Jack had just gotten out of the elevator and started running towards Daniel's lab, when he heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. Though everything in him screamed that he should run as fast as he ever could, he slowed down, and went to the first phone he could find.
"O'Neill here. I need a med team standing by outside Daniel's lab--right now! Don't come in till I say it's safe."
He hung up without waiting for an answer, and ran. As fast as his inevitably aging knees allowed. Which was pretty fast. He wasn't that old, after all.
The door was locked. Luckily, Jack always kept the key with him. Just in case. Holding his breath, his heart in his mouth, he opened the door and stepped in.
Daniel stood a few paces away, facing the door, a Beretta grasped in a trembling hand.
Jack could start breathing again. This had to be Daniel. He had short hair. And if Daniel was standing in front of him, the other man lying on the floor behind him had to be Jackson. Jack couldn't see him properly, with Daniel blocking his view.
"Jack?" Daniel whispered breathlessly, the pistol wavering up and down alarmingly. "Jack--I killed--Oh God, I killed--me--him--I killed him..."
"Shhh, Daniel, it's all right, it's over," Jack reassured him. "Just put the gun down."
Daniel nodded, and crouched very slowly, placing the Beretta on the floor.
"Good, well done, Danny--are you all right? Are you hurt?"
Daniel shook his head. "Jack, he killed them--he killed them all, Teal'c, Sam, Janet--and he was going to kill me too--And I killed him--am I really any better than he was?"
"Daniel, you had no choice," Jack told him firmly, though he had no idea of what exactly had happened.
Jack approached him slowly, as if he was some frightened wild animal. Like a deer, those expressive eyes wide with fear and shock.
Jack wrapped his hands tightly around Daniel, who just stood there, rigid.
Looking over Daniel's shoulder, Jack saw the man lying on the ground. He was also Daniel. Short hair. Blue BDUs. Just like the slightly trembling man he was holding, except that there was a dark stain spreading on the front of his uniform jacket. His eyes were shut. Jack couldn't tell if he was alive or not, but even if he was, surely he wouldn't be for long.
Oh, please, no. Don't let that be the real Daniel. Not his Daniel. But--they were identical--they were the same--how could he tell which was the real one?
The cold fear had such a grip on his innards that he couldn't think straight. There had to be something...
The stitches. Jackson had two rows of stitches in his side. Two fairly new injuries.
Jack released his hold of the man who looked just like Daniel, and laid a hand on his side. Jack could feel him flinch, but that could've been just the unexpected touch--it couldn't mean that-
Suddenly, the man flashed into action. Punches and kicks rained on Jack at such speed and strength that he could never have expected it from Daniel--it made him remember those horrible moments when Daniel had been going through sarcophagus withdrawal--but this wasn't Daniel. It was Jackson.
Jackson had the surprise on his side, and Jack felt more shocked, more frozen than ever, now that he knew the man on the floor had to be Daniel. He couldn't return the blows. All he could was to try and block them. Without much success.
He found himself pinned against the wall, a knife pressed on his throat--he couldn't even tell when and where it had come from.
"I don't want to do this, Jack--I don't want to kill you--out of all the people in the world, you're the one I would never want to hurt," Jackson spoke wildly. Jack could feel his breath against his face. "Jack, I don't want to live in a universe without you! Can't we--can't we make a deal? Your Daniel's gone anyway--But I'm just like him--I promise, you would never know the difference!"
The look on Jackson's face was downright frightening, and not because it was mad. It wasn't. Despite Jackson's words, there was no maniacal grimace on his face. Just the profound sadness Jack had always seen in his eyes.
"You're nuts!" Jack grunted, hardly daring to swallow.
He tried to move. He'd have to find some way out of Jackson's grip.
Jackson didn't even say anything, just looked apologetic, as he added the pressure on the knife. Jack felt a sharp pain in his throat as the blade broke the surface of his skin.
"Come on, Jack! I know you--I know you couldn't stand a universe without me, either--just play along with me! We'll have to destroy the other body anyway, before the ECF escalates--and then no one will know that the one who died was the other one--the one who was first--I won't say 'real'! I'm just as real as he is!"
With his back against the wall but his eyes facing the room, Jack saw something Jackson couldn't see. He saw that Daniel--the Real Daniel, since that was what he was, and would always be to Jack--that Daniel wasn't dead, he was moving, crawling pathetically, but still, and he had the Beretta.
Jack just had to believe in him. Believe that he could make it. Daniel just needed a bit more time. A distraction. Jack had to keep Jackson talking, so he wouldn't hear Daniel approaching.
He'd just speak his mind. That would certainly distract Jackson more than enough.
"Like hell you are!" he said.
"I am! I'm--I'm more than him! I deserve this life! I deserve this reality! I've suffered, I've endured so much more than he has--My life has been a living hell for three years--Three years! Ever since Teal'c killed her-"
"A hell of your own making..."
Daniel was there, right at Jackson's feet, and Jackson still hadn't noticed a thing.
Jack reached to give his hand to Daniel.
He grabbed Jack's sleeve, and fought his way up, wavering. The hand he'd used to pull himself up immediately went to clutch at his chest. His face was so torn with pain that it was hardly recognizable--a horrible contrast to Jackson's placid sorrow.
Before Jackson had time to react, Daniel put the gun barrel against his temple.
"We're--not--the--same!" Daniel rasped, and pulled the trigger.
It was amazing how many thoughts could come and go in one fleeting moment, when one knew for sure it would be the last.
Daniel felt the cold metal on his temple, and heard the other Daniel's strained words, "We're not the same."
Daniel still thought that wasn't true. They were the same. If he had lived the life that this other Daniel had had, they would be exactly the same. He believed it, because to believe otherwise would be to accept that he really was evil, and probably crazy too.
No, there was no such thing as absolute good and evil, and he was just the result of extremely unlucky circumstances. He'd had a difficult life. And now it would end.
Daniel did not want to die. He did not want the other him to die, either.
Now, they would both die, and there would be no Daniel Jackson left in this reality.
Daniel saw the irony in the situation. In a way, this other him was doing what he had always wanted to do himself. What he had thought every time he had taken a life. The true way out. The thing he had never, ever dared to do. Because of Jack, he told himself.
Daniel had thought about suicide so often, but then he had thought about Jack, the grief on his face, the disbelief in those dear dark eyes, and he had not been able to do it.
If only he had died as well, three years ago, right there when Sha're had died, he could've been together with her...
Now, he would kill himself. Daniel would kill Daniel.
He heard the click of the trigger, so very close, right below his ear.
He was going to be with Sha're again.
Finally.
Both Daniels collapsed, but this time, Jack knew which was the real one.
Jack caught him just before he hit the floor, and held him on his lap, head resting against his chest.
Daniel was still alive. He was barely breathing, just gasping weakly, his ashen face contorted with pain.
"-'m not--him... Jack..." he whispered faintly.
"I know, Daniel. I know you're not. You're the real one. The one who belongs here."
He would stay here, too, if Jack had anything to say to that.
Jack glanced at the wound, and the frozen coldness attacked him in full force again. He tore Daniel's jacket open, and pulled up the T-shirt underneath.
It looked bad. As bad as it could get. A hole in his chest, slightly to the left. It wasn't bleeding quite as much as Jack would've expected, but that didn't make it any better. A bullet to the heart, or through the lung, whichever, it would still kill awfully fast--Jack had seen it happen far too many times--it was a miracle Daniel was still alive, still breathing-
-he wasn't, not anymore. His eyes had closed, and he had stopped gasping. Jack placed his fingers on Daniel's neck, moved them about frantically, hoping he was just too nervous, too clumsy--but he couldn't find a pulse.
His world had just gone from too many Daniels to none at all.
If Daniel had a bullet in his chest, let alone through it... Jack didn't think anything he could do would help a bit. He needed to get help fast-
Oh, for crying out loud! What a complete, total fool he was!
If his slow thinking would cost Daniel's life, he'd... He'd never forgive himself. He'd probably end up like Jackson. Nuts.
He'd completely forgotten that he had called for a med team when he'd been running towards this room--a lifetime ago, though it couldn't have been more than just a few minutes--were they here already, waiting behind the door?
"It's safe! Get in! Hurry!" he bellowed.
The door opened right away, and the medics rushed in, lead by Janet.
"Oh, no," she uttered, as she took in the sight of the two Daniels, one in Jack's arms with a gaping wound in his chest, the other on the floor, with blood and worse oozing through the hole in his head.
"Forget about Jackson. This is Daniel, and he's going to make it," Jack told her.
Author's Reminder: I still haven't changed my mind: I don't do deathfic. All right, well, if you count alternate and minor character deaths, I do. But no Real Daniels (tm) are ever going to be killed in my stories. Ever. Period.