A/N: I'm honestly really proud of this fic, I think it's the best I've written in a while. I'm sure the idea is cliche, but this idea was so strong that I just had to write it out. The first chapter takes part mainly in the SGC, but after this Atlantis and everyone who inhabits it will dominate the story. Comments are appreciated, they let me know if I'm doing something right or wrong. :)

A While Ago:

"Rodney!" John yelled from his seat in the jumper, looking over his shoulder at the other man who was rewiring the systems.

"I know, I know," Rodney yelled back, "I'm almost done."

Behind him both Ronon and Teyla were crouched just inside the jumper, and in front of them was a forest filled with hundreds of creatures charging right towards them. Ronon fired off another blast, knocking one of the creatures back but it only fumbled slightly before it joined in the charge again. "They are getting closer," Teyla announced.

"I know!" Rodney yelled, "telling me that they're coming closer every five seconds is not helping!"

"Well when they get here we're not going to be able to yell at you anymore," John yelled back, "because we'll all be dead! We already lost two teams on the planet, and I do not want to die because of a bunch of wildebeest stampeding wannabes!"

"They aren't even close to wildebeests, they're more like-" Rodney began as he fumbled with some wires.

"Rodney!" Teyla, Ronon and John yelled in unison.

"...buffalo?" Rodney finished as the lights to the jumper went on. Immediately Teyla and Ronon moved forward to their seats as John closed the back door and shot the jumper straight up, hitting a few branches in the process. Rodney didn't move to his seat until they were well off the planet and into the space surrounding it, headed toward the spacegate.

"I didn't fix the jumper," Rodney said, his brows furrowed as he furiously hit away at his computer.

"Sure you did," John said, "we're flying and everything."

"No, I mean, my calculations weren't done, I only needed a few more seconds of course, but I wasn't done."

"Well, whatever you did worked," Ronon shrugged. Rodney didn't reply, instead he just kept hitting away at his computer and recalculating the scenario to figure out what had malfunctioned with the jumper.

Now:

A woman ran across the forest floor, stopping in front of a stream. Toes attached to dirty and calloused feet hit the side of the steam as she leaned over, her matted hair covering her face as her dirty hand reached out for water and scooped it up, bringing it to her mouth. She was completely nude, her body infested with bug bites that had become welts.

A shot rang out across the forest. Her head jerked up in surprise and she made a small grunting noise and immediately jumped back behind a nearby tree. The sound of barking followed the shot across the forest, the sound moved closer and closer to her. Her entire body tensed as her head cocked from one side to the other.

The woman dove back into a few bushes, crouching into a tight ball. She lightly parted the front leaves of the bush, watching the area in front of her as a man, a boy and a dog approached. The dog was sniffing the ground when suddenly his head jerked up and he headed straight for the bush she was in.

She pushed the dog away, but he came back, licking her as he started barking. "Dad?" The boy asked the taller man, looking at the bush as it moved back and forth and their dog kept barking.

"A squirrel, maybe," the father replied. He tensed as the dog was pushed back, a human hand clearly the thing that was pushing him.

"Dad," the son said again, having also seen the hand.

"Stay here," the man replied cautiously, stepping forward to the bush. "Hey, you there," he said roughly as his dog ran up to him and started to bark again. The bush remained absolutely still.

Cautiously the man stepped forward, spreading the branches of the bush. He was startled to see the naked woman, who looked up to him with equal surprise. "I'm sorry," he responded, but then he noticed the wild look in her eyes, how matted her hair was, and how dirty she was. "Are you okay?"

Her jaw moved, as if she was trying to speak but couldn't. "Do you need help?" The man asked, his voice softer as her eyes moved back and forth, as if scanning his face for answers.

"H-" she stuttered and stopped then tried again, "help," she dragged out the word, her tone not quite what it should have been. "Help me?" She asked, the words were mutated but understandable. The man nodded.

"We'll get you out of here," he said calmly as he turned to his son. "Go get my phone," His son stared at him, "now!"

The woman startled at the order and he turned back to her quickly, lowering himself to her level as he calmly 'shhhd' her as if she were a child. He reached a hand out cautiously to her, and for a moment she just stared at it. He nodded to her, and she reached out and put her hand in it. He pulled her up slowly, then shrugged his coat off and placed it over her. The dog barked at her and she winced, pulling away from the man.

"Quiet," the man ordered the dog, who obediently responded by not barking. "It's okay," he cooed to the woman, who jerked her head at every small sound in the forest. He wondered what had happened to the poor soul, and gently guided her out of the forest and to the hospital.

-------

"Are we sure it's her?" Daniel Jackson asked.

"If not it's her doppelganger," Jack O'Neill replied. Daniel raised an eyebrow towards him, "been watching a lot of sci-fi lately."

"We should send somebody," Daniel said.

"Already did, she's on her way here now but she's in rough shape according to her doctors. You worked with her the most, they want you to talk to her."

Daniel frowned, "What about-"

"We're not telling them yet," Jack said. Daniel's frown deepened, he opened his mouth to protest but Jack raised his hands and spoke over him, "We need to make sure. How would you feel in their position?"

"I'd want to know," Daniel replied, his brow furrowing in annoyance.

"If it turns out we're wrong?"

Daniel frowned, but didn't respond, "When does she get here?"

Jack checked his watch, "Oh, about... fifteen minutes ago. We put her in holding room five." Daniel shook his head lightly at the other man, and the two of them ventured down the hall and to the holding room.

Inside the room the woman was pacing back and forth. She'd been washed and her hair had been brushed out and was now held in a loose ponytail; it fell to her mid-back. For clothes she'd been changed from hospital scrubs to a standard green stargate outfit.

When Daniel entered she was startled and moved back to the wall farthest from him. "It's okay," he told her, "my name is Daniel Jackson. We know each other. Do you remember anything?"

She shook her head quickly. "Can you speak?" He asked, moving closer to her slowly so that she wasn't intimidated. She pulled back slightly, but not as much as before.

"Y-yes," she nodded, "haven't... had... to," her words were slow, but more understandable than they had been before. Daniel nodded, he gently reached out and held her by the elbow. She looked down but didn't flinch and he lightly guided her to one of the chairs positioned at the table in the middle of the room. He pulled two chairs out so that they were facing each other and placed her in one while he sat in the other.

"Do you know how long you were in the woods?"

She shook her head, "No... lost count."

"And you're sure you remember nothing?"

"I-" she paused, "I remember how to do things... I remember words and meaning... words from different languages too. At first... I didn't. I do now."

"That's good," he nodded.

"You're... Daniel?" She asked. He nodded, smiling gently at her. "You know me..." her voice trailed off.

"Yes," he supplied, "we've worked together before." He paused, lowering his eyes from her as he considered his options, "You see... we're not quite sure what's going on. You're suppose to be dead. Not that I'm one to judge coming back from the dead," he added wryly.

Her eyes studied his face for a moment, more focused than he'd seen them since he'd first walked in. "Who am I?"

"Dr. Elizabeth Weir," he said quietly. "You use to broker treaties for the UN, you were temporarily head of the SGC here, then you led the Atlantis expedition."

"Elizabeth," she repeated her name firmly. "I'm not dead," it wasn't a question, simply a statement.

"No," Daniel replied, "no, I guess you're not."

"Why?" She asked, then paused when she realized how open-ended the question was. "Why... should I be and why am I not?"

He paused, looking up the to the glass watching area where Jack and Landry were both watching. Jack nodded, the subtle cue was enough to let Daniel know that all the blood work they had double and triple checked had come back showing that she was, in fact, Elizabeth Weir.

"I really shouldn't be the one telling you this," Daniel replied, wishing once more that they had alerted Atlantis to the situation. After all, now that the city was cloaked in San Francisco they were just a phone call and plane trip away. But Jack had already been clear that they weren't to be told. He only knew the story from mission files he had read, but with a sigh he spoke again. "You led Atlantis," he began, going through the story to when she had downloaded into the replicator's body and eventually telling her how she had stepped through the Atlantis gate and into a spacegate.

She remained quiet as her eyes diverted to ground. "It's a lot to take in," Daniel offered.

"No, it makes sense... those words, I've known them all for a while," she said. Having been in the woods for so long and not in touch with the world or media she didn't find stargates or replicators incredible, simply words that she had slowly remembered. After another couple of moments she raised her head again, and for just a minute Daniel caught a glimpse of the woman who had negotiated with the goa'uld. "What happens now?"

"Well, that part we're not really sure about," Daniel admitted, "we want to keep you here for a while... just in case."

"Just in case?" She repeated, her eyebrows raising.

"Well, we've seen a lot here," Daniel admitted, "we want to make sure you are who we think you are."

She considered this for a moment, her mouth lowering into a frown, "I'm a threat." Daniel didn't respond, and for another moment they both simply sat in silence.

-------

"The IOA thinks she's a threat," General Landry mirrored her words at the meeting between himself, General O'Neill, Dr. Lam, and SG1 since they'd had the most contact with Elizabeth when she'd run the SGC.

"You can't really be talking about putting her in a cell for the rest of her life," Daniel practically yelled.

General Landry frowned, sitting at the front of the table with his hands clasped. Daniel continued, "She's a hero, she died for the Atlantis expedition... her negotiations with the goa'uld are part of the reason Ba'al and other system lords didn't attack us, she deserves the best we can give her."

"We have no idea if that woman is actually Dr. Weir!" Landry shot back.

"All her tests have come back positive," Dr. Lam said, "I couldn't say how but for all intensive purposes that woman is Elizabeth Weir, there's not even a trace of the replicator cells that were put into her body."

"Perhaps she is an alternate reality version of Elizabeth Weir," Teal'c suggested.

"Well," Samantha started as everyone's eyes inevitably turned to her, "I suppose that's possible... though there was no indication of any sort of technology that could have triggered that on her or in the forest she was found in. We've also never encountered amnesia with inter-dimensional travel."

"She's getting her memory back," Daniel insisted, "she said she didn't know words at first but now she can fully communicate. If we give her time she might be able to tell us how she got here herself."

"I'm with Jackson," Cameron said, "if the woman is the hero she's suppose to be we at least owe her the chance to speak for herself. We already have her under surveillance and she has a guard detail," he added, "so she poses no immediate threat." With Cameron's backing Daniel glanced imploringly towards Jack.

"Well, as much as I love to please the IOA," Jack began, "I say we give the woman a chance to prove herself one way or the other."

General Landry nodded, "my recommendation will be that we keep her here for observation. Though I doubt the IOA will appreciate that, they might want to hold a hearing on the matter."

Daniel nodded, "I'll go, speak on her behalf."

Landry nodded in agreement, "It's decided then."

The team shuffled to get up, and as they did so Vala smirked at Daniel, "Jealous?"

"What?" He asked, blinking at her.

"Well, if this Weir woman is who she says she is, you're not the only one who can die and come back," Vala grinned. Daniel rolled his eyes at her.

------

A month passed, and in that month the IOA managed to keep holding hearings on Elizabeth. Daniel presented her case again and again... and again. Eventually the IOA had conceded to let the SGC handle it as long as they were kept in the loop. Daniel was now comfortably in his office, going over recently found texts, when he heard a light knocking on the side of his open door.

"I am not jealous!" He groaned.

"That's good for you?" Elizabeth responded. He looked up in surprise.

"Oh, sorry... I thought you were Vala, somehow she managed to tag along to the hearing," he rubbed his hand over his face wearily.

"Ah, yes, Vala," Elizabeth smiled slightly, her speech back to what it had once been, "she's quite... interesting."

He smiled back at her, "How's your memory?"

"Getting to be almost recognizable," she smiled. "I remember most of my life... I think. I remember my dog and getting put in that limo and told about the stargate program," she shook her head, "I remember how crazy I thought the world had become when I found out. I remember Atlantis..." she paused. "I remember... living with the replicators..." her voice trailed off as she looked away from Daniel, pain etched across her face. "Then I came back... and then I was through the gate... that should have been it, I should have lost consciousness and been floating in space in that body permanently. I don't know why I'm here."

Daniel offered a small, sympathetic smile as Elizabeth turned back to look at him. "You'll remember," he offered.

She nodded, shaking off the doubt that was knotting in her stomach. "I wanted to thank you," she added, changing the subject, "for going up to bat for me."

"Yeah, well, I know how annoying it can be to die and come back... again," he offered.

"Still, I appreciate it," she said. "So, what are you working on?"

He motioned towards a small wooden stick that was sitting in the middle of his desk. "I'm trying to learn what this is, the writing engraved on it is from a few different languages, and once you wave your hand over it..." he did so, and a small flame lit at the top of it, but didn't burn the wood. "Sam can't figure out why it does that, so we think it's pretty advanced."

Elizabeth looked at the flame for a moment before quietly saying, "If you immediately know the candlelight is fire..."

Daniel's head jerked up, "Excuse me?"

"Oh, it's nothing, just one of those flashes of memory I have that doesn't make sense," she shrugged.

"What's the whole flash?"

"If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago... I don't know what it's from, I thought maybe a riddle I'd heard sometime..." she stopped as Daniel just stared at her. "What?"

"I think we just figured out how you got back," he said quietly.