AUTHOR'S NOTE: Whoops! Part 2 got lost! Here it is; sorry about the typo.
All My Yesterdays
Part 2:
Melbourne shifted his weight uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair and tried another sip of now lukewarm coffee. He was tired of sitting, but he'd already tried pacing and it hadn't helped. He stared blankly at the door to the operating room. It had been almost four hours and still no word about the patient inside. The guards hadn't budged either, except when Airman Meyers had replaced Sgt. Decker at the end of his shift, almost two hours ago.
Someone entered the room by another door and paused before taking the seat next to Melbourne. O'Neill sat in silence for a few seconds before addressing him.
"What'cha doin' here, Mel?"
"Waiting."
O'Neill nodded. "Who told you?"
Melbourne smiled softly. "Ginny."
"Ah. So that's where she got off to." He and Armstrong were going to have a long talk.
"Yes. It sounded ludicrous, but she was so insistent. . ." He allowed the sentence to trail off and switched his scrutiny to a point on the floor a few feet in front of the two men.
O'Neill lounged back in his seat and nodded. "She jumped the gun."
"I know."
"It could be a coincidence."
"Yes."
"It could be a trick."
"Yes."
Both men fell silent.
O'Neill studied the man next to him out of the corner of his eye. Damn the woman, anyway. This was the last thing Mel Jackson needed. He had hoped to get to the bottom of this – situation – before Mel had even had to hear about it.
The older man was doing a good job of maintaining a stoic front, but O'Neill knew what was going on underneath. He'd been there himself, with the Lazarus crystals. It didn't matter that Danny Jackson had been dead for twenty-seven years, this would bring it all back as if it had happened yesterday. Mel was going to spend the next few nights with the snap of that cable echoing through his head, just as O'Neill had spent more than a few nights listening to the reports of phantom guns.
Melbourne's voice called him back to the present: "So. Is he you?" He waved a hand in the direction from which O'Neill had entered the room.
O'Neill considered. "He knows a lot. Security codes. Personal stuff. Seems to remember some things differently, though. Mentioned places I've never been, couldn't remember places I have."
Mel considered what O'Neill had said. "What does Teal'c say?"
"He's verified a few of the unknowns as actual locations. Their descriptions vary somewhat but not by much."
"And the others?"
"Either he doesn't know them or he's only heard of them."
"They're not Goa'uld."
"No. Carter says not, and Frasier confirmed it, at least for that one." He indicated the main part of the infirmary with a nod. "As for the other, I doubt he'd be in this bad a condition if he were carrying a symbiote."
"In other words, they could be telling the truth," Mel stated calmly.
O'Neill scratched at his jaw, looking everywhere but at his companion. "Yeah. They could," he admitted. He paused for a moment. "Actually, I was just on my way to find you."
"Oh?"
O'Neill pulled an object out of his jacket pocket, a small oblong device with a couple of dials and buttons. Mel looked a little closer. Each dial had a series of symbols separated by hatch-marks. Another set of symbols surrounded each dial.
He shot O'Neill a look from under his eyebrows. The colonel shrugged.
"You got me. It came with him."
~~~~~~~~~~
Jack watched his counterpart stalk from the room and growled softly, earning him a quick look from one of the guards. He smiled at the boy with sweet innocence and lay back on the cot to peruse the infirmary ceiling.
So far, he had hated every alternate version of himself he had ever met. What did that say about him? He'd have to ask McKenzie. Maybe not.
Daniel would probably say that he just liked his own version of himself so much that he couldn't stand the differences in all the others. Or, he'd toss off a comment about big egos compensating for small self-images, or something like that. It would depend on his mood at the time.
He hadn't heard a word about Danny's condition since Warner had whisked him into surgery.
Not surprising, really. Daniel had been badly wounded, and the reconstruction was going to take some time. In this case, no news was really good news. It meant the surgery was going smoothly.
No thanks to the Maranii. Damn bounty hunters.
Everything had been going so well, or at least it had seemed to go well. The Maranii were reasonably peaceful, reasonably technologically advanced, and more than reasonably eager to set up a trade agreement with the Tau'ri. The Maranii had more trinium than they knew what to do with and a severely limited agricultural base -- all the hallmarks of a diplomatic union made in heaven.
Unfortunately, SG-1 had not been the Maranii's first contact with people from other worlds. As a matter of fact, it turned out that the Maranii carried on quite a thriving trade with the people of other worlds, something the regional administrator had failed to mention. She had also failed to mention that some of those people from other worlds were, specifically, from good old Sokar's former home world, and that those people were, at the time SG-1 had shown up, actually on P9S-236, and that they had not failed to mention a certain bounty that had been offered for the capture of a certain group of Tau'ri explorers, at least to someone.
One minute he was following Daniel around one of the local temples wishing he had gone with Carter to the trinium mines instead, the next the two men were in the middle of a fire fight and completely cut off from the rest of their team and the Stargate.
Luckily, their attackers' assault had been poorly planned and executed, and he and Daniel had managed to fight their way into temporary cover in a room behind the main altar. Jack had taken a hit in the arm, but it wasn't too bad, and at the time Daniel had been completely unharmed. They had barricaded themselves in the small room, knowing their cover wouldn't last, but that at least they would have time to contact Carter and Teal'c and warn them.
Jack had ordered the other two members of his team back to Earth for reinforcements, then sat and listened to the pounding on the other side of the door, waiting for the barricade to give way. Daniel had prowled around the room, looking for ---
"Daniel, what are you doing?" Jack gave vent to his frustration as he watched the barricade shift slightly.
Daniel had matched his team leader's tone, practically
shouting his answer: "I don't
know! There has to be something—" He
tossed his hands in exasperation, then reached to pull aside a tapestry that
hung on the far wall.
"Ah, Jack?"
"What?! Oh, for cryin' out loud."
The tapestry had hidden a shallow alcove, too small to hold more than the pedestal table that stood in its center. On the far wall of the alcove was a quantum mirror. The control device sat quietly on the table.
For a second, Daniel and Jack had simply stared in disbelief, until the sound of splintering wood brought them back to reality. They had looked at the door and it's not-so-slowly collapsing barricade, then back to the mirror. Both of them dove for the control device at the same moment. Daniel had come up with it and begun dialing, searching for a version of Marana that didn't involve people shooting at them.
He didn't have long to search. A few seconds, and the door finally gave way. Jack found himself backing into the alcove trying to provide Daniel with as much cover fire as possible.
Daniel's voice had rung out over the sound of gunfire: "Jack! This is it!"
The Maranii had suddenly trained their fire on Daniel, and he had gasped in shock as several bullets ripped into his chest and abdomen. Jack had turned, grabbed his friend around the waist and slapped both of their hands against the mirror.
TBC…
