Later Colonel Jack O'Neill would think of it as a dream.
He was sailing through a sparkling silver void, along with members of his team who sailed further and further away from him.
In that limbo, holes opened up.
In each of them was a team member.
In their respective holes, Daniel Jackson and Sam Beckett were strapped down to tables, both in white hospital gowns. Beckett was shouting in different voices.
In a different hole, Teal'c was in a fedora and trenchcoat while standing in front of the "Hollywood" sign.
Frantically, O'Neill looked around. "Carter?" he called. There was an eerie echo in the limbo-void.
O'Neill was hanging upside down when he spotted her. (That's assuming there was an upside down in this limbo.) Inside an amorphous hole, Carter wore a sparkling blue gown and a silver tiara while holding a jewel-encrusted sword.
Behind her was Jabba the Hutt.
"Ah!" the colonel groaned.
O'Neill still had not seen all the "Star Wars" movies. ("You know me and science fiction," he once told Carter. "Plus I'm busy saving timelines now.") But he once had the misfortune to meet that slug Jabba when he was thrown into one of the Joker's altered realities.
As he turned 180 degrees in limbo, O'Neill glimpsed Clark. Poor Clark looked groggy and dazed as he staggered through dark city streets. His red T-shirt and blue jeans had rips.
O'Neill was pretty sure that wasn't a fashion choice.
Then it was like he plopped down in a chair. Hard.
As he recovered from the literal pain in his butt, O'Neill saw he was at a table with an open file at the center. The guy at the other end looked a lot like Santa Claus.
"Where am I?" O'Neill asked.
"Santa" smiled a smile that wasn't quite right.
"Why, where you have been for the last three years, Colonel O-Neill. In Belle Reve Sanitarium."
"Oh, great," O'Neill muttered. "Thank you, Joker!"
Oh, yeah. That didn't sound crazy at all.
"Santa" giggled as he wrote in the file.
O'Neill would have reached out to grab the file but he discovered he was in a straitjacket.
"Nice one, Joker!" he shouted at the ceiling.
The giggling turned to loud guffaws.
Eyebrows up, O'Neill leaned forward.
"And you are?"
"As usual, I am Doctor Hank McCoy."
"Of course."
McCoy leaned forward and whispered.
"The real question, colonel, is: who are you?"
Sitting back, O'Neill spoke in a casual matter-of-fact tone.
"I'm Captain James T. Kirk of the starship 'Enterprise.'"
"Ah, yes. Very amusing, colonel. Now who are you really?"
"Luke Skywalker."
"Try again."
"Would you believe I'm here from the future to stop an evil robot from killing Sarah Connor?"
Still giggling in a very high-pitched way, the doctor closed the file. "We'll try again tomorrow."
"I won't be here tomorrow."
"Oh? And why is that?"
"Because I'll be busy trying to become king of 'Groundhog Day.'"
"Is that so?"
O'Neill leaned forward again. "Okay. I'll tell you the real situation: once the Guardian gets a fix on me in this dimension, wherever we are, he'll send a time travel team. And I am out of here!"
"Of course. Happy voyage then, Colonel O-Neill."
"You, too. Hasta la vista there, doc."
Two men were there. Tall and bulky, they both wore white shirts and black bow ties. One had very prominent eyebrows.
"You could trim those," O'Neill said.
As he was taken away, O'Neill shouted behind him. "You're nothing like Santa Claus!"
Once he was strapped into his bed, O'Neill lifted his head and grunted at the two men. "Get out of here!"
As he drifted off to sleep, O'Neill wondered.
Where was Clark? And Daniel and Teal'c and Beckett and Carter.
Where was everybody?
{As Clark Kent held the truck above his head, he heard an eerie voice inside his head
"Remember, Clark. Save Edith Keeler for me."
Putting the truck down, Clark walked away, full of confusion.
He had no idea what city this was.
Or even who he was.}
O'Neill was trapped in Antarctica. With a Stargate that didn't seem to work. Carter was there. And some other folks.
"What do you regret most, sir?" Carter asked.
"I regret dying," O'Neill said.
"I regret not being back on the 'Enterprise,'" Captain Kirk said.
"I regret not being in my spot," Sheldon Cooper complained.
"Well, that is a tough one there, Sheldon," O'Neill said.
Sitting up, Sheldon grinned. "Why, thank you, Colonel O-Neill. I always enjoy these talks of ours. They always bring me such joy, such peace of mind."
"That was sarcasm, Sheldon," Lana Lang said.
Nearby, Homer Simpson pouted in a moaning voice. "I want out of here."
Uma Thurman offered him a consoling hug. "There, there," she said softly.
"Hey," O'Neill said. "What about me?"
Uma embraced them both.
That was when Clark Kent suddenly appeared.
"I'll save you!" he shouted in a strangely deep voice.
Quickly taking Lana in his arms, he was gone, leaving the others to cough and wave away the blowing snow.
"Clark, come back!" Sheldon shouted. "You forgot me!"
"Not to mention the rest of us," O'Neill grumbled.
"Don't worry, we got this," someone said.
Leonard Hofstadter stood there with his friends Howard Wolowitz and Raj Koothrappali. There was another Sheldon with them. This one had a goatee.
Leonard and his scientist-associates were in Stargate Command uniforms, With them was a tan blonde who wore a yellow vest over her fatigues.
O'Neill made a face. "Just who exactly are you guys supposed to be?"
"We're S-G-One," Leonard said.
"What?" O'Neill said.
Now Daniel appeared, shoulders hunched as he rubbed his arms. "Well, think about it, Jack. If there are multiple universes, there are all kinds of possibilities. So somewhere the guys could be us."
"No. Uh-uh," O'Neill said. "I refuse to believe anywhere these guys are us." When he saw that Raj wore a gold medallion on his forehead, O'Neill tilted his head back and frowned.
"Don't forget me," the blonde said.
O'Neill pointed. "You're the actress-waitress-slash-neighbor across the hall. Patty, is it? Peggy?"
"Penny," she said.
Now Carter made a face. "You're supposed to be me?"
"Sure," Penny said. "I'm a super-smart scientist who knows about astrophysics and stuff. Also that Fig Newtons were named after a town in Massachusetts not the scientist."
"Impressive," O'Neill said drily.
Launching into a lecture on physics, Sheldon began to describe ancient Greece. "It's a warm summer's eve..."
"Sheldon, don't start that again," O'Neill groaned.
"I wish it was warm," Kirk said.
Grinning, Goatee-Sheldon gestured to his twin. "In some universe somewhere, I'm a clown made out of candy."
"Me, too!." Prime-Sheldon smiled as his head bobbed up and down.
Howard clenched his fist. "We may encounter aliens on our missions and some of them may have transparent skulls. But they still have rights!"
That's when O'Neill woke up.
Leaning over him was him. Only younger-looking.
No, wait. Just someone who looked like him.
"Mac?" O'Neill said.
"Hey, Jack," Angus MacGyver said. "Guardian said you might need a lift back to reality."
"I'd say I have things under control here."
"Yeah, I see that."
"We are here to render assistance, O-Neill," Teal'c said.
O'Neill turned his head toward his friend. "Well, in that case, Teal'c, render away." As he sat up, O'Neill saw that Daniel and Beckett were also present. Next to them was Carter in a sparkling blue gown and tiara.
O'Neill gestured. "Carter, what's with the-?"
"I was an enforcer for Jabba the Hutt." In response to the colonel's confused look, a dour Carter shook her head. "I'd rather not talk about it, sir."
Looking around, O'Neill noted a glowing gold portal and some shadowy figures.
"Your chariot awaits," MacGyver said, gesturing like a game show hostess. Then he turned and walked toward the portal.
"Are the guys here?" O'Neill asked. He then heard Raj,.Howard, Leonard and Sheldon arguing about transporters and Stargates. This was followed by the gruff voice of the Punisher.
"Will you guys shut up?"
"We're shutting up."
"Saying you're shutting up is not shutting up!"
The voices stopped, and O'Neill grabbed Daniel.
"Daniel. The guys. They aren't us, are they?"
"No," Daniel said with a confused look. "Well, I suppose somewhere they could be."
"I don't even want to hear that, Daniel." O'Neill turned on the bed, and his bare feet touched a cold floor.
Teal'c bowed. "It is good to see you again, O-Neill."
"Right back at you, Teal'c." The colonel stood up and started toward the portal. "How you doing there, Beckett?"
Beckett spoke in the voice of the autistic Raymond Babbitt. "I'm an excellent driver."
"Sam's a little fragmented right now," Daniel said, wearing his studious-frown face. "Whatever the Joker did to him, he now talks in the voices of people he's leaped into."
"Set phasers on stun," Beckett ordered in the staccato voice of Captain Kirk.
"Will do there, Beckett." O'Neill looked around. "Where's Clark?"
"We don't know," Daniel said.
O'Neill gave him a look. "We don't know?"
"What Surnak said earlier was right. The Guardian is damaged."
"So we still don't know where Clark is, sir," Carter said.
With a solemn nod, the colonel spoke with calm authority.
"Nothing to worry about. If we don't find him, he'll find us."