Something crackles when they enter the room, and it's not a fault in the loudspeakers. They're dangerous. You can see it on their faces, see it by the way they walk. He knows why they've got their hands there, at their sides; they're reaching for weapons instinctively, even though they don't have any on them. Not here. They're the civilians, they're the ordinary people here under Cheyenne Mountain. And Mitchell knows exactly how crazy that is as soon as he sees them.
They're both scanning the room; they're both scanning the room and keeping an eye out for the other, simultaneously. He's never seen anything like it. They're not touching, physically, but they're so aware of one another that it's like they're standing behind the same black coat instead of wearing pretty similar ones. Part of him notices how cool they are, with the buckles, and how frightening it is that they're wearing leather not because it looks good but because it might afford them a second chance in a fight that they wouldn't otherwise get. The other crazy thing, he thinks, is that they're wearing black so that they don't stand out.
He stands up, walks over to the pair. He's been briefed. The astronaut, John Crichton – someone he vaguely recalled hearing about years ago – looks a lot like him. The scary part is not how much he looks like him but the way in which he doesn't; his bearing, the expression on his face which shows exactly what he's been doing for the last five years. Mitchell hasn't exactly been doing it easy for the last five years either, but he can tell that this is something different.
And the other one. The other one who looks like Vala, except that not only is she a stranger to Earth, but she's not even human. She's a different species. She's the most frightening thing Mitchell's ever seen. They're standing together like they are together and all he can think is that whatever Crichton's been through, it must've been hell for him to have found comfort with such a comfortless woman.
For a second they just look at one another. Then he remembers himself, extends a hand. Crichton shakes his, tentatively, but Aeryn Sun just nods at him, and he accepts that.
"The rest of the team are off-world, right now," he begins awkwardly. "Did they explain –"
"Yeah." Crichton's still looking around, as though they aren't in the safest place on Earth. "I had this idea that we'd turn up one day, chat to IASA about aliens, get the UN busy discussing it. Seems it's not going to be like that."
"No." He doesn't know whether he should apologise for that. "We've known about the rest of the universe for some time, and it's staying a secret. We've already had to defend Earth against numerous attacks. So maybe it'll be easier than you thought, explaining things. Maybe we'll be quicker to hear than you expected."
There's a table and chairs, but they're standing in the middle of the room, and he doesn't think he can relax them enough to get them seated, offer them a drink. So they keep standing, the door closed behind them, eyes wandering. Mitchell finds himself wondering if they ever do slip, tired, heavy-boned, onto a couch, just to watch a game of football. He reminds himself that they've just come from space, and there's no football in space.
"It's taken me years to find my way back here," Crichton begins conversationally. "Out there in Oz you've got to be your own wizard. In the end it was just equations. Now I'm here. I've had a beer with DK. I've hugged my sisters, watched baseball with my dad. Everything's –" he stops, clears his throat. "Five years, and everything's the same, pretty much. No one seems any older." He stops again. "It's nice."
Nice. Mitchell winces at the nostalgia in the word.
Suddenly Aeryn takes over, as though she knows exactly how much Crichton can take. "We had peace for a while. The Scarrans and the Peacekeepers agreed to a ceasefire. A workable treaty was developed with the help of the Eidolons. The war was over. That war is still over."
"Yes, now there's no war," Crichton agrees, and the short, bitter, laugh that follows chills Mitchell to the bone.
"The Orii followed the war. They waited, I'm sure, until it was over, until we'd tasted peace and until everyone had grown to like it. Then they stepped in. The Nebari loved them from the beginning. They didn't resist. The Scarrans kicked and screamed until there was nothing left of them. We didn't care about the Nebari. We didn't really even care about the Scarrans," Aeryn says.
". . . because I wasn't a Nebari. Because I wasn't a Scarran," John murmurs musically.
"They're targeting the Sabacean colonies now. Then it will be the Peacekeepers and the Luxans and the Delvians and the Hynerians. And everyone else. And Earth."
"We know the Orii," Mitchell says, and the mood in the room alters immediately.
Suddenly Aeryn and Crichton are looking at him with full attention. He feels the heaviness of their gaze like a responsibility, and he finally indicates the chairs behind him. He pulls them out, putting Aeryn at a distance from him because she still terrifies him. She looks like Vala but she's not human. Vala's quicksilver reactions, her teasing, her constant humour and her innocence; he can't imagine any of that within this woman, and he wonders for just a second whether that's why they're here, whether that's why Fate's made them look the same, him and Crichton, Aeryn and Vala, to highlight exactly why they're different. Never complain again, because you haven't seen what he's seen. Never take Vala for granted again, because in another life she could've become – her.
Crichton sits on the chair, Aeryn takes it gingerly and finally moves it into a position she's comfortable in. The chairs are inches apart, but it's still like they're sitting on top of one another, like he can't tell where she begins and he ends. It's disconcerting.
"You know the Orii," Aeryn prompts.
"It's bad. It's pretty bad. But it isn't the end. They've thrown some things up against us; a plague, and some bugs, and we've fought back both times. They've got worse, coming, we know, but if they've been thwarted by us before, then they will be again. And once we've destroyed them, they'll stay destroyed, in every universe." He's making promises that he wouldn't make to anyone else, simply because they have to be made. He feels like he'd say anything to make sure that they didn't have to see anything terrible ever again, for the rest of their lives. "We can get you the cure to the plague, if that's what you need, for starters."
"That'd be good," Crichton says. He and Aeryn look at one another, and for a second a line disappears from Crichton's forehead. "Funny. I thought you'd be so – not you, everyone, everyone on Earth – you'd all be so slow to hear what I had to say. That it'd take years for you to understand, and in the meantime, there'd be civilisations dissolving just out of view."
"Well. If you'd come earlier, maybe . . ."
"A planet full of Crichtons," Aeryn interrupts and this time when they look at one another they exchange a brief smile. Mitchell finds that his jaw has dropped and thinks that maybe he's got it all wrong. That smile –
"Colonel?"
The rest of the team's turned up. It's like an attack; they abandon the chairs, the smiles disappear, and they're against the wall, eyes darting from one stranger to the next. There's inscrutable Teal'c, there's Daniel looking anxious and concerned and Carter looking concerned and anxious. Vala bounces in behind them as though this is an ordinary meeting. He knows they've briefed her, but she's not terrified, just curious. He's used to concern, anxiety, inscrutability. He's not used to cheerful curiosity and for a second he doesn't feel irritation but gratitude.
He does the introductions. No one bothers with handshakes now. It's too weird. There's a discernable space between them, but then there's a scraping of chairs against the floor and Vala asks plaintively for something to eat and drink and he remembers they've just stepped back through the gate. They're exhausted. Their exhaustion is their best weapon. He can feel the tension recede, slightly.
"They've got the Orii, too, where they are," Mitchell summarizes. "Where they've been."
Aeryn Sun keeps staring at Vala, and Mitchell finds himself tensing, worrying that Vala will come bounding up to her like a puppy and end up with her neck snapped. But Vala's ignoring the woman. No one else in the room is able to do such a thing. It's incredible.
"I said we can give them the cure to the plague, at least. As for the rest – we're working on it."
"If you could maybe tell us about how it happened, how it started," Daniel suggests, and takes out his notebook, writing down everything Crichton says seriously as though the whole interview hasn't been recorded electronically from the start. "Just in case they've tried something we haven't seen yet."
After an hour of this, more questions, more explanations, Aeryn looks over at Crichton and it's as loud as a bell. Crichton nods. "We've got to go. Our son's bedtime," he explains.
Carter nods understandingly, but Vala looks straight at Mitchell with a mischievous look on her face, and he knows exactly what she's thinking. He looks away, focuses instead on the slight changes he notices in John and Aeryn's stance, their expressions. It's not hope, it's not near hope, it's just a little further away from the place they were when they arrived a few hours ago. Which is something. He realises that Crichton didn't mean that it was just equations that brought him to Earth, but that he came to Earth for the rest of the equations.
They all stand again, watch as the pair leave, wait till even the sound of their footsteps recede down the corridor.
"I'll head over to the lab, tell them they'll need to make up more of the cure," Carter says finally. She gets up, takes a quick look at the rest of the team, opens her mouth as though she wishes there was something more to say, but thinks the better of it.
"I want to take a good look at these notes," Daniel mumbles, grabbing at his papers, and Teal'c follows him, indicating a need for a shower.
Mitchell doesn't have the energy to leave his seat. He discovers that he's soaked with sweat as though he's been out running. The muscles in his shoulders are aching, but even now he can't let himself relax.
"So in their world, we're married with a baby?" Vala says.
He looks over at her. She's standing by the door, ready to follow the others, except that she doesn't look the least bit fazed.
"It's not us," Mitchell says. "She – didn't she – you're not freaked out by this?"
"Plenty of strange things have happened to me before," Vala shrugs, lounging against the wall. Her eyes are bright, as though she's amused. "Didn't you say a whole lot of SG1s turned up here one time, while I was away?"
He can't work out whether she's freaked and won't say, or whether she really has had all the experiences in the world and can't be shaken any longer.
"That was weird," he admits, "but they were – normal. The other me was me. This guy was . . . he just looked like me. She just looked like you. They were – different." He feels like an idiot because he can't put a sentence together.
"Look, Fate obviously needed a version of you and me in every universe in order to save civilisation," Vala shrugs. "That's quite understandable." She eyes him again, and then takes a step towards him. "I wish you'd asked to look at their baby photos, though. That would've been polite."
He can't say he's not curious as to what their son looks like. "I couldn't have." He starts to get up, pushes all the chairs back against the table, the chairs that have been scattered around the room after their strange meeting.
"Well, there's another way to find out, I suppose." She grins at him. "Possibility. Scared by it?"
He stops, stares at her.
"Don't be," she says practically, and turns and saunters out the room.