Closer Than They Appear

A/N: Stargate belongs to Showtime, MGM, Gekko, and Double Secret, Airwolf to Bellisario and Universal. No infringement intended for any of these. Makes the most sense if you read "Visits" and "Lessons in Keys" first.

~*~*~*~*~
The heck with seven years' bad luck. I'm going to start breaking mirrors.

Not that I know if you can break a quantum mirror. But I'm willing to give it a try. Couple pounds of C-4, maybe. Or one of those we-don't-admit-to-'em H-bomb tests. Or something.

Or I'd settle for just never going back to PC-1240. That place is just too weird.

Not that it's the locals' fault. They grew up with the damn thing, after all. Part of their culture, as Daniel would say. "Step into Athena's Pool, and She will show you the world as it is not, that you may change the world as it is," they said. How were they supposed to know the big dumb outlander Colonel would think it was just another fortune-telling gig?

And I tell Daniel not to touch. Me and my big mouth.

Or in this case, big feet.

~*~*~*~*~
So maybe I invited the horseplay. The locals were friendly, the hi-how-are-ya's had gone fine, and things looked peaceful even to this paranoid ex-Black Ops soldier. I couldn't remember when the last time was my team had just played around off-world. Obviously, way too long.

A witty quip to Teal'c here, a snarky one-on-one with Daniel there, maybe even a couple strategic handfuls of water tossed at all and sundry. Heck, I knew I was headed for a dunking.

But when you trip into a pond, you're supposed to go splash.

Not thump.

Concrete. Definite military-industrial gray walls, video camera in the corner, and behind me... one glowing, watery, way-too-active quantum mirror.

Hoo boy.

Time to head back through that thing, pronto.

A familiar, multiple click of safeties coming off. "Stand where you are!"

Or not.

~*~*~*~*~
"Colonel O'Neill." This reality's version of General Hammond himself, along with some MPs with P-90s and nasty-looking particle rifles, Sam, Teal'c, a lovely lady in a white suit, and - hello - Doc Fraiser. The good doc pushed through the crowd, taking my pulse, running a couple of other gadgets along the way.

I made sure my hands stayed up. They didn't look unfriendly, but you never know. "Sorry. Really. Kind of took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. You know how it goes. I should be going now...."

"Guess you've been through the mirror before."

Suppose I should've been expecting it. The guy coming around the corner was, well... me.

Sort of me, anyway. Closer than the last alternate reality I went into, the picture of Doctor Sam Carter's O'Neill hadn't looked nearly as... well, distinguished. "Let me guess," I drawled, waving a hand toward the gray we shared. "You know Daniel?"

Other-me grinned, and the whole room seemed to relax. "What was your first clue?"

~*~*~*~*~
"So this is the SGC?" I bobbed my head around the corridors, trying to take it all in. All the time worrying about my team; why hadn't they come after me? What if they couldn't come after me?

No, wait. Breathe. Danny had spotted some writing around Athena's Pool before our little water-fight. Odds were they'd try to piece that together before they came through. Who knew? It might be important.

Right. So I'd give it a little more time, before I cut loose against a whole base full of guns carried by people who just wanted to trade notes on how to fight the Goa'uld.

Or at least, that's what they said.

Get thee behind me, paranoia.

Weird. The place looked the same, and yet... there were so many people in it. And not just soldiers. Civilians. Lots of civilians.

Or people who dress like civilians, I noted, watching careful, quiet strides on some of them. Especially the few stray ladies in white. Spooks. What are spooks doing in the SGC?

"Our SGC, yeah. We had a Sam Carter from an SGA show up. Would you believe she was just a captain?" Other-Jack shook his head. "Their SG-1 took Ferretti's team to Nasya, and Jolinar jumped him instead. Weird."

"So... you guys know about the entropic cascade problem," I ventured.

He tapped his watch. "Set and counting. We can toss you back through in a couple hours, if you want. But I thought you'd like to stop in and see the kids, before the debriefing; Danny and Sha'uri are always curious about how other me's come out-"

He said something else, but I lost it in a haze. "Sha'uri?" I croaked, putting a hand against the wall. When did the floor get unsteady? "Sha'uri's alive?"

I think I heard my voice curse. "Head down," Other-me said practically. "Hell. No wonder Janet didn't think you looked so good. No Sha'uri, probably no Jimke...."

"Jimke?"

Even worried, he grinned. "Well, the base kind of rated Joan Micaela Kasuf Jackson as overkill. But that's Danny for you."

"Micaela?"

Other-me looked at me funny. "You know. After Danny's big brother? I'm-not-naming-another-hapless-infant-Michael Michael? Archangel?"

"What?"

"Come on."

~*~*~*~*~
Books, soft light, stacks of paper everywhere, topped by fragments of pottery, glass, and weird alien devices. A quiet, subtle scent of sand and papyrus, leather and dusty pages. I'd know Danny's office anywhere.

But this Danny's office had a crib.

"Jack?" The trouble-magnet himself. With regular hair over his fatigues, not the short cut my Daniel had sported since Hathor snagged us. But still definitely Danny, untangling his rough draft of a mission report from a toddler's fist. "And... Jack. Okay, that's not something we see every day...."

I couldn't answer. Too busy staring at a dark-haired vision in an ivory blouse and peacock-green rayon skirt; the kind of thing Doc might wear, when she wanted to go to town. A slim, beautiful woman playing with her black-haired, blue-eyed kid; no relation to Apophis, that's for sure.

I stared down at a tiny face, watched it break into a smile. The Jackson charm in miniature; God help the planet when she got old enough to date. "She's got your eyes."

"Of course she does." Sha'uri looked us both over, glanced a question at her reality's Jack.

"Think it's a long story," he said shrewdly. "Mind if I show him a few family photos?"

"Well, no, but...." Daniel - this Daniel, not my Daniel, and man, was that ever a shock - frowned at me. "I take it you come from one of the... not-so-good alternative realities?"

"I don't know," I said dazedly. I'd thought mine was pretty good, considering the alternatives. Alternatives that didn't have Daniel, much less- "Sha'uri? That's really you?"

She put her warm hand on my shoulder, squeezed just hard enough to pinch. I felt a few strands of her rich dark hair drift over my arm, black and sparkling as an Abydos midnight. "It is me, Jack. Am I dead in your world? Or does the demon queen Amaunet still hold me?"

"Ah...." Oh man, I did not want to get into this.

"That might be open for debate," my alternate self spoke up, dragging out a thick photo album. "Take a look. You know this guy?"

White suit, white hat, silver-headed rosewood cane - no question. "Archangel." Only this Archangel didn't sport a black patch over his eye. And he was - at some kind of outdoor party? With a couple of guys and gals in fancy dress I didn't know; I'd've remembered that freckled, grinning redhead waltzing with Teal'c. And.... "Daniel?" I wet my lips. "Why's this guy dancing with Sam?"

I was not jealous. Really.

Archangel and Sam?

"Why wouldn't he be?" this Daniel asked, puzzled. "You said-" he waved at my double, "Well, actually, you said our anniversary ought to be family only."

"Family?" Archangel?

"Since I was eight." Danny gave my double an impish grin. "And I still remember the look on your face when you asked if there was anyone you could call, after Apophis came through, and I gave you my brother's number. Almost as funny as the look on General Hammond's...."

~*~*~*~*~
The nice thing about banging your head against a wall is, it feels so good when you stop.

Now I knew why the white ladies were here. Now I knew why the spies were here. Now I knew-

Hell, I didn't know what I knew.

I blew out a breath, let a way-too-familiar gray hallway come back into focus. Tried to ignore the airmen and maybe-civilians passing by, hurried on by a glance from my alternate self. "Bet the Tok'ra love dealing with Archangel."

"Actually, they hate his guts."

"Huh?" I'm eloquent when I'm confused. Really.

Other-me leaned up against the wall, casual and curled to pounce. "Look, I'm guessing you don't know much more about Archangel than I did when I made that first phone call." Familiar eyes rolled. "But Briggs and Daniel have a lot more in common than most people think. Including a few things that make them not the best options for hosts. So the Tok'ra don't like them."

I raised a brow. "Thought a snake could take anybody."

"That's what they'd like you to think." He raised a brow right back. "Sure, one could take him. But it'd get a hell of a case of indigestion."

"Say what?"

"I'll send a file back with you. Janet, if you've got a Janet," he waited for my nod, "Ought to be able to make sense of it."

Whatever. I was focussed on something a little nearer and dearer to my heart. "Brother?"

"Adopted. After his parents died. That didn't happen in your reality?"

"No." I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. Daniel, an adopted Coldsmith-Briggs? Raised in the same house with one of the coldest, most ruthless, effective operatives I'd ever met? No way. "I mean, his parents died when the coverstone came down, but Ballard showed up after he spent about a week with a Michael... Wolfe." Ah, hell.

"That was the legend the family was living under, then," Other-me nodded. "Only here, Ballard got himself lost somewhere on the Amazon and it took the Company two months to find the guy. By that time Ariella had her lawyers lined up; Ballard threw a fit about grandparental rights, but once the judge found out he planned to dump the kid into foster care and hare right back to Central America, he threw the whole case out." He shrugged. "So your Ballard took Daniel in?"

"No." I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice. "He showed up, took a look over the kid, said no one could adopt him, then dumped him into foster care and hared right back to Central America."

"Bastard."

Had to agree with me there.

~*~*~*~*~
"So you're still fighting the Goa'uld, sir?"

"Looks like we're in it for the long haul, Colonel," This Hammond confirmed, going over a few star maps with me. "But we've finally begun to convince some of the more flexible Tok'ra to adopt a few 'primitive' espionage techniques and military tactics, as opposed to their usual ploy of raising unsuccessful rebellions or simply infiltrating the opposition and passing along System Lord politics. It still amazes me how long it took to convince them plain logistical information was more important than which System Lord thought they got slighted by the Asgaard in the last round of talks." A faded red brow arrowed my way. "And you?"

"Touch and go," I admitted. "Earth's still in one piece, but if the Goa'uld ever figure out how much Thor's bluffing...."

"Don't give up, Colonel." God, his smile looked just like the general's. Of course, it... was the general's. Freaky. "Your reality's Daniel is in the SGC, and that's a more potent asset than a ton of naquadda. Couple that with the fact that your reality's Sha'uri may be alive...."

"Yeah. About that." I squirmed in my briefing room chair. "How? I mean, Amaunet had her, I saw her die...."

"Did you?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. "I saw the body." Not going to forget that, no matter how much I wish I could. God. Poor Daniel. Poor Teal'c.

"You thought you saw her body here, too," Hammond mused. "All of you did. If Daniel hadn't called Archangel to mourn her... well."

I jabbed a finger at him, filled with a weird, shaking rage. Familiar, somehow; oh yeah, the same way I felt after Nem stole Daniel. "Excuse me. Thought we saw it? I helped bury her, goddamn it!"

Hammond rose, paced across the room. Let the silence stretch. "I can't give you false hope, Colonel. Realities differ, and you may be right. All I can tell you is that, in this reality, after Amaunet stole the Harcesis, SG-1 tracked her and the stolen Abydonians down. And in the process of that, Teal'c entered Amaunet's tent, to find a Goa'uld he believed was Amaunet in the process of applying a ribbon device to Dr. Jackson. And killed her.

"But that woman was not Sha'uri."

~*~*~*~*~
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

A flash and a splash and - green grass. Oh yeah.

"Jack!"

And three sets of hands - pale, dark, and lightly freckled - dragging me clear of the stones rimming Athena's Pool. Guy couldn't ask for more.

Well, maybe for a few less spears in the welcoming committee. There were about twenty tense locals behind my team; half with spears, half in the back ranks with longbows. "Everything okay here?" I asked warily.

The local medicine woman - Narcissa, I thought her name was - moved in, waving her right hand over my body. A glowing stone nestled between each pair of her fingers; ruby and topaz and bright, blazing aquamarine. All tied together by a web of silvery strands. Cute. "Danny?"

Daniel - my Daniel, short hair and all - looked worried, but not of the we're going to die variety. "Just let her check you, Jack. It's important."

Narcissa finished her rundown; kind of like the guy at the airport with the metal detector, come to think of it. "Athena's Web is clear," she announced, wrinkles easing around her eyes. "He who returned is indeed he who left."

A gnat may have done a suicide run down my windpipe. "They know?"

"Apparently, Athena's Web can tell them if a person's not from this reality, yes, sir." Sam beamed at me, thoughts of tests undoubtedly dancing through her head. "Isn't this great, sir? Now we know we're home!"

"It is," Teal'c rumbled, "A comforting thought."

Yeah. Though the fact that the guys with spears were heading home was even more comforting.

"We were about to come through after you when Daniel stopped us," the major chattered on, pointing out a loose Greek scrawl over the set stones. "Looks like the Pallasans put up a warning sign."

"What, more curses?" If I had a dime for every curse....

"No, it's a warning," Daniel corrected me as we started heading back for the 'Gate. "A reminder that if another journeys forth before one has emerged from Athena's Pool, they will doom their fellow traveler never to return."

"Which means the mirror probably switches realities every time a new person touches it," Sam cut in.

And my team had almost come after me. Hoo boy.

"Apparently, the Pallasans use it as a rite of passage for their noble class. Or anyone who wants to be a noble." Curiosity gleamed behind those glasses, and I braced myself. Uh-huh, here came lecture mode. "You have to go through the Pool, last at least an hour, and bring what you've learned back to the people. It's amazing!"

"So I'm a noble?" Oh man, I could see the ribbing in the locker room now. Sir Jack. Little armored action figures scattered through the base where I'd least expect them. Fake British accents popping up like mushrooms. Bloody 'ell.

"Not," Teal'c observed dryly, "Until you recount to the people what you have learned."

Saved. "Sorry, guys." I gave them my best I'm Covert Ops and I know a dozen ways to kill you with a pencil smile. "It's classified."

~*~*~*~*~
"...So that's the story, sir."

General Hammond - my General Hammond, and man, that was a relief - flipped through a few screens of data from the CD-ROMs the alternate me had handed over. "Interesting."

Janet scribbled notes as she muttered some medical-ese under her breath; looked up. "More than interesting, sir. We know the System Lords spend a lot of time choosing hosts. We thought it was for cosmetic reasons. If it's not - it'd be a major step toward finding some way to safeguard the teams from takeover."

The day looked brighter just from the thought. Wouldn't that be one in the eye for ol' buddy Apophis. Not to mention the rest of the parasitic crew. No new bodies, no handy places to hide; no more getting stuck in an MRI after every mission. You ever seen what those things can do if someone forgets to secure a sidearm? Magnet. Gun. Bad. Very bad.

"Check your findings carefully, Doctor," Hammond cautioned. "From their accounts of worlds we've visited, I would say this data's been sanitized."

Damn. "Figures," I grumbled. Not that I could really blame them. Would I hand over the straight goods on the SGC to another me? Not likely.

He gave me the eye; the one that makes you feel like you forgot to sign off on the last five spending reports. "Don't be so quick to discard it, Colonel. There do appear to be useful facts among the mundane details." He singled out one disk in particular. "Though I believe this was meant for you."

I eyed it like it was made out of Semtex. With an Archangel in the mix, it just might be. "What's on it, sir?"

The general smiled. "I'd say it was family stories, Jack. The declassified ones, in any event."

And when I took a copy of it home that night, that's exactly what it was. A kind of family journal, pieced together from memories and reports, of the Coldsmith-Briggs and Jacksons. From Michael the Second and Ariella, to Claire and Melbourne; all the messes two families of operatives and agents could get into and out of during the height of the Cold War. Plus the last one Daniel's parents got out of by the skin of their teeth; the one that had made them grab their kid and leave the Egypt they loved for the States.

The one that had - eventually - killed them.

Whoa.

~*~*~*~*~
"Knock, knock."

"¿Qué pasa?"

I blinked. "The Pallasans were Greek," I pointed out, walking into familiar clutter. God help us if we ever have to clean this office. Daniel'll never be able to find anything.

"With some Gaulish influences that on our world eventually became archaic Spanish," Daniel countered, waving a hand toward a digital photo of some Pallasan vases; tall, curvy shapes of black and jewel-tones on white and red clay. Kind of pretty; like a bunch of Southwest pictographs had a roaring drunk on leave and met Art Nouveau. "Beaker ware. With some indigenous elements, of course; the classic 'bear goddess' seems to have become a personification of the native large predator. You know, the one you thought looked like a raptor crossed with a berserk penguin...." He licked his lips. "What did you want?"

I hid a grimace. Like I'd only show up when I wanted something out of him.

Then again, we'd been doing that a lot lately.

Okay. Now or never. "I've been thinking... since we finally dumped MacKenzie-"

"So that's why the smoke alarms kept going off."

Darn fragsnabbit snarky archaeologist.... "I think you're right."

"I am? Oh, good." Still a dubious look in blue eyes. "Ah... right about what?"

"About us letting the Pentagon push too far." My turn to have my mouth go dry. But hey, I'm combat-trained. I can deal. "I've been talking to the General. He's going to see what leverage we can pull together to get back to our original presidential directive." Which said research, darn it; not just strategy and tactics. "He's going to package it as a force multiplier; more we know about who we're dealing with, the better we can strike and run on the System Lords. Sam says without knowing the assumptions of the people who made the little gizmos we find, we can't know if we're playing with the 'off' switch or the automatic meltdown. Teal'c pointed out that bit of how a System Lord's offspring being the most likely to attack him gave Tek'mateh Bratac a chance to snarl up two whole wings of death gliders. And Janet chipped in, said we could be missing whole bunches of opportunities in ethno-botanical medicine?" I'm never going to admit I actually understood what I just said. Ruin my carefully-cultivated image of loathing and despising anything scientific.

Eyes lit behind glass. "That's right - oh, Jack, we've got to get her a chance to talk to a few people. Maybe start in the Land of Light, they know she helped cure the Touched. I thought I heard something about herbal treatments they used to try-"

"I'll get it on the roster." Somehow. Who knew? We might actually find something. For goodness' sake, Teal'c's family was there. We ought to know more about the place on general principles. "But Danny, it's going to take some time."

"Oh." Shoulders slumped. "Right."

"So," I said casually, rocking on my feet, "While we're trying to realign D.C.'s favorite five-sided maze with reality, how would you feel about helping me set up a little family reunion?"

"Family reunion?" Myopic blink. "Ah, sure. Whose?"

I grinned.

~*~*~*~*~
"You're fidgeting, Jack."

"Nerves," I said truthfully, scanning the park near Janet's house one more time. Open ground, hard to sneak up on. Should be perfect for this.

I still wasn't sure this was a good idea. I mean, I knew Archangel.

Or I thought I did.

But I'd been able to cross-check a few of those stories with declassified Company documents. True, true, and true, once you allowed for the pseudonyms that other Daniel had freely admitted at the start of the disk were scattered through to protect the innocent.

So if those were true....

And good as her word, Janet had run down the medical data in the files, cross-checking against CAT scans we had of Sam, Jacob/Selmac, a couple other base personnel, Daniel... and the late Sergeant Rebecca Courtland. Looked like Goa'uld symbiotes specifically targeted certain areas of the brain to latch into. Areas most people didn't have a lot of activity in.

But Daniel and Courtland did.

So, as that other reality's Janet had put it, if a snake did try to move in on Daniel, the circuits were already busy. A Goa'uld probably could take over, but it'd be in for the fight of its life.

As one definitely had been, when that brave lady fought her parasite to a standstill and took them both out. Snake indigestion. Oh yeah.

And if that was true....

Daniel said the Pallasans believed Athena had created her Pool to give them a dangerous wisdom. I wasn't so sure about that. Wisest thing anybody could do with a quantum mirror was leave it the hell alone.

So maybe I'm not wise. But if there's one thing I do know, it's why people fight. And keep fighting. I guarantee you it ain't truth, justice, and the American Way. It's family. Friends. Knowing that picking up that sidearm in the morning is the only way your people are going to stay alive.

And Daniel was having a hard time picking up that sidearm.

Thing was, Daniel didn't have anybody left to fight for but us. And damn it, we weren't doing so good. Too much part of the SGC, not enough part of the planet. Too much caught in the military ranks, not enough - just - I dunno - people.

It was going to get us killed. It was going to get him killed.

We'd seen two realities without Daniel. I wasn't going to chance this one.

So as a good team leader, as a friend, I wrestled with my conscience. Swallowed my pride. And made one of the hardest phone calls I'd ever made.

"Daniel?"

Mid-sixties, early seventies; the best informants I had hadn't been able to tell me for sure. I'd gotten three different birth-dates, all sworn accurate; any or all of which might have been a Company or NSA invention. Some faint traces of blonde still lurked among streaming gray and white hair, and her sapphire suit-dress with its silken white scarf was every inch the Southern lady.

But the minute Ariella Coldsmith-Briggs saw one short-haired, down at the heels archaeologist, she smiled like sun after winter.

I nudged the kid. Nudged him harder when I saw he'd stopped breathing. "Go on," I said quietly. "She came to see you."

"Mrs. Wolfe?" Even listening hard, I barely heard him. "Where did - how did...."

"Go on, Daniel."

He sort of staggered forward, taking her hand in the kind of awkward courtesy you see teenagers drag out at weddings. "Ah, hi. It's been a long time... I don't expect you remember me...."

She hugged him.

Damn, who told her Daniel was a sucker for hugs?

She had him when he was eight, Jack, I reminded myself. She probably knows he likes hugs.

Leaving one ear tuned to the stammered conversation starting up, I headed for the nearest patch of shadows.

"Good afternoon, Colonel."

I shoved my heart back down my throat. It's not fair, damn it. Even when he's not in a white suit, a guy with a blacked out lens and a cane isn't exactly what you call unobtrusive.

But he wouldn't be Archangel if he weren't good at what he does.

And there he was, leaning against a maple, trademark white lady at his side, tall and lean and lazing in the sun in dark blue slacks and a casual navy jacket. As if he weren't one of the most dangerous intelligence officers this country's ever had. "Figured you'd show up," I growled.

"When someone invites my mother to meet an old friend near NORAD?" A blond brow arched. "Deep-space radar telemetry, indeed."

Oh yeah. Talking with Archangel. Real fun. Like playing dodge-ball with razor blades. "I'm not going to talk about that, and you know it."

"True. But will he?"

My hand twitched. Bad nervous system. No killing annoying spies. Not in public.

Assuming I even could. His dark lady's right hand was in her coat pocket, and I could just about guarantee that solid thing she was holding onto wasn't a pretty rock.

Wake up, O'Neill. They know your record, too.

I jerked my head back toward the reunion; they'd gotten past hi and slid into German and Arabic along the way. Figured. Just hoped Daniel remembered what not to say. "You're not going over there."

That half-dark gaze met mine, blue and cold and clear as winter sky. "Do you plan to stop me?"

Breathe, I told myself. It's okay to be scared. Only an idiot wouldn't be scared, going up against this guy. Just don't let him see you're scared.

He'd know, though. Somehow, he always knew.

I shrugged. "Deep-space radar's not your line of work."

"So I've heard," Archangel mused. Casual as if his lady weren't pointing a gun my way. "Odd; you wouldn't think the Air Force would employ a linguist for it, either."

Damn. Damn, damn, damn; tangling with Archangel always pulls up trouble. The guy's curiosity with fangs.

So I took the best of bad options; I stepped out of the way. "So ask him." Sure. We've got nothing to hide. Not.

For a second, just a second, surprise flashed over his face. "We've never been on the best of terms, you and I," he said slowly.

"Operational mishaps tend to do that, sir." His assistant's lips curved, one smooth, sardonic line of ruby.

Funny. She looked vaguely familiar.

"Yes, thank you, Marella," Archangel sighed. "To be blunt, Colonel; you know who I am, and you know what I am."

Yeah. And I didn't like it one bit. "I know Daniel still remembers Ariella tucking him in at night, and you risking your sorry neck to haul him up off a crumbling roof," I said levelly. "And I know if you hurt him, I've got a whole base ready to string you up. Deputy Director or not."

"Fair enough." But he hesitated, half in shadow.

"For cryin' out loud, now what?" I demanded.

His hand moved up to the temple next to that blacked-out lens; deliberately moved away. "It's been... quite some time since I've reintroduced myself to anyone."

I admit it, I blinked. Hadn't even thought about it. I mean, Archangel was Archangel, scourge of the Game; dark and deadly and cold as ice. A limp and a missing eye wouldn't change that.

Only... somewhere in there was a person, too. A teenager who'd helped his mother look after a scared little kid, and kept them both alive and in relatively one piece in the process. Not the easiest thing to do when Daniel Jackson's involved.

For a second I almost looked for another mirror. Archangel, a person?

"He'll be okay, sir. Go on." Marella smiled at her boss, wry and warm and amused all at once. "I've got your back."

Sunlight caught her hand as Archangel stalked forward, and I suddenly knew where I'd seen her before. In another SGC, at the edge of that photo, dressed to kill in a slinky, sparkly black number with her dark hair twisted up like a queen. Watching Archangel whirl Sam around with amused tolerance, secure in the ebony-set ring on her left hand.

No ring. Not here.

"I mean it," I said, low and deadly to the lady still aiming lead toward tender portions of my anatomy. "If he hurts Daniel, I'll kill him."

She smiled, bright and deadly as sunshine on the Mojave. "And if you hurt Michael... I'll find you."

Okay. I think I just got out-threatened.

Daniel froze, mid-hug. "Michael?"

Yeah, I thought ungratefully, watching Marella watch me. I could probably take her; operative versus Black Ops is a pretty done deal. But not without killing her. And that would blow this situation to hell. And you know who he is, so tell the cold-hearted bastard to get lost.

Hey, at least I didn't say it.

"It's been a long time," Archangel said softly.

Daniel swallowed. "Y-yeah."

"So." Archangel cleared his throat. "As I'm sure the good colonel has told you, these days I work in... data analysis."

I tried not to roll my eyes too hard. Ow.

"In between bouts of flying those horrendous eggbeaters of yours," Ariella observed dryly.

Archangel shot her a glance. "They're helicopters, Mother. Not eggbeaters."

"I stand corrected." She crossed elegant arms. "Very expensive eggbeaters."

I shoved my jaw closed. Archangel, in what was obviously a long-standing family argument? And nobody was getting killed?

"Very fun eggbeaters," Archangel countered. "You can't hover in a Stearman."

"Hmph! That depends on the wind. I'll show you, if you have the decency to drop by. I should see more of you. And you," she went on, waving a motherly finger in Daniel's direction. "Virginia is not that far. I'll expect calls. And letters. Even email, if you must; though why they don't call it e-postcard, I'll never know. You'd think they'd never heard of truth in advertising...."

I stood and listened as the friendly verbal tussle went on, keeping one eye on Daniel, all the while counting my fingers and toes. Damn it, O'Neill, when it comes to bad ideas, you really dreamed up a doozy this time.

Only... I wasn't sure it was a bad idea.

Or a good one.

Or even a sane one.

All I knew was that Daniel looked alive, really alive. Asking questions about the merits of fixed-wing versus rotary, venturing opinions about why the latest European words had been adopted into Arabic, tossing out a few hesitant comments about how pianos had electric keyboards beat hands down. Ariella agreed, Archangel seemed to be of the staunch opinion that pianos were for poor suckers who couldn't fly. Which sparked her counter-opinion that at least a baby grand still worked when the power went out. Which led to his counter that a properly set up off-the-grid system didn't let the power go out, and anyway there were always batteries....

And I had to close my eyes, and look away. This was it. This was what I couldn't give him. What the base couldn't give him. What Kasuf and Skaara couldn't give him, not when they were still mourning Sha'uri, not when they were half a galaxy away.

People. People who cared. People who loved the intricacies of language and nuance the way he did, who risked their lives just like he did, shaping a mission around a person out of place, a turn of phrase, a choice of one word over another. People who didn't have to take orders, who didn't have to give him orders; who could argue and agree and disagree without risking the whole planet on who was right.

God, it hurt.

"They're going to be at this a while," I said, ostentatiously checking my watch. "I'm going to check in with my people."

"Colonel."

Something in Marella's voice drew me up short. Was it my imagination, or was there a hint of compassion in that dark gaze?

Imagination, probably. Her words stayed level as a blade. "Michael cares just as much about his mother as you do about your friend. Nothing violent will happen here today."

Unless you start it, her tone added.

Noted and logged, lady.

I slunk out of there, rounded a corner to where my own backup waited. Sam was fidgeting, civvies looking out of place. Teal'c just looked intense. "We are being observed," he noted in a low tone.

"Doesn't surprise me." I blew out a breath, shoved my hands into my jacket. "Archangel's taking a chance just being here. Guy he is, things he's done, there's lots of people who want a piece of his hide. And they're not the kind who stop at borders."

Sam's fidgeting went up a notch. "Sir, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"No," I bit out. "You have a better one?"

"Um...."

Teal'c glanced toward the out-of-sight reunion. "I would have preferred to guard Daniel Jackson."

"Bad idea," I said bluntly. Not that I hadn't spent at least one sleepless night wishing it wasn't. See your operative and raise you one ticked-off Jaffa with a staff weapon, oh yeah. "No offense, T, but in the middle of a crowded mall you can pretty much pass for a tourist. Archangel's just as good at his job as I am at mine. And some of the hints I picked up poking around say that nice little old lady's still working part-time. Right now they're just curious about Daniel. You walk into sight, they'll know something's screwy."

"His job?" Sam asked.

I opened my mouth; closed it. Hell. This was not a problem I usually had. Sam was cleared for almost everything off-planet. And Teal'c was classified; there wasn't anything in the SGC he didn't at least have a clue about.

"Data analysis," I said finally. Better stick to the same cover he'd given Daniel. At least until I could talk Hammond into giving them the straight goods. "Archangel takes bits of stuff from all over the place, fits them together into a picture of what's going on. Kind of like Sherlock Holmes." If the Great Detective had ever played with C-4.

"Ah." Teal'c nodded. "Much as Daniel Jackson does."

I saw red. That bastard's not a thing like Daniel!

But I couldn't say it. Not without reasons they couldn't hear. Damn, damn, why hadn't I asked the General for clearance to give the team details on that vicious, predatory, walking white-suited case of the snoops-

And the world tilted, like one of those trick Escher images switching focus when you stare at it long enough.

Curiosity. Unshakable loyalty. The raw hunger to know. That gift beyond languages, of listening through the words, to piece together what was really being said.

And even in the field, bullets flying all around us, Archangel only killed when he had to.

I stood there and blinked, waiting for the world to shake back into some kind of order. Archangel and Daniel. Light and dark. Ice and fire. Academic with guns, meet... academic with guns.

Oh, hell.

"Sir?" Sam was staring at me like I was one of her reactors gone buggy. "What did you see in Athena's Pool?"

Didn't have to think about that. "Sorry, Carter. Classified."

She saw something in my face, nodded. "But someday?"

"Yeah," I said softly. Thinking of the SGC, and Sha'uri, and a little girl with Daniel's eyes.

And a white-clad operative who'd never let you see him bleed.

"Yeah, Sam. Someday."

~*~*~*~*~
Translation from Spanish:

"¿Qué pasa?" - What's up, what's going on.