Friday, April 23
Reality L583

Jack slotted his key into the deadbolt on Daniel's door, but it turned too easily. The door wasn't locked, and Jack knew he'd locked it when he left the last time. He listened and could hear the sound of someone moving around inside. Sliding his gun out of its holster, he eased the door open and crept in. There were definitely footsteps in the living room. He crossed the hall in several quick steps and turned the corner, gun raised.

He came face to face with another gun. For a long moment they stared at each other and then he clicked the safety back on and shoved his gun in its holster again. "Don't do that!" he exclaimed.

Carter was standing there with a container of fish food in one hand and her gun in the other. The fish food was pouring unheeded into the tank by the tablespoon. "What?" she said, lowering her gun. Then she glanced at the hand with the fish food and let out a dismayed cry and righted the little canisters. "Hell! Look what you made me do! Daniel will never forgive me if I kill his fish. Help me get it out of there!" He stared at her as she seized the fish net and started sifting through the tank. "They're already eating!"

"Aren't they supposed to eat?" he asked, squatting and opening a cupboard under the tank.

"Sir, they're like horses! They'll eat too much and founder."

He paused in pulling out the two smaller tanks Daniel put the fish in when he was cleaning the big tank. "Shouldn't that be 'flounder'?" he asked.

"This isn't funny, sir!" she exclaimed.

He reached in and pulled out several gallons of distilled water and dumped them into the smaller tanks. "Here, Carter, you're going about it the wrong way. Get the food out of the net and start transferring fish."

She looked down at him and blinked. "Oh. Of course. That makes sense." And, looking somewhat less manic, she started shifting the fish. He reached into the cupboard again and pulled out the aerators for the smaller tanks and put them in place. Then he waited for Carter to finish.

"I've been here when Daniel did this before, so don't worry. It will be okay. It'll just take the rest of the day."

She sat on the sofa watching while he got the filters set up and said, "Thanks, sir. Sorry, I really wasn't expecting you. I've been coming in to feed the fish once a week since he went missing, so I –"

"You have?" Jack asked. "So have I. It's a wonder those fish aren't already floundering. I didn't know you had a key."

She flushed. "I don't. I . . . I sort of talked the super into letting me in."

He snorted. "You have been here before, haven't you?"

"A few times," she said defensively. Then she gave him a guilty grin. "And I helped him fix the boiler once."

"Ahh, I see. Only you, Carter." He grinned. "Let me guess, you did all the work, while Daniel stood around making unhelpful comments and expounding on the history of plumbing, making the super laugh and mutter occasional curses under his breath."

She laughed. "Just about," she said. Almost immediately she sobered. "I miss him."

He sat down in a chair nearby. "Me too, Carter, me too."

After that they sat silently in Daniel's apartment with Daniel's fish, waiting for Daniel's fish tank to clean itself. Abruptly both of them got up and turned away from the fish tank. She looked at him, eyebrows raised. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked.

Jack contemplated the last time they'd been in Daniel's apartment without Daniel and shuddered. "I don't want to see any bubbles, that's all I'll say."

She nodded fervently. "How about we go in the kitchen and I'll fix us some soup. I haven't had dinner yet."

"Sure," Jack said. "Just nothing that requires milk. I cleaned out the fridge after the first week."

"I wondered about that," she said. "I looked in the refrigerator, thinking I'd take care of that, but there wasn't anything urgent there. I thought maybe Daniel just didn't have much."

"No, he had the normal stuff, but we have an agreement. If either of us goes missing, the other one takes care of the stuff that the cleaning service won't so we don't come home to a disaster."

"Oh," she said, eyes widening. "I have a neighbor who takes care of that for me. If she doesn't see my car for a few days, she starts collecting my mail and stuff. I told her that my job sometimes requires sudden field trips with no warning."

"I see," he said. "When we're both gone, it just pretty much goes to hell, but I don't really want my neighbors looking after my place. Elderly women are a little too nosey for my tastes."

She chuckled and pulled down a can of vegetable soup. There were some dinner rolls in the freezer, so Jack pulled a couple out and stuck them in the oven to heat up. They ate dinner and talked, and Jack reflected that it was too bad he hadn't brought Teal'c out with him.

Of course if Teal'c were present that would just bring home how very incomplete they were as a group.

Reality A001

Samantha looked up at the clock. It was nearly six fifteen. The colonel had told her to expect him at her lab around six, so she had begun to wonder where he was. If anything, O'Neill was usually early rather than late.

She had drawn her work to a stopping point and changed into civvies in anticipation of his arrival, and despite the delay, she didn't think she wanted to start anything now. If the colonel showed up, she didn't want to be in the middle of something. As the minutes ticked by, though, she began to worry. Had something come up?

The phone rang and she picked it up. "Carter."

"Sorry, lieutenant, but I've been called into an emergency meeting with General Hammond," O'Neill said without preamble. "Why don't you go spend some time with Daniel now that you're both off duty."

"Sure," she said, wondering what the emergency was. "What's up, sir?" she asked.

"Nothing to worry about, lieutenant."

"All right, sir." She hung up the phone and went to Daniel's room where she found him reading a book. He was lying on his back on the bed and looking depressed, already in his pajama pants and a t-shirt.

When she came in, he looked up and smiled. "Hi, Samantha," he said, shifting awkwardly into a sitting position. "I wasn't expecting you tonight." His tone was light, but she sensed a deeper tension in him.

She walked further into the room and put her purse down on the desk. "My plans were canceled, but I'd already shut everything down, so I thought I'd come see how you were."

He leaned forward and his glasses slipped down his nose, and he gazed at her for a long moment over them. "How I am?" he asked, sounding very dry. "As Jack would say, just peachy."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I wish there was more I could do."

He shrugged. "Come sit down for awhile. We could watch a movie. Snow White? Cinderella? Or we could be really daring and watch True Grit."

"Disney or John Wayne . . ." she said slowly, walking over. "That's an interesting selection. Did Colonel O'Neill pick it out?"

"I have no idea. They were just on the cart with the VCR when it got here."

"Have you watched them?"

"All three of them, yesterday," Daniel said. "There wasn't much else to do, and I find reading the books here to be somewhat disturbing on occasion."

She sat down. "How so?"

"Well, there are changes, subtle shifts in perspective and bias that grate on my nerves. Like, for instance, there's a distinct absence of the strong feminist movement that swept our United States in the twentieth century. It's there in small ways, but not to the extent that I would expect."

"Feminist movement?" she repeated in puzzlement. "They wanted people to be more feminine?"

His jaw actually dropped and she seemed to have struck him speechless. He stared at her for several seconds, then said, "Women's liberation. Equal rights. Equal pay for equal work. Any of this ringing a bell?"

"Liberation from what? Are you saying that women were slaves in that reality?"

He blinked. "Masculine oppression."

It was her turn to stare. "Masculine oppression?" she repeated incredulously. "Wow."

"Yeah, so there are references all through the books on sociology and anthropology that don't quite jibe with what I'm expecting. And there are works that are altogether missing. There's nothing here by Jane Goodall, for example, or Dian Fossey."

"Who are they?" Samantha asked curiously and Daniel just shook his head.

"In my reality, you wouldn't need to ask that. You'd know." She raised an eyebrow and he sighed. "Both of them were scientists working with primates. Fossey worked with gorillas, Goodall with chimpanzees. Their work touches on anthropology in fairly significant ways."

"So you'd expect to find their books on these shelves?" she asked.

"Exactly. Or references to them in bibliographies at the very least, but there's nothing. Half the female names I expect to find aren't there, and the other half are under published. At least one book in here . . ." He looked around. "I don't see it right now, but the same book, same title, same thesis – same cover art – was published by a woman in my reality. I have a feeling this one was either stolen or lent so that it would be published and given credence."

"Weird. That must throw you off sometimes."

"It does, but I can manage." Pointing to his head, he said, "The ideas are here, many of the books are here. I just like to have the written text for reference."

She nodded. "I know what you mean."

"Anyway, shall it be Cinderella or Snow White?"

"Are those any different?"

"Than the movie versions of those stories in my reality?" Daniel asked and she nodded. "I don't know. I've never seen them."

She found that a little startling, but tried not to show it. She knew very little about her own Daniel's background, and even less about this man's. "Let's go with Cinderella. I like the mice."

"They're fun," he agreed and she got up and popped the tape in.

The movie was long over and they were discussing the social significance of the behavior of the mice when the door opened and Colonel O'Neill strode in, his expression very serious. Daniel stiffened very slightly at the sight of the colonel. O'Neill walked over and knelt down in front of Daniel. "Danny, I need you to answer a question for me, as honestly as you can."

Daniel licked his lips. "Sure, Jack, what?"

"That folk tale translation . . . are you absolutely certain that you translated it correctly?"

She was looking at Daniel and the colonel, stunned by the question, hoping it didn't mean what she was afraid it meant. Had they been discovered? Was Maybourne actually a plant? She strove to keep her expression neutral.

In her concentration, she didn't immediately notice that the door hadn't closed behind O'Neill. She only glanced over when she saw Daniel's eyes widen. The general had stepped inside, accompanied by his bodyguard, Lt. Berman.

Daniel gulped, color draining from his face as he looked up at the colonel. "Of course I am, Jack. I wouldn't have given it to you if I wasn't confident that it was accurate."

"I told you that's what he'd say, colonel," the general said, walking forward and sitting down in the desk chair. "Dr. Jackson, come over here."

Daniel had this incredibly frozen look about him, but he pushed past O'Neill and walked over to the chair beside the desk. "Good evening, general," he said woodenly. Samantha glanced up at the colonel's face and saw an expression there that made her shiver. He was glaring at Hammond with a cold hatred that was terrifying. She didn't like the change that had come over Daniel in the past few minutes either, and she prayed that Hammond hadn't discovered the truth. Daniel would pay dearly if he had.

"Good evening, Dr. Jackson," Hammond said. "Now, I know you have moral concerns about what we do around here, you've made that abundantly clear."

Samantha was having trouble working out how to react. She couldn't figure out where the general was going, but whatever he was on about didn't seem to be remotely connected to the document she had slipped to Daniel.

"Yes, general," Daniel said after a brief pause.

"But I want you to think very hard about this." He tapped a file on the desk, and she realized that they had the letter with them. "Was there anything in this second document that concerned the settlement on P4L-387?"

She saw Daniel's eyes widen. "No, sir," he said immediately. "It was simply a Jaffa folk tale."

Hammond looked up at Berman. "Tell them to bring the prisoner here." Berman went to the door and Samantha shifted forward, standing up. She darted a look at O'Neill, but he looked stoically angry. Hammond started speaking again, drawing her attention back to him. "It just so happens that I have recently acquired a prisoner that can read and write in Goa'uld," he said. Daniel's eyes widened further and she felt her own heart stop. "You may wonder why I need you if that's the case, but you can decipher many more languages than Goa'uld, and I don't believe I can rely on him as readily as I can rely on you. However, I think he will be willing, with the right persuasion, to tell me what this document contains." He paused, gazing at Daniel. "Would you like to alter your statement in any way? If you do so now, no punishment will be meted out, but if you make me find it out from someone else . . ." Daniel shook his head, expression neutral, though his eyes were alive with anxiety.

The minutes went by like hours while they waited for this prisoner to appear. Samantha wasn't sure what Hammond was talking about. She hadn't heard anything about a prisoner who could speak Goa'uld.

Finally the door opened and an enormous black man was brought in. He had a gold-filled tattoo on his forehead that marked him as first prime of Apophis, and his hair was cropped close to his head. He was wearing the simple blue jumpsuit that they dressed prisoners in, and both his wrists and ankles were heavily shackled. Daniel stared at the Jaffa, eyes wide and stunned. Samantha gulped, knowing they were about to be found out. What he thought Daniel had done would be nothing compared to what she and Maybourne had actually done.

Hammond stood up and picked up the file. "Teal'c," he said. "I want you to look at this document and tell me what it contains. You don't have to give me details, but I want to know what it is."

The Jaffa's eyes narrowed. "I will not," he said. His voice was deep and sonorous, and full of grim determination.

"Think of Ryac, Teal'c," Hammond said, his voice grown menacing.

An anxious, desperate look took over Teal'c's eyes at those words, and he nodded. Hammond showed him the file. Chains rattled as Teal'c flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the writing. Samantha wondered what he was thinking as he read those words. She realized abruptly that she had no clear notion of what the letter contained. But she sincerely doubted that it remotely resembled a folk tale. Tension filled the air, and she waited for the Jaffa to damn them with the truth. His expression did not change as he read, his eyes flicking back and forth. The colonel shifted uneasily. Hammond would be livid, but that would be nothing on O'Neill if his insanity was in the ascendant.

The Jaffa looked up and, without changing expression, he said, "It is a simple folk tale. I have told it to Ryac often enough that he knows it to the word. The only difference is that when I tell it, the god is Apophis."

"The false god," Daniel muttered, obviously not entirely aware that he was speaking aloud.

"Indeed," Teal'c said, nodding gracefully.

Hammond, however, was furious. He turned on Daniel with a wrathful glower. "I did not give you leave to speak, Jackson!" he snarled. Daniel flinched back, eyes wide with alarm, right fist clenched in his lap. At her side, O'Neill took a step forward. She put a warning hand on his arm. Hammond would not take kindly to interference.

There was a long, tense silence. Samantha glanced over at Teal'c to see how he was reacting. He was looking at her with some sort of speculation in his gaze. Their eyes met briefly, then he looked away. Why had he lied? She didn't for one moment believe that the team in the other reality had, in advance, worked out a code that resembled a Jaffa folk tale so closely that it would fool a Jaffa, particularly not one that covered alternate realities. Therefore, the question remained. Why had Teal'c lied? What was in it for him?

The silence was growing painful. Hammond and Daniel's eyes were locked. The colonel was growing restive, but he hadn't tried to intervene again.

Finally, Daniel broke the tableau. Dropping his eyes, he said, "I'm sorry, sir." A strange, muffled sound emerged from O'Neill, like a very quiet curse.

"And?" Hammond prompted. Daniel's eyes snapped back up and he looked confused, uncertain. "Will it happen again?" Hammond asked, his voice dripping with sweetness.

Daniel's lips tightened mutinously, and she willed him to overcome his pride and just answer the man the way he wanted to be answered. Beside her, the colonel started to move forward again, but she tightened her grip on his arm and he subsided. Several seconds passed, then Daniel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No, sir, it won't."

"Good boy," Hammond said in the tone of a man addressing a pet. She saw Daniel's neck and ears flush with anger and humiliation. The colonel was seething but quiet. Hammond turned back towards the Jaffa, whose expression was enigmatic. "You say this is a folk tale?" Hammond asked, gesturing at the file the Jaffa still held. Teal'c nodded. "Does it have a name?"

"I call it 'The –'"

"No!" Hammond barked and Teal'c stopped. "Does it have a real name? An official name?"

"I do not understand," Teal'c said. "My father called it 'The Liar's Reward.' My wife called it 'Jindle's Tale.' I am not sure what you mean when you ask about an official name."

Hammond's lips were pressed together angrily, and Samantha cleared her throat nervously. Four pairs of masculine eyes turned towards her. Daniel turned away instantly, not watching, but the others kept looking at her. "Sir, before they were written down and printed, most folk tales didn't have what you might call an official name. If this story is mostly passed on orally, what they call it might depend on the speaker and their family origins."

Teal'c looked at her curiously. "Do your folk tales have 'official names'?" he asked.

"Some of them do, sort of," she said. "A couple of hundred years ago a couple of linguists got people to tell them oral folk stories in order to hear them speak and write down the way they said words and which words they used. These were later printed, with titles, so those titles have largely stuck."

"I see," the Jaffa said. He would have said more, but Hammond interrupted. "That's neither here nor there, and I didn't bring him in here for you to educate him in our culture, Carter. If I wanted that, I would ask Jackson, not you, in any case."

She flushed and stepped back. Teal'c's eyes roamed the room and then came to rest on Daniel. "This man is a scholar?" he asked.

"Yes," Hammond snapped. "What of it?"

"Why would you treat a scholar in this fashion? It makes no sense."

Daniel looked up anxiously, as if he wanted the Jaffa to stop speaking.

"He is here working under duress, much as you are," Hammond said.

Teal'c's eyes darkened. "Do you hold his child captive, then, and threaten to cripple him if he does not do as you ask?"

Hammond threw a careless glance back at Daniel. "He doesn't have a child. No, he has limbs that he wants to keep unbroken," he said. Teal'c's glance darted towards the sling that cradled Daniel's arm. "And, unless I am very much mistaken, an abiding hatred for the Goa'uld and the Jaffa that make him –"

"Not the Jaffa!" Daniel protested, leaning forward urgently towards Teal'c. "I don't –" He broke off sharply when the back of Hammond's hand slammed into his face, knocking him sideways against the desk. His balance was too far forward, and, with his left arm immobilized, he had no way to catch himself, so he slipped out of the chair and landed hard on his hip. The cast smacked audibly against the concrete.

"I seem to recall you promising not to speak without leave, Dr. Jackson," Hammond thundered at the fallen man.

Very slowly, Daniel sat back up and turned back towards the general. His cheek was red from the blow, and his lip was split. His glasses lay broken on the floor. Eyes flashing with blue fire, he opened his mouth to speak. She coughed abruptly, and he seemed to recall his situation. She watched as he contained his emotions. After a moment, he spoke in a very shaky voice. "You're right, of course, sir. I'm very sorry."

"Now get up, damn you!" Daniel reached out with his right hand to grab the desk top, and this time she couldn't have restrained the colonel if she'd wanted to. He rushed across and helped the injured man up. Hammond ignored them both and turned to Teal'c's guards. "Take him back to his cell." They nodded and took him out. The general's attention fell on her. "Lt. Carter, I don't know why you're here, but you are dismissed."

She nodded and followed them out. Before she left she looked over at the colonel, who gave her an enigmatic look that she interpreted as a request to stay on base and wait for him. That meant that she and Teal'c and Teal'c's guards wound up waiting for the same elevator.

"Why does the bald one hate that man so much?" Teal'c asked the air in front of him.

One of the guards coughed, glanced at her, and said, "That's a long complicated story."

Samantha was surprised that the man answered the question. "I have very little else but time," Teal'c said mildly.

Neither of the guards spoke until the elevator came. "I think you'd better take this car, Lt. Carter. We'll take the next one. I don't think the general would want us taking the prisoner on the same elevator as . . . as you."

Samantha smiled tightly and got on the elevator. She went to her lab and sat down, staring at nothing. So, the general had a Jaffa prisoner whom he was controlling by threatening his child. The guards weren't following protocol, which was fine by her. The Jaffa, despite being threatened with injury to his child, had lied to protect Daniel, and she still didn't know why.

Nothing made sense, and there was nothing she could do. And Daniel was hurt, again.

At least Hammond didn't know the real truth. That would be infinitely worse. She thumped her head down into her hands. This kind of intrigue on top of a regular job was exhausting.