Non-descript cooking smells wafted out of the mess hall and a low buzz of noise echoed along the corridor. Daniel and Janet grabbed a couple of trays and Daniel heaped his plate with a mound of steaming shepherd's pie and filled a bowl with chocolate pudding then looked round for somewhere to sit. The hall was quite full and most of the tables were already occupied. Daniel noticed that Dr McKay and Dr Zalenka were sitting opposite each other, apparently eating together, but looking resolutely in opposite directions. Presumably they had not yet sorted out their difference. McKay was scowling angrily at a tiny tablet computer and Zalenka was scribbling notes with a blunt pencil on a scruffy notepad. Both looked despondent and there was no need to ask if they had fixed the bugs with the gate; they clearly hadn't. Their dejected attitude reminded Daniel of Dr Rathman's failure to figure out the crystal skull and he tried to repress the feeling of helplessness that the sense of deja vu provoked. With a pang he saw that SG-1's regular table was empty. Janet, spotting his gaze, steered him expertly away to the other end of the room.

"How about here?"

Daniel nodded, sat down and immediately began shovelling away the food. Janet watched him in amusement.

"Hungry?" she asked.

"Mmm" Daniel replied, his mouth full. "Tastes good!" It was definitely more satisfying than the watery meals he had eaten yesterday. He vaguely wondered how long it had been since he ate real food; it had to be four days at least. For the next few minutes he concentrated on his meal until a faint cramping in his stomach reminded him not to overdo it. Obviously he was not so hungry as he had thought. He pushed away his plate with half the food untouched.

"I'm done."

Janet paused, fork part way to her mouth. "Feeling ok?"

"Hey! No medical stuff, remember?" Daniel chastised, looking at her reproachfully.

"Friends ask how friends are!" Janet replied indignantly.

Daniel looked at her suspiciously and changed the subject.

"How's Cassie?" he asked conversationally.

"Fine." Janet replied. "Growing up. She's fourteen now and full of opinions."

Daniel grinned. "Arguing?"

"You bet! Only with me though. Everything Sam says is gospel truth and she practically worships the ground Jack walks on." Janet looked up with an amused smile "I suppose I should be flattered!" she said as she stabbed a piece of carrot absentmindedly, "I get the parental treatment."

Daniel looked at her earnestly, "It was good of you to adopt her."

Janet shrugged. "It seemed obvious. She was traumatised and needed stability – and someone with security clearance! Sam wasn't in a position to do it so…" She tailed off with another shrug.

Daniel wordlessly picked up his discarded fork and pushed food aimlessly round his plate. Aware of the sudden change of mood, Janet gave him a hard look, ducking slightly to try and see into his eyes. He evaded her with practiced ease, still apparently fixated on the appearance of dinner.

"It's not the same you know." Janet said quietly, putting down her own cutlery, placing her elbow on the table and cupping her chin in her hand. She reached the other hand hesitantly across to Daniel. "I have a stable job in one place, I..I have cared for children before. I picked a career that involved looking out for people. Nick…well, it would have been different."

Daniel looked away, a sequence of emotions rioting across his face.

"Yeah, you rose to the challenge. He didn't." He said shortly. Janet looked down, not sure what to say, then awkwardly patted his hand. "Nick was crap at being a grandfather" Daniel continued after a moment. "But apparently not so crap at theories!" He gave Janet a lopsided smile and sighed "I should have believed him."

"Do you wish you had?" Janet asked.

"Maybe" Daniel replied ambiguously "But if I'd believed him, if he'd believed me.. who knows? One change and everything would be different." It was a cliché, but the past had made him the person he was today. If his parents hadn't died, if Nick had adopted him, if he had believed Nick then perhaps ... What was the point of what ifs? Any number of things could have been different. Dragging himself away from speculation he caught the tail-end of something Janet was saying.

"What did you just say?" He asked hurriedly.

"I said that according to Sam there will be many parallel worlds where things turned out differently." Janet repeated, surprised at the urgency of his tone. "Why?"

"Because…" Daniel said excitedly "That just might be a way to rescue SG-1. We…we could use the quantum mirror".

"How?" Janet frowned in confusion, not following.

"When I touched the mirror on P3R-233 it…it took me through to a parallel universe." Daniel explained hurriedly, "one in which events in this universe hadn't happened."

Realisation dawned. "You mean that in a parallel universe, SG-1 might not have beamed up the gate?" Janet said slowly, suddenly seeing what he was getting at.

"In theory yes" Daniel said, "But it's not just that they may not have beamed up the gate; there might be worlds in which Thor might never have come here at all."

"Or SG-1 might have failed and the Earth might have been invaded." Janet pointed out.

"Well yeah – in some realities" Daniel admitted "but in others they defeated them much more easily and got back to the SGC."

Janet's brow furrowed still further. "But how does that help our SG-1? They're trapped in this universe."

"True." Daniel replied, excitedly, "But we know of at least two advanced races who might be capable of jumping between parallel universes. If we could get the Nox or the Asgard in a parallel universe to contact their doubles in our universe then we might be able to send them to help SG-1." He searched for a metaphor, "Look, suppose your phone line is down, you need to phone the phone company, you can't phone them from your own phone, so you go and borrow your neighbour's."

"Hmm" said Janet, not entirely sure that hopping into a parallel universe was equivalent to going next door. "I thought that the Nox didn't want to have anything to do with less developed races."

"Well the Asgard then!" Daniel said, adding with conviction "They do owe us." He was still angry with Thor.

"They may not see it like that" Janet cautioned. "Would you take responsibility for the actions of a different Daniel in a parallel universe?" Actually, she thought, you probably would – but not everyone would be so generous.

Daniel grimaced "Surely it is at least worth a try?"

Janet thought for a moment, liking the plan, but feeling there must be a catch. "But what about the effects? When an alternate version of Sam came through the mirror it caused temporal entropic cascade failure."

"Yeah.. but uh.. not immediately" Daniel said dismissing the concern with a wave of the hand. "We only need long enough to get a message across!"

Daniel stared excitedly at Janet and there was a moment when they both felt it could really work but then with a cold lurch of disappointment Janet spotted a fatal problem.

Daniel saw her expression change. "What's wrong?" he asked nervously.

"Daniel…" she said hesitantly, "General Hammond ordered that mirror destroyed." She felt awful watching the frustration wash over him, replacing the look of enthusiasm with one of defeat. Hurriedly she added, "Look, we don't need a contingency plan, I'm sure the beta gate will be working soon."

"Huh" Daniel grunted in reply. He felt crushed. What was it about the military that meant that they were so willing to destroy things before anyone had the chance to properly understand them? Not for the first time he cursed the military mentality that said unless something had an obvious and immediate strategic benefit it was deemed useless and anything that presented a theoretical threat got annihilated with no thought to loss that destruction caused.

Janet reached across and placed her hand over his. "Daniel, please… this is meant to be a nice dinner let's talk about something else. We just have to be patient." Daniel looked up with a ghost of a smile.

"I'm not great at patient" he admitted with a sigh.

Janet arched her eyebrows at him in disbelief. "And yet you can sit for hours staring at some ancient text or spend months observing some remote tribe."

"Different type of patient." Daniel said "I should have said that I'm not great at .. uh.. sitting around doing nothing. Or waiting for someone else to do something" he amended.

'Hey - now you know how I feel hanging around while you are doing your thing.' Jack's voice popped into his head again so clearly that Daniel jumped. He held his breath and listened intently but all he could hear was the chatter of the various conversations going on behind him and the sound of his own heart hammering in his chest. Cautiously he looked around, almost expecting to see Jack standing somewhere nearby. For a crazy moment he wondered whether SG-1 were out of phase, right there with him, but unable to make themselves understood. After all, Teal'c had been able to sense Daniel's presence - right up to the point that he had walked right through him. He frowned in frustration, trying to make sense of it. But there was no reason to think SG-1 might be out of phase, it didn't make any sense. Even if they had for some crazy reason gated to the planet with the crystal skull they wouldn't then be able to get back to the SGC until the gate was working so they couldn't be here now – could they? Besides, the skull hadn't worked on Teal'c and yet he had heard Teal'c's voice too. It must just be his imagination in overdrive.

"Daniel?" Janet's voice was full of concern. "Pact over, are you ok?"

"Erm…I think so…" Daniel said slowly. "I think I was just imagining what Jack would have said." He sounded uncertain even to himself and Janet was still looking at him quizzically.

"Hmm" Janet said "you seemed a bit out of it for a moment there."

"I often seem a bit out of it when I'm thinking." Daniel protested.

"Okay" Janet reluctantly conceding, still not totally convinced. "How about we do what I suggested earlier and talk about something else?"