The eerily familiar clanging and clunking of metal emanating from within the massive cloud of dust turned Cameron's knuckles white as he gripped the back of Daniels' chair.
He didn't need to see them to know what they were – Replicators.
Once the dust had dissipated, he saw their familiar form – shiny, metallic hues of blue and grey moved at speed less than a meter away from their position. Instinct had him take a step back and push Sam protectively behind him.
They all watched as hundreds surrounded the columns, the bright golden sand now awash in evil darkness.
For O'Neill this wasn't anything he hadn't already seen. They had been in countless battles with the Replicators for the best part of a year now. In each encounter, it seemed that the causalities were higher on their side. No matter how hard they tried to stop it from happening, the Replicators continued to grow in vast numbers. No weapon they had at their disposal remained effective for long. He had been in many wars in his lifetime and had lived to tell the tales but this one, he thought, this one would probably be his last. As each day came and passed, he grew more and more certain - he would not survive to the end.
Carter watched over Mitchell's shoulder as the Replicators climbed the columns. She prayed they would find them of no interest. The fact that she'd managed to switch off the power source had been more luck than anything else but with the sudden arrival of the first group and then this team gave her the hope that they had uncovered a significant advantage. She looked to her left, saw her husband's counterpart move her counterpart behind him in a protective gesture, and smiled – some things never change no matter what. She knew what they were thinking, if the Replicators came to the conclusion that the columns held nothing valuable, they may destroy them regardless and with it their only chance of getting back home.
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Silence had encompassed the ship for over an hour and nobody dared to speak. With their backs turned, they didn't notice that two of the Replicators had entered the ship.
Rodney McKay felt a phantom prickle on the back of his neck and his eyes widened. He never ignored the feeling it was a sixth sense and it had saved his life many a times. He turned around slowly; fear crawling through his body, less than a foot away from him stood two Replicators.
"Oh God! Guys we've got a problem!" McKay whispered, the urgency in his voice was no less apparent than if he'd had been screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Wha'?" The question died on Daniel's lips as he too saw what McKay was pointing aggressively at.
O'Neill got up from his chair cautiously and stood next to McKay. The Replicators remained still, like they were confused, carefully he reached out with his right arm and attempted to touch the nearest of the two.
McKay grabbed his arm before he could touch it, "Are you nuts!" He hissed at him.
"McKay…" O'Neill warned, Rodney muttered something that sounded like 'it's your funeral' before letting him go.
Warily he reached out to touch the Replicator and as he did, his hand went right through it.
"It worked!" Jonas exclaimed as he too moved his hand through the second Replicator.
"Carter, great job, well done!" Jack applauded her work by giving her a good hearty pat on the back.
"Thanks Sir." She replied embarrassed by the praise.
O'Neill stood in the middle of the group taking a quick look at each of them, "We're going to be here for a while folks so get comfortable."
Because there weren't enough seats available they decided to sit on the floor of the ship, all except Jonas who kept watch on the goings on outside. Sam, Cameron and Rodney sat alongside one wall and the others opposite them.
"Okay, before we get started, in order to prevent confusion, my set of twins will be identified as Mitchell and Carter," O'Neill instructed gesturing towards them, "And you two will be Sam and Cameron." The four of them nodded. "Good now that we've got that out of the way…I take it you three are from an alternate reality?"
Sam answered his question, "It appears that way, yes."
"But are you from the same reality as the other group or should we be expecting more guests?"
"No we're from the same reality, by the way where are the others?" Cam asked the question this time.
"They're fine. A scout ship picked up their arrival on its scanner and transported them to the Daedalus." Daniel replied.
"Start from the beginning." O'Neill said.
Sam relayed to them the events that had led them to their present circumstance.
"We were going to gate back to Atlantis and run the writing through the database and the readings through the computer and that's when I realised that Mitchell, sorry Cameron, had disappeared," McKay picked up the conversation, "Sam wouldn't leave so we retraced his steps and wound up here."
When O'Neill raised his eyebrow, McKay realised he may have said too much and tried to back track, "What I meant to say was…"
"What you meant to say was," Jack interrupted him remembering the kiss, "that come hell or high water she wouldn't leave without him," O'Neill said his eyes wondering to Sam and Cameron and then he turned towards Mitchell and Carter and looked at them pointedly, "Well doesn't THAT sound familiar!"
"You kidding me, them too?!" McKay blurted before thinking.
Mitchell couldn't help himself as he thought of the McKay of his reality, "If you want, I can refer you to the same therapist our Rodney McKay uses – you can look him up when you get back, he's worked wonders on our Meredith - who's also having a little trouble with this whole jealousy thing too." Mitchell couldn't stop grinning at Rodney's gob smacked expression.
Laughter vibrated through the ship and it became louder the more he turned red.
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The mood turned more sombre when the topic of conversation turned to the subject of the Replicators.
"The Replicators here don't look anything like the ones we had." Sam commented as she remembered the subtle differences in their appearance.
"Had?" Jonas asked trying not to get too excited, if they had defeated the Replicators in their reality, this could be over very soon.
"Yeah. It wasn't easy, they were a very persistent, pain in the ass bug, let me tell you, and we thought we got them all when the Asgard put them in the time dilation bubble but somehow they managed to reverse it before it could be activated. The bubble gave them all the time they needed to evolve into the human form. Their construction changed from being visible blocks to microscopic nanites. We managed to penetrate it and recalibrate it back to its original purpose. But it didn't hold them indefinitely; it took them almost 2 years to escape from Halla and still hell bent on conquering the universe." She went on to tell them about Fifth and the Replicator Carter, how they eventually managed to rid the Milky Way of Replicators, thanks to the Ancient weapon on Dakara. "We thought that was the end of them, until the Atlantis team discovered an entire civilisation of Replicators living in the Pegasus galaxy. We eventually learned that they were in fact the original Replicators – created by the Ancients in their fight against the Wraith. They of course then decided they wanted control of Atlantis and …"
"And I came up with the design for F.R.A.N and we destroyed them with the help of a temporary alliance with the Wraith and..." McKay added recalling his moment of glory.
"F.R.A.N?" Carter asked intrigued.
"Yeah she wanted a name so I called her F.R.A.N – it stands for Friendly Replicator Android."
They told them the story behind the destruction of the human form Replicators in the Pegasus galaxy. When they finished O'Neill asked them if they could do the same here.
Rodney and Sam looked at each other, making the calculations in their head, "We could try but there are vast differences between the Replicators we destroyed and the ones that you have here. What I'm trying to say is that, it only worked on the human form and there's no way of telling if it'll work here." Was Sam's reply.
"Have you managed to capture any?" Cameron asked. He knew it was a huge risk capturing a Replicator but if they stood any chance of devising a weapon against these Replicators, they needed to know what they were up against.
"No, it's too dangerous to keep them on any of our ships."
"Have you considered using force fields to contain them?" McKay questioned Carter.
"Yeah. We developed multi phasic force fields and even rotated the frequency every 30 seconds but it didn't work." Mitchell said shaking his head, remembering the lives they had lost aboard the Phoenix. "It took it less than a day to break free, within 3 days there were thousands. We lost the ship and the entire crew."
Sam asked shocked, "What kind of Replicators are these?"
Mitchell scratched his head wondering where to begin, "Well let's see, there's five levels in the hierarchy. Level one consists of…"
"Whoa rewind!" Cameron demanded as he sat up straight, "Hierarchy?!"
"Yeah, you didn't have that?" O'Neill asked leaning forward. How different were things between their two realities?
"In the human form Replicators, yes. The spidery one's soul purpose was to consume new technology, replicate and protect the momma bug."
"So you had a Goa'uld Replicator hybrid for a Queen too?" Carter knew the answer as soon as she saw the astonishment on their faces – they hadn't.
"God, things are a lot different here! Goa'uld and Replicator hybrid. How did THAT happen?" McKay asked still reeling from the revelation.
"We don't know but our best guess is somehow they got a hold of an immature symbiote and integrated it into their mechanics - for reasons yet unknown. Now through some sort of 'link' the hybrid is controlling the entire army of Replicators and using them to take over the galaxy." Carter told them.
"What's this hierarchy you mentioned before?" Cameron asked, absently rubbing the injury near his collarbone.
"It consists of five levels. The first level is the Arachnids you've just seen. They're the scouts, the sentries… basically the foot soldiers. The second level is the Reapers; they are two types of Reapers. The first type, when they join, can transform themselves into projectile weapons within seconds and the second type are the energy-based ones. They're basically walking/flying bombs. They have a store of highly powerful energy within their bodies and when that reaches a certain mass," Mitchell paused, "Each bug becomes as effective as a couple of pounds of C4."
Nobody said a word so he continued, "The third level is what we call the Nanny Replicator. When an Arachnid is destroyed, the individual blocks give off a signal, like a homing beacon, and the Nanny just absorbs them into its body and spits out baby Arachnids." It was the best description he could come up with, "The fourth level is the Generals, they relay the orders from the Queen to the others and then finally you've got the Queen, part organic part machine."
"O'Neill!" Jonas called him over and the rest followed. "Looks like they're leaving." They watched as the Arachnids amassed into two large ships and flew off.
"I've never seen anything like it." McKay muttered looking at the disappearing blue blobs in wonderment.
"Mitchell scan for any ships in the vicinity." O'Neill ordered. Relieving Jonas of his position, Mitchell carried out the order.
"Nothing but those sentries left behind." He reported back, pausing for a long moment as if in deep thought he turned to his CO, "Sir, I recommend we stay here, they're up to something."
"Me too." His commanding officer said concurring with his assessment. He could make out the hundred or so near the three columns in the diminishing light.
"Okay folks, get some sleep. We'll take shifts, Cameron you and I will take the next watch, then the two Carters and Mitchell and McKay will take the last."
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"Carter?" Sam called her over and pulled her to one side.
"Hey, everything ok?" She asked her concerned. It still felt weird talking to herself.
"Yeah, I need the First Aid box and any extra bandages you've got."
"You hurt?" She asked looking her over, she appeared to be fine, tired but otherwise okay.
"No, they're for Cameron; he needs to change his dressings."
"Plural?" Carter looked over at Cameron who was easing himself into the second chair.
Sam nodded looking over at her husband, "Yeah, he's in pretty bad shape."
"Follow me." Carter led her past the bunks and into a little room at the back of the ship.
"You've made a lot of modifications to the Tel'tak." Sam said looking at her surroundings.
"Yeah, we got rid of the sarcophagus and turned this into a supply room; we've even got a bathroom with a shower. We spend so much time in space that this ship has almost become home."
She looked at Sam and was about to say something but thought the better of it.
"What?" Sam prodded.
"You and Cameron?"
"What about us?" Sam asked almost defensively.
"How long?"
"We've been together as a couple for about two weeks and we've been married for two and a half days."
Carter's eyebrows shot up, "That was fast!"
Smiling Sam told her about the dream, how she had kissed him and then ran, only to have him follow. She told her of the crash, how she'd nearly lost him and about the simple but magical wedding ceremony, "I've never been happier. I know it sounds really corny but… he's my all." She said shrugging.
Carter grinned because that was exactly how she felt for her Cameron.
"So what about you and Mitchell?" It was her turn to tell.
"We've been together for nearly six years."
"There's something I've been meaning to ask you…"
"You want to know how come Jack O'Neill's okay with it?" She asked reading her mind. "When we first got together we kept it a secret for almost 18 months and then I got pregnant." Carter paused. "We decided that being together and starting a family was more important to us than our careers. It wasn't an easy decision to make, trust me. I couldn't sleep for weeks thinking about it. I'd never seen him so angry. Anyway, we retired early and moved to be near his parents and a few weeks later we got married and now we have a beautiful little boy." She said beaming with pride as she showed Sam a picture of her brown haired, blued eyed bundle of joy.
XXXXXXXXXX
Sam sneaked into Cam's bathroom as he showered and wrote a little message for him on the steam covered mirror. Hearing the shower being turned off she left quickly but not before memorising his wet and naked silhouette. The image would keep her going for the rest of the day, she thought grinning as she walked out the front door.
Stepping out of the shower the first thing Cam inhaled was the exotic scent of Sam's perfume. He walked towards the mirror to see what message she had left for him. It was always the same three words but he never got tired of hearing or reading them.
During the early days of their relationship, in their love crazed teenager phase, they'd scribble messages of love for each other on the mirror whilst the other was showering – which wasn't often as they'd always end up in the shower together anyway, he remembered with a grin. Nowadays they were still love crazed, still ended up in the shower together more often than not and had carried on the tradition of the love notes.
Cam read the message, re-read it and then read it again – what he read wasn't the three words he was used to seeing, so he read it again just in case he was imagining things.
When he read it for the fourth time, he grabbed hold of both sides of the sink and tried to control his breathing and the wild pounding of his heart. When the initial shock had worn off, Cam left the bathroom with a spring in his step and the biggest of smiles plastered on his face.
Before leaving the house, he ran back into the bathroom and read the message again aloud, "Cam I'm pregnant." The one and only thought he had all the way to the SGC was that he was going to be a dad and for the rest of the day he walked on air.
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Sam looked at the clock in her lab nervously. She knew he would have read her message by now and was on his way if not already here. It was almost 0700 and they had a briefing in half an hour but she wanted to see him before then.
She didn't have long to wait. She heard his footsteps on the other side of the door and the almost silent click of it opening and then closing. Her heart was beating a million miles a second as she turned to face him.
She didn't get the chance to form a greeting as she found herself being lifted out of her chair and held in a tight embrace. She held onto him just as tightly, happy beyond imagination and scared also, scared of the new direction their lives were taking but she was also looking forward to it very much.
"We're having a baby!" Cameron exclaimed as he pulled away from her and looked at her. His eyes travelled from her face and rested on her still flat stomach. He imagined what it would look like over the coming months. How it would feel to press his hand against Sam's growing bump and feel the baby moving. To know that they had created a life that was beautiful and innocent, part him and part Sam, to him there was nothing more perfect than that.
"I know!" Sam shook her head, her eyes filling up with tears of joy.
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"Oh my God, he's so beautiful!" Sam exclaimed as she looked at the picture. She saw a gorgeous smiling boy with a head of soft curly brown hair laughing as he sat on his father's shoulders. He had his mother's eyes but he was all Cam. She felt a flutter in her stomach as she imagined what their children would look like.
"I couldn't imagine myself as a mother and now I can't imagine not being one." Carter's eyes misted over, "I miss him so much," She said as she tried to blink her tears away, "I'm sorry…"
Sam reached for her and gave her a heartfelt hug.
"Thanks." She said patting her arm in appreciation, the conversation switched to how both she and Mitchell came to being back on the team. Carter told her that Jack had approached them for a special ops mission – one that would take them into the heart of the Replicator territory, according to intelligence the were amassing an army numbering in the millions. "He said he couldn't trust anyone else to get the job done, he didn't want any one else on the team. We said no at first because of Kalen, but it was because of Kalen we agreed to come back. We had a long talk and though we denied it, we missed that part of our lives. We have to secure our sons' future, which for us is the bottom line."
"I can't wait to meet him."
"He's with dad aboard the Raven; he looks after him when we're away."
"Dad's alive?"
"Yeah…Oh God, I'm so sorry Sam." Carter hugged her counterpart at the realisation that Sam had lost her father. She couldn't imagine what her life would be like without him in it.
Letting her go she passed her the First Aid box and a few rolls of bandages, "Here, go take care of your man and then get some sleep."
When they left the room Carter sat down on one of the bunks, as she was walking passed, Sam asked turning back to her, "What's an ED?"
"It stands for energy displacer. The Replicators can detect the presence of a ship even when it's cloaked so the ED transfers that energy in to the surrounding atmosphere so the Replicators can't tell the difference. It's kinda like being there but not being there, if you know what I mean. If you want, when this is all over we can go over the schematics."
"That would be great, thanks." Excited at the thought, Sam went to her husband.
XXXXXXXXXX
O'Neill and Cameron sat in silence, watching the sentries continue to investigate the columns.
"I know you're anxious to get the rest of your people and get back to your own reality but the mission of my team takes precedence." O'Neill spoke without looking at Cameron.
"I know and the same could be said for me, Sir." Cam replied not looking at him either.
"So what are you going to do?" O'Neill asked turning to look at him.
"Same as what you would do Sir."
"Good." Considering the matter settled O'Neill leaned back in his chair and concentrated on the ceiling.
"Hi."
Cameron turned his attention to his wife as she greeted them.
"You should get some sleep." H e said noticing the tiredness around her eyes.
"I will do as soon as I change your dressings."
At the mention of dressings, O'Neill tore his eyes away from the ceiling and settled his gaze on them. He watched as Sam helped Cameron take of his jacket and then his T-shirt. Mitchell's twin had near enough the entire right side of his chest taped up.
"Jesus what the hell happened to you?!"
Neither of them answered him as Sam slowly peeled off the bandages to reveal a huge ragged, red raw, semi fresh wound underneath.
Cameron sucked in air through his nose as the peeling of the dressings stretched his skin.
"Christ!" Jack exclaimed at what he saw. It looked extremely uncomfortable and definitely painful. It ran from just underneath his collarbone right down to the second rib.
Sam dabbed some cotton wool with hydrogen peroxide and then moved to clean the wound. Gently applying the solution, she began to clean it. Sam knew she was hurting him so she tried to be quick as she could.
When she was halfway, Cam told her to stop for a second while he caught his breathe. Turning his head Cam tried to focus his swimming vision on the planet outside as he told her to continue. He gripped the side arms of the chair so tightly that both of his hands turned white.
Once the front was done, she told Cameron to turn around so that she could do the same for his back.
When Cam turned round O'Neill saw a similar injury. He wondered what had happened to him and why he wasn't laying in a hospital bed somewhere.
After cleaning both sides, Sam applied a cream and rubbed it in gently. Once the cream had been rubbed in, it was just a case of putting on a new dressing and then wrapping it with bandages so that it was tight but there was still room for movement.
When she was done, Sam helped him put his T-shirt back on. "What about your leg?"
"I'll do it later, get some rest Sam." He managed to say through clenched teeth, he could feel the cream worming its way into his extremely tender flesh and it hurt like hell.
She hesitated before giving him a quick kiss on the temple and told them goodnight and left.
O'Neill thought of his Carter and Mitchell and then of the new arrivals and smiled to himself, it must be a universal thing!
Cameron watched Sam leave as he absently rubbed his thigh. When he noticed Jack O'Neill looking at him expectantly, he could feel himself blushing, "Sir-"
"No not that," He said dismissing it, "What the hell happened to you?"
"Oh, that," Cameron let out a sigh of relief and spent the rest of the watch telling him, an edited version of, how he sustained the injuries. Cameron felt more comfortable talking to this Jack O'Neill than his General O'Neill and before he knew it, they were exchanging war stories.
XXXXXXXXXX
Rodney couldn't sleep. He'd spent the better part of the last thirty minutes tossing and turning. He looked over at the other bunks and saw Daniel, Jonas and Sam sound asleep. His eyes settled on the fifth bunk where Carter and Mitchell sat talking in hushed whispers, he knew he shouldn't but he listened in on their conversation anyway.
"What do you think the Replicators are up to?" Sam asked him.
"I don't know but they're acting strange, even for them."
"What do you mean?" She asked him tracing his jaw line with her forefinger.
"It's just a feeling Sam, there's no other way to explain it."
"Hey, you okay babe?" Sam asked moving away from him slightly, concerned; he'd been quiet for the latter part of the day. For the last couple of days he seemed to be in his own world.
Instead of answering her question, he pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her. The gentle rise and fall of his chest and the rhythmic beat of his heart lulled her into sleep.
XXXXXXXXXX
"So who's the President?" Cameron asked.
Jack answered him with a pained look, "Someone very close and dear to my heart, President Woolsey." The sarcasm didn't go amiss.
"Get out of here!" Cam said flabbergasted, "Woolsey?!"
"Oh yeah! Our great leader is one great jerk!"
"Yeah, know what you mean."
There was a moment of comfortable quietness before Jack O'Neill spoke, "Before, you kept mentioning the Asgard, tell me about them."
The way Cameron was looking at him had him touching the air just above his head, "Nope still got the one!" He quiped, "For a second there I thought I had suddenly grown two heads."
"You've never met the Asgard!?" He asked him slowly.
"No, can't say I have."
It took Cameron several minutes to get over the initial shock, "That...that's really really weird. In our reality, you were the one who made first contact with the Asgard and they hold you in high regard - they even named their best ship after you but..."
"But what?"
"Sam had to blow it up."
Intrigued, Jack sat back and listened to the his counterparts adventures in their reality all the while keeping a very close eye on the activities that were taking place not to far from them.
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