Title: Realities Apart Author: SGAngeL

Season: Mid Season 8. Takes place before Reckoning

Spoilers: There for but the Grace of God, Point of View, Meridian, Fallen/Homecoming, Heroes, New Order, basically anything up to and including Season 8. I will list ep spoilers in future chapters when they appear.

Summary: Jack O'Neill comes through the quantum mirror asking for help, will SG-1 be able to help him?

Pairing: Jack/Sam

Disclaimer: Stargate and its characters are not mine, and this is written purely for fun and enjoyment. There is absolutely no copyright infringement intended.

Warning: There are a couple of badish words, but It's not anything that anybody doesn't hear everyday.

Author's Notes: this started off as just a little story to write while I wrote another big one, but then the story line grew into a huge complex story! A lot of which was too confusing, even for me. So, I'm thinking this will turn out to be a bit lengthy, but I guess we'll just see where it goes.

Any comments are more than welcome, please do let me know what you think! Enjoy!

"Realities Apart"

Chapter 1-

Brigadier General Jack O'Neill rocked back and forth on his feet as he waited for the elevator to slowly ascend the mountain. It jolted to a halt at level 25, and the door slid open to reveal Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter. She stepped onto the elevator next to him.

"Carter," Jack acknowledged her with a nod and a small smile.

"Sir," Sam smiled back. "So what's the problem?" She'd heard there was a problem on Level 16, and had decided to check it out.

"Security breach on Level 16… Storage Room 6, I believe."

Sam frowned. "Storage Room 6? That's where the quantum mirror is kept." That was the first thing that she could think of which could cause alarm for a security breach. The mirror itself had been ordered destroyed several years ago. The President had overruled General Hammond, though, and ordered the mirror stay within the SGC. He gave no reason for his decision, so nobody questioned him on the matter.

There was nothing else in the storage room other than equipment, and a few useless artifacts they'd picked up along the way.

Jack groaned. "The mirror? Oh joy!" He replied sarcastically.

The elevator stopped on the designated level, and they both made their way to the storage room. Sam was contemplating on what they would find when they got there, while Jack was hoping they wouldn't run into an alternate version of themselves. That always got confusing.

They walked into the room, and found several SF's surrounding a very familiar figure.

"Oh no," Jack mumbled. "Now that definitely doesn't get old."

Standing before them was none other than Jack O'Neill himself. He was an exact replica down to the silver gray shade of his hair. His face shared the same pained expression of the General standing before him. It was general knowledge that Jack O'Neill didn't like having a double around.

"Sergeant! Please explain." Jack turned to the Sergeant standing by him.

"Yes Sir, the alarms were tripped about 20 minutes ago. At first we thought it was you, but then we played back the security tapes, and found that he came through the mirror, General." Walter explained.

There was a snort from the other side of the room, and they all turned to look at the intruder.

"'General'? How on Earth did that happen?"

Jack looked back at his double with a smirk. "What can I say? People like me."

"So… What's the problem, Jack?" Daniel asked as he walked into the room with Teal'c by his side. He was looking expectantly at the alternate, directing the question at him. He hadn't yet realized that there were in fact two Jacks in the room.

AU Jack's eyes grew wide, "Daniel, you're alive."

"Last time I checked." Daniel frowned at who he thought was his friend.

"Apparently, this other me came through that mirror thingy." The real Jack said.

Daniel and Teal'c swung around to face him, shock registering on their faces, which for Teal'c was his usual eyebrow raise. Daniel looked back and forth between the two. "Well that's… weird."

"You're telling me." Jack mumbled.

"Sorry, but why are you here?" Sam asked, speaking for the first time since she'd entered the room, and bringing the conversation back to the problem at hand.

AU Jack turned to look at her, as if noticing her for the first time. His eyes lingered on Sam without replying.

"Won't he get that tropical casket thing, like Dr. Carter had?" Jack asked, looking to Sam.

"Entropical Cascade Failure." Sam instantly corrected him without thought.

"Hopefully I wont be here that long." The stranger said, finally tearing his eyes away from Sam. "I need your help."

General O'Neill and the three members of SG-1 escorted their new guest to the Briefing Room. There were many curious and shocked personnel that they passed on their way. No doubt the rumour mill was at large, and the newest theory was probably that General O'Neill had found his long lost identical twin brother.

The General sat at the head of the table, Sam sitting by his right side, and the AU Jack on his left. Daniel took his usual seat on Sam's other side, and Teal'c sat across from him.

"So," Jack began. "How exactly do you need our help?" They all turned to look at the not-so-unfamiliar stranger expectantly.

He took a deep breath before beginning. "In my reality, Ba'al attacked Earth. There was nothing we could do. He dialed in to our 'gate before we even knew what was happening. Prometheus was destroyed while trying to defend against the attack, and the Deadalus is nowhere near complete. The F 302's barely stood a chance. Ba'al's fleet wiped them out within minutes. The mirror was our last chance to get help."

"And how exactly are we going to help you?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Jonas found some text on a planet, and it had a 'gate address to a planet where the Ancients had an outpost. He thought that we might be able to find one of those ZPMs there, and use it on the chair in Antarctica."

"So you want to go to that planet in our reality." Sam said. She'd been listening closely to his story, and she was a little worried about the chances of Ba'al attacking in this reality. There was a good possibility of it, as their realities were obviously very similar.

"Yes," AU Jack answered. "But you can have it back once we've used it, or you can even have the other one in our reality. Heck, I'm sure the President would even agree to letting you have both of them!" He looked around the table at each of their faces, before resting on the General's. "Please, let me save what's left of my world."

The room went silent as four pairs of eyes landed at the head of the table.

"I'll have to talk to the President about this one." Jack answered, and he stood from the table. "Until then, Daniel, take our guest to the Infirmary to get checked out, would you?"

"Thank you." AU Jack looked earnestly at him.

"You're welcome, and dare I say, he hasn't said 'yes' yet." Jack looked to Sam. "Carter." He nodded for her to follow him, and he led her into his office. He shut the door behind them, and turned around to face her.

"So what do you think?"

"Well, I don't see why we shouldn't help. I'm sure you'd want the same from him if the situation were reversed. Not to mention we could get a ZPM out of this. Then we'd be able to contact the Atlantis." Sam answered. She looked through the glass star map to the Briefing Room as AU Jack left with Daniel, Teal'c exiting after them.

"What about Ba'al attacking, I mean if it's happening in his reality, it could happen here too, right? Kind of like Apophis, and when Daniel first found the mirror."

Sam nodded, and looked back at her CO. "That's what I'm worried about, Sir. It would be on the safe side if we had a ZPM to protect us."

"Yeah, I'll see what the President has to say." He walked around his desk, and plopped down into his chair. "So, I will see you at lunch?" Jack asked, raising his eyebrows, questioningly.

"Yes, Sir."

"Oh, and Carter? Do you think he was jealous about the whole General thing?"

Sam looked at his innocent gaze, and cracked a smile. "I'll see you later, Sir."

"You said Jonas figured out the address?" Daniel asked the AU Jack as they stood together in the elevator.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"Well, uh, where exactly am I then?"

Jack turned to look carefully at the young man standing beside him. "You died… almost three years ago now." He held Daniel's gaze for a moment before turning back to face the doors as they slid open.

"Oh…" Was all Daniel could say. He suddenly remembered AU Jack's earlier comment in the storage room.

They stepped into the hallway, and continued towards the Infirmary.

"Yeah, radiation. Kinda… painful. He ascended to a higher plain of existence… or something or other." Jack explained.

"He didn't descend again?"

Jack stopped in the middle of the hallway, and turned to face Daniel. "What?"

"Well, I died too, but over a year ago now I descended again; once again taking human form."

"No… that didn't happen." Jack continued down the hallway.

Daniel stared after him for a moment, in deep thought. "So that would be a reason why Ba'al's attacked you, and he hasn't here." He speculated.

AU Jack swung around on his heel, leveling Daniel with a glare. "Are you saying that if the Daniel in my reality had decided to descend, then we wouldn't be having this problem? That Ba'al wouldn't have killed everyone I know! And he wouldn't be enslaving Earth!"

"No!" Daniel defended himself. "I'm saying that that's probably one of a thousand differences between our realities that could account for this."

"So it's my Daniel's fault that all this is happening!" Jack's voice had risen to a yell, and several SGC employees were scurrying in the opposite direction.

Daniel gave an irritated groan. "Don't be an ass, you know what I'm trying to say." He was one of the few people who would actually stand up to an irate Jack O'Neill, no matter what reality he was from.

Jack turned around, and headed down the hall to the Infirmary once again. After a moment, Daniel rolled his eyes, and followed. Thankfully General O'Neill had called ahead to the Infirmary to avoid further confusion.

Even though she knew he'd been coming, Dr. Brightman stared at AU Jack. It was her first time seeing a duplicate, and she was amazed by how similar they were; he was an exact copy, even the tiny scar on his left eyebrow.

"Jack, this is Dr. Brightman." Daniel introduced the two. "But I guess you've probably already met her in your reality."

AU Jack turned back to Daniel, his face still a little red from his obvious anger at the young archaeologist. "Where's Dr. Fraiser?" He snapped.

Daniel noticed Dr. Brightman flinch slightly at the Colonel's harsh tone. He knew that the doctor still felt that she lived under Janet's shadow, and in a way she did. Everyone knew she had large shoes to fill, figuratively speaking.

But Daniel's attention was drawn to the Jack standing before him. Was Janet still alive in his reality? He allowed himself a moment of envy, until he remembered his reality wasn't the one being invaded by the Goa'uld.

"She uh… there was an accident offworld about a year ago." He paused and looked down at the floor. "She didn't make it." He looked back up at Jack, and saw his face instantly turn to guilt and pity, but just as quickly as it came, his face turned back to its steely, sardonic glare.

"Let me guess," he spoke quietly. "Now you're going to go and say that if Fraiser had died in my reality, Ba'al wouldn't have attacked either."

Daniel was now officially ticked off by the man's attitude. "No, there's no way I would ever even think that! Like I said, there could be thousands of hundreds of differences between our realities!" He pointed an accusatory finger at Jack. "But you know what? I'm beginning to think that maybe you being such a dick-head has more than likely something to do with it." He turned to Dr. Brightman who was staring at them in shock. "Good luck," He told her before turning and storming out of the Infirmary, practically trampling over an airman in the process.

TBC-

A/N: well, let me know what you think! Please review!