Note: At the end of the last chapter several people were confused by my saying, "And there - standing before her - are three completely impossible things, and one highly unlikely one." All four members of SG-1 were there. But three were impossible because Deb thought they were dead. One was just improbable, because she never knew what happened to Daniel.
The General stares at his flagship team across the briefing room table. "You're sure you're ready to return to active duty?" he demands.
"Yes, sir!" Jack says enthusiastically. Two weeks of forced leave had been enough for him.
"What I mean is, your memories have all returned?" the General presses.
"Of course!" Jack explains impatiently.
"Well," Daniel hedges.
"Daniel," Jack warns.
"We can't know that for sure Jack. The memories have come at random, we can't actually be sure they've all come," Daniel protests.
"But none of us have had a memory flash in five days," Sam protests. The Colonel has spent most of the last two days in her lab. She wants a mission as badly as he does. She's not sure she can take much more of the Colonel asking her how everything in her lab works.
"But we can't know we've remember everything," Daniel protests.
"But we probably have," Sam says.
The General nods his head. He doesn't want Jack with nothing to do any more than the rest of them. His office is no safer than Sam's lab. "All right, and have any other issues been resolved?" the General asks.
"Other issues, sir?" Sam asks.
"Personal issues," the General asks.
"We're fine," Sam says. Jack nods his head.
He looks at them, and oddly doesn't actually require a response from the other two. "All right, I'm clearing you for active duty. I have a mission for you, SG-1. There's a city by an ocean. See if you can make us some new friends," he instructs, nodding to the team to open the briefing folders before them.
"What is it, Daniel?" Sam demands, as she darts into his office and looks over his shoulder at what he is working on.
"What?" he looks up, startled.
"What are you stalling for? What do you want more time to work on?" she demands.
"I wasn't stalling," he says, and she's already determined that his work wouldn't be enough to keep him here.
"Why don't you want to go back to gate travel?" she demands.
"I just thought that you and Jack could use a little more time to, uh… I don't know, work stuff out?" he offers.
"What?" she says in horror.
Daniel rolls his eyes. "Come on, Sam. You two have had a hell of a year! I mean there's that incident where he refused to leave you behind the energy shield, and then the za'tarc thing, and then you guys lose your memories underground, and…"
"Nothing happened!" she practically shouts. In the few weeks since she got back, she found herself having to say that quite often, mostly to herself.
"I know that nothing happened physically, but that doesn't mean that… Sam, I saw you two together."
"No, you saw Jonah and Thera together," she whispers.
"You can call yourselves whatever you want, but…" he begins.
"Jonah wasn't quite Jack," she says.
Daniel literally jumps in surprise at her using Jack's first name. "I don't know, they seemed pretty similar to me."
"No, Jonah… he talked about things Jack never would. And Thera, she had a lot less baggage."
"How do you know Jack wouldn't talk about things if he could? I mean, they are in different circumstances," Daniel points out.
She laughs, "Because, Daniel, I worked with Jack for the better part of a year, and the only way I found out he had a son was because of alien influence. Jonah, he told me about Charlie the first time he dreamed about him. When Jack thought he was going to die, the best he could manage was saying he cared about me more than he should have. Jonah said more than that, and he didn't have any threats or rewards hanging over his head."
Daniel is silent for a long time. "I still think you should deal with how close you got."
"We're fine, Daniel. We… decided to leave it in the room, and we've got a world to save," she says.
Daniel shakes his head, "I just feel like… this is stupid, you know!" he exclaims in frustration.
"We're fine," she says. Then she leans against his desk, and gives him a hard look, "I'm actually wondering if this isn't a little about your problems with Jack."
"What?" Daniel squeaks in horror, "I do not have feelings for…"
Sam laughs, "That isn't what I meant! I just mean… a few weeks before we had our memories swiped, we had a pretty rough mission. You still hadn't forgiven him. I was just wondering if you have the memory back."
"You mean the memory of one of my best friends ordering another of my best friends to build a bomb to blow me up? Yeah, I have a memory of that," he says bitterly.
"I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am, Daniel. I knew it was wrong when I did it. I knew I should have disobeyed orders. I sure as hell would have if I'd known you were on the ship when I built the bomb."
Daniel lets out a long sigh, "I know it. And you weren't the one who pushed the button. I can forgive you."
"You shouldn't forgive me any easier than you forgive the Colonel. He wouldn't have had a button to push if I hadn't made it for him," she says.
Daniel sighs, "I know. Maybe it is time that we get back into action. I mean, it's not like Jack and I are actually going to talk about it. The best way for me to start trusting him again will probably be to work with him. I usually trust his decisions when he is working."
0-0-0
"Are we ready, campers?" Jack asks, looking at his team. Daniel still won't meet his eyes, he's pretty sure he knows why. He's tried to force his mind to make an apology, both before and after they lost their memories. But it won't do it. He's just not the kind of guy who deals with feelings. Least of all with a guy friend!
"Yes, sir," Sam says, and she won't make direct eye contact with him, either. But with his second-in-command, the reason is more bashful. It's best not to push that one. It will go away on its own. They had already ignored similar things away several times. There was the time she'd come at him in the locker room, and the Daniel had met an engaged version of them, and the time he'd kissed a version of her grieving for her dead husband who was also him, and there was the whole za'tarc incident, and…
Teal'c is giving him an odd look. Right, he should probably be leading his team through the gate instead of thinking about all the inappropriate moments he's had with his second-in-command.
"Move out!" he says, and his team follows him through the gate. The walk silently until they get over the hill. Then the glittering sea meets their eyes.
"Ah, water! Do you think they have fish?" Sam says.
He glances questioningly at her. She's never used the fishing metaphor, that was always his.
"I hope not," Teal'c says stoically.
Daniel giggles. "I wonder if it's freshwater. This area looks like a desert, I wonder how the people could survive if it was a real sea. Of course, they could have access to an aquifer of some kind."
As they get nearer, they see the outline of a wall. It's guarded, but the guards look like more of a formality than a desperate necessity based on the gambling they are doing, and the swarm of adolescent boys mock fighting around them.
"Guessing strictly by the architecture, I would have to say that there is a Greek influence. The courtyards especially give that away. Of course, the Greeks in our world didn't live near a desert, but I don't suppose the Goa'uld could always have transported people into exactly the same kind of area that they came from," Daniel says.
"Assuming, of course, that the Goa'uld actually care that much," Jack says bitterly, "Do you see a doorbell anywhere Daniel?" he asks, looking around at the gate.
"Uh… hello?" Daniel says up to the guards.
Suddenly the gates are flung open and a little girl stands before them.
"Hi," Daniel says.
"You… finally came back!" she says, looking at him in shock.
"What do you mean, he's back?" Sam asks.
"Mommy," the girl says, flinging herself into the girl's arms.
"Something you'd like to share with the class?" Jack asks, giving his second-in-command a bemused and bewildered look.
"Daddy," she scolds him lightly, just like she heard her mother do a million times during her childhood.
"Something you'd like to share with the class, Jack?" Daniel teases.
"Who are you?" Jack says, moving himself in front of the face which is looking over his second-in-command's shoulder.
"I don't understand," she says, climbing out of Sam's arms and taking a few steps back.
"Neither do we," Daniel says.
"Six years ago, you woke me up in the middle of the night. You told me my parents and Teal'c were dead, and you brought me here. You said you'd come back if you didn't die. I haven't seen you since," she says.
"You just left her?" Jack accuses Daniel.
"It wasn't me!" Daniel defends.
"He didn't just leave me. He took me to my new parents," she says.
"How exactly did you and Daniel get here?" Sam asks.
"We came through the gate," she says, sounding confused.
"Sir, six years ago the Earth gate was non-functional, there is no way that she came from there," Sam says.
"I sort of already knew that, considering that six years ago I didn't have a daughter," Jack retorts.
Deb looks a little panicked, and a lot confused.
"Did you do anything else on your way here?" Daniel asks.
"Yes!" she exclaims suddenly remembering, "We touched a piece of glass, and then we were in the glass like Marry Poppins in the pavement!"
Sam turns to Jack slowly, "Sir, that sounds like…"
"The quantum mirror, I know, but I thought we destroyed that thing!" Jack complains.
"We did, Jack, but six years ago we hadn't even found it yet," Daniel points out.
"Oi!" Jack exclaims.
"I still don't understand," Deb says.
Sam bends down on one knee in order to be closer to the little girl. "Honey, there are a whole bunch of universes out there. Each one of them is full of planets and people. Some of the people in these universes are similar. The mirror that you are describing is a way to get from one universe to another."
"So you're not my mom," she says.
"Not exactly, but I probably have a lot in common with her," Sam says.
Deb's lip quivers, "It is ok if I hug you anyway?"
"Of course, honey," she says, taking the little girl into her arms.
"So they are dead?" she asks.
"Probably," Daniel says.
"Can you check?" she asks tentatively.
"No, we don't have the mirror anymore. I'm sorry," Jack says.
She nods her head, "Will you come meet my new parents? Their names are Iris and Alex. I'd like them to… you aren't exactly my parents, but it would give them an idea what they were like. Besides, I'm sure dad would like to talk to you about starting the war."
"Ah… we're usually not in the war starting business," Jack says.
Sam shoots him a look that is very similar to her father's 'oh really' look, and even Teal'c has a look of disbelief in his eyes.
"Well, I don't know if you started it. But Daniel talked about another one like my father fought beside him when they overthrew the gods," she says.
"Sir, I think another version of us freed these people from the Goa'uld," Sam says.
"Yeah, I kind of got that," he said.
"Will you let me fight?" she asks eagerly.
"No," Teal'c says.
"I could show you quarterstaffing," she offers hopefully.
"Quarterstaffing?" Jack asks.
"It was part of a mediaeval knight's training. I'm not sure what it's doing in a culture that's based on Ancient Greece, but it involves…" Daniel begins.
"Yeah, I know what it is. I'm just not sure what a little girl is doing learning it," Jack says.
"I'm not a little girl!" Debbie protests.
"Ah, girl, what are you doing, jabbering with guests to our city?" one of the guards asks, having finally come down to see about the visitors.
"I know them," she says, "They're coming home with me."
"Fine, as long as they're not guests that need to be escorted to the temple," he says.
"Oh, they're not Goa'uld," Deb says.
"Ye sure? That one has the mark of a Jaffa," he says, pointing to Teal'c.
"Well, technically he has a Goa'uld in his stomach, but he definitely does not need to go to the temple," Deb says.
The guard gives her a nod.
"Take point," Jack says, nodding to the little girl.
A huge grin cover her face, "Point! I've got point. You all can watch my six," she says glibly.
"Well, I don't think you need a paternity test," Daniel mutters to Jack. "She's you through and through."