A Tale of Two Jacks.
Notes:
This story spans several seasons, and will contain spoilers in reference to episodes. It is my intent to write material that compliments and parallels canon without contradiction. Any errors, unintentional as they may be, are entirely mine.
It is a convenience for the show's writers to equate one year for every season. However, taking into account recovery time from various injuries, and that some stories span more than one week (such as the 100 days Jack spends stuck on Edora), it makes sense to me that each season spans time greater than one year. Therefore, there is plenty of space between episodes for stories such as this to take place.
This story opens late in Season 2, when a palm print was required to open the iris.
Part 1. A Pair of Jacks or Better to Open.
Trouble began for the SGC as it usually did: with the gate charging up, chevrons lighting, the inner wheel spinning, the iris grinding shut as alarms came to life. Sergeant Harriman announced, "Incoming wormhole!" When the General came to stand next to him, he reported, "Receiving IDC from SG-1, sir."
"Right on time," General Hammond noted. "Open it, Sergeant."
"Yes, sir. Opening the iris." The sergeant's hand fit into the ID box and the shield grated open.
A moment later, the event horizon rippled and boots broke the surface. Boots followed by legs dressed in familiar green fatigues.
It took a moment, however, for Hammond to register that those legs were not, following the usual attachments upward, connected to the faces he expected to see. He grabbed the microphone and barked, "Shut down the gate! Close the iris! Security to the gate room!"
Harriman responded quickly. The wormhole whooshed off even as the iris scraped shut over the empty space.
Three arrivals on the ramp spun, weapons coming up as if expecting someone on their heels.
"Drop your weapons!" Captain Reynolds shouted as marines took up positions between the ramp and the closing security doors.
A six foot something redhead looked down at the row of weapons pointed her direction, eyebrows lifting. "Us? You mean us?" Hesitantly, realizing that they did, indeed, mean her, she gave the command, "Do it," to her two companions and, hands moving slowly, obediently disconnected her P-90. "Really, guys, what's up?"
At that moment, the stargate charged up again.
Marines brusquely enveloped the unresisting arrivals, moving them quickly down the ramp as the wormhole bang-whooshed against the iris.
Sergeant Harriman looked a question up at Hammond. "Receiving IDC from SG-1, sir."
The general scowled. "Another, Sergeant?"
"Yes, sir."
Two signals only moments apart. Hammond had to wonder what the hell was going on. Was their code compromised? Or had O'Neill just sent ahead three visitors? If he had, where had the strangers gotten the BDUs and their equipment? Had these people managed to compromise his field team in some way? "Sergeant, send a signal back through. Activate the MALP camera, and request a visual. Let's be sure who we're talking to this time."
"Yes, sir." Harriman spoke into the transmitter, "Sierra Gulf One Niner, this is Sierra Gulf Charlie. Requesting visual contact."
The MALP signal connected, the sunny view of conifers in the background shifting as the distant camera was manually tilted upward. Colonel Jack O'Neill's familiar face filled the screen. "SG-one-niner here, Sierra Gulf Charlie."
"Good to see you, SG-1-Niner," Hammond radioed back.
"Is there a problem, sir?"
Indeed there was. "Did you just send someone through the gate?"
"No one here but us chickens, sir."
Although that was ample opportunity, O'Neill wasn't using any code to indicate duress, and he certainly looked like he still had his own gear and clothes. Hammond hesitated, looking down at the strangers in the gateroom. To Harriman, "Open the iris, Sergeant." Back to O'Neill, "We just wanted visual confirmation, Colonel." They could discuss the rest when SG-1 was back. "Come on home."
"Copy that," O'Neill responded. "On our way, sir."
Moments later, the real SG-1 stepped out onto the ramp—all four of them.
Still being relieved of weapons and equipment by the swarm of marines, the redheaded stranger looked up at Jack, eyeing his uniform. "Who are you?"
Jack returned the look, frowning. He knew the face of every SG team that passed through the gate, and this woman wasn't one of them. She sure as hell wasn't entitled to the SG-1 patch on her sleeve. "Just who the hell are you?"
"Colonel Jack O'Neill, US Air Force."
He did a double take, as did his team, exchanging looks behind him.
"And you're not one of my people," the redhead finished. "Teal'c, did you pick up some friends on the way home?"
Teal'c looked at her coolly. "I did not."
"Well," Jack pointed two fingers at the stranger, "you sure as hell ain't me."
"What do you mean," she shot back, "you?"
"As in, I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill. And you're not."
The woman's eyes went straight up to Hammond. "Sir?"
She expected him to know her? Hammond's mouth was a line. Two identical SG-1 IDC signals, within moments of each other? He leaned over to the microphone. "You are not Colonel Jack O'Neill. Captain Reynolds, take them into custody and down to the infirmary isolation rooms." Releasing the mic button, he told Harriman, "I want Captain Fraiser on this immediately." These strangers with their clothes and their IDC codes could be some kind of plant, carrying a virus, or worse—God knew, they had seen worse before—and he needed to know if the SGC had been exposed to anything ASAP.
Of the two others who had arrived with the woman claiming to be O'Neill, the lean blonde man pointed at Daniel Jackson, asking, "Your name wouldn't happen to be Sam Carter, would it?"
Daniel blinked, then shook his head. "Um, no. Jackson. Daniel Jackson."
The shortest of the three strangers, a dumpling of a woman with sandy blonde hair that curled at her collar, started, eyes widening. As she pushed glasses back up her nose, Daniel absently mirrored the gesture.
The slim woman beside Daniel answered, "I'm Major Sam Carter."
The thin man half turned to meet her eyes. "Interesting. So am I."
"Dani," the red haired woman said in a familiar, aggravated tone, "you better not have been playing with that mirror thingy again."
Both Daniel and the bespectacled woman jumped guiltily. "Um, no," they said in sync. "That was—um." The pair blinked at each other, stammering off.
"Destroyed," the two Sams finished.
"Indeed," rumbled Teal'c from behind Jack.
"Nice," the strange O'Neill said.
Jack looked up at Hammond.
The general didn't have a good answer, either. "Follow protocol," he ordered. It was off to the infirmary even for the real SG-1.
"Come on, campers," Jack said. "Let's go get cleared so we can debrief."
The strange arrivals exchanged looks. The redhead shrugged. To Reynolds, she said, "You heard the General, Captain. Bring on the protocol."
The irreverant tone was so familiar, Reynolds barely caught himself before he replied with a yes ma'am just out of habit. While the real SG-1 headed off for the infirmary, his security team escorted the others down to the isolation wards.
The strangers made no complaint when they were told to strip down to skivvies. As his team took their things, Reynolds paused over a couple of the items. He didn't have to be a scientist to know that the watch that the strange O'Neill wore wasn't USAF issue, and their Carter's k-bar was not exactly American made. Both definitely looked like a mix of alien alloys, even to his untrained eye, and he had to wonder if there was anything else unusual in their gear. Or dangerous.
Definitely time to take the full precautions with all of it, he determined. Once the visitors were separated from their gear however, and led off to another room, a more thorough search of the stranger's equipment turned up nothing else unexpected. At least, once Reynolds got over the surprise of finding their own team's gear in the strangers' packs. A double check revealed that, yes, the real SG-1's gear was still in their possession. Now there were just duplicates. Reynolds shook his head at the real Colonel O'Neill. "I'll get these down to Dr. Lee."
"You do that," Jack agreed. This was just . . . creepy.
In the meantime, Dr. Frasier and her medical team had set to work.
Janet quickly found she was grateful the teams were in two separate rooms. It was eerie how they echoed each other, wondering about the others, pretty much asking the same questions. "That guy had my name?" and, "I don't look anything like her, do I?" being the first topic of discussion. "Are we sure we're in the right place?" being another.
"You really don't know us?" the small blonde asked from behind those strangely familiar spectacles.
Janet saw no reason not to answer. "I've never seen you before."
"Dr. Danielle Jackson," the stranger introduced herself. "Pleased to meet you."
"Again," the strange O'Neill muttered.
"Pleased, I'm sure," Janet returned.
Danielle smiled. "We're going to get along famously."
The strangers compliantly let Dr. Frasier and her team withdraw blood and do basic physical checks, but when it came time to take them down for for X-Rays and MRIs, the woman O'Neill interposed herself between her companions and the doorway. Arms crossed, she looked evenly at the doctor. "Now, Doc," she said reasonably, "I'd really rather the three of us went together."
Janet hesitated, uncertain at the sudden decision to be confrontational. If the newcomers had wanted to cause trouble, they had already had plenty of opportunity before they were disarmed.
But the stranger just stood there, eyes unyielding, even when Reynolds took a half step her direction.
Janet shook her head at the marine. The red phone was only a few steps away, and when Janet dialed, she was transferred immediately to the general. "We have a small problem."
Already cleared by Frasier's team, Jack had joined Hammond upstairs, and was watching the doctor's progress on the base cameras. Jack didn't have to guess why the stranger had protested: it was basic field training that when taken captive, resist letting your team be split up. The woman was seeing how hospitable her captors were. "Sir," he suggested, "have the doc take them together."
Hammond nodded that he already understood. Picking up the phone on the first ring, he listened, then answered, "I understand, Captain. You have clearance to go ahead and take the three of them at the same time." It cost little to let them have that much.
"Yes, sir." Janet hung up the red line. "If you'll all come this way," she told the visitors.
The team leader opened hands, acknowledging her host's generosity. "Thanks, Doc. Appreciate that."
Janet received no other protest, not even when she quarantined the threesome in one of the base's VIP holding rooms. By then, the strangers were only asking about food, showers, and a fresh change of clothes, all of which was provided.
Not that the green BDUs fit the diminuative Jackson, who gave a long suffering sigh and set to work rolling up sleeves and the bottoms of her pants so she could walk without tripping.
It wasn't until the security door was closed and the marines were finally outside that the thin blonde man turned to his CO and said, "Did you notice the flags, ma'am?"
Their O'Neill shook her head. "Flags?"
He touched his shoulder where the US flag patch would have been on his uniform and said pointedly, "Fifty stars."
She gave him a disbelieving look. How the hell did he have the eyesight to count the little tiny stars? Then she shook her head, stretching out on one of the bottom bunks. Carter was unbelievable sometimes. Still, she had to give him credit for noticing. "You think our Goa'ould interrogators messed up, Major?"
He shook his head. "I don't think the Goa'ould have the technological savvy to hijack a wormhole, ma'am. If they could, we'd have been dead a long time ago."
"That sure looked like Major General George Hammond to me. And Captain Frasier. And Reynolds and Wells, and Harriman and—"
"Yes, ma'am. It looks like home. But I don't think it is."
A sigh. "You were right, Sammy."
It wasn't in him to say, 'I told you so,' to anyone, much less his superior, and Carter wasn't the kind to do so in any case. "Without access to tools and data, ma'am, there's no way to be sure exactly what's happened. But if they're really an SGC, maybe we can convince them to help us."
The redhead's eyes suddenly widened, then her face wrinkled. "Ew!"
"Ma'am?"
"A male me? I mean," she opened hands, unable to say the words, and then just, "Ew!"
The little blonde woman tsked. "I think we have more important things to think about than whether or not your counterpart hooked up with your exes."
The colonel sat up, her face screwing up even more. "What?! How could you even think that? Double ew, Dani!"
The compact blonde rolled her eyes in disgust. "Jack."
Hands opened in protest, the unspoken, I wasn't the one to bring it up.
A scolding, "Jack!"
"We have about forty-eight hours," their Carter pushed fingers through thinning hair, "before we experience entropic cascade failure. I need to get started with that data."
"They're not going to let you do anything tonight," the redhead said. "The little Napoleonic Bonaparte won't get all her tests back until morning."
"I don't even have anything to make notes on," Carter groused, looking around the room. A motel would at least have had some stationary.
"All the more reason to get some shuteye."
"Maybe they'd give me some paper at least."
"That's an order, Major."
She was right, of course. And it had been a long day. Still, Sam wished he could do something, get started somewhere. Already his head was filling up with figures, angles, questions he needed answers for. "Yes, ma'am."
The next morning, Colonel Jack O'Neill carefully combed the security tape from their room. However, there wasn't much more to see or hear than that one brief, private dialogue.
A dialogue made more creepy because he knew, he just plain knew what that woman was thinking every time she said something. C'mon, fifty stars? That Carter kid had damned good eyesight. Jack wondered how many stars they had expected to see.
On the video, their Carter was the last to obediently hit his bunk, turning out the light. There was no talking, no handsign subtly passed in the darkness visible in the slant of light from the security door. Their Carter tossed and turned restlessly most of the night, but the women were cutting some Zs in short order.
Their O'Neill wasn't so deeply asleep, Jack noted, that she didn't notice the changing of the guard. When the shadows crossed the little window in the doorway as marines changed places, she shifted in her bunk, just enough to let Jack know that she was as light a sleeper in the field as he was. Twice she got up to see who was posted, once touching the wall as if the see if it was the familiar SGC concrete. He could almost hear her reassuring herself that it was not some Goa'ould alloy.
Yep, knowing what she was thinking was creepy, alright.
And she might have talked about the place being similar to home, but the stranger claiming Jack's name wasn't that relaxed about being here. If she thought like him at all, she had said the things she did not because she wanted her teammates to let their guard down, but to encourage them to get some sleep while she was still fresh enough to watch over them. Aware that, no matter how gently they had been treated, they were still captives, and she didn't want the others to come into interrogations with tired minds.
And there would be an interrogation. She had to know their hosts would have questions. If she really was from an SGC, she had to suspect that their room was bugged, with an unseen camera or two in place. And if she really was a female him—oi, this was going to be an aspirin heavy day, he knew already—then she knew exactly where those bugs and cameras were because she had supervised their placement in her own parallel base.
In fact, her entire conversation might have even been just for his benefit. It was, after all, something he might have done.
Jack filed that particular suspicion away for later.
He was not the only early arrival at the base that morning.
Janet was waiting when test results started trickling in to her office. She had to do a double, then a triple check. Something, definitely something, was going on here. At 0600, she took her files and went in search of the general.
As she passed through the briefing room on the way to Hammond's office, she could see Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson had spread some journals and papers out on the briefing room table.
"It's creepy, Jack," Daniel was saying. "Her journal, my journal. They're the same damn notes, verbatim."
"I saw that, Daniel," Jack said.
"Jack," he flipped the journals closed, thrusting the spines under his friend's nose, "they have the same scratches." He flipped them both back over, crinkled pages falling open. "The same damned coffee stains! Do you realize how hard it would be to duplicate a coffee stain?"
"Mornin' Doc," Jack called back over his shoulder.
"Colonel," Janet said on her way by. "Dr. Jackson."
"Dr. Frasier," Daniel returned, not neglecting to flash her a dimpled smile.
"The question," Jack said to his team member, "is whether the journal is authentic, Dr. Archaeologist. Or if it's just some made up something or other someone stuck in there as bait."
"I'm telling you," Daniel said slowly, as he did when he was resisting strangling a particularly dense USAF colonel, "I can't tell the two of them apart. And I just made a handful of these notes right before we came through the gate—you know, when Sam was dialing us home. When did anyone have time to forge this one?"
"Captain," Hammond greeted the doctor with his slow Texas twang. "Come in, take a seat. I take it you have some news for me."
"Sir, I don't know where to start," Janet said as she took the chair opposite his.
Hammond went straight to the basics. "Are they human?"
"Oh, they're very human, sir."
"So we're not looking at androids."
"Not a comtraya among them, sir, although I almost wish there were. At least I could explain that."
"What are you saying, Doctor?" He noted on the file Janet passed him that it was Jacqueline O'Neill, not Jonathan. There was some telling them apart on paper, at least.
"Except for the X and Y factor," Janet replied, "they have the exact same alleles as our team. That's not unusual in Siamese twins, sir, who would be the same sex, but fraternal twins don't match this way."
"They don't?"
"No, sir. Siamese twins happen when the same fertilized egg splits and becomes two people, two born from the same DNA, so in essence, the active genes are identical. Fraternal twins are when two separate eggs are fertilized and share a womb, resulting in sibling DNA, which is not an exact copy of the same active genes. I've sent blood off to Area 51 for a more thorough gene mapping, to be sure, but I suspect this goes beyond shared alleles. And then there are the physical anomalies."
"Which are?"
"They have the exact same tooth shape, even the same fingerprints. Not nearly the same, sir, but exactly the same, right down to Major Carter's mole. Even scars and bone history is startlingly similar."
He seized on that. "Startlingly similar? But not exactly the same."
"Not quite." In each folder, Frasier had compiled a comparison page, noting discrepancies. Jacqueline, Hammond saw from the notes, had better knees than his man, but there was a similar history of broken bones that showed up on X-rays. Hammond knew enough about broken bones to know that, just like coffee stains, it wasn't possible to simply break a bone to duplicate the eerily similar lines of fracture in the O'Neills' films.
"Then there's this," Janet went on, changing files for him, "The extra protein left by Jolinar in both Carters. And it's not just their bodies that have this twin-like effect." She handed over the two sets of dogtags.
One was for a Major Samantha Carter, the other for a Major Samuel Carter, with the same ID numbers. Otherwise, the tags were identical down to a dent crimped in one end.
Janet glanced back at the briefing room where Daniel was still shaking his head over the pair of journals. "I see Dr. Jackson is finding similarities with other possessions."
"Doctor," Hammond declared, "do you think someone cloned my people and made some kind of mental download so these imposters think they're someone they're not?"
"With the technology we've seen, sir, I have to believe almost anything is possible. And yet, with a mental download, as you put it, they would remember being male or female. This group knows their own gender, sir. And," she hesitated. At the general's encouraging nod, she added, "If they were supposed to replace our people and infiltrate Stargate Command, then why make them so noticeable? It just doesn't make sense that someone with that kind of technology would make such an obvious mistake."
"I agree, Doctor." The general sighed, looking down at the evidence of the folders, considering the implications. Then he pushed back his chair, indicating to the doctor that she should join him with his second in command. "Colonel."
Already knowing what was on the general's mind, Jack was frowning at the journals, trying to think how best to get the answers they needed.
Daniel voiced the most direct option. "You want us to go talk to them?"
"No." Jack shook his head. You didn't put your best people in a locked room with suspicious characters right off the bat. "Not yet."
Hammond asked, "Another idea, Colonel?"
"Let's shake things up a little bit, see how they react." At the general's nod, "We'll have T bring them up here, give Mr. Chatty Kathy a chance to talk them up. See what kind of questions they ask him along the way."
Hammond nodded. "Teal'c."
Mr. Chatty Kathy? Teal'c glanced around, but he did not see anyone by that name. "Am I to wait here, Colonel O'Neill?"
Jack pinched eyebrows at him. "What?"
"To accompany Mr. Chatty Kathy?"
"Ah—just an expression, Teal'c. You go on down now."
Teal'c bowed his head and departed.
Jack picked up the video remote, dialing up the security feed to the Visitor's room. The briefing room monitor filled with three split screens until he adjusted it, bringing up the one with the best view of the threesome sitting around their room's little table.
"If you're not going to drink that," Danielle was saying, pointing meaningfully at a coffee mug.
"Take it." Jacqueline pushed it her direction. "But I'm cutting you off at three."
Their Carter started to say something, but at Danielle's glance, thought better of it. Their O'Neill caught the exchange, looked from one to the other. "What?"
Carter put down his napkin, retreating with, "I should brush my teeth."
At the archaeologist's blank look, the colonel said pointedly, "You could let Carter drink his own coffee."
Danielle shrugged. "Why start a new habit?"
In the briefing room, Jack looked once at Daniel, but the younger man remained focused on the screen, as if what had been spoken were some sage puzzle requiring intense consideration.
At the knock on their door, Danielle ruefully downed the last cold swish of coffee. "Finally." It was Jackqueline, however, who stepped between her and the door.
Teal'c filled the doorway, rumbling matter-of-factly into the room, "You are to be brought for questioning."
Subtle, Jack thought. Teal'c was always the one for subtlety.
At those words, however, Jacqueline O'Neill's stance changed ever so slightly. She took a small step, placing herself a little closer to the Jaffa.
And Jack saw the casual, and yet not at all casual shift in her weight, hands coming to rest at her sides. "Shit!" he cursed, realizing just what message he had just sent, what message he would have received if he had been the one in that room and Apophis' Prime—no matter that it was former prime—had come for them.
What anyone who had spent any time at all as a prisoner without the courtesies of the Geneva Convention would think, what someone who had endured unethical interrogations would assume, what would go through a professional paranoid's mind: that maybe SGCs in alternate realities were different, and maybe this one wasn't on the same ethical wavelength as her home. After all, if Hammond wanted someone to do dirty work, he wouldn't send someone who had to answer to the government or the USAF.
Never mind that Hammond didn't work that way—there were people who did.
Ignoring startled looks from his companions, O'Neill was out of the general's office fast enough to make his knees protest even before he hit the stairs, taking them two, three at a time, gripping the railing and doing a controlled jump the last six down a level. Running in a way that formerly retired USAF officers who liked so much beer and fishing shouldn't have to run.
He gripped the doorframe and skidded to a stop just behind the Jaffa. Oh, thank god—everyone was still in one piece. "Teal'c, buddy!" he exclaimed, gripping the big man's shoulder, tugging.
As if Teal'c could be moved by anything less than a bulldozer. The big Jaffa had spent the last few moments in unbroken eye contact with the strange O'Neill. Yes, he had noticed the shift in weight, the silent preparation. And he had seen, in her eyes, that she knew he had seen. Thus the moment of hesitation, of two warriors faced off, taking each other's measure, mentally weighing weakness. Just as he noticed that she did not seize the moment during O'Neill's distractive behavior. Finally, he took a step back, allowing his friend to guide him out of the way.
"Changed my mind!" Jack was saying quickly, deliberately placing himself between the two. "Why don't you leave this one to me, pal. Go on out there in the hall, out of the way." Out of reach of cornered air force colonels with black ops training who might, out of desperation, decide she had no choice but take some damage. He grinned, trying to send the unspoken message, See? We didn't mean it. Please don't hurt anyone. Please don't make us hurt you. He read what he knew, he just knew, was an unforgiving look in her eye. "I'm sorry," he said immediately, sobering, addressing directly that part of himself in her that would understand, that part of himself he tried so hard not to let his team see. "I was the one who sent him down here. That wasn't what you think."
"Really?" she said neutrally. "And what was it I was thinking?"
No dancing around it, not if he wanted any cooperation out of her. "We're not in Baghdad."
Her expression didn't change, but eyes shifted, moving over him, sizing him up in turn.
She was a little heavier than he was, he noted, although that was to be expected, as women tended to carry an extra 15% body fat; hers was mostly padding the appropriate places women tended to curve in a way he hoped he never did. Her face was too square for any beauty contests, though. She looked, he thought, a bit too much like him for that. He could almost read the thoughts flickering behind those eerily familiareyes, risks weighed, options discarded. The same split second mental chess he engaged in as she factored in the history that he already knew, from comparing Janet's x-rays, was written in both their bones.
Daniel was right; in this case, his suggestion wasn't just the best approach, but the only approach. Not one to linger over mistakes, he opened a hand. "Look, why don't you and your team come on up to the briefing room? Your Jackson can chat with my Jackson, your Carter with my Carter, and we can all sit down and have a visit. Together. Maybe we can figure out what's going on, and what to do about it."
At last some of the tension left those deceptively relaxed looking hands.
Jack was more than a little relieved that whatever she did next wasn't going to involve attempting to dismember anyone. Particularly him, as he had strategically placed himself as her nearest target.
But before Jacqueline O'Neill could say anything, Danielle Jackson stepped out from behind her. "Oh, can we go, already? There's coffee up there, right?"
Jack had to suppress a grin. Exactly how Daniel would cut him off, one of those annoying Jackson actions that had made Jack have to resist the impulse to strangle the man, on more than one occasion. Were archaeologists/linguists just naturally oblivious to the subtleties of what had just happened? Perhaps not, he thought as he looked down at those disarming blue eyes; perhaps not so much as he thought, anyway. And this morning, he was more than a little grateful to be on the receiving end of that dimpled smile. Jack tilted his head, a half Teal'c-like nod. He wasn't sure why, but he felt the impulse to offer her his arm. "Your wish is my command, ma'am. Right this way, Doctor Jackson. Perhaps we can even convince Daniel to part with some of his private coffee stash?"
"You know about that, do you?"
"Only that he doesn't put base coffee in his office coffeemaker."
Deliberately addressing the nearest hallway camera, she said, "If he were to bring up the same stuff kept in my bottom drawer on the right—not the left, mind you—you might yet convince me of the sincerity of your good intentions, Colonel O'Neill."
Jacqueline exhaled. "Way to resist their interrogation techniques, Dani."
Back upstairs, Daniel cast an apologetic glance at the general and his coffee dispenser before he took the hint and hit the stairs. He passed Samantha on her way up. "Secret's out."
"Which one?" she wondered.
"Ah—my coffee."
"But not—"
"Nope."
"Forgivable, then."
An aggrieved, "For you," before he was past.
Back upstairs, Teal'c took up a watchful position with the marines.
"General Hammond, sir," Jack said, "may I present our guests. I believe we all know each other."
Hammond gave him a nod. If this was how his 2IC wanted to play it, he was willing to give the man the lead. He addressed the strangers, "Obviously, you are not our SG-1."
"Oh, we know we're not in Kansas anymore, General," Jacqueline added the title both out of habit and out of respect to the man who shared a parallel with her own CO. "And I understand your skepticism, sir." There was no point pretending she didn't share it. "But, we think we have an idea what's going on. We're pretty sure we're in an alternative lifestyle."
"Alternate reality, ma'am," Samuel corrected.
A wave. "Yeah, that thing."
"A pleasure to meet you," Danielle said, offering her hand to the general and then their Carter. "Is it Major Carter?"
Samantha smiled. "Yes. I take it you've met someone who wasn't?"
"He was a civilian. I'm finding I have a bit of a preference for air force officers."
Samuel, who had been looking intently at Samantha, said, "What number am I thinking of?"
Without hesitation, she answered, "Pi."
"To what degree?"
"Seventeen."
Samuel pursed his lips. "Okay."
She turned the question back on him. "What about a number I'm thinking of?"
"Square root of negative one."
Samantha nodded, and threw out, "Twenty-three."
He followed with, "Two-hundred fifty-six."
"I wonder how long we could keep this up?"
"Just being together, we're bound to have a divergent influence."
She lifted eyebrows. "31x squared?"
"Okay," he admitted, "it might take some time before the influence in obvious."
"It's a physical similarity, too."
"DNA?"
"Captain Frasier confirmed identical alleles. And this." Carter gestured at the two leather bound journals on the long table. To Danielle, "Can you tell them apart?"
Dani reached out to touch one, then flipped them open, coffee stained pages crinkling. "So, your Jack is a bit clumsy, too."
Samantha shot a guilty glance at her CO.
Jack returned the look. "What? If Daniel didn't want the doohickey played with, he wouldn't have left it on the end of his desk."
"I've heard that one before," Dani said mildly, looking back and forth between two pages, running fingers over wrinkles.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jacqueline protested.
Danielle held a journal to her face, inhaling. "Ah, the aroma of quality coffee."
"Doohickey," Jacqueline shot back. "Edge of desk. Not my fault."
"Thus an extremely rare bone flute from the Meiji Era is relegated to being a doohickey. Do you have any idea," Dani tilted her head Jacqueline's direction, "how difficult it would be to duplicate a coffee stain? Exactly?"
Jacqueline rose up on her toes. "Is that like an ink blot test? See any butterflies?"
"Mostly I'm seeing my journal under the hand dryer in the restroom while someone paces around the gate room and blames me for leaving late."
Hammond resisted a grin. Not only was the interaction between the colonel and the doctor remarkably similar to the people he knew so well, he had seen his own colonel doing just that the previous morning.
At that moment, Daniel came up the stairs, a carafe in one hand. "I thought someone might like some coffee."
"Good timing," two O'Neills said together, bumping elbows as they reached for the coffee cups on the side table. They stepped back, started forward, and then were pushed out of the way by Danielle.
"You're a gentleman and a scholar," Dani said gratefully, holding cups for him pour. The first she passed off to Hammond, the second and third were for herself and Daniel.
Still pouring, Daniel graced her with one of his most charming smiles. "I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson."
"I'm Dr. Danielle Jackson," she offered a hand. "For bringing the good stuff," she inhaled, confirming the flavor, "you can call me Dani."
He returned the clasp. Her hand, he thought, was incredibly small, soft. A practiced grip, but warm and welcoming nonetheless. "Hi, Dani. Call me Daniel."
"Civilian archaeologist?"
"And linguist."
Dani asked something else, although not in English.
He recognized the ancient Egyptian without effort. "How many languages do you speak?" she had asked. Hel tilted his head, intrigued, then answered in the same language, "I am skilled with twenty-seven now, although I'm still learning." It used to be twenty-three, of course, but now he was decently conversant with Goa'uld and he was quickly picking up others along the way.
"We must always be learning," Dani pointed out in Spanish. "To stop is to fall behind."
He understood the sentiment all too well; he couldn't afford to fall behind. He followed in Babylonian, "How many do you speak?"
The woman smiled, replying in kind, "Twenty-seven." Changing to yet another, "What writings have you learned in your travels?"
The question and answer between them quickly accelerated. Without stopping to explain to their team, each tried to think of questions that required a knowledge of the language in a way that couldn't be spur of the moment coached, that required answers that would give them a good idea of the other's accent and skill. For the most part, their companions caught only a few familiar words—Abydos, Kerwan—names of planets, races, or people. After a few minutes, the woman asked a question, then made patterns on the table, Daniel watching, reading the unseen marks by following her fingertip, then doing the same as they switched to something of a written test.
The two O'Neills exchanged a glance, shook heads with an I have no idea shrug.
His counterpart was, Jack thought, looking more relaxed. Still suspicious. Hell, front line colonels were paid to be suspicious. But the other members of their teams were making connections, drawing parallels, winning each other over. He suspected it went a long way with her that Danielle had, in her own way, authenticated the journals.
While the exchange between linguists continued, Samuel said, "When I first powered up the gate for home, I thought it looked reddish. It was just a glimpse when the gate first opened, so I wasn't really sure."
"It's really colorless," Major Samantha Carter injected.
"Yes," he agreed. "But we perceive it as blue."
"And the point?" his colonel prompted.
"It made me think of the Doppler Shift," Samuel explained. "Blue shift in starlight indicates that the source is moving toward the viewer. Red shift indicates the source is moving away. And I thought, if the wormhole that opened was red shifted, maybe we walked into a different kind of wormhole than we usually take, one moving in a different direction."
Samantha speculated, "You're thinking maybe instead of a slow moving, short passage, it kicked you into the fast lane," Samantha finished, "and skipped you across planes that separate alternative realities?"
He was nodding.
"M theory?" she wondered.
"With abstract M theory, would it make a difference?"
"Are we ever sure we're coming back to the same place we left in the first place?"
"Regardless of wormholes, are we sure we sleep in the same bed we leave in the morning?"
"I've wondered exactly the same," Samantha said, delighted to find someone else who understood the implication.
Samuel pointed out, "Never came home to a difference this obvious before, though."
"To two occupying the same M-zone," she nodded.
Other air force officers exchanged looks. No, no one else had any idea what they were talking about either. "My head," two Jacks warned together.
Samantha ducked her head, and Samuel cleared his throat self consciously. "M theory aside," he said, "we're pretty sure we're in a parallel reality the same way we would be if delivered by the Quantum Mirror. The question is the cause."
"Was there a solar flare?" Samantha wondered.
"It's possible," Samuel admitted. "Although the sun of P63-934 isn't between there and Earth, and shouldn't have had an impact even if there was one."
The same planet, Jack noted, his team had come from. No one had told them that.
"And our sun isn't between the stargates, either," Samantha went on.
"Nor did we have to override the mechanism to get a gate lock," Samuel followed. "I didn't see any of the usual suspects we've experienced when we've had gate problems before. Which," he added, "doesn't mean much—"
"Considering," Samantha finished for him, "how little we really know about the technology itself."
"There's also the possibility that there was something on the planet we missed completely. Some artifact we encountered and unknowingly activated?"
At the word artifact, the Jacksons' dialogue ended; they exchanged looks. There had been ruins. That was why the team had been sent in the first place, to look for writings, hints, big ass monster weapons with instruction manuals lain out beside them. "A lot of writing," both of them said.
"No energy readings from the ruins themselves, though," Samantha noted.
"There are," Dani said over her mug, "a few other things that make us pretty certain of the alternative reality theory. I mean, we have been captured by Goa'uld before, with the re-creation of the SGC as a means to extract information from us."
"Don't forget the comtraya guy," Jacqueline tossed out.
An irritated flicker. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"
"I will extract every drop of bitter juice from that lemon, thank you."
"The fact is, sir," Samuel made eye contact with the general, "there are a few differences that we've picked up on. For one, the United States Flag, where we come from, has fifty-three stars."
At the questioning look from Daniel, Danielle explained, "Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands."
"And the watch your Colonel O'Neill is wearing," Samuel went on. "Even if the Goa'uld didn't understand Grell technology, they would have at least done a mock-up for your colonel to wear to make it look convincing. They had a lot better eye for detail than to make simple mistakes like that."
"You know I'm all about the optimism," Jack said. "So you'll excuse me if I point out the obvious here."
"Yeah?" his opposite lifted eyebrows.
"I've seen my share of alternative lifestyles—"
"Realities, sir," his Carter corrected.
"Whatever. The point is, I've never met you guys. And by guys, I mean, is there a Miss Teal'c?"
Slowly, his opposite said, "No."
"Where is your big bundle o' joy, by the way?"
"Oh, you know how he is. Probably checking off names in his little black book."
"Because that's what he's all about."
Hammond had to give her this: Jacqueline could give the obtuse O'Neill smile with the best of them. He had to wonder if Jack was enjoying being the recipient of it, for once. "We don't mean to ask for classified information, Colonel."
"Oh, yes he did," she said without rancor. "But that's okay, sir. I'm sure the Doctors Jackson just spilled enough state secrets to curdle my blood. I'm just glad it was in a language I didn't understand so I don't have to shoot anybody."
"I love you, too, Jack," Dani shot back.
"It is very difficult to fake experienced Abydonian," Daniel told the general.
"What I'm worried about," the redhead said, "is the pair of ducks."
Two Carters automatically corrected, "Paradox."
"Yeah, that thing."
Both Carters nodded with, "Entropic cascade failure." Samantha added, "In our experience, it occurs within about forty-eight hours."
The redhead raked fingers through her short hair, unknowingly creating tufts that stuck up in different directions. "Any ideas on how to reverse the problem?"
"It depends," Samuel replied, "on whether or not we can figure out what caused it in the first place."
"Do you have your sensor data from the planet?" Samantha asked.
She knew the answer to that as well as Samuel did, but he said it anyway. "Most of that was recorded and already transmitted to SGC from the MALP. I think, however, because I supervised its collection, if I could get a look at your data, I may be able to spot discrepancies. From that, I may get some idea of the physics involved."
"General," Jacqueline said, "I think we need your help."
Hammond exchanged looks with his 2IC. Were they completely convinced that their visitors were from an alternate reality? No. Men in their position couldn't afford to let go of that small kernel of doubt, the one that kept them on their toes in case they were completely wrong. But there was a point when the evidence was enough that he could act on the obvious. Hammond answered, "I understand what you're saying, Colonel." He looked at his astrophysicist. "Is there anything in that data that could be an issue, Major?"
Was there anything, every officer in the room translated internally, that someone could use to harm the SGC?
Samantha mentally ran through measurements and the types of information they gathered. Honestly, "I'm not sure, sir. But I don't think so."
"Take their Major Carter down to your lab. Go over the data first," he instructed her. "If you deem it safe to share, Major, then by all means, you and our visiting Major can compare notes."
At his own colonel's nod of permission, Samuel said to the general, "Thank you, sir."
He fell in step beside Samantha, a pair of MPs behind. At Jack's nod, Teal'c followed.
Dani said, "I know which journal is mine."
Daniel looked down at the items in question, looked back at her, obviously bewildered. "How?"
"It's obvious, really," she set her mug down. "Given a little more time, and some tools other than trying to eyeball it, you would have figured it out. I've lived with it all my life, so it's no surprise I should think of it." She held up a hand, palm toward him.
He hesitated, then realized she meant for him to do the same. Lining up the heels, it was obvious his hand was much larger than hers. Not sure of her point, he pointed out, "Our journals are the same size."
"Yes." Cheeks dimpled. She took her hand away and stood both books, spines side by side, toward him.
Realization spread, and with it, how own slow smile. It was subtle, really, that darkened place where oil and sweat from their palms had smoothed the leather. Looked at apart, he doubted he could have told the difference in the size of smudges. But together, he could see where his hand had worn the leather in a slightly larger area. Not much larger, but enough that knowing what he was looking for, he could see it. He took the journal nearest himself and handed it to her. "I believe this belongs to you."
"Thank you, Dr. Jackson."
Jacqueline O'Neill looked at her counterpart. "Well, isn't that special."
"Jack," Dani folded the journal to her side, "are you going to shoot me if we visit? Because, really, I'd like to compare a few notes here with Dr. Jackson. We've obviously had a few different experiences, and I think we could benefit with a little shared knowledge."
Obviously? Both O'Neills wondered just how much information the pair had traded in such a short time.
"Oh," Daniel's mouth opened, and he looked to his own colonel. "That would be great. She's encountered a Babylonian derivative with a verb form I haven't heard before, and I think I have a—"
"Gah!" Jack held up a hand before things got out of hand. "TMI! TMI!"
Jacqueline could have nixed the whole idea right then. But Babylonian derivative verb forms didn't sound like court martial material. She toed a chair from the table and sat, stretching out legs and crossing ankles. "Could I stop you?"
Over the rim of her mug, Danielle answered, "Not really."
"It was a rhetorical question. You could pretend my opinion mattered, for my sake."
Long legs, Jack noted. This stranger with his name had longer legs than his own. But she didn't slouch as well. No one was as slouchy as he was, and he sat down to prove it.
"Could we," Daniel appealed to the general, "go down to my office?"
Hammond didn't have any illusions about controlling his archaeologist, either. As the visiting colonel had previously pointed out, the doctors could have exchanged a wealth of information and it would take base translators hours, maybe days, with the security tape to determine exactly what had been said already. He hesitated at that point only because his people were being paired off. And yet, hadn't the visiting colonel resisted just that yesterday? Tests had proven these people were not trinium laden time bombs. If they were here to take out his people, they would have to do it by hand. And despite his enthusiasm, Dr. Jackson was not completely naive. Besides, the general suspected in just a few hours together, either Daniel would see the visitor for a fraud, or the pair could benefit each other immensely. The potential benefit outweighed the risk ratio. He nodded at Dr. Jackson.
"Oh, thank you, sir."
"Just for the record," Jacqueline said to Jack as the Jacksons departed, "I have no desire to see your office."
"Me neither," Jack agreed.
Hammond thought to himself that wasn't news to anyone.
"Jack one, Jack two," Jack grumbled. "Jackson one, Jackson two. Too damned many Jacks around here for me."
"That your real name?" Jacqueline wondered.
"It's Jonathan," O'Neill admitted.
A teasing glimmer in those familiar brown eyes. "So, Jack is really more my name than yours."
"We are so not going there. I claim seniority."
She opened hands. "Your reality, man. For the sake of confusion, you can call me J.C."
"J.C.?"
"As in," her voice switched to an imitation of a familiar Texas drawl, "Jaysus Christ, O'Neill, what have you done this time?"
Jack's lips twitched. He had inspired a similar quote on numerous occasions, although not yet from the general. Still, he could imagine it. "J.C.," he acknowledged.
Hammond covered his mouth with a hand before the smile working the edges gave him away. How many times had he thought just that? He had to wonder at his implied counterpart that he had been inspired to let the thought slip.
"So," Jack drew the word out. "What are we going to do?"
Jacqueline lifted eyebrows. "We?"
"Everyone else is off doing stuff."
"What do you want to do?"
"We could compare planets we've been to, you know, just to make sure we really have been the same places."
"Because you'd do that in my place."
"Yeah."
"Riiiight."
"Worth a try."
"I imagine you'll get more than you want from the Jacksons."
"But will it be useful?"
"Okay. I'll give you this one." She leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Have you met the Grell?"
Hammond sobered. "Your Major Carter mentioned them."
"They're traders. A little tough to find."
"Why?"
"They're nomadic, don't have a home planet. The best I can give you is methods for making contact. Dani can give your Jackson particulars on communication."
"Why would we want to find them?" Jack wondered.
"Need to restock zat guns? Want control crystals for a teltak? Looking for some Jaffa pajamas so you can infiltrate the nearest slumber party?"
Jack lifted eyebrows.
"The Grell play to all sides," J.C. went on. "If they can scavenge it for you, trade someone else for it, find it laying around somewhere you can't go, they'll sell it—that is, for the right price. Their prices can get pretty steep. They like trinium and naquadah as much as we do. I recommend sticking to renewable resources we're not competing for. Stress the rarity of a crate of oranges, give 'em a couple boxes of Swiss army knives. You'll figure that part out."
They'd figure it out, Hammond guessed, because her people had figured it out. If she wasn't just blowing smoke. "I wouldn't think they would have a timepiece that runs on Earth time."
"Ah," she waggled a finger. "But they do. Have someone bring mine here, and I'll show you just what makes it so cool."
There had been nothing in the review of visitor's equipment that was disguised explosive or biological weapons. The general nodded at one of the marines. In short order, the marine returned with the item.
Hammond looked it over, but the face was blank. Aside from the alloy and minor style differences, it didn't look much different than an average watch. He handed it off to his guest.
She clipped it to her wrist and the display came to life. Turning the watch face so he could see it, she said, "See the background?" Like a computer screen's wallpaper, in the background was the familiar A with the circle at its peak for Earth. "It displays our point of origin. Out there, in space, it displays the point of origin for the planet you're on."
Both Hammond, and then Jack, squinted at the other featured digits. Except for the symbols on the bottom, the watch was a pretty standard timekeeping display. "What's that?"
"Coordinates. Galactic coordinates in relation to Earth. Even without a gate or MALP calculations, we always know where we are."
"Could come in handy," Jack noted, not without a small spike of envy.
"Damn skippy. Helps our allies find us. You know, when we're misplaced."
Being lost was bad, Jack silently agreed. Being lost and not being able to tell your allies where to come get your butt was worse.
"Then there's the whole, 'what year is it?' function."
Jack lifted eyebrows. "Year?"
"Carter can give you the mumbo jumbo, but basically it communicates through subspace, makes contact with the Grell home world, confirms location, date and time. It's set to automatically correct for Earth data."
"Get lost in time a lot?" Jack wondered.
"Amazingly enough, it pays to be prepared."
Both O'Neills said together, "Nineteen sixty-nine."
Yes, Jack silently agreed. It pays to be prepared for damn near anything.
"That's just about it: a really cool watch." She asked the general, "Can I keep this, or you want to put it back in lockdown?"
He held out his hand. "If you don't mind, I'd like my people to take a look at it."
She passed it back. "Just, they're a little hard to come by. I'd like to take it home with me. Not in pieces."
"Of course," Hammond said. Which they both knew was really maybe. Still, he wasn't a thief, and at this point, her people still had the veneer of guests. Potential allies. If his team were stuck in an alternative reality, he would appreciate efforts made to get them home. Besides, the more he thought about the possibility of the Grell, the more he realized what a valuable resource even this one tidbit of intelligence was. Just how generous she was being. If, he reminded himself, the Grell existed in his reality at all. "Colonel," he nodded at Jack, "I'll leave you two to write down the details."
"Sir," the O'Neills said together.
Hammond departed, handing off the curious watch to a marine with the instructions to get it down to R&D. In the meantime, he set off to check on the other members of SG-1.
Part 2. The Carters Double Down.
On their way down to the major's lab, Samantha succumbed to curiosity. "Do you have family?"
"A brother," Samuel replied, "a father. You?"
"Yeah. Got Selmak?"
"Oh yeah. Jolinar and Martouf, too. Which was a little too weird, the whole man-crush thing going on."
"Martouf is a man in your reality?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Did you feel—?"
"I did mention the overall sense of weirdness, right?"
Sam grinned as she activated the row of computers in her lab. Martouf himself had been easy enough on the eyes in the first place; she had only hesitated to pursue him when she realized the urges were not completely her own. She could only imagine how it might have felt if Martouf had been a woman instead. That would have been . . . weird.
Sam pulled up short when she realized the visitor was already typing at the password prompt.
He saw the look on her face, straightened. "Um, sorry. Habit. It's just that, this feels pretty much like my lab."
"No," she shook her head. "I'm just surprised, that's all."
"I'll use this." Samuel picked up a pad of paper. "I've got to get some notes down anyway."
She opened a hand. "Log on. I'm curious to see if we think that much alike."
Samuel complied. "Apparently we do," he finished as the system granted him access.
They both looked a little spooked. Samantha swallowed. "My lab is just like yours?"
He took a second look. "Well, there are a few odds and ends, some things I picked up that I don't see here, and a couple items you've got lying around. I keep a picture of Dad here." He touched an empty space on the wall. That particular space was also cluttered with family photos, finger paintings, crayon portraits, hand-made Father's Day cards. But, if this major was ordered to be cautious with the planetary data she had collected, well, Samuel wasn't inclined to volunteer that he had other family, to name names most precious to him or let slip anything an enemy could hold over him. Just in case his fifty star flag theory was wrong. "And our, uh, naquadah generator," he gestured to the prototype in the corner, "looks just a little different."
He knew enough to recognize her most recent generation for what it was, at least. Intrigued, "Different how?"
"I don't think we really have time or clearance to pull up the schematics."
"No, I suppose not." In fact, they should stick to what the general had authorized. Samantha started pulling up the secure data download from the MALP, diverting it to different screens as multiple charts of information popped up.
In the meantime, Samuel scratched out some notes, value ranges as he remembered them. His personal shorthand was, not surprisingly, exactly the same as Sam's, so she had no trouble understanding it; they took turns comparing to different screens.
Within an hour, Samuel knew it wasn't going to be enough. Everything was falling within his guessed ranges. While neither of them said it, they both knew wormhole physics were an exacting science; the detail needed might be in a decimal point. He finally leaned back and shook his head. "I don't have accurate enough information."
Samantha was more than a little relieved he could admit it. "We're not done yet."
"I was hoping something would leap out and say, 'Look at me, I'm an alternate atomic weight.'"
"Wouldn't it be nice if all our data came with that kind of label?"
He gave her a grin, one that immediately reminded Sam of one of her father's smiles. This stranger, she realized, had the familiar oval face of Jacob Carter. She could see the hint of how his face would line with age, deepening the similarity. And that hair was thinning. Unlike Mark, Samuel had obviously inherited Jacob's male pattern baldness. Returning the smile, Sam realized he was watching her with a similar intensity. Was he comparing her to her mother? Had his Elizabeth Carter also lost a long, painful battle against cancer? Had his father been there for her, or had his Jacob Carter also been an absentee for all their critical family moments?
The inappropriately private questions died unasked. Both Carters cleared throats, turning back to the task at hand.
They kept looking, checking, double checking, hoping that they had simply missed something on the first go around.
"There's nothing here." Samantha Carter finally pushed herself away from the desk. "Nothing useable, anyway."
"We should go back to the planet," Samuel said. "There may be some device we didn't notice, maybe even something done differently on one side to bring us over."
Keeping in mind Hammond's warning, Sam had to wonder what risk there might be, any reason he might not approve of letting them go. Yet, she agreed. "If we're going to be any help at all, that's the next logical step."
Hammond checked on the majors from the cameras in the security room, then headed down to Dr. Jackson's office to see how the archaeologists were doing. The pair, in all their earnest, we're peaceful explorers method of talking to each other, covered a lot of territory at their Jackson-speak speed in a way that quickly lost anyone viewing the security feed. However, Hammond arrived in time to overhear a similarly brief discussion on their personal lives, which anyone understood clearly enough.
"You were married on Abydos?" the woman asked.
That hurt was still quick to line Daniel's face. "To Shau'ri. You?"
"Yes. To Fa'hran."
Mirroring Dani's sad smile, Daniel remembered the man. Kasuf would have described him as 'hearty and clean of limb.' Even though he knew already, even though he remembered clearly what had happened to Fa'hran in the counterattack against Apophis, Daniel asked, "What happened?"
"When we resisted Apophis, my husband and son were killed."
A son. Oh, that was very different. Daniel had spent barely a year with his wife, barely had time to get to know her. And this woman had met, married, and had a baby. He could only imagine what it felt like to bring someone so small and fragile into the world only to lose them to violence. "I'm sorry," he said inadequately.
Danielle placed her hand on his. "I'm sorry for your wife, Daniel. You don't look like it ended happily ever after for you, either."
"Apophis took her for his Goa'ould queen."
"She's still out there?"
He swallowed, that warm, gentle hand resting on his causing words to back up in his throat.
She supplied, "You're hoping the Tok'ra can remove Ahmonet?"
He shouldn't be surprised that she knew the Goa'ould's name. Nothing, at this point, should have surprised him. "Yes."
He said it so firmly, as if by deciding it, his will could make it so. Eternal optimism. It had been so long since Dani had felt that kind of faith. "Oh, I wish there was something I could give that would help you."
Daniel had to clear his throat. "Thank you."
That brief exchange finally, truly began to convince the general that the strangers were exactly what they said they were. It just didn't make sense to Hammond that imposters simply would have such obvious differences, be so very much the same, and yet so very much not. He strode back up toward the briefing room, weighing options, anticipating what the Carters were going to come up with, and whether he would consent to it.
The O'Neills were still giving Walter writer's cramp when the Carters finally came upstairs with their request to return to the planet. It was an easy decision to make. "Colonels," he told the two O'Neills, "you have a go. Get your people together."
"Uh, General," Jacqueline glanced at the marine escort, "would it be okay for us to have our stuff back?"
"Captain," he told Reynolds, "return their equipment."
"Yes sir." The marine wasn't surprised that J.C. trailed after him down to the lockup. They would get their weapons from the Sergeant at Arms right before embarking like everyone else, but the rest of their gear they could have, including freshly laundered clothes that wouldn't dwarf their archaeologist.
Fifteen minutes later, accompanied by a marine escort, Jacqueline O'Neill poked her head into Dr. Jackson's office. "Gear up, campers. Carter needs a field trip."
Daniel looked up from their notes, blinked to change focus. "Back to the planet?"
"Yep."
"Do I have to go?" Dani asked. Then, realizing how whiney that had sounded, she explained, "We were, uh, just getting started here."
"Let's see." The colonel ticked points off on her fingers. "Carter finds a way home, dinks around with the gate, and we take a moment to shut it all down and come back for you. Um, the answer would be no."
"Killjoy."
"Your team's going with us," J.C. told Daniel.
It wouldn't be the best place to work, he thought, but if it took the Carters a few hours to figure things out, that would be a couple more hours to compare notes. Well worth putting his kit together, even taking a laptop.
"And," the colonel added, "don't think I haven't noticed that you've been up here the last four hours without anything to eat. After you get changed, stop by the commissary on the way and get something hot."
"All right, all right," Dani promised, waving her team leader away.
The two Jacksons bent back to their work. It was only moments later before Jack's voice interrupted. "Gear up, campers. Carter—"
"Um, we know," Daniel cut him off. "Needs a field trip. And we'll get something hot to eat on our way down to gear up."
Jack shut his mouth, looked from side to side suspiciously. "Well. Good. You got ten minutes."
As he folded up his laptop, Daniel told Dani, "That could really get on my nerves."
There was a tense moment in the gate room as Siler returned weapons to the visitors. If they were going to cut loose and mow down everyone in an attempt to take the SGC, Jack knew it would be there. In fact, his heart jump-started his heart a little when Jacqueline took Dani's Beretta from its holster, but the colonel didn't point it anywhere except the floor as she ejected the clip, looked over the loads, and checked the safety, returning it to Jackson with deliberately slow, smooth gestures. Aware of the home team's scrutiny, letting them know that she meant nothing more than a pre-journey weapons check.
"Really, Jack," Dani protested, "I think I can see if a weapon's loaded or not by now."
Daniel looked curiously at his own Jack. "You don't do that for me."
Jack shrugged. "You didn't just spend the night as guests of a strange SGC. I doubt you'd recognize blank loads from the real thing, Daniel."
Daniel echoed his counterpart's, "Oh."
J.C. said nothing, acknowledging Jack's recognition with a tilt of her head as she and her Carter checked the loads on their own P-90s.
The wormhole activated, whooshing into place. They waited for Harriman to reactivate the MALP sensors, declare the area clear, and then Jack adjusted his hat. "Okay kids, let's get this show on the road."
Teal'c stepped through the gate first, having a moment to scan the area and note the planet was pretty much as they had left it. Sunny, mild weather. Lots of evergreens and underbrush, plenty of cover for an ambush. But there was no ambush. A plentiful variety of avian life flicked from tree to tree, moving away in a pattern that indicated they had been disturbed by the stargate, but there was no one in the edge of the trees waiting with staff weapons at the ready.
Or, if there were, those lying in ambush had been there long enough and were still enough to blend with the environment.
As the tracks around the gate indicated no other arrivals since their presence the previous day, Teal'c was inclined to believe the forest was as devoid of humanoids as it had been during his original sweeps. "Shall I scout the tree line, O'Neill?"
"Go ahead, buddy," Jack told him. The colonel squinted skyward, checking the weather, measured the local time by his shadow. They were getting started later in the day than on their first trip, but the ruins that had brought them in to look around were only three clicks due east.
"Carter," J.C. started, out of habit, to give orders. Realizing the other O'Neill had started to say the same thing, she cut herself off. At his pause, she opened a hand.
Jack sucked air through his teeth. This could get more than a little irritating. A little more formally than usual, "Major Carter, what's the plan?"
His Carter answered, "Sir, I suggest we start by recreating as closely as possible exactly what we did last time. Major Carter can retake readings while I poll the stored data from the MALP to compare."
"Okay. Let's do it, people."
Except for the Carters, it didn't take long for the rest of them to walk through what they had done on their previous arrival, two teams of SG-1 going over eerily identical actions. Teal'c was back by the time they had done their preliminary walk-through. He watched Daniel Jackson pausing to take a drink, swipe a hand across his brow, push up his glasses. And there was Danielle Jackson, absently doing the same thing, perhaps slightly before, or slightly after Daniel. Both adjusting gear or clothing, starting to speak at the same time, finishing each others' sentences, grinning at the double-speak. He observed enough doubling to make him not wish to watch strangers so disturbingly familiar much longer. He turned away, taking up his guard position as he had before, where he could watch the placid tree line instead.
"All right then," Jack said, "we'll head out for the ruins. Teal'c, you stay with the Carters, maintain a perimeter." Which was more or less what he had done before. "Major, keep us informed."
"Yes, sir," Samantha answered absently.
"It's just as well to get a second look," both Jacksons started to say. They laughed, shook their heads.
"Let me guess," Jack muttered, "there was some prime piece of rock you want a second look at."
"Camera work," Daniel said, patting his filming equipment, "isn't everything."
"Can't get rubbings off a DVD," Dani agreed.
"J.C.," Jack told his counterpart, "why don't you take point." He had taken point the first time, but it was easier to keep an eye on her from the rear. Just out of habit.
J.C. nodded at the request that wasn't a suggestion. She adjusted her P-90, eyes on the ground until she found signs of the trail they had forged through the dense undergrowth the day before. Retracing steps meant if not exactly walking in their own tracks, at least following them, looking for signs of anything that could have been disturbed or overlooked. They had been cautious on their way out the first time, anyway, alert for signs of hostiles.
Dani was smaller, legs shorter than any of her companions, but she definitely made up for it with that Jackson energy Jack knew so well. She took almost two strides to his one without complaint or lagging behind. He had to admit, she was kind of cute, in a compact bunny rabbit kind of way. At least, she might be if she ever shut up. Old Danny boy finally met someone who could keep up with him, in whatever language, and that was all they did the entire hike, blah-blah-Goa'ould this, blah-blah-Aztec that, blah-blah-blah something in some obscure language. Jack might have thought his headache was from the paradox getting to him if he hadn't known better, so he wasn't too worried when he saw his counterpart pause to pop aspirin. In fact, he thought, reaching for his own, that was a damn good idea.
At the ruins, the two O'Neills took all of two minutes to retrace their own steps from the watchful perimeter they had strolled before. The Jacksons took much longer to review, moving among the crumbly remains, reiterating and remembering details as only PhDs could. There were few stones with visible writings to film, and they were quite thorough in recreating their previous visit.
Which turned up what the two colonels found: exactly nothing. When the two Jacksons finally took a water break, Jack keyed his radio and checked in with his Sam.
"Nothing yet, sir," she reported. "It took almost six hours to do the previous survey, so it's still a little early."
"I understand," Jack returned. "Time to check in with SGC, let 'em know we'll re-contact in six hours." The Jacksons were practically frothing at the mouth for a second look around anyway. And he didn't really see any reason not to let them. Going back to hover around the major would be about as helpful as hovering around out here. "We'll stay out here unless you need us." Please, need us, find something, anything to rescue us from hour after hour of watching archaeologists at work. "I'll check back with you in an hour."
"Understood, sir. Carter out."
"Thanks, Jack," Daniel told him. "I don't often get enough rubbings, and sometimes that's the only way to find anything."
O'Neill bowed. "I live to serve."
Without needing to discuss it, he and the other O'Neill automatically took up complimentary positions for a two man perimeter, settling in to walk their watch. Waiting, refreshing sunscreen, drinking measured portions from canteens, unwrapping a couple power bars, taking turns to go water the bushes. Time ticked by. Every hour, Jack checked in with the Major. Every hour, nothing.
"How you feelin'?" Jack asked at one point, when their steps took the colonels close enough for conversation.
J.C. shook her head, knowing just as well as he did what time it was, and what he was asking. "I don't hear any quacking."
Jack checked his watch, which, he had to admit, wasn't nearly as cool as hers. They were coming up on the forty hour mark since her team had stepped out of the gate at SGC. Forty hours and nothing. Nothing from ducks was good, but nothing from the major wasn't. "Carter won't quit."
"No." A puff of air. "Not until we get home." Or, she didn't have to say, pulled apart.
"Maybe we should head back. There are some good science guys back on base. One of them might have come up with something by now."
"Hammond would have contacted us. Besides." J.C. sighed, pointed with her chin. "Look at them."
His eyes followed the gesture to where the Jacksons were comparing notes again.
Daniel was saying, "The transcription could mean a real, physical blood sacrifice."
"It's very specific," Dani countered. "In this passage, the leaves are a particular shade of red, an ochre-like coloring."
"Yes, that's a nice passage: 'ochre leaves sigh,'" Daniel agreed, pointing. "And 'indigo water shines bright with spears of sunlight'."
"I find it difficult to believe that someone inscribing such a poetical passage would omit gory details of someone's heart being ripped out. If," Dani added, pushing up her glasses, "they had the opportunity to describe it."
"You're thinking the sacrifice was more symbolic? More like the tribes of Native North Americans who counted coup instead of actually killing their enemy?"
Dani nodded, grinning when Daniel concurred, flipping to another page.
"Please," Jack muttered, "don't tell me they reproduce."
A snort from J.C. "You know," she kicked at a clod of dirt, "if the Stargate program were public, they'd be heads of some department at a big university. Graduate students and research assistants out the yin-yang, public acclaim, all that."
"Big salaries. Publishing papers under their real names, respected, recognized as premier in their fields."
"And yet, here they are, up to their elbows in dust, happy as clams."
"Yeah, that's what I like about him: he doesn't give a rat's ass."
A grin. "You tell me: if you were in my reality, and your Jackson only had a few hours left, would you take him back to the SGC? Or would you rather be out here, buying him a little time on one of those rare occasions he is actually with a peer?"
Not much to say after that. Not much to say at all.
The next couple times he checked in with Carter, Jack could hear the frustration rising in her voice.
He didn't call it, though, until the sun was angled low on the horizon. He exchanged glances with J.C., wordlessly concurring; there was nothing they were going to find in the dark they hadn't found in the day. "Jackson," he said, "time to pack it in." He was somewhat shocked that he only had to say it once more before his boy actually closed the laptop and tucked it away in a pack.
On their hike back, they could hear the gate being dialed. Dialed, locked, whooshed on. Pause, whoosh off. Redial. "Major?" Jack prompted his astrophysicist.
"We've been testing the gate, sir," Samantha told him. "The last hour, dialing and redialing, to see if this particular gate has some kind of glitch."
"Anything?"
She shook her head. "No signs of a red shift." Swallowed. She had never been so completely and utterly without ideas. Perhaps if they had more time, or even the Quantum Mirror. But they didn't. They didn't have anything except the hint of red her counterpart may or may not have seen.
"We've been stranded almost two days," Samuel sighed. "Anyone notice anything?"
"No," Danielle replied.
"Nada," J.C. agreed.
"I don't get it," Samantha Carter said. "You're all overdue for at least some kind of side effect."
Samuel speculated, "Maybe the x-factor, y-factor gives us some kind of insulation from each other."
Tentatively, obviously weighing the idea, Samantha replied, "Maybe it's enough."
"It was the difference of an entire sperm. Maybe that's enough that we don't even exist in your reality. Not really."
"Dr. Frasier was pretty clear," Daniel disagreed. "Genetically identical, medically almost so. Even fingerprints are the same, and that doesn't even happen in twins."
"It's not the same," Dani argued, looking up at him. "We don't even look anything alike, not even as close as normal twins."
And yet, the two Carters were thinking, glancing at each other, there were remarkable similarities. My mole, for one, both of them thought.
"Our realities are somewhat different," Daniel admitted.
"We didn't marry the same people," Dani pressed. "We had different kinds of families, even did some different things."
"We're finishing each other's sentences," Samantha said. "How alike is that?"
"Are we?" Samuel wondered. "Or is it that there's just some odd point in time and space that we overlapped so closely, behavior becomes, at those particular moments, predictable? Maybe that's why we got kicked here."
"You think our realities were so far apart, that they might have come around to the same point from different directions?"
"That the gate malfunctioned and posited us in the closest thing to our reality it could find?"
Jack fished in his pocket for his aspirin. J.C. silently handed him a tab of hers.
"I guess," Dani admitted, "we're going to be around long enough to find out."
J.C. waved a hand at their gear. "Pack it up."
The Carters exchanged glances, faces mirroring determination. Together, "Maybe we could—"
"No. You've done that already. You guys got nothing. At least here."
True. Although, Samuel thought, if there was an answer, it was going to be here. Between here and Earth was the crossover point, and this was where he had seen the red-shift.
"Maybe there's something we just don't have the tools here to measure," Samantha suggested to him.
Samuel nodded. Together, they started, "Maybe back at the lab—"
"Not tonight," J.C. cut them off. "You've been at it all day. Both of you. Working with a tired mind isn't going to solve the problem. We're hitting the showers."
"Dial us home, Danny boy," Jack ordered.
It didn't take much, back at SGC, for Jack to explain to the general what had happened. "I'm sorry," Hammond told the visiting CO.
J.C. sighed. "I'm sure we could be consoled with a nice O'Malley's dinner."
"O'Malley's?"
"Well, if you have one. Seeing as it might be our last night in existence."
Jack's stomach grumbled softly. It had been an extremely long day, and steak at O'Malley's sounded most excellent.
J.C. added, "On O'Neill."
"What?!"
J.C. clapped Jack's shoulder. "Now, you know I'd pay, but I left my American Express at home. Besides, it would have your number on it anyway."
Hammond felt some satisfaction at Jack's wait a minute expression. This other O'Neill could grow on him. "For security reasons, I'm sure you understand you can't leave the base. But I'm sure Colonel O'Neill here will be glad to bring us all back some take out."
Jack lifted eyebrows. "I would?"
Hammond himself wasn't leaving base that night, either. Pointedly, "I like my steak well done."
There was only one thing to say when the general made you his delivery boy. "I'll have the expense forms on your desk in the morning, sir."
"Good man."
J.C. lingered, waiting for her team to hit the showers, and for Jack and Daniel to depart. "C'mon," she told Reynolds, her marine escort. A knock on the general's door. "Sir," she said when he bid them enter, "I'd like a word."
Hammond nodded Reynolds, gesturing for him to stand outside the door—with the door open. "Have a seat."
"If you wouldn't mind, sir," she nodded at his book case, "I'd like to see a copy of the United States Constitution."
Puzzled, he glanced at the slip covered copy he kept behind him, then handed it over.
"Thank you, sir." Jacqueline dropped down in the guest chair and slid the book into her palm. Squinted, held it at arm's length, drew it in closer, searching for a comfortable reading zone. Reading glasses were, annoyingly, left at home in her office.
"Is there something you're looking for?" Hammond asked.
"Yes, sir. It won't take long."
The general leaned back against his desk, deciding to wait it out.
At last, the visitor snapped the book shut, commenting, "Twelfth amendment a little early, nineteenth a little late. But close enough. Thank you, sir."
"You're welcome." He set the book on his desk, folding hands. "Although I have to admit, I have to wonder why you wanted to see it."
"I understand, General. Frankly, sir, this damn well looks like home. But there are differences. Small, subtle, but there nonetheless. Still, I think you and your people are as close to home as we can get without being there. In that light, sir, I feel as though I can reasonably make an offer."
"What did you have in mind?"
"There may be something more I can give you than just the Grell. And I may only have a few hours left. I'm willing to look over your list of planets, or list what I can remember, if you don't want to let me look—although the memory isn't what it used to be, I can tell you now—and see what's different. There may not be much, but if I can mark out some addresses you definitely don't want to visit, and point out any good ones you've missed, then I'm willing. That's just my suggestion, sir, and the extent of what I can do."
General Hammond didn't have to think about it twice. He tapped his intercom, summoning Harriman.
"I hope," she said, "I can be done and get a shower before Jack gets back and our dinner gets cold."
"You and me both."
It would be tomorrow before Jack found out about her generosity. At the moment, he was busy carrying out the covert dinner operation with Jackson, who knew exactly what to order and how much. "It's kind of interesting," Daniel admitted on the drive back.
"What is?" Jack asked.
"Seeing what I would have been like. You know, as a woman."
Irritated, "She's not me, Daniel."
"No?"
Even more irritated, "She's nothing like me."
Daniel laughed. At Jack's glance, he laughed even harder.
He'd never admit it, especially not to Daniel, but Jack was more than a little curious, too. What would it have been like? How did she pay for college, if not on a football scholarship? Or did women play football where she came from? That didn't quite jibe. Her and Sara together? That didn't jibe, either, and he wouldn't have thought of that aspect of it at all if he hadn't heard that conversation on the security recordings. Thank you, Dani. But his idle thoughts also turned to darker things, things he didn't care to think about. He knew how women were treated in Iraqi prison camps.
They arrived back at base with dinner enough for both SG teams so all seven could sit down in the isolation ward for a meal together. While Hammond left to enjoy his late meal in his office, the rest of them were subjected to the chatter of linguists discussing various adventures. Conversation quickly deteriorated into an obscure language edition of See Who Could Make the Worst Pun, which inspired even Teal'c to join in.
There were times when Jack envied Daniel's ability to relax and enjoy himself with the people they encountered. Like himself, he could see there was also a part of J.C. that kept a little distance from the camaraderie. Oh, she smiled quickly enough, laughing as the puns got nerdier and geekier. But still she held herself slightly apart, in a position that was subtly wary. Watching over her team. Jack could see that Jacqueline O'Neill was still very much aware that they were in a strange place with strange people.
40
That was okay, Jack thought, watching his friend interacting with her friend. Jackson could enjoy it enough for both of them.
40
