Daniel opened his eyes slowly, he ached all over. Then the pain that had awoken him ceased and he looked down at a needle prick in his arm.
"It's okay," said a familiar voice.
"Jack?" he whispered hoarsely. A blurred face hovered over him and smiled sympathetically.
"Sort of." He handed Daniel his glasses, and the world was brought into focus. He was in what a presumably a small medical lab.
"You're his Jack?" Daniel eyed him incredulously. Jack looked flabbergasted.
"Oh, well you could put it like that, I guess." He smiled depreciatingly at his shoes. "I wouldn't," he muttered darkly then looked up suddenly, "but if you mean are we from the same reality yeah, we are."
"What happened?" Daniel asked sitting up a bit on what he assumed was an exam table. Jack smiled.
"You passed his test, it was touch and go there for a while; he thought you might be one of the pacifist ones. But once you started fighting back you did pretty well." Jack gave him a chuck on the shoulder. "Lasted longer than the others at any rate," he muttered under his breath. Daniel wasn't sure he was supposed to have heard the last comment so he chose not to address it, but he filed that little nugget away for later; there had been others. Instead he chose to address the empty needle that O'Neill for this was not Jack was holding.
"What's that?" he asked gesturing, "What did you give me?" O'Neill looked surprised like he'd forgotten what he'd been doing before.
"Oh," he said, quickly putting the needle away, "just some anti-histamine, a precaution in case what already in your system wasn't enough."
"Anti-histamine?" Daniel stared. "You know how to cure him and you let him stay in there like that?"
"He's better off," said O'Neill gruffly. The voice of experience thought Daniel.
Jack was climbing the walls, they had nothing. The mirror was in transit that was all he could do, Carter was running theoretical models to ease her frustration, but Jack had a feeling it was all busy work to keep from dwelling on the possibility that no one wanted to say aloud. Daniel could already be dead.
The door to the room opened, Daniel had been led by O'Neill to a small bunk room and had been sleeping off the pain killers for sometime. He didn't need to look to see that Major Dan had come to check on him.
"You did well," he said quietly sitting on the bed.
"I defended myself," said Daniel into his arm. He pulled back he could still smell the touched.
"Well it's about time one of me had a back bone!" Dan laughed. "I was beginning to think I was the only one." He put his hand on Daniel's shoulder.
"The only one what?"
"The only one like me."
"I'm not like you Major," he shrugged off the hand. "And if I even suspected I was I'd asked Jack to shoot me."
"Fair enough," said Dan raising his hands in submission. "But you know as well as I do that's in you. You already proved that with our evolutionary challenged friend in there. You are a killer Daniel, just like me." He squeezed his shoulder and left without a backwards look. Daniel curled up on his side and tried to banish the images that had been haunting him since he woke up.
The smell was the worst he hadn't been able to bathe after it happened so he could still smell his sweat and blood on him. He shuddered; the memory of where his double touched him made his skin crawl even more. Jack had taught him how to fight that was the deal for staying on the team. It wasn't as if he was starting from scratch growing up in Egypt, in the foster system and spending most of his young adulthood on digs in Africa and south America, it stood to reason he already had a bit of basic survival knowledge.
Jack treated him like a small child showing him blocking and throwing techniques. Daniel let him for a while, but after a few weeks of slow and easy he thought he'd clue Jack in on the latent talents of Daniel Jackson. Daniel smiled; he'd knocked Jack on his ass. A fake-grab-throw combo a hand on a dig taught him when some of the local mercenaries had decided they like the look of the 'pretty American boy'. He hadn't told Jack that though. Daniel smiled in spite of himself or maybe it was the painkillers. Contrary to popular belief Daniel did have a life before the Stargate and in truth the archeologist was never all that harmless; he couldn't have survived otherwise.
His heart dropped; he'd done what he had to, to survive always had and yet this time, this time it felt wrong. It was a set up from the start and the Major hadn't expected him to survive and now he was half wishing he hadn't. The sounds of machinery above and the drugs still soaking his system allowed him to be lulled into a fitful sleep at last.
Sam stared off into space tears threatened but wouldn't fall; she wouldn't allow it. Not yet; not until she was sure but she would never be sure, not until it didn't work on the day she died would she give up on her friend. The mirror stared back at her flat grey and lifeless as it had always been. After they'd saved her alternate self and her reality Hammond had ordered the mirror destroyed, but it was never that easy, they'd tried everything short of a nuclear bomb nothing touched it, so they did what most military organizations do with objects they can't control or destroy, they forgot it existed.
The plate welded over the top was easily removed she'd spent the last four hours hooking it up to every piece of diagnostic equipment known to science and come up with nothing. It had a low level electrical output, but nothing really dramatic. They'd tried jump starting it and tried exposing it to different kinds of energy hoping one of them was on the same frequency as the remote they didn't have.
"Work damn-it!" She cried throwing her pencil at the offending rock. Yes rock, she thought with venom. "You hear that, Daniel? I'm going to call it a rock until you come in here and correct me!"
"Looks like a rock to me." Sam spun around at the sound, she gasped in shock. There he was leaning against the doorway wearing olive fatigues arms folded across his chest, looking smug with a little smile across his face.
"Daniel?" She threw herself at the man in relief, but drew back in surprise. "You're the other one." She said a statement not a question, she knew this wasn't her Daniel. The hair and scar could be over looked, but when she looked in to his eyes they were cold as ice.
Major Dan smiled but it didn't touch his eyes.
"I wish my Sam would give me that kind of greeting." He said taking a step into the room. "Of course, that would mean she stopped hating me." He shrugged brushing off the thought as nothing. He examined her openly looking her up and down. "I must say," He said thoughtfully, "I think I prefer the short hair. It make you look more dangerous." He smiled when he said that. Stepping closer and licking his lips he said, "Let's you and me play a game huh, Sammie?" Sam stepped further back, trying to keep the distance in the small lab.
"What have you done with Daniel?" she asked trying the regain control.
"Aww, I'm touched." He said smiling coldly, "no wait that was him." Sam narrowed her eyes, but she didn't rise to the bait. "He's alive, mostly." Dan shrugged. "For now at least; he's fun to watch, so I'm keeping him for a bit." Sam bit her lip.
"What do you want?"
"Okay there's the Sam I know and love!" Sam scowled at him.
"Why are you here?" Dan grinned.
"Well," he said very excited, "thanks to the little Jack snafu I've decided to give you a little progress report, it might help you accept your role in our little game here."
"You think this is a game?"
"Oh, definitely and a fun one too; okay here;" he handed her a disk. "This is an encrypted a video disk of your Daniel's first trial. Don't worry he passed. If you can decrypt it in the time allotted there's a clue as to what comes next at the end." Dan turned to go. "Oh, and that thing?" he pointed to the mirror. "Is useless, but you don't need to worry, I'll give back what's left when I'm through." He left the room and was gone.
Jack nearly had a heart attack, he could have sworn he saw Daniel leaving Carter's lab, but when he blinked the man was gone.