The gate kawooshed. When the kawoosh had settled into a nice wormhole-y thing that could easily be compared to water (and all too often is), four people stepped through.

One of those people wasn't exactly human. Being an imposing Jaffa, Teal'c was so tall because he had more awesome than is generally able to fit in the (not actually) human body. Colonel Jack O'Neill sauntered through the gate next to Teal'c. Sandwiched between the aforementioned two and brilliant scientist/badass action girl Major Sam(antha) Carter was Dr. Daniel Jackson. The team tended to keep him in the middle so he couldn't get himself into trouble.

On that particular day, however, Daniel was about to get himself, and the rest of them, into a whole lot of trouble. Jack would later wonder, annoyed, why Danny couldn't just run off after shiny things likes normal people with his... whatever it was. But nooo,he had to run off after the non-shiny things. The dirty things. The old things. The Ancient, potentially dangerous things. It was almost as if he was specifically choosing his targets by what would be the most dangerous and BAD.

Just because Daniel didn't have the ATA gene needed to activate most of the things he went running off after didn't mean that Jack, who more often than not ended up saving the archeologist's curious behind from all those interesting things, wouldn't almost inevitably end up activating them. Jack would always blame Daniel for all those times he got his head sucked... This particular mission was no deviation from danger-prone Danny's usual behavior.

"Daniel!" He shouted as the archeologist made his predictable dash to something only he could see - or care about. Grumbling under his breath, Jack started after his younger friend.

Behind them, as Teal'c turned his back on her to follow the other two, Sam smiled affectionately at her teammates, especially their handsome leader.

Not long after losing sight of their run-away archeologist and his pursuer, Sam and Teal'c heard a shout from among the ruins.

"Danny-boy, I swear if you touch anything I'll make sure you get decaf for the rest of the month! Oh for cryin' out loud..." Their leader's voice trailed off in astonishment. Sam and Teal'c followed the trail Jack and Daniel had left at a breakneck pace.

"Sir?" Sam hit the button on her radio without breaking stride, although she had to move fairly quickly to keep up with Teal'c's long legs.

The reply came with a crackle that all members of SG-1 recognized as the sigh Jack reserved for Daniel doing something exceptionally stupid. "He touched it."

"What's it doing? Is Daniel alright?" As the resident techie, Sam wanted to get an idea of what Daniel had done before she got there. Time was often important in these all to frequent situations.

"I believe O'Neill would have informed us immediately had Doctor Jackson been injured, Major Carter."

Sam turned to smile at her comforting, if laconic friend. "You're right," was all she said. Jack - Col. O'Neill - would have said something immediately. Probably something inappropriate. But he would still have alerted them to the problem as soon as it came up. He cared more about Daniel, about all of them, than he would admit.

But when she tried her radio again, no one answered.

Still running at top speed, Sam and Teal'c almost ran into the backs of Jack and Daniel. Neither their fearless leader or their quirky archeologist seemed to notice they had arrived.

"Sir? Daniel?" Sam tried to draw them out of their reverie.

'Look up," whispered Daniel. He was amazed that his two tardy teammates had missed the giant pyramid not ten feet in front of them with the glowing ball of light hovering above the shiny blue button he had carelessly pressed. A strange whirring sound filled the air.

Ianto didn't spill a drop as he poured the coffee carefully into four separate mugs. The one with kittens on it went to Gwen Cooper, who smiled and called him "Love" as she accepted it. The blue one with balloons went to Toshiko Sato, who thanked him absently and half-tried to make conversation. Owen Harper got the "World's Best" cup (really a "World's Best Boss" with the last word scratched out). Ianto certainly hadn't picked that one for Owen, the weasel had brought it from home. But the Welshman didn't bother changing it, even though he got only a grunt in response to the coffee.

Ianto carried Jack's steaming cup up the stairs to his office. The Captain was supposedly doing paperwork, but Ianto had never seen such a thing with his own eyes. What he had seen with his own eyes was Jack's unfinished paperwork on his and Tosh's desks. Knocking once, and then letting himself in, Ianto carefully set the new mug he'd bought for Jack down on his desk. Looking up from his computer monitor (and consequently his solitaire game), Jack smiled a big thank-you to Ianto and glanced at his new cup.

"Thanks, Ianto," he said. Ianto just nodded at him and picked up a few empty mugs lying around the room.

As he was leaving, Jack called after him quickly. "Hey, can you look something up in the Archives for me? This device looks strangely familiar, only I can't remember where I've seen it before."

"Sir?" Ianto looked questioningly at the picture Jack had handed him.

"Ianto, I know it looks like a bright blue button, but just go down and have a look, will you?"

"Of course, sir. Need anything else?" After Jack shook his head, Ianto headed down to the archives to see if he could find the Captain's mysterious blue button.

He peered through the drawers, looking at all the unidentified artifacts and comparing them each with the picture in his hand. He was so engrossed in his work that he didn't hear Jack come in behind him.

"Ianto?" Jack called. Starting, Ianto's hand slipped slightly on the object he was just picking up. His finger pressed into a button. A strange whirring sound filled the air.

"Um, Jack? You made me poke it, and now it's glowing..."

"I made you? Really, Ianto, you're going to blame this on me?"

"Sir, perhaps we'd best take it up for Tosh to have a look?"

Jack was about to reply, but before he could, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Whipping his head around, he was too late to notice it before it disappeared.

"Sir?" Ianto asked. "What is it?" He craned his neck to where Jack was looking, but saw nothing.

"I thought I saw something," Jack answered. "It looked like..." he hesitated. "Silhouettes. People. Four people."

"Are you..." This time it was Ianto's turn to get interrupted by odd events. SG-1 materialized behind him.

Just as Jack was about to say something, Ianto was alerted to their presence by a certain major letting out a "Holy Hannah!"

Ianto somehow managed to jump around to face them and land next to Captain Jack Harkness (who will oft be referred to by his full name to avoid confusion). The aforementioned Jack made a mental note about his favorite archivist's ninja skills.

"Who are you?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm. "How'd you get in here?"

"Uh..." The handsomest of the four, a young, brown-haired man with glasses, stepped forward, extending a large hand towards the Captain. "I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson, this is, um, Jack O'Neill..."

He was interrupted abruptly by the gray-haired man he had introduced as Jack (the other Jack, Harkness thought peevishly) glaring at the two Torchwood members. "That's enough, Daniel," he said. "I think we have a few questions for these two gentlemen ourselves. Who are you, and how did you bring us here?"

"Now why would I bring you here and then ask you how you got in?" the Captain asked. "And if you don't mind, I'd rather you not go poking about my top-secret base." Daniel had begun to wander off in that trouble-making way of his.

"Fine. But even if you didn't bring us here - which I'm not saying I believe - that doesn't answer who you are and where here is." Colonel Jack O'Neill was not happy about this turn of events.

At that exact moment, the rest of the Torchwood team bounded down the stairs, having been alerted to the intruders' presence by Toshiko's silent alarms. "What's going on?" asked Owen, lowering his gun as he saw Ianto and the Captain were in no immediate danger from SG-1.

"Exactly what I would like to know," O'Neill retorted, glaring at the newcomers. "Who are you people?"

"Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood," the Captain replied, flashing his trademark grin. "This is Ianto Jones. Trigger-happy over there is Owen Harper, and behind him are Gwen Cooper and Toshiko Sato."

"Major Samantha Carter." Sam introduced herself and stuck out her hand, edging closer to the group whose base she had apparently infiltrated.

The Captain took it, his grin getting even wider to that point that makes his chin look really creepy. "Hi!" he said, leering.

"Hands off my major," O'Neill warned as the Captain attempted to draw Sam in for nefarious purposes known only to his 51st century hormones. But before either Col. O'Neill or Teal'c could take a step, Sam had the Captain on the ground.

"Ow! Ow!" Harkness squealed. Owen, Gwen, and Toshiko instantly had their guns on Sam, while Ianto snatched a ray gun out of a nearby drawer and pointed it at her, praying it would work.

No sooner had the Torchwood team drawn their weapons, than SG-1 (the ones who weren't busy pinning helpless Captains to the floor) had theirs out and pointed. Owen, Ianto and Tosh switched their guns to O'Neill, Daniel, and Teal'c, while Gwen kept hers trained carefully on Sam.

"Major Carter, it seems your actions may have been unwise," Teal'c noted, eying the odd man who looked like a fish.

"Just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the outside..."

Interrupting her, Jack shouted, "Major! There's no reason to start that speech again! Maybe you should let Captain Jack Pussy-Pants up before we all start shooting each other..." Jack O'Neill, diplomat extraordinaire, helpfully suggested.

Glowering at him, Sam reluctantly complied.

Harkness bounded to his feet, grinning. "Pleased to meet you, Sammy. Mind if I call you Sammy?"

"Major Carter," she corrected, scowling deeper. He sighed a little bit (it looked like he wasn't going to be getting anywhere with her) and looked at the rest of her team.

"Oi, who's tall dark and silent?" Gwen asked, the gap between her teeth catching SG-1 off-guard.

"My name is Teal'c, Detective PC Gwen Cooper." Gwen was startled by Teal'c's uncanny ability to call everyone by their full name and rank, regardless of whether or not anyone had told him.

"He's an alien!" Daniel helpfully added.

"Spacemonkey..." Jack groaned as the Torchwood team readjusted their weapons in Teal'c's general direction.

"He must have been here a while," Toshiko offered, "There hasn't been a Rift spike that we didn't catch in months."

"Rift?" O'Neill questioned. "What Rift?"

"The rift in space-time," the other Jack explained. He raised his eyebrows as the other team stared at him blankly. "The one you came through and somehow landed here. It runs through the middle of Cardiff..."

Daniel blinked. "Cardiff?" he asked. "Cardiff, Wales?"

"No, Cardiff Azerbaijan," Owen retorted. "Of course we're in Wales, you twit, what other Cardiff has a Rift running straight down the fucking middle?"

Sam looked excited. "I've always theorized about localized inter-dimensional space-time rifts... In fact, I was working on a method of locating them before I got involved in..."

"Deep-space radar telemetry." Col. O'Neill cut her off.

"Oh-ho! Is that ever a cover story for an exciting top-secret job!" Captain Jack (no, no, not Sparrow!) was very excited about that idea. Although if they were anything like UNIT (and if their uniforms and alien involvement was anything to go by, they would be) he would have to watch them closely.

"No!" the other Jack defended himself ineffectively. "Anyways, you haven't told us yet what you know about rifts and... alien stuff. Or how we ended up here."

The other other Jack bristled. "Hey, buddy, you're in my base. I don't have to answer your questions!"

"We're Torchwood," Gwen explained, completely ignoring him. "Top-secret alien-hunting organization spanning the whole of the U.K, established by Queen Victoria and answerable to the ruling monarch of Britain alone. Who are you?"

"United States Air Force," the Jack who would be most likely to be delivering this line replied cautiously. "Are you telling me that we've somehow managed to wind up in someone else'stop-secret science-fiction government base in another continent?" He paused. "We're underground, aren't we," he added resignedly. "Why is it always underground?"

"Secret bases are traditionally underground, O'Neill, are they not?"

"Sometimes they're in skyscrapers," Ianto pointed out, thinking of Canary Wharf.

"Hey!" Daniel exclaimed, seeing Torchwood's button on a filing cabinet beside Ianto, "I poked one of those just before we ended up here!"

"So did Ianto." Harkness smirked at the archivist. He was really cute when he got flustered.

Tosh let out a surprised gasp-like noise. Ianto was many things, careless was not one of them.

"I... I didn't mean to. Jack snuck up on me!"

"Huh?" the wrong Jack asked, looking suitably confused.

"I did not!" Harkness retorted, ignoring the other one for a moment. "I was walking, perfectly normally, and you just didn't hear me!"

Ignoring them all, Sam crossed the room and picked up the Torchwood button. "Interesting," she mused. "Where did you find this?"

Toshiko, who was less interested in the argument than her sillier teammates, whipped a laptop out of nowhere and glanced at the number hanging off a tag attached to the button. She looked it up on her laptop, then turned back to Sam.

"It just washed up in an old warehouse six years back. Space-time rifts do that. I might be able to run some algorithms to figure out where and when it originated."

"Thanks, Tosh. That'd be great. If you'd like some help, I'd love to lend a hand." Sam shot a questioning look at her superior, who gave a curt nod, and then smiled warmly at Torchwood's techie.

"It's bloody cold down here." Owen grumbled, but what else is new?

"Oh! Yes! Let's not keep our guests in the archives! Ianto, would you please?"

"Of course, sir." The welshman set off to make coffees. He didn't need to take SG-1's orders. On his way out he heard a sneeze.