Title: More Different Than Anticipated
Characters: Sam, AU-Jolinar, Daniel.
Setting: Post season 10, post AoT. An alternate version of Jolinar shows up. ONE-SHOT.
Category: Gen.
Rating: K.

Notes: I use the following convention: Bold is a goa'uld speaking.

Sam studied the woman – goa'uld – pacing irritably in the holding cell. Definitely goa'uld; her outfit and jewellery was in better taste than most but still decidedly over the top. "She said her name was Jolinar."

"Well," said Daniel cautiously. "Yes. Actually, she called herself 'Lord Jolinar' and claimed Earth was part of her domain."

"Alternate reality."

"Yeah."

"The goa'uld know what the quantum mirrors are, Daniel. She can't have come through by accident."

"Yeah."

Sam looked sideways at her friend and sighed. Thus far, questioning had produced no results; Sam had been asked if she would try talking to her. Sam would rather not but everyone was twitchy about what this Jolinar had been looking for when she'd tried to sneak past Earth's defences.

"We could contact the Tok'ra. If it bothers you that much…"

"No," Sam answered instantly. "Not if we can avoid it. They'd… it would not improve our relations with them. And besides… now that Dad's gone, I'm not even sure they'd answer." The soft words held a tangle of regret, loss and resignation; the complex history of the failing Tok'ra-Tau'ri alliance summed up in a single phrase.

"Want company?"

"Not really." Sam half smiled. "Just go ahead and beam me in."

Jolinar halted mid-step at the distinctive whine of an Asgard beam and pivoted slowly to face the primitive-seeming but annoyingly effective bars that divided this cell-without-a-door into two halves. Her gaze swept across the tall blond woman and she nearly turned away in disdain when she sensed the faint resonance of naquadah through the background hum of what she suspected was a much more advanced ship than she was familiar with. Stepping closer, she delicately focused her attention. "A former host?" she said a moment later, her flanged tone deeply incredulous.

Sam shrugged slightly. "The former host of this reality's Jolinar in fact."

"Do not be absurd. I would never choose a host so… pale. Nor would I let one outlive me!"

Sam stared; a flicker of an echo of memory surfacing. Jolinar had preferred dark complexioned hosts in the past. The dim, distant past. "You were different here."

"I can't have been that different."

"You were a Tok'ra here." Sam bit back a laugh at the look of flabbergasted horror on Jolinar's face. "Look, you don't belong here. I don't imagine you'll want to stay here either; the System Lords have been quite thoroughly defeated and no one is about to let you out to cause mayhem. So, why don't you just explain yourself so we can see you get back where you belong?"

Jolinar willed herself to calm and watched the wretchedly smug creature opposite with a small portion of her attention while she reviewed her options. They were… few.

Sam recognised that stance, that look, although she couldn't draw forward a tangible memory. She just knew Jolinar was thinking.

"If you want something from me, you need to trade something in return."

"You're the one in the cell."

"You are the ones who want to know why I am here."

"And if you don't tell us, we won't let you go home."

Jolinar's expression darkened and her eyes flashed in sudden rage. "I have done nothing to you and your revoltingly heretical planet. You have no cause to stop me from leaving!"

"You're a goa'uld," Sam pointed out a tone of sweet reason. "You claim that Earth is part of your domain. That's cause enough."

"It IS part of my domain… in the true reality!"

"Everyone thinks theirs is the only reality that matters."

Jolinar snorted. "Everyone is right." She paused, her expression slowly softening from furious to speculative. "I suppose, judging by the reactions I have seen, that here I did not choose this planet to keep when I defeated Ra."

Sam blinked and gave in to the little nagging whisper of curiousity. "You defeated Ra?"

"Of course I did!" Jolinar stared at the other in bafflement. "At Malkshur, I defeated his fleet and executed him."

"Oh…" Sam's mind spun through the implications of this and she fought down a shudder. "In this reality? You lost. Apophis joined the fight and your entire fleet was annihilated."

Disbelief and horror warred on Jolinar's face. "Lo'ka'shol!" she snapped. "Apep died at hands of my ashrak before he could move against me!"

'You disgusting liar' Sam translated to herself, before shaking her head slowly. "You're a long way from your reality, Jolinar."

Jolinar glared and did not comment.

"Tell us why you came here and we'll send you back."

It took a while but Sam convinced Jolinar she had no other options – with supreme reluctance she admitted she had hoped to find a powerful device, one that had been destroyed in her reality. What that device was and why she wanted it, she absolutely refused to say but by then, they'd all had enough. The Odyssey made a side trip to a planet with a quantum mirror and the Asgard core enabled Sam to identify Jolinar's home reality and activate the mirror appropriately.

Back on board, Daniel waited until the report came that Jolinar had gone (or more likely, been given a hard shove) through the mirror before he set the mug of coffee in front of Sam. "Penny for your thoughts."

"They're worth more than a penny," Sam answered absently before she smelled the coffee and smiled blissfully. "You need to give Jack another lesson on coffee making sometime. He keeps slacking off."

"Did it bother you, in the end?"

"Umm…" Sam would rather savour her coffee but more than ten years of Daniel was ample time to learn better than to ignore him. "A bit. But she'd diverged from the Jolinar I knew so long ago that it wasn't as spooky as it seemed when I was first told about her."

"Any idea what techy thing she was looking for on Earth?"

"I think it was something related to the Antarctic outpost actually." Sam put the mug down and stared pensively at nothing for a moment. "I think she set the mirror in her reality to find one where she wasn't alive, so she wouldn't risk entropic cascade failure. It was just… a little more different here than she had anticipated."