--- --- Unexpected Guests --- ---

A soft kiss was planted on his chin and he smiled unconsciously. Stifling a yawn, he opened his eyes slowly to be greeted by the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. She smiled at him and he studied the small lines around her mouth that creased when she smiled. Boy, how he loved her smile. With a fluid movement, he pulled a hand over his eyes to brush away the last remainder of sleep.

"Such a good way to be woken up."

The smile grew and she propped her head on her elbow. He held her gaze until her eyes started roaming over him. He felt lines of fire where her eyes traveled. Her voice was soft and seductive as she propped herself up on both arms, her head directly over his.

"I know even better ways to wake you up."

Her lips descended onto his, kissing him deeply, and he felt certain parts of his body most definitely waking up. She broke the kiss and smiled at him with one of those radiant smiles that could melt the world around him until all that was left was her. He wondered whether it was legal, feeling that good. Maybe he was on dope... but then, maybe it was just his wife.

"Have I told you today how much I love you, Mrs. O'Neill?"

"Feel free to go ahead. Somehow this doesn't get old, Mr. O'Neill."

They were about to close the distance between them once again when the phone started ringing. Jack sighed audibly as his wife burst into giggles at his frustration. Forcing his hand to feel for her cell, he pushed himself up. There was no way they could ignore that call. The tune was the one she'd programmed for the SGC.

Flipping it open, he greeted the caller with a harsh, "She isn't available at the moment."

He listened to the voice, fully aware of his wife's watchful eyes. She tensed as she heard him answering, knowing that something was off, despite his efforts to keep his face neutral. She'd always been able to read him like a book, no matter how hard he tried to fool her.

"We'll be there in thirty. Keep 'em there. Don't let anyone talk to them."

Before he'd ended the call, she'd already jumped out of bed, struggling to pull on her pants. Following her example, he waited for the inevitable question to come.

"What's up?"

"Seems we've got some unexpected visitors. A few minutes ago, the Gate opened. There was kind of a malfunction and the iris couldn't close. Two people emerged. One of them was a Jaffa; the other claimed to be Samantha Carter."

The look of total shock and disbelief on her face was gorgeous. She was always so controlled, so aware of everything, and he was always overjoyed to see that she could still be amazed by something. He'd missed that expression so much. When he'd met her, she'd been curious of everything, wanting to tear the world into tiny pieces and giving him that 'gosh, this is fascinating' look every ten minutes. But, over the years of experience and war, this expression had grown rare on her face.

Kissing her softly on the cheek, he made his way towards the bath, leaving her in astonishment.

"Get going, Sammy. You're already waiting for yourself."

--- --- --- --- ---

Sam hurried through the SGC corridors, following her husband closely on his heels. Who the hell was that woman and where did she come from? Whoever she was, there was no way she could be Sam Carter, as Sam was pretty sure that she, herself, was said woman. They reached the isolation rooms and Jack stopped suddenly dead in his tracks, making her bump slightly into him as she'd still been lost in thoughts.

She looked over his shoulder to see what had shocked him like that. The small window revealed the woman's face behind the glass… her face. God, she really looked like her. The hair, the face, the eyes. She could have looked at her reflection in the window. Granted, the woman was thinner and looked older, more worn out, but it was definitely her.

"You ok?"

Jack's brown eyes watched her warily and she forced a smile on her face. He could read her far too well to buy it, but he accepted it and opened the door. She could feel his hand on the small of her back, offering his support as they stepped through the metal door. The woman's eyes followed them when they walked through the room towards the table she was sitting at.

Her eyes were fixed on Jack and Sam stepped a bit closer to him. There was something about the way the woman looked at Jack that gave her the creeps.

"So, I heard you asked for us. Care to explain who the hell you are."

The room fell silent after Jack's sharp words. The woman seemed to think about her answer before she spoke. Sam could see Jack flinch at the sound of the voice, so much like her own. This was just... weird. And she didn't like it a bit.

"My name is Samantha Carter. I come from an alternate reality and I need your help."

"Impossible. You came through the Stargate and the Stargate doesn't connect different realities. It just creates a wormhole to travel through space, not the multiverse."

Sam's curiosity had gotten the better of her and she shot a quick glance in her husband's direction as an apology for the interruption. Her head was already busy doing the math, adding and discarding theories rapidly. They'd destroyed the quantum mirror years ago and there was no other way to travel to other realities.

"Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. But I was able to modify the Stargate so that it would connect using the subatomic quantum foam Teal'c found…"

"The Jaffa? Who is he? What do you know about the Goa'uld?"

Jack's voice had interrupted the woman mid-sentence and Sam mid-thought.

"Yes, Teal'c is Jaffa and has been loyal member of SG-1. I hope you've been nice to him."

"At least he'll be treated better than any of our teams would have been treated in the hands of Ra!"

Sam could see the tension in her husband, his hands already fidgeting with a pen he'd produced out of nowhere. She concentrated so much on him that she nearly missed the woman's eyes go wide in surprise and a flash of anger.

"Teal'c is the best friend I could have ever asked for. He saved your... my Jack's ass more times than I care to remember; he turned his back on his God to save our lives and fight against the Goa'uld. He deserves to be treated with a hell of a lot of respect, respect that you had better pay him."

The woman took some deep breaths before she started again. Her threat drifted heavy in the air and Sam could feel Jack's tension ease a bit. It was hard to imagine that an enemy would have spoken like that. After another shuddery breath, the woman started speaking again.

"Anyway, Teal'c helped me to access the quantum foam through meditation. As you know the super sub quantum foam connects every atom to another atom in another reality by use of a wormhole. Through his Kel'no'reem techniques, Teal'c was able to choose our destination among the million possibilities in the multiverse. I wanted him to find a reality where the Jack O'Neill is as close as possible to our Jack O'Neill. When we left the wormhole, we were here."

--- --- --- --- ---

"You believe her? You kidding?"

She could hear his voice through the thick metal door of the isolation chamber. She knew him far too well not to notice that he didn't believe a single word she had said. He probably thought it was a trap. At least that's what her Jack might have supposed. Her Jack. God, how she missed him.

It had taken her five months to figure out how that alternate reality traveling stuff worked and two more months to find a way to avoid the entropic cascade failure. Jeremy had helped her a lot; he was such a smart kid and understood quantum physics like other people understood how to turn on the TV. Meanwhile Daniel had all his teams searching for any hint of Jack, the Asgard, or anything else that might help them. But all teams came back empty handed. They'd found nothing.

Her life had been narrowed down to one aim. Bringing Jack back. She even quit the Air Force. Teaching at the Academy had taken away far too much time, precious time that she'd needed to work on getting him back. And it was easier this way anyway. The members of Earth's Stargate committee hadn't been too pleased about her military status while she was working at the ESGC.

During the last months, she'd worked 24/7 to find him. Daniel had sometimes threatened to drag her away from work, other times he had simply done it. She'd lost weight and Cassie had warned her several times that she would be force fed if she didn't eat. All in all, it had been Edora or Maybourne's damn moon all over again but, again, her hard work had finally paid off.

She was here. With Jack. The other Jack. Her heart was doing back flips at the simple sight, though her mind kept telling that it was the wrong Jack. Yet it was so hard; he was his usual stubborn self, refusing to believe her. The other her outside the door gesticulated to underline her point while the other Jack still looked unconvinced. Suddenly, the woman touched his cheek and smiled at him, followed by a soft kiss to defuse the last doubts he might have harbored.

The sight made her heart crumble, reminding her of why she was here, of all her regrets. Of never telling him what he meant to her. Of allowing it to stay in the room. Of how it felt to have her world torn apart the moment she had realized that she'd never said goodbye to him.

She knew, if she ever found him, she would tell him what she felt for him. Would tell him how sorry she was, how much she loved him. And, if he sent her away, she would say goodbye to him, wishing him well. It would hurt but, at least, she wouldn't have to carry those regrets. She hadn't done that the last time they had parted and it had nearly killed her.

Her memories of the time where she thought Jack to be dead were vague to say the least. But she knew what Cassie told her and that had been enough to scare the crap out of her. She knew she would've been able to deal with his death, if it hadn't been for all those regrets. She needed her chance to try to right the wrong.

The door flew open and the other Sam and Jack entered the room, both pairs of eyes never leaving Sam.

"So you said you needed our help. What for?"

Her eyes fell to her fingers, entwined on the table, and she felt him looking at her, boring holes into her as if to see whether she was really who she said she was. As if Doctor Warner hadn't already determined that. He had stuck enough needles into her to make for a good sieve. She knew this reality's Janet was still around but she couldn't have faced her. Not now, not here. The last thing she would've needed was to fall apart. And, so, she'd asked for another doctor.

"I need you to accompany Teal'c and myself home, into my reality."

"What?"

Both the other Sam and Jack had spoken at the same time, their eyes drawn to her.

"I know this does sound strange, but I need your help in contacting the Asgard."

"Who are the Asgard?"

Other Sam barely hid the curiosity in her voice and Sam felt that she might have found a way to reach her aim. These people obviously didn't know who the Asgard were. AND they still fought against Ra. Her face lit up as she smiled one of her most glorious smiles. She could see other Jack's defenses begin to crack under the radiance.

"Someone who might hold the means to defeat Ra."

--- --- --- --- ---

"You ok?"

Samantha Carter was looking at him with a worried expression. He had been given some strange looks and no one was overly friendly towards him, but they had not dared to do anything else. Those people here had obviously never seen him before, so this reality's Teal'c might still be Apophis' first prime. He could understand their fury and their need to gain information from him, but there was nothing he could have told them.

This reality could be completely different from his. His alternate self could probably be a farmer on Chulak or he could have never been born. What could he have told his interrogator? The woman in front of him was still watching him with caution.

"I am all right. Has O'Neill agreed to help us?"

"I think I've convinced him. Come on. You must be starving."

He inclined his head and followed on her heels as they walked out of the holding cell under the mindful eyes of some SFs escorting them on their way. He couldn't resist throwing the airman standing on watch before his cell a look and he had to hide a smile when the young soldier started shivering. Silently, they walked through the floors of this reality's SGC. Every now and then, they passed some soldiers watching him with a wary eye. What interested him greatly was the muttered "Colonel O'Neill" when Samantha Carter walked past the airmen.

They had explicitly been searching for a reality in which O'Neill was as close as possible to their own reality's. And, in this reality, Samantha Carter was obviously married to Jack O'Neill. There was no other explanation for the behavior of the airmen. So, if this O'Neill was close to their own O'Neill and this one was married to Samantha...

His thoughts were interrupted when they pushed the doors of the commissary open and all heads turned towards them. They loaded their trays with nourishment and settled at an empty table. Still, several pairs of eyes were resting on them and it did not help much that only a short time later they were joined by this reality's Carter and O'Neill.

"Mind if we join you?"

"Go ahead."

He could hear the tension in Samantha Carter's voice and he was sure that it didn't escape the couple that now took their seats next to them. Samantha O'Neill sat down next to him and O'Neill across from her, next to Samantha Carter. Teal'c could see the look the couple threw each other over the rims of their coffee cups. They felt uncomfortable and he could only too well imagine what they might feel. As silence settled between them, Teal'c felt, for the first time in his life with the Tau'ri, disturbed by the fact that no one was talking. Indeed, the entire commissary seemed to have fallen silent.

"So... you didn't mention why you couldn't ask 'your' Jack to contact the..."

"The Asgard."

"Yeah, thanks Sammy. So, Carter, why didn't you?"

Samantha Carter looked at O'Neill with shaded eyes. Teal'c could see that she didn't want to answer this question and he took over the task.

"O'Neill disappeared seven months ago. We believe that he has been abducted. Our attempts to locate him have been fruitless and now our only means to ascertain his location is through the help of the Asgard."

O'Neill glared at him and Teal'c knew without a doubt that this O'Neill didn't trust him a bit. At the same time, he felt Samantha Carter thanking him silently, her hand reaching over the table to squeeze his lightly.

"I can't imagine how you must feel. I couldn't stand to lose Jack. He's my life."

Samantha O'Neill smiled at her twin with one of those warming smiles that Teal'c knew how to interpret pretty well. She understood the motivation of Samantha Carter and her distress. She would most certainly help them to reach their goal.

And, if Samantha O'Neill was on their side, O'Neill couldn't stand a chance. At least, not as long as this O'Neill was really like their own.

--- --- --- --- ---

"Be careful."

"As usual."

She smiled at him and his heart skipped its usual beat. Even after four years of marriage, she was still able to do that to him. He'd never been so happy to have his knee shot to pieces, taking him out of active duty.

"I love you, Jack."

"Love you too, Sammy. C'mere."

She snuggled herself into his arms and he buried his face in her neck, taking as much of her scent in as possible. Her warm breath tickled his ear when her voice whispered softly, "Bring him back."

Pulling back slightly, he looked into those wonderful baby blues.

"Will do."

They shared one last kiss before he turned around to face the pained gaze of Carter and the stoic expression of her silent companion.

"Let's move out, campers."

Both nodded and the Jaffa seemed to fall into some kind of trance. Just moments later, he nodded at Carter and she motioned for Jack to go. Taking one last look at his wife, he stepped through the Gate. The familiar journey through the Gate was unexpectedly strange. The darkness changed to a multicolored rush, all colors melting into one. Just seconds later, he stepped out of the Gate to be greeted by the usual gray SGC walls.

But, as his eyes scanned the room, he found that, apart from the walls, it looked different from his reality. There were no guards aiming their guns at him AND there was a familiar person standing at the foot of the ramp that wouldn't be standing there in his SGC.

"Welcome back. I see everything went as planned."

"Yeah. Good to see you, Daniel."

Jack had been so distracted by the younger man that he hadn't even noticed Carter coming through the Gate until he heard her voice directly next to him. She stepped down the ramp and hugged Daniel briefly. The blue eyes of his old friend were still fixed on him and he felt his eyes stinging with tears. Daniel was alive. He hadn't been prepared for that. His Daniel had died three years ago and he felt the pain rushing through him as he watched this Daniel stand there, joking with the Jaffa.

Daniel had been his best friend, despite him being an archeo-whatever. On Abydos, Daniel had saved him from Ra's clutches. They'd blown up the ship, but Ra had been able to escape. Somehow that guy seemed indestructible. They had killed so many other Goa'uld, some major System Lords even, but Ra was still alive.

Ever since their return from Abydos, Kawalski, Daniel, and Jack had been a close-knit unit. When Sara had left him, those two had been there to help him up. And, when Daniel had done the glowfish thing the first time around, he'd helped Sha're through the aftermath, as he did the second time as well. Only the second time, Daniel hadn't come back. And, now, there was Daniel. Laughing, joking, breathing.

Telling himself to get a grip, he stepped down the ramp to where Daniel and Carter were talking silently. When he reached the base, Daniel looked up at him, a huge smile covering his face.

"Hey Jack. Good to see you."

"You can't even imagine."

With that, Jack pulled Daniel into an embrace. God, he had missed him. And, even though he wasn't his Daniel, he still was a Daniel and, as far as he knew, he was still a friend.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry."

Jack hadn't even the slightest idea what Daniel was talking about but, at the moment, he didn't really care.

--- --- TBC --- ---

A/N: Thanks a lot for all those wonderful reviews. You guys are great.