Monday, April 12
Reality A001

Daniel leaned up against the bookcase that was at the head of the cot that served him for a bed, sipping slowly at the broth Lt. Carter had given him. She was sitting at the desk. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Better," he said, though it wasn't entirely true. Anything solid was going to come right back up again. "Not quite well," he amended at Jack's worried look, "but better."

The door opened, which startled him. The only people he'd seen in the week since he'd come here were Lt. Carter and Jack. Two young airmen came in, rolling in a real bed. Jack was suddenly beside him. "Let's get you up, Danny, so they can make the swap."

Daniel got to his feet and swayed a little. His gut was not happy with the change in positions. If this was one of those twenty-four hour bugs, he still had a few hours to go.

Abruptly, he handed the mug off to Jack and rushed into the bathroom. There wasn't anything more substantial than broth in his stomach, but it all came up regardless, leaving him sweaty and trembling once more. When he looked up, there was Jack again, helping him. This was disturbing. At the moment this man seemed so much like his own Jack, but there was still that sense of something being off kilter, just not quite right.

He looked up. "Could you . . . I need a bath . . . could you leave me alone for a bit?"

"I've seen you naked before, Daniel. Let me help you."

Daniel gulped. His Jack had seen him naked, along with half the rest of the SGC at various points in the showers, but this man hadn't. What difference does it make? he thought, though, after a moment. "Sure," he said, and Jack shifted him to sit on the toilet while he started running the bathtub full of water.

"Stay right there," Jack said, then went into the main room. Daniel closed his eyes and leaned against the wall next to the toilet, feeling utterly wretched. He probably needed the help, unfortunately. Getting undressed sounded like it would take too much energy, and he wasn't wearing anything more than undershorts and pants.

Jack came back in and stopped the water, then helped him into it. Daniel washed himself off, and it took almost all the energy he had left. Drying himself off took care of the rest of it and Jack half-carried him to that bed. They'd shifted things so that the bed was in the corner next to the door to the bathroom, so he didn't have far to go. Jack got him into the bed and lying down, and he fell asleep before he knew what was going on.

Reality L583

"Haven't you got anything I could do?" Daniel demanded as Jack came into the infirmary. "I'm going to go stark raving bananas sitting in here with nothing to do."

"We didn't want to take advantage," Jack said.

"Take advantage! Please!" Daniel exclaimed. "I'm bored out of my mind."

"And there is the little matter of classified material."

Daniel stared at him in shock. "Classified . . . I have clearance, Jack!"

"In another reality."

"Who am I going to tell?" Daniel demanded, gesturing at the room around him.

"Unfortunately, we don't know how long you're going to end up staying here," Jack said. "Carter's still working, but I don't now how soon . . ."

Daniel closed his eyes. "Well, since I somehow doubt you're going to let me leave the base, I'm not sure how much difference that makes."

"Oh, I don't know. Someone has to feed Daniel's fish."

Daniel shook his head. "All of that is beside the point. I will be insane before much longer if you keep me here with nothing to do. Give me something! Anything! Simple translations! There's got to be a backlog."

"I'll check with Hammond, but I can't promise you anything." The man looked at him with such desperation Jack said, "Fine, I'll go check now. Here have a chocolate bar to –" He looked at the stack of candy as he picked the bar up. "You aren't eating any of this?"

Daniel blinked at him. "It's not mine."

Jack rolled his eyes. "I certain our Daniel wouldn't begrudge you some chocolate. Eat up." Daniel was giving him a dubious look. "Eat up or I'll sic Carter on you."

"Sic Carter on me? What's that supposed to mean?"

There was a brief silence, then Jack grinned wickedly. "You have a wife. I'll bet you haven't experienced Carter at her most deadly." The other man looked utterly baffled. "Mama Carter. I'll just go tell her that you're wasting away, but that you won't listen to me. Maybe she could get you to . . ."

"Stop," Daniel exclaimed, eyes wide. "She's like that over your Daniel?"

"Our Daniel is all alone in the world and hadn't a thing to his name when he came back from Abydos. She took over." Jack snorted. "She does his shopping for him."

"Food?"

"Clothing. She drags him to the mall and picks things out for him."

"Wow." Daniel shook his head. "Fine, since you insist, I'll eat a candy bar."

"Good." Jack put his own projects down and went down to Hammond's office.

The general beckoned him in and gestured that he close the door as he finished up a phone call. After a couple of minutes, he hung up and said, "What can I help you with, colonel?"

"Daniel, the one in the infirmary, says he's going to go crazy if we don't give him something to do."

Hammond looked grave, then thoughtful. "Do you think we can trust him?"

Pursing his lips, Jack considered his own gut feelings on the matter. "Yes, sir, I do. He . . . I don't know, he feels like Daniel."

"Then I will take your judgment, colonel. Ask Dr. Rothman to sort out some projects that need doing but aren't too sensitive."

"Yes sir. What should I tell him?"

Hammond's brows knit. "Dr. Rothman?"

"Yes sir."

"He's been fussing quietly to be allowed in to see Dr. Jackson, and they are close friends." Hammond paused, clearly weighing the facts. "The man has clearance to be here. Tell him the truth. Maybe it will reconcile him to not being allowed in to see Dr. Jackson."

"Or maybe it will broaden our available pool of people to sit with him," Jack said. "I don't think Teal'c's altogether comfortable with the situation."

"We'll see, colonel. For now, just tell him what's going on and get him to find some things for Dr. Jackson to work on."

"Right."

Jack went back up to the anthropology department and stood outside Robert Rothman's door for a moment, hesitating. The man irritated the living daylights out of him, but he'd been Daniel's friend since college. Daniel had recommended him for this post, and Jack had never heard about any problems with him. He was just such an annoying, pedantic little . . .

He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

After a bit of shuffling, the door opened and Rothman looked up at him suspiciously. "So, are you here to tell me why I can't see Daniel?" he asked without preamble.

"Yup!"

Rothman blinked myopically at him. "Come in, then," he said, grudgingly stepping back. Jack entered the cramped little office and shut the door behind him. Rothman cleared off a spare chair then sat down. "So, why is it then?"

"You can't see Daniel because I can't see Daniel."

"You're in there every day!" Rothman exclaimed, glaring. "I –"

"Let me finish, Dr. Rothman," Jack said, giving the academic an irritated look. Rothman subsided. "You're cleared to hear this, but you can't talk about it because nobody else is, okay?"

"Um . . . yeah, whatever. What's going on?"

"The man in the infirmary isn't Daniel Jackson." Rothman's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth. Jack held up a restraining hand. "Or rather, he is, but he's not our Daniel Jackson."

"I don't understand."

"He came through the transdimensional mirror." Rothman's eyes widened. "I take it our Daniel told you something about that?"

"He did." Rothman looked stunned. "But then . . . where's our Daniel?"

Jack grimaced. "In the evil universe of doom," he said glumly. "He was abducted."

"By whom?"

"By the me from that universe. He left the Daniel we have in the infirmary here and took ours. And when he took the guy in the infirmary, he left another one behind in his reality, so we're not really sure how many he's done this to."

"Good lord," Rothman exclaimed. "That's terrible!"

"Yeah," Jack said. "So, the reason I'm telling you all this is that the Daniel in the infirmary is getting bored out of his skull with nothing to do. So you need to find him some nice, non-sensitive stuff that he can work on."

"But . . ." Rothman shook his head. "I can't read half the stuff Daniel does. We wouldn't know if it was sensitive or not until that guy told us what it said."

Jack rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Surely, Rothman, you can find something in the enormous backlog that our Daniel's always complaining about that this Daniel can work on.

"Sure, I can do that," Rothman said. "Come on, let's go take a look in his office."

In short order, Jack had an armful of stuff to take to Daniel, including ancillary notes and reference materials, and Rothman had a list of things to submit to Hammond because he knew Daniel thought they had some kind of special urgency.

Jack went up to the infirmary with his armload and Fraiser looked at him like he was crazy. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Bringing Daniel something to do."

"Are you out of your mind? He's still unwell and . . . and . . ."

Jack kept heading towards the back room, so she followed him. "Colonel O'Neill, I –"

"Oh thank you!" Daniel exclaimed with relief when he saw the papers and books. "Our Hammond can be something of a stickler, but I really hoped you could persuade yours to go for this."

"Dr. Jackson, you're not really up to this," Fraiser started.

"I wouldn't be doing it if I wasn't, doctor," Daniel said, giving her a sweet smile. "And trust me, if I'm feeling too tired, I'll stop. Sha're's given me enough lectures on that subject that I'm not likely to forget."

Fraiser smiled, caught by the charm of the man, and Jack marveled at how potent it was. "All right," she said reluctantly. "If you're certain."

"I am," Daniel said. "I'm just not the kind of man who can sit doing nothing useful."

Jack put the work on the wheeled table beside the bed. "Well, just be sure not to tire yourself out," she said dubiously. Daniel nodded, the very picture of innocence.

After Fraiser had left, Daniel looked at him and said, "She's a little tyrant, isn't she?"

"Very much so," Jack replied. "But she's the best damned doctor we could have. You might see if you can find her in your reality. If she's anything like our Janet Fraiser, you won't regret it."

"I may just suggest that to Jack when . . . when I get back."

Jack rolled the table in front of him. "There. I'm not sure what any of this is. Rothman pulled it together, and he said he thought he had all the reference materials you'd need."

"Rothman?" Daniel asked. "Robert Rothman?"

"Yeah, Daniel brought him into the program awhile back. He seems to be working out okay."

"God, I'd think he'd drive you nuts," Daniel said.

"He does, but I don't have to work with him." Jack grinned. "I'll stick with the awkward, goofy academic I have, thanks."

"I think I can reasonably speak for your Daniel when I say, 'Thanks, Jack."

Jack stared. That tone was too . . . he turned away and rubbed at his eyes. "I've got . . . I've got some work to do."

"Oh. Sorry." Daniel sounded very contrite.

Jack blinked a couple of times then turned back. "For what?" he asked brightly. Daniel very wisely got the point and they settled to work on their separate projects.

Reality A001

Jack left after awhile, saying something about placating Hammond, and Daniel looked over at Carter. "Could you hand me that book and the papers underneath it?"

"What?" she asked, looking up from something. He couldn't see what she was working on.

"I'm sorry if I interrupted some complicated calculation, but I should probably get back to work. I'd imagine Jack would be happier if I was getting something done."

"I don't know, Daniel," she said. "I think he might be a little pissed if I let you work right now. He's very worried."

"I hate sitting still, and the only thing I have to think about right now his how wretched my stomach feels." He let a note of pleading enter his voice. "Come on, Sam."

"Samantha," she said absently, looking lost in thought. "No one's called me Sam since my dad died."

"You don't like it?" Daniel asked.

"No, it reminds me too much," she said.

"Okay." He waited. "Please?" he begged.

"Fine," she said. She got up and carried the papers over to him. Then she looked around and grabbed a clipboard. "There, you comfortable?"

He nodded and started working. After a moment of watching him anxiously, she went back to the desk and got back to work herself. Periodically, he would rest, leaning his head against the wall behind him, but he really was doing much better with something to concentrate on.

Hours later, Jack came in. He glanced up and gave the man a smile, but kept working on his translation. It didn't occur to him that Jack would find anything wrong with this picture. When the colonel yanked the clipboard out of his hands so suddenly that he nearly pulled him off the bed, though, it was difficult to miss.

"What the hell were you thinking, Carter?" Jack demanded. "The man is sick! He shouldn't be working." He threw the clipboard at her and Daniel stared in shock.

"I'm sorry, sir, he – I –"

Jack was advancing on her menacingly, one arm raising as if he was going to hit her, and Daniel acted without thinking. He got to his feet despite his shaky balance and took two long strides to grab Jack's arm. "NO!" he yelled. Jack turned, his expression incredulous and angry. "No," Daniel repeated a little more weakly. "It's my fault. I insisted. Please, don't hurt her."

Jack stared at him for a long moment, anger boiling in his dark eyes and Daniel waited for the blow to fall. "You should be in bed," Jack said finally. The anger was still there, but it had banked to a simmer, and Daniel knew he was in for it when he was no longer pathetically sick. Jack took him by the arm and walked him back to the bed. "You don't take good enough care of yourself, Daniel."

"I know, Jack. You're . . . you're very good to me." Daniel closed his eyes as Jack lowered him gently to the bed and tucked him in.

"Now, why would you want to work when you're feeling this bad, Daniel?" Jack asked. "Can you make me understand that?"

Daniel opened his eyes and looked at the other man. Having this stress on top of an already upset stomach was making things very hard. He took a deep breath. "It gives me something to think about besides how bad I feel," he said, finally. "I'm not doing too much. When I get tired, I stop. And I really did insist, Jack. I was pretty pushy. You know how I can be."

Jack grinned wryly. "That I do, Daniel." He looked over towards Samantha. "Bring me that clipboard, Carter." She brought it over quickly and wordlessly, then returned just as silently to the desk. "You just have to swear to me that you won't overwork. Hammond's not happy that you've been sick so long."

Daniel blinked, wondering exactly what that meant. "Well, then he should be pleased that I'm working, right?"

"Yeah, maybe, but take care you don't make yourself worse."

"I will, Jack. I don't want to feel any worse than I do now."

The wry grin became a more genuine smile. Jack reached out and cupped the side of Daniel's face in his hand. "You're a good kid, Danny," he said.

Daniel dredged in his memory for how good it had felt when Jack hugged him after leaving him for dead on Klorel's ship and smiled back at him. After a couple of moments, Jack drew back. "Well, I'm going to go fetch you some broth. I'll be back shortly."

As Jack left the room, Daniel let the smile fade off his face and thumped his head back against the wall, eyes closed. Belatedly, he remembered the recording and he looked over at Samantha. Her eyes were wide with alarm. "I think I just aged ten years," he said. She blinked at him. "I don't like it when Jack's mad at me."

"No, I can understand that," she said.

He nodded and returned to work, trying to calm himself enough to focus. He never wanted to see anything like that again. The very idea of Jack actually hitting Sam or Samantha or whatever she wanted to be called was horrifying. He brought his mind back to the work of translation finally a few minutes before Jack came back with his dinner.

Once he'd drunk his broth, he got some more work done and actually finished the translation. Jack hadn't left this time, but had sat reading. When Daniel said he'd finished, Jack stood up. "All right, then, it's time for good little linguists to go to sleep." He took the papers, clipboard and books from Daniel's unresisting hands.

Daniel got up and used the restroom, during which time Jack had evidently evicted Carter, for she was gone when he came out. Jack had a couple of blankets and a pillow and was laying them out on the floor. "You don't have to stay," Daniel said, climbing into the bed. "I'll be fine."

"Good night, Daniel," Jack replied, and he gave up. Pushing this O'Neill too far would not be a good idea. He got into the bed and fell asleep very quickly.

Tuesday, April 13

Daniel woke up feeling enormously better. He was still weak and very tired, but he didn't think he'd throw up the next thing he put in his mouth, which was a marked improvement over the day before. He slipped out of the bed and Jack looked up. "Good morning," he said, yawning.

"Good morning," Daniel said, then he went to the bathroom. When he came back, Jack was folding up the extra blankets and putting them on the bed.

"How do you feel, Danny?" he asked.

Like I want you to stop calling me that! Daniel smiled. "I feel a lot better. I think I could have some toast with the broth this morning."

"Good. I'll let Carter know." Daniel headed over to the desk. Before he got there, Jack caught him around the shoulders, squeezing gently. He breathed in sharply with surprise. Jack relaxed the hold almost instantly, his hand coming to rest on the back of Daniel's neck. Daniel turned to look up at him apprehensively. "I'm glad you're feeling better," Jack said in a soft voice. Then his tone got harder, and his hand began to squeeze almost painfully on Daniel's neck. "But don't ever come between me and someone else again."

Daniel blinked, terror threading through his gut, almost undoing him. "Of course not, Jack," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Good boy," Jack said, shaking him lightly. He let go and turned toward the bed, picking up the blankets and pillow that he'd used the night before. "Now, if you get tired, you go take a nap, you hear me?"

"Sure, Jack," Daniel said, his mouth dry with stress.

"See you later. Carter should be in shortly."

Daniel nodded and sat down quickly for fear that his legs wouldn't hold him any longer. Jack patted him on the shoulder on his way past and left the room. Daniel stared forward, trying to come up with a reaction that wouldn't look odd to the monitors.

Wednesday, April 14

On Wednesday, she took Daniel his dinner at around five and fetched the tray out at five thirty. Then she left the base and drove downtown. She'd had to look up the Cuppa Café in the phone directory. It had been a long time since she'd done something as normal as going out for a cup of coffee.

As she drove up, she saw that it had a large outdoor seating area. The parking was down the block, though, so she had to drive past it. Traffic slowed and she looked over at it curiously. It seemed to be a sort of trendy, upscale kind of place, with . . . and then she saw Lt. Colonel Maybourne and nearly rear ended the guy in front of her.

She turned her face front instantly and drove on, right past the parking lot. There was no way she was going to a clandestine meeting with Maybourne anywhere near. The man was NID, and he'd been trying to get dirt on the SGC for months. So far they'd managed to stave him off, but a meeting like this one would be exactly the kind of thing he'd love to overhear.

As she got out of downtown and started heading home, she shook her head. She'd just have to hope that her unknown would-be ally would contact her again.

Thursday, April 15

Samantha was glad that Daniel was completely better, finally. Colonel O'Neill seemed to be less tense, which couldn't be anything other than good, and it meant she didn't have to spend entire days in that little room. God, how depressing that space was. They couldn't leave Daniel in there all the time . . . it wouldn't be good for him. Her mind started turning over ways to put that to the colonel. It wasn't as if he could actually go anywhere. He had nowhere to go. He didn't even have any legal recourse. As far as the government was concerned, Dr. Daniel Jackson was dead.

She'd have to mention the benefits of sunlight, fresh air, having the ability to walk more than ten steps in a straight line. Shaking her head, she started working on the improvements to the dialing program that she wanted to implement. Footsteps behind her made her start slightly, and she heard a deep chuckle behind her.

"You shouldn't be so jumpy, lieutenant," General Hammond said. "There's no threat to you here."

She jumped to her feet and saluted. "No sir, sorry sir."

He returned her salute and leaned his hip against the table, smiling slightly. He somehow made her think of a shark – all the danger was below the surface. "I want your honest opinion, lieutenant, how well are Colonel O'Neill and the new Daniel Jackson working together?"

"Well," she said, her eyes wide. "Very well, I think. It may take some time, though, for them to get used to one another. Have you asked Colonel O'Neill?"

Hammond's expression grew confidential and he leaned a little closer. "I very much doubt that Colonel O'Neill is capable of being objective on this subject, lieutenant, but you've been in contact with both of them quite a bit over the last few days."

She moistened her lips uneasily. "Well, Colonel O'Neill hasn't had to resort to any . . . um . . . physical remonstrances yet," she said.

"Why do you think that is? I mean, Dr. Jackson has been ill, but is there another reason?"

She gulped. "I think, sir, that this Dr. Jackson is better at managing the colonel's moods than any of the previous ones have been."

"Including our own . . ." Hammond's eyes grew thoughtful. "Interesting," he said. "Thank you, lieutenant." He turned and left, and she wondered what on earth that had been about.

Reality L583

It had been over a week and a half. Sam had moved the mirror into her lab to help with her work, but nothing was making any difference. The damned thing just sat there, an irregular frame with nothing inside it.

Colonel O'Neill had visited more than once, and he was always quietly encouraging, and Teal'c kept forcing her to go to bed at night. The image of two babies waiting for their father to come back combined with the image of her Daniel getting beaten into a bloody pulp drove her onward relentlessly.

Nothing worked though. Sam was ready to throw her tools across the lab. She glared at the transdimensional mirror in a fury. "Work, damn you!"

Abruptly, a shimmering surface came into existence in the frame. She stared in shock. It looked like mirrored glass, but the image it reflected was not her lab. Daniel had described the phenomenon, but she'd never seen it.

And she was absolutely certain that nothing she had done had activated it, so she grabbed the pistol she had sitting nearby and looked around warily. Her attention was caught by movement within the mirror, though.

A familiar man walked into view on the other side. In this image, he wore lieutenant colonel's stripes, but he was undeniably Harry Maybourne. She blinked in shock. He held up a white sheet of paper with words written on it.

I know where your Daniel is. I need to come through and talk to you, but I'd rather not get shot. Can we come to some kind of arrangement? I have limited time, so I need an answer now.

She fumbled for the phone and picked it up, dialing the general's office. "General Hammond's office," said the cheerful voice of his secretary.

"I need the general now," she said urgently. "I don't care what he's doing or who he's talking to, I need him now!"

To her credit, Hammond's secretary recognized real urgency when she heard it. There were a couple of clicks and then the general's voice. "Captain Carter?" he said.

"Sir, I am looking through the transdimensional mirror at an alternate universe that I did not call up. On the other side is a Lt. Colonel Harry Maybourne with a note telling me he knows where our Daniel is and asking to come through. He says he has limited time and needs an answer now."

There was barely a pause on the other end of the line. "Tell him yes, captain, but keep your weapon on him till I tell you otherwise."

She nodded into the mirror, and beckoned. Maybourne touched the surface and was suddenly in the room with her, his back to her, still touching the mirror. The surface winked out of existence and Maybourne turned around.

"He's here, sir," she said, holding her pistol on him.

"That's really not necessary, captain," Maybourne said, looking at the handgun.

"Colonel O'Neill and I will be there momentarily, captain." There was a click as Hammond hung up the phone. Without taking her eyes off Maybourne, Sam put her phone down in its cradle.

"It really isn't necessary," Maybourne repeated.

"Maybe not, but I have my orders," she said.

"You're a lot more confident than your counterpart," he observed. He glanced around the room. "Do you mind if I sit down?"

"Be my guest," she said. "Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond will be here in a few moments."

"Good. That will save time."

"What's going on with our Daniel?" she asked.

"I don't have a lot of details, but what details I do have should probably await the presence of your superiors, don't you think?"

Sam raised her eyebrows at his condescension, but she didn't respond otherwise. For one thing, he was right, for another, it would do no good to get into a fuss about his attitude.

Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond arrived at the same moment, but she didn't relax her stance until General Hammond said, "Stand down, Captain Carter."

"Yes sir," she said, lowering the pistol. She didn't, however, put it back on the table.

"How can I help you, lieutenant colonel?" Hammond asked.

Maybourne shook his head. "The question is how can I help you," he said.

"Very well," Hammond said. "Go ahead. We're listening."

"First, your Daniel Jackson is in good health. He seems to have come down with a case of the stomach flu, but other than that, he has not been harmed in any way."

"I find that hard to believe," Jack said. "The man we have in the infirmary –"

"I don't have tons of time," Maybourne said, his tone almost too polite. "Let me finish, if you would?" The general gave Jack a look and O'Neill pursed his lips. Sam watched, her own reservations kept internal. "Your Dr. Jackson seems to be handling our Colonel O'Neill a little more effectively than the others have. I don't know a lot of details because I haven't actually seen the man, just heard what little we at the NID are getting out of the SGC these days."

"Thank you for the information," Hammond said. "Why are you here, though?"

"I'm disturbed by the complete lack of ethics being shown by the SGC on the whole, and by O'Neill and Hammond in particular in this situation." Jack stared at this Maybourne in astonishment. He was disturbed by a lack of ethics? "From what evidence we have been able to collect, they've stolen at least five Daniel Jacksons from their own realities and deposited them in altogether different ones, all after the death of our Dr. Jackson under very suspicious circumstances."

"What is this, a Mirror Mirror universe?" the colonel demanded.

Sam blinked, recognizing the reference but not immediately placing it. Maybourne raised an eyebrow. "Do I take it from that question that I'm an ass here?"

"That would be putting it mildly," the colonel replied.

"Well, then, I'd say yes, that's about right, though perhaps a bit simplistic."

"I'm a simple man."

"You said it, I didn't," Maybourne said. The colonel glared at him, but before anyone could say anything, Maybourne went on. "Now, I can't at this moment get to your Daniel, but I'm working on it. I'm trying to get a helper on the inside, but if I can't manage that, I may need your help for something a bit more direct."

"Could we just try for direct now?" O'Neill asked.

Maybourne tilted his head. "So, you want to go straight to the scenario that could wind up getting him shot?" he asked.

Sam swallowed, biting her lip and glanced at her commanding officer. "Um . . . no, I guess not."

"Good, then there are a few brains cells firing in there." The colonel opened his mouth to retort angrily, but the general put a hand on his arm and Maybourne looked a little embarrassed. "Sorry, I really don't like your counterpart." He glanced at his watch. "I'm going to give her another week, then I'll come back and –"

"Another week?" Hammond exclaimed. "I'm not at all comfortable waiting a week for the return of our Dr. Jackson."

"You don't have a choice, general," Maybourne replied. "I'm not set up for an extraction yet, and there's no chance I will be for at least another week, probably closer to two. I just wanted to have you folks preparing on this end."

"I see," Hammond said.

Sam cleared her throat and they all looked at her. "Um . . . do you have any way of getting the Daniel that was left here back to his own reality?" she asked.

Maybourne blinked. "I hadn't really considered that aspect. It's just possible, though it would take some work. We have the realities numbered, so I'd just have to figure out which one he came from, and then work out which configuration matches that." He glanced down at the item in his hand, which Sam realized abruptly matched Daniel's description of what the controller looked like. She reached for it involuntarily.

"I don't suppose you could leave that here?" she asked desperately.

"I'm afraid not. It's absence would be noticed." He sighed, looking at her. "I could wish that your counterpart was a little more like you," he said.

"What's she like?" Sam asked.

"She's an overworked, under-appreciated scientific genius in a chauvinistic militaristic organization populated by people with consciences the size of fleas."

"Yikes."

"Just imagine a world where General Hammond pats you on the ass and says 'good girl' when you've achieved something, and you've got an idea."

Sam's eyes widened, but she shook her head. "Look, the next time you come, could you bring one of those that won't be missed?"

He opened his mouth and blinked. "I could try, I suppose."

"Specs even," she exclaimed. "Seriously."

"I'll do what I can." He looked at his watch. "And I'm in my return window. I've got to go. I'll be back in a week to let you know what we have planned."

He activated the mirror, touched it, and vanished. Sam looked through to the other reality. He waved at her, then the mirror winked out again.

"That was surreal," she said, slowly.

"To say the least," Colonel O'Neill said. "Do we believe him?"

"Do we have a choice?" Hammond responded, and O'Neill shrugged. "All right, you get a strike team ready, colonel. Make sure they're all steady, unflappable people. Arm them with zats and warn them that they might meet themselves or anyone else they know here."

"Yes sir," O'Neill said.

"Captain Carter, keep trying to fabricate a controller. I don't want to count on any version of Maybourne if I can help it."

"Yes sir," she said. The two men left and she looked down at her equipment. At least now she had a recording and data regarding what occurred when the mirror activated. It was a little more information than she'd had that morning. She settled down to analyze it, hoping it would grant her helpful insights.