Good
Graces
a Stargate SG-1 fanfiction by Adele Shakal
Good Graces
Author: Adele Shakal, adele@shakal.org
Season: 1
Spoilers for: first season up to and including Politics
Category: missing episode/scene(s)... and if anyone reading this story
can tell me better which categories to list here, please email me.
Archive: Please do not archive without prior permission... but feel free
to link to http://www.shakal.org/sg-1/graces.html.
Summary: Set after But For the Grace of God and Politics. After the political
decision to bury the stargate, but before the last two teams return, the
SGC has an unexpected visitor. How many Dr. Jacksons can one SGC handle?
Rating: No pairings, and rated PG-13 I would guess, for an itty bit of
language and vague references to events in Hathor.
Disclaimer: The characters and universe contained in this story are Copyright MGM/Showtime/Gekko/Double Secret. No ingringement on their copyright is implied.
Notes: This story introduces characters from alternate realities via the mirror, but could have happened within the existing television series story arc without disturbing the course of the existing show, once I finish writing States of Grace, which will conclude this story with the first scenes of In The Serpents Grasp. Thanks to Janis and Elke for beta reading!
Revised 8/10/01
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== The SGC ==
Still wracking his brain for any other possible route of appeal to keep the program alive, General Hammond was feeding SGC papers through the shredder like an automaton.
He was interrupted by the base broadcast intercom system. "Inbound traveller! Offworld activation!"
Hammond hurried into the control room, leaving the shredder to its depressing humming. "Which team is it?"
"Sir, it's SG-1's code..."
"Open the iris, but activate the autodestruct, set for seven minutes. That is not SG-1 coming through, they're already here, on standdown." Hammond pressed his lips together, frowning.
"Prepare for possible hostiles in the embarkation room! Repeat, prepare for possible hostiles in the embarkation room!"
With its usual fanfare, the stargate opening sprang into existence. Training their guns on the gate, the soldiers scanned its shimmering surface. A lone figure in khaki SG uniform walked onto the ramp, pausing to turn around and glance back once at the gate. The sound of rounds chambering caused another, more sudden turn to face the chamber.
Hammond took only an instant to recover from his doubletake before hurrying down to the chamber.
The amplified voice preceded him. "Hands on your head, now, or we will open fire!"
"What's going on?" an unfamiliar voice asked.
"Identify yourself!"
"Danielle Jackson, SG-1..." Their confused visitor's glance shifted down from the control room window to Hammond's face, "General, what's this all about?"
He barely paused to consider the ramifications of that name, "How did you get an SG-1 transmitter?"
"How.. what are you talking about, sir?"
Hammond cocked his head to one side. "Who the hell are you?"
One of the soldiers had placed the woman in plastic binder cuffs, but with all of the firepower in the room still pointing in her direction, she didn't resist. "I am Dr. Danielle Jackson, SG-1. Why don't you recognize me?"
He took one deep breath, held it for an instant. "We don't have a Danielle Jackson working on this base. You could be a goa'uld! You four, take her to the infirmary and have her checked out."
"I am not a goa'uld, sir, I just left the SGC an hour or so ago!"
"If you resist or make any attempt to escape, you will be shot. Do you understand?"
The woman closed her eyes against the General's suspicious glare and took another careful breath. "Yes, I understand. I will cooperate, if it means we'll get this figured out faster."
The soldiers began to escort her out of the embarkation room. Hammond sighed.
"Son, page all of the female personnel still stationed here to the infirmary. If she's like Hathor, we can't afford to only have men guarding her. And page any members of SG-1 that have left the base to return, we're probably going to need them."
"Yes, sir."
Hammond turned to the control room window, "Deactivate the autodestruct, for now."
The speaker didn't obscure the disquiet in the controller's voice, "Yes, sir. Autodestruct deactivated."
== The Infirmary ==
"Dr. Frasier! Janet! Please say you recognize me?" The pleading in the stranger's voice was tangible.
Dr. Fraiser sighed. "I'm afraid not. Now, please, lie down here and let me do this MRI."
"I'm not a goa'uld!"
"Doctor, General Hammond authorized us to tell you to use whatever you need to, to knock her out if she doesn't cooperate. For security."
Eyebrows lifted briefly. "Oh, believe me, airman, I will, if I think she's a danger."
The woman sagged a bit. "Please, don't give me anything. I'll be good, I promise."
Dr. Fraiser gave her a quick once-over, noting no telltale entry scar on her neck, and then peered closely into her face. "Since you're cooperating so far, I'll consider having the binders removed after I run the scan."
The woman was looking more and more exasperated. "Doc, I'm not going to try anything. I'm not a goa'uld, I'm human. I'm Dr. Danielle Jackson, I'm on SG-1, and I need to speak to Colonel O'Neill or Dr. Carter."
Dr. Fraiser glanced over to the guards, then back to her patient. "...Danielle?"
"Yes!"
"Hmm. Just lie back and try to stay calm." A firm hand guided her shoulder downward. "If you are who you say you are, I'm sure you'll be talking to them shortly."
The woman relaxed just a bit, settling into the exam traybed. "That would be good... feel like I'm losing my mind..."
== SGC Corridor ==
"Other than some minor contusions which are partway healed, she's a perfectly healthy human being, sir. I've taken some blood samples to do some genetic comparisons to satisfy my curiousity, but I'm fairly certain she's no immediate danger to the base."
"Oh?" That seemed incredible, but was at least good news.
Dr. Fraiser answered him firmly. "Yes. I've even checked for evidence of the kind of tampering that was done to Cassandra, and she's clean, sir."
"All right, thank you." He nodded. "Now all we have to figure out is how she managed to breach our security, and I'll be a much happier man, Doctor."
== SGC Holding Area ==
Oh, she really hated it when this sort of thing happened...
Danielle paced up and down in the small room. She'd simply turned around, and the rest of SG-1 just wasn't there. It didn't make any sense.
Footsteps in the hallway outside brought her out of circular thoughts that weren't going anywhere, anyway. The door opened, and flanked by two guards, General Hammond and Teal'c entered the room, but there was no sign of recognition in their eyes. Was she really expecting Teal'c to recognize her when no one else here had?
"Well, Dr. Jackson, if that's who you say you are, you're human. We'd like you to come with us." His outward composure seemed all business, but inside, Hammond was very curious about this visitor.
"To go where?"
"Just to have a chat with the SG-1 team."
"Oh." Considering that Teal'c and I are already half of SG-1 as far as I'm concerned, that didn't make much sense. "Okay..." Resigned to figuring out this mystery when I talked with Carter and O'Neill, I shrugged, then fell into step beside Teal'c.
== SCG Conference Room ==
The guards stayed alert, though I was complying with all instructions. They stationed themselves on either side of the doorway, opposite the pair of guards flanking the stairwell.
"Well, Colonel O'Neill, what do you think?"
He gave me a piercing look. "Never seen her before in my life, sir."
I couldn't help it. "Colonel! Come on!"
"You know me, huh?"
"Of course! This is ridiculous! Where's Carter?"
The door opened and another voice joined the conversation. As I turned, I realized that her familiar face held no recognition for me, either. "I'm right here. And you are?"
Hands balled into fists, I stomped once. "Rrrgh! I am Dr. Danielle Jackson, I'm on SG-1, and you've all got amnesia or something!"
O'Neill's usual tact came to the fore. "Oh, this is rich. Daniel's not the only nut in the family..."
Now I felt very confused."Family?"
"Wait a minute." Carter's usual intellectualism kicked in. "You said you're on SG-1. What planet did you just come from?"
"P3R233, why?"
Carter grinned."That's it! She must've touched that mirror that Daniel was talking about! This is amazing!"
Hammond put on the brakes."Whoa, slow down, Captain. We still don't know who she is. She may think she's whoever she says she is, but this could be some kind of trick. And the Doctor's recent delusions are not, in my book, collaborative evidence!"
"What kind of trick, General? I mean, we've been talking about Einstein's theoretical predictions about alternate realities, and whether Daniel's memory was a hallucination or something else, but what we've now got in front of us is living, breathing, actual proof that other existences exist!"
That strange mirror? Alternate realities? Other existences? I needed to sit down...
"Sam, slow down. You've lost me, and our... guest... is looking a little pale." Acting on O'Neill's hint, Teal'c, still standing near me, was conscientious enough to pull out a chair so I could flop into it.
Samantha Carter was really in her element, I thought, trying to explain relativity and its theoretical implications to the guys...
"So this is not my world at all? I'm in some kind of parallel universe?" I had trouble saying it with a straight face, much less believing it. It sounded like a bad science fiction plot gone haywire.
Carter answered, "Yes."
"I feel like the victim of the biggest practical joke, ever."
O'Neill chimed in."You and me both. Isn't this stuff supposed to be theoretical?"
Carter was adamant."Not any more, Colonel."
O'Neill is always coming up with worst-case scenarios... it must have started to rub off on me. "Wait. Wait. You've proved to yourselves that I am not a goa'uld, but how do I know that this isn't some elaborate plot? You could all be goa'ulds, or robots or something!"
"I give you my word: I do not serve them, Danielle-Jackson."
Hammond glanced at Teal'c."I assure you, Doctor, we are not goa'ulds, robots or anything else. We're human, and this is Earth. This is the SGC, and we're fighting against the goa'ulds wherever and whenever we can."
O'Neill volunteered, "We can all go down to the infirmary and take turns having MRIs done, if that'll help... Doctor Frasier might get a kick out of that."
Carter nodded, then glanced up as the conference room door opened. "Yeah. This doesn't seem exactly real, does it? But I think this ought to convince you, if nothing else you see here does..."
"General? What's going on? Sam, has the Senator changed his mind?"
O'Neill, as always, presented the situation flippantly, "Nope, no such luck, Daniel. We just figured you'd want to be here in case you have a sister you haven't told us about..."
Who was this walking in? "Daniel? ... what the..."
"Sister?"
Two pairs of spectacled, clear blue eyes turned to each other.
"Oh... ah... hmmm..." His hand raised to cover his mouth, which was starting to gape. He was tall, medium to slender build, with a bulky bandage on one shoulder. Vaguely unkept hair did very little to disguise a facial bone structure eerily similar to my own. How strange. "I think I need to sit down."
He pulled up a chair next to me, pushing his glasses up to get a better look. The gesture even seemed kind of familiar. Stranger and stranger...
He licked his lips."Dr. Jackson, I presume?"
"Ah, yeah. Danielle Jackson. And you are?"
He chuckled a bit, licked his lips again. Was that nervousness? "Ah... I'm Dr. Jackson. Daniel Jackson."
Well, I thought I'd seen a lot of things. I mean, gate travel, different worlds, alien artifacts, being cloned into a robot, those are pretty hard to top. Taking out an ancient god with a nuclear bomb was pretty high up there on my weird-o-meter. But this was just too eerie.
No one seemed to want to interrupt the pause as we simply stared at one another. Carter took a deep breath. "She just gated in from P3R233, Daniel."
His eyes lit up. "You touched the mirror, right?"
"Yeah... it was in this lab, this room full of artifacts..."
"Yes! Now, they have to believe me!" He was practically jumping out of his chair. Do I act like that when I'm hyper about something?
"She gated here after the mirror brought her to our dimension on 233. We can use this..."
Daniel continued to babble, and I started to lose the thread of it. But all of Sam's talk about various theories and alternate realities was starting to make an awful lot of sense. I found myself believing these people, trusting these people, even though I knew in my gut that there was no way my SGC was going to believe me without proof of their existence. Not that I was sure I'd ever see my SGC again...
Hammond interrupted, "I don't think so, Dr. Jackson. Even if SG-1's theories are correct, I don't think the Senator is going to be convinced."
Daniel's expression went from quickly from excitement to disbelief to frustration to anger. "Are you kidding? She's proof! Absolute proof!"
O'Neill's bitter, calm voice soothed him a bit, "Daniel, we all know what the Senator is really like. He could ignore the nose on his own face if he wanted to."
I pulled myself out of my spiraling thoughts. "Senator? What Senator?"
Hammond explained,"Senator Kinsey. There have been some issues here lately about funding of the stargate program."
"What?"
"They're trying to shut it down, Danielle." Bless Sam for making sense!
"What? Why?"
"It's a budget drain, and the Senator is head of the Appropriations Committee."
Wait a minute... Kinsey, Kinsey... when have I heard that name?
Daniel mumbled, "Yeah, and he's an ass..."
"Dr. Jackson! We've been over this before," General Hammond interrupted.
Kinsey... must have been on the news last November and December... "Wait. Kinsey... religious guy, real hard-nose? Incumbent?"
"Yeah."
"He lost the election by a really narrow margin. There were all sorts of allegations of election tampering, miscounts and ballot-stuffing in a couple of counties in his district.." Everyone turned to stare at me. That's not anything new, except for him... Daniel. A male reflection of myself in a mirror. That's just weird.
"He didn't lose the election here, Danielle."
Oh. So, what did that mean?
Daniel turned to Hammond, only slightly more subdued now, but thoughtful, judging by the wrinkle in his forehead. "General, we need to give her all the information we can about what I learned on the other Earth, and then send her back through the stargate to 233, if her being here won't help us keep the program alive. If there is any chance that she can prevent what I saw from happening to her world or our world or both, we have to help her. You have to believe me!" Once again those blue eyes turned to me, as he gulped for breath, "Do you have the mirror controller with you?"
"Controller? Oh, yeah, the artifact I had in my hands when the mirror shimmered on. It's in my pack."
"Yes!" He was off and going again, leaning forward over the table, alternating between fluid gestures in the air and quick stabs of one finger onto the table. "General, even if we get shut down, if she get back to her world and convince them to help us, and if she can control that mirror, if things go bad here, she might be able to send help to us."
Huh? What could I do to help them?
"I don't know if we'll be able to do that, son. I am only authorized to keep this facility active until those last two teams get back."
Keep this facility active until... What the hell was going on here? The SGC is the best defense for Earth! What are they thinking? We've only been doing recon and research missions for about a year since I returned from Abydos, and the politicians seemed pleased enough with our progress. How different was this world?
Carter's voice penetrated my confusion. "Sir, why don't we classify her officially as a human alien, and doublecheck with Dr. Frasier that she isn't carrying anything of a bacteriological or viral sort which might contaminate Earth if she stays here? Then, it would be in the best interests of our national security to send her back to 233 before we close down..."
He sighed, "Now that might be a good idea, Captain. But I'm not sure it'll work."
"General Hammond, perhaps I can assist Dr. Frasier in discovering some problem with Danielle-Jackson not of earthly origin."
"Well, Teal'c, it's worth a try. Dr Jackson, I cannot believe that I am saying this, but you have my permission to discuss anything you like about your last mission with this woman. Do not disclose any other information which could potentially compromise our security on this world, but if that other world you saw was real, and different from this one, telling her anything about it can't be an additional security breach for us. Teal'c and I are going to go talk with Dr. Frasier about finding a reason to send her back to 233."
Daniel nodded, "Thank you, General. I'll be discreet."
"As per your usual? Right." Hammond paused. "Colonel, either you or Captain Carter will remain here at all times. Make sure my orders are carried out."
"Yes, sir."
"Of course, sir."
The guards posted themselves outside, leaving right after Hammond, smirking a little. I guess Daniel cares about as much as I do about military protocol when important things are on the line.
Daniel had fallen silent, albeit briefly. Then words came tumbling out of his mouth. His agitation was obvious. "Danielle, our team went to 233 a few days ago. While we were there, I touched that mirror, but the Earth I returned to was different in very significant ways from this one. Their world was being attacked by the goa'uld in ships, and they couldn't stop it, they couldn't even slow it down. They hadn't learned some of the things that we've learned about them, or at least some of the other civilizations we've visited. While I was there, I translated a signal they had gotten from 233 a few months before. I've been trying to use that information to prevent the same thing from happening here, but our stargate program is getting shut down because of political nonsense. If your world is similar to either this one or the one I saw, then your world may be in as much or greater danger than ours. We'll give you as much information as we can, and try to send you back to 233. When you get there, if you touch the mirror again, you should be able to get home. That's what I did, and I think this is the same reality that I've lived in all my life."
The Colonel interrupted, "You think? Whaddaya mean, you think?"
Carter chimed in, "Wait a minute, slow down. Daniel..."
He raised a hand to cut her off. "I mean that, Sam. I haven't found anything here that doesn't match up with what I remember, but I don't have conclusive proof that this isn't a slightly different place than the one I belong to. Danielle, do you understand?"
It's obvious he's used to dealing with military thinkers, not people like myself and Sam. Or should that be, himself and Sam. Whatever... "Yes, I understand. Go on."
"Well, I'm sure that the defining event that triggered the attack on Earth was our destruction of Ra on Abydos. Judging by your uniform, you're part of SG-1. Did you solve the cartouche when Catherine offered you the job?"
Well. This was the moment of decision. If I believed everything they had been saying, and if I believed my eyes, I was about to commit a gross breach of protocol and openly discuss classified information with people who, although they looked like the SGC, had admitted that they were not my SGC. I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath, and then caught myself licking my lips. Jeez, like I needed more proof that he's me. Well, sort of, anyway.
"Yeah, Catherine and I solved it together. And then I went on the first Abydos mission with Colonel O'Neill."
O'Neill stood up and walked over to the door. "I'll bet you two are going to need a few gallons of coffee. I'll get the first pot brewing. Carter, you're OK staying here?"
"Yes, sir." Then Sam turned to me, a bit incredulous. "You didn't have a hard time convincing them to let you go?"
"Well, if it hadn't been for Catherine, I wouldn't have gone. They gave me a bunch of crap about being a civilian, and being a woman didn't help my case any. But they didn't think they could solve the Abydos stargate to get home without me, so I went."
"Wow."
"Yeah. It was amazing, one look at the pyramid vindicated all of my theories about the pyramids here."
Daniel smiled.
"Colonel O'Neill had a bit of a surprise for us once Ra showed up, though. Meeting Ra wasn't exactly fun, but how many people get to actually meet anything that ancient and that self-centered? We ended up blowing up his spaceship in orbit."
He nodded, "Did you die?"
What a question. But who else but myself would ask me that? Even if he isn't me. "Yeah, Anubis got into a bit of a firefight with O'Neill and I got caught in the crossfire. I take it you experienced the sarcophagus, too?"
"Yeah. Dying isn't fun, is it?"
"Nope. Not fun at all."
Daniel paused.
"Ah... Danielle, did anyone else on Abydos use the sarcophagus?"
OK, what was this about? "No, why?"
He got the strangest look on his face...
"Did Sha're die in the fighting?"
So the folks on Abydos were similar in this reality, even if some events were different... "No, why?"
His eyes widened a bit. "She took a blast from a staff-weapon trying to warn Jack and I that one of the Horuses was about to attack us. I had to take her up to Ra's ship to revive her."
Had to? A lot of people died on Abydos. Why revive just her? She's my friend, but most of that relationship is based on us finding common ground during the year I stayed with her family... "Daniel, what's this about?"
He looked like someone had jabbed him in the gut with a fistful of knives. "The first night with the people on Abydos, the village elders..." He paused, stopped meeting my eyes.
No, he wasn't pausing, he was getting choked up, and he stopped talking. What was going on?
Completely confused and starting to get really concerned, I looked over at Sam, who had grown very quiet. I guess she's used to Daniel's expressions enough to understand mine.
Softly, Sam said, "Danielle, Sha're is Daniel's wife."
Oh. OK. That was a big concept.
The elders must have given her to him, they do that sort of thing. Jeez. My world's Sha're could have had any man on Abydos that she wanted. Or any man on Earth, for that matter. "Did the sarcophagus work on her?"
He sort of shook himself. "Ah, yeah. I got her back to Jack in time to send the bomb to Ra's ship."
"And then you decided to stay on Abydos."
"Yeah, you, too?"
"Yup. I stayed with Sha're's family. She and I found the Abydos chamber and started charting its constellations. We're good friends."
"You are?"
"Yeah, when O'Neill returned about a year later, she and I brought all of our notes back here and she spent a while helping Sam get the data into her computer model. Why?" What had happened here? He looked as white as a sheet... "Daniel?"
He wasn't answering me, just opening and closing his mouth a little bit.
Sam decided to help out. "Danielle, are you saying that Sha're is on your Earth? Right now?"
"Yeah... she and the Littlefields hit it off really well. They have a lab set up here on base, analyzing Egyptian-related artifacts the SG teams have brought back, and Ernest's notes from the Heliopolis. Speaking of them, where are the Littlefields?"
"They're married?" Sam's tense expression gained a tentative smile. Daniel was looking worse, if that was possible.
"Yeah, when we brought Ernest back, it was a little rocky at first, but he and Catherine had a beautiful ceremony. They come in a few days each week, and they have learned quite a bit about Abydonian culture and language from Sha're. They're also helping out with basic language training for the SG teams." What was I missing?
Daniel finally spoke, in a very faint voice, "Sha're is on Earth. She's safe?"
From what? "As safe as the SGC... she said she wouldn't be comfortable staying at my place, so her quarters are right next to Teal'c's... are you OK?"
He'd buried his head in his hands, and it didn't look like he was going to look up again at any of us any time soon.
Sam looked like she understood what was going on, but wasn't sure how to tell me. "Around the time O'Neill's team made their second visit to Abydos, did Apophis raid that planet as well as Earth in your universe?"
Oh, that slimy bastard. "Yeah, a woman from Earth, and later Skaara, were taken to Chulak. We've been trying to get Skaara back since then, and we never found the woman when we did the big rescue with Teal'c. I think she was killed..." Oh, wait a minute...
Daniel was choking back a sob...
"Then, Sha're was with you in the Abydos map chamber when they raided..."
I was beginning to get the picture. Had this universe's Sha're been killed in the attack? Damn, damn, damn. "Yes."
Now he was crying, in little hiccups, and mostly silently. He stood up abruptly, one hand over his eyes. God, he looked like I'd just yanked out his soul and ground it under my heel. "Excuse me..." and then he was gone, stumbling out of the room, nearly knocking into O'Neill in the hallway, who was returning with a full pot of steaming coffee.
"Daniel?" O'Neill's voice was full of confusion and concern.
"I'll be back... I just need a minute..."
"What happened?" He turned and glared at me as Daniel disappeared down the hallway. I really don't like it when he looks like I've disappointed him or pissed him off, in any universe.
Sam, bless her heart, deflected him. "Danielle's Sha're is safe and sound and working on Egyptian artifacts with the Littlefields here on Earth, Jack."
His face didn't change much, and he brought a mug over for me and sat the pot down. He said carefully, "And Skaara?"
Sha're. Skaara. My friends. With those things in them. Damn! This universe had lost both of them. I took a deep breath.
This time, I was together enough when I faced him. I owed him that, since Skaara was like a son to him in my universe. I wondered if it was the same here. "We've been trying to get him back from the goa'ulds since he was taken." Yup, judging by his face, that was the same. Damn!
"Mmgh. Well, I'd better go find Daniel." A bit gruffly, he left walked out, leaving me with Sam.
She was rubbing her forehead, then stood to get herself a mug. "It's good to know that she's safe somewhere. But now he'll be blaming himself that he didn't take her with him to the map chamber and you did."
Damn.
"What happened to her here, Sam?"
"She's host to Apophis' queen. We saw her on Chulak twice. The first time, she stood by while Apophis blasted Daniel across the room, and then she defended Apophis while they captured us."
I had vivid memories of meeting Apophis and his new Queen. Being captured by them and thrown into their dungeon was definitely not fun, and we hadn't even known her host.
"The second time she stood by approvingly while he ordered all of us killed. It was really rough on Daniel. He practically volunteered to be chosen just to be near her."
Oh, man. That's a big concept... I'm pretty single-minded at times, but volunteering to host a malevolent goa'uld just to be near someone is a phenomenal sort of devotion.
"But he wasn't chosen, because he's here now..."
"Yeah, they took Skaara instead."
"They chose Skaara out of the crowd randomly in my world. The Colonel got a broken nose for trying to interfere."
"But you rescued the ones that didn't get chosen, and Teal'c is on SG-1 with you?"
"Yeah."
There was a pause.
"It must be much different than here, having two women on the team..." I could tell she was trying to change the subject, which was just fine with me. I've never been married, actually I've never had a partnership that lasted any significant length of time. If Daniel's life was anything like mine, having a wife who was as devoted to him as Sha're's friendship had been for me, then losing her must be the worst thing he's ever been through. I could envy him the closeness of such a special relationship, if I didn't already know how much it had cost him in grief and pain.
"Yeah, the Colonel gets crap about it all the time from the jarheads."
She laughed a bit at that. "Hey, how did the mission to Simarka go?"
Simarka... oh, right, the Mongols. "It was... interesting. I'd assume that having one fewer woman along might have actually helped your team."
She kept a little smile. "Yeah, probably."
Speaking of events when would have been nice to have a few more of one gender than the other... "How did you guys deal with Hathor if I wasn't around? You, Doc Frasier, Teal'c and I made quite a team on my world."
She got a strange look on her face. "Well, we were kind of hard-pressed for a while. I was really glad that Teal'c was immune to her charms."
"I'll bet. How'd General Hammond deal with it?"
She looked a little confused. "Deal with what?"
Hmmm. Guess things were more than a little different here. "He didn't particularly enjoy the prospect of being a Jaffa in my world."
Her mouth dropped open. "General Hammond?"
"Yeah, he wasn't selected as a Jaffa here?" Who was it, then, Daniel? Like the guy needed any more trouble in his life...
"Uhmm, I don't think I'm supposed to go into this much detail with you, but I can't imagine how it would compromise our security. That was Colonel O'Neill."
"Really? Then who did Hathor latch onto for her Pharoah?"
Sam looked a little green around the edges. "Ah, well... that would be Daniel." She looked away as I boggled.
Man, this guy just cannot win.
All these years I thought my life might have been easier if I'd been a guy, bouncing from foster home to foster home, changing schools and losing touch with what classmates I had managed to find some connection with, getting labelled a nerd or a geek or worse all my life, and then not finding any real peers or friends, even in academia after I had a few degrees. Until Catherine, and Sha're and my adopted clan on Abydos, and then Sam...
Boy, am I glad to be a woman.
It was hard enough on my world's Colonel O'Neill that Hathor brainwashed him into her bed to make more goa'ulds, but for that to happen to a man already fighting to get his wife back from them...
Daniel's life sounded horrific. How does he keep himself going?
And speak of the devil, Jack's bringing him back in... his eyes are a little red, but he's pulled himself together amazingly well given what I now know about him. If this guy is capable of having done even half the things I've had to do as part of SG-1, after all he's been through, he's got my full respect.
Weird. Since we're a lot alike, I guess I've got about that much backbone, too. That's good to know, it might come in handy any time now, I guess. The next time Sam or the Colonel give me any crap, I will keep this in mind!
"Daniel, Sam filled me in. It sounds like you've had quite a time of it. If you guys can get me home, I'll do everything I can to keep her safe in my world."
He blinked a few times, sniffled just a little bit, clenching his jaw a little. Then he squared his shoulders and looked me in the eye. "Thank you. That's really good to hear."
I poured him a cup of coffee. "Here, I always feel better with some fuel in the system."
He sits down, with a nod, cupping the mug in his hands. "You're probably going to have trouble convincing your SGC to believe whatever you tell them about this world. Here, even SG-1 doubted me..."
Sam interrupted, "Not exactly, Daniel. We just didn't know how to grasp the concept, not having experienced it firsthand ourselves."
"Oh, speak for yourself, Carter. I thought he'd gotten one knock too hard to the head, myself." Trust O'Neill to lighten the mood.
Daniel looked earnestly at O'Neill, then to me, "But you believe me now, right?"
That brought smiles all around. I couldn't help but join in, "I'm not a collective figment of your imaginations, and you really don't seem like a hallucination to me!"
Sam laughed. She always helps.
"So, Daniel. What can I use to convince my SGC that you are all real?"
"I've been thinking about that. If we make a video, you can take it back with you. A picture really is worth a thousand words; I learned that on the Earth that was being destroyed."
Ah! Good idea. No one is ever going to believe I'm a guy in this world unless I bring back some proof, it's just too strange. "I've got mine in my pack there. Hey, do you want to see what my SG-1 looks like on 233?"
O'Neill simply nodded. Sam stood up, "I'll get the AV gear." She left me with Daniel and the Colonel.
I decided to break the silence with what could be another emotionally laden question, but, call it morbid curiosity. "This is going to sound a little strange, but have you seen Apophis lately?"
O'Neill answered, "Yeah, he was hunting for Fenri. Have you encountered them?"
"Yeah, that's when Apophis killed me the last time. I hate it when that happens."
Well, that got Daniel's attention again, and he nodded. "The Nox brought you back, didn't they?"
"Yeah, we had a few misunderstandings with them, but they tolerated us pretty well, for such an advanced race. They responded kind of favorably when we contacted them again, too."
"For the refugees from Tollan?"
"Yeah, because we'd gotten a decent reception from them the first time, SG-1 was sent back to request a sort of ambassadorial visit from them. It was good to see them again, but I think seeing our setup here didn't change their minds about us being, as they said, very young."
They both had strange looks on their faces, but O'Neill recovered first. "They didn't bury their stargate?"
Huh? "No, they've been just fine with it open forever, why would they bury it now?"
"Apophis didn't find out the truth about the Fenri?" The expression on Daniel's face couldn't be described as anything but quizzical.
"No... I'm assuming that you did?"
"Yeah, but our Apophis did, too." Daniel continued, "The Nox buried their gate, and I had to do stuff that would have gotten Jack or Sam court-martialed to get a message to them using Tollan technology..."
"That doesn't sound like it was fun." What a strange concept.
"Ah, no... but it was worth it."
"Then the Tollan are with the Nox now in this reality," I concluded.
"Yep."
Well, that was good. If NID was as annoying as they were in my world, Daniel had every reason to do whatever he had had to do to keep them from taking the Tollan. Not making enemies with the more advanced friendly races was usually a good idea. Speaking of which, "Daniel, did you encounter Nem here?"
He grimaced a bit. "Yeah. You?"
"Yes, the second visit was very productive."
"Second visit?" Uh, oh...
"Yeah... ah... after the first trip, I decided to put together some research about his people here, and take it back to him..."
"I've been meaning to do that, but I haven't had time." Oh, that's not good.
"Ah... have you done any of the research?"
"No, not yet... why?"
"Now I'm the one that's under orders not to discuss things in too much detail. Hmmm." Trying to figure out what I could and could not tell them was tricky!
"You can trust us, Danielle."
"Yes, I know. But if there is any chance that things go horribly wrong here, any knowledge I give you about the Oannes could be used against them in this world. And the next time I see them in my world, I would have to be honest with them about it."
"What?"
"Daniel, it's not simply a matter of national security or SGC security. In my world, we've had a lot more contact with Nem's people than my first visit, and humanity owes them a lot more than you probably know. And if the same things I discovered happened or will happen here, anything I tell you could put Oannes' lives at risk. Their average lifespan is really, really long. You have no idea how much of a tragedy it is when one of them dies young."
The Colonel had a strange look on his face.
"It sounds like you have some pretty advanced allies, Dr. Jackson, not just acquaintances."
Interesting that he's addressing me that way now... two can play that way... "Well, that was part of the point of the SG missions, sir. Identifying threats, locating resources, meeting potential allies, gathering information about life, the universe and everything... you know, the daily grind?"
Daniel shook his head and chuckled a bit, which was really good to see. "From what you've said, your stargate program may not be in danger of being buried. I mean, it sounds like the political situation and the project are both a little different than here. But your world may be in just as much danger of attack by the goa'uld ships as our world."
"Yeah, I'd say we've pissed them off." That gave them pause for a bit, then Sam returned with a couple of cameras and a cart with AV equipment. We set up the tripods to record the rest of our conversation.
I showed them the tape of my SG-1's exploration of P3R233, which they found amazing. I guess seeing yourselves in an alternate reality is just as much of a jolt, no matter if your other self is your gender or not. Hopefully recording their reactions to my video to take back with me to show my team will prevent doubts about my sanity.
Daniel brewed the next pot of coffee, and the sat down to tell me everything he remembered about the other alternate Earth that he'd seen. Pretty harrowing stuff. Unstoppable death gliders and big ships, death toll estimates in the billions and growing, watching or hearing all the sublevels of the base fall to the enemy one after the other. Figuring out that his other self... our other self... was in all probability already dead in Egypt. Running for his life while the autodestruct blew everything remotely familiar to him all to bits right behind him, with a really nasty-sounding version of Teal'c shooting at him on his way out. I found myself shaking just hearing about it. It was so easy to picture it from his descriptions!
Teal'c returned, saying only, "The General has given Doctor Frasier an 'unofficial go ahead' to find or fabricate whatever necessary to allow you to go home, Danielle-Jackson." He sat down, and seemed lost in his own thoughts.
Daniel took a big gulp of coffee. "Their Earth had gotten a transmission from the area of P3R233, Danielle, but no one there spoke ancient Egyptian, because they'd never learned it on Abydos." He recited the message to me. It was a quiet thrill to hear a deeper, coarser version of my own voice speaking a language which had been dead and buried on Earth for a thousand years, and understanding him. It was a fairly odd dialect, though.
"Beware the destroyers, they come from? Was that all of it?"
He looked pleased that I had understood. "No... it was followed by pulses or beats, divided into groups. They were three, thirty-two, sixteen, eight, ten, and twelve." He looked expectantly at me.
"That's six numbers."
"Yes." His eyes were starting to glimmer a little.
"That's a stargate address, without the point of origin."
"That's what I thought, too." He grinned.
"The numbers must correspond to the symbols on the 233 stargate."
"That's what I thought..." He was still grinning.
"And they started numbering from either one, or zero, from the unique symbol for their own planet, counting either clockwise or counterclockwise around the gate?"
His face fell. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Carter looked alarmed, "Daniel?"
"I assumed that they started from one. But she's right, some cultures start with zero!"
I thought for a moment.
The Colonel was confronting Daniel. "What does she mean? Have we got two possibilities for that address or what?"
"Yeah, Jack. If they number from zero, then the symbols I've got here are one chevron over from the address we need. At least she's got the video with their stargate pictured in it. We can use that to come up with the other possibility."
Sam looked defeated. "There is no way that we're going to get clearance to check out two addresses before they shut us down. I doubt we'll even be able to get clearance to check out one of them."
I was still thinking. Wait, that's it! "Daniel, I think they started counting from zero. I got a close look at the lab on 233, and from what I saw of their annotations on the wall sheets and the item tags, they started from zero."
He looked at me like I'd given him the first ray of sunlight he'd seen in a long time. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Sam asked, "But what about the clockwise, counterclockwise question?"
That was tougher, but Daniel shook his head, "I considered that, and ran it through the computers this morning. Going the other way resulted in a set of chevrons which our SGC had already ruled out as a valid destination. We'll have to check her video of the 233 gate for the coordinates counting from zero instead of one, and run them through the computer. If we're lucky, either the clockwise or counterclockwise coordinates will be invalid."
I was still thinking about those six numbers. "What about relative positions rather than absolute, did you rule that out, too?"
He looked at me a little strangely, "No, I didn't consider it, because there was no notation of which way to count along the gate. I mean, if it was three right or left, then thirty-two right or left, et cetera et cetera, they would have had to signify the different between counting right or left, and they didn't. The signal was just a series of pulses, all the same frequency, with time-gaps in between the groups."
"But what if they were all in the same direction? ...oh, never mind, that wouldn't add up to the unique chevron being back in the last position. It doesn't matter if you're counting from zero to thirty-eight, or from one to thirty-nine, it doesn't add up."
He shook his head slowly, doing the same mental calculations I just had, then looked up. "Yeah, you're right. But I didn't think about that. I'm glad you did, that means I'm probably right!"
"So, we're going to be back to one possible address?" Trust the Colonel to put it into proper perspective again.
Daniel answered, with exactly the same conviction I had earlier, "Yes, as soon as we look at her video."
There was a pause, then the Colonel nodded. "OK, then. Get to it." He leaned back, settling himself in for a long haul of silent endurance. Obviously my O'Neill and this O'Neill had just about the same tolerance for enthusiastic scientists.
We scanned back my video to the clearer shots of the stargate on 233. As Sam and I carefully counted around the wheel, Daniel simply stared at the monitor. We'd gotten to the fourth chevron in the clockwise sequence before he spoke up. "This gate is different from the one I saw on 233."
Sam and I both turned to him. "What!?"
He had the strangest expression on his face. "Humor me, please? I've had enough people thinking I was crazy for the whole alternate universe thing. Just count out the chevrons and write down the coordinate sequences for clockwise and counterclockwise. Don't let me do or say anything to change what you'd come up with, OK?"
Sam looked at me for some sort of confirmation that I had no way of providing. I hadn't followed much of this last leap of logic of his, either. But I did understand that he wanted us to come up with our own conclusions for the coordinate sequence and then try an independent comparison. "Sam, let's be sure. I don't want any simple counting error to throw it off."
Her blue eyes were bright. Obviously in her element now that there was a puzzle to be solved, her attention was rapidly back to the task at hand.
Daniel had sat down on the far side of the room, taking his glasses off to scrub at his eyes.
Sam and I counted out the clockwise and counterclockwise coordinates together, double and then triple checking again to be absolutely sure.
When we were finished, we took our pads of paper to Daniel, who had a scrap of yellow paper crumpled in his hand. The three of us lined up our results on the table in front of him.
Sam was the first to speak. "Daniel, you said that you began counting from one."
"I did."
"Then why did one of the coordinates we both got from starting counting at zero match the coordinates you came up with?"
"The gate I saw must have been different, but in just the right way to make that possible." His eyes turned to me, unspoken volumes asking that I help him explain this.
I found myself licking my lips. "Sam, we should try running our second set of coordinates through the computer. That should tell us more once we know if they're a valid address or not."
She looked from me to Daniel and back again, then nodded, grabbing her tablet. "I'll be right back."
I found myself pacing around the room, ignoring O'Neill's mildly curious glances. Daniel sat quietly, also watching me, I guess.
I can take an awful lot on faith at times, but this was all too much. My thoughts were swirling around, too many infinite possibilities and theories flowing one into the others too quickly to differentiate with any clarity. But what... why... how is it possible that...
Sam returned, slightly breathless, and now that she was back, I couldn't keep my biggest question from popping to the surface. "Daniel, the world you saw was obviously different from this one, and this one is obviously different from mine. Even if counting from zero on my 233's gate gave us the same coordinates as counting from one on your 233's gate, how do we know that that other universe, the one you saw destroyed, had its goa'uld attack come from those coordinates? I mean, neither you nor I have video of that universe's 233 gate, or the lab there to know whether it should have been counted from zero or one!"
O'Neill's voice cut through, as always. "Breathe, Dr. Jackson, breathe. Before your head explodes or something."
OK, that was exasperating. He hadn't followed along with any of our conversation, obviously. I turned to Sam, who simply pursed her lips together silently, didn't meet my eyes and sat down at the table to look across at Daniel. Silence, from Sam?
I turned to Daniel, expecting some sort of commiseration, but he was smiling, softly chuckling. What was that about? I'd just been shifting my weight from one foot to the other fairly rapidly, and talking with my hands, as I sometimes do when I get really agitated... Oh.
I hadn't shown this group that side of me, since I'd kept to my standard 'yeah, I'm a female civilian scientist, so what, I'm a professional and you have me along for a reason, damn it, listen to me' style in this whole crisis, ever since I'd stepped through the gate.
Daniel had just gotten an unforgettable little demonstration of what we look like when we both get agitated. I was just returning the favor, I guess. OK, time for some harsh honesty here: when it was him, it looked like hyperactivity, not just agitation... I smiled back and him, shrugging a little. "Well?"
"Well... right. Ah... I did get a really quick look at that other 233 gate when I went back through. I don't know about the rest of the chevrons, but the first chevron of my coordinate set, the third chevron from their point of origin symbol, was the same, counting from one on that gate."
I flopped into a chair. "So even if my 233's civilization counted from zero, and your 233's and that other universe's 233's civilization counted from one, all three gates give us the same single set of coordinates? That's too much synchronicity to be coincidence."
Sam chimed in. "I agree. And I ran our second possibility, and the coordinates aren't valid. Somehow these three realities are very similar, or that planet's coordinates are very significant in a large number of realities."
Daniel nodded, "The other Dr. Carter and I talked about that. Our conclusion was that the larger, more pivotal events had all been very similar in our two realities, so there is a fairly large probability that any attack on Earth would be coming from the same place in each of them. I also have a little hypothesis that the mirror didn't push me into a reality too far from my own."
O'Neill decided to interupt again. "So, all of this scientific hand waving has just confirmed Daniel's single set of coordinates again? Even though there are plenty of differences, both on Earth and on 233, in these... alternate whatever they ares?"
Sam answered a second faster than Daniel and I. "Yes, sir. Even though those 233s and Earths were different."
I turned to Daniel again. "But really, how different from your world was that other one?"
"Oh, lots of little things. That Daniel Jackson had turned down Catherine when she offered him the translation job, for starters."
I huffed out my quick assessment of him. "That was stupid."
"Yeah, I thought so, too, until I remembered how frustrated I was after that disaster of a conference..."
"Yeah, those jerks were really stuck in their rut, weren't they? But still, I didn't have any other prospects; you either?" Daniel shook his head. "He must have been pretty dense to turn her down... oh, ah... I guess we shouldn't speak too ill of him..."
"I know." He was nodding. Talking about that other us being dead was just uncomfortable, for both of us. "Ummm... Let's see, an overview... Teal'c was leading the attack on Earth. Sam wasn't in the military at all, and she and General O'Neill were engaged to be married. Catherine had never found Ernest and was still working here at the base, Colonel Hammond was sort of the same, but Dr. Frasier wasn't here at all. I don't know how that O'Neill had killed Ra, but it was possible that he'd blown up all of Abydos to do it. He had a tendency to solve problems by sending bombs at them."
I turned to O'Neill. Engaged? Sending bombs at problems?
"Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm not like that."
"Neither is my Colonel O'Neill." I'm not sure what startled me the most of Daniel's list.
O'Neill must have picked up on that, "No one's engaged on your world, are they?"
"Ah, no..."
Daniel saved me from that strange conversation. "Danielle, if your SGC has to repel anything like what I saw, you've got to convince them to get the dialing speed of the stargate as fast as possible. The goa'uld were able to keep an off-world wormhole open for thirty-eight minutes, and they could dial into that Earth faster than that control room could dial out."
"I'll make sure to tell my SGC that. Is there anything else?"
"Yeah. The invasion on that Earth started approximately four days before I got there. They had tried to start an evacuation of key world leaders, scientists, that sort of thing, to another planet, through the stargate. They thought that the evacuation is what gave away the location of the stargate, and Air Force One was destroyed trying to reach us. I think they may have only gotten about half of the evacuation done before the base blew."
Just four days...
"In just four days' time, the goa'uld had managed to throw the whole world into chaos. Most of the major cities were already gone, and they were systematically scouring every trace of civilization off the face of the Earth."
No one spoke for a long moment. Daniel looked drained and exhausted.
I licked my lips, cleared my throat, and realized that my coffee cup was again empty. "Thank you for your help, and your information. I'll do my best to prevent that sort of carnage from happening wherever I can, Daniel."
He just nodded.
I wondered, in the silence, which of us had realized first that my world probably has a better chance of survival than his.
Sam got up and stopped the camcorder, handing me the gear so I could start packing.
== The Infirmary ==
"Well, Doctor, are all the papers filed and in order?"
"Yes, sir. Dr. Danielle Jackson's antibody screen showed that she may have been exposed to a slightly different strain of the Broca Touched disease. Because of its differences, she might inadvertently cause a plague here, and my reports go into that possibility in detail."
"Good." General Hammond looked much relieved that although the President did not have the political clout needed to send any SG teams anywhere, the politician could at least get the Surgeon General to support him enough to send possibly contagious aliens away from Earth rather than attempting to quarantine them, simply because it was cheaper, if not safer.
Dr. Fraiser smiled impishly. "Of course, Dr. Danielle Jackson told me that she believes her version of the Touched disease was completely cured and purged by high dosages of antihistamines, but she's not a medical doctor, so that sort of hearsay isn't included in my official report, sir."
Hammond grinned back at her. "Good work, Doctor. Your strict professionalism in reporting your findings is appreciated." Now, if they could just come up with something for Teal'c...
"Really, General, it is incredible. The Northern and Southern blot tests, and the other DNA screens I ran, show that Daniel and Danielle are amazingly similar, except for the obvious X and Y chromosomal difference."
He absently nodded. "Somehow, Doctor, that doesn't surprise me one bit." He needed to think some more, to make sure there weren't any political or NID-related entanglements that might backfire on them if they tried to use the same tactic again...
== The Embarkation Room ==
There was much hand-shaking going around, and their visitor, along with some video and medical records, was all ready to go. Across dimensions, compassion for what might have been her own fate drew her into a hug with one rather determined-looking archeaologist, murmuring something to him alone.
Before she stepped through the shimmering gate at the top of the ramp, she turned back one more time. "If our group figures this all out, I'll try to send you what help I can." And then she was gone.
The gate closed, and silence filled the chamber for a long, long moment. Then they all headed for the corridor, drawing some comfort from each other.
General Hammond sighed. "Only one more team due back, in the next few hours. SG-1, thank you for your efforts with our guest."
Teal'c and Carter just nodded. Daniel rubbed his eyes, trying to come up with something to keep the program alive, but knowing that it had all been said before, and to no effect.
O'Neill answered for all of them, "Sir, we wouldn't have done any less for any member of the SGC."
"I know, son, I know..."
They were interrupted by glowing chevrons and a familiar rumble. They rushed back to the embarkation room.
"Inbound traveller! Repeat, inbound traveller!" Soldiers began scrambling.
Hammond barked, "Control room, do we have a confirmation code yet? If not, close that iris!"
The control room protocol began, an amplified voice echoing down the concrete corridors. "Off-world activation! Prepare for possible hostiles in the embarkation room! Repeat, prepare for possible hostiles in the embarkation room!"
SG-1 and Hammond had rushed back past the blast door, trailed by the response team with their weapons drawn.
"General, it's the SG-1 code again! Open or close the iris??"
"Aw, hell, open it. We just sent her through to 233 not fifteen minutes ago, what went wrong?! Better set the autodestruct, just in case..."
"Aye, sir! Iris open, autodestruct timer set!"
All eyes turned back to the gate.
With its usual fanfare, the stargate opening sprang into existence. Training their guns on the gate, the soldiers scanned its shimmering surface. A lone figure in khaki SG uniform walked onto the ramp, pausing to turn back and glance back once at the gate. The sound of rounds chambering caused an abrupt about-face.
This time, Hammond didn't even do a doubletake. He sighed, putting one hand up to scratch his head.
Colonel O'Neill stepped forward as the gate closed. "Dr. Jackson, welcome to your own personal Twilight Zone."
"Sir?"
"This is some sort of complicated alternate universe effect caused by yet another interesting alien artifact, assuming you're just trying to come home from 233. If you'll slowly lay down your weapons and come with me for an MRI so we're sure you're not a goa'uld, we'll get you all straightened out and back on your way."
The newest Dr. Jackson to visit this particular Earth was staring at his counterpart, who met his gaze with far less confusion. "Ah... hi. Welcome to my reality."
"Ah... hi." His eyes scanned the room quickly. Then their guest started deliberately and efficiently disarming himself, seeing that all of the response team weapons were still directed at him, and then joined the rest of SG-1 heading toward the door.
"Control room, cancel autodestruct."
"Yes, General."
Hammond nodded, then turned to follow SG-1.
They were again interrupted by glowing chevrons and a familiar rumble.
"Inbound traveller! Repeat, inbound traveller!"
"Oh, for cryin' out loud..."
"Off-world activation! Prepare for possible hostiles in the embarkation room!"
"General, it's SG-l's code again..."
"Keep the iris open... reset the autodestruct timer."
"Aye, sir! Iris open, autodestruct timer set!"
A lone figure in a grey SG uniform stumbled onto the ramp, pausing to turn back and glance back once at the gate.
This time, it was General Hammond that spoke, "Dr. Jackson, in just how many realities do you plan on touching that damned mirror??"
The figure turned, then noticed the response team's drawn weapons and stopped, peering around the room in confusion. "What's going on?"
[ to be continued, in States of Grace ]
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