Sam
"Explain this to me like I'm an idiot, because I'm still not getting it." Jack stood in the middle of my lab next to Teal'c as I showed him the calculations and the charts we had all mapped out. Eleanor and Daniel were five days into their honeymoon, and I had devoted the week to what was laid out in front of us.
"The idea is that a bubble has held from the original timeline at the exact point she jumped and like when a bubble collects on a plastic hoop or wand and air blows into it, or the energy from that jump, is causing it to expand and encompassing more into it now until it pops on it's own and everything is gone." I tried to be as delicate in this relaying of information as I could. I walked over to the board and wrote a few notes down looking back at diagrams we had printed out she drew. "It all stems from Daniel's remote. The tether was between them both through that. He died, she brought him back by in turn momentarily dying. Both of their energy is stored in the metal of that remote. The remote that he used to jump here, at the moment the remote would have been used, in a timeline where there was no remote. So, when her timeline ended, she couldn't because Daniel and his remote were an acting lifeline back to her like an anchor. All of that concentrated energy was being slowly sucked through the gate in that first jump. When she then jumped back here that energy exploded and poured into the bubble back here."
"When is the next projected collapse?" Teal'c asked.
"We're not sure, thankfully it has only been minor celestial bodies, nothing inhabited that we are aware of. But," I paused and Bill Lee picked up.
"It will be."
The evidence was all there, it was in front of us and yet it made my stomach fall to the floor. My bottom lip was growing bloody from the gnawing away I had been doing the past few hours. Bill, Coombs, and Felger stood there equally as stunned as my shaky breathing centered me. I tried to find something to hold onto, something I could use to just disprove my calculations but math was very rarely wrong. Even McKay had an uncomfortable look on his face at the news.
"Someone has to tell the General," he squeaked out. "It's clear as day now what's going on."
"And, and, and," Felger leaned against the table and Coombs handed him a bottle of water to sip on. "And we went through every journal, every," he swallowed, grasping at straws, "every note in the margins? Every drawing?"
"The way Jacob described it," Jack murmured, "is written there. It's how she described it to Hammond and I in her report. It's the same."
"You have to call them." McKay sputtered. "Clearly she has to go back through to her time or else we're all gone."
"No, no we can figure out some other way." I shook my head in disbelief. "We're not just sending her to her grave. We don't do that. I will not do that."
"Do you think she knew?" Coombs asked.
"No, what? How would she have known?" Bill looked at him as if he had grown another head.
"Before, she had the ancients knowledge and the Asgards took it away. Do you think she knew then what she had caused? Because it feels like a bread crumb trail right back to this." He clarified.
"I don't think so." I said honestly. "I think her primary motive was just to stay alive. Why would she then bring the same thing here? No. But I think subconsciously she made a failsafe to stop it."
"I'll talk to Hammond tomorrow morning," Jack blew out a puff of air and looked up at the ceiling. "You all figure out a way to reverse the polarity or whatever you do so Daniel doesn't lose his shit and we can get this resolved. I really don't want the only option to be sending this woman back to her death."
"I have a meeting with him this afternoon about the Atlantis coordinates we found in the journals, or the assumed coordinates. I can bring it up then." McKay looked nervously at Jack.
"No," he squinted and cocked his head to the side. "See I think you'll blow things out of proportion. You don't have answers on how to finish this yet. I do not want Daniel and Eleanor receiving a whiff of this until they return."
"They should be made aware." McKay said under his breath.
"And they will." Jack said sharply. "But until we get this resolved they are not to be bothered. Understood?" McKay simply shrugged back and Jack walked out of the lab with Teal'c and I behind.
Eleanor
I was debating between wearing purple in the morning or a cream sweater. It was just a short train ride, checking into the hotel in Salzburg, then sightseeing after, dinner and a walk under the stars through another Christmas market. The entire time I would be watching Daniel pointing out major landmarks, telling me about something he read at some point, and I would be tripping over my heart again and again seeing the boyish grin on his face.
"I could always change when I get to the hotel as well," I thought out loud and put the cream sweater back in the suitcase neatly before zipping it up. We had landed in Berlin a few days prior, took a tour of the Pergamon Museum where I was surprised at the restraint I had seeing Daniel speak to those around us fluently and refer to me as, mein frau or schatzi, as well as the chokehold he had on me when seeing the gleam in his eyes as he told me every interesting fact or story behind any piece in the museum. After two days in Berlin we took a train to Prague, then the next day Vienna. Here we were staying in a hotel with a stunning view of the Ring Boulevard below us. I heard a knock back on the door and jumped onto the bed in my silk sleep shorts and camisole grinning and waiting for the door to open. Daniel stepped back in our hotel room from his phone conversation in the hallway in his gray sweatpants and a defeated look. I posed in my best attempt at playful seduction and gave him a little come hither motion.
"I'm going to need you to tell me all about the Siege of Vienna in 1485 again, because I wasn't paying attention." I crawled across the bed to the edge. "It's so hard when all I can think about is you so hard." I giggled as he placed his phone on the side table not looking back at me. "Maybe you can give me a good recap while my mouth is busy."
"I just got off the phone with Hammond." He said flatly and I frowned in response.
"That's a bit of a buzz kill." I joked and saw the concern in his face.
"Get a change of clothes on. The Prometheus is going to beam us up and to the meeting room back at the SGC." He grabbed a pair of jeans and slid them on quickly putting his tennis shoes on after and running his hands through his hair. "I'm sorry."
"What?" I awkwardly laughed out throwing on a pair of pants and my sweater I had laid out for the next day. "This comes with the territory right? Emergency meetings?"
"We'll get whatever this is figured out, and come right back here to continue our trip." He sighed looking around the room for my matching shoe.
"I'm more concerned about our history lesson." I wiggled my brows back at him and he tried to smile, but saw there was something serious lurking there. "I'm not worried in the least about this all," I motioned at the suitcases around us. "I just need you Daniel. Time anywhere with you." He gave me a weak look back and we were suddenly beamed onto the bridge of the Prometheus.
"Vienna huh?" A uniformed man in the helms seat said in way of greeting to us aboard the ship.
"Honeymoon," Daniel and I both held up our left hands displaying the rings we had and the man gave a grin back.
"Congratulations, sorry I have to be the middleman in interrupting it." He winced and beamed us back down into the meeting room.
We stood there in the empty room and I felt his arms wrap around me. "I love you," his whisper tickled at my ears and tugged on my heart.
"Not as much as I love you." I whispered back.
Rodney walked in with a mug of coffee in hand and gave me a cutting look. "Oh good, the love birds made it."
He sat his mug on the table and a hefty binder along with it. Sam and Teal'c followed behind and I saw in her face our presence was not expected by everyone. A pit started growing there in the center of my chest. Bill came into the conference room tugging a presentation white board on wheels with notes scribbled across it and a collection of dots. He locked the wheels and looked over at Daniel and I. His eyes grew wide and turned to Sam who shook her head, and back to Rodney who smugly stood with his arms folded.
"What's going on?" Daniel asked and Bill scurried out of the room. "Sam?"
The General and Jack walked into the room and Jack's rage was thinly veiled as he glanced over in our direction. Hammond issued for us all to sit and have a pointed look at Rodney.
"You called this meeting Dr. McKay, explain."