Daniel sat down in the chair across from Jack.
"You guys have run into parallel universes right?" Jack asked.
Daniel nodded.
"Good" Jack leaned back. "So you have an idea of what's going on?"
"Well," Daniel responded. "We would be interested to know how you get from one reality to another without a Quantum Mirror."
"A what?" Jack raised his eyebrows.
"A large, heavy mirror that transports you from one reality to another..."
"Oh right, that thing. We never quite figured out how to change the channel."
"So how did you get here?" Daniel was puzzled.
"Well you know that thing your pals took off me after I came through?"
"Besides the Tollan phase change device?"
"Yup."
"Well?" Daniel waited for the explanation.
"Well I suggest you get your Carter to take a look at it and see if she can figure out how my Carter made it work." Jack looked at Daniel. "She's okay right? You're Carter?"
Daniel nodded. "She's fine. She's a little unsettled by your coming here."
"Well that's the hard part of inter-reality travel isn't it? If you come to a place where you're dead, you end up hurting everybody. If you come to one where you're alive you get to experience that wonderful 'temperal' thing or whatever it is and then move on to the next place before you get ripped in half."
Daniel's brow furrowed. "How many of these realities have you been to?"
"I don't know, a handful I guess, trying to find the right one. But Carter rigged it so it hits realities similar to the one I came from. How upset is she exactly?" Jack got them back to the subject of Sam.
"Well," Daniel tried to find a way to explain what he knew of their relationship. "Jack used to call her Sam." he said.
"She's a civilian?"
"No"
"I retired?"
"No, but you, he, talked about it once or twice."
"Too late though" Jack concluded.
Daniel nodded.
"Seems my bad timing covers multiple realities." Jack said, almost to himself.
Daniel raised his eyebrows.
"Only where I'm from we lost her first" Jack told him.
"What about me and Teal'c?" Daniel wanted to know.
"You two were fine, until last week that is." Jack added.
"What happened?"
"The replicator's took over the earth." Jack absently rubbed an acid scar on his left wrist.
"So not the Gou'uld then."
"Not this time," Jack looked at Daniel and raised an eyebrow "Happen a lot does it?"
"Quite a bit I hear."
"Well, I guess the replicator's make a nice change then" Jack said wryly
"Yeah, there's nothing like variety." Daniel was equallyglum.
"So," Jack leaned back in his chair. "Is there anything else I should know about this reality before people start busting in, telling me things, shifting my paradigms…"
"Um…yeah, actually" Daniel started reluctantly.
"But I'm not going to like it?" Jack guessed.
"Probably not" Daniel agreed.
"Well?"
Daniel inhaled deeply. "Before you, Jack died…I um, I married Sam"
Jack blinked. "You what?"