Mitchell woke up in the infirmary, or at least some very familiar-looking version of it. He wasn't doing too bad, he figured, from the general lack of tubes and wires around him. Just one needle and tube in his arm, leading to a bag with clear liquid in it. No blood. Could it be that he'd missed the disease after all? The disease--Jackson! Was he still alive?

Mitchell lifted his head slightly and looked around. He found a person he'd not have expected to see sitting right next to his bed, studying a thick stack of papers.

"Eilerson?"

"Hm?" he answered absently, still staring at whatever he was reading.

"This the best spot for reading you could find around here?"

Eilerson dropped the papers on his lap and shifted his gaze to Mitchell, looking mildly surprised. "Oh, you're awake."

"Yeah, so they tell me. Did we make it? Is everyone all right?"

"Everyone's alive, more or less. Teal'c's doing better, but he's still under close surveillance. Galen and Carter are working with this Doctor Lam of yours, trying to come up with something to help Daniel."

"So, he's..."

"He's not dead, but not much better than that either. No one's being very optimistic."

"And why aren't we all in isolation?"

"Because the first, and so far only, useful bit of information our good scientists have got is that the virus isn't contagious. It's somehow locked to Daniel's DNA. Won't touch anyone else."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Actually, if you'd just think about it for a while before speaking, it really does. Even though the wall punishments were awful, they were all limited to that place. They wouldn't spread any further from there. If the people trapped inside a freezing cold room managed to open the walls and run, they'd just leave it all behind, without any further damage. With a contagious disease, it'd be different. If they got out and away while carrying it, they might spread it anywhere outside the Dodecagon. The Duodecim wouldn't want that to happen."

"...right." Too much irrelevant information, Mitchell thought. "So, why're you here, instead of, well, anywhere else?"

"I thought you'd come around rather sooner than later and then you'd want to know what's going on."

"Really? Just thinking about what I'd want? Anyway, they can't just let you run around the base freely, can they?"

"They don't," Eilerson waved towards the door further away, with two guards framing it. "I can go to several places, but my silent friends will follow. I'm surprised they let me walk around at all, after all the general suspicion Galen's been gathering around him."

"Huh?"

"Well, Lam wanted to have us all checked, which of course made sense when she'd heard a bit about everything that happened in the Dodecagon. And General Landry wanted to be sure we're not goa'ulds or orii or whatever. But Galen wouldn't have it. Just told them that he'd not let anyone touch himself, didn't need any medical help, and that was that. He only managed to make them drop it when he pulled the healer card. Told them that he might be the only hope there was for Daniel. They were desperate enough to accept that and let him work on a cure."

Doctor Lam and General Landry. All the right people were here, and they were acting just like he'd expect them to. So, maybe they really had made it to the right universe.

"Did Carter say anything about this place? If we are where we should be?"

"She was pretty convinced this is your universe. Everything's just like it should be."

"Except for Jackson. And myself. I should be there."

Mitchell sat up and flung his feet over the edge of the bed. The room swayed a little, but settled down in a while. There was that stupid IV in his arm. He pried away the tape, pulled the needle out, and pressed the spot with his fingers to stop any bleeding.

"I'm sure the nurses will be really happy about that," Eilerson noted.

"I guess I've got to run, then, before they notice."

Mitchell got up on wobbly feet. It took some effort before he could make then cooperate completely, but he'd had much worse than this. When Eilerson surprised him for the second time, offering an arm for support, Mitchell shook his head. He'd do just fine, thank you very much. Nevertheless, Eilerson followed close by when he approached the door. The guards saluted and smiled at him, and opened the door.

"By the way, do you have any idea of where you're going?"

"Some." Well, Mitchell really couldn't know which isolation room they'd picked. "Not really."

"Just follow me, then," Eilerson offered generously.

Mitchell tried to brace himself for what he'd have to face. The fact that Jackson was still grievously ill even though they were back, and the rest of them were going to be fine. He wondered if Jack O'Neill was there. He'd surely be mad at Mitchell. SG-1 had been his team since the beginning, and even now that it wasn't, Mitchell couldn't just ignore that. But Mitchell could take O'Neill's anger, since he was every bit as angry at himself. Sure, Jackson had begged to get to do the walls before he'd been hit by the needles, but it had clearly been Mitchell's decision to let him do it.

Jackson wasn't in an isolation room, but in a private one. The team working to find a way to defeat the virus was somewhere else. This was just one small room with Jackson, O'Neill and a couple of nurses.

No amount of thinking could've prepared Mitchell for the sight he faced. Sure, he'd seen Jackson in the infirmary more often than he could ever have expected since he'd started leading the team, but it'd never been anything like this.

Mitchell had thought he'd had a good collection of things on himself when he'd been stuck in the hospital after that crash in the Antarctic. Jackson clearly broke his record. Or maybe it just looked like there was a lot of stuff, because the tubes with blood stood out so clearly. Blood coming and going. And it wasn't just in the tubes. Jackson's face only had tiny red spots, but his arms were covered with what looked like spectacular bruises. O'Neill was wiping his face, carefully clearing the remains of yet another nosebleed from above the tubing in his mouth.

Mitchell approached silently, walking to the side of the bed across from O'Neill. Eilerson stayed at the doorway. Wise move from him, Mitchell gave him that.

He couldn't think of much of anything to say, so he found a chair and sat down.

He'd never seen O'Neill like this. His face was so pale that Mitchell thought he looked sick too. Sick from worry.

"See what happens when I turn my back for a couple of weeks," O'Neill said silently. It wasn't really an accusation. More like regret. Blaming himself.

Couple of weeks. That brought one important question to Mitchell's mind. "I've just got to ask... How long were we away?"

"You don't know? About three days. Two and a half. They only called me after the first 24 hours had passed. Next time, they'll know better."

Two and a half. Mitchell had counted a full four days in there. Of course, they'd probably traveled in time when they'd returned from wherever they'd been when they'd managed to open the walls. But if Galen and the ship could put them in the right time and the right universe so very near perfectly, why had they lost a day and a half? Two and a half days... That was exactly when they'd first went through the Veraeda. Sometime in the afternoon during the third day. So they had returned just after they'd left.

If they could've just gone another day back in time and inside those walls so he could've stopped Jackson from getting the needles.

"This is all my fault, you know."

"You're the team leader now, Mitchell. When something happens to any of them, it'll always be your fault. At least in your opinion. Mine too. I can't say I'm not mad at you. I am mad at you. All of you. But still, Daniel's going to make it," he said in a tone that told Mitchell'd better not challenge that.

And he had no reason to. "He is. Of course he is."

"He woke up for a while, after they'd managed to, well, stabilize him somewhat, if that's what you call this."

"He did?"

"Yeah. And he said enough. What he said... I got the picture that he was stuck in the time when he... ascended. Then Lam sedated him. A moment later they had to hook him up to that thing," he waved at the ventilator.

Mitchell frowned. Of course, he knew the whole story. Jackson had ascended some three years ago. He'd died of a lethal dose of radiation, after he'd probably saved all the people on the planet Kelowna.

"I really hate that idea. I loathe it. Really," O'Neill added, shaking his head.

It certainly wasn't a very positive image to go on. To compare this with the previous time Jackson had died. And if Jackson himself felt bad enough to confuse the incidents, that didn't sound too good either.

They both fell silent again. But the room around them wasn't silent. Mitchell actually liked hearing all the beeps and buzzes and hums. And it wasn't just that they told that Jackson was still alive. The Dodecagon had always been too silent. He didn't want to hear a silence like that ever again.

"You never get used to it, do you?" he said absently. "Having to do decisions that can cause things like this."

"Can't say you do," O'Neill's reply was even more absent, all his attention on Jackson.

A sudden loud voice from the PA cut the not-so-silent silence between them, accompanied by the general alarm sound.

"Unauthorized gate activation!"

Mitchell and O'Neill gazed at each other over the bed. They were thinking the same thing.

O'Neill put a hand on Jackson's forehead and stroked his hair back. Mitchell just laid a hand on Jackson's shoulder.

"We'll be back in a moment," Mitchell said, to both Jackson and O'Neill.

"So, don't go anywhere," O'Neill added, addressing just Jackson.

They ran out of the room. Eilerson wasn't anywhere to be seen. Mitchell hadn't noticed when he'd left.

They reached the stargate control room just in time to see the gateship of the Duodecim dive into the open wormhole.

Both Carter and Harriman were staring at the computer screens and looking desperate. The screens were black. All of them. They showed none of the normal gate operation programs. And Landry looked like he was about to explode.

"What the hell just happened?" O'Neill asked, before Mitchell'd managed to wrap his mind around what'd just taken place. "Who was flying that thing?"

"Galen. And Eilerson was with him," Carter replied, sounding like she could hardly believe what she was saying.

"What? No!" Mitchell certainly couldn't believe it. "The double-crossing, self-centered... After all we went through together, they steal our ship and run?"

"And we haven't even counted yet how many guards they knocked out or injured, not to mention they somehow froze all the computer systems on base," Landry shouted. "Some friends you made out there!"

As soon as the General had finished, Harriman spoke timidly, pointing at the screen in front of him. "Sirs--look at this."

A miniature version of Galen, with a set of flaming, demonic wings, had walked into the computer screen. He looked sad. A message wrote itself in fiery letters against the black background.

I apologize. There was no other way. Hopefully we shall not meet again.

"Yes, I certainly hope so too!" Landry commented.

"Where did they go? What was the address they dialed?" Mitchell asked.

"The Dodecagon. They stole the Ancient GDO as well. I don't know how they knew the address, and I can't imagine why they'd want to go there... Even if they can somehow open the walls from the outside, I don't think they can use the Veraeda to go back, unless something's changed since we left," Carter answered.

Mitchell agreed. He'd never, ever want to go back there, even if they could. Without that GDO, they'd never get through the shielding on the Dodecagon's stargate, so he'd not need to worry about that.

The words disappeared from the screen, and more followed. The image of Galen had crossed his arms and started pacing around, looking impatient.

Well, why are you still there? What are you waiting for?

Mitchell looked at Carter, who looked at O'Neill, who shrugged. How where they supposed to know what Galen meant?

A second later, the phone rang. At least the phone lines weren't dead. Landry picked it up.

"Landry," he answered.

"...Oh?" his eyebrows went up. Everyone else had fallen silent, staring at him.

"We'll be there right away."

He put the phone down and explained, "It was Doctor Lam. It seems Galen left us a parting gift. An antiviral drug, or at least that's what he says it is. The real question is, are we complete idiots if we still trust him enough to try it on Doctor Jackson?"

Author's Comment: I'm afraid that was that for Galen and Eilerson, as disappointing as it is. They left the story just as spectacularly as they entered it, and what happens to them after that just doesn't belong here, since the SG-verse people wouldn't know a thing about it. I really think this story needs a companion piece from Galen & Eilerson's POV. I hope I'll find the time to write that one day. One thing's for sure, though: they did get back to their own time and universe. :-)