Trepidation of the Spheres, Part 2
General Hammond watched as Janet followed Dr. Tharp and a couple of nurses out of the gate room. He then turned around to face Colonel Carter and one of the other members of SG-1, Jonas Quinn. "Where are Jack and Daniel?" he asked.
"Jack should be back any time," answered Carter. "He was just taking those senators back to the airport." As if on cue, Jack O'Neill strolled briskly into the gate room. Even in his reduced capacity as civilian consultant, everyone still thought of him as "the Colonel," though he would almost refuse to answer to his former title.
"What's going on?" he demanded. "This place is going nuts. I thought I heard someone say that Fraiser just walked through the Stargate."
"Uh, yeah, she did," answered Sam.
"What!!"
"We think she's from an alternate universe. She said she was supposed to alter the past and cease to exist but somehow ended up here instead. I haven't quite worked out the physics of it yet."
"Janet Fraiser?" Jack looked dumbfounded.
"Not the same Janet Fraiser that was killed in August," Sam cautioned. "But another version of her, yes."
"Does Danny know?"
Sam swallowed and shook her head. "He had to leave early. Something about his babysitter being sick."
"Well, somebody get him back here," ordered the General. "Tell him it's urgent, but don't break the news over the phone."
"I'll go call him," Jack volunteered, though he didn't sound particularly eager.
"Okay," agreed Hammond. "Jonas, go start reading up on alternate universes. We haven't run into one in quite a few years, so I'm not sure what we are going to be able to do about this. Colonel, why don't you and I go down to the infirmary and check on our newest patient."
Steven Tharp remained fairly quiet while he poked, prodded, and x-rayed Janet. He was suffering a kind of dull shock; the last time he had seen her, she was coding on his operating table. She had died the moment the staff blast hit her, he knew, but they brought her back through the gate, and he and the staff worked frantically but futilely for the better part of an hour before finally admitting defeat. Not the same Janet, he reminded himself as he observed the nervous-looking woman before him. This woman's hair was longer, and she was probably ten or fifteen pounds lighter than their Janet. He heard footsteps in the doorway and turned to find Hammond and Carter hovering. He wasn't surprised to see them.
"General, Colonel," he said in greeting.
"How is our patient?" Hammond asked. Always the same question, no matter who the patient is, thought both Steven and Janet.
"Well, I'll need to run the blood work before I can clear her, but her x-rays are clean, and she appears to be in fine health."
"You're a Colonel now? I mean, here?" broke in Janet. Now that she was adjusting to the initial shock of the situation, she was struggling to place everyone in this alternate SGC.
Sam grinned slightly. "Uh, yeah. I was promoted about four years ago."
"What about Colonel O'Neill?" His absence in the gate room earlier had been conspicuous to Janet. And of course, Daniel had also been missing, but just the thought of him gave Janet a brief pang of longing, so she didn't quite trust herself to bring him up.
"I'm sure he'll be down here in a few minutes. He's retired now, but he still hangs around as civilian consultant and basic pain in the ass," Sam answered fondly. "He pretty much shattered his knee on a mission, and even with reconstructive surgery had to be taken off a combat unit. He decided to retire, and I got promoted at the same time." The slight blush on Sam's face gave Janet hope that this universe's Jack and Sam had managed to realize their feelings in a way that her friends never had.
Daniel Jackson herded his three-year-old son toward the elevator that would take them down into the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain. Initially he had been frustrated about leaving work early to pick up his son because Mrs. Lynch, the babysitter, had a doctor's appointment. Now he was frustrated at being called back in as he was in the middle of getting dinner ready. He had a vague sense that commissary food was unhealthy for Nick, but probably no worse in the long run than his own cooking.
"Can I play with Aunt Sam?" asked Nick as the elevator descended. Daniel considered the question for a moment. Jack had sounded fairly serious on the phone; he said it was urgent and important.
"Aunt Sam may be busy. We'll see if Uncle Steven is busy, though. Or maybe one of the nurses wouldn't mind hanging out with you, okay?"
Not long after Jack arrived in the infirmary and proceeded to stare at her in shock—Janet was learning that shock was the standard reaction—Dr. Tharp pronounced her free to roam about the base. General Hammond had ordered them all to his office for a briefing, and as Janet followed Sam and Jack out of the infirmary, she overheard part of their quiet conversation.
"Did you get hold of him on the phone?" Sam was asking.
"Yeah, he sounded kind of pissed, but he said he'd be here. We should warn him before he sees her, though."
"We should tell her, too."
"I hate to eavesdrop, guys," interrupted Janet, "but tell me what?" Sam and Jack exchanged a worried look.
"Um, it's about Daniel," began Sam. At that moment, she was interrupted by voices coming from just around the corner by the elevator.
"C'mon, Daddy!"
"Nicholas Fraiser Jackson, what have I told you about running around here." Sam's instincts kicked into full battle mode, and she grabbed Jack's arm as she moved in front of Janet, trying to prevent the inevitable. Sam and Jack stared at each other in a panic as little Nick came careening around the corner, Daniel close on his heels.
"Oh, shit!" whispered Jack.
"MOMMY!!!!" shrieked Nick, and after pausing a moment, he hurtled himself at Janet's legs.
"Oh, shit!" repeated Jack. He watched as all color drained from Daniel's face as he stared at Janet. The younger man's mouth began to move as if he was trying to say something, but no sound was coming out. Jack heard Sam trying to get Nick's attention, trying to explain that this wasn't his mommy even though she looked like her. Nick wasn't having any of it and clung tenaciously to Janet, whose eyes were rapidly flitting between the man opposite her and the boy trying to climb up her legs.
"J-janet?" Daniel finally managed to croak. He took a halting step forward as Jack grabbed his arm to steady him.
"Not your Janet, Danny," Jack said quietly. "She's from an alternate universe, we think. She came through the gate a little bit ago." He couldn't tell if Daniel was completely processing what he said, but from the way his face fell at the words "not your Janet," Jack was pretty sure he got that part at least.
Sam couldn't hear what Jack was saying to Daniel, but she could definitely see that Daniel was in shock. Turning to Janet, she decided she didn't look much better. Nick was growing increasingly upset that his "mommy" didn't seem overjoyed to see him, and he wasn't at all interested in listening to Aunt Sam. As if on autopilot, Janet scooped up the boy and tried to soothe him. Sam watched in amazement as he calmed immediately, burying his face in Janet's neck and continuing to repeat the word "mommy" over and over. A wide-eyed and pale Janet looked at her questioningly.
"Um, our Janet was married to Daniel," she explained. "Nick is their son."
Janet nodded. The pieces were falling in place, though her brain was reeling so much that she couldn't process what was happening. Married to Daniel. With a son—this boy clinging onto her for dear life. It's not me, she reminded herself. Some other woman who is dead—me, but not me. Suddenly she was aware of Daniel coming toward her.
"I'm sorry about that," he said, gesturing toward Nick. His voice was low and shaking, and his blue eyes were focused intently upon her. "He thinks-- I mean, I didn't know--."
She wasn't sure what to say. "He's okay." Indeed, the boy had stopped crying altogether, though he had not loosened his grip at all.
Jack cleared his throat. "Guys, I think we should get up to that briefing. Maybe we can explain some of this there." Daniel nodded mutely, his eyes never leaving Janet and Nick.
Nick's unhappiness was renewed when he was made to leave his "mommy," but eventually a couple of the nurses bribed him with some candy and promised to keep an eye on him while Daniel was in the meeting.
"As best as I can figure—and remember I haven't had much time with this yet—we have a very unusual situation here," explained Jonas Quinn, SG-1's resident genius. Jack rolled his eyes. Duh. Jonas paused for a moment, frowned, and then continued. "The logical solution for a visitor from an alternative universe is to send him or her back as soon as possible in order to avoid the entropic cascade failure that results from the same person existing twice in the same universe. And also because I assume the person would want to go home. The problem with Dr. Fraiser here, is that if she did what she was supposed to do before she left, her universe doesn't exist anymore as she knew it. It would have reverted back ten years or so, in which case an earlier version of her already exists in that universe. So even if we could figure out how to send her back, either she or the earlier version of her in that universe would suffer entropic cascade failure. However, because the Dr. Fraiser of this universe is dead, this Dr. Fraiser could theoretically continue to live here without suffering any physical consequences."
He finished and looked around the table for reactions. Jack's expression had become more interested, and Carter was scribbling on her notepad, evidently double-checking Jonas's theories. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and Captain Mark Robinson, who had joined SG-1 when Daniel stepped into his present on-world position, kept glancing from Daniel to Janet. The two of them still wore pale, shocked expressions.
Hammond looked from Jonas to Carter. "Does that sound right to you, Colonel?"
"Well, sir, it is certainly unusual, but given what I understand about the situation, I think Jonas is right. It sounds like Janet will have to stay here."
"Of course," cut in Jonas, "that doesn't really fix the wanting to go home part, I'm afraid." He looked apologetically at Janet.
She wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Even if there were a home to return to, would she want to go back? The Aschen hadn't exactly made her life terribly bright, and if Daniel were dead—which he almost certainly was, if the world still existed there—there was no point to going on at all. She realized that she would have to trust in the note making it back, to trust in their former selves to make something more out of their second chance, though they wouldn't realize it was a second chance.
"Well, Dr. Fraiser," General Hammond's voice interrupted her reverie, "I'm not sure yet how this will all play out, but unless we learn something different, it looks like you'll be staying with us. Of course, I'll have to confine you to base for the foreseeable future. It's too late tonight to make the calls I'll need to make, but tomorrow I'll see what I can work out in terms of a legitimate identity and all that. You can stay in the VIP quarters. As for the rest of you," he said, looking at Daniel, Sam, Jack, Jonas, Teal'c, Mark Robinson, and Steven Tharp, "whether or not you stay here tonight is up to you."
As the briefing was breaking up, one of the infirmary nurses knocked hesitatingly on the door to the briefing room. "I'm sorry to interrupt, sir," she said, "but we need Dr. Jackson to come down to the infirmary. Nick's terribly upset, and we can't get him to calm down." Without another word, Daniel bolted out the door, and Steven Tharp followed him, walking out with the nurse. Janet looked after them rather helplessly, somehow knowing that the little boy was upset because of her. Sam recognized the difficult position Janet was in and jumped in to try to alleviate the awkwardness.
"How long has it been since you've eaten?" she asked, taking Janet's arm. "It's almost 2100 hours, and I'm starving. Why don't you join us for dinner, and we can talk some?" Jack and Jonas nodded enthusiastically, and even though Janet wasn't hungry and was a little dubious about facing the commissary, she agreed.