Tuesday, April 6
Reality L583

Between his injuries and the turbulence of his emotions, their borrowed Daniel wore himself out quickly and fell asleep. Jack got him positioned more comfortably on the bed and sat back to look at him. His anger at his counterpart in the other reality was growing. He could not imagine what could possibly turn a Jack O'Neill into a serial kidnapper and brutal beater of Daniel Jacksons.

And there was literally nothing he could do about it. Not unless Carter magicked up a controller for that damned mirror.

He sat there, watching Dr. Daniel Jackson, father of two, sleep peacefully. Eventually, Hammond showed up. "I've had reports from Dr. Fraiser on the patient's physical condition. Did he tell you much?"

"A bit," Jack said. He stood up and took the general a little farther off. "Our realities are a bit different, it seems. His Sha're was never captured by the Goa'uld."

"Really?" Hammond looked at the sleeping man with wide eyes. "Then what caused him to join the SGC?"

"At a guess, it's because Skaara was taken. But . . . sir . . ." Jack paused and Hammond raised his eyebrows. "He brought Sha're with him to Earth. They have twins, a girl and a boy. Jonny and Kate."

"My God!" Hammond exclaimed. "How . . . they can't be very old, can they?"

"They turned two on Friday," Jack said. "And he's been away from them and his reality for six weeks."

Hammond looked again at the sleeping Daniel, shaking his head. "I just don't understand what could have made anyone think this was acceptable behavior."

"I surely don't know," Jack said. "And I don't know what we're going to do, sir."

"Everything we can. That's all we can do."

Reality A001

Daniel fell into bed at the end of the day, eyes burning and utterly exhausted. He'd barely picked at his dinner because the knot in his gut had grown to the size of a Plymouth. Jack had come in twice, all sugar and sweetness, but Daniel was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, which made it nearly impossible to concentrate.

It was considerably easier when Jack wasn't in the room, but he could hardly tell him, "Hey, Jack, when you enter the room, my guts start churning acid and the muscles in my back start twitching, so could you just . . . run along?" He had a feeling that Jack's reaction would be both unprintable and violent.

Sleep was long in coming, and when it finally came, it was full of uneasy and disturbing dreams.

Sunday, April 11

Samantha was quietly watching Daniel's days. Since the late night rescue of SG-3, O'Neill had been behaving in a friendlier fashion, but he hadn't yet noticed that Daniel wasn't eating nearly enough. She could see the lines of tension in the man's shoulders and neck, but O'Neill would miss them, willfully blind to Daniel's distress. The food, however, he would notice eventually.

Still, by this point, most of the others had suffered some serious injury. They'd certainly been more of a punching bag than this Daniel had been so far. That note in her drawer was always on her mind as she worked, as she watched, as she drove home and made dinner for herself.

Wednesday had come and gone, but she'd been hard at work on a project at six o'clock. Things weren't being nearly as bad for this Daniel as they had been for the others. It had been nearly a week now, and Jack hadn't gotten violent with him once. Maybe she was wrong to worry. Maybe this one would be the replacement they were looking for.

The thought made her sick to her stomach, but she pushed that away. She'd just have to try her best to make sure this Daniel could last.

The timer beside her computer beeped, and she went to turn it off. Time to fetch Daniel's dinner tray. She tapped a key on her keyboard to call up her screen again. Daniel had pushed the tray aside and was working on his latest project. There was an awful lot of food still on the tray.

Sighing, she shut the monitor down and went down to Daniel's cell. The guard on the left side of the door nodded and slid his card to open it. Pulling the door open, she went in and the guard shut it behind her. Not for the first time, she wondered what the airmen who rotated on this duty made of this situation. As soon as the door opened, Daniel turned, and his wary expression softened very slightly when he saw her.

She walked over to the desk. "Dr. Jackson, you aren't eating enough," she said.

His face closed down completely, and he turned away from her. "I've eaten what I want." His voice was flat with tension.

Samantha bit her lip. She didn't particularly want to add to his tension, but she also didn't want him to run into trouble. "Well, if you don't start eating a little more sensibly, Colonel O'Neill will be very unhappy."

His hands stilled. When he spoke, his voice was quieter and still more tense. "I've eaten as much as I can."

"Still, you need to eat more. Colonel O'Neill won't like it if you start losing weight."

"It's better than throwing up," he said, sounding a little irritated. Then, with an odd little glance towards the ceiling, he added, "I'm having some stomach trouble."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "Well, why don't I get you some tea to help settle your stomach and then you can try to eat some more."

He shuddered so slightly that she couldn't see it, but she could feel it. "I'd appreciate that," he said. "Thank you."

She went back to her office and pulled out some peppermint tea from her stash, then she stopped by the kitchen for hot water and a mug. As she started back towards Daniel's room, she ran into Kowalski. "How's the newest Dr. Jackson doing?" he asked. During the Daniel crisis, he'd been detached from SG-1, and so he'd been offworld for the past few days. He only worked with them when it was time to fetch a new . . . she shied away from the word her mind supplied. Victim.

"Very well," she said.

"He break anything yet?"

She shook her head. "There haven't been any problems at all," she replied.

"That's great, lieutenant," he said, grinning. "See you later."

She nodded and went on. When she reached the room, the guard pulled the door open for her. To her surprise, Colonel O'Neill was sitting in a chair next to Daniel's desk. Daniel was sitting ramrod straight in his chair. O'Neill looked up when she came in. "Good evening, Lt. Carter," he said formally, smiling at her. "Daniel said you were bringing him some tea to help him finish his dinner."

"I am," she said.

"Were you going to tell me he wasn't feeling well?"

She blinked. "I was hoping that this would solve it. If it continued, of course I'd mention it."

He raised an eyebrow but nodded. "Well, bring it here," he said with a hint of impatience. "Daniel can't drink it from over there."

She told her legs to start moving again and carried the tea to the desk. The colonel must have brought the chair in with him, because there had only been one chair in here when she left. She put the mug down on the table. "It's probably got another minute or so to steep."

"Thank you, lieutenant," Daniel said, looking up at her with an incredibly trapped look in his eyes. "It's very kind."

"No problem," she replied.

"Well, unless you need something else, Daniel, I think that's all, Carter."

The archeologist licked his lips and shook his head. "No, no, I think I'm good."

She nodded and left. Had he been watching the security footage? No, he wouldn't have said that Daniel told him about the tea then. Someone must have reported the exchange to him. If he was keeping that close a watch . . . poor Daniel.

"Seriously, Daniel, you should have told me you didn't feel well," Jack said for the third or fourth time.

Daniel was sitting with his hands folded in his lap, looking down. When Lt. Carter had left, he'd felt very abandoned, but it wasn't as if she'd had a choice. "I'm sorry. I thought it would pass, and I didn't want to bother you."

Jack put his hand on Daniel's neck. "It wouldn't have been a bother. I want you to promise to tell me when you feel sick. I think it's been a minute. Carter's tea should be ready, if you want to drink it."

Daniel nodded and reached out. He removed the tea bag and took a sip, hoping it would loosen the knot of tension that was making food so unpalatable. That seemed very unlikely, though, with this Jack sitting less than two feet away.

Since that first day, Jack hadn't hit him or shoved him or anything, but Daniel wasn't going to trust that would last. He knew only too well that all it would take was a bad day or a bad mood. Carter's warning seemed to have been apt, though, even if his response had drawn this down. He drank another sip of the tea, concentrating on trying to calm his gut.

"Is it the food?" Jack asked. "I can see if we can get you something more to your taste."

Daniel shook his head. "No, it's probably just . . . I get this way sometimes."

"Is the tea helping?"

"It is," Daniel said. He swallowed some more. Then he put the tea aside and pulled the tray back over. Cold macaroni and cheese wasn't exactly appealing, but if he needed to eat to get Jack out of the room, eat he would.

He forced the rest of it down, somehow managing to appear as if he were enjoying it. O'Neill watched with approval. But as Daniel put the fork down after the last bite, he felt a distinctly uncomfortable feeling in his gut.

"There, that should be better," Jack said, patting him on the back. "How are you –"

The pat on the back was one stimulus too many. Daniel got up abruptly. Jack looked startled and rose with him, but Daniel shoved him out of the way and ran to the bathroom. He rid himself unceremoniously of his meal, but that wasn't all. He kept retching until there was less than nothing left. His skin felt clammy and his heart was racing. He sat back, breathing shallowly. His gut still felt uneasy, but the dry heaves seemed to have left him.

He was aware that Jack was beside him, and he waited with resignation for the anger that was sure to come at his lack of appreciation for the food he'd been provided. It didn't make an appearance.

Wordlessly, Jack helped him to his feet and over to sit on the edge of the tub. He handed Daniel a glass of water and flushed the toilet, cleaning up the vile splashes without comment. Daniel rinsed out his mouth and swallowed a tiny sip of water. Then he sat, holding the glass in both hands because they were shaking. Jack put a hand under his chin and lifted his face.

"You don't look well at all," he said. Turning to the sink, he wet a washcloth and wiped Daniel's face with it. "Drink some more if you can, then I'm putting you to bed."

Daniel managed to get a couple more sips of water down, but it wasn't easy. Then Jack took the glass and helped him to his feet. Movement made him feel very queasy, but Jack seemed to sense this and didn't make him go too fast. He flipped the covers back and got Daniel sitting down, then helped him slip out of most of his clothes.

When Daniel was in bed and covered up, he said, "I'll be back shortly. Stay right here."

Daniel closed his eyes. This was more than stress. He thought he might really be sick. He wondered what that might mean in terms of how they'd behave towards him. Jack seemed very concerned, but how long would that last?

Reality L583

The alternate Daniel was recovering well. His kidneys had come back on line after about thirty-six hours and now Fraiser had declared his system back to normal. He'd spent a lot of his recovery time reading and declining to engage in conversation. They'd restricted access to the infirmary, but that hadn't stopped people from sending cards and balloons by the ton, since they hadn't announced that the Daniel in the infirmary wasn't their Daniel.

They were keeping him company despite his unwillingness to talk to them. Teal'c took the night shift and most of the morning while Jack took care of the administrative portions of his job. Then Jack took the rest of the day. He brought files and books and worked while he sat there, but he stayed all day nevertheless. This Daniel was depressed and very isolated, so Jack wasn't about to leave him alone on top of it all.

Fraiser had shifted him back to the small space at the back of the infirmary. It wasn't closed off, so it wasn't technically an isolation ward, but it was small enough that there was only room for one bed and the attendant equipment. This way, other infirmary patients didn't try to talk to a man who didn't know them.

Unfortunately, to keep the fiction up, they had to bring all the gifts intended for their Daniel in here so that people didn't wonder why Daniel was rejecting them.

It would be one week tomorrow since he'd arrived here, and Jack was wondering if he was just a quieter man than their Daniel. It was hard to imagine a quiet Daniel.

He was reviewing team rotations, trying to make sure everything was covered without SG-1. It wasn't the easiest of tasks. They were having to put off a couple of missions because they required a linguist of Daniel's caliber. He juggled a couple of the suggested dispositions and sat back to study the effect.

"Your Daniel is very popular." Jack looked up from his work to see the injured man beside him looking at the pile of chocolate, gourmet coffee and get well cards.

"He is," Jack agreed.

"I got a pretty similar pile when my appendix went," he said, smiling. "There's nothing quite like having your appendix go acute on a mission."

Jack's eyes widened, and he decided he'd have Fraiser give their Daniel's appendix a good look when he got back. "I'd guess not," he said. "How bad was it?"

"Bad enough," Daniel said, snorting. "Could have been worse, though, I suppose. Could have happened while I was with Nem or something like that."

Jack gave that event some thought and shuddered. "That would have been bad."

Daniel nodded fervently. "It was bad enough when it did happen. There we were, on PJ2-445, convinced we'd brought a plague with us, and I start having intense pain and nausea. It sent us in a very wrong direction for a little while, till Warner realized that it was just my appendix."

Jack thought for a moment. "The planet with the natives that didn't talk and were in some kind of sound symbiosis with the weird plants?"

"Yeah, that one," Daniel said, grinning slightly. "I've wondered how similar our realities were. How many missions we've shared, and if you've gone places we haven't. I mean, the computer spits out the destinations somewhat at random. All it would take would be a series of different connections in the program and you'd go someplace entirely different. Could be interesting to compare notes."

Jack blinked. "I hadn't thought about it that way," he said. "I suppose . . . I don't know."

Daniel shrugged. "God, I hate broken ribs."

"How soon did the other Jack . . . I mean, how quickly did he start beating on you?"

That very mobile face went quite still. "He was pretty low key at first," he said. "Pushing, shoving, that kind of thing. It wasn't until the second week, when I tried to escape, that he broke my . . ." He trailed off and was silent for a moment. "What does it matter?"

Jack closed his eyes and swallowed the anger that was building. "The man who came home with me and stayed at my place the night after his wife and her brother were taken by Apophis is with that bastard right now, and I want to know what he might be facing."

Daniel was silent for a moment and then he cleared his throat. "When I tried to escape, he broke my foot, and that seemed to trigger a spate of greater violence that didn't stop for three or four days. He'd knock me down, wait for me to get up and then knock me down again." Jack bit his lip, his fists clenched as he imagined his Daniel in that situation. "Look, there's no point to this. You getting an ulcer thinking about what might be happening to him isn't going to help either him or you."

Jack grimaced. "I just hate not knowing and not being able to do anything. I assure you, if your Jack is anything like me, he grilled the man who got left in your place just the same."

Daniel shrugged. "I don't know how much like you my Jack is," he said. "We . . . we haven't been getting along all that well lately."

He raised an eyebrow. "What started it?" he asked.

Daniel picked up a bookmark and closed his book. "It's hard to put my finger on it exactly. This whole year has been kind of up and down. He was pretty angry with me after I got myself attacked in Hadante, and it seems like every time I get hurt on a mission . . . I don't think he wants me on the team anymore. I think he thinks I'm a liability."

Jack blinked at him, contemplating the common denominators in that explanation, and a light bulb turned on his head. "You have two kids."

"I know," Daniel replied, brows knitting.

"Does your Jack . . ." He bit his lip. "Does he still have Charlie?" The thought of a Jack O'Neill who never lost his son struck Jack to the core of his being.

Daniel's eyes darkened. "No. He died before I ever met Jack."

"And Sarah?"

"Remarried," Daniel said. "She moved to the east coast about six months ago. It really tore him up."

"Like putting the lid on the coffin of something that was already dead," Jack said, thinking about his own Sarah. She was in stasis for him since the last time he saw her, and he never went to see her for that reason. "Before that happened, he could pretend things could go back."

"I guess," Daniel said, blinking thoughtfully. "I . . . he never wanted to talk about it."

"To a man who has what he's lost?" Jack shook his head. "That's one of the things my Daniel and I share, the lost possibilities. We still hope to recover Sha're, but it's been nearly two years. She's already had a child by Apophis. Things can never be what they were for them."

"I see what you mean," Daniel said thoughtfully.

"And every time you touch something you shouldn't touch, every time you impulsively leap forward and start talking before your Jack's sure it's safe, you risk that."

"It's my job," Daniel protested.

"I know that," Jack said impatiently. "I'm sure he knows that. And I'm not saying you shouldn't, but that's probably part of the problem."

Daniel opened his mouth as if to speak, then subsided looking very pensive. After a couple of minutes, he sighed. "I think I understand. Now I just have to . . . I hope I get home to apply that understanding."

"We're going to get you home," Jack said with determination. "Don't even wonder about that."

A smile played around the other man's lips. "You're certainly as stubborn as my Jack."

"So, tell me about your kids. I'd love to hear about them. I'm . . . I've got to wonder what baby Daniel Jacksons are like."

"They're Sha're's, too, you know," Daniel said, grinning.

"Of course, but still . . ." Jack shook his head, caught by the image. "So, they're beautiful, courageous brainiacs with no impulse control?"

Daniel blinked at him with a dubious expression. "They're two, Jack. Of course they have no impulse control."

Jack rolled his eyes. "I was kidding, Daniel. Seriously, by now they have to have personality showing, so tell me about them."

"Well . . . Kate dotes on my Jack," Daniel said, his eyes smiling. "When he comes over, she flirts with him outrageously. Jonny is always . . . he drove Sha're nuts, constantly climbing out of his crib. We'd find him in all sorts of places around the house. She just about had a conniption when she found him digging in the trash. Both of them are as fluent as they can be at their age in both English and the Abydonian dialect of ancient Egyptian."

Jack smiled despite the pangs of loss and guilt he felt. "What do they look like?"

"Oh, like Sha're," Daniel said. "Genetically that was inevitable. She says Kate has my bones, though, but I'm not so sure."

The guilt Jack felt at the time it was taking to find and free Sha're from Apophis was becoming overwhelming. This man had lived an additional two years with that beautiful girl who had so firmly claimed him on Abydos, whereas his Daniel . . .

He shook his head. "Oh, I'm sure Sha're's right," he managed to say, but Daniel was looking at him oddly.

"This is being very hard on you," he said.

Jack shrugged. "I promised Daniel we'd get her back. We haven't."

"If it's possible, you will," Daniel said.

"Yeah," Jack said. "Yeah, we will."

Reality A001

Samantha nodded for the eighth or ninth time. "So, if the kitchen gives you anything other than clear liquids, you're to refuse it."

"Yes sir," she said. He'd been lecturing her on what was and wasn't to be given to Daniel since he'd come in. The doctor had diagnosed him with some kind of stomach flu, and his recommendations had taken on the aura of word from on high as far as Colonel O'Neill was concerned. She hadn't seen him so concerned about the health of a Daniel since their original died.

"Good, we'll –"

The sound of a throat clearing in the doorway made them both jump and she turned to see the general standing there. She came to attention immediately and saluted, as did Colonel O'Neill.

"As you were," General Hammond said, walking into the room. "I understand the new Dr. Jackson is sick."

"Yes sir, the doctor thinks it's some kind of stomach flu."

"Then don't you think we should dump him and find another who isn't ill?" Hammond said, raising his eyebrows. Sam stood as stiff as a wooden soldier. That answered a question she'd had for awhile. Hammond clearly knew exactly what was going on and was encouraging it. Apparently he even considered the flu to be sufficient cause to discard one. She waited in dread to hear Colonel O'Neill's reply.

"No, sir," O'Neill said to her surprise. "This is the most cooperative Daniel we've had to date, sir. I think it would be foolish to dump him over something as trivial as the stomach flu. I haven't had to discipline him since the first day."

"I have noticed a higher than usual proportion of work coming out of him," Hammond agreed, nodding thoughtfully. "Well, so long as he doesn't remain ill for an extended period of time, we'll keep him."

"Thank you, sir," O'Neill said, saluting again.

"Keep up the good work." Hammond nodded and left.

O'Neill stood silent for a long moment after the general had gone, and then he turned. He took her by the shoulders and looked intently into her eyes. "We have to make sure he gets better quickly. I'm not trading this Daniel if I can help it. This is the one, Carter, I'm sure of it. If he . . . if he's still sick tomorrow we'll have to come up with something, some way to convince the general that he's worth it."

She nodded. "Of course, sir. We'll find a way."

"Good. I'm glad you're on board, Carter."

She smiled warily. "Yes sir," she said. "Thank you, sir."

"Now, I want someone with him, and I have some work I need to do. I don't want Hammond deciding he's too much trouble because I'm not getting my work done. When I finish, I'll come take over."

"Yes sir." Grabbing a couple of files and a book, she went straight to Daniel's room where he lay on his bed, sleeping fitfully. Quietly, so as not to wake him, she sat down at the desk and started working.

What did Colonel O'Neill mean, this was 'the one'? How far around the bend had he really gone? She pushed the questions out of her mind and set to work, keeping one eye on Daniel.