Chapter One: Wrong Gate Address

Daniel groaned as he pushed himself off the ground where his face was plastered against the hard ground. He couldn't see anything and his pack were twisted over his shoulder making his movements difficult. He unsnapped the pack before he pushed up from the ground and sat up straight, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior of where ever they were. His hands fumbled around his face to make sure that his glasses had not met with a sad death. They were thankfully still perched on his nose, crooked but there.

"Jack, Sam, Teal'c, is everyone okay?" he called into the darkness. There was groaning all around him and then as Daniel reached out to fix his glasses, he realized there was a flashlight on his vest. He switched it on, hissing at the glow it shot out into the dark. He turned slowly, finding Teal'c and Sam already helping each other up, he continued and found Jack struggling close by. Daniel grabbed his pack and dragged it behind him. He crawled closer to his commanding officer.

He stared down at Jack's face as he helped the older man to sit up. "Are you okay, Jack?"

"Daniel?" the Colonel mumbled, "What happened?"

"We were jettisoned out of the gate which is never a good thing. This also isn't the location that the MALP sent to us. That never ends in rainbows and puppies."

"The last time we were in the dark like this was when we were sent to Antarctica," Sam added into the deafening silence and Daniel pointed his light over towards Sam's voice where she was fumbling with her pack.

Jack groaned, "Thanks for the reminder Major!"

"Sorry sir though if you notice its not freezing cold here otherwise we would have noticed."

Daniel grinned and helped Jack to his feet, getting a little thrill from being allowed to touch the Colonel. He had a hard time ever getting the chance so he enjoyed it. He'd lusted after this older man for a couple years now and it had only gotten worse after he lost Sha're and Jack had been there for him. He felt the first inkling of desire when they saved each other on Abydos. Then when he returned to him a year later, there was nothing better than seeing Jack after not being on earth for that time. He'd used his time learning about the cartouche to hide the truth from Sha're and then his need to show off led to her being taken. It was a hard lump of guilt for him to swallow even after his dearly departed spouse absolved him of the guilt.

Jack stepped away from Daniel and also flipped on his light, followed soon by Carter and Teal'c. With the four beams of light bouncing around the room, Daniel noticed that the Gate was just leaned up against the back wall of a cave, "That's a first huh?" he asked the others.

Sam hummed in confusion, "We rarely have ever seen a decommissioned Gate and this is obviously not the world we were supposed to come to in the first place."

"If this Gate is decommissioned, we are going to have to find a way to power the Gate and dial manually." Sam nodded at Jack's words, this wasn't their first rodeo so they knew what steps to take but they needed to know where they were first.

Daniel continued to look around the large cave and noticed the packing crates all along the walls. He started to snoop around seeing what there was to see. With the level of dust on the crates, no one had been around in ages. He clipped his pack back on since it was just in the way and he needed both of his hands to open some of the crates. He might find the D.H.D. if he looked in a couple of the larger containers.

"Daniel, don't wander off." Jack's words cut through Sam's theorizing in the background. As much as Sam and Daniel tended to bounce ideas off of each other, when she started talking astrophysics and the like the rest of the team tended to just let her go.

The archeologist rolled his eyes and shook his head at Jack's mothering, "I am looking to see if I can find the Dial Home Device in some of these containers. Maybe we'll get lucky."

Jack snorted, "Doubt it."

So did Daniel but he was going to look anyway, and so he did and it wasn't until the fourth case when he cursed and started running for the dim light in the distance. He was freaking out and he had to see if this was where he thought it was. He didn't understand what was going on but he knew that artifact and it was only ever on one planet.

"Daniel!" Jack yelled and he could hear the other teammates running behind him. He skidded to a stop as he reached the end of the cavern and stared into the sun and the vision before him that shocked him and didn't help answer any questions in his mind.

"What happened Daniel?" Sam panted as they skidded to a stop.

"That box back there held King Tut's tomb, in all the planets in the entire galaxy I have never seen other worlds with anything like it. I think we are still on earth."

"What?" Jack snapped. Daniel flinched at the anger and fear in his commander's voice. He understood the sentiment; he was freaked out as well. They had irrevocable proof that they were on earth and then there was what they were looking at on the outside.

"I think this might have been time travel," Daniel stated even as he wracked his brain for any other answer, "And I don't think it was to the past."

Jack and the others looked up and out where Daniel was pointing and all of them gasped in shock. In the distance was a city, it looked like any other city on earth like New York or the like but there was one huge difference.

It was surrounded in a bubble.

Daniel watched the shimmer of the shield, if that's what it was. It was circular and gave plenty of sky between the buildings and the clear layer of whatever it was. It seemed to be energy but there was a platform for it, made of metal and glass or something. It was like a bio dome only it held a city and surprisingly there were no fumes in the city at all.

"Interesting," Sam stated in her special scientist way and Daniel chuckled.

"We cannot be on earth," Jack stated, not willing to believe the proof in the face of the bubble city in front of him.

"Its possible Sir, we have time traveled before," Sam replied.

"But this, this isn't even close to what's possible. And we wouldn't ever decommission the Stargate!" Jack was freaking out now. Daniel reached back and placed a comforting hand on the man's shoulder. Jack was about to shake him off but Daniel just tightened his grip. Jack nodded and tried to calm himself.

Daniel sighed, "Okay, then we need information and that's possibly where we should get it."

"Umm no thanks," Jack said in response to Daniel's suggestion.

"Jack, that is civilization and that's where we are going to find answers," Sam put in her two cents. She was shifting around, like back behind her like she expected the Gate to turn on at any second to take them home but that wasn't going to happen without information.

"I do not believe we should go to that place, we would be trapped there if they did not understand where we came from," Teal'c intoned calmly as usual.

"Guys come on, look at that thing, if we could just find out how it worked!" Sam said excitedly.

"No Carter, I am not getting stuck in a snow globe!" Jack barked and turned to look the other direction, finding a whole lot of forest. "Oh goody, trees."

Daniel smiled again; Jack's acerbic humor was always a joy to the younger man. Not in the beginning but now it made he smile even in the darkest and scariest of moments. The older man had become a comfort to the archeologist and he was now.

They started walking along the path that was worn down by others in the past. Daniel walked close to Jack's shoulder, Teal'c and Sam followed close behind them. All of them were leery of possible attacks that could come from any side. Daniel was busy looking at the trees which were so large and dark that they cut out the sun except in various slivers that shot through the branches and leaves above their heads and he was mesmerized by the look of the light.

"Daniel, stop star gazing!" Jack snapped and Daniel refocused his attention on the road in front of them as well as his companions. They walked at a slow pace, nothing too strenuous since they had no idea how far they would have to walk to find some sort of civilization that wasn't in a bubble.

"We should have gone to the bubble city," Daniel whined, tired even though they'd walked this far before. It was tough to leave behind such a wonderful discovery for Daniel and Sam, who was clearly thinking about the scientific discovery of the shield and what it could mean for them if they could reverse engineer it.

The team had been together for long enough to know what each of them were thinking in many scenarios. Teal'c and Jack were both focused on possible threats and the scientists were thinking about all the lovely things they could learn and see in that new world they were walking away from.

Right up until the moment when Daniel walked into a tree. Jack snorted in laughter before he reached down to help Daniel off the ground, "Daydreaming Jackson, is just going to get you into trouble."

Daniel smiled, second brush of contact in the same day and all he had to do was be the clumsy scientist. He nodded and straightened. They kept on moving, not really speaking to each other, which was Jack's request. They were in a new place, and it wasn't a place they were planning on learning more about so they had no idea what they would run in to. There was too much danger inherent in their trek through the woods for small talk.

Just as the sun was started to set, throwing beautiful lines of red and pinks on the horizon, they saw what seemed to be a village in the distance. Daniel pulled binoculars out of his pack as did Jack but when they looked through them, nothing seemed clearer. They were still looking at something blurry off in the distance. Daniel put his binoculars away, assuming they were faulty or he wasn't using them correctly and they kept walking, only to run into some sort of barrier and then they were all unconscious on the ground.

Jack woke up some time later with a wicked headache and no weapon to make him feel any better. He sat up on a small cot, seeing Teal'c and Sam already sitting up as well and then he searched for Daniel, finding the archeologist still knocked out on another cot. Jack stood up quickly to move to the other's side and settled down next to the young man. Daniel was such a good man and he worried far more than he was supposed to. Daniel always had that effect on the old Colonel, he wanted Daniel with an intensity that he didn't know how to deal with and there was nothing he could do about it. And when he said wanted, he meant as more than a friend and co-worker. Daniel was married, or had been married and Jack as a Colonel in the Air Force. Don't Ask Don't Tell decided the issue long before Jack had ever met the young scientist.

"Danny, you ok?" he whispered gently and touched the man's smooth cheek. A shiver went through Jack at the emotion that one small contact did to him. Daniel was starting to stir and Jack helped him sit up even as Daniel pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. Jack took the time to look around and see what they were facing, which were apparently a cheap retreat. The tent had food served for them and clothes to change into. Their packs were even next to each of their cots though their weapons were missing.

"Where are we?" Daniel asked. Jack shrugged and looked back to Teal'c and Carter.

"You guys okay?" he asked them.

They nodded, "Nice little headache but other than that, I'm good," Carter responded.

"Daniel, how you feeling?" Jack asked the younger man as Daniel took his glasses off to rub his nose. Jack wished he had a good excuse to touch him again; pain alone wasn't going to let him get away with it, at least not slight headache pain. Maybe he would trip again and Jack could steady him not that Jack was going to do anything to help the younger man's clumsiness, just use it to his advantage maybe.

"I'm good, Jack. We should see if we can leave this tent," Daniel requested.

Jack nodded, grabbed his vest and pack and started walking to the flap in the tent just as a young man stepped in and watched them all. Jack spoke quickly and loudly, "Hey, what's going on? We were just leaving if you don't mind?"

"I do mind," he responded. He was lean and about Jack's height which was easily discerned in his black leather looking pants paired with a close fitted vest with nothing underneath, showing off his arms and bare shoulder as well as he chest and the sharp hipbones at his waist. His dark blonde hair was cut short everywhere but right over his eyes, which was left to fall diagonally across his face. It distracted Jack from the man's light blue eyes but not enough for him to ignore the coldness in the gaze. This man was not afraid to end a life and he was now in the same space as Jack's team and especially Daniel.

"So are we prisoners?" Daniel asked. Jack almost swore at Daniel's need to always be a chatty Cathy. He didn't like that the man's eyes ghosted over Jack and focused on the younger man. Jack wanted desperately to step between the man's view of his archeologist. Then the man smiled and it got that much scarier.

"No, actually you are not but we do have some questions about the weapons you were carrying. They are nothing that's available in the Mythos system and not even really like the weapons they carry in the city which have never been projectile weapons as yours are."

"Can we have them back?" Jack asked in vain hope.

The man looked back to Jack with a straight face, "No you cannot."

"If we are not prisoners then maybe its time to tell us what's going on. It would be great to know where we are." Jack knew it wasn't the best time to be snappish but this guy was freaking him out and the sooner they left his presence, the happier Jack was going to be.

"Well you are in my Infidel camp right now, you cannot go to the island until Zarkina comes to collect you. She is not slated for a visit for a couple days."

"Why would we want to go to an island with someone we've never heard of?" Jack asked.

"You are not attempting to gain entrance to the Vannas Island?"

Jack looked at Daniel, wondering if they should just agree with the man but he understood the silence for what it was, an admission of confusion and the man clearly knew it so lying would do nothing.

"You do not know what I'm talking about do you?" he asked. Then again without waiting for an answer he surely knew was coming, the man started laughing but took a couple deep breaths and asked with another chuckle. "Who are you and where did you come from?"

Daniel stepped forward and Jack put a hand up so he couldn't move any closer to the creeper man. "Have you been inside the cave close to that city that's inside a bubble?"

"Indeed we have, it is a fine vantage point if we feel the need to spy on the outer limits of the city in a bubble as you say. Why?"

"There is a big circle, it's a transportation device and we weren't supposed to come here. We need to know what planet this is?"

The man frowned again, "This is the planet that all people from Mythos Star System call home now, and it retained its name."

"Stop with the teasing?" Jack barked, annoyance making him testy.

"Earth," the man said.

Jack sat down hard on the cot and Daniel moved to stand next to him, just becoming a comforting presence as he constantly was in their relationship. "I know, Jack I was hoping he wouldn't say it either. What year is it?" he asked the other man.

"Well again the original inhabitants of this planet have been keeping concise records which we utilize roughly so as far as we understand it is around the year 2440."

"Holy Hannah!" Carter said from behind Jack and he whole-heartedly agreed. How could they have possibly been pushed over four hundred years into the future? Jack was honestly surprised that the planet was still here. After everything that happened with the Goa'uld and replicators, not to mention all the crap that humans did to each other he figured the planet would have had a much shorter life span.

"So you are from the past on this planet?" the man asked proving himself to be entirely to smart for the good of Jack's team.

Jack nodded weakly, still looking down at his feet. He didn't want to look at his team right now, not when he was unsure of his position as what they were supposed to do. This wasn't like going back in time barely twenty years; this world may have well been an alien world because they would recognize nothing here.

"What time are you from?"

"2001," Daniel answered.

"Hmm," the man muttered. Jack looked up at him.

"That's all you have to say? We have just found out that we are in the very long distant future of our own planet with probably no way home and that's all you got?"

"You are welcome to stay here as long as you need and I will get Zarkina. She will be able to help you make a life here on this world, somewhere that you will be safe."

"No, we need to find a power source, get the Gate up and running and go home!" Jack snapped. Daniel squeezed his shoulder gently and somehow Jack couldn't convince himself not to take the young man's hand for a short moment of comfort.

The man shrugged and was about to walk out when Daniel spoke, "Can I ask who you are?"

The man laughed, "So very polite you are. I am Damnation the Markis Alecti of the Queen."

"Your name is Damnation?" Jack asked in confusion.

"Actually my name is Vane Atrogos but no one here calls me that name. Damnation is my title and position."

"My name is—"

"Daniel Jackson, I know," Damnation startled them all by saying. "And Colonel Jonathon O'Neill and Samantha Carter and Teal'c. I must ask, what kind of name is Colonel?"

Jack chuckled, "Its not my name, its my rank in the military of our time. My name is Jack. How did you know our names?"

"A little bird told me," he said with an impertinent wink and left the tent.

"Wow, he's annoying," Jack stated. Daniel snorted at Jack's inappropriate humor then quickly apologized for it. Jack rolled his eyes at the younger man before he turned towards Sam; they all sat down and waited for him to start. "Do you think we can find a power source Carter?" he asked.

"I think we might get more information out of this Zarkina that he keeps mentioning. We should just lay low until we meet her then go with more information. Maybe we would have been better off going to the city."

Jack snorted, hindsight was always much clearer vision but just as he was going to speak someone else did and her voice was sultry and deep but at the same time there was humor and kindness as well. They turned as a unit to the woman standing just inside the tent.

"They would have put you in jail, believing you were one of my people. The city's government has no acceptance for new people or different people, you are both."

And this must be Zarkina.