FalloutGate (Part 3) Odyssey

by devilishlysas

The Summation of Sam and Jack's Odyssey through the Fallout 4 Universe (a Post-apocalyptic Nuclear Wasteland) and their epic struggle to return home. Picking up directly after the end of Commonwealth (FalloutGate Part 2). Please don't attempt to read this first without reading Parts 1 and 2 or it won't make a lick of sense. Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate, SG1, Fallout 4.

2. Chapter 2 - The Odd Couple

CHAPTER TWO: THE ODD COUPLE

Jack stood staring at the radiation gauge that was steadily dropping in his suit, with a feeling of relief. Not that he should have been surprised; these magic pills had been keeping him and Sam alive for the last couple of years, as was the anti-radiation soup coursing through them. The RadAway was doing its job and he got back a stable reading just as medical and armed guard teams began to enter the Gate room in hazmat suits.

"See now, I can't help but think if we'd had a set of those babies we wouldn't be in this mess." He nudged Sam and she glanced over at the suits. She scoffed at him.

"Jack, those suits wouldn't have stood a chance. Our suits will take at least two thousand times the radiation," Sam informed him as she disengaged from the Power Armour frame and stepped out the back. He followed, not getting a good feeling about the situation as they stood unarmed but not entirely defenceless – more defenceless than he'd like with so many suspicious and nervous faces peering down at them. He realised a lot of people weren't just watching – they were looking at them – and not in a 'Wow! Are they really back? Or replaced by aliens?' kind of way. This was much more instinctual. He glanced over at Sam in her skin-tight brand spanking new Vault 111 suit, then he looked up at more than a few Airmen suddenly interested in the Gate room, because of course his wife was insanely hot and about to not be wearing much. Living legend or not, they were still going to angle for a peek.

Jack felt a flutter of concern from Sam. She was uneasy about undressing and revealing the damage to them both in front of so many people, and added to that was her completely justifiable issue with showers. All of that overshadowed any fleeting annoyance he'd felt at the predicament. If Sam wasn't happy, he wasn't happy.

"Doc… what do you say to a bit of privacy?" He glanced over at Sam with a concerned look, hoping Frasier understood. He saw the other woman take in the crowd up in the control room. A strange dark-haired woman had joined them and was wedged between Daniel and Teal'c. She had that strange energy thing about her that he'd felt from Daniel, only he sensed she was the other end of it, like they were tethered. Curiouser and curiouser. 'Vala' he pulled from Daniel's mind.

But Janet didn't seem all that sympathetic to their plight. If anything, he sensed a further spike of unease from her followed by a flash of fear. It was noisy in here though – so many agitated minds. He might have been mistaken but he was certain the Doctor didn't want to be alone with him.

"Perhaps you're right. It's a little crowded." She seemed to be thinking of collateral damage, like he'd explode or something – him, not Carter. Most of this negativity seemed to be coming his way which was unsettling. Doc's eyes were intent on him, like she was taking him apart without the need for any fancy equipment. "I think there's a lot of folks very keen to see if the rumours of your return are true," she told him but her inflection was all off. Then she clapped her hands together. "All right. All non-essential personnel… and by that I mean the hazmat team… clear the Gate room."

"Doctor. Do you think that's wise? We still don't know if they're a threat," Landry called down the speaker. The Doc pointed to the wall mounted turrets which were clearly a recent upgrade.

"I think we're covered General, and my team are armed. General O'Neill and Colonel Carter are not," she called back up to Landry. Jack winced; oh, there was an arrogance in that statement he both admired and needed to fix – unarmed did not mean no threat. He'd get to that later. If there was a later. Still, as the former commander of the base he felt a need to make that oversight right.

"I don't intend to make this a spectacle," Doc Frasier snapped, "You'll all get your chance to talk and debrief once it's safe. Until then I want no one else put at risk of radiation poisoning ... or in harm's way," she added tightly; the expression on Landry's face shifted infinitesimally, but it was Teal'c's that hit him hardest. It was the loudest emotion he'd heard from the Jaffa yet – guilt. Jack looked between them all, clueless. How the hell was it you could read minds and still be in the dark? People were moving like Doc's order was law, which he supposed it was. It always sounded pretty final when she pulled the health and safety card – even the General had to listen.

"Very well," Landry acknowledged as an afterthought, ignoring the fact that the soldiers had already started falling back at her word, "All non-essential personnel, lets clear level twenty-eight," he ordered and there was a bustle of movement. "I want no repeats of the last time!" he added. Jack glanced at Sam who looked fairly confused.

"Let's get them decontaminated right here before we let them into the base and away from the security measures. The security teams will be waiting outside the blast doors," Landry added as the blast doors in the Gate room began to shut. He sounded disgruntled enough that Jack suspected Frasier had been putting him in his place since he got here.

Jack noted the relief coming from Sam; this would get rid of pretty much everyone except the immediate medical team and a small squad of suited Marines, plus the backup who stood outside the now closed blast doors, and the remainder of SG1 who stood with Landry in the control room along with a couple of techs. It was the best he could ask for.

"Yes Sir," Frasier snapped back like there was no love lost between them. In fact, he could flat out hear the rant Fraser was having in her head about proper precautions, which was oddly refreshing. She always seemed so calm on the surface. The blast doors shut, sealing them all in.

"Cosy," Jack commented, then at Frasier's darkly assessing look, which he could see just fine through her plastic face mask. "Thanks for that," he acknowledged trying to illicit a reaction from her other than this damn cool detachment and lick of fear he was getting, which was deeply unpleasant.

"Yes, thank you," Sam added drawing Frasier's attention as she proceeded to strip down. "Don't destroy the clothing," she barked at the Airman that came closer, his eyes deliberately averted, "Or the equipment. In fact, everything we've bought with us is of value. It all needs bagging and decontaminating… carefully." She unstrapped her PipBoy and handed it to the poor man; he forgot not to look and his eyes widened. "Especially that. It's a personal computer. It's also nuclear powered…" He fumbled, dropping it with sudden nervous energy and she caught it deftly, placing it on the ground with an eye roll, "…so I wouldn't drop it if I were you."

"Yes Ma'am," the hapless medic muttered. "Sorry Ma'am."

Jack placed his chem box down in front of the Doc. "That goes for this too." He pointed to the box. "Handle with care. It's got lots of magic medicine in there which will become apparent in a few seconds," he told her; she looked up at him quizzically. "Then there's this baby." He tugged it from his backpack which had been in the suit for safe keeping. Her eyes widened in surprise, and he was sure delight, when he placed the orange glowing ZPM in her rubbery gloved hands.

Their eyes locked. "You found a ZPM?" she asked, but her initial elation was immediately tempered with something more like suspicion as she eyed it warily, like it was a Trojan horse.

Jack grinned. "Well, seemed a shame not to borrow the one they had sat all dusty in Antarctica given as it was as good as new. Full charge." Her eyes dropped to it and she nodded, turning and placing it inside a padded container, keeping her suspicions about it tightly locked down for now. He frowned; he'd thought for sure that the power core might earn them some measure of good will, although he couldn't fault the precaution they were taking with it as they sealed it inside a container, just in case it was tampered with. It wouldn't be the first time they'd come across a boobytrapped ZPM.

"What about the bodies?" One of her team called out to Janet, stood over the two Asgard bodies, nudging one with his feet. "I'm not detecting the same levels of radiation."

"Oh, I'd call Thor about those. I think he'll be interested in the junk inside its trunk, if you know what I mean." Jack gave Frasier a shit eating grin that she tried to suppress a smirk at, frowning as she suppressed the instinctive reaction, and plastering an otherwise stoic expression back on her features. "There's some preserved samples in our gear too that I've bagged for them," he added and she softened a fraction – biological samples usually had that effect.

"Thank you General. If you please, you're slowly cooking to death," she snipped and he sensed a wall go up. She wasn't going to let herself believe in them until she was sure. He got that loud and clear. What was also clear, was that the consequences of them failing this little identity parade might be severe if Janet's unease was anything to go by.

"We'll secure their bodies. I take it they were hostile then?" she asked him sharply.

"That's one way of putting it. I mean, I know Thor and his buddies were in the clone party. I just hadn't realised how zen they were until I met the evil twin versions," he admitted. Janet's interest peaking nervously at the idea of 'evil twins' and 'clones', her mind already latching onto those as possible explanations for them a little too easily, as if that wasn't so wacky an idea. Oh this was getting better and better Jack realised uneasily, noting the particular unease she attached to 'clones', along with that flash of fear again as she gave him a once over that he tried not to take personally.

"What he means to say is they were mean as all hell and not big into sharing technology. We didn't get on," Sam added, striding naked past Doc Frasier to the designated hose down point, where they'd started erecting the temporary shower curtains that would do sweet nothing to protect their modesty. Jack noted she'd tried to walk past Janet quickly but not quickly enough. Jack saw Doc's mouth fall open in surprise when she got a look at Sam's back. Jack winced and shook his head at her, urging her not to comment just yet. Thankfully she caught his look and stopped. He went to touch her arm but a gun levelled at him from one of the hazmat-covered soldiers surrounding the room, who were there to make sure he and Sam were on their best behaviour. Screw that. He withdrew his fingers but he had Janet's undivided attention at least.

"Be best if they didn't use the hose at full power on some of our more gnarly injuries," he told her, meaning Sam's but he supposed he wasn't looking forward to the jets on his chest either. With that he unzipped his trusty Vault suit, stripping down in front of her and holding a hand cupped over his junk as he stood before her, letting her get an eyeful of the wound she was no doubt going to be prodding and probing shortly.

"My God… what on Earth?!" she exclaimed, clearly horrified at the state of him – despite herself he thought.

"Not on Earth… not technically," he replied. "Would you believe that the other guy looked worse? I mean even before Sam vaporised him," he joked, thinking of the hideous malformed Super-Mutants that bore more resemblance to a troll than anything human.

The next few minutes were quite possibly one of the most uncomfortable he'd experienced in the Gate room, aside from that painful experience with the metal rod through his shoulder. They were both tossed bottles of decontamination soaps and cleaners which they scrubbed themselves with from head to toe. He winced as the power jet hit his front, scouring skin as it went. It was bloody freezing! He fought his body's reaction to reach out and put a kink in the hose.

"Turn around please!" Janet instructed and Jack did as asked, glancing over at Sam's form behind the shower curtain beside his. He scrubbed his back as best he could, before some guy with a squeegee got him, manhandling him all over as he pressed his hands to the wall, trying not to be offended. His hands fisted when he felt the slightly more incensed and panicked thoughts coming from Sam. She wasn't handling the shower, or the hose on her back, quite so well. He reached out with his mind, trying to reach her, only to find a brick wall of emotions. She was keeping so much in check right now, even from herself, that he'd struggle to get through.

A few minutes later it was blessedly over and they were handed towels and fresh jumpsuits.

"Ooh… blue! My favourite," he noted and turned to check on Sam, surreptitiously masking his concern with nonchalance as she emerged, her arm strategically placed over her breasts and her groin as Janet handed her the outfit. The other woman would have preferred to have her medical team turn their backs and give them privacy but given as they were still a security threat, she bit her tongue Jack noted, only feeling slightly guilty at being able to read the minds of people he knew and cared about – it was kind of weird. Well, weirder than reading anyone else's mind.

Suited and booted, Jack scrubbed his hands through his hair. "You know I'm not sure I've felt this clean in two years," he mused, meaning that as he stared at Sam for a moment. She'd come out looking like a million bucks, as she wrung out her hair twisting it in her hands and let it fall across her back, but then he'd always liked the wet look on her.

"Maybe once… that time in Vault 81," Sam countered, willingly accepting his diversionary tactics for now and he snapped his fingers in agreement.

"Yes! Maybe. That short back and sides with complementary shave was heavenly," he mused, rubbing his hand across his stubble, contemplating how long his locks had gotten before he'd all but buzzed it all off.

The Gate room doors opened and the remaining armed guards filed back in. "Is that really necessary?" Jack asked Frasier, noting Teal'c was front and centre, his eyes travelling over the good Doctor as if assessing she was safe, with a clear flicker of relief. Turning back to Jack his expression was pitiless, like he had somehow become his enemy.

"It is indeed. As the former Commander of this base, you should be fully aware of the protocols for a possible incursion or replacement of SGC personnel," Teal'c reminded him shortly and he winced.

"Doh," Jack muttered, knowing them all too well. They were summarily scanned with a device he had no idea about, but he got from Sam's thoughts was some sort of Naquadah or explosive detector. Once they'd passed whatever that was Sam stepped up beside him and they were marched through the SGC corridors to the holding cells. He felt her fingers brush his as she passed and he gave them a gentle squeeze, meeting her eyes. 'It'll be fine' he mouthed.

'Love you,' she mouthed back and he threw her a wink and a smile 'yeah she did' and that was still mildly unbelievable to him.

They held each other's gaze until they were being forcibly separated. Jack eyed the isolation cell door warily as he was escorted inside the grey room, with the sturdy door and a single window. He wasn't too fond of these cells. He recalled all too clearly going feral in one. He was also a little alarmed at the fact that they were going to be locked in, and split up. He'd expected guarded beds in sickbay, not a cell. Something clearly had them spooked.

"Is this really necessary?" he asked Janet's back as they marched Sam into the cell opposite. They shared a pained look and he regretted not tugging her in for another kiss, just to remind her that they were in this together, "Sam!" he called out hoping he'd injected enough emotion into that to let her know he wasn't going anywhere, before they shut her cell door between them, sealing her out of his sight and Teal'c now clearly having donned a radiation suit was bodily blocking him from getting back to it and glowering down at him.

"Can't we do this from sickbay under armed guard?" he griped turning to look at the unnerved face of Janet Frasier behind the hooded mask.

"We cannot," Teal'c intoned, "I must ask you to step inside the cell or you will be forced to do so." Jack stepped back, hands up. Two SFs in radiation body smocks followed him in and took up position with guns out inside the cell door, ushering him back to the bed to which he was summarily cuffed; the long chain would allow him to stand but he wouldn't be able to get within three feet of the door or the guards and the bed was fixed to the damn concrete. He glanced back at Teal'c as the cell door closed between them, his look severe; Jack was not in the least bit hopeful that this was all some sort of misunderstanding. Not good.

He focused on Sam across the corridor; the layers of thick concrete made it a darn sight harder but he got enough from her frustrated emotions to know that she was stuck in her own cell alone too. He hadn't got enough from the minds around him to understand this outright suspicion and hostility to their return. His facelift was a little odd but hardly the strangest thing they'd seen here at the SGC and easily explainable – they hadn't even mentioned his powers. He just wished he'd been able to convey more of it to Sam before they were interrogated or whatever the hell else they had planned. He stared at the door and at the chain around his wrist, neither of which was a challenge if he really set his mind to it. Nor were the SFs with guns on him. If he wanted out he could do it. That thought calmed him. He wasn't a prisoner. He was choosing to allow them to imprison him. Sam would know that too, just as he was certain that had she wanted out herself, she could manage it with those fancy legs of hers; he doubted her cell door would take more than a few blows. Not that she'd need to resort to physical force. She'd been escaping from cell doors with the team for almost a decade.

So, they'd sit and wait and figure out what the hell was going on here before they did anything drastic. The ball was well and truly out of their court right now, which was an odd feeling. He'd grown accustomed to being master of his own fate.

0000000000000000

[2 hours later]

Jack's cell door opened. The SFs kept their weapons trained on him as it swung inward to admit a still radiation suit clad Teal'c and Janet Frasier. They stood in the doorway, watching him from his position as he stood, his wrist tugging on the chain as he did so, letting his anger and indignation at this flare.

"What the hell!" Jack exclaimed. "Does anyone want to explain what is going on? Because this is not how you treat Airmen who's just been through literal hell to return home! Where the hell's the cake and back patting!" Jack snapped, looking between the two clearly uneasy figures stood in the doorway as Teal'c quietly dismissed the two SFs; they shut the door and locked it up tight again behind them. Cautious wasn't the word for this. This was downright odd and he started to wonder if maybe they'd stepped into the wrong damn universe after all.

Doc Frasier stepped closer, of the two of them, she seemed a little more amenable to him than Teal'c but she was no less hesitant, and that damn lick of fear was back as she watched him cautiously after that outburst, as if she was expecting him to strike.

"I apologise. I'm sure it's not quite the welcome home you were expecting…" Janet began not using his name, or rank, as if she truly didn't think he'd earned either of them, "…but it's a necessary precaution until we've run some initial tests and we've determine you are who you both say you are," she assured him. "I'm sure you can appreciate our caution. It's not every day that two such high value officers walk themselves back into the base after being MIA for six months." She hesitated; her and Teal'c sharing a silent look in which he caught a 'good cop, bad cop' agreement.

Although he got most of that from Janet, Teal'c was still frustratingly hard to read. He didn't know if it was a Jaffa thing or a just 'T'. Other than the little outburst earlier, and a residual level of lingering guilt and unease, it was like his mind was a well that seemed to swallow Jack's ability. What was clear was that the 'powers that be' had gotten together to have a little pow wow about them and this situation; he was getting flashes of the briefing room in Janet's head. Unfortunately for he and Sam, their little time away had solidified some sort of theory or strategy in dealing with them and he didn't think it had come down in their favour. Maybe he'd been wrong to sit tight but he had the advantage given the mind reading. It was better than he'd usually get in this sort of situation so he had to play that hand as far as it would take him for now and hope it didn't blow up in their faces like usual.

Janet was staring at him from across the cell, arms folded – hostile was the word he'd go for. "I'll admit, a lot of people thought you'd been killed, which given the alternative possibility... well, that might have been preferable," Janet added a little cryptically and, in Jack's opinion, downright coldly as she finally took a step towards him, each step she took seemed to send Ba'al's name rattling round her head. Along with an unsettling memory of the last time that snakey bastard had got hold of him and she'd had to put him back together… a reminder he could have done without. He'd not exactly been a peach from that withdrawal.

But the fact that she was thinking about Ba'al at least told him something, and he supposed it stood to reason they'd be all twitchy if they were worried that particular Goa'uld was somehow involved in their disappearance. It made more sense he supposed than being stranded in an alternate universe for the last two years. Still, he knew he was 'him'; the nuisance he considered that this proving themselves was going to be rankled, especially when he just wanted to take Sam home and sleep for a week. Well. Sleep and other things. That and eat his own weight in pizza and ice-cream.

Of course, he couldn't even let on anything about Ba'al. The moment he so much as breathed that word they'd leap on it, because of course – why would he? As far as he was concerned, Ba'al had nothing to do with this scenario. He'd have to try and put the things he gleaned from their minds firmly in a box marked 'later' when he was talking.

With that in mind he decided on his usual go to – glib. "Well it's not like we've never seen anyone come back from the dead around here, have we?" he quipped her eyebrows went up, "I mean you've met Daniel, right? It's practically his party trick," he retorted and her expression flickered into a slight tick of amusement at that – score one to him then. They'd always liked the verbal sparring game, – before Teal'c cleared his throat and the expression was wiped from hers with a twinge of irritation that he noted uneasily. He might not be able to talk his way out of this then.

"Dr Frasier. It would be unwise to engage verbally with this O'Neill until we have completed the assessment," Teal'c advised darkly, giving him a fair amount of stink eye to go with that unhelpful statement.

Janet turned and shot Teal'c a look. "And how are we going to assess anything Teal'c if he doesn't talk?" There was a sting to that and Teal'c merely bowed his head, deferring to the Doc's authority. Jack snorted. Teal'c always had always had a healthy level of respect for the Doc, and her temper.

"Who else would we be?" he asked, with genuine confusion looking between them. I mean sure there'd been copies before but why bring that concern up now. Unless she was worried about Evil Parallel Earth dopplegangers – which yeah he supposed he could buy that, but he hadn't really got that vibe. Even now, her mind was screaming the word Ba'al at him. Odd.

"Take a seat please 'General'. This will only take a minute." There was a tone, but at least she was still using his honorific, so she hadn't totally given up on the idea he was him. That or she was erring on the side of caution with it. Either way he hadn't got much choice; he either complied or it got unnecessarily tense in here – well, more so. Resigned to it, he sat heavily and wordlessly held out his arm. She hesitated, her eyes scanning him and his features, waiting. He merely held his position calmly, meeting her eyes and finding she wouldn't hold his. Teal'c stepped closer and Jack frowned, about to open his mouth to question the building tension when Janet gripped his elbow and slid a needle into his vein. He had no choice but to let her take her samples, the cheek swabs and more blood than any human being surely needed.

This whole situation stunk to high heaven and he needed to understand it. So he took the chance with her distraction on her task – one she could probably complete automatically – to slip into her mind and scour her thoughts. He needed to understand, to know what the hell was happening here. Knowledge was power and he had jack shit of that right now, which was perhaps why he found himself pushing perhaps a little too hard when he heard Ba'al's name come up again in her thoughts. Automatically it seemed his mind went looking for a connection like a blood hound fixed on a scent. It took him a minute to isolate the fears that were hers from the actual memories.

He had to work very hard not to outwardly flinch at what he'd found. Oh Ba'al… seemed like he'd been at it again. Somehow that snakey-ass-hat of a Goa'uld had cloned him. Or at least that was what Janet's brain was telling him from the jumble of images and feelings. He couldn't help but wince at the thought of that, and the Doc gave him a look that was more of an eyeroll as she jabbed a little hard with the needle. Ba'al cloning him was all kinds of wrong. Though why they thought that had anything to do with him, other than because of his shiny new complexion, he wasn't clear on. He was picking up on the fact that it had happened fairly recently in her mind. A few months ago maybe.

He resigned himself to taking another peak, he needed to know if this 'clone' business was going to bite them in the ass. And he didn't fancy being anyones lab rat… he sure as shit wasn't about to let Sam become one – not ever but definitely not after what the Institute had done to her.

It took a bit of mental digging and sifting, all he imagined with a stupid slack expression on his face, but he did get some snippets of what their 'friends' and the Government were planning. The tests Janet was about to run would include some heavy-duty DNA scans which might pose a problem. There was also talk of calling the Tok'ra to run some tests, and the Asgard of course. He got a flash of one of those funky VR devices and some concern about false memory implants before Janet started resisting the intrusion. One silver lining was that they definitely didn't seem to think Sam was still Repli-Carter but the jury was out on whether she was one of Ba'al's clone experiments too; seems like he'd created some merry hell in their name since they'd been gone. He tried to get more from Janet, but her mind was as feisty and as fierce as the woman herself, pushing back at the intrusion even if she didn't realise what it was. It was doing her damage he realised with a grimace, a headache at the very least and he'd seen what happened when someone resisted or he pushed too hard – it wasn't pretty. Janet's brain was kind of like Sam's in her own way – something special. She didn't need him poking holes in it.

He started to back out but then he got the image of a himself – a him that wasn't him – coming through the Gate, mute, practically catatonic in med bay – broken they'd thought. Soulless, lifeless - until he wasn't. He blinked trying to take it in, there was a flash of fear, pain, grief and a jumble of unholy images of Replicators and fire that made him recoil in horror, backing out of Janet's mind rapidly. He was hurting her he realised. There was something in her mind which she was repressing or pushing away with a veneer of professionalism. That damn clone had done something here – something terrible. He could feel it, see it.

He backed all the way out and Janet wobbled, her hand going to her head. He caught her, gripping onto her biceps and keeping her upright as she swayed. That guilty feeling intensified; it had been easier to meddle when he hadn't given a crap about the people he was meddling with he realised.

Teal'c moved suddenly; he was backhanded sharply, his head cracked to the right and Jack tasted blood. He spun around to find Teal'c's gun in his face. The Jaffa's free hand went under Janet's arm, steadying her and pulling her behind him, to protect her from Jack of all people. Rage and guilt flashed through the Jaffa. Duty and honour, and something uniquely him and in his culture that try as he might Jack couldn't quite translate in his mind's eye. Not the way Teal'c seem to project thoughts and memories. But they were both watching him, Janet with wide fearful eyes and Teal'c – oh he'd seen that sort of rage in the big man before, just not normally directed his way.

He'd rather have sat still and calm - like you would when facing off a wounded animal, but in this instance he had little choice, but to react the way they expected him to given the accusations flying around…

"What the hell T!" he barked, getting up from his position and straining against his chained wrist as he stood, chest to chest with the bigger man. "I tried to help her. What did you think I was going to do? Hurt her?" he asked incredulous, only from the reactions going on inside their heads, that was exactly what they thought. In fact, expected.

"I'd never hurt the Doc," he swore, looking at Teal'c and surprised he'd even have to say that to him. He glanced over the broad shoulders to the petite brunette behind. "Doc… you know me. I'm not gonna hurt yah, for crying out loud!" Teal'c blocked his view, his head lowering, chin tucking in as if he was bristling for a fight.

"You will refrain from touching Doctor Frasier," Teal'c growled, his eyes not leaving Jack's. He inclined his head to the woman behind. "Are you injured Doctor?" he asked, his tone softening for the Doc, the concern there clear.

"I'm fine Teal'c. I… I just got lightheaded for a moment. Must have been all this excitement," she admitted, sounding confused and nervous, before she mentally berated herself for skipping lunch, which he thought was a plausible as explanation as anything that he could jump onto.

"Skipping lunch again Doc?" he tutted reinforcing that belief, letting his concern show on his face as Teal'c menaced. "What have I told you before about blood sugar? We all know an apple a day keeps the doctor… well… from falling on her keester." He tried to lighten the flat mood as the Doc straightened up behind Teal'c, reorientating herself. He tried not to look too guilty as she regained focus. He quietly made a mental note not to probe her too deeply if he could help it; surface thoughts only. Besides not wanting to hurt her, she was a smart woman. She'd pick up on it eventually. He'd have to find some other way to find out about this other Jack and what the hell happened here.

Frasier's expression settled on him and she patted Teal'c's arm to indicate he step back. "I did skip lunch actually. My apologies Teal'c, it won't happen again," she replied ignoring him, but the big Jaffa wasn't backing down; Jack's jaw throbbed. He wanted to rail at his former teammate, his friend, and find out just why the hell they were acting like this but he could tell violence and aggression would only make this situation worse. No, he needed to do what he always did – play the fool.

"Could be the full body smock you're wearing too," Jack indicated the radiation suit she was still in. "I'd check your O2 when you're outside," he suggested helpfully, knowing full well it was working fine, but she glanced down at it, frowning at the reading from the little Geiger counter on her hip.

"My God!" Janet exclaimed and Teal'c stiffened, "The radiation levels have dropped off to almost nothing." Her mouth opened and she stared at him through the mask. Teal'c merely quirked an eyebrow, not glancing down at his own counter – he clearly wasn't about to risk taking his eyes off Jack. "What the hell was it that you took? I don't know anything that could absorb radiation levels like that from a human body, and not that fast. I was going to start you both on potassium iodide, sodium bicarb and then oral calcium. But I can barely even detect it now."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Jack posed with an eyebrow quirk and the Doc looked at him suspiciously. He merely shrugged. "What? We said they were medically advanced. A world whose entire technology centred around radiation. Seems pretty much a given they had some way of dealing with all those inevitable accidents… of which I'm sure there were many." He winced, "I mean, they might of heard of the words 'health' and safety' but not sure it occurred to them to string them together." he shuddered. "I ask you… who hands out actual ray guns in a kids theme park? Complete whacko's – that's who. But then they decided nuclear fallout shelters were basically giant petri dishes to experiment on so, you know…" he mimed an explosion again as he trailed off, but the Doc seemed to have drifted off into a whole other tangent of thought, right before she very deliberately lifted her hands and removed her hazmat helmet.

"Doctor!" Teal'c exclaimed, "Are you sure that is wise?!" All the while his gun remained fixed on Jack; he had no qualms about shooting him. He was struggling to get much from the big guy but that was coming through quite clear, as was his opinion on the matter of whether Jack was a fake or not. The facelift seemed to be the main factor in his doubt. There were all sorts of 'young Jack clone' flashes of memory going through the Jaffa's head – along with this other creepier one. Jack cursed himself inwardly for not considering enough the impact his new mug might have – not that he could have done a fat lot about it. Add to that the fact that they'd stepped back through the Gate with some hostile Asgard-like aliens in tow that had opened fire on everyone at large, well, it wasn't looking good. Jack glanced at the closed doorway where he could sense that at least two more heavily armed SFs were stationed outside his door; two more plus Colonel Mitchell outside Sam's. He supposed he should be flattered that they were considered that much of a threat.

"It's fine. The radiation levels are negligible, practically normal," she confirmed aloud. "Incredible," she mused, clearly thinking she was going to have a field day with these chem samples. Swiftly followed by the thought 'Where did Ba'al get them?'. Jack sighed, they weren't buying their stranded story and probably wouldn't until they'd ruled out the whole 'clone' thing.

Jack tried smiling warmly at her. He had to admit it was better to see a human face staring back at him rather than from behind a plastic mask. Jack offered her a mock salute. "Hey, so what's up Doc?" he opened with, but her eyes were on his wrist, the one he'd just flashed her; he didn't need to see into her mind to know what she'd just picked up on. Her horrified thoughts were practically screaming at him.

"Teal'c, his arm," she instructed; Jack was mildly insulted when Teal'c caught the wrist he'd just flashed her, holding it firmly out to her to examine but not letting him within range of her, like he was a threat. Honestly, he felt like a damn specimen, "What on Earth?! These look like human bite marks," she exclaimed aloud, stepping back. Jack tried not to let his relief show when Teal'c released his punishing grip on his wrist; he instantly slipped his hand back into his pocket, out of harm or temptations way.

Janet's mind was going a mile a minute. 'Why would he have bite marks? What purpose would Ba'al have for that form of torture? Repli-Carter's gone. It couldn't be her!'

Jack kept his face impassive outwardly, but inwardly he was panicking a little, if Janet was freaking out about these minor scars, she wasn't going to like the state of Sam's forearms after that misadventure in the Church that one time. He'd lost the ones he'd gotten on his calf that day in 'the great reset', as he liked to think about it, but the Wasteland being the Wasteland had provided plenty more opportunities to make Ghoul chow of him after that. He'd got a pretty good one on his collarbone where one had leapt on him when he and Hancock had gotten a bit cocky whilst busting heads – and he'd been too shit faced to defend himself properly. Not his finest hour and one he didn't intend to tell Sam about – ever.

"Yeah, about that," he started and Janet homed in on his tone, her expression serious, "So you know we said we were stranded on a nuclear apocalypse planet?" She looked up at him from all five foot-nothing of her, which was more intimidating than it had any right to be.

"I don't recall the word apocalypse…" she retorted, "…but go on."

"Might have been a nuclear-zombie apocalypse." He added that middle part helpfully, which connected all sorts of new dots in her head with a big glowing biohazard warning label. Her mind was really quite fascinating he decided as she projected at him loud and clear, and about as terrifyingly efficient as he imagined it would be.

"Zombies." She stood staring him down and the brief thought that she'd need to run an MRI scan to check for head trauma clearly went through her mind before she went for the biohazard bag. Then she considered whether 'this clone had its brain scrambled by one too many hands in its head too… maybe before we destroyed Repli-Carter.'

Teal'c though was ever practical and shifted uncomfortably, readjusted his aim towards Jack's head at the mention of zombies, which Jack had to admit to being impressed by. Clearly Teal'c had been taking notes during one of the horror movie marathons at team night. Although both of them were taking it all with a large pinch of salt he noted, as though he was touting some sort of nonsense they had to humour and glean what they could from. A bit like talking to a crazy person he realised grimly. They thought he was stark raving mad, either from torture, experimentation, or by design.

"You really expect us to believe there were zombies?" Frasier prompted and he realised he'd been staring into space 'listening' too hard to what they weren't saying.

"Kinda." He jumped back into the now. "I mean, if you count undying radiation soaked bags of bones that get real bitey when they give chase zombies… then yeah," he clarified, because hell he had to stick to the truth on this; the more he offered up and kept to the facts, the more they might realise this wasn't a sick joke.

Janet's concerned and down right confusing thoughts came through loud and clear. 'It had to be something like a VR pod. He's too cognisant for it to be the Replicator head-hand thing again like the other one. What the hell kind of nightmarish scenario did Ba'al program into it? And to have the bodies manifest damage like this... or did he just do this to them and the simulation filled in the blanks? But to what end? He had to know we'd see right through it after last time.' The thoughts were going down a rabbit hole, tumbling one after another.

For crying out loud! They weren't going to be getting anywhere soon and he couldn't even rebut it unless she called him out directly and voiced her suspicions. Not if he was going to keep this mind-reading thing under wraps for a bit, which seemed wise given how damn suspicious and trigger happy they already seemed to be. God, he hoped no one had tried anything stupid with Sam – like backhanding her in the face too – not only was that likely to piss him the hell off, he was more than slightly concerned that Sam had lost some of her Air Force control out there in the Wasteland, it wouldn't be pretty. She was like a damn hand grenade at the moment, with the pin pulled way out.

"Look, fair warning... Sam's got a bunch of these too, on her forearm. Bit of a mishap with a floorboard in a Church. Do yourself a favour and try not to stare. She's more sensitive about the scars than I am," he explained, trying to provoke some sort of emotional response on Sam's behalf at least, given half this clone hostility seemed to be directed his way, not Sam's at this point.

He got something back from the Doc – finally. Her expression flickered as she considered the fresh horrors that talks of bites and alien worlds might bring. "I'll be running blood screens for alien viruses anyway, if there's something there we'll find it." She assured herself, just on the off chance they weren't delusional and this really had happened.

"You do that." He snipped growing irritable again.

"The bodies you bought through are they potentially contaminated too with this - ?" she began to ask and he shook his head at least acknowledging the physical evidence they'd bought with them for the first time. Her mind flickering to the ZPM as well which he knew they'd have to test – given as the last one 'given' to them had been booby trapped by Ba'al after all.

"They were from outer space, not the 'other' Earth, but I all means screen away."

"I understand your frustration General. But I will remind you there are protocols here." She snipped right back clearly not appreciating his tone.

"Sure Doc. But your barking up the wrong tree here, this is all a waste of damn time."

"We'll see." She assured with finality that spoke of her doubts. Her surface thoughts were projecting loud and clear, hell he needn't have bothered looking any deeper with her after all. But it wasn't looking so good; Janet was a ball full of pessimism and anxiety about who and what they were. It was clouding her judgment; she was hearing hoofbeats and thinking zebras, not horses. Fuck. Jack fought the urge to throw his hands up in the air at the universe that wouldn't cut him a break. It was quite something he had to acknowledge to himself, to have their perfectly reasonable tale of being stranded on an alternate apocalypse universe be in a toss-up with yet another of Ba'al's freakish machinations, for what was the 'most likely scenario'. God sometimes he wished he'd never un-retired. Fishing and a boat had been a solid plan B – although then there'd have been no Sam… no SG1. No purpose.

"Anything else I should avoid with Colonel Carter?" Janet asked pulling him out of his introspection, whilst looking down at her notes and pretending not to care that her maybe best friend, who she'd missed every day for the past six-months, was waiting just across the hall and she couldn't just hug Sam like she wanted, or berate her for leaving her alone with a grieving sixteen-year-old girl. Jesus – Cassie. The poor kid. If he was honest, he'd not thought much about how their loss might affect others, just Daniel and Teal'c, occasionally Sara. He knew Sam had thought about Cassie and Janet a lot, particularly that first year. Sanctuary had given them a lot of time to reflect before the daily business of surviving had gotten too much. Of course, she'd had a lot more people to miss and care about her. There was her Dad, her brother and his family, Pete…. Ah shit. That thought sunk and landed heavily in his gut.

Pete. Mr Perfect himself.

He wondered if Sam had even remembered yet that she used to have a fiancé given the level of disconnect they'd had from this place. A fiancé incidentally; one who would probably still be waiting if it had only been six months since she'd been missing here. Hell, Jack himself had waited eight years for her on a hope in hell she might feel something. Compared to that six months waiting for a woman like Sam after she'd already agreed to marry you – piece of cake.

Something unpleasant pinged around inside of his chest; despite all they'd been through, he had a moment of doubt that here and now, back to the old days, in the cold light of day, Sam might decide that everything they'd been through was too much. That she'd prefer the nice uncomplicated cop, who was more than just a bit obsessed with her, to hold her close and make her forget everything Jack might remind her of. Then he instantly felt like shit for not having more faith, but then the universe liked to kick him in the nut sack repeatedly – this whole clone thing ruining their return was evidence of that –, so he couldn't rule it out entirely. Frankly, he strongly suspected Pete had never had the first clue how to handle a woman like Sam, and that was before the Wasteland had chewed them up and spat them out into leaner, meaner versions of themselves. He'd like to say he'd be the bigger man about it if she did pick Pete – bow out graciously, be happy she was happy – except he wasn't certain the bigger man had survived the Wasteland and Sam always had been a woman worth fighting for.

Back to the task at hand and the woman who was wielding her professionalism like a personal shield rather than feel it all, and a Jaffa that made the description of 'stoic' seem jovial; both of them clinging on to this weird theory of Ba'al and his damn clone rather than the truth staring them in the face.

"You know I can't shake the feeling that us coming back, bashing down the front door and spouting wild claims of alternate apocalypse universes, has stirred up some sort of hornet's nest," he started carefully picking his words, "And you've all clearly got your own issues right now that, for whatever reason, is making you more… tense than normal." He held back the word anal for Janet's benefit, even if she heard it all the same in his tone, and there was clearly a stick up Teal'c's butt right now.

"But consider this. When you've finished running your tests, you're going to realise we're as us as we're ever going to get and that every word of what I know sounds like nonsense is going to turn out to be true. Now I've got thick skin, and it's not my first rodeo being shafted by my own government after being MIA. Sam though was always true blue right down the line. She had higher hopes for our return." Which was true and he regretted now not being a bit more forceful in his reality check on her 'go home' plan. "So maybe bear in mind that if she is the real Sam… then maybe you owe it to her to try a little human kindness. Both of you," Jack snapped at Janet first – her friend – and then the big Jaffa, who had always treated Sam like an honoured sister. The implication that he wouldn't be smacking Sam around the face clear. The Jaffa raised his chin, clearly not about to be swayed into making a tactical error but Janet – she practically bristled at the insinuation.

"Jack…" She paused and he sensed her have an internal argument with herself. It took him a moment to pin down the odd sensation; it was the first time she'd used his name since walking into this cell he realised, which he was taking as score one for him, "…I haven't forgotten who she is and what she means to me... to us… and to a lot of people on this base. Either of you for that matter." She looked at him hard, her expression showing a flicker of softening before she shut it down ruthlessly, painfully but shut it down she did. "No one has," she confirmed. "But we all have a duty here. And if you are the people you claim to be, you'll understand that and why it has to be this way. I'm quite certain that neither of you would hold it against us." Her expression hardened suddenly, clearly affronted by the suggestion she'd be anything but compassionate and somewhat alarmed at the notion.

He didn't mind offending her so long as she minded her Ps and Qs with Sam. He wanted his damn wife treated with kid gloves right now. He was mildly concerned that one wrong poke and Sam might very well go postal on an unsuspecting lab tech and kick them through a wall, like she'd done with that Vanir. But then they weren't getting that this version of Sam might snap.

"That's kind of my point." He grimaced, sitting down on the bed so he'd appear less threatening, "You're expecting us to rock back up exactly as we were six months later, except it wasn't six months for us, was it?"

"So you say," Teal'c cut in and Jack rested his hands on the bed either side of him and squeezed the edge of the cot trying not to lash out. Teal'c was goading him, deliberately, trying to get a rise, just like Jack had taught him to; play on your prisoner's pride and emotions that always made them reveal themselves and their motives.

"What the hell are you implying Teal'c, huh? Why don't one of you do me the damn decency of just explaining why all the suspicion? And why it got me clouted round the face." He looked between two stony faces. "We just got ourselves the hell out of a real bad situation that has quite frankly screwed us both the hell up! So believe me when I tell you, neither of us is in the best frame of mind right now to play these bullshit mind games and go walking on egg shells around the damn elephant in the room!"

Janet flinched when he got to his feet and took a very definite few paces back, towards Teal'c who was there in an instant, shielding her from Jack which was damn disturbing. Not in least because Janet Frasier had never needed to hide behind anyone a day in her life before. But looking at the Doc right now, she seemed to want to genuinely be anywhere else but in this room. He frowned focussing in on her thoughts, her shoulder was aching, a lingering pain, but more than something purely physical. Some sort of trauma associated with his face. One thing was clear, whatever had happened here, to Janet, to the team, it had been wearing 'his' face when it happened and Teal'c sure as shit wasn't about to let it happen again.

He blinked taking a breath recognising this for what it was finally. "Janet, I don't know what the hell's happened here to make you doubt I'm me this much. But I'm telling you now, the real me, I'd never hurt you, And you know that." He looked pointedly at her it was probably a little more than he should admit to knowing right now when they'd not breathed a word of their 'clone' suspicions. But he couldn't stand here and watch the way her hand was shaking and her heart was pounding as her eyes darted across every inch of him in readiness for some kind of repeated assault. Damn it. What the hell?

"Who said anything about hurting me?" Janet rasped, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. He paused, his flat stare met with a heated one from her. "That's twice now you've gone for that exact assumption – a little odd don't you think?"

"Believe it or not, I've been asshole a long time. I know when someone's trying to get the hell away from me and can sure as shit recognise the signs of trauma when I see it. Like when you jumped out of your skin earlier when I tried to catch your arm. What I don't know is why. Will someone please just tell me what the hell is going on here?!" He couldn't help the bark that followed.

Teal'c was suddenly in front of him, almost nose to nose and Jack could feel his chest rising and falling with suppressed rage and adrenalin. Teal'c wanted to put him on his ass he realised grimly, but he was restraining himself, which was something. Then he growled out in a tone as rough as gravel that implied everything. "We are merely trying to ascertain that you are the man you were O'Neill."

Jack stood staring up at the big Jaffa and worked hard on calming himself and his natural and trained reactions to such a hostile room. Emotions were pooling and he could feel energy building – the bad kind that tended to leave holes in things. He fisted his hand and felt a tremor in the ground as he did so and quietly took several shallow breaths, trying to let go of the sensation without exploding – literally. "If you're setting out trying to prove that we're the same people that left here for P4M, then your gonna fail miserably. Those people didn't make it back," he admitted taking a step back from his former teammate and friend, attempting to diffuse this, whatever it was.

But Teal'c wasn't buying it, if anything his gun arm became more intently fixed on him; Jack didn't think it had left his chest this whole time. "So you are admitting that you are not in fact the same Jack O'Neill?" Teal'c declared, his eyes narrowed, gun unwavering; his mind a clouded picture of thoughts and memories, of times when Jack was less than himself, the sound of a woman's scream, a blast, the heat scorching him, and the blank look on a face that wasn't entirely his. Jack shook his head. Teal'c was grieving him. There was sorrow mixed up in all this anger. He thought the real Jack was dead. Or worse. The pit inside the Jaffa at the loss of his brother was as touching as it was irking. They weren't listening, which meant they weren't even in the vicinity of believing they were the real them. "What I'm saying is that I don't appreciate being locked up and separated from my damn wife!" he barked, and Janet stiffened, her whole body seeming to pause in surprise at that word 'wife'.

'Wife…that's original.' Janet thought with clear sarcasm, at what seemed to be the go-to for alternate universe versions of the two of them. Well, he supposed they were following trend given as technically it had been an alternate universe wedding too.

"General O'Neill and Colonel Carter are not and would not marry. It is against Air Force regulations," Teal'c intoned darkly, clearly of the belief that this sealed it for him in the imposter stakes. Although Jack was mildly impressed that it was the idea of regs not that he and Sam might have strong enough feelings to want to marry, that was causing the consternation. Teal'c's mind had gone directly to alternate, alternate Earth though rather than Ba'al which was interesting. Janet though looked a bit more thoughtful, it wasn't the marriage that bothered her, more why the hell raise that when it was only more likely to make them look suspicious' kind of thoughtful.

"Like I said, two years is a long time. And there's no regulations if you're presumed dead Teal'c," Jack reminded him, "exceptional circumstances and all that." He added and received nothing back from the resolute Jaffa other than a wall of suspicion.

"Enough!" Janet snapped stepping between their stare down and shooting Teal'c a look that had him nodding and backing up to return to his impression of a living statue by the door, gun still aimed at him, before she rounded on Jack again, looking thoughtful.

"Fair enough Jack. The truth is, we have good reason to worry that you're an imposter…." She grimaced. "Because Ba'al of all people, made a clone of you. And he fooled us. Hell he fooled a lot of people including the damn Replicators – however briefly." Janet muttered, finally voicing the damn suspicion so he could react to it, which was good because he was one slip up from giving away his mind reading secret, which would no doubt leave him in a hole somewhere. He opened his mouth to retort when she steamrolled on. "I mean, you're clearly a more advanced version, if that is the case," Janet explained, her voice coming out in a rush with more than a quiver of unease in it. He was picking up a lot of pain and a flash of anger in those memories. Grief too – just like Teal'c which never bode well. Followed quickly by anger and the distinct desire to be the hell away from him. Her shoulder twinged and so did his, he couldn't help but roll it, reaching up to squeeze the flesh. Transferred sensation of pain was a new mental power he could do without thank you very much.

Janet's reaction was quite visceral, her eyes tracking the movement with clear suspicion and no small amount of rage that might have made his balls shrivel up back inside somewhere had he not been on the receiving end of it once or twice before. He stilled, not wanting to give away that he was in her headspace or agitate her further, because something had clearly upset her the last time she saw his face. He turned the movement into a crick of his neck running his free hand to the back of it and looking down at the floor swiftly.

"Clone huh. Let's say I suspend my disbelief and mild outrage that Ba'al of all assholes cloned me. That'd make him the second asshole FYI that's done that if we count the mini-me," he raised two fingers to highlight the sore point. "You do realise that when you snap out of this, we need to boobytrap my DNA or something," he griped.

"I notice you're not denying it," Janet pointed out.

"Because it's ridiculous! I'm not a damn clone!" he barked grateful at least that he could vocalise his derision for this whole idea now. Janet flinched and Teal'c didn't. "I mean forget the fact that we just busted on through the iris in a way that no Goa'uld has ever managed. Dropped some entirely alternate universe version of the Asgard at your feet. Along with a bunch of guns and armour no one here is going to be able to identify... and a brand spanking new untampered with ZPM. All of that aside, what the hell would Ba'al want with a clone of me?" Jack exclaimed letting every bit of frustration and accusation he'd been wanting to level at them for the last few minutes spill out with her reveal having given him his brief window of opportunity.

He picked up from her surface thoughts that she was more confused as to how or more likely why Ba'al would have done all that, rather than convinced by it. Which was making her divert possibly to the damn alternate versions theory again, but she at least considered the question. It seemed they'd been doing nothing but considering it since that clone had shown up and done whatever damage he'd done.

"Your DNA is unique," Janet replied cryptically. "We have reason to believe that Ba'al was looking to create a Hok'tar... an advanced human host for himself." Jack winced; he remembered the last Hok'tars he'd encountered. Poor bastards had suffered horribly at Nirrti's hands before she'd tried to liquify Sam, which of course meant she'd had to go. They'd had some fancy abilities too though, if he recalled correctly, albeit without his shiny new complexion. Janet though was waiting for a some sort of dumb-ass response.

He coughed, "So what? You mean all that Ancient crap I can make light up?" he hissed playing up the 'dumb', looking between them and getting the confirmation he needed. Ah. Seemed like it had been wise to keep schtum about the abilities after all then if they were looking to jump on any hint of mutant Ancient abilities right now.

"Exactly," Janet snapped.

"What?" he asked, "I mean… why?" there was genuine confusion there.

"We believe he's interested in Ascension – just like Anubis." Janet added, her eyes scanning his features for obvious tells as if he'd just cop to it.

"You know, I don't see them letting him into that particular club – I hear they're picky." Jack sniffed. "He does know that whole plan clearly went sideways for Anubis right?" No one responded and he stared flatly between them, they were really fixated on this idea. "Okay. Well, not to burst your bubble, but like I said... I'm not a damn clone. Why don't you test me? I've got lots of lovely, classified memories to prove that. Some not so nice recent ones too."

Janet's expression turned pinched. "Ba'al has had great success with memory transfer in his own clones," she replied, his suggestion clearly carrying no weight at all with her.

"Okay. How about a head full of another universe. Or are you telling me we made up all these injuries and the radiation poisoning that had you running for those fancy suits real quick?"

"Radiation is no concern to a Goa'uld," Teal'c sniffed.

"Right. Still, it's a bit of a stretch," Jack replied. "And a piss poor plan really. So let me guess, did he go all smoky and end up like Anubis in a sack of rotting clone-Jack flesh?" Teal'c merely stared coldly at him, eyebrows level – not a good sign, but he knew that look.. "No? So what did happen to the damn Bacci-Jack-clone?"

"He expired," Teal'c growled with enough menace that Jack actually winced; it didn't sound like he'd gone 'gently into that good night'.

"Well I hope like hell it hurt if that son-of-a-bitch Ba'als mind was in there too." Which was true. Janet though didn't look comforted by the thought.

"So you're thinking I'm what? A rebooted Clone 2.0? New and improved and hot out of the petri dish?" He looked flatly at Teal'c, trying to nudge something out of that deep mass of thoughts he was keeping locked down tight.

Janet sighed, cutting off their staring contest with an exasperated huff. "We are entertaining a number of possibilities right now, including the likelihood of the situation you have recounted for us. Along with the notion that you genuinely did go missing but you've returned to an alternate, alternate Earth. There's also the possibility of robots, hosts and even Za'tarc brainwashing." she sighed looking both a little confused and exasperated. "All of which I admit sounds more plausible right now than a nuclear-zombie-apocalypse world," Janet pointed out. "But understand that things have changed in your absence. Both politically here on Earth and with regards to the state of play in the universe. We can't take anything on faith at this point."

"It's been six months on your end, right?" Jack huffed. "How much could have changed?"

"The Goa'uld are gone," Teal'c informed him. "Anubis and his supporters were vanquished and the System Lords were destroyed by Samantha Carter's Replicator duplicate. And the political organisation on Earth, known as the Trust, were revealed to have been infiltrated by Goa'uld and exposed."

Jack opened and closed his mouth. Daniel had mentioned the Goa'uld being gone, back in the Gate room, but that hadn't really sunk in. Said like that it seemed much more final. "Go team!" he exclaimed. Teal'c quirked an eyebrow at him but he had no idea how else to respond to that. "Wow so, the snakeheads are really gone… I hope there was cake," he enthused genuinely thrilled and honestly a little shocked; he'd been half expecting the universe to have been under Anubis' boot by now. "I'm confused though, if the Goa'uld are gone, what's the problem?"

They both clammed up as he looked between them. What he got back was a head full of half-baked notions and the idea of Ori, and something to do with the Ancients. Ori. That rang a bell. "Whatever!" he sighed resigned to it now, "Run your tests. Prove I'm not a clone or whatever the hell else you're worried about. Just make sure to take a good look at all the gear we bought back with us. I'm sure that will be more illuminating than anything I have to say right now given as you've clearly all get your heads up your asses!" he couldn't help his mouth.

"So, you're willing to consent to testing?" Janet confirmed ignoring his insult and Jack rolled his eyes and held up his cuffed wrist.

"Gee Doc. I wasn't aware there was an option in that, but hey, if it eases your conscience some... sure. I consent to being poked and prodded." Jack growled at her; she didn't quite meet his eyes, which was something. As was the flaring of guilt and doubt in her own assertions but like Teal'c, she was doing a magnificent job of corralling her emotions into shape right now. Jack felt a flash of guilt too; he supposed he was being an ass. She was just doing her job, following orders like a good soldier, for the sake of national security. But still, it made him irritable. He could hardly believe this had been the line he'd once towed too, and it seemed pretty restrictive with his fresh set of eyes.

"We appreciate your compliance General," Frasier acknowledged like a good stooge and he grunted at her. "You will be recorded at all times," she turned to point to the wall, "Should you make any aggressive moves, attempt to escape this room or injure a member of staff you will be fully restrained and sedated. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," he bit back.

"So, with all that in mind, how about you level with me and tell me if there's anything else I need to know before I run these lab tests and find it for myself? Or worse yet, wait for our allies to reveal it... because rest assured they are coming to do their own testing," she pressed, arms crossed, clearly at her wits end with all the emotions she was having to keep ramped down until she was sure they were who they were claiming to be.

Jack thought about it seriously. Obviously he wasn't going to fess up right now to being a mutant given everything she'd just said; they'd lock him away as an experimental clone for sure. But there was more than just that he supposed. to tell. "Honestly Doc, we've had so much shit and God knows what in our systems over the last two years, I have no idea what your tests will find. But we're us. Hell, you've tended every bump we've ever had. I'm sure if anyone will know, it's you."

"Fair enough." She paused in her notes. "So you're sticking to your guns about this time discrepancy?" she prompted and Jack nodded. "I see. Would you mind confirming the date you went missing and the details of your last mission?"

"Checking for parallel Earth duplicates?" he quipped but she didn't smile, she was also checking for false or incomplete memories he noted. "Right," he muttered, thinking back. "January 15, 2005. It was a Friday. I remember 'cause it was supposed to be our weekend off. Until we got the call to come help SG-4 on good ole P4M-523. We're calling that place Far Harbour now, FYI," he shared, scrubbing his hands through his hair and feeling suddenly incredibly tired. He wondered if the cot in this cell would be comfy; he seriously doubted it. Plus, there were a lot of minds here with walls up. It was giving him a headache.

"Okay." Janet wrote it down, clearly he'd passed that test. "Then Daniel's right. That was roughly six months ago for us, relatively speaking," she informed him. He looked up at her but she seemed just as confused by it and was hoping Sam might have some answers – if she was the real Sam. Unless of course it was something more mundane that they'd seen before, like lost time due to memory tampering, or a virtual reality simulation of some kind, which would explain those damn VR pods she'd been thinking about. He cocked his head, wondering if there was a possibility that they'd been in some sort of simulation these past two years. Creepy thought… he supposed Ba'al was sadistic enough to come up with something like the Wasteland, but surely not nearly that imaginative?

He wondered if that was how Sam had felt at the beginning. She'd confessed to feeling like her perception of reality was slipping after the whole Fifth thing. Enough to wonder if the Wasteland had been another nightmare scenario. Shit. He hoped they didn't go sharing this VR theory with her. It had taken Sam some pretty fucking hard knocks to shake the idea of a false reality that first year, settling on the notion that not even Fifth was that fucked up to create such a place. Ba'al though? God the whole notion was a head fuck and he tried to delete the idea from his mind, focusing instead on what he thought was the most logical cause – something trippy with the Gate.

"Sam mentioned something about blackholes and gravity not mixing well with time. That or… I don't know… time moving differently in that other universe. On the world we were on, it was 2077 when the bombs fell... and we landed two hundred years after that oh so happy event. So maybe we were already out of time too. That or they just started a calendar way before us," he offered up with a shrug, going for helpful. "But as you know, it's not really my area. All I can tell you is I've had two birthdays out there that I wouldn't have reached without that woman in the cell across the way. So trust me when I tell you, we came the long way round. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with that snaky asshole," he declared, disappointed to hear from her mind that she didn't in fact either trust or believe him right now.

He snapped his fingers realising they had proof. "But, if you don't believe me, Sam's got a journal in those fancy wrist devices we had on. Lots of nuggets of information. She fired that baby up a couple weeks after we hit Sanctuary. Should be date stamped and everything. You know how she likes her mission logs. The tech guys will have a field day. It's nuclear powered don't yah know!" He grinned amiably, pleased to have come up with a possible solution but Janet didn't return it. If anything, she looked more alarmed by that news. Probably the 'nuclear' part. Damn, it might take a while to get used to the idea that nuclear anything tended to make people more twitchy on this Earth.

"You bought a nuclear device through the Gate?" Teal'c accused. Jack glanced at him; 'several' he thought quietly, including the damn suits; he wisely chose not to say that. He glanced back at Janet's alarmed features.

"What? It's perfectly safe…ish," he countered at her look.

"Nuclear apocalypse wasn't it?" she came back with. Score one for Janet.

"Touché." He sighed and ran his hands up through his hair. "Maybe don't let them futz with it too much without Sam." He mimed an explosion. Given Bill had once almost taken the whole base out with a plant, he wasn't giving them the benefit of the doubt either. Although the reminder of that incident made him reconsider the wisdom in his silence… maybe he should mention it, out of self-preservation if nothing else. "Doc between you and me, it'd probably be best if they didn't touch that fancy Power Armour of ours too." He swallowed nervously, "The power cores are a bit twitchy," he paused and Teal'c's eyebrows threatened to take off. "Some of the guns too, come to think of it." He winced and Janet paled; he gave her a sheepish look.

"See. We could have easily blown you up by now if we'd have meant it. Hell, Sam would have just let that countdown go off," he pointed out.

Janet swallowed hard. "Point taken. Which is why all of your gear, including the ZPM, has been sent through to the Beta Site for quarantine."

Jack sighed, not bothering to hide his crestfallen look at that. "Well, that sucks. Whose bright idea was that?"

"The IOA," Janet replied sounding like she was uttering a swear word.

She might as well have been. "Oh, don't tell me that ass in a suit is back."

"Mr Woolsey is leading the civilian investigation into your return," Teal'c confirmed dryly and Janet's expression said it all. After what Woolsey had tried to do in getting them all shut down, and blaming Janet for not saving Airman Wells, well, he was no one's favourite person around here.

"Really – even after the last time?" he grimaced feeling disdain at the idea. This was getting better and better.

"Look Jack. Seeing as you aren't going to address the obvious elephant in the room, I'm going to have to ask. Your appearance isn't exactly helping your case right now." She pointed to his face. He knew this would bite him in the ass. "You look a good decade or two younger than when we last saw you. Much like the robotic version of you that believed himself to be the real Jack O'Neill when he reappeared some years later, pretending to be you," she recounted.

"Hey! You say that like I had anything to do with it! That was all Harlan. And besides, that robot-me, and Sam's for that matter, was killed," Jack pointed out, thinking about Harlan and his 'better bots'. "Trust me Doc… we're not robots or fakes. That's been tested to death where we've just come from. They'd been drinking the robots-are-better than humans Kool-Aid too." Although Jack had to admit that was going to be a sore point with Sam if they threw that accusation at her right now.

"Oh, I see. So it was in fact a robot-nuclear-zombie-apocalypse alternate earth was it?" she aimed at him, not bothering to hide her sarcasm, which warned him he was skating on thin ice and straining credulity. Hell, he hadn't even gotten to half the good stuff yet. He wondered what she'd think if he threw in Super-mutant trolls too. But it seemed he'd long past the point where she'd stopped believing a word out of his mouth. Interesting. He had thought he'd get less leeway than that. He gave Teal'c a glance but the man was as emotive as a mountain right now.

"Okay. Good to know you draw the line at robots. I thought for sure you'd stop at zombies," he smirked at her.

"Can you be serious for five minutes General?!" she snapped, her nostrils flaring as he finally riled her and a little of her emotions actually bled out.

"I don't know… do you have a test for that too?"

She shook her head despairingly at him and threw her hands up in the air, before pacing his cell. But at least she was thinking he was winding her up to the same degree as he always had, which was something.

"Look Jack. Whether you want to accept it or not, this is serious. Unless we can prove unequivocally that you are who you say you are, and not a Ba'al clone again with a head full of his nasty thoughts and memories, here to destroy us… or meet up with Repli-Carter and create merry-hell."

"That happened?" he asked both horrified and intrigued at the notion of a Ba'al, Repli-Carter team up. Jesus, no wonder they were getting the full shake down, especially if Ba'al had been wearing his face at the time, which was just a whole level of creepy he hoped to add to that black box in his head never to be thought of again.

Teal'c strode forward, getting right in his face and towering over his seated form. "You are fooling no one Ba'al. How the mighty have fallen, when you must come seeking shelter from the humans dressed as O'Neill of all things. Confess and we will put you out of your misery and end this pathetic existence you have left, before sending you back to let the Tok'Ra rip you out this clones head!" Teal'c growled, the menace in his tone and proximity actually made Jack twitch slightly. He'd never liked being threatened and Teal'c was itching to tear him limb from limb. He was 'that' certain he wasn't the 'real' O'Neill. But behind all that anger… was that guilt again.

He held his hands up in surrender, "Hey, big fella…." he looked up from Teal'cs impressive chest, "I get that your pissed, I am too, I feel all kinds of dirty knowing Ba'als been running around in a Jack suit. But you being all uppity with me right now is not helping. Because I'm not that guy. And unless this really is a parallel Universe, then this is America and I'm damn well innocent until proven guilty!" He quirked his own eyebrow at them both; but despite what he thought was quite an impressive speech, they didn't bite. It was right up there with that time he'd called Carter a National Treasure he'd thought.

"Your trial will come." Teal'c threatened which made him feel all warm and tingly inside.

"Good, ask me anything! Let me prove it. I'm me. I have every damn one of my memories... even the ones I'd rather forget." He swore, staring down Teal'c and hoping like hell the big man could wake himself the hell up and look at him… really look.

"We will see," Teal'c growled and retreated to the door, gun still on him and his mind as shuttered as ever.

Dejected Jack slumped back onto his cot, hands thrown up, the one with the cuff pulling. "Fine. Whatever. Why don't you go run your damn tests. Do what you got to do. Hell! Call the Asgard. I'm sure they've got super fancy scanners and they'd be more than happy to help seeing as we've come baring gifts to cure their cloning ills. Two birds, one stone for an SGC home run."

"Oh, don't worry General. The Asgard were called about half an hour ago," Janet informed him coolly. "They're on their way but it may take them a little time given how far they've retreated into their Galaxy. But trust me, they more than anyone will want to ensure that Ba'al's O'Neill clone isn't up to his old tricks," Janet assured him. "But don't think you've distracted me. I asked you about the facelift and you evaded the question," she pointed out and he had to admire her moxie and attention to detail despite the weirdness of the situation.

Jack sighed and let his hands slide across his recently rejuvenated cheeks and settle over his eyes, pressing hard enough that he saw white spots. "I don't know what to tell you given as you think I'm either lying or have been in fantasy land for the past six months. All I know is what I experienced. On this world we were stuck on, they had advanced medicine. Which is why we want you to preserve the very real chem kit I gave you that Woolsey's so conveniently squirreled away off world. Which is theft FYI. That stuff is ours and I'll be wanting it back," he growled, feeling a little protective, they'd literally 'killed' for that gear.

"How does advanced medicine come into this?" Janet asked, ignoring his indignation. "Why do you think? I got hurt. Bad," he snipped.

"By what?" she merely continued like a damn robot herself.

Jack winced; he'd hoped she wouldn't ask. He didn't particularly want to lie. Teal'c had a way of smelling those. So had Janet for that matter. So truth even if it further strained his credibility. "Big, hulking super mutant." He told her honestly and she frowned. "Hey! You wanted me to stop at robots. I never got to the mutants. Think of them like a troll, only meaner, and dumber," he clarified. "Damn thing pretty much split me open like a filet-o-fish." He gestured to his chest. "Which accounts for the lovely wound you saw in the shower."

"I did, and frankly I have no idea how you could have survived such a grievous wound. Not without a sarcophagus, or a hand device maybe," Janet pointed out. Jack shrugged.

"Well, we were fresh out of those. Which left Sam to carry my sorry ass across the battlefield and make a deal with the closest thing to a doctor going," he explained, with no small amount of internalised guilt given as what happened as a direct consequence of that deal. "But I'll be honest. The details are kind of fuzzy." Frasier gave him a look that cried 'bullshit' and he plastered on a genuinely irritated look.

"Hey!" he cried out indignant, "I wasn't really paying attention at the time given as I was kind of coughing up a lung and most my guts out at the time. Next thing I knew I was waking up like Frankenstein's monster twenty-four hours later, with this lovely souvenir and a face I didn't expect to see again staring at me out of the mirror." It was a mostly true version minus a few Ancient related tangents and what Sam had done to secure his damn life. He'd take that to his damn grave if he had to for her but he reckoned it was a strong enough recollection to pass most lie detectors as omissions weren't lies, not really, or so the US Government had always taught him. That was of course unless they whipped out that old Za'tarc device again. God he hoped they didn't but given as they seemed to be doubting their memories he suspected the Tok'ra might have been called in with that damn memory doodad about the same time the Asgard were.

Teal'c shifted. "Do you expect us to believe that you did not ask for details of this procedure once you were sufficiently recovered?

Jack raised an eyebrow at him. "I asked. I got a lot of mumbo jumbo back and to be frank, out there it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth… or at all... sideways glances at most. There's some shit you can't unknow. Like what's in the mystery meat." He shuddered and felt his stomach shift uncomfortably at the reminder of a certain meat packing factory, fighting the urge to wretch, "Doc I really think you should check me out for gut rot or something," he suggested, certain he looked green. Her expression looked somewhere between horrified and curious.

"Okay." Janet grimaced, noting something on his chart that was related to his digestive system. But her attention quickly swung back around to his damn makeover. "I suppose given the grievousness of the wound it's understandable that you'd have gaps in your recollections. I'll have to speak to Sam about it though." She held a swab out, not sounding okay in the least about his grisly tale as she attempted to make her voice hide the tremor that Jack new was running down the back of her spine. He'd always known Frasier was a tough nut but it was impressive nonetheless to see her control her emotions like this, given as she was rightly terrified of what answers she might find. Like that he maybe was a Frankenstein-like zombie, because she couldn't see how he could have survived that kind of injury no matter how advanced the science. Which was what was leading her to thoroughly believe it was all part of some simulation and that Ba'al had created the wound to match the narrative. Personally, he thought that was more farfetched than the real story but hell, what did he know anymore? All of their experiences at the SGC had taught them to expect the unexpected; it was mostly hindering him now.

"I need to examine you. Strip down please," she asked all business, and for the second time that day he got buck naked as she did a thorough examination of his entire body. Teal'c was resolute but even he seemed to grow faintly alarmed at Janet's increasing hisses of disapproval the more of him that was revealed and she found more bite marks, bullet holes, knife wounds and general scars. He might as well be fucking Frankenstein's monster he realised, with the amount of times he'd been carved up and put back together. He felt her growing concern as she realised that his old injuries, the ones she was looking for, were gone. Her hands hovered over his knees and he knew she was looking for the incisions from the multiple surgeries he'd had back on Earth.

"The old wounds are gone," he acknowledged waving at his face, "It was a regenerate all kind of deal in the great reset."

"Convenient." She pursed her lips.

"Indeed," Teal'c growled, glaring at him soundly. "Just as from overuse of a sarcophagus."

Jack shifted uncomfortably; the level of hostility from the big guy was truly unsettling and it wasn't improving. "Not really. As it turns out, beggars can't be choosers," he replied, knowing that he was sure as shit that he'd take this option again if presented itself because he had zero intention of dying on Sam if he could damn well help it. Shit. He'd need to change his will – remove that pesky 'no extraordinary means' he'd added after finding out about hers, given as he had someone to live for now.

"To be fair, if you're upset by the state of me now, be grateful you didn't see me before the reset," he shared, thinking of the Radscorpion sting, the burns, the bullet holes, knife wounds, bites and God knows what else he'd picked up that first year in hell. There was that God awful shot that had damn near knee-capped him; he'd been forced to let heal naturally as he traipsed across the Wasteland on it to get back to Sam.

"That's not exactly encouraging Jack," she bit out, hitting what she thought might be his false name hard. "I take it that these other injuries I'm seeing... that this medicine…" she swallowed looking up from a particularly unpleasant looking ragged bullet wound through the back of his hand that he'd got from a plucky asshole with a lucky shot when he'd stormed the triggermen gangs in Goodneighbour "…it healed at an accelerated rate? Restoring function but leaving a scar?" She brushed the damaged flesh. "So you're saying that every single scar on your body now was earned after this supposed regeneration?" She was bemused about the fact that he'd have scars of any kind again; she was back to that idea of Ba'al harming them to create realism, or the mind creating the damage it was experiencing. He still thought it was seriously overcomplicating the issue.

Jack shrugged. "Yep, that's the deal, it was all reset about a year ago – our time. But I've still got enough damage to be going on with don't you think?." He sighed. God knows how many he'd have if he hadn't started wearing the damn Power Armour. Janet stood hands on her hips, as he got to his feet and pulled his pants back up, meeting her gaze unflinchingly. The look in his eyes seemed to unnerve her and he could only imagine what she was seeing.

"I think you were right about one thing though. You're not the Jack O'Neill I remember," she told him uneasily.

"Oh?" he asked nonchalantly, despite the sudden pounding of his heart. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so cavalier suggesting that idea; this situation could go wrong fast.

"No," she admitted quietly. "He at least used to make some effort to conceal his darker impulses – you though, I get the feeling you haven't been doing that in a while." He wasn't self-deluded enough to deny that. She looked up at him and he got the very distinct mental image of her being dragged along a corridor like a living shield by someone with his 'old' face. Then she pushed the thought away, like a bad memory she didn't want to see again as she took in a shuddering breath, a faint tremble to her bottom lip and a crack in her otherwise composed expression.

Jack cocked his head taking her in anew. Seemed like her and this 'clone' of him had some history, and a nasty dash of trauma to go along with it. Which might explain some of the animosity and fear she and Teal'c had been aiming his way this whole time. Again, he was left wondering just what his clone had done. But he had to acknowledge her observation skills - his body spoke of a violence and there was danger coiled in his frame that she had every reason to fear. He'd been forged into a weapon far beyond the Air Force's imagining out there in the Wasteland. No one could mask what he'd become and she'd literally stripped him bare and got a good look at his demons, which had been running rampant for a while out there. Goa'uld clone, duplicate or alternate, whatever she believed, she wasn't wrong. He could admit it to himself in the stark fluorescent lighting, that he was a little closer to the monster now.

"So this was fun Doc. You got a verdict yet? Am I me?" he asked, ignoring her comment for now and pushing aside her growing concerns with a flippancy he didn't feel.

"We'll have to wait for the test results." She pursed her lips. "In the meantime, you've lost weight, albeit you've certainly gained muscle mass."

"Which I'll bet is mighty Impressive if I've supposedly been sat in a VR machine on my ass the last six months."

She gave him a flat unamused look, but mentally added the contradiction in her findings to support the alternate earth column, along with the thought that it didn't rule out intravenous feeding, though it perhaps hadn't been optimised to a human pallet with– too much protein, not enough calories. He had to admire her determination or possible wilful ignorance to discount the frigging obvious. "I'm going to recommend we get you started on some sort of high calorie diet." She continued making notes in her chart.

He sighed. "Fine. Can't be worse than chowing down on centuries old, canned food and damn huge mutant bugs," he groused and Janet frowned, clearly picking up on his somewhat defeatist tone with a hint of sympathy starting to nudge at her conscience.

"I'm doing my best Jack. I have to entertain all possibilities and right now, if you were me, which is more plausible? This nightmare world or just a nightmare?" she posed and he shrugged; despite her words, she made a note on her chart that added a parasite screening and several rounds of a full spectrum antibiotic.

When she was done, Jack couldn't help but breath out a sigh of relief as she approached the door to his cell, going to stand beside Teal'c. He picked up on Janet's apprehension but not about him; she was gearing herself up to do it all again, this time with Sam, and she was nervous as all hell about it.

"Janet," he called out and she stopped, turning back to face him. "Look. I know that you have your reservations about us. Hell, looking at the mess that place has made of us, I'd have reservations too. And I get that you don't know right now if we're the real us or not, or if any of what we experienced needs to be taken into account."

Janet looked back at him. Her eyes scanning over his face, seeing the changes and doubt settling heavy over her. His mind reading trip wasn't helping any given as he was gaining insights he knew he probably wouldn't have picked up on before, but he couldn't help that right now. "Given that, I get that it's the smart play to keep us at arm's length. To treat us like the bad guys or delusional nut jobs until we've proven we're not," he huffed, the whole innocent until proven guilty thing never had meshed well with National Security.

"But I need you to understand something," he insisted. "Soon enough, you're going to realise that we're definitely us. Which means that the woman in the cell across from here is your friend, just try to bear that in mind huh when you go in there."

Janet swallowed, her eyes narrowing a fraction but she nodded and he felt the idea settle inside of her and he nodded back. He couldn't ask the soldier in her to cut Sam a break, but maybe he could ask the woman. Teal'c hesitated in the doorway giving him a long hard look before stepping through. The door closed between them and he got one last look at Sam across the way as Janet and Teal'c entered her cell before the SFs locked his up, tight. He stood and moved to the small viewing window in his cell door, still not able to get a clear read on her through all this damn steel and concrete.

He considered waiting with his ear pressed against the door but that might tip off the watching camera that he was a little too bothered about Sam right now – never a good idea to show a co-dependency or worse a vulnerability in captivity. Although every single member of his team, and probably most of the SGC knew that Samantha Carter was his kryptonite, so it was probably a wasted effort. Still, he went for the usual Jack O'Neill irreverence, putting that mask back on over his 'darker impulses' as Janet had so aptly called them, whilst he flopped on the bed, throwing his unchained arm over his face and feigning getting a little shut eye.

"Daniel. If you're listening... can I get a ball?" He glanced up at the camera. "And a nice cold beer?" There was of course no response and he sighed. "Just a thought."

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Author's Note:

You didn't think it would be that easy for them did you?

The SGC always has been a place for shenanigans, seems like there's been a fair bit happening in their absence however long it really was…

Sorry for the slow update – I have had a mad few weeks. Thank you so much to my Beta Neverbefore for all her hard work to get these latest chapters back to me and for dealing with all my edits!