Two years ago, I went through hell.

Not one of the assorted hells life and the Fates throw at you, nor the traditional "hellfire and brimstone" variety. Far from those fairly mundane versions, this was... beyond unique. A theoretical astrophysicist's dream come true as far as cosmic theory goes, but not one an ordinary run-of-the-mill archaeologist would care to go through blindly.

I ventured into an alternate reality, and barely escaped with my life.

There are many things in my life I'm not proud about, and that particular adventure isn't something I'm fond of bragging about to anyone. But then again, I'm the only person who really knows from hands-on experience what that kind of phenomenon is like. I just wish I'd known before the situation began just what was happening. Trust me, in the scheme of life, I'd rather give advice about almost anything else in the entire universe than talk about the day I spent at the late alternate SGC...

The trip wasn't completely wasted by my trying to figure out what the hell was going on the entire time. By the time we collectively figured out that this wasn't either a hoax or a practical joke, I was able to come home with the news that the Goa'uld were planning to attack Earth in retribution for Ra's death. The trick was to convince everyone that what had happened there was going to happen here. I had no proof, really, other than the burn on my arm and the missing time SG-1 spent looking for me. I don't blame them for thinking it was all a hallucination on my behalf, but it was a risky venture getting Jack, Sam and Teal'c to follow my advice. Thank every deity that may exist that they did. In the end, we came out as victors against an entire administration ready to shut down the SGC because we were there, apparently just another military waste of money.

Despite our results, I never want to go through that experience again. It wasn't just the extreme disorientation of finding a world where I didn't exist as I do here. That was trying enough as it was. When I say hell, I'm referring to knowing that the alternate versions of everyone I care about died due to the Goa'uld. General O'Neill's death at First Prime Teal'c's hands may be the only one I witnessed first hand, but I know that moments after I escaped to P3R233, Cheyenne Mountain and all its inhabitants, both native and foreign, disappeared in a huge explosion.

I can't help but feel responsible. Shouldn't there have been some way for me to help? All I did is stand around, asking too many questions. I could have volunteered, or something. Anything. Because of me, they're dead... every last one of them.

Needless to say, it took me a long time to get over that experience. Defeating Apophis was one kind of catharsis, but for nights afterward, I kept on dreaming of my friends - and yet, they weren't my friends - dying before my eyes. Jack with a huge wound in his chest, Sam hit at point-blank range simultaneously, Teal'c murdered with the cold vengeance only the Jaffa could provide... The coffee brewer in my office ran a lot of mileage during that time, until Jack sat me down to talk about what was bothering me. With his help, I was able to put it past me.

I had planned never to think about it again, but oftentimes it sprang up. Like a hex reversed, its mention was usually helpful. Sokar's attack through the Stargate was solved with Dr. Carter's method to speed up dialing time, for example. Otherwise, it lay dormant in my memory, its ghosts exorcised.

That is, until the morning we received word that the mirror retrieved from P3R233 had been activated from another dimension. Two travelers were being transported to Cheyenne Mountain. Dr. Samantha Carter and Maj. Charles Kawalsky were bringing the story of yet another universe where Earth had fallen to the Goa'uld.

Our first meeting was tense. As in my AU, or AU-1 as I guess I'll call it, Teal'c led this attack, and Kawalsky wasn't exactly pleased with seeing our Jaffa at the table. But it was more than those moments that made it so uncomfortable. Dr. Carter and Kawalsky had lost everything, and they wanted to join our SGC and make our reality home.

While waiting for the decision to come from Washington, I found myself playing impromptu counselor to Jack and Sam. I hadn't really been surprised to learn that I was once again missing from the SGA, and my experience prepared me for the news. My friends weren't, and their reactions were somewhere between being unnerved and downright spooked. They each stopped by my lab about ten minutes apart. It was almost funny, the way they both tentatively voiced their thoughts after finding a spot to sit down. They both paced; they both felt "strangely unprofessional" about their attitudes.

Sam's concern was easy enough to address. She's like me in more ways than one. A good way to distract my mind from thinking about Sha're on the nights I could avoid going home alone was by drowning myself in work or coffee. There's nothing like pottery analysis or a good translation to keep the demons at bay. I sometimes think Sam and I were siblings in another life, since I can get her to fall into the same habits after a certain amount of temptation. She's just more disciplined so she gets at least a few more full nights of sleep than I do. The moment I got her focused on the more theoretical aspects of alternate universes and the mechanics of the quantum mirror, all worries were pushed out of her mind. Dr. Carter was more of a curiosity to my friend, and the chance for her to remain as a part of our facility was an intriguing possibility as far as she was concerned.

And who knew? Theoretical astrophysics could see the greatest developments since the days of Einstein.

On the flip side, everything that was bothering Jack was hard to precisely pinpoint. There was something about Dr. Carter that had Jack on edge, and it wasn't just the "which reality is real" dilemma that we'd debated earlier. I'd noticed something strange, too, when Dr. Carter seemed to completely bypass the entire table to sit on Jack's left. Based on the situation in AU-1, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was more than just a collegial relationship between Dr. Carter and AU-2's Jack O'Neill.

Jack focused intently when I discussed my experience. He wanted to know what it was like to meet people who were basically identical to those I worked with everyday, but so fundamentally different in ways I didn't have time to completely understand. As he put it, "What's it like to know you're not in Kansas anymore?" I'd told the story before when I came back from P3R233, but Jack wanted to hear it all again, down to the minute details about personalities and backgrounds gleaned from the conversations. Details under normal circumstances he would have blown off as inconsequential.

I didn't see completely how it would help him, but I recited everything. Jack's not a stupid man. He constantly amazes me when he pops up with tidbits of information I didn't think he'd have, usually in matters astronomical. The more complex aspects of quantum physics make him a little perplexed, but then again, they're about as clear as mud to me, too. As I spoke, I could see the little wheels in his head turning, trying to process everything.

Was that smoke I saw coming from his ears? Just kidding.

"So, it's that fork in the road thing, right?"

I nodded. "Basically. Take Sam as an example. Here, she joined the Air Force. In both realities we've encountered, she didn't."

"Right, I gathered that bit. It's the other parts I'm confused about."

"Like?" I waved for him to continue.

"Look at Teal'c."

"What about him?"

"The big guy doesn't look as if he had a chance to turn from Apophis, in either reality. In fact, I'm willing to bet those guys didn't even get to Chulak."

"It's a definite possibility. They didn't get there where I was."

"So he never got the opportunity we gave him here."

"Right..."

"So what caused that?"

"I have no idea, exactly. Probably a multitude of factors that bypassed that opportunity for him."

"Such as... Carter not being military and your opposite being missing during all the action?"

"Yeah, I seem to have that reputation," I said, squirming. To be honest, my alternate self in AU-1 sounded like a flake. Who knew what AU-2 had to offer?

"Okay, so... no Daniel, no Sha're to follow to Chulak, therefore no chance for Teal'c to join the SGC... or SGA... Whatever. The 'Good Guys.'" He curled his fingers at that phrase to make his point. "And therefore no Carter on SG-1 for her own personal reasons, and Kawalsky doesn't get Goa'uld-ed."

"That sounds about right."

"That doesn't sound much like that fork in the road thing because there wasn't a fork in the road as far as Teal'c's life went."

"True."

"Daniel?" he asked. I nodded for him to continue. "My brain hurts."

In the end, we just left those thoughts alone. The conversation in the briefing room was confusing enough, and we were all just perplexed enough that any more speculation would lead to brain failure. Jack smiled wearily before leaving, thanking me for help I really don't think I gave as he ambled away to get the latest news from Hammond about the President's deliberations.

The wait gave us lots of time to wonder about our lives and how we got to the point where we are today. My opposite's apparent absence in AU-2 naturally reminded me about the situation in AU-1. Had I been in Egypt when the Goa'uld attacked, having refused the opportunity Catherine offered in the rudest manner at my disposal? Well, not me, but me nonetheless. That day in Los Angeles hadn't been the best day in then-recent history, and it had been so tempting to tell the older woman with the Air Force papers where exactly she could take that translation project. But that's where I veered away from the other Daniel Jacksons in existence. I would never have the experience of agreeing with myself.

Hours later, the news finally came through with a positive slant and delivered promptly to the interested parties. When I talked to Sam, she seemed okay with the news; in fact she was already thinking about what she and Dr. Carter could work on in terms of projects. Jack was just... wandering the SGC in a daze. I hadn't seen Teal'c lately, but I could hazard a guess that he was taking it in stride, as usual. General Hammond was genuinely concerned. I was more curious than anything, and feeling a certain kind of responsibility in attempting to ease our guests through their transition, as one inter-dimensional traveler to another.

I decided to visit Dr. Carter first, if only because I knew for certain that Jack had already informed her about the President's decision. She was also the easiest to find, having been assigned the infamous main guest chambers. I only needed to knock once before I heard the muffled acknowledgement. Taking that as my cue, I opened the door just enough to stick my head inside without intruding too much.

"Hello...?" I called. I couldn't help the hesitation creeping into my voice. A quick glance around the room found Dr. Carter curled up on the large bed. She was contemplating something settled next to the lamp, but her body was blocking my view of what exactly it was. "Oh, um, if I'm interrupting, I can come back later..."

She glanced over her shoulder, my friend's face surrounded by long blonde tresses that she'd never wear in this universe. Pained blue eyes, slightly red from tears, looked over me critically. I knew she didn't really pay attention to me during the debrief, her interest focused instead on everyone else she knew from her own dimension. Now that she was really looking at me, sizing me up, there was something about her expression that I couldn't quite identify.

"You're... Dr. Jackson, right?" she asked, not moving from her spot.

"That's right," I nodded, trying to look as friendly as possible, "but by all means, call me Daniel. I, uh... I know how disorienting it can be to venture into a new reality. It's a big change in so many ways that it can be overwhelming."

"My world was just destroyed, Daniel." She used my name with a certain edge I'd never heard from my Sam. "I'm just peachy, but grateful, I suppose, we're alive and we're allowed to stay here."

I had to smile at her second use of a Jack-ism. They're so contagious you have to be conscious of what you're saying so they don't slip through. Even so, I had a very sympathetic understanding of what she was going through. Her unsettledness mirrored my own two years ago after coming back from Abydos.

"Mind if I come in?"

"Why not?" she sighed, sitting up. She eyed me again, the same unidentifiable expression momentarily on her face. "You said in the debriefing that you're a member of SG-1. Since when?"

"Pretty well since the SGC began." I shut the door as quietly as possible before seating myself at the table. A respectful distance seemed best. If it had been my Sam, I'd be right at her side. "I went through the Stargate to Abydos with the first team and stayed there for a while."

A smile flickered on her face. "Nice place, isn't it? I was so proud of Jack for freeing those people, even if killing Ra led us to..." She gave a hard swallow before continuing, glancing away. "We paid a hard price for our good deed."

"We all have, in one form or another." It was my turn for the awkward moment. "As for Abydos, yes. It's a very nice place. Actually, it's home. My family, or what's left of it, still lives there."

"Your family?" The odd look was back, only with a more curious angle. That was more like my Sam. "Pardon me for saying this, but that's funny, you don't look Abydonian."

I had to laugh. "My wife is Abydonian. I was kind of adopted in. My father-in-law is chieftain of Nagada. Kasuf?" I watched her for a reaction, wondering just how close in particular details our universes went. This was one part of AU-1 I never discovered. "He's still there, along with -"

"Kasuf?" she repeated, her eyes widening at the apparently familiar name. She gave a smile, as though we were talking about an old friend in common. "Oh, you're kidding! Sha're is your wife? When we visited, they tried to marry her off to Jack, but he had to turn the offer down. It didn't go very well, but we came to an agreement of sorts."

I bet it didn't. Remembering the look on Kasuf's face as I first came out with Sha're moments after she'd entered my room, I could guess pretty well what his reaction had been to Jack. And I had to shudder slightly, too. The memory of Sha're nervously lowering her dress to expose that beautiful body certainly didn't seem right with Jack in the picture instead of me. Especially when remembering what a jackass Jack used to be, a quality AU-1 had suggested as being fairly universal.

"Well, I didn't turn her down. We lived together for a year, until the Goa'uld came. They captured her and Skaara to turn them into hosts. They're still with them, until I can rescue them." It's remarkable how time can dull both pain and hope. Sha're had been gone for more than two years, and I could finally bring her name up without feeling as though my heart were being torn out. Experience had also tempered my outright enthusiasm to locate her. It was a big universe, and now that Apophis was dead, anything could have happened to her. Some days, it felt as though only my words could renew my conviction that I would find her again. Unlike our last encounter on Abydos, this time I would really save her.

Dr. Carter had the grace to look away, a brief glimpse of sorrow on her features. "I'm sorry. I've been so caught up in recent events that I forget that other people's sorrows exist outside my own. I know how it feels to lose someone you love, only to have them so close..."

"So close, but still just out of reach," I murmured, finishing her sentence. "It's maddening."

"Exactly."

I watched her for a moment, wondering about the particular gestures and words that had stood out to me since her arrival. The way she'd immediately gone to Jack's side of the table at the briefing was one such item. There was a good reason for it, since the rest of us were more or less strangers to her. Well, at least I was. Sure, General Hammond was there I'd assume, and by Kawalsky's reaction, we could be pretty sure that Teal'c was romping in full First Prime mode at the SGA. That whole "evil twin" motif as Jack had defined it in his typical clichéd manner. Deny it as he might, you cannot separate the man from the cliché.

But there was more to it than just plain familiarity. There was look she'd given us, aimed especially at Sam as she settled herself down. A look I would expect to see from AU-1's Dr. Carter, had she ever met my friend. Talk about déjà vu...

"How bad was it?" I asked as gently as I could. "Just, um, out of curiosity."

An exasperated sigh escaped her lips. "Keeping score, are we? Look, I've already told you everything in the briefing. The SGA's Stargate was breached by Apophis' Jaffa. We sent as many people as we could to the Beta site before that happened. Six months of advanced warning, and that's all we could do. No more, no less. We even tried a naquadah bomb, which did as much good as sending a snowball into hell."

Ouch. Neither Dr. Carter nor Kawalsky had gone into much detail during the debrief or on the videos about defense strategies attempted by the SGA. It was something our own people had tried, a plan that thankfully backfired since we'd been aboard the targets in question. A twist of good fortune in our universe didn't necessarily mean the same thing elsewhere.

Something else had caught my attention though, an issue I intended to press more out of curiosity than a real need to know. "Warning?"

"We received a message, in a language later identified as Ancient Egyptian." She gave a wry smile. "We had a rather... lackluster translation team when it comes down to the necessities. They'll happily translate a tablet about rituals going back millennia, but that's about it. What should have taken days took months, thanks to a few changes in the language. That's when we realized it was a warning."

The memory of a crumpled yellow legal ledger and the searing pain of the staff wound on my right arm came unbidden to my mind. I repeated the words from memory, almost hypnotically; words I'd once been obsessed with. "'Beware the destroyers.'"

Her face paled as her gaze fell on the clenched fists resting on her lap. "By the time we knew what the numbers in the message meant, we couldn't access the coordinates. They were already halfway there by that time, and there wasn't anything I could come up with that might have made a difference."

"I'm sorry," I murmured, genuinely feeling her anguish. The words hadn't passed my lips when her head snapped up to glare at me. Blue eyes, cold with fury. My Sam had never looked at me with that kind of emotion. Yes, she's been upset at me, even angry, but never the intensity her counterpart was directing my way.

"I don't need your pity!" Something else began to color her words as she spoke, an added tinge to the hard anger. The more I listened, the more I began to realize that the emotion had been there since the beginning of our conversation. Disgust, at me initially, and then at herself. "It cost me my husband and my world as I knew it. Don't you dare give me pity, Dr. Jackson!"

Husband? Oh, boy... The picture was suddenly clear, everything at the briefing making sense from the minute vocal inflection to the blatant claims she'd seemed to be making about Jack.

"Oh, geez..." I sat up. Some things never change between certain dimensions, and I'd just stumbled upon another common one. "You're married to Jack, aren't you?"

Color flushed her cheeks as her gaze met mine. "I was married. The Teal'c of my reality killed him, three days ago when the Jaffa first broke through our defenses. I watched it happen from a monitor, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, I could do while it happened!"

Much in the same way I witnessed General O'Neill's death in AU-1 with that Dr. Carter at my side. I remembered the shock on her face and the way she'd turned from the screen, trying to keep herself together so we could continue our rapidly crumbling defense maneuvers. Plans designed to get me off the base and to the Beta site. I hadn't known what to say to her then, and even now, with yet another version of my friend in the same situation, I still wasn't sure.

Fate had given me a pretty bad hand in the game of life, with Sha're always just out of reach and the promise of her return lingering into shadows. Seeing her on Abydos was, in a way, similar to Dr. Carter seeing a living ghost of her husband. The difference lay in that very similarity, because while I lived in hope of once again being with my wife, the presence of our Jack O'Neill was a direct slap in the face.

What could I say? Another apology, or even an attempt at condolence, would be ill received. I bit my lip, watching her. If it were my Sam, that would be a little easier to handle. A sympathetic ear, a waterproof shoulder to lean on if she needed it. Dr. Carter was different, and while the similarities with my friend were so obvious, I didn't want to risk upsetting her any further.

So much for my plan to ease her transition. I'd have been better off to keep away and let Jack handle the situation in his own way.

At my silence, our guest crossed her arms, sniffing slightly as she looked me over carefully. "You don't look as shell-shocked as Jack at the news. You're the one who found the mirror on 233, right? You've seen this, all of this, happen before."

"Um, in a manner of speaking." I cleared my throat. "In the, uh, reality I visited, their Dr. Carter was engaged to General O'Neill. The Jaffa killed him, then she died, and..." I sighed; remembering the look on Catherine's face before she whirled in her chair to see sparks falling from the stairwell leading to the briefing room. I'd seen the explosion, a brief flash of light filling the upper room telling of more deaths. Dr. Carter had gone to rejoin her dead love. "I barely escaped with my life. I brought the message you found home with me."

"So they didn't figure it out, either." She gave a short laugh as she got off the bed, pacing with short steps. "Their Sam Carter couldn't figure it out any more than I could. Hell, I didn't even get the Stargate opened until a few months ago!"

That was unexpected. I raised my eyebrows in question. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Her lips were tight. "I've been working on the Stargate since Catherine hired me six years ago. I was brought to work with her archaeologists here in Colorado early on. We didn't even have any idea the symbols were astronomical in nature until Catherine found a source we hadn't considered before."

Their 'Gate was opened nearly four years after ours? My mind stumbled on that issue for the moment, wondering just how we'd received the same message from the doomed alien race. The major events in AU-1 had been close enough to our own that the dead race who originated the message timed it perfectly to correspond with the upcoming Goa'uld attack. But knowing that fork in the road phenomenon, I wondered if the aliens who had sent the message were indirectly associated with our activities as the Tau'ri against the System Lords. Since Dr. Carter's universe was behind us in the grand scheme of things where the Stargate was concerned, then the race's demise would also have been delayed. Theoretically speaking, of course.

Jack was right. It was more than easy to get confused, especially with more than only one universe thrown into the hat. It was just one more reason why I'd never gone into anything as abstract as theoretical physics. Give me obscure archaeological interpretations any day.

"Well, it's lucky any of us figured out the Stargate," I shrugged a little self-consciously as I wondered what I'd say next. Senator Kinsey had been right: the Stargate was indeed Earth's own personal Pandora's box, and while hope was still at the very bottom of everything imaginably unpleasant, I still tried to find it every chance I had. "I'd still be sitting here, trying to figure it out and wondering if I'd get paid if I hadn't chanced on a newspaper with an astronomy section."

She frowned at me, disbelieving. "You? You're the one who figured out your Stargate?"

"Yes, I did." A brief moment of pride, and a pay cheque ultimately received fifteen months later than expected.

"You did?"

She looked... stumped, in a manner reminiscent of when I first met Sam on Abydos. She'd stood in the cartouche with a mildly amused look on her face as she shot down every theory I'd come up with in the last year as though we were playing verbal tennis with Kawalsky, Jack, and Skaara's friends as spectators. It felt good to prove myself right through debate, especially to see my last point driven home as Sam's logic failed to provide an answer to the biggest question at hand. This was an activity I'd missed while living on Abydos, and it provided me with an opportunity to earn the respect of a woman who'd become both my friend and colleague. It was a shame that I'd likely never gain the same thing from my friend's counterpart, who continued to stare at me as though I were an idiot savant.

"That's right..." I eyed her again, frowning slightly as I waited for her to say something else.

Her hands went to her hips, rolling her eyes. "And that makes it so much better!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, not following her at all.

"Haven't you wondered why we call it the Stargate instead of the 'Doorway to Heaven,' when we can't even translate vocal Egyptian to save our own skins?" she shot at me, standing rigidly still.

"No, I hadn't thought about it," I admitted.

"Four years ago, Catherine took me to a lecture in Los Angeles, to see someone whose work led her to believe he could be a great asset to our project." She was watching me for a reaction. "An archaeologist, or more accurately, an Egyptologist specializing in linguistics. Someone whose reputation among his peers was steadily going to hell and whose theories were considered to be the stuff of tabloids."

Right. Someone who just so happened to be sitting across the room from her. The alluded highlights, wonderfully summarizing what many used to believe to be the epitome of the wunderkind-gone-bad saga, made it clear that there was yet another universal quality to each reality's Daniel Jackson. What must have varied was what each one dared to do with the tatters of his career.

"I see." I watched her for a reaction. "Let me guess, you two talked to me after my disastrous lecture, offering me a chance to prove my theories. Right? And then I threw it back in your face. As far as you and the rest of the SGC are concerned, if anyone actually even cared, I was happily living in Egypt until several days ago when the Goa'uld began destroying everything on Earth. What better place to begin than where the whole mess began with the rebellion against Ra? Is that what happened?"

She stared at me for another few long moments. The wait gave me time to review the day in question, still vivid in my mind's eye even after all this time. It was the point of no return from a life I was more than happy to abandon, but had been too scared to consider. My life had been academia; any friends gained were within the ranks of archaeology and linguistics, and the last year had proven who actually really was a friend as I lost more and more recognition for the theories I'd tried so hard to prove. Catherine's offer had been a breath of fresh air, and a much-needed opportunity to stop and reconsider just where my life was going.

Dr. Carter's response startled me.

"We never spoke to you... or him, rather. Catherine wanted my opinion on whether we should hire him or not." She paused again. "I tried to go to the lecture with an open mind. We needed all the help we could get on the project. Meyers and Barbara had been trying for at least two years to come up with a solution, and we were in danger of hitting a dead end, which would mean we'd lose the Air Force's support and funding. But I wanted to maintain a level of respectable scholarship, and after seeing the room clear out, I decided against it. I didn't want a crackpot working on my Stargate."

I tried not to take offense over her words. It was, after all, literally another man she was speaking about, but it stung. In AU-1, Catherine said I'd been basically a jerk to her, but this... rejection of everything my friend had come to appreciate about me was like a slap to the face. It almost tempted me into reconsidering Sam's opinions about my hunches and interpretations in our work together, but that would have been going too far on my part.

"Oh," was the best answer I could give.

She continued to stare directly at me. "I was serious when I told Jack that this is one of the few realities that appeared not to be under the control of the Goa'uld. We tried for a day to find a location where we could go for help, but each time we turned to a location within the SGA, there was a Jaffa, or the hall was in ruin. By the time we found this reality, we were under full attack, and the Jaffa had completely breached the facility. I kept wondering while I searched why so many were destroyed. What was it that we were missing that would give us the upper hand?"

"Oh." Those were deep thoughts, issues I'd often consider in the days after returning from P3R233. "I don't think it's any one thing that sets things apart. It's a set of circumstances, of people that make things happen. We don't necessarily have to make the same choices everywhere to have things turn out well in the end."

She shook her head this time. "I think it's more specific than this. Everything in my reality mirrored things in the one you encountered through P3R233. I think every single reality we searched before finding yours was exactly like ours! And in every one of those, we were all missing the exact same things! Two of which I, personally, denied the world!"

This, more than anything said before, made me uncertain about what I should say. What was there, anyway, that could address this? Choices had been made at every point in our lives; how could we know that any one of them would lead us into disasters the scale usually predicted by the Oracle of Delphi? And those people had been forewarned by a cryptic fortune, even then falling into troubles of mythic proportions. How could have Samantha Carter known she would affect the fate of her world the day she signed up for the Air Force? How could Daniel Jackson have known that by accepting the offer of a strange, older woman he'd be a key element in the Earth's continued existence in the universe?

Or maybe it was something else, some basic element too vague to define but so vitally important that fundamentally varied from reality to reality? Whatever it might be, it was more in Sam's field of expertise than my own. The results of the "forces," or whatever one might call them, were what I was more familiar with in the form of history and the remains of culture.

Even that definition was vague at best. I shook my head slightly, focusing on our newest addition to the SGC. Dr. Carter had fallen silent, moving to the other side of the room, away from the bed, to survey the remains of a meal I hadn't noticed earlier. A silver tray was lifted briefly, a glimpse of untouched food seen only for a moment before she covered it again. She grimaced briefly, turning again to head for her bed.

"You should eat something," I said, about as helpful as admonishing someone to be careful after the injury had already occurred. I had reason to be concerned. She was pale and drawn, almost certainly due to the strain she'd been under. When was the last time she'd eaten something other than field rations sneaked between Jaffa attacks? Sleep was undoubtedly a luxury forgone until she'd absolutely needed it.

She gave me a funny smile. "I know. I keep looking at that food your Dr. Fraiser - I mean, our Dr. Fraiser wants me to eat. It looks good, but I don't think I can stomach it just yet."

I understood only too well. "Then maybe get some sleep. We've got lots of time to talk. You'll feel better in the morning. I know Sam's thinking up all kinds of things the two of you could work on together, and there's probably things of your own you'd like to reestablish."

"A bit of normalcy," she said in a bitter tone, stretching out on the bed. There was something on the nightstand, resting against the lamp. From my position, all I could tell was that it was a photograph. Her eyes were fixed on it, a longing expression on her face that warned that whatever attention she was giving me would soon be limited. "That actually sounds too fantastic to believe."

I smiled, standing to make my exit. "If you need anything, let me know. I'm here if you need to talk, or -"

She glanced back at me. "I'll let you know."

A dismissal if I'd ever heard one. I wished her good night, heading for the door. A glance back toward the bed gave me another glimpse of the photo. If pressed for the finer details, I wouldn't have been able to say what they were, but I had enough of a look to recognize the two smiling faces captured in time. They were the same that graced most recent photos in my own sparse collection, two of the closest friends I'd been gifted with. Except in that image, Jack and Sam were in a relationship this universe was never likely to see, as man and wife.

The disgust she'd shown me from the beginning, the bitterness in words as the conversation progressed... were they directed at me? Or did it only seem that way? I had to wonder, and it occurred to me that perhaps the resentment I saw wasn't even aimed at me in the first place. For a brief moment, I wondered who was the ultimate symbol of lost causes and hopes to Dr. Carter: her late husband or the controversial archaeologist never hired? Or were we two sides of the same coin?

Her voice called me back as the door was about to close.

"Daniel?" She waited until she had my attention. "Thank you."

It sounded fairly genuine. I gave her a bright smile, shutting the door behind me.

I tried my best, but circumstances seemed to evade me. Each time I made an attempt to see Major Charles Kawalsky, he was unavailable. Most of the time was spent in the company of General Hammond, likely going through procedures I'd once had to perform in the goal of restarting a life here on Earth. In Kawalsky's case, adopting the life of a man three years dead. At least I hadn't that many pieces to pick up after my year on Abydos, but the memory of endless applications and perplexed phone calls were enough to make me grit my teeth with frustration. I could only imagine his experience.

If he wasn't with the General, he was resting. The few times I saw him, he seemed to be adjusting well, despite a lingering but admittedly well-founded hostility toward Teal'c. He didn't seem to pay much attention to me, just seeing me as another member of a strange but alien organization that wasn't quite like Kansas, as Dorothy might have said. That in itself was a bit of a revelation for me, to know that I wasn't seen as being totally out of place in a military establishment. If he'd known me at the same time as our own Kawalsky, his opinion would have been radically different, but three years in the company of Jack O'Neill seemed to have done me good.

Word filtered down to me from a few sources that Kawalsky was due to take command of an SG team, something that was justifiable since he was accustomed to the duty. It was an opportunity our own Kawalsky hadn't enjoyed to the fullest potential beyond the first excursion to Chulak, and I was mildly interested in seeing what kind of commander he was like when all hell broke loose on missions, as it tended to do of late. Command styles at the SGC tended to vary from unit to unit, but I think his would echo Jack's based on what little I'd seen from Abydos and Chulak.

Ferretti was the one who filled me in on some of the specific details brewing from above. The little captain came to buy me a coffee a few hours after I spoke to Dr. Carter, an offer I usually can't refuse. He was silent for most of the walk to the mess hall until we were sitting safely at a corner table. I had a good view of the other tables as Ferretti worked to voice his thoughts.

"They want him to take over SG-2," he complained after summarizing the developments. His displeasure was clear as the steam wafted up from his mug, held in midair for several minutes as he spoke. I began to wonder if he was actually going to drink it. "I disagreed, naturally. I mean, yeah, it's my command, and it used to be Chuck's. Our Kawalsky. I mean, I've talked to this guy, and I swear to God it could be him. Well, mostly him. It's downright spooky, and I can't help but feel that giving him command would be a kind of hex, you know?"

"Sort of like the superstition where renaming a ship brings it bad luck?"

He laughed. "Yeah, like that, except that's navy. I was thinking about something else, though. You know James Dean, that actor from the fifties? After his car crash, they salvaged some of the parts to use again. Each one caused another accident no matter which new car they were in."

"Isn't that a little of a stretch? I mean, I know you what you mean, but..." Looking at Ferretti, I really wasn't sure what to say. The events around Kawalsky's death had been especially hard on him. He'd received the news about both his demise along with his own resulting promotion practically in the same breath while he wasn't even out of the infirmary yet. The first few missions, I noticed he'd almost been walking on eggshells, nervous about how the team would take their new commander. It was no wonder the "return" of Charles Kawalsky was enough to make him jittery.

"You've got to admit it's strange, Doc." He took a long sip, watching me.

"No arguments from me," I said, toying with my mug for a moment. If there was one thing bothering me, it would have to be Ferretti's adamant belief that within a day or two, he'd be out of a command. Something told me that things definitely wouldn't be as they appeared. The way things work at the SGC is that nothing is ever constant. I make a point of not knowing everything about the military aspect of things beyond the general must-know-or-else points force-fed during my first year with SG-1. What I did know was that things could change with as little as a command from above, as I'd often experienced in my departments. Irritating little things when they happen, but nevertheless commonplace. "Ferretti, do you think they'll give him a different command? I know the General was considering adding a few new teams to the roster, not to mention the fact that they're still trying to replace all the members of SG three, five, six and seven that we lost during the battle on Hathor's planet. Wouldn't he be placed there instead?"

Ferretti gave me a look that seemed oddly patient. "Yeah, I know. I mentioned the same thing to Hammond. There's no point to protesting anything if you don't have an alternative." He had a tight-lipped smile. "I don't know, Daniel. Frankly, I'd prefer him leading another team. I really don't want to work with him, as stupid as it sounds."

Petulant though it was, we didn't get much further than that. His confession had left him looking embarrassed, as though those words were the last thing he wanted to let out in the open. Ferretti finished his coffee, setting the mug down a little too heavily as he crisply announced that his team was expecting him for a practice of some sort. He wanted to be early, of course. I don't know if our conversation helped him at all, but as it turned out, we didn't have to worry about it anyway.

Barely three hours later, we left the conference with the decision that our new members would be better off returning home to the ruins of their world. Something called "cascade entropic failure," or "cascade tremors" for the syllabically disinclined, had struck Dr. Carter. What I witnessed in the infirmary was something unreal: her face seemed to blur and stretch as her body tensed and convulsed. To my understanding, it was like the universe's version of an immune system was trying to get rid of redundant matter, though I'm certain there's a lot more to it than just that image.

Whatever it was, it would kill her within a few days, and we were left with no question as to what we needed to do. The question remained as to whether we'd be able to return Dr. Carter and Kawalsky home and be confident in the fact that the Goa'uld wouldn't slaughter them within the first few hours. As I said in the briefing, we needed to help them, and in what better way to share our good fortune in being allies to the Asgard?

We each had our own roles in the upcoming mission. The main focus was to get Dr. Carter to the Stargate and off to the Asgard home world via Jack's nifty dialing computer. Teal'c would help her get to the 'Gateroom, while Jack and Kawalsky made sure the generator was up and running to provide the juice. Little old me would act as support, doing whatever was required to backup my teammates during the mission. I never expected what kind of backup I'd be doing.

If we were in a gangster movie, I'd be the guy in the getaway car.

Somebody was needed to stay with the mirror, keeping an eye on the device to make sure it didn't turn off. In the event that it was turned off, that person would be needed to turn it back on and make sure the reality on the other side was the one desired. The moment I heard that, the thought passed through my mind that maybe, just maybe, I'd returned to the wrong universe after going back to the alternate P3R233. It was a thought I quickly shrugged off.

Things were uncommonly tense as we did our preparations. Jack was very quiet, just coming to check up on us while we prepared. He did crack a smile, teasing me about the mirror. I'd been short of money lately, trying to save up for new and rare monographs to add to my library. Some of my appliances needed repair, too. The mirror was the answer to my woes, he claimed. I could make a fortune teaching Maybourne and his cronies. vHow hard could it be? It didn't look like there was much to it. When I had my adventure on P3R233, the whole mess began with picking up that colorful control lying on the counter. All I'd done was turn the mirror on, and to be honest, during the whole encounter with AU-1, I never stopped to consider that maybe the device did more than just activate and deactivate the device. We were never able to do any experimentation upon my return since I'd lost the control when the SGA was destroyed. The recovered mirror was added to Area 51's growing collection of alien objects, collecting dust down in Utah.

Fortunately, Kawalsky had brought their own device, and in order for me to learn how to use the device in the event we'd need it on the other side, he volunteered to teach me. Jack was off somewhere, probably seeing Sam and Dr. Carter get started on figuring out how the generator worked. Since Jack's visit to the Asgard last year, the device hadn't worked properly, and Sam had spent who knows how many hours trying to figure it out. I think he was partially curious to see how fast they'd get the job done. I found out later that there were bets being made in the scientific department, too.

In the meantime, I found myself staring at the empty mirror, an intense case of déjà vu coming over me. This was how it started, an archaeologist and an alien device alone together in a lab. Kawalsky sauntered in a few minutes later, the same easygoing grin on his face I remembered from our own Kawalsky from years past.

"Dr. Jackson, good, you're here." He had the control in his hands, the varicolored surface facing away from me. "I guess you've acquainted yourself with the mirror?"

I couldn't help raising my eyebrows. "Oh, my friend here and I go back a ways."

"Yeah? Well, that saves me from the whole schpiel about the basics of the mirror," he said, looking pleased.

"Frame, mirror surface, easy." I glanced at the device. "This thing, though, I really have no clue how it works. All I know is that when I touched it on '233, it turned the mirror on, like..." I held up my hands, the fingers wiggling as I waved them, "Well, poof."

"Poof?" he chuckled.

"Well, at the time it was more of a shimmer. One moment it was just an empty surface, the next it was a reflection of everything in the room except me."

"Yeah, that's what happened when it was activated the first time in our reality."

The lesson itself went well, though. I came to think of the control as a glorified television remote; surf through universes to your heart's content in the comfort of your own home. The theory was easy, but the application of Kawalsky's instructions was a little trickier. Whoever coined the phrase "parallel universe" wasn't kidding in that hypothesis, since I think I scrolled by a half dozen realties that were the same. They were moments frozen in time, a collection of images that spoke of what might have been reality here if the Goa'uld had attacked and conquered Earth. I saw death, destruction, and the Jaffa herding the survivors to slavery or executions.

Kawalsky stood, grim-faced at my side. He wanted to verify the minutiae of the likely candidates for his universe. I had the basics down pat - a storage room and a hallway with grenade damage. As it was, there were three or four realities with that description, and it took him more than a few minutes to narrow down the selection to the reality pictured by the time Sam had us packed up and ready for our mission.

"So," he said, interrupting my concentration as my finger moved slowly over the control's surface. The image jumped from the storage rooms to the alien laboratory of P3R233. "Crap! Easy, Doc! Little movements. Baby steps. Remember that."

"Baby steps. I can do that..."

He didn't say anything again until the previous selection of burned hallway reappeared. "Anyway, out of curiosity, did you know me before? I mean, the other Kawalsky."

I glanced over at him. "Yeah, I did. He was a good man. I was sorry when he died."

"Was it a snake in the head, like they said it was?" he asked, the disgust on his face saying clearly how unpleasant a fate he found this to be. When I nodded, he shook his head. "Man... I just can't imagine that. Going out in battle, maybe, but an actual Goa'uld? No one's gone into any details, but... how bad was it?"

"Bad. It was an immature larva, so it didn't completely take him over." I lowered the control as I spoke, the image lingering on an empty hallway. I made sure to keep an eye out for any Jaffa. I hated to imagine what would happen if a staff blast hit the surface. "He kept having these blackouts, and then people started showing up dead."

He swore. "And then?"

"They tried to surgically remove the Goa'uld. Teal'c helped the doctors come up with some kind of anesthetic that would work on the larva." I remembered my fascination with the whole procedure, a thirst for morbid details that I usually avoided. Jack had found me staring at the preserved remains of the Goa'uld, its supposed death fueling my short-lived hope that this would be the answer to Sha're's living hell. "I don't know how, exactly, but the operation failed. Kawalsky insisted that he'd rather be dead than a prisoner in his own body, so when the Goa'uld took over his body completely..."

"That's what I figured." He let out a long sigh. "But what a shitty way to go."

"He gave us hope," I said truthfully. "He was proof that the Goa'uld were wrong. Something of the host survives. The rest of it is just... buried. Cut off from control but still present to witness everything done by your hand."

"A living hell," he agreed, unknowingly echoing my earlier thoughts. "And that's what scares me. Okay, so we go back and rescue the world. That's a good thing. I just don't want to think about the ramifications of the Goa'uld's attack. I mean, once we get on our feet again, we get back out there and undoubtedly meet new snakeheads. What if they're using our people as hosts?"

That was one question I'd certainly considered before, often in the middle of the night when insomnia came to visit me. So far, we'd been lucky considering the problems we'd encountered in the past, with Sam as host to a Tok'ra and Jack narrowly escaping permanent implantation. Our real troubles lay outside the SGC, with Skaara and Sha're involved with whatever remained of Apophis' household. Jack had already been forced to shoot Skaara when Klorel tried to kill me with his ribbon device, and what kept me awake at nights were the consequences of hypothetical encounters between an SG team and Amaunet. Would they kill her, or would they spare her life so Sha're could be freed?

Did I really want to know?

"Then, you do what you can," I shrugged, studying the colors on the control. "Take your options into consideration. There are ways to free hosts of their Goa'uld, but we just came across them way too late for Kawalsky. There's a planet called Cimmeria, under the Asgards' protection, where Goa'uld in any shape or form are actually killed. And other, more advanced races would have means of excising the Goa'uld."

"Cimmeria?" Kawalsky gave a little frown, then picked up the noun he definitely recognized. "The Asgard, huh? Man, I hope these guys are willing to help us out back home. We can use all the help we can get. It's a mean, nasty universe out there."

"I'm sure they'll help. They've come through for us a few times when we really, really needed it." I started to count the incidents in my head, using my fingers to guide the count. Fixing the Hammer to defeat Heru'ur; hoovering Jack's brain, as he'd colorfully termed it; and helping us with the Goa'uld treaty. I had no doubt that more would be added over time, especially since they seemed to have developed a soft spot for Jack. "Apparently they like us."

"Mind if we use these guys as a reference for their other selves?" he joked. "We might need it." He motioned for me to start dialing again, a gentle motion so I didn't skip enormous distances. "So Cimmeria? Mind if I scribble down that address? Assuming it exists back home, that is."

"No problem. Just remind me later." I peered at the image that had appeared, almost negligible differences between it and the last one.

"Sure, thing," he almost drawled, dark eyes focusing on the details before us. "Damn, I don't think it's this one."

"Why not?" I had to ask the question. "It's got grenade damage, and it's in a storage room."

"So? And the others weren't?" He shrugged. "Gut instinct. Go to the next one." I obeyed, shaking my head slightly. How very unscientific most of this process seemed to be. I almost wished there was a way to bookmark a universe the way I'd bookmark a web page. I dreaded the possibility of searching for my own universe while the Jaffa pounded at the door. I'd be tempted to jump to the wrong universe if only to start searching there again in peace. Better than being in pieces, as Jack would say.

"Why's the Jaffa here if you guys went to Cimmeria?" Kawalsky asked several moments later. "I thought you said the planet got rid of all kinds of Goa'uld?"

"His name is Teal'c," I corrected as diplomatically as possible.

"Whatever."

"Actually, he did get trapped, in what's called Thor's Hammer." I quickly threw in a little background on Thor, just to satisfy any other questions before they emerged. "We had to destroy the first one, and then the Asgard built a second one to stop the Goa'uld from attacking the planet. It's been programmed to recognize Teal'c as a friendly instead of just another Goa'uld or Jaffa."

He wasn't impressed. "They shouldn't have bothered."

"Well, they did, and I'm very grateful for it. Teal'c's been invaluable to Earth with his knowledge, and he's my friend." I eyed the man beside me for a moment. "Dr. Carter said that the Teal'c of your world killed your Jack. Right?"

Kawalsky's expression became very cool. "Yeah."

"Do you mind if I ask how?"

He didn't answer at first, his eyes searching the newest image for flaws. As far as I was concerned, there was no difference. He seemed to think otherwise. "Okay, go back to the last one, if you don't mind."

I did, waiting patiently as he examined what was displayed.

"They were executed," he said, eyes fixed ahead of us. "We all saw it. The Jaffa interrogated them, then just shot them. No one gave any information, Jack actually swore at 'em for a bit, but..." His jaw clenched. "They killed them like animals."

"Oh." A typical scenario I'd imagine the Jaffa to cook up, if clichéd.

He gave a tight smile. "Yeah. So excuse me if I don't think much of your buddy there."

"Our Teal'c isn't like that," I protested. "He was Apophis' First Prime three years ago, but he's changed a lot since then. I lost my wife to the Goa'uld, when she was made into a host. Teal'c was indirectly responsible, and it's something he's taken very personally. He hasn't said it in too many words, since it's not his style, but... he's trying to make up for that. If there's ever been a way for me to get Sha're back, he's supported me completely and even been willing to sacrifice himself."

Kawalsky's head twisted so fast, I thought it was going to fall off. "Excuse me?"

"Teal'c is an honorable man, Kawalsky. He's also a very good friend." I watched him as he quickly turned back to the mirror, staring at the image. His jaw was clenched, like he wanted to disbelieve despite my words. "I'm not saying that our Teal'c is like the one who killed Jack. But things are different here."

"Yeah, I know," the words were almost forced past tight lips, "but if it were me in your shoes, I'd have killed the bastard the moment I had a chance." His jaw muscles twitched a few more times before he finally gave a nod. "Here. This is it."

To be honest, I really didn't see a difference. The decision was based only on what Kawalsky judged to be accurate. "What makes you so sure?"

He pointed out something outside the room, his finger about two inches from the surface to prevent an accidental transportation. "There. You see that?"

"Uh..." I peered closer. Something was slumped against the corridor wall, almost hidden by scaffolding that had fallen after the grenade's explosion. "It's a body?"

"Captain Sterling," he supplied. "He was on SG-1 with me and Jack."

"Oh..." It was a name I didn't know.

"He died a day before we came here." He looked right at me, his brown eyes hard as flint. "By Teal'c's orders, so never, ever expect me to be thrilled about him escorting Doc C. to the Stargate, okay?"

Giving me a final nod, he left the room, footsteps a heavy click against the deck. I took another long look at the mirror, pocketing the control as I reluctantly followed. We had to be ready within the hour, last I checked, to meet back here in our black ops uniforms and equipment. If everything went well, the mission would be a success, but there was unease in my stomach, churning slightly in anticipation, that made me worry.

If this mission turned out to be a success without any major problems, I would be more than surprised.

The celebration of the Asgard-assisted victory over Apophis only lasted the whole of thirty minutes. Teal'c and I stood to the side along with Jack, watching the survivors gather in the embarkation room. They embraced, laughing with relief and exhaustion. Most of their faces were pale, their cheeks carrying only the slightest hint of color from their emotion. A lot of the faces were the same from our own reality, but there were several I didn't recognize.

The crisis was over, thanks to us and the hastily departed Asgard. It felt good standing there, though in my case, I was leaning against the wall. The combination of both being struck in the face by a staff weapon and being shot with a zat gun was enough to make me feel unsteady on my feet. Both Teal'c and Jack were constantly checking on my condition, attention I waved off with only a hint of irritation. I felt like crap, but I'd had worse.

"I wonder what she told 'em," Jack commented, crossing his arms as he watched the celebration with a satisfied smile. "The Asgard, I mean. When I went through, they looked, well, like they were wondering what the hell this tall, skinny thing was doing on their doorstep."

"It was satisfactory to gain the aid of the Asgard," Teal'c said. He'd been looking antsy, or as antsy as he'd ever get; shifting minutely to adjust the warrior's tunic to a more comfortable position. Personally, I preferred this outfit to the more restrictive armor I was used to seeing, and that goatee was... very Errol Flynn. But knowing Teal'c, I wasn't sure if it was the uniform or the attention his uniform was gathering that bothered him more. "It is to their benefit."

"Ya think?"

I jumped in on the comments. "If they're lucky, the Asgard will help them to negotiate a protected planet treaty similar to the one we have."

Jack chuckled. "You should make a checklist of stuff they've gotta do once the mess is cleaned up. Hell, they'll get in six months what took us two years to accomplish. Imagine how many more Goa'uld butts they can kick if we give 'em enough warning, eh?"

"Indeed." Teal'c's voice was dry.

Anything else we could have possibly discussed was left unsaid when Dr. Carter came over to us. Teasing us about being wallflowers, she tugged on Jack's hand, leading him to the group as she smiled at Teal'c and me. Even though we'd helped regain their world, the common reaction toward us was still a little iffy. The people here just didn't know me, and Teal'c was simply regarded with dubious respect. We were outsiders; they were grateful to us, but they were still reserved. Jack, on the other hand, was welcomed with opened arms, even if it was a common fact by now that the Jack O'Neill from this reality was dead. Jack's reaction to this was an unsettled smile, his gaze moving from the tired celebrants to us, begging for rescue from the remainder of the gathering.

At the end, everyone just seemed to trickle away. There was so much work to be tackled: people to bring home, a base to repair, and an entire world to be rebuilt. Even though we were tired, the three of us volunteered to stay behind and start helping with the cleanup. There hadn't been a location free of damage, whether it was pieces of shattered concrete, fallen ceiling supports, or the corpses still littering the corridors where they'd fallen. After a while, I wondered if it wouldn't just be easier to take a bulldozer through the hallways to take out the mess, once the bodies were removed to the base's morgue. When I muttered it to Jack at some point, he agreed.

We did what we could. Teal'c and Jack paired off, doing some of the heavier work. Hammond oversaw the return of the personnel who'd taken refuge at the Beta site, and Kawalsky had volunteered with the surviving medical staff in removing the corpses first to the morgue, and then to the infirmary when the first area quickly filled up.

I ended up with jobs that were easy on the effort, but nevertheless important. Dr. Carter herself decided to come with me for a period of time before handing me over to an airman I didn't recognize from my reality, a Lieutenant Hazel. I collected dog tags, accounting for the dead and keeping an inventory of damage found to any vital areas I passed. It wasn't the happiest of duties, but I went to work with a grim determination. That, and with a chill traveling down my spine. This could have been our fate, so narrowly avoided two years ago.

Debris crunched underneath our boots as we walked through the SGA's halls. It was clear fairly quickly, adding to our initial observations, that this had been a massacre. If it hadn't been for the tags weighing down my pockets, I would have lost count of the bodies I passed in the more populated areas of the mountain. Sometimes the burnt and bloodied face was someone I recognized from my world - both whose names were known and those whose faces were all I knew. I tried to remind myself that this wasn't my world; this was another place. Janet, Dr. Warner, Sgts. Siler and Davis, and all the others I recognized were still alive and well back home.

But telling myself that while seeing their bodies in front of me made it all that much harder to believe. It was AU-1 all over again.

The trail of destruction marking the Jaffa's entrance into the base was pretty clear. Somehow, signs of skirmishes and outright destruction were different. The trail itself led to the entry point, past a t-junction in the corridor where a group of airmen and officers were gunned down. It was at this point, a scant thirty feet from the area where the Jaffa broke into the SGA, that I found the body of Colonel Jack O'Neill.

There was really nothing distinguishing about this man that could mark him as different from my friend. It wasn't like AU-1, with General O'Neill's scar and his grotesquely short brown hair. This man had the same graying hair, the trademark ball cap and golf gloves. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought him to be my friend.

Dried blood caked the floor where it had collected after streaming from the six bodies. Boots had streaked the liquid further down the corridor, the rusty-brown smearing out into nothing several feet down the hall. One or two of the men appeared to have died directly from the battle; their wounds caused by well-aimed staff weapons. The others, while likely injured by the skirmish, bore more vicious wounds. I honestly couldn't tell with Jack; while his chest bore a burn, his clothes were caked by blood that might have been his or that of his men. His body was crumpled against the wall, as though his legs had just folded underneath him. What may have been his gun lay several feet away in the worst of the blood.

What surprised me most was that the expression on his face wasn't one of pain. Considering how bad the burn and his other potential injuries were, he probably hadn't felt anything past the initial pain. What I saw was regret as he stared blindly down the hallway, brown eyes still carrying traces of his final thoughts, undoubted focused on one image as the last breath escaped his lips.

I crouched next to his body, hovering uncertainly. I didn't really want to touch him, outside of performing the duty of getting his dog tags to add to my collection. His eyes were what disturbed me the most; the clouded dark eyes unnerved me incredibly. He'd been dead long enough that any attempts to close his eyes would certainly fail. I'm not what would be called superstitious, but something gave me the sense that his spirit lingered on around us. I felt it as something just touching my consciousness, confusion reigning havoc as he tried to figure out where he was. More importantly, where his beloved wife might be, and whether she was safe.

"It's okay, Jack," I said softly, reaching for the chain around his neck. Lt. Hazel was working on the other dead, apparently out of earshot. "Your Sam's okay. She came to us for help, and now everything's okay. There are some allies now that kicked Goa'uld butt and they should be staying around to keep an eye on things. She's okay. Kawalsky kept an eye on her the entire time. You can rest now."

I really don't know if it helped, but it was something. It may have been my imagination, but I felt something move on. I sat back on my heels and used my comm to report the bodies' location before moving on. Lt. Hazel paused for a few moments, paying her quiet respect to her slain superior before following in my footsteps.

An hour later, I was back to working with Dr. Carter, trying to finalize the list of names gathered. The Beta site's inhabitants had returned, more or less, including Dr. Catherine Langford who was surprised to see my vaguely recognizable face. Tired and dirty though she was, she refused to leave before getting the full story about how the Goa'uld were defeated, not to mention the reasons for my presence, that of a friendly Jaffa, and an apparently resurrected Jack O'Neill.

I think she was pretty well shocked when she learned that in our reality, I played an active and vital role in the Stargate's decipherment and the commencement of the Stargate program itself. There was no disguising the look she gave Dr. Carter, something between disbelief and accusation that made the younger woman look away. I had to quickly step in, trying to turn the topic to something less confrontational.

I did a better job than expected. I had no sooner opened my mouth when I was seized with a searing pain running through my body. It felt like my body was being torn apart in several directions, the atoms of my cells losing their stability as they attempted to flee. Before I knew what was happening, and even before my voice could escape my lips as a cry, I was on the floor.

Hands grasped my limbs, stopping the trembling that jerked through me. My breath came in gasps. The lights were too bright for my eyes. Voices were too loud, normal tones unbearable and shouts almost shredding my eardrums. It seemed to last for hours, before it felt like my body came together once more.

"He's conscious," an unfamiliar voice announced, assaulting my ears. Bright light pierced my eyes, and I found I couldn't jerk my head away. Someone was holding my chin in place, the grip tight but not uncomfortable.

"You think?" Jack's voice drawled from the immediate vicinity. The grip on my chin eased slightly, and somehow I think it was Jack. "Take it easy, Daniel. Just let the doc take a look at you, okay?"

I tried to answer but it came out as an indistinct mumble. Jack took it as a positive, the hand removed from my chin, followed by the grips on my slowly steadying arms. My glasses were lost, making most of the blurs indistinct. I could make out Jack's familiar form near me, and I was pretty sure Catherine and Dr. Carter were nearby.

The doctor concluded his examination. "I don't see anything wrong with him. I'd have to do more detailed exams, but that might be hard to do with the state the infirmary's in right now..."

"Then what was that?" Catherine demanded. "He just... just... blurred!"

That pretty well described how I was feeling at the moment.

"Cascade tremors." Dr. Carter was certain, her hand tight around mine.

"What?" Jack exclaimed.

I tried to sit up, even though my head felt like falling off my shoulders and rolling across the deck to rest against the wall. The image made me want to laugh, seeing in my mind's eye my face staring at the room sideways, the view from one eye clear and the other blocked by my nose that had stopped the motion. I would have laughed, but then I would have fallen back where I'd started. Jack grasped my shoulder, supporting me without my asking it.

"But..." Sentences were a challenge, but at least I could form words. "But I'm dead!"

Blurred though my sight was, I could see the confused looks on the faces around me.

"His opposite was dead in the first reality he visited," Jack explained. "Died before he got there, actually, or so we think. I guess it was a little... actually, really stupid to just assume he was dead here, too."

"That's why no one worried if Daniel would be all right," she said, understanding coloring her voice as she looked at Jack. "You figured he would be in no danger like you are here, or Kawalsky in your reality. It would make sense, since the, uh, Daniel Jackson of our reality has a different path from the others."

"So I'm not dead?" At the time, I couldn't that idea into my head.

"No, you're not dead, Daniel," Jack said. It sounded like he was humoring me. "You escaped it true to form."

"Woohoo..." I mumbled.

They made me rest for the remainder of our stay in the reality. Even though the apparently requisite forty-eight hours hadn't passed, Dr. Carter theorized that my early reaction to the entropic failure was likely due to several factors, including my prior injuries and my earlier visit to the other alternate universe. I ended up secured in the newly cleaned control room, helping Dr. Carter and her staff work on the Stargate once we had the personnel list as updated as possible. I didn't have much to add to the repairs, so I mostly ended up having the illustrious task of holding the manual for reference.

"Where do you think he is?" she asked at one point, her attention otherwise focused on the computer screen.

I hadn't been paying attention, idly flipping through the typed pages. I was especially interested in the scrawls framing the various diagrams. I knew from experience that my Sam did the exact same thing with her own papers, particularly when she just jotted down ideas next to the images. "Sorry, what did you say?"

She glanced at me, one hand moving to push hair behind her shoulder. "I was wondering if you have any insight to where your double might be."

"Why?" I was still a little foggy from earlier. Some points were just flying past me at warp speed.

"Catherine and I were talking earlier," she continued, waiting for something to appear on the screen. "We're, uh, talking about inviting him into the SGA. If he wants to, that is."

My eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

"Yeah." Her lips thinned in concentration as she finished doing her diagnostic, reading the text as it scrolled onscreen. She shook her head slightly as she typed. "If I'd known Jack's program would futz the computers up this much, I might have reconsidered. All the code is rewritten, and in places I never figured it would be!"

"That's what my Sam said," I nodded, remembering a few visits to the control room as she stared in astonishment at the monitors. Jack was often smugly stopping by, checking in to see how her clean-up job was going, something that hadn't helped the process. "But it's doable. Trust me on that."

She glanced back at me. "So where do you think he would be?"

"Well..." I considered the question. To my knowledge, the Daniel in AU-1 had perished in Egypt during the Goa'uld attack, based on the last known information from his file. Then again, the Daniel from AU-2 might not do that, since the course of his life was different since he never met Catherine. But, guessing at the fact we were all Egyptologists, it would be a safe bet that Egypt was a good location. "Egypt, maybe. Or New York."

"Why New York?"

I shrugged. "I know people there. Well, in Chicago, too, but I guess I was on better terms with the ones in New York. If this Daniel's history is similar to mine, well, believe me when I say that I didn't make, or even keep, a lot of friends during my downfall in the academic world."

Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. "I know. That's half the reason why I said no in the first place."

"If you're going to go down, at least go down in style," I said, shifting in my seat. Jack had once made that same comment, moments before vowing to behead anyone who dared diss me again.

"That's half the reason I reconsidered." She gave me a once over. "It takes courage to get up there and give all your facts, and believe me, that's something I never really considered before." I was giving her a look, surprise bordered by embarrassment. She chuckled. "Well, that and Catherine thinks you'll be a good asset for us. If we just send you to Abydos for a while to learn the language, we could use you."

"Him," I corrected, with a little smile.

"Sorry."

"He might be an asshole," I cautioned. "Apparently I was one in the other universe."

"Oh, I don't know," she grinned, for a few moments just like my friend. "I think I can handle that. I'm married to Jack O'Neill, after all..." She glanced away with a soft sigh, her grief coming back with a vengeance, then she gave a tentative smile. "Besides, I think I might like having you around. Asshole or no asshole."

"Yeah?" I raised my eyebrows. "Would that be because I'm useful or just due to my incredible personality?"

"You wish," she laughed, "and quit hanging around Jack so much. He'll corrupt you. Look at me, I used to be this sweet little thing until I met him."

"Sure..." I said in a disbelieving drawl. Dr. Carter shook her head, going back to work. The manual's scrawls weren't interesting for me anymore, so I watched her again for another few seconds before speaking again. "I hope it works out. With the other Daniel, I mean."

She glanced back, a smile teasing the corners of her lips.

"We'll get along like a house on fire."

Somehow, I didn't doubt it.

The residents of AU-2 were sorry to see us go, but only Dr. Carter and Kawalsky came to see us off. General Hammond was occupied with the repair operations, but when we said our farewells, we were given his heartfelt thanks. To be honest, they were directed mainly toward Jack. Hammond didn't really know me, and Teal'c was just a Jaffa. What more could we ask for? I received a firm handshake, the General and Teal'c shared a mutual bow, and Jack was actually given a quick embrace. I know it caught him off guard, but I understood where Hammond was coming from. He was saying good-bye not only to our Jack O'Neill, the man who helped save the world, but he was also saying good-bye to the Jack O'Neill he'd once known.

Hammond's actions would prove to be the usual pattern as we made our way back to the storage room where the activated mirror was waiting for us. Just an hour or so before, I'd finally found our reality. When I came across it, I had an intense feeling of déjà vu. Sam was waving to me, her gestures asking if we were ready to come back yet. There was literally only one thing to differentiate her from the incarnation I'd stumbled upon hours before, and that was once again the nametag on her uniform. Well, that and she looked decidedly worried. She was really Major Carter this time, but I had to ignore the little nagging part of my mind that was hoping to God that this was our Major Carter.

Jack was with me at the time, literally supervising my work just in case I fell victim to another tremor. I hadn't had a second episode yet, but the longer we were in the AU, the greater the threat became. He was anxious to get me home before that happened, particularly before the forty-eight hour deadline that marked Dr. Carter's first episode. To be honest, I had little desire to go through another cascade tremor. Once was more than enough. When Jack saw our Sam, however, he'd scribbled something on a piece of paper to hold it for her to see:

"Mission a success. Keep lights on. Will be home before curfew. Get Janet."

Sam wasn't pleased, but she'd disappeared from the frame to give Hammond our update. I could see the soldiers flanking the doorway, guarding the portal to our reality in case something had gone horribly wrong. I could only imagine and shudder in dread what would happen if the Jaffa from another reality got orders from their lord to cross over to another dimension to begin a new invasion. I added it to my list of things I hoped would never happen, but only time would tell.

By the time we came back to the mirror, we only had half an hour before our forty-eight hour deadline was up. I was holding my breath as we went, nervous that I would be felled at any moment by a tremor. Jack and Teal'c were both keeping an eye on me, and I heard Jack muttering under his breath that I should have been booted through the mirror the moment we found our reality. I would have fought tooth and nail had it come to that, though: I had as much of an investment in this reality as everyone else. I could endure another tremor if necessary, as unpleasant a possibility as that might be.

Only Dr. Carter and Kawalsky elected to see us home. The other people we'd met and worked with either sent their regards, or we ran into them on the way. Catherine was one of them, giving her own farewell to Jack, but she had special thanks for me. She placed a kiss on my cheek, telling me that she'd made progress into finding my double. I was right in guessing New York; a Daniel Jackson was listed as a member of the Aegean Dendrochronological Project at Cornell University. That was a huge change from Egyptology, but even in academia, a job is sometimes just a job. She promised me that at the earliest convenience, she'd be traveling there to bring him to Colorado. Assuming it was the same guy, of course.

"Cool," Jack said once we were on our way again. I saw him glancing over at me with a grin. "Looks like your, uh, counterpart here had a bit more luck."

"Yeah. It's... nice..." I said. There was a part of my mind focusing on Jack's words, a little too intently for my tastes. Was it really lucky? Or was it fate that was bringing the other Daniel Jackson here? It seemed that no matter what happened, whether I had taken up Catherine's offer, or traveled elsewhere, the Goa'uld always found a way to interfere with the process of beginning with a new life. I wasn't clear on what my counterpart in AU-1 had done in Egypt, but it seemed that my life, no matter what, was destined to intersect with the Goa'uld and the Stargate. In my own reality, however, I seemed to have ended up with the best possible deal, all things considered. Losing Sha're, as much as I've struggled with the reality, is a better fate than being a nameless victim of an alien attack.

Kawalsky and Dr. Carter seemed to be happy with their own lots in life. The world was theirs again, and the universe was hopefully going to be opened in new ways now that the Asgard were involved here. There was still regret in their eyes and voices as they saw us off. It was clear they both had something they wanted to say, and I didn't need to guess to know that the words were meant specifically for Jack.

Sam was waiting for us on the other side, pacing with her hands behind her back. She was peering anxiously through the mirror, waiting for our arrival. She immediately relaxed when she saw us; behind her, I could see the ever-present SF along with our General Hammond in the background. As our hosts held Jack back, Teal'c and I flanked the mirror. The closer to the mirror I was, the better I felt. We were that much closer to home.

Watching Jack, I felt like I was peering in at a private moment. As it was with Hammond, both Dr. Carter and Kawalsky were really saying good-bye to Jack, and as I watched, I felt mildly irritated. I felt like I was being relegated to the role of sidekick. I was only the guy in the getaway car, after all, with my associate Teal'c modeling the latest fashions of the Goa'uld royal court. What importance could we hold compared to the great and powerful Jack O'Neill?

I underestimated our value to the venture. Yes, Jack did get a good deal of their attention, and there was the same layered meaning to their words. Kawalsky seemed a little more somber than usual as he saluted, telling Jack it was an honor to serve under his command once again; it was a sentiment Jack returned with a wry smile. What did catch me by surprise, though, was when Kawalsky turned to Teal'c and saluted. I wasn't expecting that, but I would suppose that during the duration of our stay here, Teal'c had proven our trust and respect in him. A rare, pleased smile crossed Teal'c's lips as he inclined his head gracefully. The Teal'c of this reality may now be dead, but if there ever came another Jaffa with doubts of the Goa'uld's claim of divinity, Kawalsky would be more likely to give him a chance.

I think that's what pleased Teal'c the most about the entire mission. It was his own little contribution to the reality's general well being.

Unlike Kawalsky, Dr. Carter's words were soft. All I could hear were murmurs, but the tone I caught was intimate. She was close to Jack, gazing up at him with an expression that dulled the sense of victory we felt. While she had her planet back, her world would be essentially empty. All the victory celebrations possibly held wouldn't change the fact that she would be eventually returning to an empty house.

I can relate to the dread. I feel it every time we have downtime, when I'm faced with an apartment filled with everything I could possibly want. Everything but Sha're. While I still held hope that one day I would have her again, there would be nothing for Dr. Carter once we stepped through the mirror, taking Jack with us.

It showed. Trace of words drifted over, reminiscent of everyone else and yet so different. I caught a joke, when Jack asked her how she could marry a loser like himself. I couldn't help smiling; a glance at Teal'c proved he found the words as humorous as I did. There was also something bittersweet about this. While Jack and Sam might never be an item in our reality, he couldn't deny the existence of relationship in the two other realities seen so far. I think Jack found it to be a cold kind of comfort. He once confided to me that he doubted if he'd ever be in a serious relationship again. I didn't know if he meant it due to the nature of our missions, his age or the ruins of the marriage behind him. I know he still loves Sara in his own way, but they've diverged too far on their separate paths to begin anew. The knowledge that two versions of Sam Carter were in love with him was a compliment, in a way. If a woman like her loved him, maybe one day he'd find someone new to love. I could be very wrong, but that has been my impression.

"Thank you," a voice interrupted my thoughts.

It took me a moment to realize Dr. Carter was looking straight at me. Her eyes were bright, but she was smiling. Despite the pull of the scab on my cheek, I found myself grinning. It felt good to know that our efforts at reversing the Goa'uld's damage came to a successful ending, and that they were appreciated. Despite all my earlier grumbling and misplaced resentment, I was proud and happy to have been a part of the effort. If given the chance, I guess I'd join in again. There's just something so fulfilling in defeating Apophis yet again that even a zat gun can't take away.

Jack gave us our cue to leave, and we took it graciously. A few seconds later, we were gone.

Our very own General Hammond looked relieved when we appeared on our side of the mirror. I turned to find him still poised by the massive collection of sandbags. He was actually smiling at us, looking slightly haggard and pale. It wasn't hard to guess that he hadn't slept much since we set off on our little misadventure in AU-2.

"Welcome home, gentlemen. Why didn't Colonel O'Neill return with you?" he demanded. The gruff edge to his voice verified my observation. I hadn't seen him like this since our latest fun with Hathor and our month-long absence.

Teal'c decided to answer before I could even open my mouth. "There are matters that he wishes to discuss briefly with Dr. Carter before his return. He should not be long."

The general seemed satisfied with the words, as smooth as they were. He issued brief orders for the mirror to be shut down and secured the moment Jack returned. We were to assemble in the briefing room at the earliest convenience. We all replied with crisp affirmatives, dumping our extra gear on the floor.

"I trust O'Neill is not long in arriving," Teal'c muttered, only loud enough for Sam and me to hear. "I appear foolish in these clothes."

"I don't know, Teal'c," I drawled, leaning against the wall of sandbags. "You might start a fad over here."

He gave me a dirty look, or as close to one as he'll ever get. "Your humor is lacking, Daniel Jackson. Perhaps more time spent away from O'Neill will be to your benefit."

I couldn't help smirking, despite the way it made my cheek ache. Whatever smart answer I was going to use was immediately forgotten the moment I heard Sam give the softest of exclamations.

"Holy Hannah!"

She doesn't say that much anymore, only if something really shocks her back into the habit. The shock really has to be big, or more specifically, something she doesn't expect. When I first met her, the words often escaped her lips when a scientific experiment seemed to be awry. I know it's something her father says a lot, which may be one reason why she moved away from the habit. But not one to miss out on a bit moment, I turned just in time to get the second largest shock of my life.

That might be a snide comment to make, but I still vividly remember the tenderness expressed between the Dr. Carter and General O'Neill of AU-1. The circumstances didn't allow them anything more than a lingering embrace, but it was definitely more than I'd ever seen between their counterparts in my own reality. Jack and Sam never shared anything more than aloof hugs back in those days, though they've now loosened up and relaxed. I'd seen her even give him a kiss on the cheek on occasion, usually to tease him about something when they're off-duty.

Needless to say, a kiss on the cheek is rather minor when compared to the kiss I witnessed through the mirror. By the time I saw it, they were withdrawing carefully, so it's hard to say what depth it may have reached. Judging by the way their eyes seemed to be focused intently on each other, I'd have to say pretty deep.

Sam was looking away, with an almost embarrassed blush to her cheeks, and everyone else showed a variation of that reaction. We could see Jack and Dr. Carter's profiles almost perfectly, the mirror's distortion blurring them slightly. They were talking to each other now, the words undoubtedly intimate from the close proximity of their faces. I'm pretty sure there were tears in Dr. Carter's eyes when Jack finally made his way to the mirror and stepped through.

"Turn it off," he ordered in a gruff voice.

Our last glimpse of Dr. Carter was a portrait of emotional pain. She was staring after Jack, her expression striking a chord within me. I could imagine the hurt she felt, knowing that her one last link to her dead husband was going to vanish forever. I imagined what it would be like to see another Sha're on the other side of the mirror, a counterpart to my wife who never knew the evil touches of the Goa'uld. I don't think I'd want to leave her, either, even though unlike Dr. Carter, I still had a chance of getting Sha're back.

Jack lifted his hand in farewell, and with a flicker, she was gone a second later.

We were left standing in front of the mirror, the four of us staring into the opaque surface. There was a slight reflection, a hint of our faces returning the gaze. By our expressions, I could see that we really weren't sure what to make of recent events. I turned my attention to my friends, just in time to see their expressions. Teal'c looked ready to move on, while Sam was a little slower on the uptake, only moving when a few airmen moved forward to get at the mirror. Jack, on the other hand, remained where he was, an almost haunted expression on his face.

"Glad to have you back, Colonel," Hammond said from behind us. His words seemed to snap Jack's attention back to reality.

"Thank you, sir." His voice was fairly quiet, a telltale sign that he's trying to work something out in his mind. He didn't say anything until after Hammond left, barely acknowledging the General's departing words about the debriefing.

"Sir?" Sam was giving him a concerned look, one that was mirrored on my face. Teal'c stood, looking at Jack with a raised eyebrow. "Sir, we should let the airmen get the mirror back into storage."

"Right," he mumbled, shaking his head before looking at us. He smiled, the shadows leaving his face to hide in his eyes. "Another mission for the books, kids."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, as we all fell into step behind Jack.

"Double trouble." He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes seemed to fix on me. "Daniel, did Doc Fraiser get a look at you yet?"

"No, but I'm fine," I protested. It wasn't exactly a lie. Compared to the way I'd felt before in AU-2, I was feeling great. I think half the beauty was that I knew I wasn't in danger of cascade failure anymore. Besides, when Jack requested the medical staff, I think they were expecting someone to fall back through with major injuries. I was thankfully moving under my own steam.

"Ah! No argument." He was insisting, and by the way he was aiming that finger at me, it was pretty clear he was ready to throw out his secret weapon at me. Even if I'm a civilian, he still likes to throw the superior officer wildcard at me. "Get your butt on over there. Besides, she'll probably love the chance to use you as a guinea pig."

I groaned. With friends like these, who needs the Goa'uld? "Thanks, Jack."

"Get those lovely brain cells of yours checked out."

Teal'c was practically squirming in his uniform at this point. "I, too, would appreciate an opportunity to attend to important matters."

Jack's grin suddenly grew to enormous proportions. "Geez, Teal'c, you know that you look like a six-year-old in his Sunday best? Get changed, you're making me jittery."

"Thank you," came his gruff reply, before he strode on quickly ahead.

"So, Carter..." Jack continued, his grin still firmly in place. "Did you miss us?"

The look she gave him had innocent written all over it. She smiled sweetly at him, then hit me with it, too. "Miss you guys, sir? You mean you were gone? Oh, that explains why it's been so quiet around here lately."

"Ouch," I said, with a bit of a smile.

"I can be quiet," Jack said a little defiantly. He grabbed onto my elbow. "Daniel, why are you still here? Didn't I just tell you to get your backside down to the infirmary?"

I glanced back at Sam as I was dragged off. She was laughing, hands on her hips as she watched us go. I gave her a hurt pout, knowing she was finding this way too funny. She just laughed a little more, waving at us before heading the other way.

It would definitely be a debriefing to remember, if I ever got out of Janet's clutches intact.

It seemed to me that after the debriefing, the topic of AU-2 became verboten. Maybe that's too harsh a word, but no more than a passing reference passed between us for at least the first few days. It's not like the topic never came up again from other sources. No one in SG-1 wanted to talk about it, myself included. We quickly found ways to distract ourselves, letting our duties bring us directly to the current crisis at hand.

I think some of us were a little uncomfortable with what happened over there. I don't need to go into detail about names, do I? I spent enough time with both Jack and Sam to know that they were unsettled about what transpired at the end of our mission. Two years ago when I told them about AU-1, they both shrugged off the news about General O'Neill and Dr. Carter with their own rationales about why it couldn't happen. Jack loudly spoke about regulations barring that type of relationship, while Sam shrugged it off as a vagary of inter-dimensional minutiae that made our reality different from theirs. Unfortunately, all the lip service in the universe wasn't enough to prepare them for what Jack did and what Sam saw.

"I did it 'cause it wasn't Carter, you know?" Jack told me during the second-last day of the downtime granted to us. Janet was insisting that I rest, so my well-meaning friend gave me a brief rest, and then abducted me from my apartment to take me out. He called it exploring, since someone from SG-7 had casually mentioned a so-called "great fishing spot" north of town. I called it getting lost, since Jack neglected to pack a map and the so-called "few miles north" was getting us nowhere. We were driving at the time, our optimism going down at the sight of roiling thunderclouds above the mountains.

"I know." At the last small town, I got sick of the wandering and actually ventured to buy a map. I was still trying to orient myself to our location. I was only listening with half an ear, concentrating because the printing was really small. "You know, I don't think that town exists, at least according to this..."

Jack's fingers tapped against the steering wheel as we went further. "I just wanted her to - I don't know. She needed to clue in to the reality that I wasn't him."

His words got my attention, and I glanced at him. "I think she knew that already."

"No, she didn't. Not really." His eyes met mine for a few moments, before turning back to the road. It wasn't fast enough to make me miss the still haunted look in the dark brown depths. "She knew as a scientist with all those fancy theories, but she didn't know know."

"As Sam Carter?" I asked.

"Right. The whole goddamned reality was like that. It made me as uncomfortable as hell!" He took the car into a sharp turn, more than it really needed to be. I hung onto the door handle. "Even Kawalsky was going on and on about how cute we looked together."

"Well..." I remembered the picture by the bed, as faint as it was. "The Jack and Sam of that reality were probably a good item. But just because it happened there doesn't mean it will here. You're different people, and there's those regulations, right?"

"Just for starters, yeah." He looked the way he did in the infirmary two years ago, talking firmly in a no-nonsense way about those very same rules. "I just don't like her in that way. Besides... it's Carter. Have you ever thought about Carter in that way? As... you know, date material?"

"I'm married," I said, even though now it felt more like a technicality than a reality. That worried me, a lot.

"Yeah, but you're still alive," he argued. "Unless you're a monk or something, which I sometimes wonder."

I glared at him. "Fine. She's cute, I guess."

"So you've actually looked?" He sounded thrilled at the revelation.

"It's Sam!" I said. The topic of conversation was really beginning to make me uncomfortable. "She's the closest thing I've got to a sister."

"And she's my 2IC. Hell, the day I met her, she was practically shoving it down my throat that she's capable of doing everything a man could do. She even threw in a few memorable quotes, and practically challenged me to arm wrestling."

"Ferretti said she actually did..." I mentioned with a smile. "He bet you'd lose."

"Close enough," he grumbled. "It's unprofessional for me to even think of her in any way more than a coworker. I'm probably already crossing a few lines and then some because we do things off-duty. It applies to all three of you, actually. We got to know each other pretty damn fast, because that's what happens when you're covering your team's six every second of a mission in circumstances we've faced. It just so happens that I like you guys, too. You're all great people. But then some idiot's got to mention that Carter's a woman, and then..."

"Ah. Double standards," I said, knowing pretty much what he meant. I don't mean that to say that it doesn't exist in the real world, but in my experience, the military seemed to observe a version that was a little more, shall we say, paranoid than usual. "A determined disbelief that a man and a woman can be just friends."

"Exactly!" He glanced my way. "What was the name of that last town?"

"Uh..." I frowned, trying to find the spot on the map. I still couldn't find it. The thunderclouds were that much closer, and there was no way in hell I was going to sit on a dock and fish in that weather. "I think it was... Waterford. Welcome to mythical Waterford, that isn't even on the map. Jack, there's no point. We'll ask McAndrews the next time we see him on base where that spot is. I'll even bring a map so he can point it out."

He grumbled assent, pulling the car onto the shoulder to stop. The first drops of rain started to fall. We stared at the windshield for a few moments. Jack finally let out a sigh. He pulled a u-turn once he saw the road was clear. I relaxed in my seat, pleased we were finally heading back to terra cognita.

"You're right. It's all a double standard." He looked at me when I threw him a glance. I thought we were ready to move on in topics since Jack isn't the type to do much talking about personal things. Occasionally, he surprises me. Like now. "Hey, I can talk when I want to talk. Don't give me that look."

I blinked. "What look?"

"The look that asks if I've grown another head or something like that." He laughed, but it sounded dry to my ears. "I say we just go on. We've seen weird shit before, right? We just pick up the pieces and keep on going."

"Yeah, that's pretty much the way it goes," I agreed.

"But it was nice seeing Kawalsky again, wasn't it?"

I couldn't disagree there, exactly. "It was, though it was a little weird."

"Why weird?"

"You of all people are asking why the past few days have been weird?" I teased. When he gave me a hurt look, I simply smiled. "It's no secret that I'm a civilian, no matter how many military things I learn. A lot of people sort of humor me over my status," including the same man seated to my left, "but Kawalsky didn't do that. I was just another soldier, which was different, as you might imagine."

"God forbid." Jack shook his head, glancing at me again. "The day you become just another soldier, Daniel, I'll eat my socks."

"I always told you that you need more roughage in your diet. You'd be able to resist those odd cravings that way."

"Smart ass," he grumbled. "Now quit your yapping and be useful. Call up Carter and Teal'c on the cell, and tell them to be at my place in..." He glanced at his watch, then the odometer. "Make it two hours. Pizza and a movie required."

"Finally, a logical plan I can agree with!"

"Damn right," he agreed. "And don't let Carter be putting pineapple on it, or Teal'c with his anchovy fetish. Save the world, and I come home to a team trying to sneak strange things into my food. For crying out loud..."

Two years ago, I went through hell and I did it alone. I watched counterparts of my friends die, but at the same time, I gained knowledge that would save my own world. Never did I think I'd play a role in helping my friends through the same strangeness that left its mark on me. While this reality wasn't as harrowing as the one I endured, I'm relieved none of us had to go through the experience without the others.

But the next time, if we do find another alternate reality, I hope at least one thing is different.

I want that experience of agreeing with myself.

*fin*