"Well, you seem to be just fine and your brain's back to normal, Colonel." Dr. Fraser informed him. "And you don't remember anything?"
"Gating to that empty room and nothing after that." O'Neill told her. "Xander told me I accessed some kind of repository -."
"That's what the Asgard called it." Xander nodded. "The Colonel woke up just a few minutes before their ship made Earth orbit and gods it was fun riding in that thing. And fast, it barely took any time to travel from their galaxy to Earth. But I spent a couple hours talking with one of them, Heimdall and yes, they did appear as gods to the people of Earth and still do to the planets they've managed to liberate from the Goa'uld, but Heimdall insisted they don't believe themselves to be gods and what they call themselves when we're not around, I don't know if it's different or not. But they get nothing out of being worshipped and just helped humans on Earth stabilize after the Goa'uld got tossed off Earth. They keep a little bit of an eye on Earth, which is how the Roswell thing happened, small scout ship ran into some problems and yes, they did retrieve their dead. The Roswell cover up really is about the government loosing the evidence of aliens." Xander was grinning, enjoying that tidbit.
"Figures." O'Neill snorted. "And I was really doing Magic?"
"And really well too, like you'd been doing it for years." Xander nodded. "Which reminds me, Kinsey's still visiting cartoon land, we really ought to, you know, not let the people of Springfield suffer his presence too much longer. It's not fair to them."
"It's not fair to us, either." O'Neill grumbled. "How are we supposed to get him back? I don't remember how I got us there in the first place. What's happening on the show right now?"
"The channel's gone off the air temporarily." Carter told him. "The episode was running on it's own and there was an announcement that someone hacked the broadcast and put their own in place of the scheduled episode."
"Someone pretty much did." Xander grinned again. "But, without a visual cue, retrieving him might be hard. Casting spells over a distance can be hit or miss, especially when the target isn't very big."
"Well, I tape every episode of the Simpsons that airs while I'm at work or on a mission." O'Neill told them. "Do you think we could retrieve him from a tape?"
"Dawn might be able to." Jenny answered. "She was acting on instinct when she pulled you two out, but she's awake and should be able to focus now. It's worth a try."
"Would he really show up in future episodes?" Carter asked.
"I don't know." Xander answered. "Because I don't know the Magic that was used to make it happen. He could be confined to that single episode or he could be a permanent fixture, an anomaly that the creators of the show never manage to explain and maybe just learn to ignore. On the other hand, Colonel, you may be able to still do Magic yourself. Magic is a lot more then knowledge and you had an effortless ease with doing it. Maybe if you and Dawn worked together, her focusing her power, you supplying the instinct, the two of you might be able to pull him out of your tape."
"Into my living room." O'Neill reminded them.
"I will bring a zat'nic'a'tel." Teal'c offered and got a big grin from O'Neill.
"Oh, yeah! That'll do it, keep him out long enough to get him somewhere believable with a cover story of our own. Something he can't prove we had anything to do with."
"He's gonna think he was dreaming anyway. Magic is not people's first thought." Xander stated. "And Heimdall said Earth abandoned the discipline a long time ago. You guys convinced yourself it wasn't real, after you convinced yourself it was evil. But the Goa'uld might have had a lot to do with that, a backlash against them pretending they had Magic." He speculated.
"And after that we can head home." Joyce decided. "Dawn and I might be safe from entropic cascade failure because our counterparts are dead and Willow was never born here, but the rest of you have duplicates here and the clock is ticking, again."
"And now that we have a way to keep Dawn from accidentally portaling while she's asleep, we can concentrate on helping her get consistent control." Jenny smiled at the young girl.
"Yeah, I've managed a couple of times, like when I met the Charmed Ones, in two different realities. But their entire line doesn't seem to have ever gotten started in our reality." She sighed. "And yet more realities where there's no me."
"Oh, Dawn." Joyce hugged her little girl. "For whatever reason, a lack of you in our counterparts lives would be a void their soul is always aware of, I'm sure of that. And you'll eventually meet another you, you already know there's at least one other you out there in the multiverse."
Which was a comforting thought for Jack O'Neill as well, that out there in the multiverse were other versions of his son, still alive and living their lives. He clapped his hands together. "Let's go rescue Springfield from Kinsey and let these kids get back home. You guys'll be back soon enough with the tech we're going to be working on. Or, Carter and Doc Spellman and the other megabrains will be working on."
"Gods, that means Salem will be visiting again. Eww."