January 2005

Eleanor

The gate was churning and I felt Daniel's grip on mine. McKay had told us the 7th chevron was refusing to lock, and he had a theory it was because of our tether needing to be closer to the gate. The remote was in my left hand, Daniel in my right, and I felt a heat surge through my palms. I wasn't sure if it was just the fear of what was on the other side, or if it was an actual physical reaction, but my mouth went dry and I felt my knees buckle when the chevron smoothly clanked and the blue pool kawooshed out and snapped back. I heard the echo of McKay's laughter of triumph from the intercom system in the gateroom but it was short lived. The pool was blinking in and out as if it were only projected in front of us.

"Come on back now," Jack called and we both swiftly turned. As we did McKay shouted for us to stop, and over my shoulder I saw with each footstep the wormhole seemed to fade out. I let go of Daniel's hand and walked back, the puddle regaining its composure the closer I went. I dropped the remote softly and took a step backwards. Once again, each footstep caused the swirling blues to gray and fade.

"She has to be by the gate when we send the MALP through." I heard Sam's conflicted voice through the speakers. "She was the last one through it, meaning her tether is stronger."

"But too strong for both." Jack groaned out.

"What about me?" Daniel called back up to them. He walked over to the gate, and I walked back. The wormhole once again broke apart and reformed. "I'd prefer if I were down here instead."

"You come up and we'll see how far you need to be from the gate to keep the connection." McKay instructed. He gave a tight lipped smile in return and slowly walked back testing the distance. Once he was up in the control center the gate seemed to refocus and the blue light was just as strong as any other day's jump. It worked. The only plan that they had been able to come up with was placing the remote on a MALP with a timed C4 pack. When the MALP went through, a few moments would pass and it would explode, ending the connection and bursting the bubble. The gate would snap closed and planets, moons, stars would blink back.

"Are you ready? I can have a MALP and enough C4 here to blow up a timeline in less than 20 minutes." Jack asked out and McKay enthusiastically agreed.

Sam

The anticipation of it all was building through us, as the MALP technician was controlling it below to crawl over the event horizon Eleanor uncomfortably stood a few feet away from her former life. A doorway back to a place she considered a personal hell.

The screen blinked on and there we could see the remnants of an and old gateroom. The uncanny feeling of seeing a parallel room to the one we stood in. The only light coming from the gate projecting a funnel of blue and silver across the space. There was a cloud of dust kicked up and around, an eerie loan chair in the room with a faded paper that read,

Eleanor is in the SGC, if she's not in the gate room, make a noise.

The remnants of her made me turn to Daniel whose jaw was clenched tight. We waited in the stillness of anticipation, waiting for the C4 timer to strike, the MALP still staring at the lone chair in the room. Nothing happened.

"Well now what?" Jack looked over at me and McKay scoffed.

"Clearly this plan was a bust and we only have about what, thirty minutes until the wormhole collapses?"

"We could always just shoot at it? That seems to work." Jack shrugged.

"You military men with your guns all the time," McKay muttered, "guns don't fix problems. Science does. So what now General."

"We could also throw you in there McKay with your science," he rolled his eyes in return.

"I didn't cause this. Eleanor..." McKay started before Daniel interrupted him through grit teeth.

"Watch your fucking mouth McKay."

"That's all you can come up with as a linguist extraordinaire?"

Daniel chose to ignore him as I looked down at her in front of the gate staring at her tormentor.

"We're still trying to get the C4 to blow," Daniel filled her in over the loudspeaker, "the timer should've gone off by now."

"I mean at this point it seems it has to be manually done." McKay shrugged, "that was our only option. I don't really, we don't have a way to redial it now, and with the only tether being there."

"Maybe the void will just consume it?" Cam shrugged in the back and I shook my head in dismay.

"No, no the gate would've closed by now."

"So, that's it?" Eleanor shouted back up clearly hearing our entire conversation through the intercom.

"We're still going over ideas, we have half an hour." I answered back optimistically and McKay gave a sarcastic laugh.

"Give her the truth. We're totally skrewed."

She turned, looked back at the gate and I saw the guilt wash over again.

"Manually?" She asked and Daniel's face blanched.

"We'll find another way to set it off, hold tight." Jack shouted out.

"No we won't, we don't even know how long the wormhole will hold. It's temperamental as it is. We'll need to send someone or something in there." McKay argued back.

"You promised me that in every life you would find me Daniel." She started walking backward toward the gate, fists clenched and eyes rimmed red. Her decision was made, it had been made a long time ago.

"N... no. No Eleanor, no." Daniel stuttered out onto the intercom and ran down the spiral staircase that led to the gate room after her. "Don't you do this to me, to us!" He screamed out. She smiled weakly and I watched choking back my own emotions knowing exactly what she was going to do.

"You have the whole universe ahead of you, but you, you are my universe Daniel. Find me in whatever lifetime happens next."

"Don't, please don't, I'll go with you! There is nothing for me without you." His cries echoed through the gateroom, on our radios, in the SGC, but she was gone before she heard it. He ran up the ramp and I heard Jack curse as he slammed the button snapping the iris closed.

"What the fuck is that?" Jacked pointed to the image the MALP sent back, the wormhole still open on one side. A shadow figure lurking next to Eleanor on the other side.

McKay stood there slack jawed and I gasped reflexively reaching out to Jack. Teal'c turned to grab McKay by the collar and bring him up to eye level.

"You." Was all Teal'c growled out before McKay began bumbling over his words.

"I didn't think she would go through. I thought, well the MALP should have just been able to just fix this right? We were all thinking that right? The MALP was programmed to, to self destruct. I didn't think, I didn't mean for her to actually go through."

"You've been telling everyone that she's at fault for all of this. You're really surprised now she went in to fix it?" Jack's voice was scathing but it all sounded like muffled arguments to me. Like cotton had been stuffed in my ears and the crushing roar filled my mind instead.

"That's your problem Rodney," I said quietly, hearing Daniel's pounding fists on the iris below, screaming at Jack to open it. "You don't think." I turned back to the monitor and heard her through the MALP standing in shock at her own actions.

"What have I done?" She shakily wheezed out. "What have I, what did I do?" We watched on as she looked around at the clouded air swirling around consuming her. The blinking red of the MALP was a small beacon to her and in the murky footage back saw as she clamored over to it.

"You've done nothing but make yourself a martyr." A dark voice crackled in the air through the speakers around us and Daniel below stood erect, turning his head at us, a sense of awareness and fear slashed across him.

"No, no I saved him, them, I'll. Wait." Her hand flew in front of the camera as she searched in the dark for the C4 button. The image of her on the screen was fuzzy through it all. "I don't know what you are. Probably some form of a panic attack," she muttered.

"Has your Dr. Jackson never spoken of me?" The voice cackled out and I turned to see fear on Jack's face for the first time. Daniel went back to pounding on the iris screaming to let him through. "I have a proposition for you," his mouth curved into a wicked gleam looking directly into the camera now. Knowing we could see him on the other side. "I can send you back."

"Why?" Her voice was a hiss as we still heard the thumping of her hand along metal searching for the self destruct.

"Oma has her claws in Jackson as a little archangel. Well, I can make my own with you."

"I don't make deals with the devil." But I saw her hand hesitate. Some part of her was willing to listen. "I'd rather just die knowing I've kept him safe than hand myself over."

"You?" He laughed wickedly. "A human? No, I'm going to breed you like the animal you are, and you will carry my Harsesis."

"I would need to be a Goa'uld as well, and I'm not carrying your child. I know how this works and I'm not submitting to you. To anyone." Her hand landed on the button of the timed remote that activated the C-4 and there was no response.

"I am Anubis." His glowing eyes flashed back to her and sneered as the camera cut off and all we heard echo through the radios, through the halls, "I can work around you."

The sound of the gate closing flooded through the room, the light projecting on the wall vanished. There was nothing, and as Jack opened the iris back to reveal an empty ring, Daniel stood there in anguish shaded by the gate.

"It's done?" Jack's rough voice asked. "The timeline?"

"We won't know for sure until reports come back, but yes. The gate closed." My heart ached for him, for us all.