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Death, Love and Time

As he sat in the dialling room, studying the gate readings before him as he waited for the conference delegates to depart, Master Sergeant Walter Harriman was only partially surprised when the Stargate began to dial; this close to the final negotiations that would decide the fates of those involved in the Ori War, it would only be natural for some of Earth's offworld allies to want to confirm any details about the treaty that was currently being written up.

Turning to study the IDC screen, he waited for a few moments for the familiar beeping noise that would signal that an IDC code had been broadcast from the other end of the wormhole, and was surprised when the wormhole cut out again after only a few seconds. Even if someone had dialled the wormhole without an IDC, he would have expected somebody to at least try and get through the Stargate, but there wasn't even the familiar thump of somebody trying to get through the Stargate and colliding with the other side of the Iris…

It was as though somebody had dialled the Stargate, allowed the wormhole to activate, and then decided that they'd got the wrong number and terminated the connection. It would have reminded Harriman of the first communication they'd managed to receive from Atlantis, except for the fact that they didn't even receive a brief data burst to accompany the opening wormhole; it just activated for a few seconds and shut down once again.

As the wormhole cut out, all Sergeant Harriman could do was enter the event into the SGC computer and wonder if he would ever learn why somebody would dial the Stargate only to not even bother sending anything through it.


As he glanced up at the control room before him, Daniel allowed himself a slight smile as he took in the sight of the gateroom around him, unmarred by the damage that had been caused over the last ten years as various missions failed to turn out precisely as they'd hoped. They'd fixed the place up after whatever crisis had taken place was over, of course, but it had never been quite the same; the stonework was a bit paler in some parts of the wall, the ramp had been made of a different type of metal than what they'd grown used to…

Small details, of course, but Daniel knew better than anyone that the small details made all the difference; how many times had he found a word in some language or another that could mean totally different things due to just one altered letter or symbol somewhere?

Shaking such thoughts out of his mind- he might have been able to use them to give the younger SGC some hints about what they'd encounter once he'd completed his immediate mission, but they weren't helping him achieve what he was here for- Daniel checked the device still strapped to his arm and nodding in satisfaction. The power supply could be better, but he still had enough to get him to one of the staff offices just a level or two above them; he didn't want to go all the way up until he knew for certain whether he'd arrived at the right time or if he was a day or two early. It would be annoying if he had to hide out around the SGC for a day or so while he waited for the attempt to be made on Sam's life- the earlier he acted the more chance he had of unintentionally rendering his foreknowledge useless and prompt her killers to make a different attempt than the one he remembered- but, if he had to do it, he was certain he could manage.

Hurrying up the stairs- once again grateful beyond words for the fact that the device left him with just enough presence in this dimension to walk on the ground beneath him- Daniel quickly turned around to walk through the door at the top of that immediate flight of stairs- narrowly avoiding walking through a face he vaguely recognised as a member of SG-15; after the program had gone public, so many people had applied for a job there that it had grown hard to keep track of who worked on what team-, heading straight for the nearest office. It was normally Mitchell's, he knew, but he didn't allow himself to be particularly concerned about that; at the moment Mitchell was too busy checking over the security plans for the conference to be spending any time down here.

In other words, it was perfect for what Daniel was here to do; get in, find out what time it was, and then plan his next move from there. Mitchell always left his computer on whenever he was in the base for any length of time, preferring it to be instantly available if he ever needed to check anything in his files; all Daniel needed to do was get in, turn tangible once more, check the date, and then, based on how much time he had, decide where he should go from there.

Taking a deep breath, Daniel walked through the door- trying not to pay too much attention to the fact that he was actually looking at the wooden material of the door from the inside- and, after making sure that there was nobody else in the room, deactivated the device on his wrist, bringing himself back into sync with the rest of the universe.

As his eyes fell on the computer in the centre of the office- still in its familiar stand-by state, Daniel allowed himself a small smile of relief as he locked the door to make sure he wouldn't be interrupted before walking towards the desk before him. Now all he needed to do was to confirm the date and time of his arrival, see how long he had until the conference, warn Sam of the attack, and then-

As he briefly wiggled the mouse to bring the computer out of its 'stand-by mode', his eyes instantly fell on the clock at the bottom right-hand-corner of the screen, and his eyes widened in horror.

"Oh God…" he whispered, as he reached over to activate the date option on the computer, his eyes widening in horror as his worst fears were confirmed. He'd been hoping that he'd manage to arrive at the SGC maybe a couple of days before the killer, allowing him to hide in some of the less used offices, waiting for an opportunity to talk to his old friends and convince them of his identity, subtly provide Sam with the vaccine for the Prior's plague without attracting too much attention to himself…

But that wasn't an option.

He didn't have a couple of days; he didn't even have a couple of hours.

What he had was something less than twenty minutes.

Quickly Daniel raced over his options in his head. Going directly to Sam's lab and waiting to catch her killer in the act was one option, of course, but it would attract too many questions if he went directly there right now. The device on his arm barely had any power left to keep him hidden for the time that he'd need to get up to her laboratory, and he wasn't ready to answer the questions that would arise if he just waited outside the door for the killer to strike after the power ran out. People might assume he was just a visiting delegate wanting to catch her as she left the room if they weren't paying too much attention, but if he stayed still for too long somebody would be bound to register his more-than-slight resemblance to his past self and this whole thing would be over before he'd accomplished what he'd come here to do; there'd be no way he'd manage to convince anybody of his story before they gave the game away, prompting the killers to try another tactic to get rid of Sam that he wouldn't be prepared for.

No, just waiting outside her office wasn't going to do it right now; he had to try something else.

Fortunately, if his memory of his schedule at this time served him correctly- and since he'd never forgotten anything about this day, it would be hard for it not to be accurate-, there was still one way that he could save Sam without attracting too much attention to himself…

From where he was right now, it was only a couple of doors along the corridor to get to his own office, where his younger self was currently going over the terms of the treaty one last time before the conference began.

If he couldn't convince himself that he was telling the truth, he wouldn't be able to convince anyone.

Checking the power supply on the device once again to make sure he had enough power to get to the room, he turned to face the wall beside him, took a deep breath- this part always kind of freaked him out- and walked through it, closing his eyes to avoid the always-disturbing sight of actually seeing individual grains of stone from the inside as he stepped through the wall. Opening his eyes just long enough to make sure he wasn't in the office yet, he shut his eyes and stepped through the next wall, followed by the next, and the next…

Then, with no more fanfare than his footsteps- audible only to him-, Doctor Daniel Jackson, commander of the Stargate Project for the last ten years, stepped into the room of the man who was about to experience the greatest loss of his life unless he could stop it.


Sighing dejectedly, Daniel put his papers down on the table before him, reached over to the bottle of water beside him, and took a brief, relaxing drink from the bottle in question. He knew he should keep up his focus on the matter at hand, but for some reason this whole 'treaty' business just kept on making him think of Sam and what she'd just said to him about recommending him to take charge of the SGC when it went public. Maybe it was the fact that at least one or two of the treaties he'd helped prepare for the SGC- the treaty with the Tok'ra and the Tollan, even if the Tollan one hadn't really got them anything apart from Skaara's freedom in the end- had featured Sam as a prominent role in the reason for the treaty even being in a position to be made in the first place.

OK, so the 'treaty' with the Tollan had been more of a 'We won't ask you for help if you don't give us a reason to really wish we needed it' thing more than anything else, but they weren't attacking Earth; given that most of the technologically-advanced civilisations the SGC had encountered over time had more often than not just automatically seen Earth as a threat to their own superiority, Daniel counted that as a treaty.

He was just about to turn back to the papers before him when a hand suddenly grabbed his left arm just as he was putting the water back down. His eyes widening in surprise- how could somebody have entered the room without him hearing the door- Daniel spun around to look at the intruder, and found himself staring at himself.

Wait; it wasn't quite his face he was looking at. The glasses were still there, and his eyes were still the same vibrant blue that Sha're always hoped their child would have inherited, but his hair was long once again, as well as now being flecked with various shades of grey from the roots to the tips. His face was not only more lined, but also thinner, as though he could no longer be entirely concerned about his appearance, an idea that was only reinforced by the stubble around his chin.

"I know this is a shock," the man- Him?- said to Daniel as he looked at the archaeologist, "but you have to believe me; right now, Sam's life is not only in the balance, but will be over in the next twenty or so minutes unless you help me save her."

If possible, Daniel's eyes grew even wider at that comment, and they hadn't exactly been small after seeing himself standing beside him anyway.

"Who-?" he began.

"Oh for crying out loud; you don't recognise yourself?" the older man groaned as he stared at Daniel. "I mean, I know I've let myself go over the last few years, but who the hell do you think I am? The Easter Bunny? We don't have the time for this; you've got to move!"

As he stood up from his desk, looking in confusion at this man who seemed to be himself, Daniel's eyes flicked down to a strange device on his- Daniel still couldn't quite bring himself to think of the man as his 'other self', even if he was telling the truth- wrist, prompting him to look inquiring back at the man before him.

"Oh, this thing?" the man said, tapping it briefly. "Portable version of Merlin's device to shift objects out of phase; it's how I got this far without anyone seeing me, but I don't have enough power to get to the lab."

"The lab?" Daniel repeated, before his eyes widened as he processed what the man had said earlier. "Wait a minute… you mean…"

"Yes," the man stated grimly as he indicated his watch. "Sam is going to be killed by a never-identified assailiant in less than… oh, twenty minutes last time I checked- she's probably only got fifteen minutes left by this point- unless you can get this to her."

Reaching into his pocket, the man tossed a small phial over to Daniel, who caught it easily in one hand, subsequently catching a strange gun-like device that the man also threw towards him in the other.

"The cure to the 'poison' that was used on her," the man explained, as Daniel looked curiously at the phial. "You'll need to get it to her soon, though; it doesn't work when the victim's dead, and she's going to be in that state in less than a quarter of an hour. The weapon is in case her killer's already there; that's the only thing in any arsenal that will allow you to take the killer out before he takes you out."

For a moment, there was silence as Daniel stared at the phial in his right hand and the weapon in his left, a conflicted expression on his face, before he looked back up at the man before him.

"How do I know you're who you say you are?" he asked, staring at the man before him. "I mean, for all I know this could just be nothing more than… some elaborate plot to trick me into killing Sam for you…"

"It's not."

"But how can I know it's not?" Daniel insisted, staring at the man in front of him. "How can I take that kind of risk-?"

"For the person who once told you that your only fault was wanting to save people so badly it tore you up inside when you couldn't save them?" the man retorted.

Daniel was so shocked that he nearly dropped the phial he was holding.

Nobody knew what Sam had said to him as he sat in that tent in Vis Uban, his memory taken from him in the aftermath of his return to his human body, contemplating whether or not to follow them back to Earth to find out who he had once been.

Only he and Sam knew, and they'd both made an unspoken agreement to never tell anyone else about it; he'd always suspected that they'd both been slightly embarrassed about what had been said.

If this man knew about it…

"I can't be sure," Daniel repeated, as he looked up at the older man with an almost pleading expression, a part of him wanting to be convinced that this man was who he appeared even as a part of him hoped that he'd receive more proof. "How do I know you're not… telepathic or something like that… you could have read my mind for something like that…"

At that, something in the man's attitude seemed to finally snap.

"Goddamnit!" he roared, slamming the palms of his hands onto the desk before him as he glared at Daniel. "You want me to give you certainty? Here's a certainty; Sam is going to die! She is going to be slumped in her chair, writhing in agony, unable to see or understand what the hell is going on, and you are going to watch it all happen- you are going to see the moment when she stops being the woman you love and becomes just another body- and be unable to do anything about it! She'll tell you that she loves you before she finally can't cope with the pain any more, but it won't do you any good because she'll still be dead!"

Daniel wasn't sure how many more shocks like this he could take without suffering an early heart attack.

Sam loved him? With her dying breath- her last thought on Earth- she told him that she loved him?

"No…" he said, in a weak voice that was almost a whisper as he looked up at his other self- because this man was him from the future; the pain in his voice was too great to be anything but real. "I can't do this… she wouldn't want us to change the past just for her…"

"DON'T YOU DARE JUDGE ME!!" the older him roared, grabbing his younger self's shoulders and staring him directing in the eyes. "You don't know what it's been like for me since that day! I have lived my entire life for the last ten years, wondering if there was something I could have done to change things today, and you are not going to screw this up because you can't be sure!If you do nothing, every time you close your eyes at night you'll see her there, her whole body in pain from a source she doesn't understand, granting you your most impossible dream just before you find yourself in your worst nightmare! The only reason- the only reason- you never told her was because you were worried you'd lose her if she didn't feel the same way; if you don't do this now, you're going to learn you had nothing to worry about but lose her anyway! I have lived something close to an emotional Hell since that day happened, and if you don't move now, you're going to be worst off than I am; at least I didn't know what I could have done differently. But you'll know, and how much worse will it be for you, 'Doctor' Daniel Jackson, to know that you could have saved the one woman you've ever loved more than Sha're, and didn't because you weren't sure I was telling the truth?! Goddamnit, when you feel like your heart's been carved out of your chest and you've watched it stop beating, how will you cope with the fact that you were the one holding the knife?!"

Whether the older Daniel would have had anything further to say at that point would never be revealed; at that moment, the younger Daniel, his face so pale that one would never have believed he was an archaeologist who specialised in ancient Egypt, freed himself from the grasp of his older self, his eyes wide in horror as he looked at the phial in his hands.

After taking one last look up at his older self, he came to a decision.

"SAM!" he screamed, turning for the door and practically diving through it, leaving his older self to wait in his office.