"What's so funny?" O'Neill asks, not unkindly.
"You and Daniel... are together...?" I choke.
"For a few years now, yeah." Daniel says gently.
I'm still laughing but I have a feeling it is rapidly turning to crying. Not that I know any more. Not that I can really bring myself to care that Daniel Jackson, MD and Jack O'Neill, PhD are gay and a couple. This is a fucked up alternate universe and... "I just wanna go home."
"Where's home?" Daniel asks.
"I don't even know any more if you'll believe me."
"Well, how about we start with your name?" O'Neill suggests, pulling up a chair. Daniel is sitting on the bed next to me.
"Captain Dakota Storm. United States Marine Corps. Currently stationed at Cheyenne Mountain."
"Neither of us have worked there for a while so I'm not sure if we've met you?" O'Neill says. "Have we?"
I shake my head. "No, you haven't. I've met you but you haven't met me."
"Huh?"
"Never mind." I shake my head, quickly shoving the tears from my face. Trying to get my mind back under control. "Can we skip past the part where we pretend we know nothing about the Stargate?"
The two men exchange glances.
"Stargate?" O'Neill raises his brow in pretend confusion the way he does so well.
"Fuck it." I snap, way too tired to bother with caution at all. "I'm from an alternate universe where I'm on SG-5. We were babysitting a bunch of scientists. One of them accidentally activated an alien device and here I am. Everything here is completely screwed up and I just want to go home. I need help. I came here hoping you could somehow get me back through the Stargate to your universe's version of that planet and that you could find Carter so she can make the device send me back – if it even exists in your reality. Okay?"
"Do you have an alternate self in this reality?" Daniel asks and I shake my head in response.
"Daniel!" O'Neill protests, clearly annoyed that Daniel isn't following the 'we have no clue what you're talking about' plan.
"I believe her, Jack." Daniel shrugs. The two men stare at each for a very long time.
"Well, at least we don't have to worry about Entropic Cascade Failure." O'Neill huffs eventually, giving in.
"Do you think her idea will work then? Going to our version of the planet she was on when this happened?"
O'Neill considers this. "Possibly. Wait, how do you not know if our version has the alien device? And how did you get back through the Stargate to Earth if you don't exist here?"
"I woke up in my quarters at the SGC – except they were a store room."
"Woah. That's tricky." O'Neill sighs. "That makes things a whole lot more complicated."
"Can you get me through the Stargate though?" I ask. "I mean now that you don't work there any more and everything with the demilitarisation."
"Sure." O'Neill shrugs. "Just gotta convince Hammond and Kinsey. Shouldn't be too hard. Daniel is pretty convincing when he gets going."
"I've seen Hammond." I admit.
"You have?"
"What happened?" Daniel asks.
"His wife is a Goa'uld. Where I come from they're the bad guys posing as Gods and enslaving millions."
"Yes... that is very different." O'Neill muses. "Disconcerting for you, I would imagine. To find out that General Hammond's wife is one, I mean."
"Uh, yeah." I ask in a very small voice. "So they're really not evil here?"
"A bit smarmy sometimes – for my taste anyway..." O'Neill admits. "...but definitely non-evil."
"And you trust Kinsey?"
"God no!" O'Neill laughs. "He's a politician. However, also of the non-evil variety."
Daniel nods. "His heart is in the right place when it counts though."
I gag. "God, our Kinsey is an evil bastard."
"I believe ours used to be rather ruthless back in the day." Daniel muses. "Word is, he had some kind of traumatic epiphany which sort of turned his life around – made him a better man."
"What else is different?" O'Neill leans in enthusiastically. "Am I cool? I'm still cool right?"
"You're very cool." I smile. "Most definitely not a scientist though. You mostly don't even like scientist-types. Except for Carter and Daniel of course."
"Carter? You mean Samantha Carter?" Daniel asks. "She's not a scientist here. She's a former astronaut turned F-302 pilot and now she captains the Prometheus."
"Okay... my Carter is a super-genius astrophysicist. Daniel, you're a triple Ph-D archaeologist, linguist, anthropologist. Janet Fraser is the CMO. O'Neill, you're the leader of SG-1 – former special ops."
"See. I'm so cool." O'Neill smiles. "So it must seem like we're all switched around here. The Goa'uld good. Tok'ra evil. I'm like Carter and Daniel and Janet are switched."
"Yeah." I whisper.
"You hungry?" Daniel asks.
I shake my head. I know I should be but I'm not.
"You probably should eat something anyway. Think you could manage some soup?"
"I guess so."
"Then I prescribe more sleep while we work on getting you home, okay?"
"Okay."
The sleep thing proved to not be much of a challenge at all. The problem was waking up. I drifted in and out. Barely able to stay awake for more than maybe fifteen minutes at a time. With no clue of the time that was passing except for what Daniel and O'Neill told me. I ate when I was told and with help managed to get up to go to the bathroom but that was about it. I listened as they kept me updated on their progress but getting permission to go through the Stargate involved a lot of red tape and would take time. Days were passing – according to them. I didn't really notice or care. Daniel had me on a drip of some kind. I drifted back into consciousness once more to hear them talking.
"She's getting worse, Jack. We're going to have to transfer her to the SGC. This is more than just exhaustion."
"I'll call Kinsey to arrange it." O'Neill makes the call and then continues speaking to Daniel. "It could be a side-effect from the alien device that brought her here."
"Agreed. I'll know more when we get her to the infirmary. Are you sure about calibrating the device to send her back to the planet in her universe rather than her SGC?"
"Considering the original transport was an accident I think it's too risky to try to get her back to her SGC. Getting her from one planet to the same planet in an alternate universe is much safer."
"Is the device there?" I find myself mumbling.
"Yeah, Dakota. It's there. A team went and checked it out."
"Good, good." My voice sounds really weak.
Next time I wake, I'm being wheeled through the SGC on a stretcher. People are yelling things at each other. Daniel is talking about tests he's carried out that I don't remember happening. I must have been unconscious. It sounds like I must have been in the infirmary already and now they're taking me to the Stargate. O'Neill is arguing with Kinsey as we go.
"Alright already, O'Neill! You've made your point. You have a go." Kinsey sighs. He sees my eyes open and leans towards me. The expression on Kinsey's face is kind which totally freaks me out. "Everything is going to be okay, Captain Storm. We'll get you home."
And then we're on the planet and I don't even remember going through the Stargate. I keep blacking out. I feel hot and cold and exhausted. I try to forget that I heard Daniel telling Kinsey that my organs are shutting down. Clearly things are going down the toilet but I so don't care anymore. I just want to spend a little more time with Daniel before I die.