Chapter 3

Explanations

(contains season 7 spoilers).

She looked up at Daniel barely able to read Jack's name as she felt a tightening in her throat. Kate remembered how she had left the cargo hold on the Tel'tak and gone into the store room where the replica Jack was morphing through his final phase. She'd covered him in the blanket and grabbed him tightly has he writhed and groaned in agony and held on to him until both exhausted, they had drifted off to sleep. She was awoken by Teal'c and being alone in the room she had presumed that the replica Jack had met the same demise as the rest of them. Kate's eyes widened at the realisation that for the past three and a half months she had been living a lie and that the man she thought was Jack O'Neill was in fact the replica she had rescued back on the Tok'ra ship.

"W-we thought you knew!" stammered Daniel uncomfortably.

Kate felt faint and lunged forward, Daniel came back into the room and caught her and set her down on the bed. Kate put her head in her hands and looked up at Daniel. "Where's the real Jack, what did he do?" asked Kate.

"We have no idea!" continued Daniel. "We just presumed something crazy was going on after that meteor shower a week or so ago. We knew it wasn't a meteor shower right from the first shooting star," added Daniel. "In fact we were certain it must have been a battle raging…. way above the Earth's atmosphere."

Kate was shocked but not entirely surprised as Daniel's pace quickened and she listened on.

"We knew that the Goa'uld Anubis was gaining in strength and had managed to defeat a large number of remaining system lords. We also knew that he was amassing a giant army of super soldiers and it was only a matter of time before he brought his army here to try and conquer Earth." Daniel paused to take a breath.

"However, because everything had died, the batteries on the phones, our walkie talkies we could only surmise that it was Anubis that night and that he had failed…failed because had he succeeded we wouldn't be sitting here right now? So something else must be going on, something big we don't know about." Added Daniel.

Kate pondered on how much bigger it needed to be…we were talking about the end of life on earth. How could she have been so naive as to think that Jack had dropped everything amidst all this just to spend time with someone as insignificant in his life as her.

Daniel continued at an even quicker pace. "We were too curious to just leave it at that so we needed to get to some kind of radio station to find out what was happening. Jack suddenly remembered this lab and the radio tower." Daniel bowed his head guiltily. "We knew you'd be worried if we told you the truth and we didn't know what to expect on the journey here, especially as the weather was turning pretty cold, so we decided to leave you behind for a while. We made a promise that as soon as we found the lab that we'd come and get you…..which we did and here we are." "We've been trying to get a fix on the radio every opportunity we've had since we got here, in-fact I think Jack's in the radio tower now as we speak."

Daniel realised it was a lot for Kate to take in and apologised again, his blue eyes genuinely pleading. "I'm really sorry… for everything!"

…

Back at the SGC 'the real' Dr Daniel Jackson had just left Dr. Weir who had informed him that talks on the treaty had failed yet again.

Dr. Jackson pressed the button on the elevator keypad and cursed. "Egotistical ***** politicians," he said to himself. "You would have thought that now these governments had been made aware of the Stargate programme and the ongoing threat to Earth, that it would have made them a lot more eager to co-operate with one another." He huffed as the elevator came to a halt and the door opened allowing him to retreat once again to his quarters.

It was because they couldn't come to an agreement that there was still no gate travel, at least not for the moment, and being stuck at the base helping Dr Weir become more familiar with their number one enemy while Jack was frozen in Antarctica was not a situation he relished.

He sighed as he threw himself into his chair and leaning back he thought of Sam and Teal'c on their way to the Othala Galaxy. Lost in his thoughts he didn't notice as Walter appeared at his door.

Walter tapped on the door, startling him and making him sit bolt upright. Daniel noticed he had a confused expression on his face and seemed a little lost for words.

"Yes Walter, what can I do for you?" he asked tilting his head inquisitively.

Walter screwed up his face "I'm not quite sure how to say this, that is…. without you thinking that… …."Walter paused uncomfortably leaving Dr. Jackson to pick his thoughts.

"That… you might be crazy?" he surmised.

"I guess so" added Walter.

"We've all been there!" he quipped. "What is it?"

"Well…. I picked up part of a radio message…from Scotland of all places." Walter replied. "The person asked specifically for you!"

Dr. Jackson raised his eyebrows "The person asked for me?"

"He didn't leave a name…. just said tell Daniel to get back to me. If I didn't know better I'd have sworn it was Colonel O'Neill!" Walter exclaimed, looking as if he'd just spoken to a ghost.

Dr. Jackson stood up, walked around to Walter and patted him on the shoulder and reassured him that there must be a logical explanation for what he'd heard.

"It's to be expected, we're all rooting for Jack," he said as they made their way to the radio room. He surmised that the message could only have come from one place in Scotland and that was Caroline Dexter's old lab. As Walter set the radio frequency to that of the original signal Daniel asked him to leave. Once the door had closed behind him, Dr. Jackson bent down to the microphone. "Hello, this is Dr Daniel Jackson is anyone there?" he asked as the radio crackled to life.

A familiar voice came back at him "Daniel, thank god we've got you at last," making him jump back in shock as even though the reception was pretty bad it was unmistakably Jack's voice.

There seemed to be an interruption in the transmission and he fiddled with the buttons trying to get a better signal wondering if he had gone totally insane. "Hello! Who is this?" he repeated.

Dr. Jackson was even more surprised when the reply that came back was his own voice.

"Is it ok to talk?" Dr. Jackson realised immediately that it he was speaking to one of his clones.

He glanced back at the closed door. "Yes its ok, what the hell's going on, I was sure I just heard Jack's voice!"

"It's a long story, I'll tell you later" replied his clone. "I figured you might require some help but first…what the hell's been going on?"

…

Entering the radio tower unnoticed, Kate had picked up quite a lot of the conversation before 'Jack' and 'Daniel' even became aware that she was in the room. Someone at the base had died on active duty, someone who had been very close to them. Kate listened and watched as their expressions turned from exaltation to sadness.

Daniel screwed up his face as he signed off with the words "Remember to keep us posted. Take care back there!" Then he turned off the receiver and looked over at Kate, his blue eyes circled in pink and a look of hurt etched deep into his perfect features.

Kate had worked up somewhat of a temper as she trudged over to the snowbound radio tower ready to confront Jack, but the sight of him solemnly perched on a stool with his head in his hands made her change her mind and she turned to leave.

"Kate, we have news!" Daniel called out, "…about the real Colonel O'Neill!"

Kate turned back to face them and caught Jack's broody stare.

Daniel coughed before beginning. "On SG-1's latest mission to retrieve data from an ancient repository, Colonel Jack O'Neill (the real Jack that is)" put his head in the darn thing and effectively got his brain fried…again."

Kate was shocked and just a little concerned as to what Daniel meant by got his brain fried but it was obvious there was more bad news to come.

Daniel brought Kate up to date, "to cut a long story short, Jack and the team returned to Earth just as Anubis was mounting his attack. The team used a device they brought back with them to power up an ancient weapon. Colonel O'Neill used the ancient knowledge to operate the weapon and defeated Anubis fleet.