He flew out the gate with speed that surprised even him. He arrived backwards, staring at the iridescent, flickering event horizon, with the gate activation klaxon sounding odd halfway through a lowing cycle, his vision doubled in the oddest way. He released all his oxygen-deprived breath into a scream he prayed would be loud enough to be heard in Control.

"IRIS!!!!"

He had just enough time to see the iris lock down and hear the buzz of energy pouring through the gate before his upper back and neck slammed against the rear wall of the gate room, damaging the diagnostic equipment in his path. It hurt like hell but he was amazed the impact didn't knock him out immediately. He slid down and ricocheted face-first onto the icy concrete floor.

He heard a familiar voice bellow as the wormhole disengaged, "Identify yourself!"

Collecting his oatmeal-textured brain into something that resembled conscious thought, he managed to say, reasonably loudly, "Its just me Davis."

Then, in an attempt to preserve some dignity, in lieu of drooling on the most trafficked floor in the facility, he started to stand. That's when it happened. Totally unexpected, the worst kind of pain and agony ripped through his body. His brain wrapped itself in a black icy glaze. The last thing he heard before he met the floor again was shouting and the sound of a dozen assault rifles cocking.

IIIIIII IIIIIII

Dr. Weir was well beyond annoyed; a feat for a professional diplomat. "So, who is this guy and how did he get SG-12's IDC?"

Sergeant Siler shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The rest of the stargate technicians glanced at him expectantly and then carefully examined the briefing room table for flaws and fingerprints. This only irritated the seasoned NCO; these idiots were being unprofessional at the least, weasels at the worst. Finally, Siler shot his colleagues the nastiest look he could slap together in three seconds and answered.

"We're not sure yet ma'am. His gear was definitely not SGC issue. Actually, we're not sure what most of it does yet. Major Carter is looking at it now."

Her lips pursed, Dr. Weir, sighed heavily. The technicians all shifted in their seats, not entirely sure what to expect from the new boss. At that moment, the back door of the briefing room slammed open revealing an out-of-breath Daniel Jackson and an irate Samantha Carter. The techs seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief at the diversion.

Daniel muttered a plaintive "oh my," and rested his palms on his knees.

Carter, flushed and clammy, rushed up next to Weir, and stumble-slapped a manila envelope down on the briefing table. Catching her breath, she spoke with an authority that nearly caused the room to jump. "Everybody out. Now!"

The room emptied as if someone had opened a drain, with the technicians evacuating down the spiral staircase with alarming incentive. These days, no one was in the mood to debate Carter, Jackson or Teal'c. Eventually, only the former two and a fulminated Weir remained. Daniel took two casual steps forward, gesturing grandiosely. "I think Major Carter also meant to say…'please'."

Sam shot him a bothered look as Weir leaned forward, arched her fingers and looked at the Major expectantly. Jackson opened his arms, grasping at thin air. "Sam thinks she knows where our visitor came from."

Weir softened her expression in curiosity, leaning back in her seat. "Really?"

"Really."

"Major?"

Sam braced herself against the table with one hand and pinched the bridge of her nose with the other in an obvious attempt to ward off a headache. She looked like she hadn't slept in weeks and it was a fair guess that she hadn't. "Doctor, are you aware of the incident where SG-1 was accidentally transported to 1969?"

Dr. Weir blinked an expression that in any culture would be loosely translated as, 'you must be joking'. "What on Earth would lead you to that conclusion?" Daniel stepped forward and grabbed the now-wrinkled envelope from the table and poured out its contents.

"We found these in his vest." At first glance it appeared to be nothing more than the scant miscellaneous items that anyone might take into the field: a few cards, a flash memory disk, some trinkets and what appeared to be a wristwatch. Carter reached over and grabbed one of the cards, and the watch. She flipped the card over to the obverse side, smacking it onto the conference table, and placed the items in front of Weir.

Her expression changed to one of bemused puzzlement. The watch looked unremarkable at first. It was obviously a field model—meant to take a great deal of punishment. It was then she noticed that the face was holographic with Swiss Army logo clearly visible in the top center of the display. Sam took the watch and slid the card over. "And then there's this." It was a fairly innocent-looking RF access card with an embedded microchip. On the front was a horrible image of their guest along with the printed name 'Rand, Kyle.' It bore a distinctly familiar (albeit slightly different) insignia and an amazing lack of any other information that meant it could only be an SGC pass card.

Dr. Weir's mouth opened but no sound emerged. Finally, with wide eyes she managed, "…how…why…?"

Carter sighed. "This has to be an accident of some kind. No one who would have access to the SGC would do this intentionally. We hope. But, we won't know what happened or what's going on until we talk to him. But that might be a problem."

Weir looked puzzled. "Why? How is he?" Daniel leaned against the table, observing the debris.

"Dr. Warner thinks he'll be okay, eventually. He's still not conscious yet, though. But, even if he is all right, it might be in our best interests to learn as little as possible."

Weir nodded reluctantly. "So what happened to him down there?" Daniel glanced at Carter.

She turned to Weir, wringing her hands in a vain attempt to aid explanation. "We think entropic cascade failure. It's a condition that happens when multiple versions of the same person are in the same universe at the same time. Except…this isn't like any version of it that I've seen. He is from our reality—he got here by stargate and the power spike through the gate was definitely familiar."

Weir massaged her temple, grinding her brunette locks into her skin, and shot a glance at Daniel. "Where is Teal'c?"

Daniel glanced at Sam before dragging his gaze back to the boss. "Guarding him." To the untrained eye, Sam seemed merely worried. To Daniel, she looked absolutely on the edge. Not that he was in the most tractable shape himself these days. He had practically screamed when they were recalled from Antarctica, even though it was billed as being for a limited time, and probably was for the best. He knew exactly what was and had been eating her and this situation didn't help. Here was someone at their feet who knew the answers to the most pressing questions on their minds—questions that, if they were right, they couldn't ever ask.

IIIIIII IIIIIII

Dr. Daniel Jackson slowly plodded down the hallway, sipping his coffee. Somehow, even among the gigantic mess that yesterday had dropped on them, he'd managed to go home, sleep and bring a big thermos of coffee in with him that didn't taste like engine oil or pond water. That was good, because today was his turn. Daniel chuckled softly to himself. He was beginning to rue the day that Jack had taught Teal'c to play Rock-Paper-Scissors. Nearly every member of the SGC who knew Colonel O'Neill had been taking his…condition, hard. Getting off the plane from Antarctica, the members of SG-2, 3, 5 and 11 had all been on the tarmac at Peterson AFB to meet them. The members of SG-1, though, were taking it like a kick to the gut. Mostly. One particular member of SG-1 was, if possible, taking it far harder. To Teal'c, his adopted brother and comrade was in grave danger. Daniel himself worried about the loss of his best friend—wondering to himself if this is how Jack had felt letting him slip away. Sam, though, was on the verge of having to mourn something far different. Whatever that was.

Daniel and Teal'c had never openly spoken about that dimension of the "team dynamic" to either Jack or Sam. They knew too well that the feelings between them ran as deep as the pain of the sacrifice they had made by shutting them down…and trying to move on from them as the case may be. Colonel Jonathan O'Neill and Major Samantha Carter, PhD, were vitally important to the success of the SGC and its operations. Their talents and their continued collaboration were invaluable in a must-win war. On the other hand, there was Colonel O'Neill and then there was Jack. There was Major Carter and there was Sam. No one who knew them would dare say anything to them, but those same people who knew with absolute certainty what was really going on (a remarkably short list, given the SGC bush telegraph), had tacitly given Sam's nebulous emotions on this subject a very wide, distinctly un-military, berth. Frankly, the whole situation just made Daniel insanely mad.

To that end, he and Teal'c had an understanding as to what their role in this…thing should be. Typical Sam Carter: she was working herself to death. They touched base with each other throughout the day normally, but one of them had a standing appointment at 0800 every morning to see how she was doing. Had she slept? Had she been home? Did she need anything, at all? The person with this responsibility was determined scientifically. The previous evening, Daniel and Teal'c went best of three at Rock-Paper-Scissors. The loser got to comfort Sam (Daniel's turn today). Not that they didn't want to be there for her, but they thought that she might begin to resent their persistence: hence the coffee gift.

Daniel hoped that the sufficiently randomized nature of his arrival would delay the onset of his eventual ducking of a piece of laboratory equipment-come-projectile. Therefore, he accepted his role and went to comfort the woman whom he'd come to think of as his sister. He arrived just outside her lab, downing the last of his fraction of the magnificent coffee, letting the mug dangle from his fingers. Tentatively, he poked his head into her lab, noting that her door was mostly closed (a neat trick for a blast door). Sam was at the far end of the lab with her back to him. She appeared to be fiddling with a naquadah reactor. On closer inspection, however, she seemed to just be pushing a few parts around with a ball driver and watching the screensaver on her laptop.

He decided that a pleasant surprise rather than a straight interruption was in order. He crept up to her desk and slowly filled her empty coffee mug from the thermos. Quietly then, he came up behind her and placed the mug down on the desk in front of her. "Morning, Sam." She smiled gratefully, the corners of her mouth just visible from his position, and turning took a sip from the mug before turning back around. Her normally cool blue eyes were sunken and their hue dull. Her hair was flat and limp and her skin was immensely sallow. She looked like hell.

"Good morning, Daniel. Thanks. You know…you two don't have to do this."

Well…I guess the jig is up. "Sure we do."

Sam turned around in her stool. They sat, silently drinking for a few minutes before she spoke again, peering into her mug, running a fingernail absently over imperfections in the glazing. The jittering sound that made filled the audio void, temporarily. "I'm sure you have better things to do than visit me in the morning. Besides, I should just as easily be checking up on you or Teal'c." She went to sip again and drained her mug.

Daniel filled it again, using the motion to hide his slight squirm. He looked at her with the most open, sympathetic and appraising gaze he could manage. Oh, well. Its not like we never thought we'd have to mention something. "I hate to break it to you, but, Teal'c and I are the last people who could believe that." That wasn't so bad. Gentle, slightly subtle. Reaction…? Way to go, Daniel. Maybe she'll just mention Pete and kindly refrain from biting my head off. That would be nice.

Sam bit her lower lip and nodded gently, before looking back up to Daniel. She set her coffee down deliberately, pressed her eyes shut and nodded. "Thank you," she whispered. Daniel lightly squeezed her shoulder the best he could while still holding a mug and thermos. This was already going much better than the worst-case scenario that he'd been imagining. She rubbed her temples and sank further into her stool, leaning an elbow on the workbench. "I have to admit that I'm actually entertaining something that's completely against my better judgment," she said with a wave of her hand.

Daniel lifted his eyebrows. "Let me guess…Rand?" Sam sighed and nodded, dropping her chin like a whipped puppy. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, something occurred to me last night." Sam looked up slightly, cocked her head to the side curiously and listened. "Well, based on our own experience going back in time…he may decide that there are certain things he can tell us. He also…might not. But, there's at least the possibility. Sort of." He set his mug and thermos down and leaned against the desk with his arms crossed, immediately hating himself for dropping that tidbit.

"I doubt that, Daniel. Everything that we know about time travel tells us that that could be a very bad idea—we can ask all the questions we want but he probably won't say anything, for our own good. Not that I don't wish things were different." She shook her head longingly.

"Well, he would know, not us. Hey, speaking of that, I wanted to ask you something. What was it that happened to him last night? It didn't really look like that entropic cascade thing…I've seen that before. He just seized and collapsed, like someone turned him off."

"I honestly don't know what it was, Daniel." There was a scratching sound approaching the door. Looking up, Daniel and Sam noticed the monolithic figure of Teal'c filling the doorway. Daniel smiled over his shoulder and raised his mug in salute.

"Hi, Teal'c. How are you?" As stoic as ever, Teal'c glided into the room cradling an overnight mail envelope in his massive hand. How a man that large managed to sneak up on anything so well never ceased to surprise him.

"I am well, Daniel Jackson. Are you well this morning Major Carter?"

Sam repressed a smirk and lowered her head slightly against the tall man's stature. "I'm okay, Teal'c. What's that?" Sam raised her hand, indicating the parcel. Teal'c's face turned down into a concerned frown that spoke volumes to the other two.

He raised it slightly, reading the label. "It is a package that recently was cleared by security." Daniel's eyes hooded as he bit back a sarcastic comment. "Well, that much is obvious. I think she meant to ask who it's for."

With a slight inclination of his head, Teal'c lowered the envelope and extended it toward Sam. "It is addressed to Major Carter." Sam wrinkled her face and took the envelope. It was a heavy cardboard mailing envelope, obviously containing a number of other documents, from its heft. The envelope seemed oddly immaculate for having been through any mail or parcel system. Daniel and Teal'c watched with interest as her eyes chanced on the mailing label. They exchanged curious looks as her eyes widened in confusion. With a heartbeat's pause, she tore at the envelope seal. Dropping from her stool perch, she quickly poured out the contents: a thick envelope and a single sheet of paper. She turned over the envelope. It was a normal device shaped for A4 paper and had a single word scrawled on the front: "Kyle." She passed it to Daniel and picked up the sheet of paper.

Teal'c had known Major Carter for years and had learned her mannerisms and expressions well. The nuances of her eyes, the posture of her body and the disposition of her mouth conveyed as much or more to him than the words she voiced. What he saw now was best described as intense and fearful… curiosity; of a nature that he almost never saw. Samantha Carter's forehead creased in several layers and her gaze shot over the paper. Her eyes paused in their search of the page and she brought her left hand up so that both were now gripping the page. She seemed to cling to it as though her life depended on its proximity. She frantically turned it over to the blank side and then, just as quickly, returned it to the printed. Daniel Jackson blinked rapidly, taking a half step forward.

"Sam? What is it?" Major Carter opened her mouth to speak, but no sound emerged—she simply passed the letter to the archaeologist with a considered pause.

Daniel took the page from Sam's hand and let his eyes defocus as he examined the handwriting before looking at the text—an old habit. That alone, was enough to stop him. It was clearly Sam's carefully measured handwriting. If this was what he was thinking it was, then it seemed entirely too long—dangerously so. The note was nearly a half page. Teal'c leaned in over Sam slightly; only his eyes betrayed his deep concern.

"What is it Daniel Jackson?"

Daniel gaped. "Um… it's a note. From Sam… to Sam." Daniel glanced up from his latest find to see Teal'c's eyes widen and his stance recline; his version of braced surprise. "It says… Sam. I know what you're thinking: this is way too long. I remember reading this note myself. Just breathe. I would have preferred to write the standard two-liner but that just won't work this time. As you read this, Kyle is waking up in the infirmary. Go see him. Get Kyle to take you to the Bifrost Bridge. I can't say any more; he'll tell you what little he can. Kyle is an outstanding officer, a brilliant scientist and a wonderful friend… to all of us; use him. I'm not trying to give you his résumé, but the point is Kyle is as much family to me as Daniel, Teal'c… Jack and Cassie. Trust him as such. Signed, Sam." Daniel turned over the note in his hand several times, as though it would come alive and give him his next course of action. He heard a faint wisp of a voice float up from beside him, and barely recognized it. The ups and downs of the past few weeks were wearing them all thin.

"Daniel, have you ever heard of a Bifrost Bridge?"

Daniel wrinkled his brow and thought for a moment… wait. "Of course!" Sam's eyes widened and Teal'c crossed his arms and shifted his weight expectantly. Daniel was so shocked looking from one to the other that he hardly noticed the increasing annoyance plying it's way steadily across Sam's face.

Teal'c managed to break his reverie, though, by raising his voice. "Daniel Jackson. Please elaborate."

Daniel began to pace randomly, his hands flying in every direction. "Okay. According to Norse myth, the realm of the gods and the realm of man were connected by a rainbow called the Bifrost Bridge."

A small smile played on Teal'c's face. "Conceivably a way of contacting the Asgard."

Sam's smile broke and she was about to speak as the phone rang. She walked over and lifted the receiver. "Carter." She looked up at the men and her smile became a grin. "We'll be right there." She replaced the handset to its cradle and grabbed a duffel bag in the corner of her lab, before turning to the expectant and confused looking men. "He's coming around."