzled eyes briefly meeting Sam's. Desperately, she tried to hold his gaze, but his eyes slid past her to the trio standing around the desk. For a moment, his expression went completely blank. The papers and books fell from suddenly limp arms.

Then his face drained completely of all color, and he recoiled, rebounding off the colonel to fall backward against the wall.

"No! Nonononononono…"

<<<<<>>>>>

Claire had never been much for roller coasters, and this one was a honey. She sat numbly, fingers clenched together on the desk top, and watched the verbal ping-pong match between those identical profiles. Doctor Carter and… Doctor Carter.

It was all the evidence she needed. It was real. They'd literally slid right through Mel's artifact into an alternate version of their universe.

Why were they discussing such trivial things? Surely there were important issues to deal with. Like getting back where they belonged, for one.

The eruption of the loud, angry officer into the room didn't help. Now all three of them were going at it.

Her hands tightened their white-fingered grip as Doctor Carter—theirs—insulted the colonel. She found herself desperately trying to telepathically beg the physicist to stop antagonizing the man.

When he turned his attention on her and her husband, she had to fight the urge to shrink back behind Mel. The man was truly intimidating. And he seemed to recognize them. She was sure she'd never met this man in her own world. How could he know them?

And why did their names bring such looks of horror to the faces of the two soldiers?

As voices sounded outside the room, O'Neill and Major Carter exchanged rather desperate glances The colonel leapt for the door just as a young man, arms overloaded with reference material, backed into the room.

There was something about that man…

Claire rose slowly to her feet, feeling Mel moving beside her.

She knew she'd never seen this boy before, but… Her eyes met his, and she felt a surge of inexplicable recognition.

Those so-familiar brilliant blue eyes widened, the color drained out of his face, and that tender, well-remembered mouth emitted a cry of wrenching desolation as he jerked away, scattering his papers and books, bouncing off the colonel and into the wall.

Claire's hand gripped Mel's forearm so hard she knew she'd leave bruises.

O'Neill dropped down and grabbed the young man's arms, talking, talking in a low, soothing voice totally unlike any sound they'd yet heard from him.

The man on the floor fought against the hands restraining him, then collapsed and twisted his body, deliberately refusing to look across the small room at Claire and Mel.

"No! Can't be! I won't… won't go back! Not there, not there!" His voice was a low, desperate chant.

"Shhhh… Easy, Danny. It's all right." O'Neill shook the man slightly. "C'mon, buddy. Look at me. Carter, shut the damned door."

Danny. Alternate time stream. Danny. Claire's fingers slid down and crept into Mel's hand.

"Never again! Don't let them take me back there! Jack…"

"Never, Danny. You'll never go back there. You're not crazy. They're really here…"

Major Carter knelt beside the distraught man, hands reaching for his cheeks, cradling his chin, stroking his hair.

"You're okay, Daniel. You're fine. They're real. You're not imagining them…"

Daniel. They called him Daniel. Mel's hand was cold and trembling. She could hear how rapidly he was breathing.

His name was Daniel.

Slowly, the Daniel on the floor quieted. He was breathing harshly, leaning his forehead against O'Neill's shoulder, and shaking. Visibly shaking so badly.

"You okay now, buddy?" Where had that tenderness come from?

The response was barely more than a breath. "They're real?"

"Yup. C'mon. You know this drill. Carter's been messing with the big kids' toys again."

Major Carter scowled at the colonel. "Daniel? Really. See—another me."

"Oh, yeah. Just what we needed." O'Neill slid an arm around the Daniel's waist and assisted him to his feet. Those blue eyes were still stubbornly averted.

"I th… thought… Oh, God!"

Major Carter reached for her double and pulled her over beside O'Neill, not so incidentally partially screening Mel and Claire from the Daniel's view.

"Here, Daniel." Her free hand gently cupped his chin and pulled his head around to face Doctor Carter. "The mirror, Daniel. They came through the mirror. Just like you did, but the other way. You keep finding strange versions of me; I guess this one came looking for you."

O'Neill grinned wickedly, and the Daniel produced a shaky little laugh as Doctor Carter shot the colonel a venomous look.

Then the Daniel pushed Doctor Carter carefully to the side and finally, finally looked at Mel and Claire.

Oh, God, oh, God. There was something in her throat. She couldn't breathe. How could she be so sure? Where in this adult face did she find those soft, childish features? But it was him. She'd stake her last breath on it.

He moved slowly toward them, tongue sweeping over his full lower lip, eyes impossibly wide and distressed. Tentatively, his right hand reached up to brush fingers across her cheek, feather-light and trembling. His left hand touched Mel's chest, rose to finger silver hair, brush shaggy eyebrows.

He was as tall as Mel, as broad shouldered. Though it was strictly cut and styled, she could tell his hair was as flyaway and unmanageable as her own.

She couldn't have stopped herself. Not for anything. Claire slid her hands up his chest to cradle his jaw between her palms, staring into the impossibility of his face—so strange, but so achingly familiar.

Then she moved those same hands down and around his body, pulling him into her arms for the embrace that had figured in every dream she'd had for more than twenty five years. Slowly, she pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder. And she rejoiced despite the tears flowing down her cheeks as she felt his arms tentatively encircle her, and Mel's enfolding them both.

<<<<<>>>>>

Oh, this was going to be a briefing for the record books. 'Surreal' didn't even begin to describe it.

Sam leaned forward, supporting her upper body on her folded hands, and let her eyes slide to the side, surreptitiously examining the trio at the other end of the conference table.

Daniel sat at the end, sandwiched between the elder Jacksons, who seemed unable to give up physical contact with her teammate. Daniel still bore that round-eyed expression of overwhelmed disbelief. All three faces were liberally streaked with tears.

Sam's belly tingled with something that she recognized vaguely as sheer delight. This was a Good Thing, she was sure of it.

She turned her gaze back to the woman directly across the table from her. Yet another Doctor Carter, who was looking pretty flummoxed herself as she examined the man sitting between Sam and Melburn Jackson.

Teal'c. Who had been one king-sized surprise to the Carter from the mirror. Which suggested some interesting things about that alternate version of the universe.

The colonel was in Hammond's office, trying to prepare the General for this little meeting. She'd love to hear *that* conversation.

Sam sternly repressed the urge to giggle, fighting against the influence of that belly-tickling semi-hysteria.

Firmly, she reined herself in, straightening into proper military posture as the two senior officers entered the room. Colonel O'Neill carried a steaming cup in one hand. He leaned carefully forward between Melburn Jackson and Daniel and set the mug gently in front of the younger Jackson. Undoubtedly coffee, their archaeologist's universal panacea.

Daniel started and looked quickly up over his shoulder. A bit of the helpless confusion seeped out of his expression as he nodded a silent 'thank you.' The colonel smiled and gripped his shoulder affectionately before straightening and striding to his chair to the right of the General's..

General Hammond lowered himself into his seat with deliberate care, avoiding eye contact with the people around the table. Once settled, he folded his hands and cleared his throat.

"Ahem. Well…" His pale blue eyes finally swept over the assemblage. "It appears we once again have visitors."

'Oh, God,' she thought, the bubble of hysteria fighting to rise from her chest. 'Visitors.'

"Doctor Carter," Hammond nodded toward the Mirror-Carter. "We've met a few of your counterparts already."

"Ah, Sir?" Sam interrupted. "Before we get into anything complicated, I think there’s something we need to discuss with Doctor Carter."

He was nodding as she finished. "Agreed, Major Carter. And for more than one reason, you are best suited for the task."

"Right." Sam sat rigidly upright and faced her image across the table. "You need to know about entropic cascade."

Doctor Carter tilted her neatly coifed head. "Entropic cascade?" Her elegant brows tweaked together as she rolled the words around her tongue. "As in…"

Carter nodded. "… two identical—or nearly identical—beings…"

"…the thermodynamic instability…"

"…and compatibility constraints…"

"Not to mention…"

"Yes! And it’s cumulative…"

"…positive feedback…"

"Hey!"

"…eventual, ultimate crisis…"

"…so our mutual existence in…"

"Right. At least…"

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey!"

At O’Neill’s aggravated shout, both of them jerked their heads in his direction."

"You eggheads think you could have, like, a whole conversation here? In English? This isn’t fun!"

"But…!" Doctor Carter’s excitement elevated the pitch of her voice.

"Down, Doc! We got it! *You* got it. So zip it, okay?"

Sam leaned back, grinning across the table into the answering gleam from the other Carter. She could feel the bubbles of excited obsession fizzing in her blood. Perfect coiffure aside, a bit of intellectual communion and she found she liked this counterpart as much as she’d come to like the first alternate Doctor Carter she’d met. It was an unbeatable common tongue.

Hammond leaned forward over his folded hands. "So, Doctor Carter, you understand?"

"Indeed, General. What’s our time limit?"

"Our previous experience indicates approximately forty-eight hours. And the incidents are… really disturbing." Sam grimaced. "I really don’t want to see you go through that. So your visit’s going to be short."

She saw Claire’s fingers tighten over Daniel’s forearm.

"Only two days?"

"Well…"

Doctor Carter reached eagerly toward Sam.

"That would mean that the rate of stability decay would…"

"Hold it!" The colonel’s insistent voice rose above the cacophony. "Before you Carters manage get up to your ears in gibberish again, could someone explain… *that* to me?" He gestured toward Claire. "I mean, I know Daniel’s story, but where the hell did they come from?"

"From the alternate Earth, O’Neill," Teal’c explained with firm patience.

O’Neill scowled at him. "I *know* that, Teal’c. But how come…"

"I’m assuming that the accident in the museum never happened in their universe, Sir," Sam interrupted.

"Accident?" Claire’s fingers gently stroked the muscular arm under her hand. "It did. I mean, there was an accident setting up our tomb exhibit." She turned to gaze at Daniel, her expression clearly showing how impossibly miraculous he was. "Our baby… our Daniel was k…. He…"

Mel reached behind Daniel to grip her shoulder. "We lost our son more than twenty-five years ago."

Doctor Carter was staring at them in concerned confusion. "I never realized…"

Claire slipped her hand down Daniel’s arm and slid it into his. Gazing at their intertwined fingers, she whispered, "We never… *never* talked about it. We’ve hardly mentioned his name in years."

Sam was nodding again, bright fascination burning in her mind. "Here, it wasn’t Daniel who was killed in that accident. As far as we know, you, Claire, and your husband don’t have to worry about entropic cascade failure. You… aren’t here. You died nearly thirty years ago."

"Dear heavens!" Claire exchanged a glance of confusion with her husband. "Do you mean that… hypothetically, we could… we could stay here? Or Daniel could come back with us?"

Sam felt her lips quirk into a little smile. "Well, we won’t let you have Daniel, but in concept, you’re right."

Melburn Jackson tightened his hold on Daniel's forearm. He drew breath to speak, but Doctor Carter interrupted.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Jackson, but I'm puzzled about several rather significant things." She was staring at the colonel, brow furrowed in confusion. "You are Colonel Jack O'Neill, right?"

"Yep."

"So… you never took the trip?"

The colonel looked confused. "Trip?"

"Through the Doorway?"

O'Neill arched his brows, tilting his head in his characteristic expression of sarcastic inquiry. "Doorway?"

Doctor Carter made a sound which couldn't be called anything but a snort. "As in 'Doorway to Heaven'?"

Sam noted that two of their three Jacksons were looking confused.

Daniel muttered, "Stargate. Not doorway to heaven. Stargate."

"Oh, you mean the *Gate*. Yeah, I went."

She looked mildly stunned. "But… Then you came back?"

He scowled at her. "You sure you're really Carter? Obviously, yes I came back."

She shook her head slightly. "Ours didn't."

Silence.

"You mean, over there…" O'Neill's hand waved vaguely in the direction of Sam's lab. "Over there I'm… dead."

She nodded. "Almost certainly. You see…"

Sam interrupted. "Wait a second, Doctor Carter. Let's back up and sort some things out. I'm guessing that your version of reality is more different from ours than the others we've encountered. For instance, Teal'c." She smiled warmly at her team mate. "You've never seen a Jaffa before, have you?"

"A… what? Jaffa?"

Sam nodded. "So you've never encountered the Jaffa." She ticked off a counter on her finger. "And I'm betting you haven't met the Goa'uld, either." Another finger.

Now Doctor Carter really was looking overwhelmed. "Ghoul?"

Sam shook her head. "Goa'uld," she enunciated carefully.

"You know," O'Neill interjected. "Ugly slimy snaky things that steal bodies?"

"Tell me, Doctor Carter… How long have your people been using the Gate?"

"A… about two months."

"Two months!" O'Neill exclaimed. "We've been going through for three *years*. Longer than that if you count the first Abydos trip."

"Abydos? F… first trip?"

Sam was definitely beginning to feel sorry for her counterpart, who was clearly overwhelmed.

"Another thing," she added. "I'm guessing that your two archaeologists, here, don't know much about the Gate—Doorway—at all. So that means…"

She paused. What it probably meant was that paranoid minds had an even greater death grip on the other world's Gate than on their own.

Doctor Carter's mind was finally catching up. "Our military keeps a very tight control over knowledge and operation of the Doorway."

"Oh, yeah." The colonel leaned back in his chair, shaking his head in disgust. "All that 'need to know' stuff. Only the bozos in charge never seem to know who really *does* 'need to know.'"

Sam nodded. "Doctor Carter, you're a civilian. But I bet you've been employed on government and military projects for quite a few years."

Doctor Carter's cheeks pinked. "Pretty much since I finished my first post-doc."

"So you're a civilian, but inside the fold. Whereas the Jacksons are definitely outsiders. Not just not military, but 'soft' scientists. I'm sure they've been kept in the dark about what they were really doing, right?"

Claire spoke up for the first time. "Yes. We've been asked to work with some very strange artifacts and texts, but we've never been able to get anyone to explain where they came from or who found them."

Sam sat back and contemplated her counterpart. "So, Doctor Carter. Just how long did it take you to crack the dialing code?"

"Dialing code? Oh, the symbols. My team worked on it for five years before we lucked onto a combination of keys that would activate the Doorway. It took us a while to realize the purpose of the Doorway and its relationship to the pedestal Then, of course, the navigational issues were difficult. We'd figured out the first six settings from the coverstone, but couldn't figure out how to factor in the directional component. Just over nine months ago we finally got the Doorway to activate."

"Wait wait!" Daniel leaned forward. "Pedestal? You had a DHD?"

"DHD?"

"The dialing device. Umm… Dial home device."

"Oh, the SAP! Symbol array pedestal. Of course. You didn't? But how do you dial?"

"Our computer dials for us. That explains how you can use the Gate without having had access to the Abydos cartouche and calculating for stellar drift. So… You sent a team through the Gate nine months ago?"

"Yes. Colonel O'Neill's team. We never heard from them again, and can no longer connect using that symbol array. And it took us several additional months to figure out what it was that had allowed the Doorway to connect that first time. The home sign. And that we could create combinations other than the one on the coverstone which would connect, as long as we added the home sign to the end of the sequence."

Sam was nodding slowly. "The point of origin. It's also pretty evident why it took you so long, despite having a DHD. Apparently you never figured out the significance of the seventh symbol on the coverstone."

"Seventh? Our coverstone has only six."

Daniel's head was shaking. "No. Seven."

Doctor Carter’s head was shaking adamantly. "No, the cartouche had no room for a seventh symbol."

Sam’s head was also shaking, and she knew her smile was smug. "Wrong. The seventh symbol was outside the cartouche—and you never had anyone to figure it out."

"But the how did you…" Doctor Carter’s head was shaking more firmly..

"Ah, but ya see…" Jack's mouth quirked into a tauntingly superior smirk. "We had something you didn't."

Silence stretched as the smirk graduated to a full grin. "We had Daniel."

Doctor Carter's perfectly groomed eyebrow lifted. "Excuse me?"

Sam smiled down at her folded hands. "He said, 'We had Daniel.' You see, your people have been making a serious mistake right from the start by keeping such a tight lid on this thing. You really, really need your cultural experts to be on the inside. And if you're very lucky, you've got yourselves a truly innovative thinker somewhere on your staff." She glanced toward the end of the table. "Maybe two."

She lifted her gaze to meet her counterpart's. "*My* team had been working for two years on solving the same puzzle your people spent five years figuring out. We didn't solve it by "lucking onto" the right combination of symbols. Catherine Langford brought Daniel into the project, and it took him two weeks to figure it out. And he was never told what we already knew the Stargate's purpose was." Sam firmly held the increasingly disgruntled gaze of the other Carter. "And it was Daniel who enabled *our* first exploration team to return back through the Stargate. Or at least those who survived their encounter with Ra."

"Ra?" three voices chorused weakly.

"And that's just the beginning." Colonel O'Neill pointed an admonishing finger at the physicist. "You folks have barely begun to use your Gate, and you have no idea what you're playing around with. What's out there in the universe is going to kick your butts bloody." He snorted in self-derision. "Shit, I'm starting to sound like the Tok'ra. But we've come so close to biting the big one so many times it gives me Technicolor, surround sound nightmares. And the number one reason we've survived is… Daniel." He glanced at the large dark man sitting with quiet dignity across the table. "And the number two reason is him." The finger stabbed at Teal'c. "And because your first team never returned from Abydos, and you never sent a second expedition there, you haven't met him, either. In your universe he's still working for the big bad guys."

Doctor Carter was looking decidedly pale. "What… I… We haven't encountered any other civilizations. What the hell are you talking about?"

Sam leaned back, gazing at the ceiling as she thought. "So… Your world never had a Daniel Jackson. At least, not as an adult. I wonder…"

O’Neill groaned. "Please, Carter. Don’t."

She grinned at him, then turned back to her counterpart. "Just think about it… There has to be a moment… a crux that splinters one universe from another. Just maybe…"

Doctor Carter’s head tilted, her eyes vivid with speculative interest, despite the skeptical twist to her mouth. "You think that could have been the event?"

Carter shrugged, still grinning happily. "Who knows. I imagine it’s pretty much impossible to really determine what sets two versions of the universe along different tracks. But you can bet it was the crux in terms of the path the Stargate project followed. Just look at the fallout… We’ve encountered three universes other than our own, and in every one, the program was either in the midst of disaster or heading toward it—that’s yours, by the way." She tilted her head toward the other Carter. "And the big difference has been the absence of Daniel."

The General’s brows furrowed in vague annoyance. "That seems a bit extreme, Major."

"No, Sir. It isn’t. Just consider. Daniel has shaped this project from the beginning, and in a hundred different ways. It was his doing that got us through the Gate so quickly. As the colonel said, it was him that made our Abydos mission a real success. What do you want to bet that their Colonel O’Neill went through the Gate and blew the civilization of Abydos to smithereens, just as ours almost did? And for that matter, he probably never made contact with the Abydonians at all, never actually encountered Ra, and therefore never *killed* Ra. There’s every likelihood that their version of the universe still has Ra drifting around in it." She nodded again. "And just remember, Sir, what happened when Apophis came through the Gate that first time. Just what would have happened if Colonel O’Neill hadn’t been available for you to drag out of retirement? Your people couldn’t even figure out how to fire a staff weapon. When the first Goa’uld steps out of their Doorway, what recourse do you suppose their commanding officer is going to have? They’ve never been visited—what are the odds that they have no iris, and thus no way to slam the door?"

O’Neill’s head was bobbing in concert with Major Carter’s, his mouth stretched into a proprietary grin as he gazed down the table at Daniel. "Told ya," he stage-whispered.

Major Carter smiled at her commanding officer, then turned back to the General, body inclined forward, hands gesturing excitedly. "And that’s not nearly all. Not even the most important difference Daniel has made. Listen to what these people have said about their project, Sir. Compartmentalized. Strictly military imperatives. No cultural or exploratory goals at all, other than the imperative to find bigger and meaner tools of war. Granted that our program also emphasizes military objectives, but look at us. Almost every team has some kind of cultural expert. We have a team strictly designed to carry out negotiations. Daniel and his people are everywhere, involved in the deepest sense in our decision-making and planning. The major benefits we’ve gained from our use of the Stargate have been the alliances we’ve made, and *they/ aren’t going to be making any alliances, because they aren’t going to be able to talk to anyone they meet on the other side of the Gate. They aren’t going to *try* to talk. None of that would have happened if we hadn’t had a Daniel Jackson along with us. Even Thor, though he’s developed a somewhat… irrational… fondness for the colonel—even he was *first* impressed by Daniel, back on Cimmeria. "

"Excuse me!" Melburn Jackson was leaning forward, eager gaze locked on Sam's face. "Did you say 'Ra'?"

"Oh, yeah," the colonel breathed. "Living, breathing, stinkin' up the universe."

The elder Jackson twisted around to Daniel. "Ra?"

Daniel's expression was oddly apologetic. "Yes. And Apophis, Heru'Ur, Osiris, Hathor… I…I think there's a lot we need to talk about."

"Yes, I think there are quite a few things we all need to discuss." Hammond leaned back in his chair. "Doctor Jackson, you have the floor."

Daniel clenched his fists and took a deep breath, then stood and proceeded to explain about the Goa'uld.

<<<<<>>>>>

Stunned was such an inadequate word. Overwhelmed, breathless, blindsided… all completely short of useful.

Claire knew her jaw was hanging open in moronic stupor. Knew her eyes were bugging out, staring at the miraculous personification of her long-dead child as his explanation developed.

Everything. A life-time’s worth of knowledge, gathered, catalogued, pondered… *treasured*. All gone. Pointless.

"Our best hypothesis," Daniel continued, waving his hand to support his exposition, "Is that the Goa’uld seized on extant mythology, assumed the personas of the god-figures…"

He was so beautiful. Alive, breathing, and so brilliant. Would her precious boy have become the image of this man?

Shaking her head sharply, she pulled her attention back to the breathtaking, unbelievable picture that Daniel was painting.

Mel leaned forward, gaze fixed on Daniel’s face. "So, the gods walk, so to speak."

A rueful nod. "Oh, yes. And they are not nice people" Daniel lowered himself back into his chair. "Even the ‘good’ version, the Tok’ra, are frighteningly self-focused."

O’Neill snorted. "Not nice. Cripes, Daniel. Not nice? They’re vicious, soulless sons of bitches, with enough power to be *really* dangerous. After three years, we still don’t really have the tech to stand up against even one snakehead, face to face." He scowled at the table’s innocent surface. "Bastards pretty much buy into their own P.R. Most of them seem to figure they really *are* gods, with all of the fringe benefits that go along with the position."

He lifted his gaze to meet Doctor Carter’s ashen face.

"And when they notice you’re around—and they will notice—they are going to wipe you off the bloody face of the planet. You won’t stand a chance. You just really have no idea."

"So…" Doctor Carter stared down at her tightly folded hands. "Just where does that leave us? We can’t conjure up someone who died on our world twenty-five years ago. And I’m really afraid it’s rather too late, even if we could."

Mel shook his head sadly. "There’s not much chance of demilitarizing our project at this date."

"None at all, I’d say," Doctor Carter agreed. She met her double’s eyes, mouth twisted in a rueful grimace. "The country’s military is riding a rather impressive ‘high’ just now, and our new president..." The sound she emitted might have been a raspberry, coming from someone less polished and sophisticated.

"President?" Daniel leaned forward slightly. "Oh, God. Don’t tell me…"

"President Kinsey."

"Shit!"

"Oh, damn!"

The colonel’s and major’s exclamations sounded in chorus. Daniel slumped back again, face grim. Claire tightened her fingers around his, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand. His grip firmed, and he tilted his head to gift her with a small smile.

"That stupid asshole’s figuring to chase the presidency over here, too," O’Neill growled. "Over my dead body, as much good as it’ll do."

"He rode a wave of patriotic and military fervor into office. He was an influential part of the faction of the government that ‘managed’ the cleanup after the Soviet Union dissolved, and a big portion of the public adores the ground he walks on." Mel’s voice dripped with contempt.

"Over here, he’s pretty down on the Stargate project." O’Neill’s voice held an intrinsic question.

"In our world as well," Doctor Carter nodded. "Initially, he was powerfully opposed to funding the Doorway Project."

"Let me guess." O’Neill leaned over the table. "The words ‘Pandora’s Box’ entered into it somewhere, right?"

She smiled grimly. "How did you know? But he came around when General West’s people convinced him of the possible military benefits of exploring other worlds."

"West? He still in charge over there?" O’Neill gave his head a sharp shake. "He was a good man. Hard, but pretty reasonable. He was the one who okayed letting Daniel past the ‘need to know’ restrictions, way back at the beginning. He retired just before General Hammond, here, took over."

"Hmm." General Hammond gazed pensively at Colonel O’Neill. "I don’t know him well, but everything I’ve heard indicates that he’s sound. Of course, there’s no guarantee that this other West will be as reasonable."

O’Neill quirked a brow upward. "You thinking… What, a little ‘informational expedition’?"

"I think we might be able to put together enough information to open his eyes a bit."

"But, Sirs…!" Major Carter leaned forward to look at the general around O’Neill’s body. "We’d be interfering…"

"Sam, we’ve already pretty thoroughly ‘interfered with’ one alternate universe," Daniel interrupted. "This isn’t the same as messing around with our own history."

Claire felt her jaw drop. Again. Messing around with history?

Major Carter’s mouth tightened stubbornly. "But…"

"Carter, swallow it." O’Neill’s curt interjection allowed no argument. "These folks are heading for a fall of Godzilla proportions, and getting General West to understand the real stakes might be the only way to give ‘em a chance to haul themselves out of it. This is no time for this
crap!"

"Sam, it’s not the same. We aren’t changing anything." Daniel reached his free hand out toward her. "No interference means turning our backs and letting the Goa’uld overrun them before they even know what risks they’re running. Can you think of any other way to help them?" Claire felt his fingers tighten painfully around hers. "We’ve basically got two choices. We help them, or we send them back, knowing what they’re almost certainly facing."

The major’s gaze dropped to the table. After a moment, her head shook. "All right."

"Sure?"

She looked up to meet his eyes, and smiled. "Yeah. Okay. You’re right. It just feels… funny."

"Funny?" O’Neill sputtered. "Our primo science geek, and all you can say is ‘it feels *funny*’?"

She shrugged.

"Besides," the colonel continued, "If West doesn’t listen, I don’t figure they’ve got a chance in hell of making it another year. He’s going to have a tough enough time as it is."

Major Carter’s head was shaking sadly. "With Kinsey in office… God, remember…"

Daniel shuddered slightly. "Oh, yes. He’s so arrogant about the power of this ‘great country’ that he’ll leave you completely vulnerable. We couldn’t get him to understand, and I’d *seen* where we were heading."

"Seen?" Claire glanced up into his blue eyes. "Seen what?"

Daniel turned to stare blindly through the observation window. "I… um… well, that was the first time…"

"That was our first experience with the Mirror," Carter interrupted. "Daniel took a little… accidental trip. He saw the destruction of another version of our world."

"And they were a lot better prepared than you’d be." He drew a deep breath. "You know, Jack… We’ve got another problem."

"As if we hadn’t already thought up enough?"

Daniel’s gaze softened as he smiled at the colonel. "Well, you aren’t going to like this one a lot."

O’Neill groaned. "Like I’ve really loved what you’ve said so far. Okay, hit me."

"Well… We’ve already established that they’ve excluded their non-military staff from what they’re really up to, right? The military people in command will never give… um…" He glanced apologetically toward Mel, "…Two archaeologists any credence. And something tells me that while Doctor Carter may be on the inside of the technical side of things, General West isn’t in the habit of asking her for operational advice. Right?"

Doctor Carter’s mouth tightened. "Right."

"So, Doctor Carter… If you show up with this story, how much chance do you think there is that General West will listen to you." His gaze dropped to the table’s surface, lips tightening. "Trust me, he’s not going to take you seriously. And you don’t really want to know where you’re liable to end up if he decides you’re not… quite all there."

She grimaced. "And this story is going to make them figure I’m a candidate for a white room."

Daniel’s body jerked, his eyes squeezing shut. "You have no idea."

"So, it’s hopeless?"

He inhaled, then blew the air out forcefully, straightening and lifting his eyes to meet O’Neill’s. "No. Not if the information comes from… the right source."

O’Neill’s slouched body abruptly jerked upright. "Oh, no. No, no, no, no, Danny boy. Not a chance!" His silvering head was shaking vigorously. "Once was enough. I’ve done my duty to the universes out there that got it wrong. I am *not* playing footsie with that goddamned mirror!"

"But Jack!" Daniel leaned forward over the table, earnest gaze fixed on the colonel. "Think about it. He’s not going to listen to these three; I’d go, but he won’t listen to me any more than he will to my p… parents." His cheeks pinked slightly as he stumbled over the word. "Sam could go—at least she might be able to convince him about the mirror. But to him, Sam Carter is just one of those scientists. Besides, she’d have to worry about entropic cascade. But *you*… He’ll know you. He’ll know you can’t be *his* Jack O’Neill, but he’ll *listen* to you because you so obviously *are*… you. There isn’t anyone else, except maybe Feretti…" He glanced quizzically at Doctor Carter. After a moment’s puzzling, she nodded. "But he was only a Captain. It *has* to be you!"

O’Neill’s jaw jutted mutinously. "Daniel…"

"Colonel O’Neill, should we decide on this course of action, you are the obvious courier."

"But General…!"

Daniel had slowly leaned back into the padding of his chair, passion leaching from his features as the two officers argued over O’Neill’s participation.

"You know," he said softly, "It really might be a completely moot point."

They all turned to stare at him.

He shrugged, an expression of vague helplessness sweeping over his face. "Just what advice can we give them? Contact Thor? Find the Tok’ra? Visit the Nox? They’ve already burned so many bridges. No Abydos; no Chulak; no chance to ally with Teal’c. And no cultural substructure associated with the Gate command. What help can we give them?"

"Well…" O’Neill snarled irritably. "This was your idea. And," he snorted in self-derision, "I figure it’s a good one, even if my desire to touch that damned mirror is non-existent. So what *can* we tell them to help?"

Major Carter’s fingers tapped against the wooden table, her brows lowered in concentration. "Well, we’ve lost the colonel’s little "Dial Thor" device, but there’s always Cimmeria."

Daniel’s head tilted as he considered the suggestion. "Without Teal’c, they won’t get grabbed by the Hammer, but we could help them contact Thor the same way we did on our second trip. If we help them get through the tests and give them the right message to send, maybe he’ll help. But the Asgard aren’t so good about ‘getting involved’ in the long term. At least, not in a practical sense, and I think these people need help of the *really* practical kind."

"Well," O’Neill scowled at Daniel. "At least he’ll *help*. Even with you along, we didn’t make the grade with the Nox, so it would be pretty stupid to hook them up with the little guys. What about the Tok’ra? Or the Tollan?"

"The Tok’ra, maybe," Major Carter said. "But they’re pretty self-absorbed, and if you recall, they were pretty scornful of the possible benefits of an alliance with us. And the Tollan will never violate their convictions to get involved with defending unknowns, and they won’t have our rescue history as an invitation. Can you imagine how they’d deal with Omac?"

Claire’s brain was spinning as the implications of their discussion sank into her consciousness. The names—most of them unknown, the rest impossible—these were obviously the result of encounters this alternate world had experienced through the use of their device.

O’Neill laughed harshly. "Yeah. Guess what—no Daniel, no deal with the Tollan. And the Tok’ra will probably either completely ignore them or lock whoever they send up for the rest of their lives. If they don’t ‘convince’ them to agree to being hosts." His fingers drummed on the table. "Ya know, it would probably do this other Earth’s people a hell of a lot of good to get a good thumping from the snake-heads. A nice dose of humble pie. If they survived. Can’t think of anything else that might make an impression on a butt-head like Kinsey."

"Jack, they *wouldn’t* survive."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But still…"

"So…" Daniel picked up a pencil and idly twirled it between his fingers. "The best bet for help would be the Asgard, and maybe the Tok’ra, though I agree that they probably won’t have much luck with the latter. Particularly since they don’t conveniently have Jacob to influence the council. Actually, I think the most urgent issue would be to get an iris over their Gate. In the immediate sense, defense would be the paramount concern."

Major Carter was nodding briskly, quickly writing on the yellow legal pad in front of her. "And trinium—we need to help them find sites to increase their supply. And we’d better warn them about the Antarctic Gate."

"Trinium, but not Naqadah!" Daniel’s emphatic words silenced all of the discussions among those at the table.

"But Daniel…"

"Sam, the last thing we want to do is promote the development of their weapons technology, even at the risk of keeping them vulnerable."

"Doctor Jackson, I really think…"

Daniel’s mouth tightened stubbornly as he shook his head. "General, *think* about what we know about this version of the SGC! How often do we argue about military vs humanitarian imperatives here? And they’ve got *no one* providing a voice for moderation in the pursuit of bigger and deadlier weapons technology. And they’ve got Kinsey in the president’s office."

Clair felt her throat tighten. She now saw no vestige of the shaken, vulnerable man who’d walked into the room between herself and Mel. This man stood up to a general and spoke his mind. And the general listened. Suddenly, Major Carter’s assertions about Daniel’s impact on this organization didn’t seem quite so remote.

"In view of their danger from the Goa’uld…"

"No, Sir. I’m sorry, but the worst thing I worry about *here* is that the military developments gained through our exploration will be used by us *against* us. You know how I feel about this. Imagine what a man like Kinsey would do with some of the technology we’ve brought back and reverse engineered! Better they get wiped out by the Goa’uld than turn that weaponry on each other!" He tossed the pencil onto the table top with enough force that the stick bounced and rolled across the smooth surface. "I don’t know… Maybe they’d be best just to bury their Gate and shut themselves off from *anyone* who might come through!"

"This might suffice in the present, Daniel Jackson. But eventually the system lords will recall the presence of this world, particularly as the Tau’ri of this alternate universe have been using their Stargate. And they will come in their ships."

"Yeah," O’Neill agreed with the big black man. "Kinsey was right about one thing. Once you open up that Gate you’ve let all kinds of things out that you can’t put back. Sorry, Daniel, I don’t think the ostrich routine is going to work."

Daniel was nodding, a resigned moue turning the corners of his mouth downward. "I know. But it seems pretty hopeless. We have to get a lot of information to General West, we have to make him pay attention to what is going to sound to him like a particularly nasty hallucination, and if we can get him to believe it, *he* has to figure out a way to change their approach without letting Kinsey know what’s going on. Because you *know* there’s no evidence in the universe—either one—which is going to convince Kinsey that this situation is real. He’s too arrogant, and too immune to rational thought processes."

"So…" Major Carter’s voice was brisk. "I figure this is our best bet. Pretty much our *only* bet. We need to send the colonel through with Doctor Carter and the Jacksons. We need to send a pretty carefully considered packet of information with them, because we really need the colonel to come back."

"Please!"

"So what information do we send?" At her question, all eyes turned to Daniel, who was contemplating his recaptured pencil.

"Well, as I see it there are three things we need to do. First," the pencil dropped as he raised his index finger. "We need to convince him beyond any possibility of denial of the danger they are in. Second…" Another finger joined the first. "…We need to give him whatever instructions we think he needs to get an iris installed. If they’re using a DHD, they probably don’t have the computer interface we do, so Sam, you’re going to have to give the Siler I sincerely hope they’ve got over there enough information so he can rig up a system. And finally…" A third finger. "…We consider what help we can give them for the future."

"And all in about thirty-six hours," O’Neill added, sarcasm coloring his voice. "’Cause that damned mirror is gonna get *fried* as soon as we send these folks back where they belong. No way are we setting up any long-term communication, here. That thing is just *way* too much trouble!"

<<<<<>>>>>

"… And you can ask the airman outside the door for anything else you need."

Claire nodded absently, her gaze following Daniel’s nervous circuit of the V.I.P. quarters. His eyes flicked restlessly from bed to door to dresser, avoiding the other two people in the room.

"I better…"

"Daniel."

He started, then finally met her eyes, tongue tip swiping over his lower lip..

"I… We…" Abruptly, he squeezed his eyes shut, drawing in a deep, noisy breath. Then he slumped down to sit on the bed, head dropping into his cupped hands. "I don’t know what to…"

Clair lowered herself onto the mattress and reached to stroke his bowed shoulder. She was aware of Mel moving to stand on Daniel’s other side.

"I know." She rubbed soothingly over the tense muscles. "What do you say to the parents you saw die? Or to the beloved child? We… Oh, Danny." She could hear the tears catching in her voice. "Oh, my darling baby…"

He lifted his head to stare at her, then twisted and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her fiercely to him and burying his head in her shoulder.

A long moment later, he lifted his head, meeting her damp eyes with his own. A sweet smile brightened his face. "I guess this isn’t so hard after all."

She laughed and stroked his cheek. "Oh, no. Easiest thing in the world."

She felt Mel sink onto the bed behind her. Softly, gently, parents and child began repairs on ancient, tattered bridges.

<<<<<>>>>>

Sam rubbed her eyes, willing the resulting tears to wash away the sand of sleeplessness. It had been one hell of a long thirty hours.

A gentle touch on her hand brought her head up. She smiled at Daniel and accepted the tissue he offered.

"So, are we ready?" she asked.

"Considering what we’re trying to do, I think we’re about as ready as we’re going to get."

She watched his quick fingers sorting and prioritizing the massive pile of informational material they’d gathered. A sudden wave of hopelessness swept through her. They’d been poring over this stuff without a real break since Daniel had returned from a couple of private hours with his other-universe parents. Their documentation was enormous and overwhelming. But the task seemed even more gigantic. They were, after all, trying to convince a pretty traditionally military mind of a giant science fiction story. How could they ever succeed?

The colonel strode into the room, rubbing his hair vigorously. "Two hours of sleep just isn’t as long as it used to be," he remarked acidly. They’d sent him off to rest when his acerbic "help" had become more annoying interference than aid.

He was followed almost immediately by Teal’c and the general, hands full of freshly printed photographs.

"Ah, good." Daniel reached for the final pages of their efforts. His hands rifled through the stacks of documents, sliding the images into their appropriate positions.

As he placed the last image into its appropriate location, he sat back. For a moment, he stared at the mountains of paperwork and stacks of software. "That’s it. The best we can do." He shifted his gaze upward, centering on the colonel. "It’s going to be up to you, Jack, to make General West really take a look."

"Oh, no problem." Sarcasm dripped off the words. "I’m sure it’ll be a walk in the park." He sank into his seat, rubbing his face. "Can I have a coffee I.V. before we do this?"

The general dropped the intercom phone back onto its cradle. "Doctors Jackson and Carter will be with us momentarily. Doctor Jackson, Major Carter, would you please summarize for all of us the materials that we are sending with Colonel O’Neill? Hopefully we’ll have time to add any last-minute information any of us suggests."

Those agile hands were busy again, punching and binding their efforts into some semblance of organization. Sam’s teeth tightened until she thought her jaw might break. They *had* to listen. This *had* to work.

She shook her head sharply. For God’s sake, this wasn’t even their own universe they were talking about. Why should she care so much? What was it Teal’c had said? //"Ours is the only reality that counts."//

But of course she did care. Another effect of spending so much time with Daniel. She cared about all of the other cultures they encountered. And these people—well, they were *them*. Just as had happened the first time she’d met an alternate universe self, she felt a sort of sisterhood with this other Doctor Carter. The "Sam" she might have become, had things in her life worked a bit differently. And she cared a lot about that other Sam’s survival.

She straightened her back as the Jacksons and Doctor Carter entered the room. They’d really done all they could. This *would* work. It had to.

"Ladies, Doctor Jackson." The General’s voice was warm. "Please be seated. We’re nearing our deadline. The last thing any of us wants is for you, Doctor Carter, to experience cascade failure."

Daniel stood and reached for Claire’s hand, smiling gently. She accepted the silent invitation and slid into the seat next to him, her husband sitting next to her. Doctor Carter took the seat next to Sam.

The General leaned back, taking a moment to glance around the table.

"Now, then. Let’s hear what you’ve put together."

Daniel leaned forward, pushing the three piles into which he’d sorted their efforts into the center of the table.

"Right. Based on the three priorities I mentioned… when? Yesterday? Anyway, we’ve got four sets of information here. First…" His long finger tapped on the first of the three stacks. "The first thing we have to do is convince General West that we’re for real. We’re counting on the simple presence of Jack to get our foot in the door, so to speak. None of this is going to do any good if he won’t even listen. This first collection of documents is a very brief history of our encounters with the Goa’uld, beginning with the first Abydos mission. It includes select mission reports, both the original and the… um… modified reports following Jack’s return to the SGC. Whenever possible, we’ve included photographic support. I’ll be honest… we designed this packet for maximum shock value. The point is to convince General West that they are in big trouble *right now*."

The colonel reached out to pull one of the bound stacks closer. He flipped open the cover and grimaced at the graphic photograph of an SGC team member taken down by staff fire. "Ugh."

Daniel’s lips twisted slightly, then settled into a tiny smile. "Exactly.. That’s pretty much the point. That’s the stuff we figure you’ll use when you meet with the general. Well, if you meet with the general. Assuming they don’t just lock you up and throw away the door code."

"Oh, thank you, Daniel. You just so brighten my day."

Daniel’s smile widened. "Glad to be of service."

"Oh, yeah. What are friends for, anyway, huh?"

The two men shared a small laugh.

"This…" Daniel’s finger moved to by far the largest mass of information. "This is a much more detailed coverage of our experiences with the Goa’uld, including what we know about their culture and power hierarchy, detailed descriptions of most of our encounters, descriptions of the offensive and defensive capabilities we’ve seen, what we know about each of the system lords, etc. Some of this isn’t going to be of much use to them, as we’ve already had quite an impact on the Goa’uld population of our own universe, but there’s plenty here for them to learn from." He grimaced slightly. "I don’t really like providing all of the weapons information we’ve included here—I don’t trust these people not to interpret the information as an opportunity to start missions of acquisition, and I’ve already expressed my reservations about their stability when it comes o extreme weaponry. But we decided that it was imperative to be as forceful as possible when displaying the dangers represented by the Goa’Uld. Oh, we also told them everything we know about Seth. He’s probably on Earth in their universe, just as he was here. We’ve given them the information needed to confirm his presence, and some suggestions about dealing with them."

"That’s homework, right?" the colonel asked, brows arched.

"Yes. Assuming the general gives you a hearing in the first place, you won’t have time to show him all of this. Leave it with him. Let him have a few nights disrupted by the nightmares this information should prompt, and he should be ready to take this all seriously."

Sam reached out to pick up the two much smaller sets of bound pages. "Once he’s convinced of the danger, these hold the help we hope to provide." She lifted one of the packets. "This is everything we could gather about defense, beginning with the iris system, our GDO program, information about our computerized dialing program, and some Gate addresses for planets that we’ve found to be safe in our universe. We included information about the personal shields the Goa’ulds use, what little we know about their ships’ shielding and defense mechanisms, anything we could think of that might help them to protect themselves. Oh, and we included the most detailed description we could come up with of the complete uselessness of our weaponry against Apophis’s ships. We all know Kinsey’s view on that sort of thing.

"This…" she held up the final packet. "…is all of the information we felt we could give them about possible help. Locations of trinium deposits—particularly those we’ve found which don’t share their planets with a culture we don’t trust these people to leave in peace. We’ve included what we know about contacting the Tok’ra, and information about races which are non-threatening but unlikely to provide help, like the Tollan and the Nox. We didn’t include the Nox planet address because, frankly, any scenarios we could come up with of any encounters between this kind of SGC and the Nox were pretty distressing. We did give them the address for Cimmeria, along with the instructions to make contact with Thor. And we’ve tried to warn them about what will and won’t impress the Asgaard. To be honest, neither of us really thinks Thor is going to be very impressed by these folks. But the Asgaard are still their best gamble for real help."

"I’ve also suggested the names of a few archaeologists I think might be willing to think creatively enough to help them."

She nodded at Daniel, then lowered the packets to the table, pushing them back into the middle.

"The discs contain pretty much the same information in digital form. We can’t really be sure that their computers and ours will be completely compatible, so we’re covering all angles. That’s it. Does anyone have anything else to suggest? Because Daniel and I are pretty much out of ideas."

The people sitting around the table exchanged glances, but no one spoke.

Daniel nodded. "All right, then. General?"

He accepted the metal case from Hammond, and placed the documentation inside, carefully assuring that the materials for Jack’s first encounter with General West were on top, easily accessible. Snapping down the locks, he sat for a moment, his hand rubbing the top of the case. Then he stood, met Colonel O’Neill’s eyes across the table, and held the case out.

The colonel grasped the handle with one hand, and Daniel’s wrist with the other, preventing the younger man from pulling away. His eyes locked on Daniel’s.

"Thanks, Daniel. Both of you. You did a great job."

"Jack…"

"It’ll work, Daniel. It will." He shook the trapped wrist slightly. "It has to work, so it will."

Daniel heaved a deep breath. "Just… be careful, Jack. No smarting off, right? He’s a general, not a Goa’Uld."

The colonel grinned at him. "Hey, Dannyboy. *I’m* the one who knows the difference, remember?" He released Daniel and pulled the case closer. "I’ll be fine, and I’ll be back."

A worried smile flickered over Daniel’s mouth.

"Promise?"

O’Neill nodded solemnly. "Promise."

<<<<<>>>>>

Claire looked down at the palms of her hands, surprised to see no blood. She’d been grinding her nails against those palms with increasing force as the moment came closer. The moment this miracle ended. The moment she had to leave her beautiful magically resurrected son behind and return to the gray existence of… was it just three days ago?

"Claire?"

She turned to press herself against her husband, fingers clenching in the soft cotton of his shirt.

"I can’t, Mel! How can I leave him?"

"We have to, my darling. What a gift to see what our boy would have grown to be! But we have to let him go."

"To go back to what? What life? What future? It’s not fair!"

"No, it isn’t," he murmured. She felt his cheek against the top of her head, his long arms wrapping around her body. "Not fair, not right. But we don’t have much of a choice, Claire."

She sighed, rubbing her face against his chest. "I know." She almost didn’t’ recognize that tiny, little-girl voice as hers. "But it’s still not fair."

His arms tightened as the door to their quarters opened. Daniel. Coming to take them back to that blessed, cursed mirror.

"Mom? Dad?"

Her chest tightened at the greeting. She’d never expected to be anyone’s ‘mom’ again."

She turned from Mel’s chest and smiled through her tears.

"Time already?"

"N… not quite. I just wanted to…" His voice trailed to silence.

Mel reached out to grasp Daniel’s shoulder. "So do we, son. So do we."

<<<<<>>>>>

The three of them stood close, watching as the two Sam Carters said their farewells, as Colonel O’Neill organized himself.

They’d said very little in the few minutes of privacy they’d shared. Just relished being close, feeling each others’ living presence.

But time couldn’t be denied; its passage was inexorable.

"All right, pilgrims," O’Neill drawled. "Time to get this wagon train on the road."

"Jack, that’s awful."

"How would you know. I know what *you* like to watch."

"I’ve heard John Wayne, Jack. That *was* awful."

The colonel ruffled Daniels hair, smiling. "Be good while I’m gone; sleep once in a while."

Daniel’s eyes rolled. "Jack, you’re hopefully only going to be gone for a few hours. It’s only eleven in the morning."

O’Neill shrugged and winked, then turned toward the mirror. "C’mon folks. Doctor Carter’s time is running out."

Claire hesitated, then turned and wrapped her arms around her miracle. His arms slipped around her, his head dropping onto hers, just as Mel so often held her.

"I love you," he whispered. "I’m so glad you found me."

She nodded, throat choked with emotion. Regretfully, she pulled away, leaving him to share an embrace with Mel. As the two men pulled apart, Mel’s hand rose to run through Daniel’s short hair.

"Daniel… I… We… You know, I’ve got no right. We didn’t have anything to do with who you turned out to be. But…" His breath caught. "I am so damned proud of you. Proud that you chose the career you did; proud that you’re so brilliant in that career. And so proud at the courage it took for you to turn away and carve your own path. Dear God, I hope our son would have been the same kind of man."

Daniel’s head dropped, his cheeks flushing. "I… Th…thank you. You don’t know…" He shook his head, then lifted his gaze to meet Mel’s, and gave the older man another quick hug.

"Daniel." O’Neill’s voice was gentle. "Time’s up, buddy."

Daniel nodded silently and stepped away, hands sliding reluctantly away from Mel’s shoulders.

"Good bye," he whispered.

Her own "Good bye" was swallowed by the fizzling sensation of the mirror..

And here they were, back in Mel’s lab. Doctor Carter quickly twisted the remote’s knob to deactivate the mirror.

"Doc," O’Neill’s voice cut through the racket coming through the lab’s open door. "Thanks. There’s nothing you could have said that would mean more to Daniel. It’s something he worries about. Just… thanks."

Mel nodded, then moved closer to O’Neill as several soldiers, arms raised, boiled through the doorway from the hall.

O’Neill raised his free hand. "Uh… Peaceful explorer, here?"

<<<<<>>>>>

Claire felt the irrational urge to shrink down, to just fade into the uncomfortable chair. The angry, derisive shouting made her ears ring, and despair was beginning to swell in her throat.

They’d been hustled into confinement without being given any opportunity to explain anything. The soldiers hadn’t been moved by O’Neill’s name—just by the strange uniform and unknown face.

He’d spent hours standing in front of the security camera in their cell, repeating the same thing over and over—"My name is Colonel Jack O’Neill of the United States Air Force. I need to speak to General West on an urgent matter of world security. My name is Colonel Jack O’Neill…" Over and over.

And finally, just when she’d thought she might strangle the colonel herself, the door in the outer chamber had crashed open, and General West had stalked in, face thunderous.

"Who the hell do you think you are!" he’d demanded. Then gasped as he got a good look at O’Neill’s face.

"Hi, General. Long time."

The electric silence had made her skin crawl. Then the general had gestured sharply toward the door, and the four of them had been escorted to this room. An interrogation room, she figured. It sure lacked the understated elegance and comfort of the SGC’s conference room on the other side of the mirror.

O’Neill had presented his case, complete with shocking photographic support.

Predictably, the general had been outraged, and resisted belief. But O’Neill had persisted, pulling out more and more of those awful photographs, and providing more and more evidence to show that he was really precisely who he said he was.

Claire straightened and leaned forward slightly. Damned if the general’s hard façade wasn’t beginning to crack.

She had to admit that O’Neill had surprised her. He’d seemed so casual and flippant. But here he was professional, eloquent, and immensely persuasive.

The general was actually beginning to listen.

When O’Neill brought out the packets of information regarding defense and possible help from the other side of the Gate… Portal… West sat up and listened closely.

"General West, whether you believe me or not, you folks are looking at facing off with forces beyond anything you can imagine. Even if you *don’t* believe me, it can only improve your situation to take some of these protective measures."

West was nodding, the flush of outrage gradually fading from his cheeks. "A sound defense can only be our benefit. And…" He eyed the younger man. "…Two days ago, we had an… incident."

"Aha. Let me guess—Jaffa with big, mean fire sticks. It definitely *won’t* be the last time."

West’s posture became, if anything more rigid. "There were two… men. We drove them back."

"Right. Right back where they came from, with all that nice intel about your little base, here. They’ll be back. And believe me, sir, a few hours reading this information…" O’Neill gestured toward the huge pile of documentation. "… Should convince you to begin taking a bit more care going through that Gate. Portal. Whatever you call it here."

Wisely, O’Neill allowed silence to fall, dark eyes fixed on the general’s face as the older man paged through the booklets of reports and photographs. The expression on the general’s face gradually darkened as he took in the horrifying and undeniable evidence.

Abruptly, he allowed the booklet he was perusing to fall closed. "And you, O’Neill. Just what do you want in return for this intelligence."

O’Neill smiled grimly. "Nothing, general. Well, one thing. Let me go back through that blasted mirror to my version of this world, then nuke the damned thing so you don’t get any more surprising ‘visits’ through it. I’ve got no stake in this place. *My* world has been dealing with the Goa’Uld for over four years." He leaned back in his chair. "Oh, and a couple of pieces of really good advice, General. You folks have been going about this all wrong."

West’s face tightened into a scowl. "Colonel O’Neill…"

"Sir, hear me out. Remember, I’m coming at this from the same place you are. I’m career military, with everything that implies. But, despite the fact that I fought it every inch of the way, the most important thing we did that has enabled us to survive is to include non-military perspectives in our decision-making. Your survival will probably depend upon the friends and allies you make on the worlds on the other side, and right now you’re not set up to make any friends." His lips quirked into his usual ironic grin. "One of our non-military advisors has changed my life in a thousand ways, almost all of them for the good. And he’s *saved* that life more times than I can count. More times than I’ve saved his, despite my military expertise, and he’s been going through the Gate with me from the very beginning. All of this…" He dropped his hand onto the booklet of defense suggestions. "…Won’t do you any good if you don’t change the way you’re doing things. Open this project up to the people who can help you the most. Daniel—Our Doctor Jackson—has included some suggestions. *Do* what he recommends. He’s pretty much always right." He chuckled softly, obviously sharing some fond thought with himself.

The general’s scowl didn’t fade, but he relaxed slightly in his chair. "I will take your suggestion under advisement, Colonel O’Neill."

"One more thing. In every way possible, you’ve got to keep Kinsey out of the loop."

"President Kinsey…!"

"I know, you folks were stupid enough to elect that moron president!" Jack interrupted. "But he hasn’t got a clue how to handle this crap, and he’ll tie your hands every step of the way. Keep him on the outside. And watch out for his little minions, the NID.

Claire smiled slightly at the twitch of the general’s mouth. Apparently that warning struck a nerve.

"I will take all of your suggestions under advisement, Colonel O’Neill. I will certainly take steps to institute the defense measures you suggest. The rest…"

O’Neill nodded. "Best I could have hoped, Sir. And read the rest of this stuff. You should be scared spitless of these bastards—don’t underestimate just how much trouble they can be. Now… about that mirror?"

West stared at O’Neill for a moment, head tilted slightly. "Agreed. You’re free to return through the… mirror. And we will consider destroying it."

"Don’t consider, General. Do it. The damned thing’s a hole in your backside. You really don’t need *two* ways for the bad guys to sneak up on you."

West favored the colonel with a sour look. "We will *consider* it, Colonel O’Neill."

O’Neill rose to his feet, shaking his head ruefully. "Well, like I said, I’ve got no stake in this place, as long as you let me go back through the thing. Once I go, you’re on your own. It’s, very likely, your funeral."

<<<<<>>>>>

So here they were once again. Standing beside the mirror, making awkward farewells.

O’Neill shook hands with General West, then with Doctor Carter. Finally, he turned to Claire and Mel.

"Colonel O’Neill… Jack." Shielded by Jack’s body from the general’s gaze, Mel offered the remote device. O’Neill’s brows rose, then he nodded, understanding. If he took the remote and they destroyed their mirror on the other side, the mirror on *this* side would be useless—forever locked on a destination that didn’t exist. O’Neill gently slid the remote into one of the pockets on his uniform.

This was it. The last connection. Claire was having trouble breathing past the lump in her throat. She could see him, gazing wistfully through the mirror.

And abruptly, she knew she couldn’t let this happen. Couldn’t abide staying here in this place, living with the forlorn hope that the rigid military minds in control would find some way to protect them. Not when…

Her hand darted out and grabbed O’Neill’s forearm. "Colonel. I… I have a request."

O’Neill didn’t look precisely surprised.

"Missus… Doctor Jackson."

"Please, Jack. You love him, too, right?"

A small flush of embarrassment colored his cheeks.

"Then if you won’t do this for us, do it for him."

His eyes were dark and inscrutable as he stared into her face.

Gradually, that hard lump eased from her throat.

<<<<<>>>>>

Fidgeting wasn’t generally a problem Sam had to deal with, but right now she just couldn’t stand still. The stupid mirror was being completely uninformative. Since they’d watched the colonel and his companions marched off by the M.P.s there had been nothing to see. So she was twitching and unable to settle. And Daniel sat at the work table, head bowed over clenched hands.

Hours. Way too many hours.

A flicker of movement caught her eye, and her breath sharpened as figures moved into sight. General West, the colonel, the other Sam, and the two Doctors Jackson.

"Daniel!"

His head snapped up, eyes drawn to the figures of his other-world parents, visible in the background on the other side of the mirror.

"It looks…" Sam hopped from foot to food. "I think they’re letting him come back!"

"Do you think they listened to him?"

"They must have. I can’t imagine General West letting him come back if he didn’t believe at least *some* of what he had to tell him."

Sure enough, Jack was clearly making his farewells. Sam’s brows rose as she saw Mel Jackson hand the remote off, hidden from the general’s eyes. Interesting.

Finally, the colonel was grinning at them through the mirror, making a silly face as he reached out to touch the surface.

And there he was, living, breathing, returned from a lion’s den if there’d ever been one.

"Sir! Did he listen?"

"Jack! What…! Did he…! Jack!"

The colonel laughed as they spoke in concert, and gently slapped Daniel’s cheek.

"He listened. Sort of. I have hopes for him, though I think it’s going to take that library you sent to really convince him. But they’ll start on the defensive stuff like the iris for sure."

"Will they make it, do you think?" Daniel asked wistfully.

"Don’t know. The general hedged on destroying the mirror."

"Thus the sleight of hand with the remote?"

"Got it in one, Carter." He pulled the control out of his pocket and handed it to her, watching as she deactivated the mirror. Then he turned to examine his favorite civilian consultant, staring for a moment at Daniel’s mournful face.

"Hey, buddy. Never say I never gave you anything," he said gently, moving aside as the mirror flared once again.

Daniel’s breath caught as Mel and Claire materialized in the room.

"Jack?"

"No reason for them to stay, and no reason they can’t live here," O’Neill stated prosaically. "Pretty good reason for them to be on this side."

For a moment, Daniel stared at the faces of the older Jacksons. Then he turned to the colonel, his own face a battle between puzzlement and desperate hope.

O’Neill grinned and winked, and the puzzlement vanished, leaving a joyful smile lighting Daniel’s face.

"Yes!" he shouted, launching himself into the arms of his parents.

Sam shared a triumphant grin with her commanding officer.

"Not that I think this is a bad thing, sir, but you get to explain it to the general."

"Lookin’ forward to it, Carter. Hell, he adopted Daniel a long time ago. He’s not going to be hard to convince. And now…" his grin vanished, replaced by a threatening scowl. "Now you blow up that goddamned mirror!"

~Ende~

Author's Notes: Notes: //Words// denotes italics. Many thanks to my quick and wonderful beta reader, Poss. Note that due to overwhelming real life responsibilities, my dear Poss was unable to beta the final parts of this story. In my impatience at having finally finished this story after a year of crippling writer's block, I chose to risk posting it without that final beta. So don't blame Poss if I screwed up LOL!

This story is lovingly dedicated to the brilliant character of Daniel Jackson, as realized by Michael Shanks. Original characters, situations and events are the property of the author.

© November 26, 2004 Stargate SG-1 and its characters are properties of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions and Gekko Productions. They don't deserve them. They've treated them dreadfully. But the fact that they own them is irrefutable, unfortunately. No money will be made from this story.

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