Chapter Eight

Carter climbed out of bed and switched on the light. She looked very nervous and distrustful, but also terribly cute with her hair sticking up all over the place. She narrowed her eyes at Jack and he decided it would be very stupid of him to tell her that just then. "When were we on that planet, Jack, did you touch anything?"

He realized it was also not the time for him to suggest that she crawl back into bed with him. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought about her question carefully. "I touched that cubey thing." He realized that was also right around when Carter started acting funny. "And you had that glowing thing that I told you not to turn on that you turned on anyway."

Carter took a deep breath and the angry glare reappeared. "You most certainly did not tell me any such thing. I would never disobey a direct order, not from you." She crossed her armed over her chest, reminding Jack how much better it had been when they were snuggling. "Besides, you were hounding me to see if the damn thing worked, which would have been exceedingly difficult to determine without turning it on."

Jack got up, feeling better prepared to argue when he wasn't lying on her bed. "I think that glowing thing made you mean, psycho Carter."

"Right, the mean, psycho Carter who was trying to seduce poor, innocent Jack."

He glared at her. He didn't like it when she was right about his ides not being logical. "The Carter who isn't mean and psycho never would have tried to seduce me." He hated to say it, but it was true. He felt slightly better that he wasn't as wrong as Carter had tried to make him believe. He didn't appreciate fate's cruel joke that rather than being exciting and wonderful, being seduced by Carter really freaked him out.

Carter looked at the floor, obviously trying to stop herself from arguing further. "Ok, so did you touch anything else while we were there or can we safely assume it was the cube that did this?"

"I think that was it." But then he remembered adjusting the mirror to watch Carter surreptitiously. "I might have touched a mirror too."

Carter shook her head. "Tell me you didn't." She seemed disproportionately angry.

"Yeah, so what if I did?"

"And it never occurred to you to mention it until now? Even with everything that's happened?"

Jack took a few steps away from her because he was fairly certain if Carter was ever going to deck him for being an idiot, it was going to be right then. "The only strange thing was that my hair looked longer."

Much to his chagrin, she laughed. "Good. Problem solved. Let's go find the general before Janet does."

Jack shook his head. "I'm getting whiplash from the mood swings here, Carter."

"You're not supposed to be here."

"You're the one who invited me to stay with you and you were the one coming on to me in the locker room. Don't start throwing the rules in my face now!" He let his anger cloud the hurt that he felt at her sudden rejection. That was something he could deal with later, on his own, without her looking on.

She smiled again. "No, not here in this room here. You're not supposed to be anywhere here."

"Huh?" Jack hated the fact that Carter always seemed to be on a different page than him, although he had kind of enjoyed the pages that involved her kissing him.

"The planet we were on? The one with the writings that Daniel said were just like the ones from P3R-233? Did you really think it was a good idea to touch a mirror on a planet inhabited by the same people who created the quantum mirror?"

"Writings? What?" Jack sat back down on the bed. As fast as his head was spinning, he still couldn't keep up with Carter.

"Maybe your Daniel didn't make the same connection." She sat down next to him and patted his knee. "This isn't your reality. That's why your iris code didn't work. It's what Janet couldn't find that explains your memories being different from mine. You're from an alternate reality."

Oh. Alternate reality. Jack shook his head. That would explain a lot. "But I thought the other realities were really different." When Daniel had found the first one, he'd come back with stories of a staggeringly altered world. And the other Carter, with her tales of their marriage, hadn't been close to his Carter.

"Theoretically there are different realities for every single decision anyone ever makes. The changes spiral out from each decision. The closer you get to one of those decisions, the more indistinct the changes between the realities would be."

Jack shook his head, wondering why he couldn't have fallen for someone who got as easily confused as him. "So how do you know what the change was?"

"Well, it had to be something relatively recent, because the mission list was already determined, but before three weeks ago, which is the last time our iris codes were updated."

She smiled at him and Jack started to feel bad for her Jack. She wasn't mad at him anymore because he was the wrong guy. He suspected that she was still very upset with her Jack over whatever she'd been mad at on the planet.

"You're sure about this?"

"You remember the same recent events as I do, Cassie's party for example, but they're slightly different. The last thing we remembered the same was my flat tire."

Jack smiled, fondly remembering the endearing look on her face when he discovered the missing spare. "The night we didn't go out."

"Bingo. You didn't go out. I did."

"But you said we went together. How does that work?"

"I'm guessing our realities diverged at the point when you made your decision about asking me to dinner. You didn't ask. The Jack that's supposed to be here did."

Jack felt extremely disappointed in himself for not asking. He could have been with her, dating her, expected to attend weddings with her. And then, in a moment of clarity, Jack knew he would absolutely kill anyone who touched Carter while pretending to be him. He glanced around in panic. "And where is the Jack that's supposed to be here again?" He figured he could put up a pretty good fight against himself, but he didn't relish the idea. He recalled how Carter hadn't exactly been jumping for joy when she met her double. "Speaking of which, why aren't I getting electric shock therapy?"

She giggled, sounding for all the world like his Carter. "Convulsive shock. It would be brought on by entropic cascade failure on the cellular level. You're safe because he's not here." She looked concerned for a moment. "Was there a reflection in the mirror?"

"Yes, that's why it was a mirror." Although as he said it, he realized that the reflection wasn't him, it was the Jack in desperate need of a haircut. "You might want to mention to him that his hair is getting a little messy."

She grinned. "I told him not to."

Nervous once again, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Why?"

"Because you're so much sexier with longer hair."

He shifted away from her, disturbed by her transition back to insane Carter. "You stay over there."

She kept grinning and leaned toward him. "Why?" Her hand moved slowly against his leg. "The realities are almost identical. We have the same history, the same years of waiting. You're still very much my Jack."

He carefully picked her hand off his leg and deposited it on the bed between them. "No. Maybe I was a few weeks ago, but not anymore. I'm her Jack." Slight as they might have been, Jack was acutely aware of the differences between the Carters. The biggest one was that he wasn't in a relationship, at least not a physical one, with his Carter. But the more he thought about it, the more it felt like he'd be cheating on her if he let the other Carter touch him again. "And we don't do this sort of thing."

She looked disappointed. "It's one thing to deny it to people who only suspect, Jack. But I know how much you want me." She smiled suddenly. "You've told me. You've woken the neighbors and told them too."

He never would have imagined Carter saying such a thing to him, but it would follow that intimacy would relieve them of the embarrassment of admitting they wanted to be together. He met her eyes and held his ground, deciding that he could be honest since it wasn't really his reality. "I didn't say I don't want her." He sighed, wishing once again that he was alternate Jack. "I just don't have her."

"Do something about it. She won't say no."

"You don't know that." He did not want relationship counseling from Carter, his or any other. He didn't want relationship counseling from anyone.

"Five weeks, Jack. I didn't feel any differently about you five weeks ago. I was just less likely to attack you in the locker room."

He laughed. "Thank goodness for small favors." He caught her raised eyebrow. "I think."

"I miss my Jack. He's so much more fun."

"A minute ago you were telling me I was just like your Jack." He loved it when he could point out Carter's mistakes. He just wasn't sure it had ever happened before.

"You are like him, except that he's perhaps a bit more adventurous than you are." The twinkle in her eye made him wonder exactly what sorts of things might be able to convince his Carter to try.

Of course, he'd be happy to simply see his Carter again. "So how did this happen? How come he's not here?"

"Quantum mirrors aren't actually mirrors. They don't have reflections. When you looked in the mirror, that wasn't you. That was him." Her eyes glazed over with that possessed look she always got when she was theorizing. "You must have both touched the mirror simultaneously or else you would have had contact with each other. It's just more evidence of how close the realities truly are. We were on the same mission. You both sent Teal'c with Daniel and chose to stay with me, albeit probably for different reasons. You were both looking in the mirror at exactly the same time. You must have even reached out at exactly the same time or you would have noticed that the reflection wasn't of you." Her eyes were dancing and Jack found himself wondering if anything besides quantum theory could make her so happy. "With the infinite number of realities in existence, any of which could have met up, it's an amazing coincidence that they're so close!"

Jack looked at her, thinking he'd quite possibly lost his mind since he understood her. "But aren't there also an infinite number of realities that are as close as ours?"

She grinned. "That means there's an infinite number of times that we can be together."

Jack felt slightly sick at the thought that although their realities were close, they were still very different. "It also means there's an infinite number of times that we can't be."

"That's up to you, Jack."

He was silent as he wondered if he could make that leap. Obviously, in some way, he had and it seemed to be ok. Even if he did wind up in the brig, five weeks of being happy and making Carter happy would be worth it. He thought about the other Jack, the one who'd had the nerve to do it. He thought about his Carter, the one who apparently had it in her to break the rules to be with him.

And then he realized that his Carter, who hadn't broken the rules, was in his reality, with the Jack who was probably every bit as bold as alternate Carter regarding their five week old relationship. If alternate Jack tried any of the things alternate Carter had, his Carter would probably have him up on charges.

"I have to get home."

"Don't tell me you're still afraid of me."

"No, but my Carter might be afraid of your Jack." It also occurred to him that she might be as willing to throw caution to the wind as alternate Carter had been, but that thought left him sick to his stomach.

Carter's eyes clouded over. "That would be very bad."

"Why?" He was willing to bet she had more information that he wouldn't like.

"Well, my Teal'c and Daniel and Janet and General Hammond know about us unofficially. I'm guessing yours don't."

Jack closed his eyes and let out a whine. It could, in fact, be very bad in many different ways.