Monday, May 3
Reality A001

Samantha rose at five-thirty and stripped the bed she'd used in the barracks. Her sleep hadn't been restful, and it seemed pointless to stay in bed. Leaving the sheets on the bed for the airman who looked after the barracks, she went to the locker room and got ready for work. There was nobody there this early, so she had her choice of showers and didn't need to rush. Dark dreams had haunted her all night, and she hoped the soothing hot water would wash them away.

She felt only marginally refreshed when she left the locker room, but at least she was ready to face the day. Work was calling, she had tests to run on that ore, a report to write, observations of the Panu to get down on paper, but all she could think about was the fact that she wanted – no, needed – to talk to Maybourne. He'd given her no way to contact him, which was extremely frustrating at moments like this. Though with the sudden change in Daniel's status from temporary to permanent prisoner, he might seek her out.

So it proved. Near midday, a piece of paper slipped into phase on top of the test results she was studying. It said, "We need to talk. 1400 hours. Usual." She gazed at it for a moment, then flipped it and the first page of the test results forward to look at the second. Then she shuffled them all together and put them into a file. She'd have to get rid of the note later. Going about her work, she contemplated Daniel up in that little suite of rooms.

For a man of Daniel's nature – of any Daniel she'd met thus far – having his world narrowed down to so small a space had to feel unbelievably confining. And so few people . . .

Samantha wasn't naturally gregarious. She often felt ill-at-ease with people in social situations, which was part of why she worked so much of the time. But Daniel, for all his apparent comfort with being alone, was a very social man. On mission after mission, their Daniel had thrust himself forward to talk to the new people they met. Some people viewed it a self-importance, but she knew him better. He eagerly wanted to know those people, to talk to them and learn about their worlds, languages and ways of living. Every Daniel they'd had tried to engage his captors in dialogue. Partly that was an effort to force them to see him as human, but part of it was a genuine need to communicate with other human beings.

This was the only Daniel so far who'd obeyed the directive not to talk to the soldiers who were guarding him, and she thought it was probably because she and Jack had talked with him. Otherwise he would have been compelled to communicate with someone . . . anyone.

Now he didn't even have that much contact, and needn't. His work, his linens, clean clothing, cleaning supplies, all of that could be delivered by the dumbwaiter. She had no doubt that Hammond had calculated that carefully in his plans for that space. It was a built-in punishment for the archeologist, and one which a man with his intelligence and imagination would anticipate with dread.

She shook her head, and stood up to go check on another of her tests. Turning, she found Jack right in front of her. She let out a startled yelp and said, "Sir, what . . . why are you here?"

"It's half past noon, Samantha, and as usual, you are working straight through." He grinned down at her. "I thought it my duty to make certain you got lunch."

"I'm right in the middle of . . ." She could see his determination, and rolled her eyes. "All right. I guess I should eat."

"You certainly should," he said. On the way to the commissary, she caught a few knowing looks, and she could tell that the gossip had definitely made it all over the base by now. When they settled down for lunch, they talked about work, and what she was discovering about the ore samples.

A couple of people were clearly attempting to overhear their conversation for juicy tidbits. She hoped they got something exciting out of hearing her say, "I haven't yet identified the crystalline structure, sir, because there seem to be a few anomalies."

"Of course," he said, "Carter, just tell me if it's good for anything."

"It's a highly stable material that doesn't release toxins when its chemical bonds are broken."

His eyebrow rose incredulously. "Try that again in English, Carter," he said.

She raised an eyebrow and grinned. "That was English, sir."

"All right, how about in terms a poor, under-educated Air Force colonel can understand."

She laughed. "Fine. It appears to burn very cleanly, it burns very hot, and it takes a long time to burn away."

"Oh. And that's good?"

"Yes, sir," she said, rolling her eyes again. He was playing up the dumb colonel routine because he knew they had an audience.

They parted outside the commissary, and she saw a couple of guys follow after him and groaned internally. Now they were going to try and find out all the things that men who hadn't gotten past adolescence seemed to think they should be told about another man's sexual relationships. She'd been the subject of locker room talk before, though, so she could handle it again.

It was less than an hour till she needed to be in Maybourne's office, so she got busy and got there at five past. Maybourne wasn't there, so she walked in and waited. Five minutes, ten . . . she began to worry.

Finally he rounded the corner into the room and walked over to sit down on the credenza. "God, that was close," he said.

"What?"

"Kowalski opened the door to the men's room just as I started to slip out of my stall. I remembered what you said, so I just stayed where I was, hoping he wouldn't choose the end stall."

"What took so long?"

"He did," Maybourne said. "Apparently he needed to have his hair combed perfectly before he left the room."

She grimaced. "I've noticed that. I take it you weren't seen?"

"No." Maybourne took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh of relief. "So, how is Dr. Jackson?"

She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, shaking her head. "He's freaked. What did you expect?"

"I wasn't sure what to expect. We have only the sketchiest description of the suite Hammond's put him in."

"He's a maiden in a tower," she said flatly. "The suite's designed so that he can stay there for months, maybe even years at a time without seeing anyone else. The only means of communicating with the outside world is a phone that rings straight to his guards' room. And to get to it you have to pass through two vault doors."

"Wow."

"He's well aware of the nature of his prison, as well, and I get the feeling he hasn't seen many people since being moved there. We had dinner with him last night, and he just kept finding reasons for us to stay a little longer."

"I can imagine," Maybourne said. "Now, we've got a problem. I've spoken with the previous Daniel, the one O'Neill left in their reality, and he swears that there's no way any Daniel Jackson will survive for months under these conditions. He'll be given something that he can't in conscience do, and Hammond will kill him."

She wet her lips nervously. "I don't know. Hammond is going to a lot of trouble to keep this one. He's using him as a hold over Jack. It's hard to say what he might do."

Maybourne nodded. "How is O'Neill taking this situation?"

"Jack? He's pretty freaked, too." Remembering his plea to her the previous night she bit her lip. "He's gotten to the point of asking for help with his . . . his unthinking way of treating Daniel. Last night he grabbed him, for a reason that wasn't to hurt him or to make him unhappy, but he grabbed suddenly and very hard . . ." She grimaced. "He asked me to help him not to hurt him."

Maybourne's eyebrows raised as she spoke. "That's a very good sign. That's been one of my concerns with the resurrection of our Dr. Jackson. I didn't want to see the cycle start anew."

"No, that would be bad," she agreed. "But enough has changed now that I think it won't."

"We just have to get someone we trust in charge of the SGC, spring Daniel, and then we can focus on finding a way to bring Danny back to life."

"Just that?" she said.

"Easy to say and hard to accomplish," Maybourne said. "And his friends are getting understandably impatient. Look, I need your help. My tap into the mainframe has gone dry, and there's data there we need to get the other Daniels home."

"I'll do what I can," she said.

The klaxon went off, startling them both. "Unscheduled offworld activation," announced a preternaturally calm voice. Harriman sounded like he was announcing a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles or something. "Repeat, unscheduled offworld activation."

"I have to go," she said. "I usually head straight to the control room when we –"

"Go, lieutenant, don't waste time explaining."

She was out the door and down the hall to the women's restroom before he finished the sentence. As fast as she dared, she went back into phase and headed out again, making for the control room. When she got there, she saw Hammond, Jack and Lt. Colonel Barnes of SG-18 in the gateroom. "What happened?" she asked, wondering why the second in command of a team on permanent assignment offworld was here.

"Not sure," Sgt. Harriman said. "SG-18 is due for an inspection in two weeks, though, so it would have to be pretty urgent not to be able to wait until then."

"Yeah," she said absently. "Where are they assigned?"

"PR9-353," Harriman said. "The one with the deep vein of naquadah."

"Right . . ." She pursed her lips as she watched them talking very seriously. "Excuse me, sergeant," she said.

"Of course, ma'am," he replied as she walked towards the stairs to the gateroom.

As she reached the little group, Hammond was saying, "Go assemble a strike team, Colonel O'Neill. We want to nip this in the bud." Jack headed off, giving her a short nod and no smile.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Lieutenant, you'll be staying here," Hammond said.

She raised an eyebrow and looked at Barnes. "The miners are rebelling," he said. "It's not going to be hard to quell, but we don't have the resources."

"I see," she said, her mind racing. How would the complacent, depressed, apathetic Samantha have reacted? She couldn't think that way right now.

Apparently the stunned expression on her face suited their expectations, though, because Hammond said, "I'd rather you stayed here, lieutenant. Not that your military skills aren't up to the task, but at this moment, I don't want Colonel O'Neill's loyalties split."

She flushed hotly and Barnes' eyes widened. "Of course, sir," she said. "Is there anything I can do, sir?"

"Not pertaining to this," he said. "However, I would like you to visit Dr. Jackson this evening, in fact, most evenings, to help him to stay calm and balanced. He needs human contact."

And I'm already exposed, she thought with an ironic tone in her mental voice. "Yes, sir, of course."

"Thank you."

It was a dismissal, and she took it gladly. She didn't know what to think of this mission. What did they mean, the miners were rebelling? The SGC wasn't ruling them . . . or had she been missing more than she'd supposed? Had they gone into the business of ruling other worlds? If so . . . if so, then they were just like the Goa'uld. It rather undercut the whole higher moral ground argument. And it wasn't something she could be part of. And if the colonel could be . . .

She shook her head. She was jumping at shadows . . . she hoped. She'd know more when he came back from this mission.

The colonel stopped by a moment or two after she reached her lab. "Samantha?" he said uncertainly from the doorway. She turned to see him in full combat gear, P-90 comfortable in his hand.

"Jack." This was all too new for her to know how to react.

"Look after him, would you?" Neither of them needed to identify 'him.' "He needs . . ." Jack shrugged. "Hell, you probably know what he needs better than I do." She nodded mutely, and he turned away.

She took a step forward and spoke before she knew it. "Sir?"

He turned back, and his eyes warmed up a little. "I'll be back soon," he said. "And I'll do the right thing. You'll see."

Then he was gone, and she was left staring after him, wondering what in the hell that last statement meant.

At precisely five past four, Daniel put his pencil down and left the office. Hammond had given him a schedule, and he'd be damned if he was giving that bastard one moment more work than was required of him.

Unfortunately, that left him with eight hours of free time that he didn't know what to do with. There was a knock on the living room door as he contemplated dinner and he sighed. Make that seven hours. He opened the door and saw Coburn. Controlling the way his stomach roiled at the sight of the man, he said, "Give me a minute to change."

Coburn nodded without speaking, and Daniel went into the bedroom and changed into the sweats that had started coming the day Hammond started requiring exercise. Then he went to the next room with Coburn and another man he'd never seen before the first day of exercise, Thompson. They spoke only when it was necessary, and once they'd told him what exercises he was required to do, they seemed largely to have run out of things to say.

That was fine with Daniel. He'd just as soon they weren't there, frankly. They probably had to stay to make sure he did what he was supposed to do, but it seemed kind of silly. There were undoubtedly cameras that would tell them quite clearly what he was doing. If he slacked off, which he wasn't likely to do, they could just send someone in to knock him about –

His steps faltered and he had to hop a bit to catch up to the treadmill again. He heard snickers from behind him and he clenched his teeth. His temper was getting dangerously close to the surface. This wasn't a good thing. He couldn't afford to let loose. And all this time alone with nothing to do wasn't good either. Escape was looking like a plan, and he knew it wasn't. He'd begun to look at the grill on the ventilation shaft with curiosity. A glint of metal bars on the other side of it told him that there was no way he was getting through it.

He kept walking. A month of not being able to walk further than ten feet in any direction without approaching a wall had taken a toll on his fitness, and he didn't like to think what this cast was doing to his arm muscles.

He went through the regimen required of him and then returned to his quarters to shower and change into something a little more comfortable. The only non-military garb available to him was pajamas. He was tired of fatigues day in and day out, so he pulled a pair on. It wasn't like he was going out.

The dumbwaiter chimed and he went to see what slop they'd sent him today. It was two plates, and he wondered who was coming, Samantha or Jack? It couldn't be Hammond. He wouldn't be able to eat if it was Hammond.

Looking at the thick slices of meatloaf, fluffy mashed potatoes, both dripping with gravy, and shook his head. This was far too plebeian a meal for that man. He would want to overawe with the quality of the food as well as his presence.

He put the food down on the table, put out glasses and decided to wait on deciding what they'd drink until his guest arrived. Then he walked over and put the chessboard out. From past experience, he thought it was more likely to be Samantha than Jack, and she liked to play chess.

About ten minutes later, there was a knock on the outer door. He walked into the office and stared at it, perplexed. He couldn't really respond without going right up to the door, and the guards didn't want him near the door when they opened it. He grimaced at the paradox. After a short pause, it opened, and Samantha walked in. She smiled when she saw him and let the door fall shut. "Sorry, forgot the room is soundproof."

He shrugged. "I'm glad you're here," he said, and the desperation he could hear in his voice embarrassed the hell out of him. He turned away and went into the living room. "Come on in," he said, trying not to sound gruff and unfriendly.

She followed him into the next room and said, "I wasn't expecting dinner."

Daniel shrugged. "I wasn't expecting you. Evidently the commissary was warned, though." Charming to realize that they knew his evening plans before he did.

"How are you?"

He bit back hard on his immediate, extremely rude answer. That temper . . . he had to control it. "I'm okay," he said lightly. "You?"

"Good," she said.

"And Jack?" He was a little worried. Some of what he'd said to Jack last night could have undone his mental buttons for sure.

Samantha grimaced, and Daniel's heart plummeted. What she said, though, wasn't what he feared to hear. "He's gone offworld. There's a problem and he's been called to deal with it."

"A problem," Daniel repeated. "That's specific." She blushed and he felt bad about his sarcasm. "Sorry, Samantha. I understand that you probably aren't allowed to tell me."

"No, it's not that. No one's said anything either way, actually. It's just . . . I don't really want to talk about it."

He blinked. That sounded ominous. "You don't want to talk about a mission?" he asked. "Is it dangerous? Come to think of it, why aren't you with him? Or don't you folks send women into known combat situations?"

"Daniel . . ." she said, seeming very distressed.

"Sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me," he said, and applied his attention to his meatloaf, feeling like a jerk.

"It's not your fault," she said. "I'm being weird, but I can't help it." He looked up and she was smiling tentatively. "I'm sorry."

He sighed. "Now we've both apologized once. Let's stop now before it goes any farther."

She laughed. "All right. What did you do today?"

He looked down. "I'd . . . I'd rather not talk about work," he said. "It's nothing bad, it's just . . . not easy." She shrugged uncomfortably and opened her mouth. He held up a hand. "No apologies . . . we put a stop to that."

She gave him a crooked smile. "Right. So . . . tell me about yourself. I'm curious about what's different and what's the same." He contemplated his world. He started to speak, then aborted what he'd been about to say, remembering that the conversation about Teal'c had happened without monitoring. "If you don't want to talk about it, that's –"

"No, it's not that. I'm just trying to decide where to begin." She nodded, and he sighed. "I made a complete ass of myself in Philadelphia, and that's when I met Dr. Catherine Langford."

Samantha smiled. "Catherine. She's a wonderful woman."

"Yes," Daniel said, nodding. "Well, she persuaded me to come translate the coverstone, and I wangled my way onto the mission by means of supreme over-confidence in my abilities to find the answer to our return."

"So far that sounds familiar."

"Then once we'd blown Ra up and the Abydonians were safe, Jack and the others went back and I stayed with Sha're." She nodded. "We buried the gate and Jack told the Air Force I'd been killed. He retired, and I settled into the life of an Abydonian husband."

Her eyes widened. "The colonel retired?" she said incredulously. "And he . . . he lied to General Hammond?"

Daniel shook his head. "No, or not then at any rate. Hammond wasn't in charge of the Stargate at that point. It was a military funded civilian project when I joined it, overseen by General West. I guess West got worried that they'd succeed in opening a wormhole, so Jack was put in charge of the project. Once we'd opened the gate, Jack's orders were to determine if there was a threat from what was on the other side, and if he determined there was, to blow it up."

"Wow," she said. "The orders here were to find out if there was threat or benefit and come back to let his superiors weigh the two. They brought ore back, and I was called in to test the naquadah. Meanwhile, Daniel, our Daniel, stayed on the planet as sort of combined ambassador and anthropologist, to get to know the Abydonians. It was the colonel's decision, and I think it may have been related to the rather unexpected marriage. Hammond never approved of that . . . seemed to think it compromised Daniel's ability to be impartial or something. I could have told him after knowing Daniel for five minutes that he had no ability to be impartial."

Daniel tilted his head. "Does that apply to all Daniels?" he asked.

"So far as I can tell, yes," she said mischievously.

He rolled his eyes. "Maybe I'm actually capable of being impartial. What your Hammond calls impartial is probably very partial to Earth's interests."

She blinked thoughtfully. "I guess I see your point. I never thought about it that way."

"I'm an anthropologist. We're trained very firmly not to view our own way of life as 'normal' so that we don't color our observations of other cultures with our own preconceptions about what's good and bad or right and wrong."

"Still, our Daniel always came down on one side or another, emotionally and physically sometimes. Are you saying that you don't?"

Daniel flushed. "Okay, so maybe I do. Still, I think I'm closer to being impartial than someone who always picks our side, no matter what we've done."

She nodded. "So, go on."

"Right. Jack retired. Then, a little over a year later, Apophis opened the Earth gate, raiding for good breeding stock," Daniel said bitterly, remembering the birth of Sha're's child, the boy Apophis had wanted for a new host.

"Breeding stock?" Samantha said. "Here he was just looking for hosts for –"

"Yes, he was doing that," Daniel said hastily and she fell silent. Regret and sorrow were surging through him. "But he had an ulterior motive that I don't believe the other Goa'uld who participated in that particular birthing were aware of."

"How so?"

Daniel grimaced. "He wished to father a child on the host of the Goa'uld who was his queen, which is strictly forbidden."

"How do you know?"

Daniel shook his head and closed his eyes. "A few months ago, I went back to Abydos to see the people I had known there," he said, gulping. This wasn't an easy memory. "Sha're was there."

"But you said she was taken by the Goa'uld."

"She was." Daniel bit his lip. "She was pregnant, and Amunet was quiescent because if she took control of the body, the pregnancy would abort. Because the whole thing was forbidden, Apophis sent her to her own people to hide, so she was Sha're but Amunet was there, within her, dormant. I had a hell of a time persuading her to come with me, back to Earth, so we could find a way of getting the Goa'uld out of her and . . ." He shook his head.

"What?" She reached across the table and took his hand. "What happened?"

"Sha're gave birth," Daniel said. "As soon as the baby was out, Amunet took over again, but it took time for her to recover her strength. I fled with the baby and Apophis arrived to take her back." He closed his eyes. "I've never completely understood it . . . but she lied to Apophis, told him it was taken by Heru-ur. And when they left, she knew exactly where I was hiding with the others, but she didn't reveal us. I've wondered if it wasn't Sha're in ascendance, but still . . . the baby's still safe on Abydos." He pursed his lips. "Last I knew."

"I wonder . . . the host of Amunet in this reality isn't known to us, we don't know who she was, I mean. If that had happened, we wouldn't know."

Daniel shrugged. He hated thinking about Sha're trapped with the monster who had taken control of her. "I was telling you my history," he said. "We just got sidetracked by . . . by breeding stock."

"Right," she said, releasing his hand and leaning back again.

"Hammond had taken over the project. The gate opened, and Apophis came through with his Jaffa, and took a woman, a sergeant. She was killed, according to –" Teal'c, he didn't say. "According to our information. The scientists at my SGC had come to the erroneous conclusion that the gate only went to Abydos, a gate they believed had been destroyed, so Hammond called Jack and the others in and asked them about the mission. Long story short, Jack eventually told them the truth, and he led a team through the gate to Abydos to find out what was going on. We had dinner, then . . ." He grimaced. "I showed them some carvings I'd found that appeared to be gate addresses. While we were gone, Apophis raided Abydos, taking Sha're and Skaara. I went back with Jack and Sam and the others, and joined SG-1 to try and look for her. Them."

"I see," she said. She reached out towards him again.

He stood up and turned away. "I've got a chess board set up, I thought we could play a couple of games." Remembering his behavior the night before, he added, "If you have time. If you have to go, I understand."

She came up and put an arm around his shoulders. "I don't have to go. It's okay, Daniel."

They both sat on the floor on either side of the coffee table and played several games. It was occasionally awkward. Conversation grew sporadic, and largely concerned the games, which suited Daniel. Talking tonight had brought his memories, his regrets, his griefs, far too close to the surface for comfort.

Eventually, he looked up at the clock and said, "I'd guess you should leave now, Samantha. It's almost nine-thirty."

"Is it?" She looked up at the clock as well. "I think you're right." She stood up and as he came around the table she gave him an entirely unexpected hug. The close contact, the comfort of sharing intimacy with another person nearly undid him. "I'll be here for dinner tomorrow night unless something drastic comes up, and I'll try to get a message to you if that happens."

Daniel smiled as she drew back. "Thanks. I'll just stay in here, if you don't mind."

"Sure," she said and went through the open door to the office. He walked over to it and watched the door open and shut again. It was only then that he realized that he'd just told Hammond everything there was to know about what drove him back home. It might not matter. It might be a very bad thing.