Author's Comment: This story has, sort of, turned from a quantum mirror whodunit into the SG-version of ER. Lots of medical stuff here, and in the following chapter(s?) too. Now, I've got nothing whatsoever to do with medicine, except that I spend far too much time googling that sort of stuff for my fic. And I've found that this sort of thing can actually happen. Though, it's just weird fan fic. ;-)

Oddly enough, Sam found herself growing more hopeful as time passed. As long as the medics kept going, there was hope. They'd stop if there was none. Still, at times, she couldn't help imagining all kinds of horrible scenarios, with Janet spending countless minutes trying to resuscitate a certainly dead Daniel, giving an electric shock after another, administering all the drugs she could think of, just because she didn't want to give up.

"Anyway, Carter..." Jack began after a long silence, as if continuing something he'd said before.

"Hm?"

"This ECF--now that it's not going to bother us anymore... Jackson said something about it 'escalating' if we didn't destroy the other body. What do you think? Was he just telling stories again?"

"Well, no, surely it has to end somewhere. I don't know if anyone knows where, exactly. It might have catastrophic consequences. Major spatio-temporal disturbance. Dimensional collapse. Or then, it might've just ended with Jackson disappearing as if he never existed. The physics of alternate universe travel are still far beyond our understanding."

"So, good thing we didn't wait and see."

"Mm-hm."

She really hadn't got anything else to say to that. It was extremely interesting, of course, just not right now.

Hammond hadn't showed up again after he'd left. They'd heard no news of the Tok'ra. If they'd been called back on something important, then just getting through to them might prove difficult.

"What will become of the quantum mirror?" Teal'c changed the subject.

"Don't think anyone knows," Jack answered him. "Hammond's probably going to say, once again, that we should get rid of it, and this time, I'm not sure I'll protest."

"Sir--No, we can't destroy it! The technology and the insight into physics that it offers..."

She fell silent again at the sound of an opening door. It was Janet.

If she was here, and not working anymore, did that mean that Daniel... That it was all over? Or could it mean that she had good news?

She approached them, walking slowly. Her expression was impossible to read. She had changed her clothes already, because she was wearing a spotless uniform. No Daniel's blood anywhere to be seen. But she looked exhausted, and dazed, as if she wasn't sure where she was and what she was doing.

Sam got off her chair, and offered it to her. She fell on it heavily, blinking fast, as if fighting off tears.

"Doc?" Jack asked, the desperate need to know so clear in his voice.

Janet shook her head, and finally opened her mouth, but what she got out didn't make much sense. "Please, don't get me wrong... I'm... He's--It's... The-"

"Janet? Everything all right?" Sam asked, and put an arm around her shoulders.

"Yes, yes, everything's fine, Sam, at least at the moment, mostly... I'm sorry, I'm just so tired, and still having a hard time with this myself..."

She took a deep breath, regaining some of her usual composure. "Daniel's alive. He's stable, at the moment. But he's got a bullet in his heart."

Sam frowned, wondering whether she'd heard that one correctly.

"You're kidding, right?" O'Neill said instantly. "That's not possible, is it?" he glanced at Sam for confirmation.

She just raised her eyebrows and shrugged. She didn't think so, but she was pretty sure Janet wouldn't be kidding when it came to their friend's life.

"It's quite possible, though it's amazing--the whole thing, the surgery--I've never taken part in such an amazing rescue, not in my entire career, and from the medical point of view, such cases are rare. I've got to say, Daniel Jackson is one extremely lucky man. There were so many things that could've went wrong, or things that could've been just slightly different, and he would've died before we ever got to him."

"So--what's up with him, really? Honestly?" O'Neill asked again.

"It's a long story, with a lot of medical data, Colonel."

His answer caught Sam by surprise. "Just try me," he said. He really needed to hear it all, just like she did. To know what Janet meant and what had happened.

"I don't know if you noticed, Colonel, but the bullet hit his forearm before it entered his chest--just grazed it, and made a hole in his sleeve. But it was important, because it slowed down the bullet significantly, which was one lucky detail--the shot came from a pretty close range, right?"

"Can't say. I didn't see it. None of us did. Daniel's the only one who might know."

"Nevertheless, it was slowed down, and then hit his chest, going straight into his heart. Now, if it had been a clear, point-blank shot, it would've probably gone all the way through, which would certainly have caused irreparable cardiac damage. Instead, it lodged in there. Still, the hemorrhage--the bleeding that it caused, would have killed him quickly, without one other lucky thing."

"I would not utilize the word lucky in this context," Teal'c noted.

"Anything that stopped Daniel from bleeding to death is definitely lucky, T."

"I'd say so, too. But this so-called lucky thing actually very nearly killed him. It's what caused the cardiac arrest he was in when we got him. A thing called cardiac tamponade. It happens when the pericardium--that's basically a sac surrounding the heart--is filled with blood. So, the bullet penetrated both the pericardium and the heart wall, but the pericardium then sealed, and prevented the blood from getting out. Which was actually a good thing, because without it the blood loss would've been far too massive and too rapid. On the other hand, the gathering blood put so much pressure on his heart that it couldn't beat normally--and I know I don't need to tell you how bad a thing that is."

Sam figured she'd actually followed most of that. She did have some basic medical knowledge, after all, though this was already testing its limits. The Colonel had his face wrinkled in a way that told he was fighting to understand it, but couldn't quite get there.

"Anyway, you've got it fixed, then?" he asked.

"Well, yes, in a way, as I said. The ECF nearly prevented us from doing anything at all--the treatment for cardiac tamponade is to get some of that blood out either with a needle or with surgery, and we couldn't do either, when we couldn't keep him still. Whatever you did to stop the ECF certainly was one of the things that saved his life."

"I zatted Jackson out of existence. I'm still not proud of it," Sam told her.

"But, you've got it fixed, right?" O'Neill repeated.

"Colonel, I'm getting there. I told you it's a long story. So, we managed to get some of the blood out and relieve the pressure on his heart enough to have it started again, but it was a temporary relief at best, because it wouldn't hold before we got the wound fixed. We had to open up his chest and..." she shook her head, and gazed at her hand, flexing her fingers, frowning. "If you know what we have to do when the patient's on the table with his chest opened, and he arrests--But never mind the gory details. My point being, we were able to fix the wound, but getting the bullet out would've been a lot more difficult, and we decided not to risk it."

"...and he'll be all right? With that bullet in there?"

Janet grimaced. "Well. That's a question I can't answer with any certainty. This is far from my specialization, and Doctor Warner's as well. We need an experienced cardiologist here. We've already asked for one, so we can get an opinion on what to do with it. As I said earlier, Daniel seems stable for now, but as long as the bullet stays in, we can't count on that. It could embolize--start moving around--or cause an infection, or more cardiac damage, not to mention other possible complications, like arrhythmias. We'll probably have to get it out as soon as we can. Until then... There's nothing to keep you from visiting him."

"And you took this long to tell us that?" O'Neill complained, and got up right away. Sam followed him.

It was just the two of them now, Daniel lying still and lifeless in his bed, and Jack sitting by his side, absently stroking his hair.

Janet had let Teal'c out of bed for long enough that he'd gotten a moment with Daniel, but he'd had to get back already. Sam had stayed for a good while, but then she'd decided to go and ask if the Tok'ra had been reached yet. She seemed to take that really personally, somehow, and she was really anxious to get them here. He didn't really share those thoughts. The Tok'ra had snakes in their heads, and they were suspicious, would always be. They only helped when it served their own interests. He trusted Janet. Trusted her with his life, and Daniel's.

Jack gazed at the hypnotic series of tiny hills and valleys making their way across the heart monitor screen, accompanied by that annoying, but reassuring steady beeping sound. He didn't think it was any different from what he'd usually see and hear when someone was badly hurt and caught in the infirmary. No signs of a bullet in there.

He'd just have to believe it existed, as weird as it was. Not that he didn't have proof, though. The illuminated wall across held a series of pictures--x-rays and other things that Jack couldn't name, let alone figure out what, exactly, they showed. Janet, or some other medic, had been helpful enough to draw a circle around the bullet in each image.

She'd called Daniel lucky. Jack thought that wasn't the whole truth. He was sure that Daniel was still alive because he had decided he wanted to live. Despite the fact that he'd been so indifferent, so desperate and lost with the loss of Sha're, he wouldn't just give up. He was a survivor.

"You're one hell of a fighter, Danny. Way better than Jackson."

In a way, there was something really metaphorical about what had happened. Poetical, almost. Jackson had shot Daniel in the heart, which was the most vulnerable part of him, not just physically, but figuratively as well. The best part of him. Shot him with the bullet, and the thought that, deep down, they might be the same. And Daniel had shot Jackson in the head. The other best part of him. All that Jackson had left, since he'd probably lost what little remained of his heart a long time ago. If not with the death of Sha're three years ago, then soon after that. If he'd really killed Teal'c.

But Jackson was gone now, for good. All that remained were a load of bad memories, and that goddamn bullet. Janet would get it out. They'd help Daniel have his heart healed both in the physical and the figurative sense.

Daniel's consciousness had fallen apart, shattered into a thousand tiny fragments, flashes of memories and feelings that he couldn't understand or arrange.

Bright blue eyes locked with his, sadness and regret etched in the lines around them. His eyes. Jackson's eyes. Were his eyes really that big and bright?

The sound of the pistol going off. So loud it hurt his ears. Right in front of him.

Incredible pain in his chest. Was that in the past, or in the present? He could feel it all the time, but there were other flashes, other feelings...

Something stinging his forearm, and then tearing through his chest--into his heart, he thought, but it couldn't be, because then he would be dead, and he wasn't.

Jack, speaking softly but sharply, angry, challenging.

The unmistakable scent of the infirmary. Too clean and sterile.

Jackson attacking Jack, his hands and feet flailing wildly, pushing him against the wall. The knife in his hand.

The agony, worse than ever before, blazing when he crawled forward on the floor, painting a red trail on it, the fingers of one hand cramped around the pistol.

Jack, speaking softly, kindly, sadly.

Sick, dizzy, suffocating, hurting, his hand clutching the bullet wound in his chest, his heart hammering desperately beneath it. His other hand holding the pistol against Jackson's head.

The sounds of the infirmary, beeping, hissing, soft but clear, constantly there.

His own voice telling Jackson that they weren't the same. They weren't. They looked the same, but they were different. Jackson was a murderer. They couldn't be the same.

The bang of the pistol again. So near.

Jack holding him, speaking again, such a soothing voice.

He wasn't like Jackson. He belonged here.

He would fight it, the pain, the nightmarish words Jackson had said, about having killed them all... If he'd just give in, he might find Sha're again, but he wouldn't do that.

He would fight because of his friends. Jack, Sam and Teal'c. His family. He needed them, and they needed him. He knew that. That was why he wasn't like Jackson, and never would be.