Author's Intro: After a Season 9 story with an über-mirror, I'm going back to Season 3 to do an old-fashioned quantum mirror story. It's going to be pretty Daniel-centric, what with two Daniels in it, but there should be lots of team too. And lots of angst. Takes place right after Forever in a Day. This is how it begins:

Daniel bit his teeth together and pressed his hand tightly against his wounded side. He had to keep running, he was almost there. Almost free. God, it hurt. He'd never been shot before, not like this, with a bullet, with a regular pistol. It'd always been zats and staff weapons and hand devices and odd alien things.

He had to stop, just for a while, to lean on the wall and try to gather himself. His hair was falling in front of his eyes, and he brushed it aside. His fingers were slick with blood.

The shouts and steps were approaching too quickly. It shouldn't have come to this. He'd always managed before, had always been able to speak himself out of any trouble. People had always listened to him. But this time, he'd been stupid, he'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now they had him cornered and he had no choice.

He had to keep going. Run.

Daniel pushed himself away from the wall and ran. The pain radiated down towards his leg, making him limp.

A bullet hit the floor at his feet, and a few more ricocheted in the corridor. Too near. But he was almost there.

One turn around the corner, and there it was, the door he'd been looking for, and the guards he'd expected. He gave them no time, just pulled his zat and shot them. Once. Just shoot them once. No, shit, he'd hit that one twice. He was dead. No time to worry about that. Keep running.

Daniel picked the keycard from one of the guards, put it in the slot and pushed the door open. He closed it behind him and zatted it a few times.

His way out, his salvation, stood at the back of the room. He walked to the wall and opened one compartment. The remote controller was there, right in its place. He picked it up, turned the device on, and put the remote in his pocket. They wouldn't find him. They wouldn't be able to follow him.

He touched the mirror.

Just as the door burst open behind him and a shower of bullets hailed the room, Daniel disappeared in a bright flash.

Jack turned to look at Daniel, crossed his arms and sighed. God, he hated seeing his friend like this.

Daniel sat on the sofa, his hands wrapped around him as if he was cold. His gaze was pointed at the TV, but the look on his face was absent, like he had no idea of what he was watching.

Anyone who could watch three episodes of the Simpsons in a row without as much as a grin had to be really low.

Jack wondered if this had been such a good idea after all, but both Teal'c and Carter had agreed with him on that. They had to try something.

A week after Sha're's death, most of the physical trauma Daniel had suffered had healed completely. Still, he was broken. Jack knew she had been the thing that had kept him going, the center of his world, the reason he went through the gate.

The hope of finding Sha're and getting her back had always been there. Now, it was gone forever. She was gone, and by Teal'c's hand, no less. Jack had been surprised to hear that Daniel didn't blame Teal'c and forgave him right away. He wondered if that was what Daniel really thought, or if it was just a facade. If he just said it because he wanted to be friendly, even though deep down he hated Teal'c for what he'd done.

Jack knew perfectly well what it was like. He couldn't really say if he'd ever truly gotten over losing Charlie. He'd almost killed himself for it. Daniel had changed that, had helped him start again. And now he had to help Daniel as best he could.

They all wanted to help Daniel cope with losing his wife, but it was difficult. Carter looked almost as sad as he did, sitting next to him. They'd tried to act as normally as they could without offending him in his grief. Still, they'd ended up being silent most of the time.

Jack sat down at Daniel's other side. "Look, Daniel, we don't need to watch this if you don't want to."

"It's all right, Jack," the answer came in a flat tone.

"We could just do something else. We could play something--how about Monopoly? Or Scrabble? No, wait, not that, since you'd beat us all right away..."

"Whatever."

Jack sighed again. Doc Fraiser had already started bugging him about how he thought Daniel was handling this. And if he thought Daniel would like to talk to someone. After that incident with Machello's devices and supposed schizophrenia, neither of them wanted to jump to any conclusions. But if this went on...

No, Daniel just needed time. They'd be back in business soon enough.

"Colonel O'Neill, I require assistance," Teal'c called out from the kitchen.

"Teal'c, my friend... If you've broken anything, you're SO in trouble," Jack declared, and stood up again, heading to see what was the matter.

"Nothing has been broken. I am simply unable to carry all these vessels alone."

Colonel O'Neill cast an assessing look at Teal'c's achievements.

"The salad and the steaks look great, but what's with the black stuff on the donuts?"

"It is chocolate icing. Have I failed to create it correctly?"

"Uh... I'm sure it's great. Just a bit... dark, ya know. It's supposed to be brown. Anyway, let's get them to the table."

He didn't sound very convincing. Teal'c was taken aback. He'd followed the recipe to the letter, but obviously he had made a mistake. It did not matter--it might even appear humorous to the others, and lighten the atmosphere.

Just as they were about to pick up the platters and bowls, the phone rang.

"O'Neill."

Teal'c saw the slightly annoyed look on Colonel O'Neill's face change into a puzzled one.

"What? Wounded? No, no, he's right here with me-" he covered the receiver with his hand and looked at Teal'c. "Go check if Daniel's still there, will ya?"

Teal'c frowned at what he'd heard. The words wounded and Daniel had appeared close enough to each other to make him worried. But he did as he was asked. Daniel Jackson was indeed still there, seated on the sofa next to Captain Carter, looking withdrawn and full of grief. Wounded in the soul.

"Daniel Jackson has not left his place, Colonel O'Neill."

O'Neill nodded, and continued talking to the telephone.

"There's got to be some mistake--wait, where'd you say you're calling from? Area 51? Looked at that quantum mirror thing lately?"

There was a long pause, during which O'Neill began to look somewhat less puzzled, and nodded several times.

"Yes, yeah, I think--Right, sure. We'll be there to pick him up." He closed the phone and gestured at the food. "I think we'll need to skip the donuts or we'll be late."

"Late from where?"

"We're going to pick up a Doctor Daniel Jackson from the airport."

"I wonder what his hair's like," the Colonel noted from behind the wheel.

"Hair's not the first thing I'm thinking about. I mean, I've never met an alternate version of myself. There's bound to be a lot that's different about him," Daniel had lightened up a bit at these unexpected news.

"There's no way we can guess before we see him. But you two can't be too different if they actually took this alternate one for you. Didn't they say anything?" Sam asked.

"Well, just that he was a hundred percent match to Doctor Jackson's ID, and that he'd been shot."

"What? Shot?" Daniel repeated.

"Yeah, but it's nothing really serious. A bullet just grazed his side. They stitched it together already--they wouldn't be sending him over to us if he wasn't fit to travel."

"So who shot me--um, him?"

"Wouldn't tell them. He'd specifically asked to see me. Said that he'd only explain it all to Jack O'Neill. Colonel Jack O'Neill."

So far, Sam hadn't heard of anything that'd point to any major differences. This alternate Daniel was a Doctor as well, and the O'Neill in his universe had been a Colonel. That wasn't a lot to go on.

She could remember how odd it had been to face an alternate version of herself. How they'd been both completely the same and totally different. Out of all the weird things she'd seen during her time in the Stargate program, it had been one of the strangest. She couldn't imagine how Daniel would feel about it now, when he already had so much on his mind.

The memory of the last time someone had come through the mirror also reminded her of the side effects. The entropic cascade failure. If they really had an alternate Daniel visiting their universe, then he'd be facing that in just a few days. She wondered if he knew about it. Hopefully he wouldn't stay that long.

For the first time in days, Daniel felt like he was fully awake. The idea of meeting himself was just so weird that it'd actually pulled him up from that gray haze that had surrounded him. Not that Jack, Sam and Teal'c hadn't been getting through, though. They had been wonderful. He didn't know where he'd be without them. He just hadn't been able to tell them, to show it to them.

And this was just way too strange.

Daniel looked at the man who was escorted to meet them, sitting in a wheelchair, and felt like he was looking into an old mirror. That was his face, his eyes--but Jack had been right about the hair. It was different, and then again, it wasn't. His own hair had looked just like that less than a year ago. Longer.

He had no idea of what to say, but his counterpart spoke up first.

"Jack! You're just like... you. Just the same. But..." he fell silent, taking in the entire team. The look on his face when he saw Teal'c and Sam was something Daniel couldn't interpret. Worried, or anxious, or nervous, maybe even a bit angry. It was just a flash that soon changed into open, raw grief.

His alternative self stood up from the wheelchair and put his hands on Teal'c's shoulders. "Teal'c... I'm so glad to see you... You have no idea... Though I never really knew you..."

Teal'c answered with a raised eyebrow and a nod.

He moved to face Sam. For a moment, he just stood there, his face contorted with emotion. Then he wrapped his hands around her and pulled her in a hug.

"I'm sorry, so sorry, Sam," he sobbed into her shoulder. Sam stiffened a bit, but then, she answered his hug, rubbing his back only a bit awkwardly.

No one dared to speak up. Not even Jack.

Daniel was starting to feel really freaked out here.

Alternate-Daniel finally released his grip of Sam, and turned to meet Daniel.

"I, uh..." Daniel started. Asking whether he'd had a thing with Sam was about the most tactless thing he could imagine.

"I... You can't imagine what it feels like, can you? You've been so lucky. So very lucky," his counterpart said in a quavering voice. "I didn't expect this... They're all alive--Teal'c and Sam, both still alive--and--is she still alive as well?"

Daniel looked right into this other Daniel's bright blue eyes, and they understood each other perfectly. He'd never had a thing with Sam.

Sha're. She was dead. They had both lost her. They hugged each other silently.

Daniel felt tears welling in his eyes, and tried to fight them back. Not here, not now. This was stupid. He let go of his alternate, feeling embarrassed.

"It never goes away, does it? The pain, the emptiness... Not even after three years," Alternate-Daniel uttered.

Daniel felt his mouth fall open. "Three years? But... It's hardly been a week!"