Treat of the day: hot cross buns (it is nearly Easter after all!)
September 21st, 1998 – Stargate Command
Sam Beckett's POV
Sam Beckett watched the Imaging Chamber door slide closed with a heavy heart. How on Earth was he going to pull this off? How on any planet, for that matter - not that he could get to any of the many that seemed to be out there.
Test-flexing his ankle, Sam winced and decided that sooner would be better than later. He'd bound his injury with a makeshift bandage – one of Daniel's bandanas – but the biting pain and awkward sitting position had limited what he could do. It throbbed on the edge of his awareness like an itch that couldn't be scratched.
So… how to go about this? Should he call Captain Carter and ask her to visit him? Tell her he'd found something interesting in the translation? Or should he write a proper confession letter? There was a printer in here, but then if he write it by hand that would confirm his earlier sample, the one that was very inconveniently in the hands of the SGC's Marines. Maybe he should write down a few mathematical proofs? Now there's something that would be completely out of character for Daniel. Volunteering for a CAT scan and an MRI would be a given though – he wanted to prove that he wasn't a Goa'uld.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Sam picked up the phone and dialled Captain Carter's extension – number 3 on Daniel's speed dial (after General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill). His hands shook as he pressed the speaker button and replaced the handset, pushing his chair away from the desk to minimise the temptation to slam down the phone before she answered.
It rang. It rang again. One more ring and he'd hang up. Definitely. No point in hanging on the line if she'd gone out or someth-
"Hello?"
Uh… "Hi Sam!"
The Leaper's head fell forward to his chest. What a lame greeting – his voice sounded so scared and puny.
"Daniel?"
What should he say? What could he say? Damn, he muttered silently, shoulda written a script before calling.
"Daniel, is everything ok?"
"Uh, yeh – everything's… fine," Sam replied weakly. Way to go Nobel Prize winner, yeh. "Look, uh… could you come down here a minute? There's something I really need to show you."
There, he'd said it.
There was an aggravated snort from the telephone. "Could it wait until after lunch? I'm kinda in the middle of something."
"Uh… I guess it could…" Chicken! he berated himself. "But now would be so much better."
Captain Carter paused, and he imagined her running a mental assessment of what could be switched off, put off, or otherwise ignored for a safe period of time. It's what he would have done.
"Ten minutes. Give me ten minutes and I'll be there, all right?"
"Sure." Relief and trepidation warred for control of his voice. "See you in a while."
"Ok Daniel."
And she hung up.
Dr Samuel Beckett listened to the blank tone of an unconnected line for almost a minute while he absorbed the enormity of what he was about to do. It gave him a reason not to think around the topic, but eventually the buzz annoyed him as much as the ventilation had annoyed Al. He turned the speakerphone off and took a deep breath.
"Hi, Captain. Take a seat," he practised quietly. "Why did I call you Captain? It seemed appropriate, seeing as we don't know each other too well. My name's Sam Beckett –"
He held out his hand to the phantom blonde, then leaned back on his chair.
No, no, no. Let's try this again.
"Captain! Welcome!" Sam put on a broad smile. "Please take a seat. Uh… did Dr Fraiser mention her theory to you about what happened to Colonel O'Neill? That he was replaced somehow? And now the real Colonel is back? How can I put this – she's right."
The Leaper frowned. That might do, but somehow he figured that scripting this conversation was going to be as useful as a fish on a bicycle. Plans never ran that smoothly. Still, he contradicted himself, a few dress rehearsals might keep him from being a complete wreck by the time she walked through the door.
"Sam! Sit down! Sorry to drag you here on such short notice, but I really need to show you this. No, I'm not kidding – here, feel my ankle. Sprained, huh? Take a guess why…"
The light-hearted approach felt good, but maybe a little cheeky.
Taking a deep breath, Sam pulled himself up to his desk and leaned forwards over the chaotic mix of books and papers. He clasped his hands before him and took a quick look downwards before looking his as-yet imaginary guest in the eye (or thereabouts).
"Sam. Captain Carter. I hope you'll understand why I felt like I needed to hide, but you have to believe me when I say that I never intended any harm to you, your team or this base. It's been so long since anyone's known me for who I am that camouflage has become second nature… but this time… you've got me."
The downright honest approach, a.k.a. the Boy Scout mentality. One of his biggest failings, to hear Al tell it, but it was his way. If nothing else, he'd stayed alive and Leaping this long because of it.
A flicker of movement on Daniel's monitor brought him out of his meditative frame of mind, and he was almost amused to see a stream of camels and mock Ancient Egyptians waddling from left to right. The screensaver had finally arrived, and with it went Sam's last hope of muddling through as Daniel Jackson.
It was confession or crisis, as far as he could tell, so he proceeded to take his mind off the confrontation ahead by arranging all the articles on Daniel's desk in a neat and tidy fashion. Therapeutic, if nothing else.
Captain Carter knocked on a door a few minutes later and gaped at her 'friend' and the bare table he sat at.
Sam took in her wide-eyed look and smiled nervously. "Hi."
"Hi yourself… did the jarheads develop a cleanliness streak when we weren't looking?" Her head tilted to look around the rest of the room. "If so they didn't do a very good job on the rest of the place."
"Uh… no… it was just me… I, uh… I needed space to think."
The blonde woman shrugged and pulled the door closed, walking to the desk and depositing a bundle of papers before him. "I thought you might want to see these."
Sam blinked. This wasn't meant to happen. "Uh –"
"I just finished my meeting with General Hammond, and needless to say he's pretty anxious to find out more about the popcorn machine. Have you had a chance to read Teal'c's notes yet?"
"Uh –"
"Daniel, what have you been doing all morning?" Captain Carter sat down heavily and sighed, rubbing a hand across her brow. "I'm sorry, I'm babbling – but I didn't get much sleep last night, and that gadget is driving me crazy!"
Sam smiled sympathetically to cover the fact that his train of thought had frozen solid.
"Look, I'm really not getting anywhere with my physical analysis of the device so I took a look through Teal'c's notes regarding the incident between Hemuset and Apophis, as well as what he could remember about the legends surrounding her. I could have sworn he said he spoke to you about it, in fact didn't he stay at your place last night?"
"Uh, yeh – about –"
"So what do you think?" Captain Carter continued. "I mean his talk of her ability to corrupt any individual within a System Lord's entourage, right up the First Prime, and then withdraw without the victim remembering anything about it? It brings up some very scary possibilities – what if she could do the same to us?"
"Uh –"
The woman glanced at him, her stream of words momentarily dammed. "Oh right, you haven't read it yet."
"Uh, yeh…"
They sat in silence for a moment, Sam desperately trying to galvanise himself back into action. Focus Beckett, focus!
"Look, Sam… you remember the intruder alert we had yesterday?"
"Of course," she muttered joylessly. "And yes, Janet called to tell me."
The Leaper blinked a few times, then realised what she was referring to. "Oh, she told you about Colonel O'Neill?"
Captain Carter nodded. "I've been trying to forget all morning – maybe that's why I'm letting this device get to me." She thumped the table emphatically. "I just can't believe it could be him – I mean he was acting a little weird yesterday, but nothing to suggest…"
Sam looked down to avoid her gaze, knowing that his guilt would be written large across his face. He didn't really know any of these people, not very well, but he already felt like he'd betrayed them.
"That's the real Jack at the Alpha site, Sam – I promise," he assured her quietly.
"And how do you know that?"
"I just know," he stated. "I –"
"I just don't get how the switch could be that seamless," the blonde officer carried on, oblivious to Sam's constant attempts to butt in – though admittedly he wasn't exactly forcing the issue. "I'm sure he was… himself… when we were on P3X-970, because it would have to be a damned good fake to perform while under fire –"
"Sam –"
"- so it must have been when we got back, maybe while he was in the infirmary – or after we'd left his house last night? But no, that wouldn't work because the intruder had already been in here by then -"
"Sam!"
"And if you're right and our prisoner at the Alpha site really is Colonel O'Neill, how did the intruder switch out? Daniel, Janet inspected that ankle less than an hour before Teal'c and… the Colonel… went through the Stargate –"
It was so tempting to let Captain Carter continue blabbering on, but subtle interruptions were having as much luck as a paper dart in a headwind. Was he this bad when he got going? Probably.
"CAPTAIN CARTER!"
She halted mid-sentence, arms still in the air and her face titled away from him, but Sam soon found himself on the receiving end of a blue-eyed stare.
"Daniel?" she asked, evidently confused – and who could blame her?
Sam took a deep breath as his heart rate jumped. It was now or never.
"No. Not Daniel. That's what I've been trying to tell you."
The silence was so complete that not even an over-used metaphor could describe it. Pins dropping had nothing on this.
Slowly Captain Carter rose from her chair, hands moving to her hip as she did so – searching for a weapon that wasn't there, Sam realised. He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
"I'm not armed, the door is exactly how you left it, and I have a killer ankle," he volunteered.
"Hands behind your head, and push away from the desk," was the terse reply.
Sam nodded hurriedly. "Of course."
"Now!"
The Leaper complied and watched as the woman regarded him with nervous eyes, though the remainder of her body language was poised for any move that he might make.
"You're not trying to pull my leg, are you?" she whispered.
"No," he replied shaking his head.
Her demeanour grew tense. "Let me speak to Daniel!"
"Daniel? He's not here," Sam answered, then saw her angry reaction and realised what she was getting at. "Wait! No – it's not what you think! I'm not a Goa'uld! Daniel's not a host! He's… well he's not here! Just me…"
Sam's voice trailed off as he saw her cold expression, sure that she wouldn't believe him. The SGC had far too much history with parasites to expect otherwise. Then he realised that he had a sure-fire way of proving that he was no Goa'uld.
"Captain, if I was a Goa'uld why would I have a sprained ankle? And why did I spend the last day or so in a wheelchair – wouldn't a Goa'uld have healed it by now?"
Carter's eyes narrowed. "Colonel O'Neill doesn't have an ankle injury any more."
"Exactly!" Sam jumped on her comment eagerly. "He doesn't, but I do! Ask Dr Fraiser to check it out of you want – it'll show exactly the same sprain as the one she assessed before Colonel O'Neill went through the Stargate."
She appeared to be uncertain now, clearly trying to analyse what he was saying. Taking another deep breath, Sam decided to help her along the way.
"I can give you a more in-depth explanation later on, but here are the basics. I don't take over people's bodies – this is my body. It's Dr Jackson's physical aura that makes me look like him, just like Colonel O'Neill's did."
"So where's Daniel?"
"Five days in the future, looking like me." He pursed his lips and thanked God, Time, Fate or Whatever that she didn't have a gun. "I don't have any control over this, Captain – it's an experiment gone very wrong, and believe me, if I could get out of here I would."
Carter frowned, glanced quickly toward the phone, then back to her captive.
Sam hid a smirk, not wanting nervous hysteria to get the better of him. "I didn't mean on foot, Captain – I can't even walk that well right now. I'd have no chance, and I'm not kidding about the ankle. I asked you over here because I had to confess to someone, and you're a much nicer choice than Major Castleman."
Her eyes widened. "Why?"
"Why you, or why confess?"
"Both."
He shrugged as best he could, arms lifted as they were. "You'd find me out soon enough – if not by the bad ankle, then through the ID database. That and I don't like the idea of Colonel O'Neill being held prisoner and questioned when he's entirely innocent."
"And me?"
"You're a physicist, I'm a physicist." Sam didn't think that she believed him, but then it wasn't every day that one of your best friends confessed that he wasn't who (or what) you thought he was. "I can recite pi to 60 or so decimal places if you don't believe me, maybe more, or we could have a chat about quanta. Either way you're the most likely person to understand my explanation of how this happened."
"Name?"
"Sam Beckett. I can tell you more, but I suspect that you'll want to record the conversation. Please?" he begged.
"Please what?"
"Just get this over with!" Sam exclaimed in frustration. "Call in the Marines, throw me in a cell, anything. I'm obviously not going to Leap out of here any time soon and staring at me like I'm a zombie isn't going to help anyone!"
He began to pull himself closer to the telephone, having unconsciously resolved to dial security himself, but was halted by Captain Carter's sudden movement. She put a firm hand on the telephone's handset and glared, the last vestiges of hesitation having finally fled.
"I told you to stay away from the desk, Beckett, and keep your hands on your head."
Sam quirked his mouth and returned to his previous position, satisfied that Carter would take some form of action. Inside he was shaking like the proverbial leaf, but he'd meant what he'd said – the sooner he could explain himself, the sooner he'd be able to Leap out of here. In theory, anyway.
"Fine."
Keeping her eyes on him at all times, Captain Carter lifted the handset and let her fingers locate the single round button on the keypad, a slight frown indicating the moment she pressed it. Sam met her gaze and maintained eye contact, trying to keep his expression as open as possible – even if it did show how terrified he was. He wanted her to trust, if that were possible, and he'd never been that good at poker. As Al had pointed out, he was a terrible liar.
An audible beep followed by muffled words denoted that the line at connected.
"Major Castleman, please."
More indistinct dialogue followed, and Captain Carter's brow puckered.
"Well General Hammond will want to hear this too – could you put me through to his office?"
At that moment a red light began to flash in Daniel's office and a klaxon blared three times, both occupants looking up in surprise as General Hammond's brusque voice followed.
"Attention all personnel, this is a Code Three alert. As of this moment, all personnel are confined to their current location. You are directed to await the arrival of USMC security teams and to comply with their instructions immediately. This is not a drill."
Captain Carter looked back at Sam, the phone still in her hand. "Looks like your wish might come true more quickly than I'd expected."
"Oh boy," Sam muttered, as his adrenal glands geared up for another session.
The phone squawked, causing Carter to blink and bring it back to her ear.
"Walter? I think I may have the guy you're looking for right here – Daniel's office."
She paused, and her posture straightened visibly a moment later.
"Sir! Just now sir. Yes sir, he looks like Daniel."
Sam strained to hear what was being said on the other end of the line, failing miserably.
"Actually sir, he… uh… turned himself in. To me specifically… He claims to be from the future, sir… five days only… No sir, I'm not sure… I agree sir, we'll wait here."
The phone went down and Sam became the recipient Carter's full and undivided attention yet again. In any other situation he might consider himself to be a lucky man.
"How's Colonel O'Neill?" he ventured hopefully.
Now altogether hostile, Captain Carter did not respond to his question.
"A squad of Marines will be here shortly," she stated plainly. "They will escort you to a holding cell until Dr Fraiser returns from the Alpha site."
"And Colonel O'Neill?"
A small flicker of emotion – relief, perhaps? "He isn't any of your concern."
Sam nodded, sure that he wouldn't be granted any favours for quite some time. They'd found their intruder, and he'd been in their midst all the time. Small talk would make him feel better though, and he doubted that he'd be harmed during his 'stay' – though he'd already taken the first step to proving that this wasn't Daniel's body, so maybe they wouldn't hold back.
"I'll tell you my name, date of birth, anything like that –"
"Later," the Captain cut him off.
He muttered an 'ok', but still felt the need to get this woman on his side… or at least interested in his theories. Anything to gain an ally – not necessarily a friend, but someone who cared about how he got here as well as why. Either way he had no idea of what lay ahead, but if he could smoothen that road…
"Look I know you won't want to hear anything I have to say right now, Captain, but please – while I'm getting interrogated, tested, whatever, look up Professor Sebastian LoNigro's string theory of time travel, ok?"
His words were met with silence, but a search of Carter's blank expression revealed a small twitch in one eye.
"Uh… and in case you're interested I'm not exactly from the future… I've been away from it so long that my present is as unknown to me as it is to you…"
No response, yet again.
"I… uh –"
"Beckett!" Carter snapped suddenly. "What part of 'later' do you not understand?"
Sam clammed up immediately, straightening his fingers from their position behind his head in as close a signal to 'I surrender' as he could manage. This wasn't working. Maybe this whole idea was wrong. But if that was the case, there wasn't much he could do about it now…