Tuesday, April 6
Reality L583

Jack woke up to the sound of Teal'c's deep voice. "You are quite safe, DanielJackson, and no harm will come to you."

"That's good," the weak voice said. Jack sat up. Teal'c had persuaded him to sleep on a bed, but Jack had refused to leave the infirmary. The practical upshot of this was that Jack had slept in one of the infirmary beds. He slipped off the bed and walked over to stand beside Teal'c as Daniel started speaking again. "When did you shave your head, Teal'c?" he asked.

Teal'c blinked. Before Jack could caution him against it, he said, "I have always shaved my head."

The Daniel in the bed looked up at him solemnly with wide eyes for a moment, then he gulped. "I'm in a different alternate reality, aren't I?" he asked. "Not with the violent Jack, because there's no Teal'c there, but not home, either."

"Indeed," Teal'c said.

"And your Daniel?" he asked.

"Taken." Teal'c's voice was calm as always, but it seemed that this Daniel was as perceptive as theirs, because he picked up on the distress.

"I'm sorry," he said. He closed his eyes. "What all is wrong with me? It got sort of blurred together when it was happening."

"Let me get Dr. Fraiser," Jack said. "She can explain it better."

He walked away, only dimly hearing behind him, "Who's Dr. Fraiser?"

Fraiser was in her office. "Up with the lark, I see," he said dryly. "Daniel wants to know what's wrong with him, and since I can't remember medical terms for five minutes together, I thought it would be better for you to tell him." She gave him a dry look, but nodded and came out with him. "Daniel, this is Dr. Janet Fraiser. She's our chief medical doctor around here."

Fraiser looked at him oddly, but then Daniel spoke. "Nice to meet you, but . . . what about Dr. Warner?"

She smiled. "Dr. Warner is in the department," she said reassuringly. "He helped with the surgery that put you back together."

"Oh," Daniel said. "So, how bad off am I? He said he'd cripple me for life."

Jack clenched his fists in impotent anger and waited for Fraiser to talk.

"Well, I wouldn't say you're crippled," she said reassuringly. "First of all, the broken bones you sustained before yesterday, the cracked ribs and the broken foot . . ." She paused and he nodded. "Those are all healing nicely. No problems there. You'll have to stay completely off that foot for another four to five weeks, though."

"Right," Daniel said. "What about . . . there's a gazillion tubes coming out of me. Why?"

She took a deep breath and said, "At the moment you're in acute renal failure."

"I'm dying?" he asked in a numb voice.

"No!" she exclaimed. "No, you'll be fine. Quite often the kidney function will stop due to some shock or trauma the body sustains, and then it will start up again within a few days. If it doesn't, then you'll have to go on dialysis."

"Dialysis," Daniel repeated. "For the rest of my life?"

"It's only a possibility," Fraiser assured him. "I honestly don't expect it to come to that. Your kidneys are bruised, which could easily have caused the kind of shock we're talking about. We're keeping close track of your fluids, so don't worry." He nodded, but he didn't look altogether convinced. "You have three broken ribs and both the bones in your right forearm are broken. The breaks are clean, though, and all should heal just fine."

"That's good to hear," he said.

"You're going to be fine, Daniel," she said firmly, and he looked up, a half smile on his face.

"Thank you, doctor," he said. "I just – please don't take this wrong, but I want to go home."

"I understand," Fraiser said. She checked on his various readouts, touched his cheek lightly, and went back to her office.

"So, where is your Daniel's Sha're?" Daniel asked. "Is she too alarmed by this situation to want to come near me?"

Jack opened his mouth and then glanced at Teal'c who looked as nonplussed as he felt. "No, it's not that," Jack said.

"What's happened to her?" Daniel asked, looking concerned. "Is she dead?"

"She is not dead," Teal'c said, his stoic calm coming back down over his features. "She is host to a Goa'uld."

Daniel just stared up at him, then transferred his appalled look to Jack. "A Goa'uld? What of Skaara?"

"Him too," Jack said, his voice sounding unnaturally flat to himself.

"Your Daniel must be devastated," this Daniel said, voice hushed. "That's half his family right there." Jack nodded. He seemed lost in some private misery for a moment, then said, "Our Skaara is Klorel, Apophis' son."

"As is ours," Teal'c said. "Sha're has been taken by Amunet."

Daniel stared at him, jaw dropped, apparently caught without words. It took him several seconds to find his voice again. "A moment ago, I would have said I couldn't imagine anything worse than Skaara being trained by Apophis, but Amunet . . ." He shook his head, eyes wide with shock. "How dreadful for her and for all of you."

Jack nodded.

"I can't imagine that. We have two kids, twins, Jonny and Kate. Sha're thought they should have English first names since they would be going to schools in Colorado. Jonathon Melbourne and Katherine Neferu."

"How old are they?" Jack asked.

"Not quite two, now," he said, his eyes dimming a bit. "I haven't seen them for six weeks." He blinked a bit. "In fact, what day is it?"

"April 6th," Jack said. Daniel's eyes widened and then they closed. "Daniel, what is it?"

"They turned two on the second," he said in a strangled voice. He turned his face away. "Please, I . . . I need . . ."

"God, what's wrong?" Carter exclaimed from the end of the bed. "Daniel?" She rushed to the other side of the bed and took his hand. "Sir, what did you say to him?"

"Me?" Jack exclaimed, and Daniel chuckled weakly.

"He didn't do anything, Sam," he said. "I mean . . . can I call you Sam? Do you go by Sam?"

"Of course you can," she said, bending and giving him a ginger hug. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," he said, disentangling his hand and rubbing his eyes. "Does any of you know where there might be a spare pair of glasses? I think I'm getting a headache."

Carter reached into her pocket. "I thought you might need them," she said, holding out a pair. "Daniel . . . our Daniel keeps a couple of spares in his office."

"I do, too," Daniel said. "I – it –" His control broke and a sob slipped out. He tried to cover his face with his hands, but the right arm was awkward because of the cast. Letting out a stream of fluid curses in some language Jack didn't recognize, he let the right arm fall to the bed again.

"What is it?" Carter asked anxiously.

"He's been gone from home for awhile, Carter, and he has kids."

Her eyes flew wide and she let out a wordless exclamation. "I have to get back to work!" Then she gave Daniel a quick hug and left the infirmary rapidly.

Tears still running down his face, Daniel watched her leave. "What's she working on?" he asked.

"Cobbling together a controller for the mirror," Jack replied.

Daniel stared at him for a long moment, then drew in a shaky breath. "You don't have a controller?" he asked, eyes wide.

"No," Jack said, his brows knitting together. "But Carter –"

"Oh God, I'm never getting home!" Daniel exclaimed and turned his head away.

Jack reached out and took his hand. "We'll get you home, Daniel. Carter's never failed us yet." Teal'c looked utterly confounded, but Jack just pushed him aside and sat down on the edge of the bed, putting an arm around Daniel very gently. "We will get you home, and we will get our Daniel back."

Daniel turned into him and buried his face in Jack's chest, and Jack just let him cry.

Reality A001

Daniel awoke to the sound of pages turning. He shifted, not opening his eyes immediately. His body ached from all the various bruises and bumps he'd gotten the day before. He wanted to know who was in the room with him, but he also didn't want to reveal his interest.

"Good morning, Daniel," Jack said genially and Daniel felt his whole back tense up. He was here.

Daniel didn't dare pretend he was asleep or delay at all. He rolled over and sat up, his feet on the floor. "Good morning," he said.

"I brought you some coffee." Jack pointed to a carafe sitting on the desk. "Food's coming a bit later. None of you ever seems to want to eat right away in the morning."

None of . . . Daniel licked his lips. "Coffee sounds good," he said, standing up and stifling a groan as the muscles in his back objected.

Jack let the book he was reading drop to the desktop and leaned forward. "Are you all right?"

Blinking in disbelief, Daniel took a deep breath and swallowed. "I'm fine."

Jack stood up. "You always say that," he said, walking over. Daniel didn't flinch away from him, but it took monumental effort. In this mood, Jack would probably take a flinch for an insult. Jack put a hand on his shoulder. "You've got to take better care of yourself. I'll have them bring some analgesics in with your food."

"Thanks," Daniel said.

"I've brought in some work for you." Jack guided him over to the desk. "This is a Goa'uld text, I need it translated as soon as possible. Some work has already been done on it, so it shouldn't take too long, I hope."

Daniel nodded. "I'll get right on it."

"Good man," Jack said.

He didn't leave as Daniel had expected him to, so Daniel sat down in the chair and started looking over the pages in front of him. He stiffened slightly with surprise and some alarm when Jack put his hands on his shoulders.

"I know I can be hard on you, Danny, but it's for your own good. You know that, don't you?"

Trying not to imagine how he'd react if his own Jack said something crazy like that, Daniel decided to play along with the demented madman he was trapped with. "Of course, Jack," he said.

"Good. Well, I've got some work to do, so I'll see you later." He squeezed Daniel's shoulders lightly and then left. Daniel shivered when the door shut and wondered if the man knew what he was doing and was playing with him, or if he really was as out of balance as he seemed.

He bent to the task he'd been set, but it was the creepiest thing he'd ever seen. Here were several sheets of paper written in his own handwriting that he'd never seen before. He sorted through them, trying to get a handle on the work that had been done already, and he found one sheet that looked rather as if the Daniel who had been here before him had been writing out phrases in Goa'uld, as if he'd been practicing, or checking the arrangements of words.

At least that's what it would look like to someone who didn't know how to read Goa'uld. Daniel could see that it was something entirely different. For one thing, it was in an extremely obscure dialect of the language, not related to the one the text was written in. He read it with a sinking heart.

If you are reading this, then I've been sent to your reality and you've just been taken. This is the third letter like this I've written, but I really think he's getting past the point of controlling himself now.

Here is my advice. Don't argue. Don't talk back to him. Don't try to escape. Without help, you'd never reach your own reality, and the mirror is well guarded. There's too many elevators between there and here, for one.

Hard as it is, you have to just sit tight, do what he says and pray for rescue.

He can't be reasoned with, so don't even try.

He read through it three times. This was the writing, the thoughts, the warning of the man who had lain bleeding and broken on the floor in that storeroom. Daniel bit his lip. Had he survived? Had anyone found him in time? And what . . . alarm grew in him at the thought . . . what had they made of the surveillance footage that showed him being grabbed and dragged into that storeroom by Jack? A dead or dying Daniel on the floor . . . what if they looked no further? What if they just believed their eyes? What if they simply imprisoned Jack and stopped there?

He shook his head and controlled his thoughts. He had to focus on surviving now. If – When rescue came, it would do him no good if he'd gotten himself killed or traded for a new Daniel. And that thought wasn't comforting either. Some other man, pulled out of his own SGC, his own life, his own world . . . it was not to be considered. He would have to last as long as possible.

Which, at the moment, meant translating this text, so he bent to work. It was disturbing to see how similarly the other Daniel thought about things. It made a certain amount of sense, but still . . . he'd like to think they were different somehow. That this Jack wasn't right to think he just needed a Daniel, any Daniel.

When he came to something he would have translated differently, though, it came as a shock. For a moment, it annoyed him. Upon consideration, though, and much to his chagrin, he decided that the other Daniel had been right.

The door opened and he looked around nervously, but it was only Lt. Carter with a tray of food. "So, how is it you're relegated to maid duties? Seems a bit of a waste of time for the premier scientific mind of the facility to be schlepping trays around."

"Hammond and O'Neill don't trust anyone but SG-1 to look after you. I guess they figure that we're immune to the silver tongue and pathetic looks."

"And you, being a lowly lieutenant, get the scutwork. How fun for you." She gave him an annoyed look and put the tray down. Pancakes, eggs and sausage, with a little bowl of fruit. "Thank you," he said in a less snarky tone.

"This isn't any of it my idea," she said in a defensive tone.

"Any of what?" Daniel asked, all too aware of the recordings she'd informed him were being made. "Jack's the soul of courtesy. He only has my welfare at heart, he just told me so."

Her eyes widened and she gave him a frankly incredulous look. He just kept smiling at her until her eyes widened still further and some form of comprehension dawned. "Of course," she said.

"So, thank you for breakfast, but I'd better get on with my work."

"Right," she said and, backing away, she left the room.

He turned back to the translation and the food. For now, at any rate, he would follow his predecessor's advice.

Samantha left Dr. Jackson's cell feeling quite startled by the man's reaction. None of the others had settled to the situation nearly so quickly. Of course, none of the others had had the opportunity so early in their stay here to prove their worth. O'Neill was feeling particularly happy today and was being correspondingly friendly towards the prisoner.

She devoutly hoped that this Daniel didn't count on that continuing indefinitely. She had watched the original pair go through so many rounds of that sort of behavior that . . . She shook her head. Their friendship had been an odd one, very disturbing. The colonel had been the leader and Daniel very much the follower, with the colonel acting like a rough and . . . say it, Samantha . . . abusive older brother. It had been a set pattern between the pair of them. Daniel would do something impulsive and stupid, and O'Neill would . . .

Nothing that she could say made either of them recognize what a dangerous and destructive set of habits they'd fallen into. When she'd expressed her concern to General Hammond, he had given her a serious dressing down and demoted her. And he told Colonel O'Neill, who had been very angry with her. It had not improved the team dynamics any, because Daniel had been furious, too. He'd said that Jack was only looking out for him like a friend should. Kowalski had laughed at her worries and told her she was an idiot. Guys were rough with each other, he'd said. She should stop being such a girl.

She sat down at her desk, burying her face in her hands. Then, during one of O'Neill's bouts of abuse, Daniel had hit his head on a doorframe. He'd seemed fine, just a little disoriented, but the doctor said later that he was dead from the moment of impact. Depressed skull fractures could do that. Daniel had refused to see the doctor, the colonel had gotten very worried and made him go to bed, and Daniel had been dead in the morning.

It had been an accident, she was sure of that, but it had sent O'Neill over the edge with both grief and anger. Hammond had been utterly infuriated, and demanded to know what they were going to do without Daniel Jackson. That was when Colonel O'Neill had gotten that mad glint in his eye.

He told Hammond he'd deal with it and disappeared for almost a week. Then he'd come and grabbed Kowalski and her and told them his plan. Their Daniel had gone through the transdimensional mirror – God the beating O'Neill had given him for that idiotic act . . . But O'Neill knew what the mirror was, and what it could do. He'd spent that week reality shopping, trying to work out how the controller worked and find a reality where there was a readily accessible Daniel Jackson.

She wished she'd never figured out how to make those phase shifters. Without them, this whole course of action would have been too risky to be pursued.

That first Daniel had been so confused, so angry, so incredulous, that he hadn't lasted more than three weeks. They hadn't developed a good system for keeping the man under control, and when he was found in the mirror room for the second time, O'Neill had nearly killed him. He'd stood, staring at the unconscious form for several minutes, his expression alarmingly blank, and ordered Kowalski to get the phase shifters. Kowalski had gone without a word, and Samantha had stared in shock.

"Are you going to take him back home?" she'd asked, hoping it was true.

He'd given her a bland look. "You are dismissed, Lt. Carter," he'd said. When she'd tried to argue with him, he'd pushed her out the door. Within two hours he'd returned, another Daniel in tow.

She had no idea how much Hammond really knew about what was going on, but she knew there was no point in talking to him about it. With the general, the only thing that mattered was results. Early on, Kowalski had occasionally seemed a little disturbed, but he always quelled it without too much effort. And lately, she hadn't seen any signs of concern from him at all.

Turning to her computer, she accessed the video log of Dr. Jackson's cell and watched what had happened between Daniel and the colonel after she'd left last night and this morning. It appeared that this Daniel was either more perceptive than any of the others had been, or that he had a similar relationship with his Colonel O'Neill. Given his early reactions, though, she thought the latter was unlikely.

Of course, the colonel hadn't gotten brotherly with any of the others nearly this early, so perhaps that was the difference. This Daniel could see the shape of the man while it was still early enough that he had some of his own control left. She hoped it was that. She didn't know if she could watch another one get broken and bloody.

Daniel worked his way through that Goa'uld text, but he had no idea how to let anyone know he was done. He glanced up at the ceiling. Any cameras there were had been concealed, no doubt to make it harder for him to circumvent them. He went to the door and knocked on it. Nothing happened, though he heard movement on the other side of the door.

Running his hands through his hair, he sighed and walked out into the middle of the room. Speaking to the air around him, he said, "Could someone please let the folks in charge of me know that I'm done with what I've been given to do?"

Silence. He shook his head. The attempt had been made. There was nothing more he could do. He walked over to the shelves, picked out a book and flopped down on the bed to read. After a few minutes, he was blinking in perplexity. He closed the book and looked at the cover, then flipped to the title page. It was the book he thought it was. He'd read this book a few times before, but he always found something new when he read it again, a new perspective, a different interpretation.

Now he was finding something new, but . . . he shook his head. This wasn't the same book. Or rather, it was, but with a different reality's spin on it. He stood up and looked around the room at all the books. He had in this room a multitude of windows on the mindset of the world he was now in, but he doubted he had enough time to examine them all in the depth he'd need to.

The door opened and he turned to see Jack coming in. "What are you doing?" Jack asked.

"I was just trying to figure out which book I wanted to read while I was waiting," Daniel said very neutrally, trying to project submissiveness. It wasn't easy as nervous and angry as he was.

"The translation is done?" Daniel nodded and picked it up off the desk, holding it out to O'Neill. Jack took it and looked through it. "This is great, Danny. Just what I needed to stall Hammond off for awhile." He turned to the door and knocked. When it opened, he passed the translation out through it and took something from whoever was outside. Daniel stood where he was, only moving enough to put the book down on the desk.

Jack shut the door again. "I should never have let you go on offworld missions," he said, bringing the sheaf of papers towards him. "It only got you into trouble."

Daniel didn't know what to say. This Jack had never let him go anywhere. They'd only known each other just under twenty-four hours, and most of that had been pretty damned unpleasant. Was he really mistaking him for his own Daniel, or did he just think that all Daniels were one and the same? Either was fraught with dangers Daniel couldn't guess at.

"This is much better," Jack said, looking around at the room. "Here you're safe, you're not doing anything that could get you killed, and yet you managed to save our asses anyway."

Daniel was feeling rather rooted to the spot. This Jack was utterly insane or playing it up like he was. Since he'd started being so friendly, Daniel had thought he might be able to play on it and get himself out of the room. It was a game he understood all too well, but this didn't sound promising. He swallowed convulsively and cleared his throat. "But . . . what if there's a foothold situation?" Jack raised his eyebrow and Daniel looked around. "I'd be trapped."

Jack put the sheaf of papers down on the desk and put his hands on Daniel's shoulders. "I'd always come after you, Daniel. You're practically my little brother."

"Thanks, Jack," Daniel managed after a second. "I . . . I appreciate that." There was an aura of expectancy that didn't seem to have been completed by that statement. This was getting far too close to things he didn't want to think about. He managed a smile and said, "I think of you like my older brother."

To his own ears it sounded very lame, but Jack seemed to take it at face value. "So, I've got another project for you. I know I don't have to tell you be quick with it."

"Right," Daniel said. "I'll get right on it."

Jack grinned, squeezed his shoulders and then left. Daniel turned to the desk and sat down. His hands were shaking, so he tried to conceal that by placing them flat on the desk. His breakfast was sitting uneasily on his stomach now.

He wanted his Jack to come through that door right now and get him home.