Jonas

She looked like a rabbit, scared and twitching in her seat. Each person that walked close by, every sound of something clanging to the ground, every laugh down the hallway had her head snapping in the direction. Her eyes jumped from item to item in the small impromptu debriefing room, but she remained tight-lipped. It had taken a few minutes to revive her, and after a medically mandated hour nap she claimed she felt better, or at least okay enough to talk.

"So Eleanor, you said? Can I call you that?" I sat down in front of her and her eyes shot to mine.

"I um, yes. Sorry. Um." Each word was clipped, and she was clearly nervous. I offered her a gentle smile, a sign of compassion in return.

"Take your time."

"I have not spoken to another person, seen an animal, or even the moon in," her eyes rolled in thought and came back to mine. "Months at least. I don't really know. You can't count days when there is not a night or day or... sorry. Yes. Eleanor."

I maintained my smile, "where are you from Eleanor?"

"Earth."

"Right, your identification card you handed over was an old SGC badge, but no one knows who you are. You're not on any roster, so, who are you?" I kept my voice gentle, as if I were speaking to a small child.

"I used to work for the SGC, an archivist, you said that no one knows who I am?" Her eyes narrowed. "No one?"

"Well you had mentioned Dr. Jackson, you're wearing his jacket even. Daniel is a personal friend of mine, and I'll reach out to him when he becomes available. But, you're not on an employee roster."

"So Daniel is okay," her face lightened again and I felt something radiate off of her, and in the same breath her fell as if she were remembering something she wanted to forget.

"As of yesterday when I called the SGC he was fine. But, I'd like to know where you got his jacket and the ID badge."

Her face tensed and she leaned back crossing her arms. "I'm sorry Mr. Quinn, that's classified."

"Classified?" I let out a small laugh, "as of right now everything is classified to you, not so much me."

"I don't work at the SGC?" She asked again, squinting at the computer in the corner of the private room she had requested.

"No, there is no record of you. In fact," my eyes shifted back to the computer, and then on her again. "This may come as a bit of a shock to you. But, with all the identification you provided Eleanor Owens, you're no longer alive." I watched as her eyes grew in horror while it sunk in, and she remained silent. She pulled a pair of glasses out of the front pocket of her large utility jacket and ran her thumb all the frame.

"Some part of me," she whispered, staring down at the glasses, "thought that might be the case. That I died in New Mexico. It was a cave, and I fell." Her voice was so fragile and small, I wanted to reach out to her and wrap her in a blanket. She needed comforted not interrogated, but I didn't know who she was, none of us did. "With the cuff deconstructed, I wouldn't be." She looked back at me. "Well. I'm dead then. I mean that me is. I'm not dead, clearly. But that is who I am." Some of the pieces were coming together. She had to be from an alternate timeline, and she seemed to know Daniel well, intimately enough to be wearing her jacket as what appeared was a security blanket of sorts. It dawned on me that she had gone through something terrible, and no one knew what, but no one had offered her anything for comfort since she came here.

"Would you like anything?" I asked softly.

"Could I have a hot shower? I have been washing my hair in a bucket." Her finger kept tracing over the rims of the glasses.

"Unfortunately we don't have any water lines hooked up so whatever you had for a shower may be about the same here."

"This is the alpha site correct? This should've been further constructed by now if my calculations were correct. What date is it?" She looked back up at me in question.

"I, uh," I was caught off guard by her knowledge of the site and checked my watch, "on Earth it's July 2nd, 2004."

She smiled to herself, "it worked then."

"What worked?"

"I can prove I used to work at the SGC, at least where I'm from," she looked back at me. "Daniel's birthday is in 6 days. Jack O'Neill's birthday is October 20th and Samantha Carter's is December 29th. I made a point to have a birthday cupcake waiting on their desks when they had to work. Sam and Daniel because well, we were friends. Jack because I was just seeking his validation."

"Aren't we all?" I chuckled looking back at my notes.

"General Hammond has two granddaughters, one does ballet and the other does tap classes. Let's see, Janet Fraiser is a sucker for a good Scottish Highlander romance novel. Teal'c has a pension for skittles, Daniel likes rootbeer lollypops, and Dr. Lee likes chocolate specifically this kind that has chipotle pepper in it they sell at the antique candy store on 5th Avenue. In fact, half the science department has a monthly DnD meeting. I used to be in it." Her shoulders slumped and started gnawing on her bottom lip, "I used to be a small part of all their lives."

"Is there something to eat I could get you?" I swallowed back the emotion tugging at my own senses. She clearly was struggling.

"Oh," she looked up in a small show of excitement, "bread? Or cheese? I haven't had fresh produce in a while. It's been canned food this entire time."

"Come with me," I offered my hand, "let's see what we can find for you."

Jack

I stood up in the control room next to Walter who had called me down from the middle of my chicken salad sandwich lunch. There was a phone call from the alpha site, something about a visitor who knew weird facts about us here. I was too annoyed to be dragged away from lunch to pay attention. Instead I stood balancing the phone on my shoulder and pretending to take notes in the other hand while listening to Jonas ramble on.

"Right, Jonas, she's technically dead?" I squinted and looked over at Walter who shrugged back. "I don't know an Eleanor Owens," I gestured back to Walter who was looking up the SGC employee roster and shook his head no in response. "Nothing."

"Sir," he continued, "she just knows a lot about you, all of you. Your birthdays, your hobbies, Daniel's favorite candy. She mentioned your lake house, that you had no fish in the lake but still went up there to go fishing all the time and Carter offered to restock the lake as a birthday gift but you said no. Half the fun of having the lake is people never catching anything when you take them fishing."

"That's uh, weird. Why would Carter offer to restock the lake."

"Why do you have a lake to go fishing in with no fish?" He questioned back.

"Let's focus on this woman with you who knows about my birthday and is dead shall we?"

"At least take her in for questioning. She drew a map of the whole SGC, she needs to be taken in as a security measure." His voice grew quiet, "and I would have Daniel there waiting. Someone who is going to be gentle and calm with her. She seems to have been through an ordeal and is in a trauma shock. Jittery about large groups of people, get her a change of clothes maybe? Offer her a shower."

"Yeah yeah, she wants Daniel so badly he can offer her all that before questioning."

"Oh! She said she wants proof that Jackson made it through in time. Whatever that means." My eyes narrowed.

"Made it through in time?"

"Yeah, not sure what that's about but she won't step through the gate again until I give her some evidence of that."

"Tell her that he'll be the first thing she sees, I have no other proof to offer. That will have to do."

"She has an entire rucksack of SGC field notebooks she claims are filled with valuable information that you're going to want. Also," he paused and I could feel his mood shift from over the phone, "you'll want to call the Asgards for some help. She has the Ancients library downloaded and she has no idea how much longer she has until she ends up like, well like you if you remember."

I almost dropped the phone in shock, I knew who he had. If I wasn't mistaken, I knew exactly who Eleanor was now and I couldn't let Daniel know, or anyone to be frank, until she came through the gate. I didn't believe him, his claims that he heard her in his head or he had this gut feeling she was still out there. I thought it was just coping with loss, never could I imagine that he had been right and now if he knew she was at the alpha site for even a minute before being notified, no. He took personal leave trying to find answers, and we refused to help. Now somehow, here she was.

"Well shit." I whispered.

"Sorry, come again?" Jonas chuckled back.

"Give me 20 minutes and I'll have the gate room ready. O'Neill out." I hung up and turned to Walter, "I'm going to go get Daniel, I need you to call Hammond."

"He's upstairs with Major Davis going over a budgeting plan for a phone conference later with the pentagon and was asked not to be disturbed." Walter stared back at me nervously.

"Great," I rolled my eyes, "when he gets out of the meeting, he needs to come to the gate room. Stat."

By the time I got to Daniel, he was slumped over his computer desk muttering to himself. Why did it seem like every time I took a step in here there were more and more piles of books spread all over the floor. Post it notes stuck to every surface of the back wall with jotted down notes all on what I thought was a pointless endeavor to get back a dead ex-girlfriend but now, here she was. I pulled him out into the hallway and gave him a once over.

"Made it through in time?" He repeated, giving me a puzzled look.

"That's what was said, I don't know anything else." I lied walking past personnel and winding through corridors.

"Did you, did you get a name or?" His voice was questioning, and I understood why.

"Fix your hair."

"Excuse me?" He laughed.

"Your hair," I pointed to my own. "It's unkempt. I can't have you greeting visitors looking like that." At least I could give him that favor. He ran his fingers through it, parting it and gave me a quizzical look. I let out an exasperated breath and kept quiet as we got to the gate room. No swirling blue wormhole yet, just Siler working on the compression valve in the back who was there the night of Daniel's body swap, Walter who was also there, myself and Daniel standing awkwardly in front of a gate waiting for it to spin. The ring started dialing in and I looked up at Walter giving him a hand signal to be quiet. I didn't need the entire SGC hearing about this off world activation just yet, and Daniel's eyes shifted to me questioning. I feigned a smile of ignorance and turned back to the gate as the wormhole flushed toward us.