Time Travel Alphabet Soup

[fignewton]

My thanks to the 24 authors who wrote 27 different fics to make Time Travel Alphabet Soup a reality: Antonomasia, Badfalcon, Campylobacter, Dennydj, Eilidh, Fig Newton, Gategremlyn, Goddess47, Immertreu, Ivorygates, Izhilzha, Jb, Jedibuttercup, Magnavox, Marzipan, Milanthruil, Roeskva, Splash the Cat, Stringertheory, Thothmes, Topazowl, Traycer, Wonderland, and Zeilfanaat. A tip of the chef's hat to our new cooks: Antonomasia, Badfalcon, Marzipan, and Goddess47! Extra thanks to Eilidh, Traycer, and Zeilfanaat for offering double servings.

Enjoy over 54,000 words of time travel gen fic! Ratings range from G to PG-13, and expect spoilers from pre- to post-series. Due to the nature of time travel, there are multiple references to canonical and/or temporary character deaths. Two cooks offered wallpapers as extra seasoning, which you'll find at their journals.

As the cooks' enthusiasm exceeded even DW's generous limits, Roeskva's fic is only half here, but there's a link that will take you straight to the continuation of the story.

Readers are strongly encouraged to follow the feedback links and comment at the author's own entries.

A is for Adversary
Diplomacy
by eilidh17

“And this is the ‘gate room.” Jack did a theatrical sweep of his hand as he guided Senator Kinsey through the double blast doors and into the embarkation room, where the Stargate sat silently. “As you can plainly see it’s currently in its off mode, but I’ve arranged to give you a little demonstration of this baby in action.”

“A demonstration,” Kinsey purred under his breath, favoring Jack with a sideways glance. “So you’d think nothing of firing up this infernal waste of the taxpayer’s money for my benefit? Colonel, that's exactly the type of recklessness that has gotten this facility in trouble in the first place!”

“Whoa!” Jack raised his hands up in mock surrender. “No such thing happening here, Bob. You don’t mind if I call you that do you?”

“There’s no point in trying to buy me with familiarity and friendship, Colonel. You and I aren’t about to become buddies.”

“Right.” Jack clapped his hands together and smiled. “So, Bob…” He stoutly ignored Kinsey’s death-ray stare and guided him towards the base of the ramp, the ‘gate looming high above them. “About that demonstration… Major Carter and her team have come up with a way to harness the kinetic energy of an outgoing wormhole, storing it so we can supplement our own energy reserves. All very technical if you ask me, but the upshot is that we can spin the orifice and give you a good look at what we do here.”

“Orifice?”

“Just a nickname we’ve given the old girl.”

Appearing a little flustered, Kinsey waved in the direction of the ‘gate. “Oh, very well.”

“Excellent!” Jack looked over his shoulder and up to Teal’c in the control room. “Dial it up, Teal’c.”

“Teal’c? You’re letting the alien control one of this planet’s biggest secrets?”

“Sure!” The first chevron locked in place. “Who better to show off the ‘gate than a one-time agent of the enemy, right?”

Kinsey paled visibly, his mouth flopping open but not a sound coming out. Jack suddenly blanched at his own words. “Yeah, could have put that a bit better, I guess.”

Chevron two locked in place. Kinsey found some composure from somewhere and appeared fascinated by the spinning of the ‘gate. “So, you’re just going to activate this money pit of a machine and then shut it down?”

Chevron three locked. “Unless you’d like to take a sightseeing trip? I know this nice little planet where—”

“This demonstration will be more than enough, thank you, Colonel.”

Chevron four locked. “You sure?” Jack tried to sound pleading. “There’s some really great folk out there who would love to meet and eat… greet a true representative of Earth. Have you ever heard of the Unas? Warm, loving people… a little hairy, but once you get past their appearance…”

Chevron five locked.

“Colonel!”

“Okay,” Jack backed off a little, leaving Kinsey virtually alone at the base of the ramp. “First contact isn’t for everyone.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way to hurry this demonstration up, is there?” Kinsey truly looked peeved. He rocked from foot to foot, hands fisted in his pockets, eyes glaring hard at the ‘gate, almost willing it to hurry up.

Chevron six locked and Jack walked up behind Kinsey, his breath ghosting the other man’s ear. “No, but I can give you one piece of advice when waiting for the last chevron to lock.”

“Really, and what’s that, Colonel?”

Chevron seven locked…

“Duck!” Jack shoved Kinsey as hard as he could up the ramp and into the billowing wash of the incoming wormhole. Once the wormhole had settle, the only thing left of the senator was his smouldering size eleven shoes.

“Hmm… should have said to duck a little earlier.”

Teal’c walked through the blast doors into the embarkation room, a small smile on his face. “The demise of Senator Kinsey felt quite refreshing.”

“Yeah, just a pity this loop is going to reset and old bleeding-heartless Bob will be back to being a royal pain in our butt. Pretty good with the kinetic energy spiel, though, don’t you think?”

“Major Carter would be most impressed.”

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B is for Be, Being, Been
by marzipan77

“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“It won’t work.”

Daniel didn’t look up. A sandstorm was coming, the wind picked up grains of sand and scraped them across his cheeks, lodged them in the corners of his eyes beneath his glasses. The tail of his bandana flapped distractingly against the back of his neck.

“Daniel. It never worked.”

“That’s not entirely true.” He laid one hand flat against one stone cube. The Ancient language was not a barrier to him–not any more. Malikai only ever had a partial understanding of the concepts–the philosophies behind the Ancients. He hadn’t lived among them, learned the nuances, and practiced rhetoric with Old Ones who thought of him as a toddler-Godzilla swinging his arms through their pristine Tokyo.

“It never had a chance to work,” he continued, tightening his muscles, ready to begin the machine’s process so that it could take him back. Just a few weeks. Just until before he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. He closed his eyes. One of the biggest mistakes of his life. Daniel had quite a few to pick from.

“Hey. This is me. You could at least look at me before you throw me back into hell for three months. Or longer.”

Daniel didn’t want to. He didn’t want to look into those deep set eyes, see the half-smile, and then to look beyond, beyond the surface ease and humor and into the soul of his best friend.

“Jack.”

“Don’t ‘Jack’ me, Daniel. You know this isn’t right.”

He lifted his head and speared the man before him with a sharp glare. “I can do this, Jack. Why can’t you ever believe in me? Just give me the benefit of the doubt? You never-"

“I always believe in you, Daniel.”

Nothing had changed. Jack could still cut him off at the knees with just a few words. Daniel took a stuttering breath and let an ounce more pressure descend on the Ancient time machine.

“You made a mistake. You took a risk–something we do–we did–every single day just walking through the ‘gate. You need to stop pretending you can make all the right decisions all the time.”

Daniel looked beyond his friend. He watched for the tell-tale signs of a strike team, a sniper, Cam or Teal’c waiting behind the nearest plinth with a zat, or worse.

“Just me. Just you and me, Daniel. The way it should be.”

“The Ori are a frightening force, Jack. Far worse than the Goa’uld, and you know what kind of damage they did.” Sha’re. Skaara. Jack himself still had Ba’al’s mental scars. “And they’re coming.” He lifted his eyebrows. “But, with one push, I can go back and change it all.”

“Maybe.” Jack shrugged, hands in his BDU pockets. “Maybe you can make this thing work like old Malachite couldn’t. Leave yourself a note. Several notes.” He sketched an arc with one hand in the air between them. “A veritable tome.”

Daniel didn’t move this hand from the device to check the thick wad of papers in his pocket. Papers about Vala. About Goa’uld bracelets and swords in stones and riddles.

“But ask yourself this. Is this going to be our new protocol for all mistakes?” Jack looked around, shrugging. “Screw something up, come back here, reset, do it all again.”

“No. No. I’m not-"

“’Cause that’s what you’re doing here. Saying we should all get a nice ‘do-over’ whenever we lose.”

“Just this time–just this once, Jack.”

“And if it works? Hey,” Jack stepped forward, finger pointing, “I know you. I know the way you think. It will eat at you. Every single damn day of your life it will eat at you. You’ll want to save me from Ba’al. Save Skaara. Save Sha’re.” Angry now, Jack settled his fist on the edge of the Ancient machine. “You will want to go back in time and save Charlie from a bullet in the brain.”

Daniel’s teeth were clenched, defiance written into every nerve and bone. It was the sorrow behind Jack’s eyes that deflated him, that drew out the poison of regret and guilt and left only despair. He lifted his hand from the time machine.

Wind whipped around them, screeching, wild enough to tear flesh from bone. But it wasn’t as strong as the darkness of Jack’s grief.

They walked back to the Stargate shoulder to shoulder, just the way it used to be. Except this time, Jack pressed in the glyphs, and, when the wormhole burst to life, he waited for Daniel to move first.

“So, how much trouble am I in?”

“For this?” Jack placed one hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “So much. So damned much. But, hey, what good is being a general if I can’t get my best friend out of trouble?”

What good indeed? It was Daniel’s last thought before the energy vortex broke him down and swept him away. Back to Earth. To time. To the consequences of his mistakes.

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B is for Bravery
by zeilfanaat

General Hammond was watching them as they returned. He was relieved to see they had made it back. Apparently the cryptic note that he’d given to Sam before they left, had been sufficient–not to mention correct! He’d remembered what the note had said back in 1969. It had been such an incredible experience, that he’d committed the note to memory. Although he had checked the information with Captain Carter’s research later on, just to be sure.

What he hadn’t known was whether SG-1 had figured out that they were the time and dates of two solar flares, which would send them back to nearly 30 years later. Then again, if they hadn’t managed to go back to the future, George was sure they would have found a way to let him know for the ‘next’ time. To use different times or dates, or to be more specific in his note so that when it would happen ‘again’, they would be able to go home. Either that or they had been killed trying to get home. He had tried, back in 1969, to find out, as inconspicuously as he could manage… He hadn’t found anything to indicate they hadn’t made it… but there was only so much he could find out without someone noticing. Especially with the limited knowledge he’d had back then as a Lieutenant.

Once he became the SGC’s commander, he’d wanted to try and find out more. But by then, he had become aware of the complicated politics surrounding the Stargate Program. He’d realised that if he got caught trying to find out more, someone could possibly prevent SG-1 from going through the gate. It needn’t even be someone from the SGC’s enemies. Well-meaning people, concerned for whether or not SG-1 would return, could put a stop to their mission.And that would change the timeline. So even though he had hated sending SG-1 on that mission without knowing if they would make it back… he still let them go.

And so he worried, resigned to waiting. He calculated how much the Colonel would owe him, with interest, if only to keep his mind on the positive track. They would return.

He was glad and relieved to see them walking down that ramp, and rather amused at how they had apparently blended in. He joked around with the Colonel, who actually allowed his own relief to show clearly on his face. In fact, George briefly wondered at that. While it was true that the Colonel could be quite… expressive when he tried to make a point, the man could equally well conceal his true emotions behind a thoroughly tested mask. Especially when said emotions could potentially be seen as a weakness.

Hammond didn’t think the Colonel quite meant to show this much emotion. It was testament to the emotional turmoil the man had been through. The General’s heart ached in sympathy.

He had expected all of them to think of the ‘what if’s that they could have made reality by changing the timeline. He had realised what he would put them through, and had trusted them not to act on these opportunities so as not to affect their world. He had in fact known that they hadn’t.

Yes, known.

He had known when he heard that Jacob’s wife had died because of an accident. An accident that Jacob felt might have been prevented. If only he had been on time so he could have picked up his wife. In a rare, unguarded moment, when emotions ran high, Jacob had confided in George. He’d told him of how his kids blamed him for his wife’s death, which had only magnified his own feelings of guilt. How Samantha had hardly spoken to him for a while.

That same woman was now under his command, and had gone back to a time where she could prevent her mother’s death. Yet Jacob’s wife had still died.

It wasn’t that long ago that they had learnt how Daniel Jackson’s parents had died. If George had calculated it correctly, he would now be in time to actually prevent it. And this time, chances were, the results would be different from when SG-1 had been stuck in the Keeper’s ‘game’. And yet, Doctor Jackson’s parents had still died.

If SG-1 had discovered the gate back in 1969, but had gone through at a different time to a different address, Teal’c might have caused a Jaffa rebellion long before SG-1 stepped onto Chulak. He might have saved many Jaffa and potential hosts. He might have led a life with his family, rather than separated by a couple of light-years. He hadn’t.

And Colonel O’Neill… Jack had carried the anguish and feelings of guilt of losing his son to his own service weapon. To be presented with the opportunity to change that… Yet Charlie O’Neill had still died…

When George had taken command of the SGC and had gradually become aware of the hardships the members of SG-1 had gone through in their lives, his respect for these people had gone up even further.

They had resisted the temptation to affect a change back in 1969. They might have yearned for reprieve for their future selves and those they loved, but they had chosen to do right by the rest of the world, yes, even the universe.

He knew, if SG-1 had not tried to change even those particular all too imaginable painful events, they had done their utmost not to affect history at all.

He was proud of them.

Now all they had to do was debrief, file reports, and then Hammond himself could finally put this particular time travelling business firmly in the past.

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C is for Countdown, Causality, and Close Enough
by ivorygates

Cassie was eighteen the first time Aunt Sam told her the future. It was her birthday: not her real birthday, because Hanka-times and Earth-times didn't match up, but Aunt Sam had given her an "official" birthday of November 4th (because both Janet-mom and Aunt Sam had said, when she first came, that it wouldn't be "fair" for her birthday to be on Halloween).

On November 4th, 2003, Janet-mom has been dead for almost a year.

Nirrti has been dead for two. Cassie has always marked time by the deaths it contains. She'd been 12 when the world ended, twelve-plus-five days when more Tau'ri came (the others, the first ones, were dead).

Uncle Daniel, she thinks, is the only one who really understands what it was like to live on Hanka those last years. The aliens (the Tau'ri ) had been surprised to know the Hankans knew all about the eclipse that was coming, but they always had. The Great Goddess had told them, centuries ago: "With the darkness will come the apocalypse." All the time the Tau'ri were building their observatory, the last of the Hankans were preparing for the end.

There were a lot of children born in the countdown to the Last Days, for the Great Goddess (False Goddess: not a goddess, not even human, an evil lying parasite) had promised them that if the True Child came to be, the apocalypse would be averted. Cassie was the last child ever born on Hanka, born too late to be their salvation: you had to be sixteen to go into the forest. To be tested.

With every son or daughter who went to the forest, the Hankans hoped the True Child would be revealed. But everyone who went to the forest returned, and so the Hankans knew there would be no reprieve. Cassie had felt so proud to be treated as the adult she knew she would never live to become on the day Mama brought home the Final Cup from the temple, saying that they would all drink together on the Day of Darkness. (Many had not waited, once hope was gone. Each month, each year, more of the village houses had stood empty.) Cassie and her family had worked for days preparing their Feast of Leavetaking.

For nothing.

Five days before the Last Day, plague struck. Cassie had run to the new observatory. She doesn't remember why now. To beg for help? To beg the Tau'ri to leave? Surely they had angered the Great Goddess by their presence (both true and not-true, she learned a long time later: Nirrti had been afraid, and angered by her own fear, not by them). Perhaps, if they left...

But they were dead when she reached them. Everyone was dead, everywhere.

Everyone but her.

The chronology of her life is something Cassie has pieced together over the years, assembling it carefully from the fractured pieces of a child's memories. This the day the last of the candidates returns from the forest in failure, that the day the leavetakings begin. On this day the plague, on that day the eclipse. Here her return to the planet filled with her unburied dead, there the death of the one who wiped them out as casually as Cassie might wash a dirty dish. Her life on Earth had been a strange intermission in which nobody dies: she was almost relieved when Uncle Daniel did. (He came back after a year, and she never let anybody know how much that worried her.)

Then Janet-mom's death, and Uncle Jack is gone too. Aunt Sam says he isn't dead, but Cassie thinks she's lying: he'd be here if he weren't dead. She lives with Aunt Sam now, and Cassie knows that Aunt Sam is both relieved and worried that she doesn't mourn Janet-mom, but Cassie's entire life has been a series of deaths. Death is normal, and Cassie, already cursed to survive, thinks she must be cursed to be death's witness until the end of her days.

And now it's November, another birthday, one Cassie doesn't want, because it means she's still here. Since Janet-mom died, Cassie has thought (almost daily) about joining her. The deaths will go on, she knows, whether she's alive or not. But she's tired of watching. (Uncle Jack, she thinks, would know what she's thinking, but he wouldn't know the words to talk about it without making it real. And he's dead, anyway.) Uncle Daniel talks about what Janet-mom would want, but if he understands Cassie's Hankan childhood, he doesn't understand the one thing Cassie clings to like a lifeline: the dead don't want anything at all.

Cassie's decided her birthday is a good day to die on (in her beginning is her end). She can't go back to the forest on Hanka, but there are woods here, and she has her driver's license. She's told Aunt Sam that some of her friends are throwing a party for her tonight. She'll do it then.

But that afternoon Aunt Sam sits her down (a brown velvet box in her hands) and says: "There's something I've needed to tell you for a long time, Cassie. You're old enough now."

Cassie sits obediently, her face smooth, her attitude compliant. In her own mind she's already dead, and the dead are endlessly patient.

And Aunt Sam tells her a story.

"The year after you came here to Earth to live, we, SG-1, went on a mission. But something went wrong with the Stargate, and we ended up in the past. In 1969. I figured out a way for us to get home, but we had to use it too early. We overshot and ended up somewhere in the future. And you sent us home."

It takes a moment for the words to penetrate. "Me? Where in the future?"

"We never knew," Aunt Sam says. "But you were an old woman there. You looked happy," she adds awkwardly.

Cassie feels a faint sense of betrayal, as if Aunt Sam is trying to steal something from her. Is this a lie, some way of convincing her that her future is full of promise? (Her guidance counselor says that all the time, even though Cassie's grades have slipped drastically this year.) If it's true, what does it matter? (Old? How old? How long does Aunt Sam expect her to go on living? Can't someone else save them? Why her?)

"Are you sure it was me?" she finally asks.

Aunt Sam smiles. "Very sure. The Colonel didn't recognize you, but I did. You told us our journey was just beginning."

"Uncle Jack was there?" Despite herself, Cassie feels a flare of hope, before she remembers that the Uncle Jack her future-self would have (will have?) met is from five years ago. It doesn't mean he's coming back now.

"We all were," Aunt Sam says. "You told me I explained everything to you when you were old enough to understand."

"And now you are." Cassie's voice is flat. She isn't sure what to feel. Happiness seems like a betrayal; misery seems an inappropriate response to hearing she's going to save the world.

"And now I am," Aunt Sam agrees. "I know this isn't really a happy birthday, but...I got you a present." She holds out the small unwrapped box.

Cassie opens it. It's an oval pendant, almost as long as her thumb. On one side is a clock face--not a real timepiece, just a representation of one--a cameo set in silver. She turns the pendant over. On the back, two dates and times are engraved: August 10th, 1969--9:15 A.M. August 11th, 1969--6:03 P.M.

"We met General Hammond in the past," Aunt Sam says. "Before we left on our mission, General Hammond--here--gave me a note that had the dates and times of the solar flares we could use to get back. He knew what to write because he'd read it back in 1969."

Cassie thinks about it for a moment. "That's a paradox," she objects.

"I know," Aunt Sam says. "That's time-travel for you."

"I guess it is," Cassie says. She closes her fingers over the pendant.

Her future.

Maybe she needs to have one after all.

*
Cassie's still in college when Disclosure comes in 2010. The broad strokes of the Stargate Program's history are made public, but it's another ten years before she joins the United Nations Colonization, Liaison, and Exploration program (the IOA being a thing of the past). Her research lab is in Washington, one of the many facilities that support UNCLE's Moonbase.

She's never forgotten her promise (implicit promise, made by a future self). Over the years, her aunt and uncles have told her every detail of the few minutes they spent in a future she has yet to reach. She wonders how that truth that is (so far) only a story can be achieved: there's a mockup of the Gate Room at the Smithsonian, but everything there is nonfunctioning replicas. The original Cheyenne facility is mothballed: the dialing computer is still there, but there's no Stargate.

But there's time. The Praxyon time machine was discovered in 2012: they removed the Stargate there, so it can't function, but the computer and its network of satellites are still in place, and they've been studying them. Cassie has the date and time of the solar flare that sent SG-1 home (and the date and time--down to a tenth of a second--that they walked back through the Stargate into Cheyenne Mountain, so she has one solid point of reference), but Aunt Sam told her they entered the Stargate too early, back in the past. She says it was "a few seconds early", but none of them know exactly.

Summoning the future isn't the whole of Cassie's life, of course. There is love and adventure, marriage and family, a rewarding career, and a succession of loving rambunctious dogs. She's happy. The future is a place, and she has a long way to go before she reaches it.

In 2060 all the work with the Praxyon device pays off. They finally get their own form of (non-solar-flare-dependent) time-travel working, and Cassie runs simulations for every entry and exit point in a sixty-second window around the solar flare that SG-1 used so long ago. Now she has a range of possible arrival dates, but she doesn't know which one it's going to be. Fortunately she isn't the only one who cares about getting the right answer. It isn't that General O'Neill was a hero (he was) or that Dr. Jackson discovered Atlantis (he did) or that Master Teal'c was instrumental in the liberation of the Jaffa (he was) or that General Samantha Carter did groundbreaking research in quantum physics (she did). It's that if the four of them don't come home from 1969, those things won't happen. (Won't have happened, and only Sam could have unraveled the whichness of causality that allows for the fixed past not to have happened yet.)

All her Tau'ri family are dead now. Sam was the last. Eighty years ago Captain Samantha Carter began her career researching the possibility of using the Gate for time-travel. She lived to see her theoretical research proven right (even if by one of the Goa'uld ) but not to see it reach its fullest flowering. After death, her work as well as her name lived on: the Samantha Carter Research Institute is world-famous, and all of its staff understands the dangers of violating causality. Even though it works, the Praxyon Device and its offspring are labeled "experimental", and will probably remain "experimental" long after Cassie is dead. The present (past, future) is precarious enough without getting its elbow jogged. Sam devoted her life to making sure everyone understood that: no matter how tempting it is to roll the dice to make things come out more neatly, the risks are too great.

But there's one adventure in time-travel that still needs to happen for the past to come out right, and they need to be sure it will work before the day it's required. Early in 2061, Cassie makes her first trip to the future.

The Institute has installed a functional Gate inside its facility (Cheyenne Mountain has long since become the home of SCRI: everything above Level 28's been modernized and remodeled, but the Gate Room itself has been left untouched) so Cassie will have a Terran destination as her arrival point (Earth will have air and gravity no matter what happens, something you really can't say about the Moon). She picks 2100 as her first target: it's at the far outside of her calculations as to SG-1's probable arrival date, so it's a good place to start. She has to ricochet between a dozen Gates to get there. When she steps out on Earth at last, the familiar chamber is dark and shrouded.

There are four skeletons huddled together in front of one of the access doors. The gaudy archaic clothing that covers them is stained and dusty. Too late, she thinks in startled grief.

But it doesn't matter. In a way it hasn't happened, because it never will. (She promises herself that, over and over, and tries not to think of Hanka.)

It's 2070, and she can activate the Stargate with a device small enough to wear on her wrist. She's gone on dozens of journeys into a future that gets closer every day, a rendezvous she dares not be late for (the last--and only--appointment she has to keep won't require a time machine, only an accurate chronometer). By the late Seventies, she's eliminated every possible date but one.

It's August 11, 2082. She stands in the corridor outside the Gate Room, wondering why she's so nervous. She knows how this comes out, after all. There's a digital countdown ticking across the bottom of the display on the wall in front of her. It shows her the image of the room beyond the door, a shadowy thing of shrouded machines and concealed futures. She touches the pendant around her neck for reassurance, the pendant Sam gave her all those years ago.

As she watches and waits, the chevrons of the Stargate begin to light. Cassie takes a deep breath and forces herself to smile. This is the last time she will see them alive, and for everyone's sake they can never even suspect what she knows.

The Event Horizon establishes, stabilizes. Her beloved dead come tumbling through. "Where is everyone?" she hears Sam say (they think--they thought--they would be returning to their own time, not knowing, as they learned much later, how unforgiving the chronometry of time-travel is).

Cassie steps through the door to greet them.

They all look so young. Daniel's hair is an unkempt mop. Sam is younger than most of her granddaughters. Cassie walks toward them, unable to keep from staring hungrily at their faces, saving up this one last now of them that must last her the rest of her life.

"Hello, Jack," she says. "Teal'c. Daniel; I hardly recognized you with hair."

"Do we know you?" Jack asks. The suspicion in his voice is so familiar it makes her smile.

"Sam will recognize me," she says. The words she is to speak were written long ago. They're as fixed and unchanging as a play.

Once upon a time she thought of Death as her personal ringmaster, staging a Carnival of the Dead just for her. It's been a very long time since she's had anything in common with the angry child who believed that: in the end, her life has been spent in the service of life, not as a witness to death.

Cassie embraces the woman who is yet to give her the pendant Cassie has worn since her eighteenth birthday. She could hand it to her now, start another endless Ouroboros spiral of eternally-causeless effects, but she won't. Let the past become (at last) fixed and set into hopeful immutability.

Her young friends want to ask questions she doesn't dare answer. She'd give anything to keep them with her just a few minutes more, but she can't. She doesn't dare risk the mutable past, risk the lives of all the people who've lived long lives because SG-1 went from here to there at the hour appointed. And so she smiles (forcing herself to hide what she feels), and lifts her hand. The Stargate activates once more.

"I will tell you this," she says. "Your journey's just beginning."

In my end is my beginning.

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D is for Don't Look Back
by sg_wonderland

“So,” Jack nestled another log into the dying fire. “1969. What a year.”

Daniel clasped the tin cup holding his coffee; Jack fervently hoped he wasn’t preparing an oral dissertation about the differences of 1969 coffee and the current offering. They’d all been subjected to babblings about any number of things, none of which were about the really important stuff like the moon landing, the Mets and Woodstock.

“Actually, sir, I’ve been thinking,” Sam piped up while Daniel was drawing breath, “I wonder if we haven’t already inadvertently shifted the time line.”

“Because?” Jack stretched out his legs.

“Because Project Blue Book’s official end date was December of 1969 and was officially closed in January of 1970.”

“You think our being here may have caused it?” Daniel frowned.

“It makes a certain kind of sense.”

“It does. But who have we interacted with that has that kind of power?”

“That’s probably out of our scope of reasoning although I suppose it is possible….”

“So, 1969,” Jack drawled. “What were you guys doing?”

Daniel closed his eyes briefly. “We were in Greece. My parents and I. My mother was sick that whole summer. She seemed to be really sick but I’m relying on the memories of a four-year-old.”

“I thought you were four and a half?”

Daniel grinned. “When Mama said no, I would always tell her I was four and a half or five and a half or whatever. Even if it was the day after my birthday, I would add that ‘and a half!’”.

“You had to be the worst brat in the world.” Jack shook his head.

“I sometimes, mostly, well, almost always got my way. The advantage of being an only child, I suppose.” Daniel blinked innocently.

“You were a brat.”

“Anyway, we spent the whole summer on an island off the coast of Greece. There was a neighbor, Eleni, who brought food and cleaned. After a couple of weeks, Mama got better and Papa and I would go to the market every day and shop.” Daniel leaned back and his eyes grew wistful. “It was wonderful. We would swim in the early mornings. In the afternoon, it would get hot and we would sit and read the newspaper or listen to music or just take a nap. Then in the evening, we would eat dinner on the terrace while the sun went down or even take another swim. I think it was the most time, you know, real time, I ever spent with my parents.” He sighed loudly. “So, Jack,” he said too brightly, “what about you?”

“I was almost seventeen and wanted my own car so bad I could taste it. So my grandfather said if I worked on the farm with him, he’d help me buy it.” Sam choked back a laugh. “Something funny, Carter?”

“Absolutely not, sir.” She grinned unabashedly.

“I presume Captain Carter is displaying her disbelief that you would be well suited to the life of a farmer, O’Neill. I understand they are required to rise at an extremely early hour and should be prepared to provide a full day’s work.” Teal’c paused. “With a minimum of complaints.”

“I’ll have you know I was an excellent farmer! I drove the tractor, milked the cows, and pitched hay. Whatever needed done, I did.”

“And you got your car?” Sam shook her sleeve down to grasp the coffee pot off the fire and poured herself a refill.

“Oh, yeah,” Jack smiled dreamily. “It was a ’57 Bel Air hardtop. Man, that car would fly!” Before Teal’c could speak, Jack said, “I don’t mean fly as in ‘leave the ground.’ I mean fly, as in ‘go real fast.’”

“And you did?” Daniel asked.

“If my folks had known how many drag races I got into, I’d still be grounded.” Jack finished off his coffee. “So Daniel was skinny-dipping in the Mediterranean.” Ignoring the squawk from Daniel, he continued on, “I was shoveling,” Jack paused, a wicked gleam in his eyes, “manure in rural Minnesota. What were you doing, Carter?”

Sam rose slowly. “As I was all of one year old, sir, I suppose I was perfecting my already impressive walking skills. Good night.” She toasted them with her coffee before she strode toward the vehicle.

There was a long silence before Jack asked, “So. 1969. What a year!”

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E is for Excellent (said the time traveler to her fellow)
by jedibuttercup

Sam regarded the baked confection on her plate with a slight frown, then lowered her fork, rolling the bite she'd taken around in her mouth.

"No," she shook her head, carefully analyzing the flavor profile. "You're right, it's not the same. I don't know if it's the crust, or if there's some ingredient missing, or what, but it's just not the same pie."

"Given that it was 1969, maybe we're better off not knowing what that ingredient was," the colonel replied with a wry twist to his mouth. He was already more than halfway through his own piece of pecan pie, imperfect or not; he gestured at her with another forkful. "Especially considering our hosts were on their way to Woodstock."

"Now, be fair, sir," Sam replied wryly, "Michael and Jenny were very helpful. We'd never have made it to New York and D.C. in time without their assistance."

"Particularly after they found out we were 'aliens'," Jack commented, making air quotes around the last word. "I guess, just so long as we were still enemies of 'the establishment'...." He paused there, mouth pursed, as though he wanted to add to that observation but had decided not to.

Sam sighed and looked down. She'd been wondering, too; and she'd seen at the time how hard it had been for him not to weigh in on the decision facing their hosts. Had Michael run to Canada after all? Or had Jenny tearfully sent him off to Vietnam? Had he ever returned, either way? At the moment, it was Schrödinger's question; she didn't have to face the answer if she didn't know it.

On the one hand, while she'd only spent a week with the friendly pair, it was by their help as much as Hammond's that they'd made it back from 1969 without having to live the intervening years over again. But on the other, since renewing the friendship was out of the question regardless given how many classified secrets their mere presence would reveal, was there really any point in finding out?

"Have you looked them up?" she voiced the thought, toying with her fork. "I'd thought about it, but...."

"Ah, not yet. Though I'm sure the general has. Had a few... more important things on my mind."

Right. Things like, how different would her life have been if she'd left a time-delayed letter for her father to on no account miss picking his wife up at the airport one particular day when she was twelve? But when even the slightest change might remove her presence from the team, and perhaps derail the Stargate project altogether... still, it had been a heavy temptation. One she undoubtedly hadn't been alone in. Between that and Hathor's little deception on their next offworld mission....

Sam frowned at the thought of the false SGC, and put her fork down altogether. "Yeah. Such as, how could I not have realized what Trofsky-- or whatever his actual name was-- was up to from the start? Blaming the drugs only goes so far. I mean, we just saw Cassie in the future, and she told us that Daniel, at least, lives long enough to go bald. Never mind the fact that the only advanced technology in Hathor's SGC was supposedly from the Tok'ra; nothing like Cassie's Stargate-controlling device at all."

"Huh." Jack sat slightly back in his chair, staring at her. "You know, I never thought about that. I just knew that something about their behavior really didn't sit well with me. Isolation tactics: not even any thing familiar besides the setting, never mind any one. And all the questions, when I supposedly wasn't even healthy enough to roam the base on my own yet. Not treatment I would have expected to face at the SGC, unless there'd been a serious change of administration, in which case I figured myself for a prisoner anyway."

That surprised Sam; she'd assumed since he was the first one to break free, that he must have been the first to realize the truth. But... he had, actually; it was just a different truth than the one she'd been thinking about.

"Anecdotal fallacy," she concluded aloud, shaking her head ruefully. "Traveling through time was still a recent and very significant experience for me, on a professional as well as a personal level; I suppose it just seemed natural to accept that I actually had done so again, more or less, and ignore any details that contradicted that story."

The corner of the colonel's mouth quirked in return. "Whereas my significant experiences...."

He let that thought trail off too, but the point was made. He'd had a long and storied career before ever joining the SGC, after all.

Deliberately, Sam picked up her fork again and took another bite. "Well, I feel a little better about things now... except where this pie is concerned. I think I am going to have to look Michael and Jenny up, if only to get their recipe."

"And if the worst case scenario turns out to be true?" Jack mused, subdued humor glinting in his eyes as he polished off his own piece. "If, say, he did join up, stayed in the service... and ended up in the SGC commissary?"

Sam considered her reply to that a moment, then brightened as the perfect quote occurred to her. "I would say... that you and I have witnessed many things, but nothing as bogus as that would be."

Jack's eyebrows flew up, and he stifled a laugh. "Good one, Carter. You know, I actually wouldn't be surprised if we stumbled across a phone booth with an antenna on top one of these days? After everything else we've seen, I wouldn't put it past one of the advanced races we keep running across to... appreciate that particular design aesthetic."

"A most excellent theory," she agreed, lightly.

"To more excellent journeys, then," Jack snorted, lifting his coffee cup.

"To excellent journeys." Sam clicked her cup against his with a renewed smile.

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F is for Future Tense
by stringertheory

When George met Jacob, his first thought was of another Carter he had met not long before. He wondered, even then, whether there was a connection between the two. 'Carter' was a common surname, though, and he decided that the odds of the two being related were too slim to even be considered. Still, he couldn't help but search his new friend's face for traces of the young woman who had told him his future.

He and Jacob were both young lieutenants when they met. George had just transferred from Cheyenne Mountain when Jacob discovered him, lost, on the opposite side of the base from where he was meant to be. In the time it took them to walk the width of the base, the roots of a deep friendship were planted. On the surface, the two men couldn't have seemed more different–Jacob energetic and brash, George reserved and methodical–but they got on famously. They shared a strong sense of duty and a deep love of family and country, which had led them both to military careers. They bonded over the similarities and appreciated the differences.

One day, Jacob pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket, unfolding it to show George the pretty woman and two children it featured. George's heart skipped a beat, his eyes drawn immediately to the younger child. What's her name, he asked, heart thundering in his chest, reading the answer in the familiar features of the woman holding her. Samantha, Jacob replied, voice warm with love.

For a split second, George felt sick to his stomach, but almost immediately a sense of calm acceptance replaced his unease. He wasn't one to rely on fate or destiny, but he did believe that some things happened for a reason, that some things were meant to be. Whether it was knowing Jacob that would lead to him meeting Samantha in the future (and his past), or if his meeting with Samantha before was why he eventually encountered Jacob–the order didn't really matter. It was the age-old story of chicken and egg, albeit on a more mind-numbing scale. The universe clearly meant for them to meet. He accepted that, even as he held fast to his belief that there was always a choice–even if the choice always led to the same end.

He never second-guessed his friendship with Jacob. Their bond was genuine and unforced, and had solidified before George knew about Jacob's family. But there was always that whisper in the back of his mind, Jacob's voice repeating Samantha's name.

Over the years, George made it a point not to ask too much about Samantha. The normal inquiries about the family, the catch-up between friends was maintained, but he didn't pry or ask for details. He was afraid to know, concerned that he might somehow influence things in a way he shouldn't. So he nodded along with polite interest when Jacob spoke about Samantha or her brother Mark, but never pushed beyond what Jacob offered. He learned in bits and pieces about the girl and wondered about the woman she would become. From the way Jacob talked, George could tell that she had taken after her father with a stubborn streak a mile wide.

By the time Samantha entered the Academy, the updates Jacob gave George on her progress were often no more detailed than what George heard on his own. In truth, it was difficult not to hear about Samantha Carter by that point. With every record she broke, her star rose higher and word about her spread farther. From the young girl her father had described to the young woman she had become, George could see hints of the captain who traveled through time and into his past. He wasn't surprised when rumors reached him that she had joined a top secret program. He just wondered if it was the same program that would lead her to him.

With retirement looming, George began to consider the possibility that whatever had happened to the man who wrote the note he received in 1969 wouldn't happen to him. If what Samantha Carter had told him held true, he was still in the military and in command when he gave her the note. The end of his career would put an end to that scenario.

Then he was offered a retirement post, something easy and simple for the last tour of his career. A retirement post in Cheyenne Mountain.

Returning to the mountain so many years later was an odd experience. George walked the halls, so little changed, and relived memories of his previous time there. He paused to stare into the rooms that had, decades earlier, served as interrogation rooms for the suspected spies who had so inexplicably appeared in the base. Even then, George had thought it strange (and rather self-defeating) that spies would work their way to the dangerous end of a missile silo. The note he had found in their gear had simply nudged his thoughts into questions. Questions that he was finally beginning to find answers for.

The mission file for the Cheyenne post varied greatly between ranks. Everyone but the base commander got a slim file containing a broadly sketched explanation for the base (“storage facility”) and their role within it. George's file was slim, too, but it was only an overview. The true file filled an entire three-drawer filing cabinet and had its own heavily encrypted drive on the base server. Reading the entire thing took George nearly two weeks; comprehending it was an ongoing process. There were early notes on the discovery of the Stargate and how it came to be in the hands on the American military. George wasn't surprised to find Samantha Carter's name heavily featured in the segment on Gate research and development; proof of the intertwined nature of their lives no longer gave him pause. His pored over the report of the first–and only–mission through the Stargate, fascinated. Though he hadn't given it much thought before, the idea of there being other intelligent life in the universe didn't seem all that far-fetched to him. Even the details of how they came to encounter that life weren't all that shocking; after all, he had already encountered time travelers.

The only things in the files that stunned him were two of the pictures paper-clipped to the mission personnel folders. The men stared up at him–one who seemed so much younger to him now, with his floppy hair and glasses; the other who no longer seemed as old now that George was old himself. He hadn't asked their names–and they hadn't offered them–but he would never forget their faces. Dr. Daniel Jackson. Colonel Jack O'Neill. They had followed him here, back to the mountain. Or perhaps they had stayed behind, and he was only now returning. It was as if the thread of his life began and ended on that August day in 1969.

Or perhaps it truly was just coincidence. The report indicated that Dr. Jackson had been killed during the original mission and had not returned with the colonel. With no Dr. Jackson to meet and no Samantha Carter under his command, George felt it less and less likely that the events of his past would be triggered by events in his present.

Then the Stargate he had been told was useless opened.

As he watched one of his airmen disappear through the Gate, dragged along by armored guards led by a man with glowing eyes, he could feel the pieces of his life clicking into place. Without hesitation, he sent for Colonel O'Neill and the original mission team. They all had a lot of explaining to do, and possibly some damage control, if his suspicions were proven correct.

He wavered over bringing in Samantha, but only momentarily. He didn't appreciate feeling like the hand of destiny, but he was more concerned about what might happen if he balked. And if this was really meant to be, if they were always supposed to end up here, then so be it. He borrowed Samantha from the Pentagon with the growing certainty that he wouldn't be giving her back.

When the colonel and the captain returned to Earth with Dr. Jackson and a fourth familiar face, George accepted his fate. Stargate Command became a fully functioning base, half-formed retirement plans were tucked away, and he found himself back in the business of trying to keep his people alive.

As a commander, you weren't supposed to have favorites, but–much the same as with children–it was difficult not to become invested just a little bit more in a team or two. Whether it was because he had known them without knowing them for most of his life, or because they were there from the start of the SGC, SG-1 was that team for Hammond. He spent more time on them, more time with them, and more time worrying about them–which, to be fair, was a by-product of the fact that they got into trouble more often than any other team.

And every trial they faced hit George a little harder than the rest because of Sam. Every time she was injured, every time she almost died, he wondered if maybe he had made the wrong choice. Most of him was convinced that even if he hadn't sent her on that first mission through the Gate, she would have wound up at the SGC anyway, whether by someone else's orders or her own choice. That belief didn't assuage his guilt over what she went through, though. Nor did the minimal understanding of multiverses he gained after Doctor Jackson's visit to an alternate reality provide comfort; the fact remained that he could still screw up and get her killed before the point where their pasts and futures were meant to collide.

Every morning when he arrived on base, as he had his first cup of coffee, he checked the updated injury report from the infirmary. There he could mark the progress of those soldiers and civilians in treatment, as well as hear of any incidents that occurred while he was off base. Ostensibly, he was keeping apprised of the health of his personnel. And while that was true, he was always on the lookout for one specific wound on one specific person.

While he waited for the day to arrive, he worked on his note. The contents were easy enough to remember–just one command, his name, and two dates and times. He knew what those dates and times were thanks to the extensive and detailed work Sam had done in her initial research on the Gate. The fortuity of having that research at his fingertips was not lost on him. All the pieces had been put into position; the universe had just been waiting for him to arrive at the right place and the right time. With solar flare dates and times in hand, he crafted the note that had started his journey. He was careful to use the same paper, the same color ink, the same formatting as the one seared into his memory. He folded it as he remembered and locked it in the top drawer of his desk. And then he waited.

One morning he arrived at the base to find Sam's stitched-up hand headlining the injury report. He quickly moved to read SG-1's pre-mission brief, eyes darting from solar flares to calibrations to a small chance of error. The time had finally come.

During the briefing, he kept getting distracted by Sam's hand. As he looked around the table, all of their faces suddenly seemed new to him and yet deeply familiar, memories superimposed on reality. He waited in his office, conflicted and uncertain, while they geared up, and paced while Sam made final calculations and updates to the dialing program. The contrarian streak in him wanted to rage against the weight of destiny that had hung over his life by calling off the mission. The part of him that allowed himself to favor SG-1 even when he knew he shouldn't agreed with that choice. But a larger part–the part that had trusted strangers and a note written by his future hand–knew what had to be done.

He stopped Sam in the control room and–30 years late, right on time–gave her the note for safekeeping. He watched SG-1 step through the Gate. He watched them momentarily reappear, and then disappear into his past.

And he waited.

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G is for Gravitational Time Dilation and the Consequences of Special Relativity
by splash_the_cat

The strange car parked neatly off the cabin's main driveway had rental plates. Jack pulled his truck up past it, into his usual spot, and gathered his groceries from the back before going to investigate. Nothing identifying was visible through the windows, and nobody stood on the porch waiting for him, so Jack headed around to the back door.

One of the cluster of chairs on the dock was occupied.

Jack let the back door slam shut behind him, though he was certain his visitor already knew he'd arrived. He stowed his groceries and grabbed two beers from the fridge and made his way out to the dock.

Teal'c said nothing until Jack was standing right next to him. "You have increased the size of the platform."

Jack looked down at the fresh wood planks. He kind of missed how it no longer creaked alarmingly with every step. "Yeah, well, all these people keep showing up to sit out here. Had to make some extra room." Jack settled into the other chair and held out the bottle. "Hey."

"Hello, O'Neill." Teal'c took it and twisted off the cap, taking a polite sip before setting it near his feet. Jack did the same, and leaned back to enjoy the last of the day's heat. After about fifteen minutes of silence, Jack glanced over at Teal'c. It was weird, seeing him aged, not just in body with the white at his temples and the fine lines around his eyes, but there was something else, too. An intangible bow to his back. A weight that even Bra'tac had never shown.

Jack picked up his beer and drained the rest of the bottle in one long pull. "So, you staying for dinner?"

Something that might have been a smile tugged at the corner of Teal'c's mouth. "Indeed."

*

Teal'c was already in the kitchen the next morning, neatly flipping pancakes on the ancient griddle.

"Sleep okay?" Jack had offered Teal'c use of the spare room after dinner the night before, and Teal'c had accepted with a single nod, then they'd gone back to watching a crappily-edited network showing of "Die Hard." Until Teal'c suddenly stood, said, "I believe I will sleep now," and vanished, leaving Jack alone with John McLane shouting "Yippe Ki Yay brother flubber!"

"I did, thank you." Teal'c flipped three pancakes onto a plate with one scoop, and slid the plate across the table to Jack.

"Show off."

Teal'c answered that by handing him the syrup. Jack dug in, pausing when Teal'c set down his own plate, but he seemed more interested in food than talk, so Jack obliged. The pancakes were really good, and, well, Jack wasn't sure what exactly Teal'c was here looking for, or where he should even start the conversation. And Jack wasn't exactly sure he wanted to know, not if it was about the time bubble thing, the little Jiminy Cricket voice in his head that always sounded suspiciously like Daniel pointed out.

Clearly the best response was to just ask Teal'c for more pancakes.

Later, out on the dock, after each had been settled in silence for a few hours, with a fishing pole and had worked thwir way through a few beers stuck in a tub of ice, Jack said, "I got a pretty nice sports package with the new satellite dish, and there's a Ducks game on tonight. You up for it?"

"I am always prepared to honor the battles fought by the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, O'Neill."

*

"I fear you will not be able to acheive par on this hole, O'Neill."

From down in the sand trap, Jack shoved the brim of his cap up enough to make sure Teal'c could see his glare. "Not helping, T. Not helping."



Jack should have known better, when he'd suggested the next morning they put in a few rounds at the course in town. Teal'c was a golfing savante, and routinely creamed Jack whenever they played. Still, he was glad to see some of the big guy's smug resurface. Not that Teal'c didn't have strong and silent down like a pro, but this wasn't Teal'c's usual balanced stillness. This was some weirdly awkward and restrained silence, like he was fighting to maintain the calm Jack had always assumed was just part of his DNA.

As Jack took the swing and cut the ball out of the trap in a shower of white sand, he realized that he was happy to see even that tiny sign of his Teal'c, not the familiar stranger who had returned from the Odessy, this man Jack could only think of now as enigmatic, where once he had been just steadfast.

As Jack climbed out of the trap to see his ball just on the outside edge of the green, on a terrible lie, he admitted he probably also was being really crappy friend about all this.

*

The next morning Jack sat down to a another plate of perfectly golden-brown pancakes, already placed on the table, and said, "Not that I'm complaining about the company, T., but..." His implied question sank into silence, and he was about to call a relieved escape from the potential conversation and head them out to fish when Teal'c suddenly said:

"I find it fascinating that time and space are so incontrovertably linked. That events that impact one part of that continuum have significant effects upon the other. Despite all my years traveling through this intertwined continuum, I did not clearly see that until it was too late."

Jack blinked. "You sound like Carter."

"Samantha Carter was of great help in firming my understanding of the intricacies of our temporal predicament."

And man, did that weird Jack out the most, the way Teal'c talked about the team now, a familiarity, and intimacy that Jack hadn't ever heard from him through all the last ten years of their lives together. "So you came out here all this way to talk nerdy to me, huh?"

The quiet, broken, "I came to... I..." was like a punch to the gut. Teal'c stood at the stove, shoulders hunched, hands curled into tight fists at his sides.

Time to man up, Jack. "Teal'c?" he said softly. "Talk to me."

It was like watching a spool unwind, the tension bleeding away from Teal'c frame inch by inch, leaving him looking exhausted. "I hoped your company would be unobjectionable."

"Uh, wow. Thanks, buddy. You know how to make a guy feel loved."

That got him an eyebrow, but Teal'c sat down at the table and folded his hands. "It is an inelegant phrasing, but kindly meant. Sometimes the others... they are difficult to bear, though no fault of their own. They do not know themselves anymore, not as I did. It... is confusing, sometimes."

Jack made a show of shoveling in a bite of pancake, his sudden emotional bravado failing him. "I know I missed a lot, stuck here." Which sounded terribly petulant, the minute the words were out there.

Teal'c either understood or ignored it, because he only said, "As Samantha Carter would remind you, there is no absolute frame of reference in the study of the physical laws of the universe."

"Okay, Einstein. I get it. Don't tell Carter, but I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia."

Never one to let Jack completely off the hook, Teal'c said, "You are still the you I remember, O'Neill, and for that I am profoundly grateful."

Jack stared down at the remains of his breakfast, so he would not have to see the sheen in Teal'c eyes. "Yeah."

"I have long been aware that I would outlive all of you. And I had made my peace with that. But to do so essentially twice..."

Suddenly unable to swallow past the lump in his throat, Jack choked out, "As we have learned, time travel sucks."

"It is not precisely time travel, O'Neill."

And Jack finally looked back up, and there, yeah, there was the Teal'c he remembered. "Really, you're going to be pedantic about this?"

"I do not wish to disappoint you." There was humor there, but even so, Jack knew the conversational turn for what it was: deflection. This, at least, he knew how to deal with.

"What will disappoint me is if you drink all my beer and beat me at golf. I demand a rematch." Jack shoved back from the table and gestured toward the door. "I expect your pedantic butt in the car in 20. Loser refills my beer fridge and cleans the kitchen. And Teal'c, I will defend my honor, no matter how long it takes. Days. Weeks, if necessary." He pointed at Teal'c as he turned to go down the hall to the bathroom. "Got it?"

Teal'c cocked his head to the side, regarding Jack for an uncomfortably long moment, and said with unbearably naked relief, "I believe I that I do, O'Neill."

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H is for History
by dennydj

She rang the doorbell and waited, pulling her jacket more tightly around her to keep out the brisk early spring breeze. The carved oak door swung open, revealing the familiar face of a dark-haired woman in her early thirties.

“Hello, Allison.”

Allison smiled back. “He’s been asking about you.”

“I hope he hasn’t been too much trouble,” she replied, feeling every one of her seventy-plus years as she crossed the threshold and entered the house.

“No more than usual,” the young nurse laughed as she closed the door and followed her inside.

They stopped in the entry and Allison helped her remove her jacket.

“How is he, really?”

The young woman’s smile evaporated. “The doctor doesn’t know how he’s managed to hang on so long.” Allison looked earnestly into her eyes. “But we do, don’t we?”

She nodded. “Yes, we do. Which makes my visit bittersweet.”

“Maybe you should wait—”

She laid her hand on the nurse’s arm. “No, I have to tell him. It’s what he’s been waiting for.”

Taking a deep breath, she went in search of her long-time friend, Allison at her side. She knew this house well, its familiar halls carpeted in oriental rugs, its walls a museum of masks, weapons, and other odds and ends collected from this world and others.

After a short walk, they arrived at a room that was bright and toasty warm, thanks to the sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran the length of the longest wall. They looked out over a bright green meadow surrounded by budding trees, all of it towered over by mountains with snow just beginning to thaw.

There was a fireplace at one end of the room, embers of a fire still glowing softly. Tall bookcases flanked it, crammed full of tomes of all shapes and sizes, some ancient, some new, an occasional photograph dotted among them. A modest mahogany desk sat on the opposite side, its surface covered with more books and papers that spilled over the side and onto the floor.

An antique grand piano was pushed to one side of the room. She remembered when it had once been the center of the room, its music filling the space and holding her enthralled. In its place was an overstuffed chair, which faced the windows. One gnarled hand rested on its arm, its fingers tapping gently. On the opposite side stood an IV pole, a half empty bag hung on its hook, clear tubing snaking its way down to disappear in front of the chair. On a small table nearby, medicine bottles were lined up like chess pieces waiting to be played.

Allison called out, “You have a visitor.”

The fingers ceased their tapping and grasped the arm of the chair as her old friend leaned into view. He was thin, balding—with only a few wisps of hair still clinging to his head—tanned and wrinkled, but his blue eyes were still bright despite his age. He smiled when he spotted the visitor.

“You’re back.”

“Of course I am.” She crossed the room, bent down, and gently hugged the old man. He felt thinner and frailer than the last time she’d been here.

She pulled up the desk chair, placed it close to her friend, and sat down. Reaching over, she gentlygrasped his bony hand in her own. “You haven’t been pestering Allison while I was gone, have you?”

He chuckled, then coughed roughly. “Maybe just a bit.”

Allison laughed. “How about if I go fix some tea while you two visit?”

“That sounds lovely,” she replied.

The nurse headed for the kitchen, leaving her alone with her friend.

“So?” he encouraged.

“So, I did it. It happened just like all of you told me it would.”

“I assume, since I didn’t disappear, that it must have worked as planned.”

“We’re pretty sure it did. Although, would we know if things had changed?”

Her friend smiled mischievously. “That’s a question Sam could have answered.”

“Yes, it is. She tried to ask me a question—in the gateroom—but I reminded her that I couldn’t answer it.”

His smiled faded, and he looked down at his their hands before glancing out the window. She was sure he was remembering his friends, all gone now. She stayed quiet and allowed him his memories.

“How… how did they look?” he asked finally, turning to face her again.

“So young!” she laughed. “I’d forgotten what all of you looked like when we first met. Of course, we have pictures, but meeting them—you—in person again was like stepping back in time. You had hair!”

“Don’t remind me!” he said, reaching a crooked finger up to tap his bald scalp. There was a twinkle in his blue eyes.

“But they were still you—all of you. Jack still had the same cocky attitude, Teal’c was strong and quiet, and Sam was self-assured and… beautiful. And you—you were your same inquisitive self. With hair.” She squeezed his hand.

“I wish…” he let the sentence fade as he looked out the window again.

“I know you would like to have seen them again, and I know you understand why you couldn’t.”

He nodded silently as he continued to gaze out the window.

“But I have the next best thing.”

He turned to her, blue eyes as curious as ever, she thought, waiting for her explanation.

“I recorded it—the meeting—and I can show you.”

“You did?” His face brightened briefly before worry took its place. “Wait, do they know you rec—”

“No, no one knows and know one will know. It will be our secret.”

She held up a tiny square of polished silver. Picking up a small computer tablet that lay on the medicine table, she placed the silver square on its surface. The screen brightened as video began to play.

“Do…do we know you?” A young version of Jack O’Neill asked. His teammates surrounded him on the ramp, dressed in clothes from another age. Their brief meeting played out quickly before they disappeared into the shimmering wormhole.

The video ended and her friend turned to her, smiling even as his eyes filled with tears. Reaching up, he patted her cheek. “Thank you, Cassie.”

Laying her hand over his, she felt tears prick her own eyes. “Anything for you, dear Daniel. Anything.”

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I is for Inherency
by sg1jb

Daniel has only just entered Sam's office when Jack comes bounding in from behind, a wave of energy that laps at Daniel's back, urging him forward out of its path. He steps aside and Jack heads straight for the secondary computer terminal at the near end of Sam's work counter.

″How do you get the internet on this thing?″ He's wiggling the mouse, stabbing at the space bar repeatedly. ″Come on, wake up.″

No one bothers to point out that this terminal is no different than any other on the base, including the one in Jack's office–they all know this is more a case of vim and vigour than it is feigned ignorance. A short flurry of clicking apparently takes Jack where he wants to be, and as Daniel walks around behind him toward where Sam and Teal'c sit at her desk, he glances at the monitor and cannot help but shake his head at what he sees there.

Jack is typing, filling in the calculator's data fields, as Daniel hikes up a leg to sit on the edge of Sam's desk. Before he has a chance to tell them what Jack is doing, Jack lets out a an ″Aha!″ of discovery. Teal'c wanders over to stand behind Jack, peering over his shoulder.

″Hah,″ Jack proudly tells the room. ″I knew it didn't sound right.″ Daniel rolls his eyes, giving Sam a 'don't ask' shake of his head in response to her questioning look.

″You are using the wrong tool, O'Neill,″ Teal'c says and leans forward to point at something on the screen. ″This one. You must compound the interest.″

Jack knocks Teal'c's hand away, shooting a glare over his shoulder, but there's more clicking, followed by more data entry. ″Well, crap,″ he soon says, and Daniel would laugh except for the fact he's preoccupied with more serious thoughts.

″Surely you do not begrudge General Hammond this, O'Neill.″

Jack shoos Teal'c back toward Sam's desk, following him. ″No, I do not begrudge Hammond this,″ he half-mimics Teal'c's tone. ″I was just checking.″

Daniel wants to tell Teal'c this has nothing to do with the money. Different people have different ways of coming down from stressful situations, and this is Jack's. But he doesn't bother, because he suspects Teal'c well knows this by now; Teal'c is simply yanking Jack's chain.

″How did you get to be such a financial whiz, anyway?″ Jacks asks Teal'c, but immediately answers his own question, casting a long-suffering look at Daniel as he says,″ We do have clerks who manage his money for him, you know.″

″I'm happy to contribute my share, Sir,″ Sam offers. ″The total is, what, about five hundred forty?″

Teal'c cheerfully–or, as close to overtly cheerfully as Daniel's ever seen, from Teal'c–announces the correction. ″With interest compounded at an estimated average rate of eight percent, we owe General Hammond six hundred eighty seven dollars and forty-six cents.″

Jack stares first at Teal'c, then Daniel. Daniel simply shrugs off the accusation, because really, this is mostly Teal'c and very little him. Teal'c has proven to be adept with math. And anyway, Daniel has other things on his mind, and Jack's serio-comic relief has just provided a natural opening.

″Speaking of General Hammond,″ Daniel says, turning to look at Sam. ″He recognised us as the people he'd been ordered to escort, in the past, and that's why he gave you the note to himself ...″

″Yes,″ she nods into the pause he's left hanging while he's deciding how to word his question. ″And that's also, in part, why for the last year and a half I've been supervising the research into potential alternate applications of Stargate technology; the suggestion we incorporate that research into our department mandate came from General Hammond, and he ordered that I take a lead role.″

″In order to advance your knowledge, so that you would be prepared for what has just transpired,″ Teal'c fills in, then tips his head to one side and amends his statement, ″Or, perhaps, for what had transpired.″

″Oy,″ Jack utters. ″Let's not go there, okay? We're here, we're back, everything is just swell. It's all over and done with–time to move on.″

Sam grins at the unwitting pun, but Daniel is still back at the preamble to his question, which he actually hasn't even asked as yet. He holds up one finger, gesturing wait, just wait, and says, ″Okay, yes, I get all that ...″ He sees the self-satisfied look that appears on Jack's face and hurries to clarify what he's referring to. ″No, I meant I get the original impetus behind Sam's research and its contributions. About General Hammond's note, though ... there are a few things I don't understand.″

″Daniel,″ Jack warns in his sternest of Daniel-warning tones. ″What did I just say?″

Daniel ignores him, because behind his confusion over the why and how and when of the general's note there's a personal matter weighing heavily enough on his mind that he cannot leave it alone. Uncertainty drives him to ask his question, even despite that on the whole he agrees with Jack that it's best not to delve into this time travel stuff.

″I'm right with you there, Daniel. There's lots not to understand,″ Sam says, smiling, in the moment before she syncs with him enough to anticipate his question. ″Oh. You mean, what its contribution was and why did he have to send it in the first place?″

Daniel shrugs in reply. Yes, he doesn't understand why it might have been necessary to send the note but that's not really what's primarily bothering him. He can live with not understanding the dizzying paradoxes inherent in the concept–now, the reality–of time travel; it's the personal inference he's drawn from the experience that he needs to resolve.

″I see your problem. The fact that we were here in the recent present for him to give the note to might seem, in terms of common sense analysis, to imply it might have been unnecessary and possibly non-contributory in resolving the past situation,″ Sam says and Daniel automatically nods, because although that's not the crux of his concern it is something he's wondering about.

He turns away slightly so he doesn't have to see the accusatory look on Jack's face as Sam speculates aloud from a perspective none of them can even hope to understand. ″It's really fascinating, actually; this experience very well may point us toward new avenues of research into theories of backwards causality. There's ample enough support, including Einstein's theory of special relativity and our own confirmatory research, for ...″

″Sam,″ Daniel tries to interject, without success.

″... the possibility of time travel into the future via time dilation pathways. Going the other way is another matter though. Even though Relativity Theory doesn't specifically rule out the possibility of backward time travel, it's considerably more problematic, mostly because of contradictions just like the one you're referring to.″

″Sam.″ He tries again and this time she takes notice, smiling at him and raising her eyebrows in invitation. If she thinks he might be about to provide anything intelligent, though, she has another thing coming. ″What I was wondering, what I mean is ...″ he asks, more than just a tad bit plaintively, ″... why does he remember any of it in the first place?″

That feels important to him, no matter the possibility he'll truly understand any answer she might give him is probably close to zero. He suddenly realises he doesn't actually need to know why Hammond remembers, anyway–simply voicing the question has made it clear it's the fact of it that's weighing on his mind, not the reason for it.

″I don't know,″ Sam replies far too happily. ″At our current level of knowledge pretty much the only rational means of resolving concerns over inherent paradoxes is a theory proposing multi-timeline generation as a result of interference in the past. But that doesn't seem to have happened here.″ She looks at them all with an engaged, self-sustaining enthusiasm and doesn't seem in the least bit disappointed to receive only blank stares in return.

″You know, the more I think about this, the more intriguing the possibilities are.″ She heads over to the computer terminal that's linked to the lab server. ″Quantum entanglement very well may support the plausibility of retro-causality but determining the direction of influence of possible timeline self-consistency is going to require ...″ She begins audibly enough, but in the next breath she's madly typing away and muttering the rest of it to herself, as if there was no one else in the room with her.

Daniel's bodily yanked from the lab by Jack's hand on his collar. ″Now see what you did?″ Jack complains. ″You broke Carter.″ He lets Daniel go and ushers Teal'c down the corridor ahead of him, bitching about archaeologists who don't know when to shut up and don't deserve to be invited to get pie.

That's fine, because Daniel's not into pie just now. He's got a personal mini-crisis of sorts to deal with. He's just not sure how to do that, though, without risk of embarrassing himself, so when he arrives at General Hammond's office door he's not sure whether he should knock or just walk away. He's leaning toward the latter because these sudden doubts are silly, really, aren't they? It's not like he hasn't contributed, hasn't proved his worth here ... hasn't he?

He turns to leave and just about comes nose up against the general himself, returning to his office from wherever. ″Dr. Jackson,″ Hammond greets him, reaching past Daniel to open the door. He waves a hand toward the interior. ″Come on in. What can I do for you?″

Daniel realises he was visible to Hammond, standing at the man's office door, all the while the general topped the stairs and crossed the briefing room. So he can hardly say 'oh, nothing, I'm fine thanks' and leaving without seeming a bit strange. He's no choice but to follow Hammond inside, and once there he hovers by the window, following one of the star map's lines along the glass with his finger, until the man is settled at his desk.

General Hammond is a perceptive man, and Daniel isn't surprised when instead of once again asking him outright what he wants, the general eases him into it. ″I'm looking forward to SG-1's written reports on this one,″ Hammond mildly observes. ″I imagine it must have been particularly interesting for you, considering your age, to experience as an adult a time thirty years into your past. How old were you, back then?″

You probably well know, Daniel wants to say, but thinks maybe his uncertainty is showing and Hammond is trying to put him at ease with mundanity, so he shoves his hands into his pockets and decides to participate. ″Four. I was just over four years old. And, yes,″ he allows, ″I did find it interesting. The whole lost in time thing was a bit harrowing, but that aside ...″ he trails off, and shrugs.

Hammond then says, ″I understand you were, what, about eight years old when your parents were killed?″ and Daniel jerks upright from his usual slouch, appalled at the direction of thought the comment indicates.

He slowly approaches the desk, placing his hands on the back of the guest chair to keep them still. ″Sir, are you asking me if I might have done something ... if I might have let my personal history get in the way of my dedication toward the present day?″

Like what? Leave a note somewhere for his parents to find four years on? Mail a letter? What would it say–'look up'? He can't deny the idea had fancifully occurred to him, but he'd never follow through. It was unthinkable.

Daniel knows he's taken, and in some cases acted upon, stances that the military minds around him have difficulty accepting. And worse, he's made outright mistakes–an especially huge one earlier this year that still haunts him–but the thought Hammond might feel him capable of something so unwise, so knowingly reckless, twists his stomach and further dents his floundering self-confidence. Is this it, then? Is he done here?

He's surprised again by the immediate, and fortunate, response, as it's Hammond's turn to be brought up short. ″No, son. No,″ he's quick to correct Daniel. ″I'm aware you would never do such a thing. You seem concerned about something, and I thought, if that were it, perhaps you might need ... an ear.″

Hammond is a bit flustered, Daniel realises, and both that and his offer provoke a spurt of fondness for the man. He can only hope Hammond respects him even half as much as he respects Hammond ″Thank you, Sir. No, it's not ... ″ He decides to finally just spit it out, asking,″ Sir, what now? With me?″

The momentary confusion his question generates is quickly wiped from Hammond's face, to be replaced by a slow nod of understanding. After a few moments of thoughtful deliberation, he replies equally as slowly, ″I don't plan on making any changes.″ Daniel's relief takes a detour back into apprehension, though, as Hammond adds, ″Do you feel I should consider making a change, Dr. Jackson?″

″No! Uhm, sorry ... no, Sir.″ Daniel barely manages not to stammer, shaking his head. No, the status quo is a-okay; no changes necessary. Except, he thinks, that's not entirely true; there are some improvements he'd like to see, such as a greater tolerance for–. He suddenly realises what he is doing, and that General Hammond is watching and assessing, and orders himself to stop thinking before he accidentally blurts out something that might change the general's mind.

″Glad to hear it.″ Hammond looks down at the work on his desk, moving a few folders around as he adds, ″However, Dr. Jackson, if I'm interpreting you correctly, your underlying concern pre-dates my involvement with the project.″ He says it in an almost absent-minded, nothing important to see here tone of voice Daniel knows is a feint–and an unspoken recommendation that Daniel please get out of his office now.

He nods his thanks and takes his leave, not only of the general's office but also of the SGC and the mountain. Because General Hammond is right; Daniel's immediate worry may have been addressed but there's an underlying issue, and the truth about that lies elsewhere.

Catherine seems genuinely pleased to see him when she responds to his knock, inviting him in without hesitation. ″What brings you here?″ she asks. ″Ernest is out, I'm afraid, if it's him you've come to see.″

Daniel assures her that no, he doesn't need Ernest, and when he turns down her offer of tea she understands he's unsettled. She leads him to the couch in the sitting room and stands sentinel over him until he's comfortably seated, as if the plush cushions will magically help him feel better, or somehow make it easier to tell her what's bothering him.

″We've just returned from ″ He almost says 1969, because he knows that if she understands he'd see it in her face right away, but at the last minute he changes his mind. ″Catherine, I'm hoping you can answer a question for me,″ he says instead, and just blurts it out. ″Why did you bring me onto the project?″

She frowns, worried for him. ″Is something wrong,″ she asks, sitting down and leaning toward him, empathy at the ready. ″Has something happened?″ Before he can assure her everything is all right, though, she lets out a small noise on a breath of air, something that almost sounds like an ″ah″, and sits up in a more formal posture, hands clasped in her lap.

″Why would I be interested in hiring someone with a history of biting the hand that feeds him? Someone in the midst of knowingly destroying his own credibility and career?″ she rhetorically asks. ″Is that what you want to know? Why I would bring a brash young man with a demonstrated disregard for working within the boundaries of an established bureaucracy onto a tightly controlled military project?″

Daniel is abruptly hit with the full extent of his need to know he's with the program for the right reasons, and how desperately he still wants to believe she had faith in him. He has to dig for enough voice to whisper, ″Yes, please,″ in response to her list of all the reasons he was and possibly still is the wrong person for the job.

Catherine studies him, her lips pursed, for a moment then smiles and gently tells him, ″Because you were just what I needed, Daniel–a brilliant linguist and unconventional thinker; a courageous and independent man who would sooner commit professional suicide than allow himself, his judgement, and his beliefs to be trampled by the military machine.″ She places a hand on his arm and squeezes gently. ″Inherency, Daniel. Everything about you was perfect. Is perfect.″

He believes her, and his relief is strong enough that had he not already, he would have had to sit down. As an adult, he's not been one to worry all that much about what other people might think of him–he'd still be working at the institute under Dr. Jordan, if he were–but this experience has surprised him; it's revealed that General Hammond and Catherine are a very different matter. Their motives and their opinions of him are important.

″So maybe you don't remember,″ he finds himself softly mumbling the thought aloud, only realising he's done it when she says she didn't quite hear that and can he please repeat it.

″We've just returned from a mission,″ he tells her in its stead, this time finishing it off properly. ″To 1969.″

He's surprised when she laughs, a spontaneous burst of ladylike amusement that he suspects is at his expense when she says, ″Oh, finally! Daniel, ever since your return from Abydos, when I put the past and present together and recognised you, there's been something I've been waiting to tell you.″

So she did remember after all but just not back then; she'd been the engineer of this amazing new life of his because, in fact, she'd thought he was worthy, not because of some time-worn external obligation. Warmed by the affirmation of her belief in him, he's more than happy to hear whatever she has to tell him. ″Yeah? What's that?″ he invites, returning her smile.

″You may be an accomplished polyglot, Daniel,″ she tells him, ″But I've never hear a more painful feigned German accent in my entire life. You're lucky I was curious, and didn't decide to just throw you out of my house.″

Daniel smiles–that's fine; he's not insulted. He's a bit concerned, though, at the thought that if Catherine had decided not to speak with them because of his poor accent, he might have been responsible for them never having been able to find the Stargate. But then again ... General Hammond and Catherine remembering the past indicate this isn't a new, offshoot timeline; so, that they were available to go on the mission that sent them back into the past, Hammond's note in hand, must mean they would somehow have found their way back home without the note, or, at least, forward into the far future where –

Oh, screw it. Jack is right. They're here, they're back, everything is just swell. It's all over and done with. Time to move on.

No pun intended.

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J is for Just a Little Pocket Change
by thothmes

The woods were quiet, and the fire had died down to embers. The only sound was the sound of the wind in the trees, and an occasional truck downshifting, out of sight up on the road. This particular campsite had been one of the less desirable ones because it was closer to the road, but Jack and Michael, who had picked it out, were more interested in price than communing with nature. The midnight hour had passed long ago, and the others were on the bus, asleep. Well, all except for Teal'c. He would have waited for Jenny and Michael to be sound asleep, and then risen from his pretended sleep to kel'no'reem.

Jack was not ready to sleep, not now, and not anytime soon. Some of it was the inactivity, he knew. Jenny and Michael seemed to be in no particular hurry, and he supposed that if he wanted to get in a run (in his combat boots!) they could get a later start in the morning, but they couldn't afford to miss the solar flares, and if Daniel was not able to get the location of the Stargate out of Catherine, then they would need every single second of the time between flares to try to find the thing, or they were trapped. And that would be unacceptable. Better to drive them all crazy with the restlessness that came when his energy had no other outlet, than to face the problem of what to do with Junior if they couldn't get away. Even Daniel, who seemed to show a particularly low tolerance to Jack's fidgets and drumming would choose that over an early death for Teal'c any day. Year. Time.

Man, oh man, Jack hated time travel. That was the problem, wasn't it? Time. Carter said it was like a river, with currents, eddies, and a destination. She said he shouldn't do anything to change it, that a little thing could make his home, his time, unrecognizable. There was something about butterflies and the weather too, but he didn't quite follow that one. Because he was thinking about the stuff in his pocket.

Not his front jeans pocket, where he had stored the remaining bills from the wad that Hammond had given him. The pocket of his sweet second-hand leather jacket. His hand strayed there now, pulling out three remaining pieces of bubble gum and a handful of change.

The bubble gum had been an impulse buy, ten pieces for a dime, each of them wrapped in a waxy wrapper and a Bazooka Joe comic. It had been the comics Jack was after, although the trip down memory lane buying gum at a penny a piece had been pleasant enough, and Jack enjoyed a bit of bubble gum from time to time. And teaching the big guy to blow bubbles had been amusing right up until he proved that he was the master of bubble blowing, and Jack the journeyman. Jack so totally would have won though, if he hadn't remembered being seven and earning a buzz cut and clipped eyebrows when the bubble he had blown had burst all over his head. He had no desire to sit still while Carter or Jenny cut off his hair, or did the thing Sara did with Charlie when he got gum in his hair, and thinning it out with peanut butter.

Jack wanted the comics as a primer on Earth humor for the big guy. They were certainly pretty basic, funny only to the young, trite and predictable to anyone over the age of twelve, as a rule. The first few had been exercises in frustration. Humor, he had heard tell, was dependent on surprise, and seemed like that was right, because when you tried to explain a joke, it died a gruesome, drawn-out death. One of them had succeeded beyond all expectation and the bounds of safety. Teal'c had gotten it in one go, and let out one of his scary, booming laughs with no warning. Michael, who had been driving, was not prepared, and pulled the wheel as he jumped in his fright. Only the fact that there had been no oncoming traffic had saved them. Now the bubble gum stayed in Jack's pocket until the bus was stopped for a rest break.

It hadn't been the gum he had been thinking about. It was the change. Small change. Just a small handful, such a huge temptation. Things were different back in 1969. A first class letter cost just six cents to mail. Five cents for a postcard. He could get a pretty colored one for a dime or so. His sixteen year old self would like that. He used to collect them.

He knew what he would write.

No guns in a house with a kid, EVER!

He wondered. Had his handwriting changed in the years since he was sixteen? Probably it had. Would his sixteen year old self recognize his current scrawl as his own? Would he listen? Would he remember when it counted?

Maybe he should write Sara instead? But where was she living then? He didn't know, and what would he say?

Jack O'Neill will hurt you.

Knowing Sara, that would likely intrigue her, and that would backfire. Without her would he have ever made that nine day walk–well, stagger, more like it–back to safety after his parachute accident? Who else could love him enough to put up with the crap he put Sara through after Iraq? She was no longer his wife, but he had never regretted a day of his life with her, except the one. That one would blacken his soul for all time.

Where would he have been, on the day General West had brought him back to active duty to go through the Stargate? Bleached bones in the desert? Living in that dark space he had settled in after Iraq? Would someone else have gone to Abydos in his stead? Where and when would that Colonel have set off the bomb? Would Charlie's life be bought with Ska'ra's and Sha're's? Daniel's?

Jack put his palms to his forehead, making slow circles, and the squeezed the bridge of his nose.

Too many questions. Not enough answers.

Somewhere in Minnesota, his sixteen year old self was sleeping. It wouldn't be long, Jack knew, before he would drag himself, reluctantly, out of bed to run his paper route. Then he would grab some breakfast and head out in time for his job at the grocery. Idiot work at minimum wage, but opportunities in small towns were limited, and if he wanted the money it would take to fix up his uncle's old Hog he had to earn it. So young. So unaware of the monsters hiding in the dark. So sure he knew where life was taking him. So wrong.

So many mistakes. So many challenges. So many adventures. Would a ten cent postcard, and a five cent stamp change it all? Would his younger self listen? Would that young idiot, so cocksure, so secure, remember when it counted? Would it change the world? And if it did, who would pay the cost?

Jack would give anything, all he had, all he was, to save Charlie. The universe could ask any price he could pay, and he would pay it gladly. But he could not ask another to pay for his most mortal sin.

He poked at the dying embers, but without adding more fuel, there would be no more light in this darkness.

If Daniel died with Ska'ra and the others at Abydos, would he disappear when they went through the Stargate to their own time? Would they ever know? What would a second Daniel do? What would he do? Would he return to an SGC where he was a stranger? Would Sara know him? Could he, knowing what he knew, walk back in his old front door and just occupy a life he'd never lived? Or would he find his place taken, his bed occupied by another Jack O'Neill, one closer to the Jack he once was?

He felt again in his pocket, and with a sign that was half resignation and half resolution, making sure he left the three bubblegum pieces behind, he emptied it of the change. He looked at the coins, barely visible in the moonlight. The price of a dream. The price of a nightmare. He would never know. He could never know, because he could not calculate the price.

He wished he were brighter. He wished he were wiser. Would Carter be able to figure this out? Would Daniel? Would one of the little gray guys that fixed his brain after he looked into the head-sucker thingy? They seemed to know a lot. He was just Jack, a pretty ordinary guy, with a pretty weird life. He knew what he wanted to do; he knew what he had to do.

Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

He was a product of Vatican II, but his grandmother had said her rosary in Latin all the days of her life.

Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Was it evil to love his child beyond all that the world had to offer? Beyond all doubt it was a temptation.

He tossed the handful of coins into the place where the embers still glowed, and stirred them.

There was a stealthy sound approaching from the bus. Footfalls. Teal'c's by the weight, although for a big man, he made remarkably little noise. And then he was there, by Jack's side. He lowered himself to the fallen log Jack had been sitting on.

“You do not sleep, O'Neill.”

“No.”

“Something troubles you.”

Teal'c offered no possibility that this anything other than a statement of fact.

“Yeah.”

Jack ran a hand through his hair, and once again pinched the bridge of his nose. Teal'c was silent and clearly prepared to wait, forever if need be, for the details. Jack was tired now, weary, body, mind, and soul.

“It's time travel, T. It makes my head hurt thinking about it.”

“Indeed.”

The fire held no warmth from where Jack sat. He stirred it with the same length of green sapling he'd been using for the purpose all night, burying the coins deeper in the ash. The silence was not looming now. It was comforting.

The two men sat side by side in companionable silence and watched the coming of the dawn.

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K is for Kindness
by milanthruil

The team looked around them and blinked as their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of a thankfully empty auditorium. A bright light had surrounded themjust seconds before.

“Carter! Where the hell are we and what the hell happened?” Jack griped.

“I’m not sure, sir.” Sam frowned as she realized she had left her gadgets behind on the desk in Daniel’s office at the SGC.

“We appear to have been transported, O’Neill.” Teal’c supplied less-then helpfully.

“I can see that, Teal’c, thanks.” Jack turned to Daniel. “What happened to your office, Daniel?”

Daniel continued to look around the room, a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Daniel!” Jack snapped his fingers in Daniel’s face.

“Sorry, what?” Daniel looked at his friend.

“What happened?”

Daniel scratched at the back of his head. “This artifact I’ve been studying.” He held up a small granite cube with Ancient writing on it.“It says something about granting ‘desires of the past’. I didn’t really get a chance to examine it before you all showed up. I must have accidentally activated it somehow while we were talking.”

Jack sighed. “All right, folks. Let’s do a bit of recon and find out where we are. And more importantly, how do we get back home.”

The team made their way out of the darkened auditorium and came face to face with a wall of Egyptian artefacts. The crease between Daniel’s eyebrows deepened and the knot he’d been feeling in his gut grew colder.

Sam looked around at the architecture and pursed her lips. “Something feels vaguely familiar about this place.”

Daniel took a few step to the left to examine a placard next to one of the artefacts. He noticed the logo and the name of the museum in the corner of the white rectangle. He whipped his head around to look more closely at the other statues and works of art. “It can’t be.” He let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Daniel?” Sam asked.

“Nineteen seventy-three.” Jack spoke.

“What?” Daniel eyes widened and he looked at his team leader.

Jack pointed to the list of events posted outside the auditorium. “The year. We’ve gone back in time. Again.”

Daniel flagged down a passerby who raised her eyebrow at their BDUs. “Excuse me.” He smiled his most charming smile. “My friends and I are visiting from out of town and we might have gotten a little confused as to our itinerary. Could you please tell us what the date is?”

The woman smiled back and Daniel noticed she was wearing a badge with the same logo as the placard he’d been looking at. “It’s the 23rd. Of August,” she clarified when she was met with confused glances.

Daniel stepped back as if burned. “Thank you. Pardon me.” He started off down the corridor at a brisk walk, searching for something.

Sam caught up to him first. “Daniel? What’s going on?”

“My parents, Sam. They’re here.” Daniel kept walking as Teal’c and Jack closed the distance behind them.

“Daniel?” Jack grabbed Daniel’s bicep to get him to slow down. “Sit rep.”

“There’s no time.” Daniel argued and tried to pull away from Jack’s grip.

Jack frowned. “No time for what?”

“My parents are here, Jack.” Daniel gestured to indicate the museum. “I need to find them before-” he released a shaky breath, “Today is the day they die.”

Sam placed a hand on her friend’s arm. “Whoa, Daniel, we’ve gone through this with the Keeper, remember?”

“Of course I do.” Daniel spat.

“You can’t do anything to alter the timeline, Daniel.” Sam argued. “You don’t know what the repercussions will be.”

“Jack, let me do this.”

“Daniel-”

“Please?” Asked a small voice down the hall behind them.

“Let’s go ask your parents and maybe they’ll buy you the camel when they’re finished.” A female staff member walked past them with a little boy following her.

Sam watched them round the corner to their left. “Was that you?” She asked.

Daniel nodded, never breaking eye contact with Jack.

“Daniel.” Jack warned.

“They’re my parents, Jack, please.” Daniel pleaded in a whisper. “I just want to see the again.”

“Alright.” Jack let Daniel lead the way but kept a grip on his friend’s arm.

“Sir?” Sam frowned.

Jack shrugged with one shoulder. “I’d want to see Charlie.” He murmured.

The others followed Daniel to the exhibit room where they were all stopped a few feet past the doorway.

“I’m sorry. This area isn’t open to the public.” A blond woman told them.

Daniel peered past her to the temple at the far end of the room.

“Careful with that coverstone.” A familiar voice warned.

“Yes, Doctor Jackson.”

Sam placed a hand on Daniel’s arm. “Daniel?”

“Sir?” The woman from earlier attempted to gain Daniel’s attention. “You can’t be in here.”

Jack fished his military ID out of his pocket and showed it to her. “We’re just here to supervise, Ma’am. Matter of national security.”

“All right,” the woman frowned but stepped aside, allowing the team to enter the room, “but you have to stay back here for safety reasons.” She moved away and focused her attention back on a little blond-haired boy who was seated on one of the museum’s benches, kicking his feet.

“Thank you.” Jack put his ID back in his pocket.

“Jake, it’s swinging a bit.” A woman inside the temple cautioned.

“Mom.” Daniel breathed.

“Careful. Careful.”

“Dad.” Daniel watched his parents direct the placement of the coverstone from inside the temple.

“When can I ask them about the camel?” The little boy asked.

“Shush, Danny.” The woman told him. “Your parents need to concentrate.”

Jack eyed the little boy. That little kid shouldn’t be in the room to watch his parents die. But it had already happened, and Jack couldn’t do anything about it no matter how much he wanted to save those innocent eyes from seeing this horrific accident.

Daniel took a step forward, but was stopped by Sam’s hand on his arm. He blinked furiously, trying to fight back the tears that wanted to spill down his cheeks.

“Daniel,” Sam whispered, “are you going to be okay?”

Daniel shook his head. “Promise me.” He choked on his own voice. “Promise me you won’t let me save them. As much as I want to, I can’t change anything.”

Sam tightened her grip.

Jack placed his hand on the back of Daniel’s neck. “We’re here for you, buddy.” He stroked his thumb over the base of Daniel’s skull.

“It’s swinging.” Daniel’s mom eyed the coverstone warily.

Daniel reached back and Jack grabbed his hand with the one that wasn’t resting on Daniel’s nape. “Mom.” Daniel took another step forward.

Teal’c put his hand on Daniel’s chest to hold him back.

They all watched in horror as the chain holding the coverstone broke and fell onto the walls and pillars, knocking them over and crushing the two people inside.

“MOMMY! DADDY!” Daniel’s younger self screamed from their right.

“NO!” Daniel fought against his friends, trying to reach his parents.

His teammates maneuvered him back out of the room and into another that was out of the way and where they wouldn’t be disturbed. Daniel sank to his knees amid the glass cases and finally allowed the tears he’d been holding back to fall.

“God, Daniel.” Jack crouched down and pulled Daniel into his arms.

Daniel sobbed into Jack’s shoulder as Sam and Teal’c gathered close to offer their own silent support.

In the next room they could hear shouting from the workers as they tried to clear the heavy stones while a young Daniel screamed for his parents.

Jack closed his eyes. “Why the hell were you allowed in there to see that, Danny? You were just a kid.” He whispered.

“I’d just wanted to ask them a question.” Daniel said into the fabric of Jack’s BDU shirt. He lifted his head. “I wanted a stuffed camel I saw in the gift shop, but I didn’t have enough money for it myself.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I was going to ask if they’d give me a bit of extra money or if they’d buy it for me. God, it was so stupid.”

“You were eight!” Jack argued.

“I was a distraction!” Daniel let out a shaky sob.

“Hey,” Jack placed his hands on either side of Daniel’s face, “it wasn’t your fault. Okay? It was an accident.”

Daniel stood and rubbed his hands over his face to wipe away the tears. “I-I need a moment.” He exited the room and wandered down the halls and exhibits, past the commotion of people running towards the temple room, until he got to the gift shop.

The frantic undertones were only just starting to spread there. People were looking out toward the Egyptian wing in confusion and thankfully ignoring Danie’sl strange military clothes.

Daniel wandered toward the back of the shop where there was a row of stuffed camels sitting at what would have been eye height to an eight year old. He picked one up and squished it gently in his hands. And then a thought occurred to him. He patted down his pockets before realizing he’d left his wallet in his locker back at the SGC several year in the future. He hung his head. “Wait,” he whispered to himself. He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. Thankfully Sam had lost the bet they’d had that morning about Jack’s weekend crossword puzzle.

Daniel walked to the register and placed the camel on the counter and handed the money to the clerk. After receiving his change, he left the store and headed back toward the temple. He found his younger self in the room he had been in earlier surrounded by a couple workers and the lady who had been watching him that day. The woman looked up and opened her mouth the tell him to leave, but was interrupted.

“There you are.” Jack said from behind Daniel. “Been looking all over for you.” He glanced down at the stuffed camel in Daniel’s hands. “What’cha got there?”

Daniel held up the camel. “I just wanted to-” he gestured behind him at his younger self.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“What harm could a stuffed camel do?” Daniel looked at Jack and his familiar face. A face he had always taken comfort in. And now he was beginning to realize why. He held the camel out to his friend. “You do it.”

“What?” Jack blinked in surprise.

“Just… trust me…”

Jack frowned.

Daniel leaned closer to Jack and glanced at his younger self. “I know your face,” he whispered. “I know it because I saw you here all those years ago. It’s why I trusted you so quickly.” He placed the camel in Jack’s hands. “Please, Jack. Go to him. He needs this right now.”

Jack searched Daniel eyes and then nodded. “Okay.” He approached the younger version of his friend and squatted down in front of him. “Hey there, kiddo,” he said softly.

Eight-year-old Danny Jackson lifted his head and eyed Jack warily. He sniffed.

“My name is Jack.”

Danny wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I’m Danny.” He said in a tear-clogged voice.

“Well, Danny, I have a friend who’s feeling kinda lonely, and he told me he really would like to be friends with you.” Jack held up the stuffed camel. “What’d’ya say?”

Danny’s eyes widened. He reached out his small hand and carefully took the camel from Jack. “I can keep him?” He asked quietly.

Jack nodded. “He told me you looked sad and he wanted to cheer you up.”

Danny’s lip trembled and he buried his face against the camel’s soft fur.

Jack shifted his weight to stand and suddenly found himself with an armful of grateful little boy.

“Thanks, Mister Jack.”

Jack ruffled Danny’s hair and hugged him close. “You take good care of Lumpy for me, okay?”

Danny nodded.

Jack let him go and stood up. He walked back to the older Daniel and put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.

Daniel pursed his lips. “Thanks, Jack,” he whispered.

“No problem.” He clapped Daniel on the back and walked with his friend back to the auditorium to meet up with the others. “Now let’s figure out how to get home.”

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that,” Daniel said as they slipped into the auditorium. “The artefact mentioned the number ‘sixty’ and, given the context, I think it might have something to do with time. Maybe how long the effect lasts?”

“So we may end up just returning home to where we’re supposed to be?”

Daniel shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“So, sixty what? Minutes? Hours, Days?” Jack frowned. “Years?”

“Years doesn’t really makes sense from a mission objective stand point.” Daniel looked around at the others. “I mean if this thing sends you back in time to re-live an event, why would it stick you here for sixty years?”

Jack conceded. “All right, so how long until-”

“-we’re back.” Jack blinked and looked around at the familiar walls of Daniel office at the SGC. “…we’re back! We are back, right?”

Sam moved to the computer and checked the date. “Yes, sir.”

“All right then. I don’t know about you, but I say we get out of here and go let General Hammond know what happened.”

“You realize that we’ll probably have to go to the infirmary because of this, right?” Daniel pushed his glasses up his nose.

“Thank you, Daniel.” Jack griped.

“I’m just saying that there could be side effects. They’ll have to make sure we came back with everything in the right place.”

“Thank you, Daniel.” Jack said again as the four of them made their way to report to General Hammond.

*

Daniel let Jack into his apartment later that evening. “Thanks for coming over, Jack.”

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.” Jack hugged his friend and then made his way to the living room.

“You want a beer or anything?” Daniel asked as he gestured to the kitchen.

Jack stopped short when he noticed a familiar face staring at him from the coffee table. “Daniel?”

Daniel walked over to the coffee table and picked up the stuffed camel. “Remember when I asked you to trust me?”

Jack nodded.

“This is why. I made the connection while I was standing there. About why your face was so familiar.” Daniel held the camel close. The stuffed toy was considerably more worn and a little duller in color, but his face was the same as it had been when Jack had left it in the arms of a grieving boy just hours ago. “Lumpy’s hardly ever left my side since you gave him to me, Jack. It was the only good thing that had happened to me that day.” Daniel’s voice cracked.

Jack pulled Daniel into a hug and held him tight.

Daniel clung to him. “Thank you for giving that younger me something to hold onto, Jack.” Daniel murmured into Jack’s jacket.

“Anytime, Daniel.” Jack whispered. He gave Daniel an extra squeeze. “Anytime.”

feedback

L is for Loop
by immertreu

“We're lost.” Daniel stated the obvious, but as always, Jack couldn't resist the challenge.

“We're not lost,” their team leader replied while constantly checking their surroundings for any threat. “Just taking the scenic route.”

“Then where are the sights?” Daniel replied deadpan.

Sam snorted and hid her grin behind a stern expression the moment her CO regarded her with a raised eyebrow. “Sir, I think Daniel's right. Sir,” she added for good measure, but she knew Jack wasn't fooled. He motioned for her to continue, and she complied. “We've walked through this doorway three times already. Notice the chipped step, sir? It's the same every time we end up here–wherever here is.”

Jack stared at the damaged sill and scowled. “No fair, Carter. That's not possible.”

This time, she did grin at him. “No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Daniel chuckled at their antics, knowing full well that his friends were trying to lighten the mood and not think of their missing team member and their predicament. Somehow, Teal'c had stayed behind the first time they stepped through the door leading further into the ancient temple SG-1 had been sent to investigate–ancient not with capital A, for a change.

Daniel had led the way, following the light of his powerful flashlight into the alluring depths of the hallway whose walls were adorned with foreign writing he couldn't read–yet. Sam and her curious nose for advanced technology had followed close behind. Jack had been one step ahead of Teal'c, their rear-guard, crossing the threshold a few seconds before their resident Jaffa. Suddenly the three human team members were alone in the building, no sign of Teal'c or the light he was carrying to be found. The hallway they found themselves in was slightly illuminated by sconces set into the walls–power source unknown.

They had turned back immediately, but the doorway had–for lack of a better word–refused to let them through. There was no door, no energy field or any other explanation for the resistance they met when they tried to cross the threshold again. It was like walking into an invisible wall. A slightly elastic wall, for that matter. The room that lay behind was blanketed in impenetrable darkness. Or maybe the invisible shield was fooling them again.

Having no choice and not being able to raise Teal'c on the radio, they had cautiously continued onward–only to stumble into a maze. The whole temple seemed to be one huge labyrinth.

Keeping to the left had worked as well as following the opposite way–meaning they somehow always ended up at the beginning.

Sam grew serious and confirmed it. “I didn't want to believe it at first, so I took a picture of the door frame and the step.” She held up her tiny digital camera as proof. “This is the third time we've walked through this particular entrance, no doubt about it. I just can't explain it, sir.” She glanced down at the scribbled notes in her other hand and frowned, affronted by the illogical events that defied her attempts at trying to map the layout of the inner temple.

Jack's scowl deepened. “So,” he drawled, clearly unhappy. “Any suggestions?”

Daniel turned away from the wall and the script he'd been studying after copying a passage into his own notebook. “Breadcrumbs?”

Jack stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Thank you for this very unhelpful suggestion, Dr. Jackson.”

Daniel shrugged, unperturbed, and went back to his notes. He was still trying to figure out why the language seemed so familiar yet still eluded him.

Their team leader sighed and signed for them to take a break. “We'll stay here for a while,” he ordered. “You look around. I'll take first watch. Carter, you're next.” He dropped his pack to the floor next to the door they had just stepped through–again–resettled his cap on his head, and stared at the offensive “wall” he couldn't even see.

“Yes, sir,” Sam confirmed, and started rummaging around in her pack. “Daniel, are you hungry?” They had been here for more than five hours already.

“No, thank you,” he said, already distracted by his thoughts. He placed his pack next to Jack's, dug out a bigger notebook and another pen, and set to work on the beautiful yet alien script adorning the mysterious doorway. The answer to their problem had to be there!

Sam also took out her equipment, paying close attention to the invisible field or whatever was blocking their exit, trying to find any kind of power source or wiring built into the walls or the floor, a hidden mechanism or panel they could access to get out of here. She was worried, though. Teal'c must have called the SGC by now and requested back-up, but there was no way to be sure, of course. “I hope he's okay,” she murmured, and Daniel placed a comforting hand on her shoulder when she passed him, her eyes riveted to the readings on her scanner.

“I'm sure he is,” he said, and Sam smiled gratefully. Trust their often oblivious archaeologist to comfort a teammate in need. She patted his hand and went back to work.

Silence reigned.

Two more hours passed. “I know this,” Daniel finally mumbled under his breath and jumped when Sam suddenly spoke up right next to his left ear.

“How?” she asked, trying to sneak a glance at his work over his shoulder. She stepped back with her hands raised in apology when he glared at her.

“Don't do that!” Daniel admonished. “I'm trying to figure this out without anyone scaring me to death.”


“Sorry,” she smiled. “Just trying to help.”

He deflated and smiled back. “I know, Sam. Sorry,” he added, tiredly rubbing his eyes under his glasses. He was so close! He could feel it.

She only grinned and held out a ration bar and canteen for him. “Dinner?”

He blinked and accepted the offerings. Jack was also chewing on a bar without relinquishing the hold on his P-90. “Anything?” he mumbled around a mouthful, which made it sound like “mmphn?”

Daniel grinned and swallowed his own bite of the tasteless nutrient before replying. “Yes and no.”

Luckily Jack was still chewing, but he glared nonetheless, so Daniel hurried on, “It seems to be a variant of Egyptian Arabic but written in a mix of very old Japanese and Ancient symbols. Some of it looks like the writing we found on Ernest's planet. It's coded, of course. And yes, I know it makes no sense at all,” he added before Sam could open her mouth. “The languages and cultures are not even remotely related, that's why it took me so long to recognize any sort of order in the script. Code. Whatever.”

Sam frowned and asked, “So what is it? A joke? A riddle? Who could have written anything this...jumbled?”

Daniel shrugged noncommittally and bit into his disgusting food, thinking hard and squinting at the text again.

Jack turned to Sam. “Carter? What did you find?”

“Well, sir, it's seems the door is lined with an unknown material that makes it impossible to scan the exact make-up of the entryway. I guess I could destroy the power lines running through it, but I have no idea what that'll do to the mechanism. I might disrupt the circle and make the obstacle disappear.”

She fell silent, and Jack prodded, “Or?”

Sam sighed and continued. “Or I might blow up this whole building.” She shrugged apologetically. “To be honest, sir, I have no idea what this is and how it works. It's definitely not Goa'uld or any form of alien technology we've encountered before. It's complicated enough that it would warrant much, much more study time. Time we don't have.” She gestured around. “We could spend weeks walking this maze and never get out. And we're only carrying food for another day, two at most. I know Teal'c will have called for help by now, but they might not be able to find us. Maybe what's blocking this doorway is permanent. Maybe not. It's definitely not a quantum mirror or a simple force field, more like a...fluctuation of some kind.”

Frustration was evident in her voice. She took a deep breath and let it out again to calm herself. Venting her anger wouldn't help them solve their problem. She just didn't like technology that defied even her expertise and inventiveness.

Her CO gazed at her thoughtfully. “Think we could just blow the wall?”

That got Daniel back into the conversation. “Now wait a minute!” he protested.

Jack and Sam shared a grin. Threatening to blow up one of their favorite archaeologist's treasures always had the desired effect. Daniel noticed, of course, and groaned, “That's not funny,” he grumbled. Then he brandished the notebook he'd been poring over and said, “I think I've got it. But you're not gonna like it.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Try me,” he deadpanned.

“Okay. So, let me see...” He ruffled through his notes and finally announced, “I think the writing says that we're in a place of 'eternal searching.'” He painted quotation marks in the air, and continued, “Only the worthy one might leave this place.” He knitted his eyebrows together in thought. “Here's where it gets a little vague.”

Jack snorted. “You mean more vague than the gibberish you've just deciphered?”

Daniel shrugged. “Well...yes. Anyway, it seems this place is supposed to be a test of some kind. Unfortunately, the text doesn't say for whom or what kind of trial it is. Just that it's never ending. I think.”

“Ya think?” Jack didn't look pleased.

“I didn't exactly have time to re-check everything, but I'm pretty sure, yeah.” Daniel's sarcasm rivaled his team leader's.

Sam spoke up. “Do you think it's literal or a metaphor?”

“I'm afraid it's the former.”

“Oh boy.”

Daniel grinned ruefully.

Jack finally relinquished his watch position by the doorway and joined his teammates. “So, we're stuck in a maze that magically transports us back here every time we take a wrong turn, we can’t leave the way we came because this energy field blocking the entrance won't budge, and there’s no way of contacting the outside world,” he summarized, and grimaced. “Did I forget anything?”

Daniel merely shrugged. Sam hugged her scanner and her notebook closer as if willing them to produce a miracle.

Jack sighed. “Didn't think so. Okay, kids, pack it up. We'll give this one more try. If this loop ends with us being stuck in this room again, we'll just blow the wall and hope that the whole temple doesn't come crashing down on us.” Seeing Daniel's mutinous look, he added, “Yes, Daniel, I know it's invaluable and fascinating and you want to study it, but we need to get out of here at one point. So far we've seen no hostiles or traps, but I wouldn't bet on being safe here either. We don't have enough equipment or tools, and I for one don't wanna end up rotting in this semi-dark hall for all eternity, no matter how important the builders of this place deem their test.”

He broke off with an annoyed huff. Why was he even explaining his decision? Oh, right, because Daniel was stubbornly standing his ground, his arms folded in front of him. “Daniel, not now. We need to go.” He didn't wait for a reply and turned to pick up his pack. Noises told him that Carter and Daniel were getting ready, too, the latter unwillingly but for once following orders.

One hour later, they were back where they had begun. The moment they crossed the now infamous threshold, they realized their mistake–and poof, ended up in the same dank tunnel that they had already spent so many hours exploring. They couldn't turn back–again.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Jack exclaimed. “This place is driving me nuts. That's it. Carter, get the C4.” He opened a pocket on his vest and drew out two bars of the highly explosive material. He placed them on the wall closest to the temple entrance, hoping that this whole thing wouldn't blow up in their faces. Sam added another bar a few meters away, careful not to put down too much firepower. They still needed to walk out of here, thank you very much.

Daniel looked on in disappointed silence but realized the need for a destructive solution.

They tried one last time to raise Teal'c on the radio, but only static greeted Jack's announcement to clear the door. Sighing, he motioned for his team to take cover behind the next doorway. And then he hit the button.

White light seemed to erupt when the charges blew. Daniel thought he heard someone shouting his name–and then nothingness greeted him. The next thing he saw was Teal'c's face hovering about him with a worried look. “Daniel Jackson, are you all right?” the Jaffa asked, and Daniel grunted in reply. His head was killing him! But other than that? Yes, he was fine.

He gingerly accepted the offered arm and sat up. “Thanks, Teal'c. I'm okay. What happened?” He looked around and saw Sam and Jack nearby, also in the painful process of getting their bearings.

Teal'c looked at him gravely. “I do not know,” he said. “We were exploring the first room of the temple. You, Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill had crossed a threshold leading deeper into the building when you cried out and collapsed. I carried you out here and went back for Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill who were suffering from the same debilitating pain.”

“But Teal'c,” Sam interrupted. She was slowly getting to her knees, accepting a helping hand from Jack who looked only slightly less pale. “We were gone for almost eight hours.”

Teal'c looked at her in concern. “I do not understand,” he rumbled while hauling Daniel to his feet. “We arrived here only twenty minutes ago.”

Astonished, Sam and Jack traded glances with Daniel who could only shrug and wince at the movement. As one, they turned back to the temple that stood silent and ancient. There was no sign of their explosives having gone off. Suddenly, Sam dropped to her knees again, almost dragging her CO with her, and started digging around in her gear.

“Carter?” Jack asked, concerned.

“Just a minute, sir,” she replied, and continued to rummage around. Eventually, she sat back on her heels and rubbed a hand over her face. “Do you remember eating some of my rations, sir? Daniel?” she asked.

Both men nodded. “Yes,” Daniel said. “What about it?”

Without replying, Sam raised her fist and held three ration bars up for them to see. “They're still here,” she said, wide-eyed.

“What?!” Jack and Daniel shouted in unison.

Jack then carefully reached into his pocket–and drew out a bar of C4 he simply knew he had used just a few minutes ago. Everyone stared at it.

Daniel recovered first, “How is that possible? Did we suffer from mass hallucinations? A shared dream perhaps?”

Teal'c looked on in worry but kept silent. He could not explain his teammates’ weird behavior or the events they seemed to remember which had never happened.

Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair, unsettling his customary cap. “Carter, what time is it?”

“Huh?” Uncomprehending, she looked at her watch. “Almost twenty-hundred hours, sir.”

“Daniel?”

Daniel complied and looked at his own SGC-provided wristwatch. “Eight p.m.,” he said, not bothering with military time.

Teal'c, understanding his team leader's intent, didn't need to be asked. “It is midday, O'Neill.”

Jack swore under his breath. “Well, that explains it.”

Sam looked ill as well. “It wasn't a transporter or an elaborate scheme.”

Daniel finished for her, pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “It really was a loop, but not the one we expected. There must have been a fail-safe: We got transported out the moment we tried to blow the place up.”

Disquieted, Jack picked up his gear. “Let's go, people. We can work out the details of our trip later.” Wincing at his own poor choice of words, he led his bewildered team for home. Time travel always did make his head hurt.

feedback

M is for Moebius
by fignewton

"Where does the greater arrogance lie?"

Sam paused, fingers stilling, then deliberately continued to smooth out the sand where she'd laboriously scrawled her equations. She'd had this conversation too often lately.

"We can't erase our presence here as easy as that, Sam." The voice was probably gentle enough, but the underlying edge of tension scraped against her nerves.

"No," she agreed, blinking eyes that had been too dry for too long. "It's too late for that. But we can still try to minimize the damage."

"Bit presumptuous, isn't it? Deciding that our set future matters more than the possible futures of millions."

"It's even more presumptuous to decide which millions of lives matter," she said quietly, her gaze fixed downwards. She didn't need to look up to visualize Daniel's knitted brows and stubborn expression. "We don't have the right to choose."

"What's worse, then? Letting everyone suffer for a future we hope is still out there, or trying to twist things to make a better future and running the risk of making it even worse?" Sam thought she felt a shift in the air, visualized Daniel's restless hands sketching aimless patterns. "Maybe the arrogance lies in assuming that what we do really matters in the long run. Maybe time is more resilient that we think."

"And maybe," Sam told the floor, "this is too great a focal point to get blurred over the centuries."

Ra was still here, the revolt crushed. Was their failure only a prelude? Would another uprising take place, a year or a decade or a century from now? Maybe it was arrogance to assume that their presence here mattered so much. Maybe the weight of history would drown out their floundering in the sands of the past.

Or maybe their restless impatience had sent a deadly ripple through time that would destroy the hope of Earth's future as a planet free of Goa'uld oppression.

"We might have destroyed the future." Forcing herself to say it aloud didn't make it hurt any less.

"We might have destroyed a future, Sam. It might not even have been ours. And isn't it arrogance personified to insist it was the optimal one?"

Grains of sand sifted through the tiny grill overhead, drifting through the air and settling on the stone floor.

"We can't trade this Abydos for the one that's lost," Sam told Daniel - told herself, really. She didn't want to think about Abydos or the Tok'ra or the Land of Light or Langara or the Tollan or anyone else. "If we don't know the rules, the best we can do is nothing."

"The Ancients believed in non-intervention, too," the soft voice pressed relentlessly. "I rejected that twice, no matter what it cost me then. Were we wrong to reject it now?"

Sam choked back a laugh. "You'll have to define 'now' for me," she muttered, and barely stopped herself from looking up at him.

Silence returned to the small room, broken only by the soft susurration of breathing.

"We come by our arrogance honestly," Daniel said at last. "We're convinced we understand what we're doing, that we know the risks. But even our precautions might be worse than useless, because we just don't know. I can't trace the physical signs of a history that hasn't happened yet, Sam, and you can't find the math to resolve the paradox of how we might stop a future that includes our traveling to this time. It was probably wrong for us to come here, I know. But if we never believed in ourselves, we'd never have walked through the Stargate in the first place." There was a long pause, then, more gently, "You still don't regret that, Sam, do you?"

Her dry eyes were suddenly burning with unwanted moisture, and Sam swiped them angrily away. "No," she whispered, her voice hoarse and rusty. "I don't."

She didn't.

When long minutes passed and Daniel said nothing further, Sam finally dared to look up from the floor.

Daniel wasn't there.

Of course he wasn't. Her cell was as empty as it always had been for the last six days, since Jack had been killed. Teal'c was long gone, Daniel missing - still alive, she hoped, although there was no way to know.

She swallowed, feeling the scrape of her parched throat, and deliberately bent down over the sandy floor again. Slowly, awkwardly, she began to draw equations on the floor, trying once more to calculate the probability of time and history unspooling themselves to right the mistakes they'd made. She tried not to hope that her mind would conjure Daniel again, one last time.

Six hours later, the Jaffa came to remove the rebel from her prison and take her to the site of execution, where she would be slain for the glory of Ra.

feedback

N is for Nevermore
by traycer

Stars filled the sky as Jack stared up at the heavens. His telescope set up and ready to go next to his chair, but he didn't use it. He only wanted to think, and to let the solitude of the night sky soothe his worries. Or in this case, his fears.

He took a swig of the beer he brought with him, while his thoughts took him to the planet where Malikai tried his best to recreate history. Jack shook his head as he looked down at the bottle in his hand. He still couldn't manage to even comprehend why anyone would want to go through with the devastation that came with watching someone you loved die. It defied reason, as far as he was concerned.

Yet he turned his attention back to the sky once more, and wondered once again what it would be like to have Charlie here with him. What would they be doing right now?

He shook his head again. Why do this now, he thought wearily, although deep down, he knew the answer to that question. Malikai had brought back those "what-if" thoughts again, and Jack knew he was going to have to struggle with the memories for a bit. Just as he had to deal with it after they returned from their journey to the past when they had gated to 1969. That trip had brought on crazy ideas of figuring out a way to go back to save Charlie, and Jack was still ticked off at the futility of those thoughts. He glared up at the stars. No way was he going to do that again. It served no purpose, he told himself firmly. Charlie was dead. Nothing Jack did was going to bring him back. He took another swig and grimaced. They had the ability to travel through time, even if finding the next solar flare was sketchy at best, and there wasn't a thing he could do to bring his son back.

So that's it, he thought as he drained the bottle and set it down on the table next to him. Never again. He looked through the lens of his telescope and aimed it toward the Milky Way, trying to focus on a star Carter had mentioned to him earlier that day.

"Jack!"

Great timing Daniel, Jack thought with a smile. "Up here," he yelled.

Daniel climbed the last stair and looked down at Jack. "What are you doing?"

Jack turned to look at him with raised eyebrows. "What's it look like?"

Daniel shrugged. "Looks like you are having a great time." He held up the six-pack he was holding and grinned. "I brought some refreshment."

"You're a good man, Daniel Jackson," Jack told him sincerely. "Have a seat."

Daniel sat down on the other chair and handed Jack a bottle. "How are you holding up?" he asked.

"Well as can be expected, I guess." He looked over at Daniel. "Why?"

"Just wondered." Daniel took a drink, and said, "I guess you're glad the day is finally over, huh?"

Jack grunted at that remark and took a drink. That definitely was the understatement of the century. After reliving the same day for what seemed like an eternity, he was very happy to see it end.

But Daniel wasn't ready to let it go completely. "I keep thinking about Malikai and his determination to go back in time to see his wife again."

Jack mentally steeled himself. He was so not going there.

Daniel went on anyway. "Did you ever wonder about doing that yourself?"

"No," Jack said with finality. He just didn't need this.

"I have," Daniel said softly. "My parents died when I was young and I thought maybe I could..." he shrugged and took another drink before saying, "Maybe I could have saved them."

Jack looked over at his friend, surprised to hear his own thoughts being thrown back at him. Daniel, on the other hand, wouldn't look at him. No surprise there, Jack thought. They sat in silence, while he wondered what to say.

Never again, he thought with determination even though he knew it was as inevitable as the sun rising in the east. Some things you just can't run away from.

"We can't change the past, Daniel," he said. "We can think about it, but we can't change it. So, what's the point?"

"I don't know," Daniel said. He cleared his throat, then added, "I just wondered, that's all."

"Yeah," Jack said as he raised the bottle to his lips. "Me too."

Daniel looked at him with a grin. "I thought you said you never think about."

"I lied."

"And...?"

"And nothing. I don't dwell."

Apparently Daniel knew a lost cause when he saw one. He nodded and said, "Okay." He turned to Jack and raised his bottle as if to a toast. "Forget I said anything."

Jack returned the gesture and turned to look up at the stars again, his thoughts once again on Charlie. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Never again."

feedback

O is for Oops
by badfalcon

"Oops." Sam pulled a face and winced as the machine in front of her sparked blue and made a mechanical whining sound. She slid her chair backwards and sucked two fingers into her mouth. She muttered around them, half under her breath, and moved around the table as she studiously ignored the looks she could feel both Daniel and the Colonel were shooting her.

"Oops?" O'Neill repeated and looked over her shoulder, his hand on the table. He raised an eyebrow when she looked up at him. "What do you mean 'oops', Carter?"

"I..." She trailed off and jumped as the machine sparked again. She bit her lip and tilted her head to the side, her eyes widened at the sight of the little grey wisps of smoke that had started to seep from one corner of the machine. "Damn it!"

"I think she means 'oops' as in it wasn't supposed to do that," Daniel offered, and Sam could hear the laughter in his voice.

"I'm not really sure what it is supposed to do," she admitted. "Maybe this is normal activity for it?"

O'Neill snorted and leant with his hip against the edge of the table. "Right. Normal. When has anything about anything we bring back through the 'gate been normal?""

Sam looked at Daniel and shrugged; O'Neill was right, maybe normal hadn't been the right word.

"Normal's relative," Daniel pointed out, as he picked up his coffee cup and wrapped his hands around it. "Maybe it's normal for a... for a whatever it is. Although," he continued carefully, "maybe you shouldn't be poking it with a screwdriver until..."

A bright flash of light and a crack of sound that reminded Sam of a firework echoed around the room. She rubbed at her eyes and blinked rapidly as she tried to work out what had just happened.

"Until you know what it does." Daniel finished with a sigh. “Yeah.”

"... you gone completely insane, Daniel?"

"Um. Not that I'm aware of," Daniel replied as Sam realised that there was another O'Neill in front of Daniel. Sam slowly turned her head to the side; O'Neill was still leaning against Sam's desk.

"Um." She looked back at the man in front of him; a little greyer, a little older but definitely O'Neill.

"Sam?" Daniel asked, she could see the confusion on his face at the sudden appearance.

"There's..." Sam's eyes widened and she blinked rapidly. There were two O'Neills in her lab; they were circling each other, eyeing each other up and poking each other in the chest. "Daniel, there's two of them."

"Yeah, I noticed," Daniel nodded. "How... where..."

"I have no idea." Sam ran a hand threw her hair and shook her head. "An alternate universe would be my best guess. Maybe it works in the same way as the quantum mirror and it's pulled the other Colonel O'Neill through?" She sighed as she watched the two O'Neills before she moved to step between them, before one of them killed the other. "Sirs!"

"What is going on here, Colonel?" The other, older, O'Neill demanded, his eyes narrowed as he looked around the lab.

"I could ask you the same question," Colonel O'Neill, her Colonel, shot back. "Who are you and where did you come from?" There was no reply and he took a step forward. "I asked you a question!"

"General Jack O'Neill, US Air Force." He paused and looked O'Neill up and down. "But then I think you already knew that."

Sam and Daniel looked at each other; Daniel's eyebrows raised and Sam mouthing the word 'General?'. Daniel just shrugged and looked back at O'Neill.

"One minute I was here with Carter and Daniel, Carter poking at some doohickey," General O'Neill continued. "Then it started sparking and there was a flash of light and I'm here. With Carter and Daniel. And you. But the more I'm here, the more this isn't right." He crossed his arms over his chest and looked pointedly at Daniel. "Your hair."

"My... hair?"

"Yes, your hair. It hasn't looked like that in years, not since the second time we dealt with Hathor."

"Hathor?" O'Neill frowned, looking between General O'Neill and Daniel.

"Egyptian Goddess of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll." He wrinkled his nose. "You used bigger words but that was about the gist of it."

"Fertility, inebriety and music," Daniel agreed. He blinked rapidly and licked his lips. "How... how did you... there's no way you would know that." He looked over at Jack, who looked as baffled as he expected.

"We've not met a Hathor," Sam shook her head.

"But that was..." He trailed off and looked even closer at Sam and Daniel, then looked over at O'Neill. He walked around each of them in turn then leaned back against Sam's desk. "What year is it?"

"What?" Sam started in surprise.

"Humour me. What year is it?"

"1997," O'Neill replied. He narrowed his eyes and moved to stand between Daniel and Sam, and General O'Neill. “Your turn.”

“2004. Well when you do meet her, whatever you do, don't..."

"No!" Sam and Daniel both started talking over him, until he stopped, curious expression on his face.

“Sir, you can't tell us anything that hasn't happened in our timeline yet. Even the fact that we now know we're going to meet Hathor could potentially change things. Anything you tell us could irreparably change the flow of time, leading to things that happen between now and your time being completely changed.”

“Huh.” O'Neill ran his finger over his lip. “But what if the only reason we defeat say Hathor or another Go'auld is because future me told us how?”

Daniel turned to General O'Neill. “Jack, has this...” he gestured around the lab, “happened to you before?” The General shook his head. “Then you can't tell us anything.”

“OK, OK, I get it. No telling you anything. But I do have just the one question.” He turned to Sam. "Colonel, how the hell have I travelled back in time 7 years?”

“That's what I want to know,” O'Neill replied, but the General looked past him at Sam.

“Um, Sam?” Daniel touched her arm. “I think the General means you.”

“He... what?” Sam laughed nervously but couldn't stop the smile that spread over her face. Colonel? She liked that sound of that. She looked between the O'Neills uncertainly.

“Carter?” O'Neill said gently as he leaned in closer to her and met her eyes. "He asked... Wait, or is that I? He... damn that's confusing. Have you got an answer for us, Sam?"

Sam smiled gratefully at O'Neill. “Um, I'm not entirely sure, Sir." She looked back over at the General. "You said your version of me was playing with a doohickey? Did it look anything like this?" She gestured at the machine in front of her.

General O'Neill ran his eyes over it. "Nope. It looked exactly like this one. It had been in storage for years because she couldn't figure it out but she's better with An...” he winced when Daniel interrupted him and reminded him not to tell them anything. “Right. Uh the type of technology and she wanted another look at it."

Sam nodded as her brain raced with ideas. “What was she doing to it? What was it doing?”

General O'Neill met Colonel O'Neill's eyes and shrugged. “She was poking it?” He offered, making the Colonel laugh and Sam sigh. “There were blue sparks and a sound like an engine misfiring.”

“Just like this one,” Daniel said. “Sam, was it...”

“Quite possibly. Time travel's still theoretical and I don't know anything about this type of technology but it's possible that if me and future me were both doing the same thing to the same machine at the same time it could have caused some kind of wrinkle in the fabric of time that caused General O'Neill to pass through. Although why him and not me if I was the one working on the machine I'm not sure.”

“The gene,” General O'Neill muttered, which made the other three sigh. “Oh. Right. You don't know about that yet, either. Sorry.”

“How do we get him home?”

Sam looked up and shook her head. “I have no idea, Sir.” She closed her eyes as a wave of helplessness washed over her. She exhaled slowly as she sat back down in front of the machine and stared at it.

O'Neill leaned in to her. “You'll figure it out. You are a genius, you're the smartest person I know. And future you is gonna be even smarter.”

“Thank you, Sir.” She smiled to herself and straightened up. She muttered under her breath to herself as she started to examine the machine again. What had she been doing when the General appeared? Her brow furrowed and she leaned closer, lower lip in her mouth. She flicked the same levers in the same order as before and the machine started flashing blue across the top of it, the same mechanical whirring sound started up again. "OK..."

"That's what it was doing," both O'Neill's commented which made Sam jump.

"So what now?" Colonel O'Neill prompted as he watched the little grey wisps of smoke seep from one corner again.

General O'Neill stepped closer and peered at the machine which had started to whir and flash faster. "That's definitely fami..." and there was a bright flash of light and a crack of sound, that reminded Sam of a firework, echoed around the room again, and General O'Neill disappeared.

"Guess you and future you figured it out," O'Neill commented as he leant a hip against the table again. "Carter, you OK?"

"Fine, Sir. I'm not entirely sure what, or how, but..."

"You'll figure it out," O'Neill reassured her with a smile. "Just... not yet. Put it in storage til, say, 2007. I don't feel much like travelling back into my own past." Sam nodded and wondered if it came with an off switch.

"So... that just happened." Daniel shook his head. "This place is weird." Sam snorted and agreed. "I get the feeling I'm not supposed to be looking forward to meeting Hathor," he mused. "As well as being the goddess of fertility, inebriety and music she was associated with the sky, with love and is often depicted as welcoming the dead into the next life. She predates even..."

Sam laughed as she tuned Daniel out and turned her attention back to the machine in front of her. Time travel. Her mind started to race with possibilities and, as though he had read her thoughts, O'Neill said “Into storage, Carter. Area 51. At least 10 years,” even as he started to shepherd Daniel out of her lab.

"Now, General O'Neill I like the sound of," Jack said to Daniel as they walked through the door.

feedback

P is for Paradox
by roeskva

“What’s up, Sam?” Daniel asked, when his teammate again stopped and looked around. It was the third time since they arrived, and they had only walked maybe half a mile from the Stargate.

Sam shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just... this planet looks familiar, somehow.”

“I’m sure we haven’t been here before,” Daniel said.

“No, I know. But I think Jolinar has,” Sam observed. She frowned. “Teal’c, I think maybe you should hide your forehead symbol before we reach the nearest town. We’ll have to pass through there to get to the ruins.”

“Why? Didn’t you say this world belonged to Sokar? He’s dead!” O’Neill said. “The planet should be free of any Goa’uld.”

“True, even before Sokar was killed, Tokal - the minor Goa’uld he had left in charge of this world - was rarely here. He was in charge of three other planets as well, and I think he preferred to live on one of those. Anyway, according to the Tok’ra, Tokal was visiting Sokar and was aboard his ship when it was destroyed, so this world is free now. The population here may still react badly to what looks like the First Prime of Apophis, though. Sokar and Apophis were enemies.” Sam insisted. “It’s just a precaution, sir.”

“It is a valid concern. I will do as you suggest, Major Carter,” Teal’c said.

“Here - take this.” Daniel handed him the bandana he had been wearing. “That should work.”

“Thank you, Daniel Jackson.” Teal’c put it on.

“Okay, can we move on?” O’Neill asked, a bit annoyed.

Daniel frowned. “What’s wrong, Jack?”

“This mission is a huge waste of time! SG-2 could have handled it - we’re only here because of those ruins they found,” he grumbled.

“And that I wanted to take a look at. I’m sorry!” Daniel said, looking miffed. “It’s just that it sounded like something we ought to check out. Some of these ruins were in unusual good condition, and there was writing which might indicate the people who lived here were related to the Furling!”

“I know, Daniel! I know!” O’Neill gave him a tired smile. “Just... try not to take the whole week? There’s a Simpsons marathon on television tomorrow.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “I’ll try...”

Sam made a sound that suspiciously resembled a suppressed giggle, and O’Neill and Daniel both glared at her. She lost the fight and laughed out loud, then hurried ahead to avoid any comments.

“Wow, the locals sure aren’t the friendliest bunch, but I guess SG-2 warned us,” Daniel said, when they had left the town behind.

“You can say that again! They approached us immediately, and kept threatening us with death and curses the moment we told them we were going to take a look at the ruins!” O’Neill exclaimed.

“Yeah, they were a bit persistent.” Daniel sighed. “I don’t think they get a lot of visitors, so I guess that was some of it. They didn’t seem like they themselves were ready to carry out any of their threats, if we went to look at the ruins anyway. They probably expect their ‘god’ to do it.”

“Only - he’s dead!” O’Neill grinned.

Sam nodded. “Yes, that is what they expect. Sokar did what he could to foster the belief that even going near ruins of earlier civilizations would bring death and misfortune.”

“Didn’t want to risk the locals finding any tech leftover from the Ancients or others races, eh? I guess that could make them doubt his divinity!” O’Neill said. “Can’t have that!”

“Yes, exactly. If I remember correctly, Sokar often had some Jaffa make sure those who went there anyway were killed.”

“Nice guy.” O’Neill grimaced.

“Such a behaviour is quite common among the Goa’uld. Anything that might give people cause to reconsider that the Goa’uld are gods is usually taboo,” Teal’c told them.

“Well, that make sense, I guess,” Daniel said. “So, Sam, you say Jolinar was here. Do you remember anything about the ruins?”

Sam shook her head. “No, she only knew they were there. I get the feeling she was curious about them, but that it would have been too dangerous to go check them out. I think...”

“Okay.” Daniel nodded. “It looks like the buildings over there are in the best condition. Let’s start there.” He pointed.

“Fine with me. Let’s get this over with,” O’Neill said, walking on ahead.

“The people who lived here were definitely related to the Furlings!” Daniel said, studying yet another inscription.

“Can you read any of that?” O’Neill asked, chasing away one of the small colourful lizards that seemed to be everywhere, before sitting down on a mostly-whole piece of wall. He unwrapped an energy bar and started eating it.

“Uh, not really. There are a number of differences, but I recognize a few words here and there. I just need some more time, then I’m sure I can figure it out.”

“How much time?” O’Neill wondered.

“I... really can’t say. It’s quite different from any of the other languages we’ve come across, but we do have the sample of standard Furling that we found on Ernest’s planet. So, I do have something to start from. Sure, this is a different dialect, but...”

“How long, Daniel!?”

“Uh, days, certainly, maybe weeks - unless I can...”

“Use the camera to record it. You can always go back later with SG-11. This isn’t what SG-1 is for!” O’Neill turned to see what was tugging on his energy bar and found that one of the small lizards had snuck closer and was now eating it. “Dammit! Those damn things are everywhere! Cho!” He tried chasing the animal away, but it just hissed at him. “Take it then!” He threw the energy bar and the lizard ran off after it.

“They are called rainbow lizards, and are quite common on many worlds,” Teal’c said, walking over to them. “Though I must admit these are less afraid of people than any I have seen before.”

“You can say that again!” O’Neill glared at the animal that was sitting maybe 15 feet away, munching contentedly on the energy bar it had gotten from him.

“Hey! Guys!” Sam stuck her head around the corner of the nearest building and called. “I’ve found a lab that’s completely intact!”

“A lab? Any nice weapons in there?” O’Neill asked, sounding interested.

“Don’t think so, but there is a lot of other stuff - most of which I have no idea what does. Daniel - I could really use your help. I found a computer which I managed to turn on, but I can’t read anything on it.”

“Sure, I’ll take a look, but I’m not exactly fluent in this language,” Daniel said.

“Wait! Teal’c and I are coming with you - and don’t touch anything you don’t know what does!” O’Neill warned. “Remember what happened last time!”

“That wasn’t my fault! I couldn’t have known that lever would cause the floor to tilt!”

“Carter, Teal’c, and myself ended up in a huge reservoir full of mud!” O’Neill exclaimed.

“To be fair, it was holy, blessed mud...” Daniel grinned.

“I thought we weren’t talking about that again?” Sam said.

“Indeed.” Teal’c raised an eyebrow.

“Never mind - let me see that computer, Sam,” Daniel said, trying to suppress his grin.

“I think this is actually a database of historical events,” Daniel said. “I mean, I think these are years, and if you chose one of them, it splits out into smaller increments of time.”

“So, no weapon?” O’Neill asked, half-leaning against one of the counters. “It would be nice to bring back something useful for once.”

“Sorry, no,” Daniel told him. “That doesn’t mean this isn’t a fantastic find.”

“I agree! Their science is so far ahead of us! Ahead even of the Goa’uld! We need to study this further!” Sam insisted.

O’Neill rolled his eyes. “I knew you’d say that!” He gave a small lizard that was sniffing his pockets for food a shove.

The animal gave him an offended look, then skittered off over the counter, then up onto a row of control panels.

“Hey! Careful!” Sam exclaimed, running over to stop the lizard.

She did not reach it before it activated something. There was a flash, and the room, and everyone and everything in it, flickered briefly.

“Okay... what was that?” Daniel asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sam said, looking over the row of alien machines. “I think the lizard accidentally activated one of the devices.”

“Obviously! Which did what?” O’Neill demanded.

Sam slowly shook her head. “No idea. As far as I can tell, nothing happened, except that it was activated. So we’re probably safe.” She frowned.

“Good, then let’s call it quits for today and return tomorrow. Better yet, wait until we know what we’re doing - for instance, when you’ve translated the full text!” O’Neill said.

“It’s only a little after noon!” Daniel complained, going to take a closer look at the device the lizard had run across.

“Yes, and you have no idea what any of this is, am I right? We could be blowing up the planet for all we know!”

“I think that’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you?” Daniel asked, frowning at the machine he was studying.

“Nothing in here seems to be a weapon, but the Colonel do have a point. It would probably be safer to wait until we actually know what the writing on the machines say,” Sam agreed, a concerned look on her face.

“Right!” O’Neill gave her a surprised look, not having expected her to agree with him. “Pack it up. We’re leaving.”

“Uhh, didn’t you say it was only a little after noon?” O’Neill asked.

“It is!” Sam looked at her watch. “This planet has almost exactly the same rotational period as Earth, and the timezone for the Stargate here is only one hour ahead of the time at Stargate Command. It should be around 1300 hours now.”

“It’s dark!” Daniel said, looking around in the gloominess. He gazed at the thin sliver of moon that could be seen. It did not light up much.

“Could it be a solar eclipse, perhaps?” Teal’c suggested.

Sam shook her head. “I don’t think so. This planet’s moon is too small to cover its sun completely.”

“Please tell me it doesn’t have anything to do with that weird flicker before!” O’Neill said.

“I’m afraid that’s likely.” Sam looked unhappy.

“Could it have extinguished the sun?” Teal’c asked.

“No,” Sam said with confidence. “I’ pretty sure we don’t have to worry about that.”

“Maybe we were just knocked out for a while?” Daniel suggested.

Sam nodded. “I considered that, but why would our clocks not reflect that, if we had been unconscious for several hours?”

“Right,” Daniel said. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

“I...” Sam hesitated, then shook her head. “No, not right now.”

“Okay, then let’s get back to the Stargate. We can figure this out later,” O’Neill said. “At least those unfriendly villagers are probably either eating dinner or in bed by now - depending on what time it actually is!”

“Okay, that was weird!” O’Neill said.

“You mean the fact that the good townspeople completely ignored us this time, or the fact that they had decorated the entire city, and was busy building some sort of platform even now, using only the light from torches?” Daniel asked.

“Both.” O’Neill shook his head. “Whatever. At least they didn’t bother us.” He looked to Sam, who had been very quiet.” Carter? What’s up?”

“I’m not sure.” She frowned. “It’s just... a feeling.”

“Quiet! Jaffa!” Teal’c said in a low voice.

They all crouched down behind the shrubbery at the outskirts of a small forest that was located a short distance from the Stargate.

“Damn!” O’Neill grumbled. “Didn’t the Tok’ra claim this planet was supposed to be abandoned?”

“Yes, but I suppose some Goa’uld could be trying to take over. It happens,” Sam said.

“The Jaffa belong to Sokar,” Teal’c told them.

“Sokar? But he’s dead! Why would his Jaffa be here?” Daniel asked.

“Maybe they’re working for someone else now,” Sam whispered. “Like we saw with Hathor.”

“That is possible,” Teal’c agreed.

“How long do you gather they’ll hang out by the gate?” O’Neill asked.

“I am unsure.” Teal’c frowned. “They appear to be guarding the Stargate. Strange, if this is an expedition to evaluate the planet.”

“Guarding the gate? Well that just sucks! They’re way too many for us to take them!” O’Neill grumbled. “Do you think there’s a snakehead here too?”

“Unknown,” Teal’c said.

“Okay, well let’s go back to the town and see if we can figure out what is going on,” O’Neill decided. “Not that I’m looking forward to talking to those unfriendly doomsayers ever again.”

“They’re still at it! Building and decorating their town! It’s crazy! It must be late evening!” O’Neill said, when they had seated themselves around a table at a local inn, called ‘the prancing unicorn’.

“An hour or so before midnight, I’d say,” Sam told him.

“Yeah, the watchman called out eleven o’clock in the evening just when we entered this establishment,” Daniel agreed.

“Right, okay. Well, let’s get something to eat, then see if we can sleep a few hours. We’ll go check on the guards later tonight,” O’Neill decided. “Maybe they will have left by then.”

“That is unlikely,” Teal’c said.

Sam nodded. “I agree.”

“Spoilsports!” O’Neill grumbled.

“Aren’t you curious about why no one seems to recognize us? We talked to several of the good townspeople when we arrived,” Daniel said.

“Particularly since one of the people we asked for directions was the same one we talked to earlier today,” Sam agreed.

O’Neill shrugged. “They’re busy with their own stuff. Can’t say I care.”

“Don’t you think he seemed... younger, somehow?” Daniel asked.

Sam nodded slowly. “Yes... and he’s not the only one.”

“That’s easy to explain - we just met his brother or whatever,” O’Neill said.

“No...” Sam looked uncomfortable. “I think there’s a different explanation. One you’re not going to like...”

“What?” O’Neill demanded.

“Quiet!” Teal’c whispered. “Our food is being brought in.”

Not wanting to risk anyone of the locals hearing what they talked about, they focused on their food, eating and discussing only innocent matters.

“Okay, Carter. Out with it!” O’Neill demanded, when they had retired to the large room they had rented.

“Well,” Sam again got an uncomfortable expression. “I can’t be sure, of course... but I think we have travelled in time.”

“What?” O’Neill exclaimed.

Daniel nodded. “That might explain things, yes.”

“You believe the alien device caused this?” Teal’c asked.

“Yes, I do,” Sam said.

“How far back in time?” O’Neill asked, clearly dreading the answer.

“Obviously, I can’t be sure, but... less than ten years. Perhaps... seven or eight years?”

O’Neill sighed. “Could be worse. Not good, though.”

“Based on the apparent age of the people we remember seeing in, uh, in the future.” Daniel nodded. “Of course.”

“Yes, partially,” Sam agreed.

“What else?” O’Neill asked.

“The fact that the Jaffa are guarding the gate, and the preparations the locals are doing. Sir, this could be very very bad!”

“How bad - and why?”

“Around this time, Jolinar was undercover with Sokar. She was pretending to be one of his underlings. I think she was briefly in charge of this planet, and that the people in this town is currently preparing to receive her as their new lord. Her - and Sokar, since he’s going to officially name her his vassal for this world.”

“Uh, didn’t you say Tokal was in charge of the planet?” Daniel asked. “Or was that just after Jolinar was killed?”

“Jolinar was only in charge of it for a short time.”

“Regardless, this is not so bad! If the planet’s going to be under the rule of a Tok’ra, then we won’t have trouble escaping - or rather staying here and letting you and Daniel work on that alien device until you figure out how to send us back!” O’Neill smiled.

“Normally I would agree, but not when we have travelled to the past, especially not in this case. It may take days or weeks for us to figure out how to use that device, and during that time we risk getting discovered.”

“Because it’s Jolinar? So what? It’s not like she can recognize you. She hasn’t met you yet!” O’Neill said.

“No, but she will, and what if she recognizes me then? Will that change anything?”

“Probably not. It’s several years later, and she didn’t have a lot of time to think before she took you as host. You said yourself it was an impulsive action,” Daniel said.

Sam nodded. “That’s true, but she did spend about a day and a half in me, and we also talked to her host before we knew she was in there. I think she was staying dormant much of the time, to interfere as little as possible in his life, but we don’t know. Despite the stressful circumstances, there is a risk she might recognize me when she jumps into me at least. What if she then finds out we haven’t met yet? That this, being here on this planet, happens in my future, and her past? A future where I am clearly no longer her host!”

“Would that mean anything, though? If she even finds out you weren’t a host here,” Daniel.

“If she meets me she will know I am not a host. She would be able to sense a symbiote in me. However, if she gets fairly close, she can sense a trace from me having been a host, in the past. If, then, when she takes me as host, finds out I haven’t met here before, then she knows something happened,” Sam said.

“That’s so convoluted it’s giving me a headache!” O’Neill complained.

“She’ll just think that she left you, as she promised. Don’t you think?” Daniel suggested.

Sam shook her head. “No, I have too much naquadah in my blood. Far too much. The only explanation would be that a symbiote died in me and left the naquadah in me. Don’t you think Jolinar would realize it almost certainly means she is going to die in me? And that given the situation, it would probably be because the ashrak kills her?”

“Oh.” Daniel nodded. “Yes, I suppose so. Would that matter, though? I mean, what could she do? For all we know, this already happened, and she didn’t find a way to escape her fate. Perhaps it was even caused by us travelling here, by us being meant to travel here.”

Sam sighed. “Yes, it’s possible, but I still think it’s more likely not. I think I would... have known. No, we can’t risk meeting her. No matter what.”

continue reading

Q is for Questing
by izhilzha

Dr. Janet Fraser made sure her gloves were snugly in place before adjusting the space blanket over Dr. Johnson, the botanist attached to SG-17. “You're doing fine,” she assured him, trying to overwhelm his shivering with the force of her words. He stared up at her, shocky, speechless. She gave up talking and smoothed his hair back until his eyes fluttered closed.

The eyes were the worst. The veined pattern under the skin, brown edged with blood red, could be any rash; the pain from impaired nerve function was less terrible than some diseases; but she'd never seen the black iris itself threaded with pale brown and green, both aqueous and vitreous fluids invaded. Nothing seemed to slow it; nothing they had access to.

Major Mansfield, the leader of SG-17, crouched beside her. “Nothing?”

Janet shook her head. “Not yet. Maybe if the SGC can get us that new anti-fungal drug in the next drop....” She shrugged. Focused on what news Mansfield might have. “Nothing from SG-1, huh?”

“Not a sign.” The man scrubbed a hand across his face. “Ever since they picked up those carved rods and twisted them—poof. Nothing.”

Janet took a deep breath, then another. “They'll be back. Hopefully with some new ideas.” Mansfield gave her a cynical look. “I trust Dr. Jackson's linguistic skills. They knew what they were getting into when they decided to use those artifacts.”

“If you say so, ma'am.” Mansfield paced back towards the crumbling walls of the ruin. To the makeshift camp where SG-17 huddled, studying, dozing, trying not to panic at every twinge of a foot fallen asleep.

You'd better, Janet thought fiercely, imagining what strange times SG-1 might have sent themselves to. Roasting hot summer (unlike the mild weather currently outside these walls), wars, non-fungal epidemics... oh, so many possibilities. You'd better have some idea what you just got yourselves, and the rest of us, into here. You'd just better come back.

*

The icy stones burned his bare hands. Jack O'Neill cursed long and fervently, deploying language he didn't always use around his team. “Thought you said this 'city' was in the most mild weather belt on the planet, Carter!” The fact that she wasn't actually here made blaming her even more satisfying.

He'd clearly gotten the short straw this time. He squatted in place and blew on his fingers until they tingled with feeling again. All right. He'd need to look around. Then he'd need to either build a damn fire or make peace with his maker and settle in to freeze.

The look around was disappointing. Jack wondered how far in time he'd traveled from SG-17 and whether it was forwards or back. Beyond the walls of this building, which Daniel had identified as a library/laboratory, the air was frigid, the ground bristling with frost. And the sun was high enough to call it midday; this was no night freeze, but something that hadn't shifted in days, maybe months.

Every plant he could see looked long dead. Trees bare, everything else rotted black under the frost. Could be mid-ice age or just midwinter. Whatever animals might have lived here weren't out and about. The only noises he heard were his own, plus the distant cracking of water ice--a lake or a river, maybe, somewhere to planetary west.

The fire was a bitch to get going. As he huddled over the pale flames, he inspected the artifact that had brought him here. A cylinder the length of his hand, intricately carved with symbols that Carter had informed him were actually circuitry. No matter how much he stroked or poked it, though, it didn't do anything now. Nothing like the first time he twisted it in both hands around it and found himself flat icy stone, alone.

As he tucked the cylinder into his jacket, Jack noticed a brown veiny pattern on the back of one hand. “Dammit, Daniel. This trip better have some kind of automatic return function, or we are all screwed.” He stretched and wriggled his fingers, but felt no pain. Ignoring the fungus, he curled up by the fire for a nap.

*

Teal'c rested poorly the first night. Kelno'reem had to be put off while he scouted the grassy plain where he had landed and determined by scent, sight and hearing which of the many animals and birds would be dangerous to him. By the second night, he felt more at home. During the heat of the third day, he rested deeply and thought, when he woke, of his mission.

Daniel Jackson had said that the scientists of this planet had been trying to find a cure. The artifacts they created should take anyone who used them to a time period thought to hold an answer to this mystery. Samantha Carter had reminded them all, before they each departed to a different time, that no matter how long they spent away, they would return near their departure. Excellent, Teal'c thought. He would find more to eat this evening, and begin his search the next dawn.

It proved easy to catch one of the small mammals rooting about nearby. The meat smelled sharp and metallic, not poisonous; he ate it in small, careful bites. He had seen no sign of human life. No buildings, no wells, no technology—no sign, even, of the Goa'uld. Perhaps he had traveled thousands of years into the past. Perhaps this would show him the cure.

In kelno'reem, near dawn, he felt the ground beneath him rumble. The sky past the horizon glowed brassy red, shadowed with billowing black. He started to his feet. The earth shook again, an audible roar from many miles away.

The glow brightened, became the gold-white of dancing lava thrown high into the air. Teal'c turned and ran.

*

Daniel Jackson paused behind the tall stone building to take a deep breath and adjust his starched hat.

This might be his last chance. He'd been here for three weeks, learning more of the language, figuring out which food items wouldn't make him sick, building trust. Finally he would get to sit and listen to local scholars discuss the fungal outbreak (which appeared to be confined to the poor quarter at the moment) and a possible cure. Historically, whatever they had found must not have worked, or the time-traveling machine would not have been invented. Although if it were something that had become extinct, maybe then...?

Daniel shook his head. He couldn't be late.

Inside the main room (which Daniel recognized as the original of the crumbling building they'd found the artifacts in, sometime in the future), men crowded onto wooden benches, leaning forward eagerly.

He only followed about half of the speeches, but the plant held up by someone who seemed to be a botanist was one he'd seen for sale in the local market. He had just enough of the language to ask a few questions about how medicine should be prepared from it and how applied. A sharp-featured young man (someone's apprentice; Daniel had met him last week outside this very building), prompted him now and then with appropriate vocabulary.

Daniel was pleased that he'd made a friend, but it reminded him that he'd have to get back to his own time to find out how his team was doing. More to the point, they'd have to do the same.

He took a moment to hope he'd translated the instructions on the artifacts correctly, and then asked another question.

*

The woman thrust a cool cloth into Sam Carter's hand and motioned towards the pallet where a child lay whimpering, clawing at his arms. She gave no verbal instructions; by now everyone seemed to understand that the tall, yellow-haired woman didn't speak their language.

Sam crouched next to the pallet and stroked the cloth up and down the little boy's arms. He quieted briefly, mesmerized by the relief. But he looked up at her out of blind, green-threaded eyes, and she knew he wouldn't make it. She'd learned that much in 30 hours.

The village was large by the standards of most pre-fedual planets SG-1 had visited, curled neatly into the same valley that would someday hold a stone city. When this epidemic was over, it would be much smaller. Sam had been doing her best to observe any and everything that the local wise women and religious leaders were trying; so far, the most effective palliative was liquor, and she didn't think she could take that home as an alternative treatment. Anyway, all those patients still died.

The number of deaths she had seen since arriving made Sam think that this strain of the fungus was more virulent than the strain contracted by members of SG-17. This boy whose brown hand she held might be dead by sunrise.

Sunset, sunrise, the wailing of bereaved parents, the chanting of prayers and the stink of burning pyres mingled together for Sam. She hid in a corner with a loaf of bread handed to her by another nurse, scarfed the whole thing down, and dozed shivering until someone shook her awake. She'd lost track of the hours--even the days--by the time she noticed anything useful.

An elderly man trembled in pain as a tiny young woman examined him. Sam held a bowl of water for her and observed the same under-skin rash, the same eye threading, the same... no, wait.

His gnarled hand was scaled and flaky. As if he had eczema. And near those patches, the fungal patterns stopped short. The young woman talked softly with her patient; Sam tapped her shoulder and pointed out the oddity.

The woman's face lit up. She spoke eagerly; the man blinked at her, then waved a hand in the direction of the river. The woman nodded, then scrubbed her own fingertips roughly into the scaly patches on his hand. The old man bit his lips against the pain, but endured it. She rubbed her contaminated fingers into her own face, near her eyes, back into her hair, then bowed in thanks to her patient.

Sam wondered if she could convince this old hunter to give her a skin sample. If she could find a knife sharp enough and a fire hot enough to sterilize it.

*

When Janet told this story later, over more than one drink, she said that SG-1 “popped back into existence like clowns falling out of a clown car.” The spacious stone floor, so empty for the past few hours, was suddenly crowded.

O'Neill sat up slowly, with none of the quick reflexes she associated with him. Daniel grinned and headed for Janet with a plant (roots and all) in one hand. Teal'c looked around, tense, then settled in a crouch next to Jack.

Sam flung herself to her feet, panting. She dropped the artifact cylinder from one hand and held out a small earthenware pot in the other. “Janet! I think I found what you need.”

Daniel rattled off something, then noted their incomprehension and switched to English. “Better than this plant? The scholars I spoke with definitely found it helpful.”

Sam shrugs. “I had no way to investigate properly, but check this out.”

Janet peeled away a square of oiled cloth and looked into the pot at a surgically thin slice of apparently human skin. Flaky, dry and irritated. Hmm. “Where's my microscope?” she heard herself asking, and then Daniel was there setting it up for her and Sam fetched an extra light.

The sample was fresh, oozing all over the glass slide. The irritant was obvious—a profusion of scurrying, multilegged forms shying from the slick glass, frantic over their cooling environment.

“Mites,” Janet said, looking up at Sam.

Sam nodded. “I think maybe they eat the fungus. Or secrete something that it can't stand. The woman I was helping out tried to inoculate herself with these things—rubbed them into her skin and hair.”

Janet nodded. “Definitely worth a shot.” She pointed at Daniel. “Write down what you know about the plant and we'll go over it later.” She picked up the pot with the rest of the skin sample and moved to Dr. Johnson, still shivering under his blanket.

Sam sat down heavily next to O'Neill and Teal'c.

“Hey.” O'Neill showed her his arm. “When the doc's done over there, let her know I got exposed.”

“I'm surprised it's only you, Jack,” Daniel said, joining them. “When did you travel to?”

“Future,” O'Neill said briefly. “Possible ice age.”

They huddled together and talked as Janet worked, weaving individual stories into a tapestry worthy of legend. The next time Janet looked over at them, Teal'c presided silently over his human comrades, who had fallen asleep around him in a heap. He nodded to her solemnly.

All was well. Till the next time.

feedback

R is for Rift
by topazowl

“Jack, what are you doing here again?” Some scenarios repeat themselves and General Jack O’Neill stood in full dress blues at the door of Doctor Daniel Jackson’s office.

“Nice to see you too, Daniel. Wish it was in better circumstances but I need you in the briefing room, NOW,” he finished with a louder voice as it was obvious that Daniel was about to prevaricate.

Suitably chastised, Daniel rose and they headed to the elevator.

“Gonna give me a clue?

“Nope.”

“Not even a teensy, weensy one?”

“Only think 1969.” Daniel shut up; that was a cue word they used to indicate something was amiss with a timeline.

*

Landry was already there talking to Mitchell and Vala. Sam came running up the stairs from below as she saw her two friends. Only Teal’c was missing, on Chulak. They all moved to the large table to sit with Landry one end and O’Neill the other.

“Jack?” Landry handed the meeting to O’Neill.

“I had a secure link phone call from Wales of all places,”–Daniel sniggered and was glared at–“from a deniable group of people who call themselves Torchwood. They are based in Cardiff where there is supposed to be a rift in the space-time continuum which occasionally throws out or drags in people or entities. This time it has thrown out a humdinger of a problem, a 90 year old Doctor Daniel Jackson!”

“Wow!” was Sam’s reaction. The colour drained from Daniel’s face. Vala laughed and commented on how it would be good to see if he’d worn well. Mitchell just looked confused.

“And what’s it mean for SG1, Sir?”

“Mitchell, you are gonna take a couple of your team to Cardiff and interview this guy, maybe bring him back here, depending on circumstances of course, and then we will act accordingly.” Daniel’s finger went up; Jack sighed.

“I think, Jack, that I speak for us all when I say it’s SG1 or no-one. We are a team and you damn well know that!”

Jack looked at Landry and shrugged.

“He said you’d say that,” Landry stated. “You have a go SG1 and as the Daedalus is home from Atlantis, beam up in one hour at 1300. Jack, you may want to tell them a little more before they go.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Four pairs of eyes glared at General O’Neill; he continued to give them a little background on Torchwood which is an institution that concentrates on tracking down aliens who come through the space time rift.

*

At precisely 1300, SG1 including Teal’c, who’d been called back from Chulak, beamed up to the Daedalus and were quickly transferred to The Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff where they stood looking around until a certain Captain Jack Harkness suddenly appeared in front of them. Introductions over, SG1 were instructed to stand on the paving stone with Jack Harkness and it descended into the “Hub”, Torchwood’s base. There, sat next to a Japanese woman, was an elderly Daniel Jackson, looking over her shoulder at a computer monitor.

“Tosh, where’s Gwen?” were Harkness’s first words to which the young lady just lifted her right arm and pointed to a sitting room. Dr Jackson rose and turned to look at SG1. Still looking good, it was obvious that he was an elderly Daniel Jackson. He walked towards SG1 with his right hand held out in greeting and introductions ensued. Daniel immediately had questions of his elderly counterpart but was stopped by Mitchell.

“Captain Harkness, we need privacy to debrief Doctor Jackson please.”

“Head over to where Gwen is,” stated Harkness. “She has prepared coffee and tea for you all with Bara Brith and Welsh Cakes for refreshment.” With Daniel explaining what the cakes were, they headed to the sitting room with a surprisingly lithe Doctor Jackson and helped themselves to food and drink before sitting and eyeing Doctor Jackson expectantly.

“I came through the rift by mistake you know,” Doctor Jackson stated. “I’m not really sure what I am doing here and I really shouldn’t tell you anything–Grandfather Paradox as Sam would tell us.” He smiled at Sam who, surprisingly, blushed.

“Can you tell us if we defeated the Ori, DoctorJackson?” Teal’c, ever to the point, jumped in with the question on everyone’s lips. Harkness and Gwen just looked at the group of friends in astonishment.

“Teal’c!” Sam expounded, “Classified!” looking at the two Torchwood team members. Everyone glared at Jack and Gwen who eventually got up and left, mumbling about American secrets. Doctor Jackson nodded his head.

“I’m not going to tell you how but you should win, eventually. And live long lives if all goes well. The Stargate will eventually become public and you will all be international heroes, especially me … er … you, Daniel””

As uneventful as this all seemed, there was little point in taking Doctor Jackson back to Stargate Command and he was eager to get back to his own timeline. Tosh stuck her head round the door saying that she thought she had the right algorithm done to send him back and Sam immediately offered to help her check it and the two super scientists spend the next 30 minutes huddled over a computer monitor. It was a more awkward situation than when the AU teams had arrived at the SGC and Mitchell had called Captain Harkness and Gwen back in to find out what he could about their operations, hitting as many brick walls as he himself was throwing up. Daniel was deep in conversation with Doctor Jackson but the majority of answers to his questions were greeted with “I can’t tell you that!” Vala was sulking and trying to get Teal’c to respond to her wiles so it was quite a relief when Sam and Tosh returned to say that all was set up for Doctor Jackson’s return through the Rift.

*

Back at the SGC, Jack was on tenderhooks but was taken by surprise when SG1 returned soon after 1500.

“No Doctor Jackson?” were the first words out of his mouth.

“No, Jack,” replied Daniel. “He wasn’t a threat and he wouldn’t tell us anything apart from the fact that we should, eventually, beat the Ori and that the gate will become public some day.”

“You forgot the heroes bit, Daniel,” Vala piped in. He blushed. Jack grinned. “It’ll be about time! Now, who’s for pie?”

feedback

S is for Stars in the Sky
by eilidh17

The truth of all history died with those who created it

Shadows danced across the fresco on the mud brick wall of the small workshop, thrown out by the flame from a beeswax candle that was nearing the end of its usefulness. In the far corner, away from the cold night air that flowed in through an open doorway, an old man looked down at the tablet he was working on and blew away a fine coating of siltstone dust that had built up around his latest glyph.

He closed his eyes and ran a finger over the engraving, noting edges needing to be dressed further and troughs that could be deeper. Unlike those around him, the old man had a unique concept of history and knew exactly what was required for the future to better comprehend the past. Kings lived and died here, their legacies contained in mastaba tombs that echoed the wealth of their reign, reflected in the luxuries they took with them to the afterlife. It was an enlightened view, this notion that living in the here and now was just a step along a greater path, but it was also unfortunate that the only footprints to be seen on that path were those of kings. The old man knew better, and so left the glorifying of deeds and recording of religious events to the scribes of this time, all the while making sure his future would have a greater understanding of all he endured for them.

"You are called to court, my friend."

The old man looked up and squinted at the figure standing before him. The shuffle of feet on the dusty floor and the way the shadows on the wall lived and died when someone walked in the path of the candle was all he needed to know that his quiet solitude had been broken.

"Again?" he grumbled as he put his chisel aside and dusted his hands off on his tunic. "This will be the fourth time in as many days."

"He favors your counsel above most in the kingdom."

"That may be true, but I fear our king has become a little indecisive in his old age."

"If you believe twenty summers to be old. Already, his first born son has been promised a bride from a land to the east, while the queen nurses a second." Katep chuckled and smoothed the front of his kilt down, blown about from the winds of a distant storm that marked the start of the season of Akhet - the Inundation. The rains would soon come to awaken the Nile and fertilize the land.

"Mature then," the old man conceded around a wide smile. He set the rest of his tools aside and wrapped the tablet up in a piece of coarse linen. "And yet young enough to sometimes forget all that I have taught him."

"All that he claims credit for."

This was an old argument. One he and Katep had kept alive for far too many years, serving, he guessed, as a reminder that the golden age of this young king came more from his willingness to embrace new ways, and less from the very recent and tortured past that could have easily claimed him like it did those before him. King Den was no fool and, just like his mother and father, he had seen the value in the wisdom of the old man. "If teaching the king to count his cattle in order to realize their worth means he takes the credit for bringing greater wealth to the kingdom, then my job is done. And you should be careful of what you say," he cautioned pointing a crooked finger at Katep. "The walls have ears."

Katep looked to the nearest wall and frowned. "You say this and yet still I see no lobes."

"It is a term used to warn of those who may be listening... or something like that. You know, I quite forget sometimes." The old man pulled himself up from his mat and slipped his feet into his papyrus sandals, paying little heed to the yaw and pop of his aged joints. He would be seventy-two summers old during the season of Shemu – when farmers took to harvesting their crops from fields made fertile during the inundation.

"Only sometimes?" Katep took a lit torch from the brazier near the entrance and held it up as the old man blew out his candle. "Then I guess, in this, you and our king may be quite alike."

They walked in silence from the old man's workshop, past the decorative pond with no fish and out to a darkened courtyard, where a strong wind was blowing in from the south and whipping up the waters along the nearby shores of the Nile. Off in the distance, beyond the wall that almost completely circled the old man's modest house, was Memphis; the city lit up by the fires of hundreds of braziers.

"She is beautiful, is she not?"

The old man shuffled past Katep, shrugged in silent response and instead looked up to the heavens.

To the stars that still looked different after all these years.

*

General Jack O'Neill stood at the entrance to the SGC briefing room and frowned at the sight of Doctor Daniel Jackson pacing back and forth in front of the large screen monitor, briefing folder in hand and muttering to himself. If the sight hadn't been a familiar one from his many years spent as leader of SG-1 and being subjected to oh-so-many Jackson briefings, he was sure he'd probably be worried. Frustration was generally the term Jack assigned to such lectures, even when their importance related to upcoming missions, because there was a vast difference between imparting operation-critical information and simply being verbose.

He thought about interrupting Daniel's nervous pacing with a salty quip about the time wasted on his only weekend off in months just to get here, and why video conferencing might have been an easier option, but Daniel's behavior was starting to put him on edge.

It was late afternoon, having taken him all day to get to the mountain, and he was just as clueless as Landry and the rest of SG-1 as to why he had been summoned to this impromptu one on one session.

Jack stepped into the room and to the chair at the head of the table. "Daniel?" he said slowly, raising one eyebrow questioningly when Daniel stopped pacing and cocked his head to the side to look at Jack.

"Oh, good, you're here."

"As per your 2am phone call with news of earth-shattering importance, yes." Jack shrugged off his dress blues jacket and sat down. "So?"

"Den," said Daniel as he picked up a remote from the table and brought up an image Jack recognized from past missions as an Ancient Egyptian cartouche seal. "Also known as Septi, Hor-Den, Smeti and Dewen, among others; Den was a king from the 1st Dynasty. Most historians list him as the fifth king of the dynasty, which conforms with a detailed King List found on a wall of the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, Egypt. However there's considerable debate as to whether King Narmer should actually be included in that list or if he was in fact the last king of Dynasty 0, the question being further confused by the existence of a King Menes or Meni who is known to have been the first king to unify both Upper and Lower Egypt. There is sufficient evidence to argue that he and Narmer were one and the same, though there are some who believe Menes was more of a mythical amalgamation of several pre-dynastic kings. Still, regardless of whether Den was the 4th or 5th, he follows a very impressive line of succession that included a period of time when his mother, Queen Merneith, ruled as Regent until Den came of age and ruled in his own right. His reign started around 2970BC... or so it was originally thought."

It was the total lack of any preamble that had Jack raising a finger to get Daniel's attention. "You couldn't have just sent me one of your overly detailed but always fascinating reports to labor through over the weekend?"

"Did you know Den was the first ruler of Egypt noted in pictorial evidence to wear the double crown?"

"No. Should I?"

Daniel looked down at Jack through a mask of confusion, as though he should have understood his every word. "Really? You didn't know?"

"Nope."

"Huh!”

"I don't suppose you could—"

"He was also the first ruler to use the title of King of Upper and Lower Egypt, and was responsible for introducing the hieroglyphic numbering system, among... other things."

"Obviously a smart guy." Jack's initially calm demeanor was being quickly eroded away.

"Smart? Hard to know, but he probably had help. He was quite long-lived for a man of that time period. Conflicting historical records have him ruling Egypt for approximately 42 years, depending on whose version of events you want to believe. His tomb—Tomb T—is at Umm el-Qa'ab, Abydos, upstream from the ancient city of Thebes, modern day Luxor. Actually, and it's an interesting fact that, like his father and grandfathers before him, Den practiced the ritual of retainer suicide, which wasn't really suicide at all. Basically, when a ruler died, servants were murdered and buried around the outside of the royal tomb. Of course, the idea being that these servants would wait on the king in the afterlife. 136 such retainer graves were found around Tomb T."

"And they called that suicide?"

"Well, no, hardly, but I guess there were probably cases with earlier 1st Dynasty rulers where servants died willingly for their divine leader, giving credibility to the term 'retainer suicide' even though many bodies uncovered from the burial mounds of later generation kings clearly show their retainers were murdered. Most would have been strangled. The practice stopped at the end of the 1st Dynasty and was replaced by the use of shabtis - clay funerary figurines that fulfilled the same purpose of serving the deceased in the afterlife."

Daniel turned to face the monitor and started scrolling through the images at an annoyingly fast pace until he settled on one. "This is a siltstone tablet, one of many recovered from a tomb located close to Tomb T."

"And Tomb T is this Den guy?"

"Right."

"And this other tomb is?"

"I'll get to that later."

The image on the screen was of a grey, rectangular tablet with Egyptian hieroglyphs carved neatly into its surface. There was no way to tell how big the tablet was from looking at the picture.

Jack tilted his head to one side and frowned. "Looks Goa'uld to me."

"Actually, it is. Well... almost. It's a mixture of Goa'uld and Archaic Egyptian - Pre Dynastic Period, with a few symbols and structures not common to either language."

"But you can read it, right?"

Daniel winced and closed his eyesbriefly. "Yeah," he breathed, "let's skip that part for the moment."

"Hey, given I have no idea where this is all going and why you called me here—"

"Can you just... just trust me, Jack?"

Jack flicked his right hand at the screen, and said impatiently, "Go on."

"Right. So, each of these tablets is numbered, which means the writer or scribe was intending them to be a representation of historical events from his point of view. Not uncommon, though writings found on most tablets, seals, etc. were usually more exacting in their content, portraying a particular event or religious celebration. These tablets contain dates and names that clearly indicate they were made during the rule of Den in the 1st Dynasty. Prior to this discovery, the first full sentence of hieroglyphs was dated to the 2nd Dynasty. These tablets eclipse that find by over one hundred years! You can see the significance."

"Not really."

Daniel blew out a long breath and pursed his lips, clearly frustrated. "It means either someone didn't date that find correctly or Den has been confused with a later ruler."

"How about we pretend for a moment that I know what you're talking about."

"It's just... Okay, look at it this way: Hieroglyphs are representations of a variety of elements. Much like Chinese, some glyphs can look the same but have a different idea or meaning. Logogram—"

"Daniel!"

"Jack! I know, all right! I'm trying to get to the point!"

"Get there faster."

"Right. Sorry." Daniel put his folder down and rubbed at his eyes. "It's been a long day."

"And night, by the looks of you." Jack waved at the screen. "Are you sure this... whatever this is, can't wait?"

"It can't. We need to act now."

"Act on what?" Jack said, exasperated. "Come on, Daniel, cut me some slack here. You know me and history."

Daniel sat down heavily in the nearest chair and rested his head in his hands. "He lived," he muttered under his breath. "He lived."

*

Jack opened the briefing folder Daniel handed him and got a close up view of the tablets that had been displayed on the monitor. There were thirty-six in total, all made from the same greyish siltstone and all apparently engraved by the same person.

"Each person's handwriting is unique, which is much the same when it comes to identifying this type of workmanship. The way the maker held the chisel and the resulting stroke pattern, tell us these tablets were all made by the same person." Daniel hummed as he rummaged through his stack of images. "That... and they were all found in the same tomb. Which is unusual."

"How so?"

"Royalty and people of stature in Egyptian society would have tablets made for them, which generally means we might see a variation in quality and workmanship. Definitely not the case here. And there's more." Daniel turned the picture around and tapped on it. "When Queen Merneith died, Den had her placed in a tomb appropriate in size for both her status as his mother and former Regent of Egypt. Ironically, her tomb would turn out to be larger than her son's, though less elaborate, but that's another story."

"Right. And?"

"The tomb these tablets were found in would have been smaller again, which means whoever it held was probably a minor noble or someone of enough value to the king to have warranted a tomb in the first place."

"Do we have a picture of this tomb?"

"No, and the size estimate is based on historical precedence with no actual proof. I think it's safe to say that whoever excavated the tomb must have found something unique, likely these tablets, given the writing wasn't standard for the period. They were probably hoping to get credit for deciphering them."

"Obviously they never did or..."

"Or we'd be in more trouble than I think we are now."

"Which brings me back to whatever this is about."

Daniel dropped his chin to his chest in a classic move that Jack had only seen when he was truly distressed or aggravated. Whatever he had discovered had left him visibly unsettled.

"The tablets tell a story." He quickly regained his composure and selected another image from the stack, turning it to face Jack. "Several of them touch on the reign of Djet, Den's father, and explain certain historical events of the time, most of which no other reference exists. Others relate to the introduction of a system of accounting and taxes during Den's rule. All very bland but historically significant in the details they provide. Far above what we have now. However..." He paused and held up a different image. "This one mentions Ra and the uprising that lead to him leaving Earth."

"Are we talking about someone who actually witnessed Ra leaving?"

"Yes."

"What about the gate?"

"No." Daniel smiled tightly. "Though, there is a passage that mentions the restoration of history."

"Restoration? So, whoever wrote this knew how history was supposed to play out?"

"It would seem so."

"Didn't our other selves bury the gate so it could be found in the future?"

"By Catherine’s father, Professor Langford. Thus correcting a timeline we apparently futzed with in the first place."

"Yeah. See... that bit still confuses me." Which at least got a smile from Daniel. "Whoa, wait up." Jack shuffled through the pictures until he found his matching copy. "Does it actually say on here that Ra left Earth?"

"Yes."

"Earth?"

"Yes."

"Not that he was supplanted by another god and simply vanished?"

"No."

"Which is impossible!"

"Well, yes... and no. There exists some hieroglyphic evidence suggesting the Ancient Egyptians may have had contact with extraterrestrials, though most Egyptologists agree with the notion of glyphic representations, in some instances, being illusionary and thus denoting an idea rather than an actual fact."

"Where did they come from?"

"The aliens?"

Jack pushed his open briefing folder and pictures across the table. "These! I'm done with the games, Daniel. If you have something to tell me, just say it!"

"It's more what I'm not telling you."

"Which is?"

"I made them, Jack. Me! Well, not me but—"

"Aht!" Jack raised a finger in the air. "When you said he lived..."

"I meant it quite literally. The tablets do tell a story. Of how the other me—the one stuck in Ancient Egypt five thousand years ago—lived after the rest of his team died at the end of the uprising. Two teams, actually."

"Two teams?"

"Yes."

"I thought Carter said nothing we did in the past affected our future?"

"She did. And based on the tape left in the past by our other selves that would appear to be the case, but clearly we had to make more than one attempt to correct whatever damage we did to the timeline first time around. In this tablet... Daniel... he mentions losing two teams, so we have to assume the first uprising failed either completely or failed in so far as Ra leaving the gate behind for us to find. The second attempt obviously was successful because, well, here we are. Either way, he endured the loss of both teams, leaving himself stranded in the past and struggling to stay hidden in society."

"Which you... he... clearly failed at."

"Yes. Imagine that." Daniel blinked rapidly and turned back to the images now scattered across the table. "In fact," he went on to say, "there's a great deal he left for us to find. Or not."

"Not?"

"My other self used a made-up version of written Egyptian, knowing his future self would be able to figure it out and hoping no one else could. It's a mixture of Goa'uld, Archaic Egyptian, with some Linear A image substitutions and structure variations. Everything was written Boustrophedon-style, making it virtually impossible for anyone to decipher, which they never did."

"And who is this 'they'?"

"I don't know, and the company planning to sell these tablets in a month's time isn't saying. Apparently, the current owner wants to stay anonymous. Unfortunately for us, though it is a predictable move as far as selling off ancient artifacts is concerned, the images released to the public only contain snippets of details, with the seller or vendor holding back on the bulk of the information to lure in a greater number of buyers. All they would tell me is that the artifacts were uncovered in the 1800's, and given the amount of concessions active in Egypt at that time... well, there are a number of people who could have been responsible."

"That's it?"

"Not quite." Daniel brought up an image of what looked like a journal page, complete with writing Jack found just as confusing as hieroglyphs. "The archaeologist who removed the objects did at least leave a diary containing a vague reference to the location of this tomb, which, as I said, was close to Tomb T. The notes, which clearly indicate the objects having been removed from an actual tomb and not a retainer grave, have been included as part of the auction."

"You obviously made an impression on someone."

"Dry, Jack. Very dry."

"Hey, he survived. Give your other self some kudos for making the most of a bad situation."

"For all we know it was probably him who contributed to the huge social and academic leaps made during Den's reign."

"Yeah, and?"

A wave of his hand and Daniel effectively blew off the topic and turned back to his briefing notes. "There are, however, no official records of the tomb which means it's possible the contents were removed and the tomb covered over during the original excavation of the area."

"To hide the fact it had been robbed?"

Daniel made a face, and said with a hint of sadness, "It wasn't uncommon for artifacts to go missing, deliberately or not. Especially when we consider the lack of accurate record keeping by some people at the time and the prevalence of, yes, tomb robbers. Den is a case in point here because his tomb was burned in antiquity and restored in the 26th Dynasty by the Pharaoh Amasis."

Jack sat forward in his chair and tapped at an image of one of the tablets. "Where are these tablets now?" he said reaching into his pants pocket and drawing out his cell phone.

"On pre-auction display in Amiens, France.” Daniel looked warily at the phone and then up at Jack, brow furrowed. “What exactly are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. Try and figure out how the hell we can anonymously get our hands on these things without every conspiracy nut-job on the planet taking an interest?”

“Well, like I said, the auction itself isn't for another month, and while the collection can only be viewed online at the moment, the auction house will be holding private inspections by appointment one week prior to the event. According to the website, these are the only Egyptian artifacts listed for sale."

Jack dropped his head to his hand and palmed his eyes. "And you couldn't have told me this first?"

"What? No. This isn't exactly easy for me. And there is more than just the significance of the find itself to consider. If just one person manages to figure out the writing—"

"Exactly how did you find out about the auction?"

"Images of the some of the tablets turned up via an internet search program I've had running continuously for the last eight years. An alert is generated immediately whenever the search finds an image containing hieroglyphs specific to the Goa'uld written language."

"So, if they were discovered in the 1800's then the current owner could be just about anyone?"

"Maybe. My first instinct was to look at the archaeologist who initially excavated Den's tomb, but even knowing who that was doesn't mean he was also responsible for this tomb. Especially when it wasn't unheard of for digs to involve an archaeologist and several research assistants. And Amiens is in a region of France where quite a few noted archaeologists of the time resided. It's more likely the collection was handed down through family members. Until now."

Jack winced at the level of uncertainty in Daniel's voice. "If we're lucky, no one has touched these tablets except for the family and the auction company."

Daniel nodded vigorously. "I think so."

"So, we send someone in to buy them."

"No. Not going to be that easy. The level of interest in artifacts from the 1st Dynasty is immense, both from private collectors and legitimate museums, as well as the Egyptian government. And there's something else."

"What?"

"The catalog for the auction lists thirty-six tablets and several other related items."

"More?"

"Ah, yeah."

There was something in the emotional tone of his voice and the way he closed his eyes tightly and turned away that amped up Jack's growing fear that Daniel had been holding back something more important than just the discovery of the tablets. "Daniel?"

"Look, it's nothing really, but whoever took the objects... took the coffin as well."

"And you call that nothing!" Jack could actually feel himself go pale. "Anyone home?"

"Listed as complete with untouched mummified remains."

"Daniel, if whoever wins the damn bid opens up the coffin and orders up a DNA test...."

"Yeah, I get it, Jack."

There was an air of resignation about Daniel that blew in as quickly as he mentioned the coffin and seemed to expand to fill the whole room. How would it feel to suddenly discover his mummified remains were floating around, about to be sold at auction?

And so, where Jack was used to an unmatched level of excitement that came from a Jackson discovery—an unsurpassed moment of fascination and clinical acceptance of the situation—here there was nothing but sadness.

*

"Carter and Mitchell know what to do."

Daniel's head shot up from where he was resting it on the briefing table, eyes wide with worry. "You told them?"

"No, that's your job. I told them enough to get a plan in motion. That's all. And the address of the auction house."

"I don't under... Oh! No, you're not!"

Jack put a cup of coffee in front of Daniel and pulled up a chair. "Beam up the entire building?" he said as he sat down. "You say that like it hasn't been done before."

"Yes. When they had naquadah to lock on to. This isn't exactly the same."

"Relax, Daniel. The SGC budget isn't so blown that we need to set the Odyssey up in the building removal business just yet. No, I'm having SG-1 drop in, tag the items, and beam them out. In and out in no time."

"What about security?"

"Way ahead of you there. Carter mentioned some mumbo-jumbo about running electronic interference. Mitchell and Teal'c are packing C4 as we speak. You know... just in case."

Daniel sat back and picked up his coffee, blowing at the rising steam. "Even if they get everything, there's still the images on the website and computer back-ups to worry about, and there's no way to know how many people have taken copies from the website itself."

"Can't get everything."

"Which is a problem."

"Plausible deniability can be an effective weapon. Not that I think we'll need it."

Daniel frowned into his cup. "The loss of the artifacts would cast doubt on their authenticity, making the content of the images appear... controversial."

"I was gonna say fake, but controversial works for me." Jack shrugged and checked the time on his wristwatch. "Mitchell, Carter and Teal'c will be here for a briefing soon. Oh, and Landry. He's a good guy, Daniel."

"I just needed to tell you first, you know?"

"I get it. You up to telling this story twice?"

"No choice."

"Nope, because if you leave it to me you know I'm gonna skip the good parts."

"You and history?"

"Like that." Jack raised his right hand and crossed two fingers. "Only the more abridged version... with stick figures."

"That's funny, Jack," Daniel said dryly.

"One more thing, Daniel."

"Yeah?"

"There's no wasting time. SG-1 needs to get in and take care of business as soon as everything is set up. That's SG-1 minus you, Doctor Jackson."

"Jack," Daniel said pleadingly. "I should be with them."

"No, you need some rest and, at least for the recovery part of the mission, a good dose of detachment. I'll make that an order if I have to."

"And then what?"

"Then, assuming everything goes to plan, you get to play with those tablets, but that's all you get."

"What about... him?"

Jack swallowed hard and fought to maintain his composure. His emotions swung like a pendulum between anger at the other Daniel’s remains being auctioned for profit, feeling as though it somehow belittled his memory and importance to those who loved him, and sorrow for his Daniel who had been deliberately thrust into the situation by the events of a past none of them could truly comprehend. "I'll figure something."

"Cremation. There can't be anything left to trace back to—"

"It's okay. I said I'll take care of it." He clamped a hand on Daniel's shoulder and felt the tension of pent up emotions vibrating loudly beneath the surface. "And then we'll take him home."

*



Stars died in silence.

Katep looked on with a heavy heart as a large cover stone was set in place over the opening of the tomb, sealing the old man and his tablets away for all eternity.

You made this tomb when you were alive and your bones did not ache with the pain of age, for only those whom the king favored with a tomb could enter the afterlife and be free of the darkness that awaited mere men with their last breath.

You shunned the need for possessions, taking with you nothing more than a chair to rest your weary soul upon and a sturdy box for your tablets. Kings have other ideas, as often kings do when their word is absolute, and so I am sorry for the jars of food you will not eat, and for the jewelry your wore under sufferance in this life but did not want in the next. And for everything else King Den believes you deserve.

Thankful are those of us who dwelt in the darkness of Ra but whom you have delivered into the light.

And honored am I for watching you pass from this life to the next.

The sky was growing dark and the wind from the south was forcing its way across the land, showering sand over the new tomb.

Farewell, Dan'yel

*

Where there should have been excitement, instead a weariness washed over Daniel as he took in the small sample of tablets scattered about his lab. Space had been made, projects packed away in favor of making room for portable workbenches that Siler and his team had wheeled in. Odyssey had beamed down the crate of tablets and other items found in the tomb, but it wasn't until Daniel started the unpacking did he realize the enormity of what had been recovered. His reality was twisted, skewed with the extent of what was sitting in front of him, and what had been left in the hopes that a once damaged past would be corrected enough for a future version of himself to understand.

"You okay?" Jack stood in the doorway, slouched against the frame with his hands tucked in his pockets and a soft smile on his face. Daniel had no idea how long he had been standing there, watching him, maybe looking for some crack in his cleverly built emotional façade. Was he okay?

The problem, as Daniel had so blandly labeled his emotions of the last few days, was that he didn't know how he was. He felt the familiar sense of mourning that enveloped him when he lost Sha're, but this time it was tempered with a sense of fascination, driven by the need to disconnect from what these tablets meant to him personally.

Unable to hide his pain, Daniel sucked in a breath and shook his head. "No. Not really."

Jack pushed off the doorjamb and walked into the lab, hooking a stool with one foot and sitting down in front of Daniel's workbench. He reached out to touch the tablet Daniel had been staring at, but pulled back before making contact. "It's a lot to take in."

"He knew, Jack. He knew he was dying, so he did everything he could to document his life for us to find."

"Hey, if just one of us could survive back then, well... I'm glad it was you."

"Really?"

"Who better to live in Ancient Egypt then someone who studied it."

"Book of the Dead moment?"

"Something else I never quite understood but, yeah... I guess."

Daniel cast his gaze around the room, taking in the large crate that held tablets still to be unpacked, as well as those that were already sitting out on the various workbenches waiting for his attention.

"These... they're the total sum of his life—everything he experienced there is on these tablets."

"Which just goes to show that even without paper, you kept a journal. Kinda hard to keep on a bookshelf, though."

"That's funny, Jack."

"True, though." Jack stood up and pushed the stool away. "He was a good guy, Daniel. So are you. I know you'll make his effort count for something, even if we are the only ones who get to know his story."

"He never finished the last tablet." Daniel nodded towards a lone tablet sitting on a bench to his right. Even somewhat shrouded by the cloth it had been packed in, it was clear the surface was only partially covered in glyphs. "Died before he could complete it." He shrugged and closed his eyes for a moment, frowning.

"Happens to us all, Daniel. Live and die, ashes, dust, and all that." Jack eyed him quizzically for a moment, and then added, "Well, with one exception I can think of."

"Oddly profound."

"I have my moments." He turned towards the door and took a few steps before looking back over his shoulder at Daniel and pointing towards the ceiling. "I'm heading up to take care of the other part of our... problem. I'll be back, though."

The coffin. Daniel had everything recovered from the auction house, but Jack had ordered the coffin be left on board Odyssey.

"And don't even bother asking."

"I wasn't."

"Not going to happen."

"I get it, Jack."

"Good. I need to get going. I'll sort our travel plans as soon as I have his ashes."

"You're not expecting a problem?"

"Na. The Egyptian ambassador and I go way back. Way... way back. You sure you're gonna be okay?"

Daniel nodded once and turned back to the tablet he had taken from the packing crate and carefully unwrapped. Its beauty lay not in its appearance but in the history etched into its surface and the warmth Daniel swore he could feel when he touched the first glyph.

Dips and curves and corners, words and ideas all crafted with care in the hope of preserving the past for the one person in the future that could best make sense of it all.

"The first thing you notice is that the stars are different..."



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T is for Temporal, Being
by magnavox_23

“Tell me again why we’re playing with black holes? In particular this black hole, of which I am none too fond…”

Sam held back an eye roll as she and Teal’c carried her equipment down the steps from the gate. “This is the closest planet with a gate to the black hole, aside from P3W-451 of course, and a recent scouting mission by the Prometheus suggests the black hole’s gravity has just reached this planet. So, it seems an ideal time to measure the effects of that gravity from a relatively safe distance.” Sam’s poker face was firmly in place before Jack swung around to glare at her. “Sir.”

“Fine!” Jack snapped off. “Just tell me the moment things start… sucking.”

Sam nodded enthusiastically.

“Ok, Sam knows what she is doing. Daniel, Teal’c, you can set up camp, and I will secure the perimeter. Back in ten.”

Daniel watched as Jack resettled his weapon and strode off. “He’s not happy about this mission.”

“Colonel O’Neill believes in ‘letting sleeping ghosts lie’, though ghosts require no sleep.” Teal’c set about unpacking their supplies.

*

Jack couldn’t stop himself from staring up at the sky, wondering for a glimpse of the back hole, even though in reality, he knew it would be impossible to see. Sam had explained the acute angle of the accretion disc relative to this world, but Jack knew it was out there.

The crunch of leaves underfoot andsoft breeze did nothing to belaythe unease Jack felt about being here.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention the moment they had stepped foot through the gate.Now, he trod wearily, senses alert for anything to explain the feeling in his gut.

He picked his way through the forest, climbing fallen tree logs and watched the vines twist and turn in sunbeams. Any other place, and Jack would have thought it quite serene.

It was when he bent down onsmall rocks next to a stream to retrieve a water sample for Sam to test, that Jack became aware of the presence behind him. Slowly he fingered the safety off his weapon. He rose to full height, ready to turn.

“Colonel O’Neill!”

Jack spun around, finding nothing but earth, and a sunbeam not quite as still as the others. Then a face appeared. “Jack!”

The light shifted toward him and Jack took an automatic step back, which caused him to slip on the rocks and fall backwards into the shallow stream.

Henry Boyd floated above him.

*

Jack knew the moment he came to that he had only been unconscious mere seconds. He quickly catalogued his minimal aches and pains. Nothing broken, ok to move. Once upright, he felt the back of his head. Only a small cut, but a nice amount of blood, seeing as it had been submersed in the water. He watched the blood on his hand mix and swirl with the water, turning pink as the droplets fell from his fingertips.

“What happened to your hair?”

Jack’s gaze lifted to what appeared to be Major Henry ‘Hank’ Boyd, killed in action, Jan 29th, 1999. Five years ago.

“Well it just got a dunking, water tends to get one wet.” Jack hauled himself from the stream, shaking off what water he could. Maybe Henry Boyd was still there. “Perhaps I hit my head harder than I thought…”

Boyd didn’t respond.

Jack regarded the apparition for a moment. It looked like Boyd. “What do you want?”

It took a moment for Boyd’s expression to clear, as if he was finding it hard to concentrate on Jack’s query. “Help us, Jack.”

“Us?”

“SG-10, we’re here, in one form or another.”

“Form?” Jack’s eyebrows rose and his chin jutted in gesture to Boyd’s currently somewhat transparent appearance.

“I don’t know how to explain it, sir. We were literally ripped apart, it was the most unimaginable--” Boyd collected himself. “We’re still here. What’s left of us, our consciousnesses. We’re some kind of energy. Cassidy thinks we’re trapped in the black hole’s gravity--”

Boyd’s sentence was cut off as an ungodly scream sounded around them. Jack’s head whipped around hoping it wasn’t Sam. Another light flew by, the faint outline of a woman’s face etched in agony. Her painful scream settled along Jack’s spine.

“What the hell is that!” Jack’s fingers scrambled to secure his weapon, ready to defend himself against the howl.

“Cassidy. What’s left of her.” Boyd’s form lost its collectiveness momentarily as he winced. “Our minds are also being torn apart, but at a much slower rate. Listing and Klein are mere remnants of themselves, more far gone than Cassidy. And… I can feel it happening to me, too, my mind being… torn apart.We need you to end it. Kill us.”

Jack blinked a few times, either trying to find the woman or convince himself of her imagined existence, he wasn’t sure. He’d seen all sorts of floaty beings, good and bad, but that was just… wrong. And if the headache forming behind his eyes was any indication, possibly not even real. But if it was? Could he?

Kill them?

“How?” Jack turned back to Boyd. “You’re as close to dead as you can get.” Jack waved his weapon through the semi-transparent man to further illustrate his point.

Boyd looked down to watch Jack’s movements.

A bullet would be so simple.

“Cassidy, she… she thought disrupting the black hole’s gravity somehow, temporarily, could release us into…” Boyd’s hands rose, palms up as if offering a prayer, andfollowed it with a half-shrug.

“Ok.” Jack shook his head and immediately regretted it as spots danced around his vision. “Say you’re real, and that you’re not a figment of my throbbing head and overactive guilt-ridden imagination… you have to know the United States Air Force is never going to sanction a mercy killing mission.”

The light forming Boyd’s image flared. “God, Jack! Don’t you think I know that?That’s why I’m so glad it’s you.It had to be you.”

Jack cleared his throat, and faced away from the spectacle spectre who was doing him no favours.

“I didn’t need to read your service file to guess what’s in there. You’ll do it.”

Anger flared in Jack’s mind,giving him no reprieve for the steadily building headache.

“Screw you, Hank.”

*

Daniel was the only one around to see Jack’s soaking uniform and slight sway as he emerged from the forest and walked into the campsite. “Jack! What the hell happened to you?” He rushed to Jack’s side to offer support and propped Jack against a log next to the fire

“Oh, a little run in with a stream.” Jack blinked a few times until there was only one of Daniel.

Daniel grabbed the med kit and set about cleaning the cut on Jack’s head.

“Ah!” Jack pulled away as Daniel applied antiseptic to the wound. Daniel grabbed Jack’s chin to hold him in place as he applied more.

“Baby.”

“Sadist.”

Daniel held back the myriad of nouns at his disposal. “What happened?”

“Slipped on a rock getting Carter’s water sample, smacked my head. I was out of it maybe ten seconds I figure. A couple of spots, headache, ghosts, I’ll be fine. Got any Tylenol in there?”

Daniel passed Jack the pills. “How did you hit the back of your head collecting the water… wait, what do you mean ‘ghosts’?”

Jack winced, the water he washed the pills down with settling cold in his stomach. “Nothing, Daniel.”

Daniel ripped open a field dressing in frustration. “That’s not nothing, you have a head injury, hallucinations are serious, we should…”

“I wasn’t hallucinating, at least, I don’t think I was.You’re not going to believe it.”

Daniel sighed and looked around their alien surroundings. “I think at this point, I could pretty much believe anything.”

“Therein lies the difference between you and I.”

“Jack! Just…” Daniel eyeballed Jack, urging him to just spill it.

Ok, he could do this. He’d seen other people who may or may not have been there. Present company included. “I saw Hank Boyd.”

His words were met with Daniel’s blank expression. “Recent amnesiac, Jack. Who?”

“SG-10, they were… sucked into a black hole a few years ago, or so we thought.” Jack hesitantly peeked at Daniel through the corner of one eye.

Daniel’s brow creased as he mentally sorted through the mission files he had read since his return. “Oh… Oh! This black hole? The one we’re here to study? Jack, that’s…”

“Crazy, I know.”

“That’s amazing! How could they survive?”

“They didn’t.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know. Their physical bodies are gone, but their minds are sorta floating around inside the black hole’s gravity. Trapped within it. Hank says they’re not doin’ so good.”

“Oh my God.” Daniel was dumbfounded. “Those poor… could we have known this would be a possibility? We left them to this fate, we need to help them. What can we--”

“Daniel.” Jack met his eyes. “There’s no way we can save them. Hank…” the words caught in his throat. “He asked me to end it.”

Both men sat quietly for a moment, taking in the magnitude of the situation.

“What other option do we have? If that’s… I think we have to do it, Jack.”

“I know, but how? This sort of thing would never get approval. If we… we can’t tell anyone. Hammond, the SGC, heck, I’d have left you out of it if I kept my big mouth shut.”

“Yes, but then you wouldn’t have me to suggest overloading the naquahdah generator Sam brought along. Even though you’ve, you know, done it before.”

Jack looked away. “Yeah, but I shouldn’t have.”

“Maybe.”

Jack sighed.

“Colonel O’Neill, come in.” Sam’s voice sounded from Jack’s radio.

“Yeah, Carter?”

“Teal’c and I are about half a click from the camp, and… I think we have just seen something I’m not sure you’ll believe, sir.”

Jack and Daniel looked at one another.

“Oh, I’m not too sure about that at the moment. What’s up?”

“Some sort of light or energy flying about. And sir, she had a face, a rather familiar one.”

Jack could tell from the cadence of Sam’s voice she was hesitant to explain further over the radio.

“Copy that, fall back to camp. Over.” Jack tossed his radio onto his pack.

“I guess you didn’t hit your head that hard after all.”

Jack glared at Daniel.

*

Sam’s eyes widened as Daniel filled her in on Jack’s exchange with Boyd, while Jack was stretched out by the fire. He rested against his pack with his hat over his eyes to combat the dying remnants of his headache, not to hide his face from his team’s questioning gazes and possible judgements.

“I mean, I never even considered…” he heard Sam’s voice. “I can’t believe we left them behi--”

“Carter!” Jack barked, his hat falling from his face as he rose and met her face on.

Sam’s expression was full of guilt and he imagined it was probably pretty similar to his own. His ire softened. “Had we known… ugh!” Jack rubbed his temples. That sounded familiar. “Daniel wants to blow the generator.”

If it were possible, Sam’s eyes grew bigger. He knew she was thinking the same thing he was. And he wasn’t going there again.

“Theoretically, an explosion could temporarily disrupt the gravity of the black hole in a specific locale. Whether that would be enough to free them…”

“It will have to be,” Teal’c intoned.

“Look,” Jack started. “I can’t and I won’t ask any of you to… but if we do this, it can’t get back home.”

“I’m in, sir.”

Jack regarded Sam. He hoped like hell she wasn’t agreeing to this out of guilt or a misplaced sense of duty, otherwise he’d kick her ass after he’d kicked his own.

*

Daniel and Teal’c carried the last of their supplies and equipment over to the naquahdah generator where Sam was finishing her alterations to force an overload. Jack sat on the steps leading up to the Stargate, his gaze flitting around the forest’s edge for a glimpse of the old SG-10. Maybe he’d seen a few swatches of light, maybe dusk was playing tricks on his eyes. He just wanted this mission over and done with so he could go home, lie his ass off, and pass out for a few days.

“Ready when you are, sir.” Sam rose from her crouched position over the generator.

SG-1 gathered silently, lifting their packs onto weary shoulders.

“Dial us home, Major.”

The locking chevrons were loud in the quiet eve of an alien world, and the event horizon illuminated the path before them to the gate. Jack nodded to himself in response.

SG-1 made their way up the steps, stopping on the gate platform to turn and bid farewell to their fallen friends.

Henry Boyd stood next to the DHD, looking back at them with an expression of peaceful resolve as three more lights orbited his translucent form. “Bye, Jack.” His wave formed into a salute, which Jack returned with stone-faced precision. “Into the wild blue yonder,” Jack murmured in reply.

*

Epilogue

“Chevron seven is locked!” Walter announced. “Receiving SG-1’s IDC.”

“Open the iris,” Hammond ordered.

The watery wall of the Stargate’s event horizon spit forth the four members of SG-1.

“Shut it down!” Jack commanded.

Hammondmade his way from the control room down to meet the team. He noticed they were severely lacking in the supplies and equipment they had taken with them. “Report.”

“Unforeseen effects from the black hole’s gravity, sir, and Colonel O’Neill sustained a head injury. We thought it best to get back here while we still could.”

Damn but Sam’s poker face was near perfection, Jack mused.

“Things got a little sucky, sir.” Jack scrubbed his hair with his hand. Lying to George was never easy.

“Understood,” George replied. “Colonel, get yourself down to the infirmary, we’ll debrief at 0800 tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

As SG-1 left the gate room, George readied himself for the half-truths and falsehoods he knew SG-1 would have a damn good reason for using in his presence. Whatever had happened on that planet, he was at least glad for their return.

*

Jack stared at what few stars he could see through the trees outside his bedroom window. Sometimes doing the right thing was rewarding, and sometimes it was hell. Jack wasn’t sure which category this mission fell into just yet. Jack O’Neill, interstellar dunce. Il Matto…

“Sucker,” he whispered to the night air.

Half a galaxy away, Henry Boyd and his team were free.

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U is for Unrealized Reality
by antonomasia09

“From every point of entry - a wormhole branches into multiple paths. The subdivision continues until at length you are deposited back into space/time. The journey can be random, or with purpose. Destination is the key. Every portal has a distinct space/time signature. The only destinations you can realize, by design, are those of which you have foreknowledge. The more you travel, the more signatures you will catalogue. Our Ancients have given you the ability to recognize these subtle differences. Since every destination is surrounded by similar unrealized realities, the closer you travel, the more you must maintain absolute engrossment. And never return to a familiar place prior to the last time you left. Your next journey may lead to a permanent unrealized reality.”–various, “Unrealized Reality” (Farscape)

Teal’c is in a vast desert, nothing but gently sloping sands as far as his eye can see in every direction. There is no Stargate, no sign of how he came to be here. The cannon he used to destroy Tanith’s ship is still in his hands. He grasps it tightly lest it disappear, as the Stargate must have.

At the sound of a faint clanking noise behind him, he whirls around. A man stands there who was not present a moment before. He looks roughly the same age as Bra’tac and is wearing Jaffa armor, but he is no Jaffa; he does not carry himself as a warrior does, even an old one, and he bears no weapons. His eyes are flat black, the opposite of a Goa’uld’s flashing gold. There are no footprints in the soft sand to indicate which direction he came from.

“Who are you?” Teal’c asks. His cannon is very visibly pointed at the man, who gives no outward sign that this distresses him at all.

“My name is unimportant.” The man pauses. “However, a being I once encountered from the planet to which you were traveling denominated me ‘Einstein.’”

Teal’c wonders who exactly from Earth Einstein has met and how the alien knows his intended destination. There are more pressing matters, though. “You are not a Jaffa,” he challenges, hoping that pointing out the obvious fallacy will not anger the man.

Fortunately, it does not. “I took this form to facilitate communication,” Einstein concedes easily.

He reminds Teal’c of the Asgard, somewhat. The same bluntness, the same sense of superiority. That, combined with the stated desire for communication rather than violence, is reassuring. Teal’c lowers his weapon. “Where am I?” he asks.

“You are within the wormhole network. This scenery is a construct I have devised so as to make you more comfortable.” For an instant, the world around them grows cold, icy, with black water swirling at Teal’c’s feet, but then the landscape settles into endless desert once more.

“Why am I here?” he asks.

“Your Stargate malfunctioned as a result of a massive burst of energy while you were in transit; hence, you were unable to rematerialize at your destination.”

His own fault, then. But he cannot bring himself to regret the extra moments spent on the planet, ensuring the utter annihilation of Tanith’s ship. And Einstein has only partially answered his question. “Then why am I not dead?” he demands.

“I was given permission to catch you before your consciousness was destroyed. It has been decided that, in order for your universe to progress as it ought, you must be present for several critical events in the future.” At Teal’c’s slight frown, he continues. “Fear not; our goals align. My people desire the downfall of the Goa’uld as much as yours do.”

This does not reassure Teal’c; he harbors little hope for the survival of the Jaffa rebellion in the event that a powerful species with the ability to manipulate wormholes changes its mind. “You are an Ancient, are you not?” Teal’c realizes.

“The Ancients are an offshoot of my race, yes. Although, unlike them, we do not have a policy of non-interference.” That still sounds ominous to Teal’c, but he does not want to object to his own salvation. “You are needed. For the sake of your universe, you cannot remain trapped here; yet it is impossible to navigate without extensive knowledge of wormholes. I will help you return.”

“Why have you not returned me already?” Teal’c wants to know.

“I am unfamiliar with your home,” Einstein explains. “You must understand, every wormhole has an infinite number of exits, each located in a specific place at a specific time. In order to reach a destination, the traveler must know exactly when and where they want to go, and they must be able to recognize the unique signature of that exit. I have never traveled to Earth; therefore, I am unable to determine the proper point of egress.”

“But I have traveled to Earth,” says Teal’c slowly. “I know its coordinates in space, although I lack a point of origin. Could I guide you to it?”

“Knowledge of location in space is insufficient. Exiting the wormhole at anything other than the proper time could prove disastrous,” Einstein warns. “You would need to familiarize yourself with the way signatures feel, and then extrapolate from that the correct one. But the closer you get to your destination, the more similar the signatures are.”

“But you could help me do this. Allow me to wander and catalog, and then pull me back.”

Einstein nods, but looks concerned. “You should know that I personally do not approve of this. Even such scant knowledge could be dangerous. To yourself, to your people, and to mine.”

“I will not allow others to be harmed by it.” Einstein can read in his eyes what goes unsaid, that he will protect it even at the cost of his own safety.

“The last time a being of your realm was given this knowledge, he came to thoroughly regret it.”

“I understand,” Teal’c replies gravely.

“Very well,” says Einstein. And that is all the warning Teal’c gets; the sand beneath his feet melts away and he is falling, spinning wildly out of control through twisting tunnels.

It would be easy to give in to panic, but Teal’c forces himself to remember decades of training with Master Bra’tac, of patiently teaching Daniel Jackson how to kel’no’reem. He closes his eyes and ignores the cosmic winds buffeting him about.

Teal’c can smell food. Steaming na’tokeem, just as Drey’auc used to make it, thick and savory with a hint of spice. He imagines himself walking home to the house Apophis gave him on Chulak, exhausted in the wake of a successful battle against Heru’ur’s forces. He feels the stony ground beneath his boots, the heavy weight of familiar armor digging into his side where one of the enemy Jaffa had gotten in a lucky blow, the pleasantly cooling breeze, and opens his eyes to Ry’ac, no more than a child, dashing to greet him.

He sweeps his son up and swings him in a circle, to Ry’ac’s delight, marveling at how easy it is.

“You won the battle, Father!” Ry’ac exclaims. “I never doubted you would.”

He remembers this day. The last perfect day with his wife and son, thinking nothing of the raid on Abydos scheduled for the following week. Suddenly, Teal’c wants nothing more than to see his wife. Ry’ac obliges, latching onto his father’s arm and dragging Teal’c down the dusty path to where Drey’auc waits just inside the house, ladle in one hand and smile on her face.

“Welcome home, Teal’c,” she greets him warmly. Her long hair has been pulled back into a loose braid, but it comes undone when she pulls him into a fierce embrace and then a passionate kiss, ignoring Ry’ac, who is making disgusted sounds at the sight.

“I love you,” he whispers in her ear, enjoying the way it makes her cling to him harder.

“Come and eat, my husband,” she urges at last, and he agrees, famished from the long walk. They settle around the table and he fixes the sight in his memory, Ry’ac chattering eagerly about his training and Drey’auc content with her home and family.

Something tugs at the back of his mind, and, between one blink and the next, he is back in the arid sand dunes. The cannon is gone as if it never existed. “Did you learn?” Einstein asks.

Teal’c takes a moment to compose himself, to carefully tuck away his memory of that precious day. “I did,” he answers.

“You traveled backwards in time.” Einstein sounds disapproving. “Such action is dangerous.”

Teal’c remembers Major Carter’s explanation of the grandfather paradox and a campfire with darting flames. “I did not change the past,” he says.

“Your mere presence in an incorrect time is enough to send out ripples, the effects of which you cannot fathom.” He pauses. “I have been observing the biologics of your universe for some time, but until now had only interacted with a single being. I had reason to believe he is not representative of most of your universe’s inhabitants, although it seems, perhaps, I may have been mistaken.”

Teal’c gets the feeling that he has been insulted. “I will be careful,” he promises. “However, I do not believe I have sufficient experience to prevent myself from entering the past again.”

“Search for a familiar place, rather than specific events,” Einstein suggests. And then Teal’c is gone again, speeding through smooth green tunnels.

He calls to mind the pictures Daniel Jackson has shown him of Earth. The pyramids of Egypt, so like Abydos, the ruins of a temple that would have towered on Cronus’ homeworld. But none of it calls to him, so he narrows his focus. The sizzling steaks at O’Malley’s, which they have not returned to since the incident with the armbands. The stiff breeze at the top of Cheyenne Mountain in autumn, the leaves a riot of colors. The serenity of his own quarters deep within the SGC, full of carefully arranged candles he bought with his teammates at a market in Colorado Springs.

As he gets closer, he feels the weight of a mountain above him, the damp coolness that comes from being deep underground. Yes, this is Stargate Command. But there is also a hint of incense, of naquadah, and he knows something is different.

“Kneel before Apophis, your god,” reverberating tones demand. Teal’c knows that voice but it is wrong, so wrong, the casual Minnesotan drawl overlaid with arrogant precision. Teal’c’s knees are kicked from behind and he falls at the feet of Colonel O’Neill. O’Neill reclines on a golden throne, wearing robes that are barely decent, his eyes heavily lined with kohl. Sitting in a smaller throne beside him is Major Carter, but her eyes shine with Amaunet’s arrogance. Daniel Jackson stands behind them, his mouth curled into Klorel’s sneer.

Teal’c cannot help the reflexive denial. “You are not my god,” he growls, earning himself a blow to the back of the head that sprawls him on the floor. He picks himself up, glaring, ignoring the blood trickling down his neck.

“Tell us the location of your rebel camp,” Apophis orders, his eyes flashing golden. He raises a hand, bringing his kara kesh to bear directly on the mark that denotes Teal’c as Apophis’ First Prime.

It is difficult to think through the pain the ribbon device is drilling into his forehead, but Teal’c must figure out why he has allowed himself to be captured by Goa’uld forces; if he truly was the leader of a rebellion and knew strategic information, then he would choose to die first, and he would ensure that he had a means to do so at all times. Unless...

The agonizing light releases him for a moment, and Teal’c takes a moment to breathe harshly through the pain. Apophis is talking, but his words don’t penetrate the ringing in Teal’c’s ears.

A tooth at the back of the right side of his mouth hurts. Teal’c hadn’t thought much of it before; given the bruises covering his body, he had assumed it was the result of a punch to the jaw. He probes it now with his tongue, careful not to let the movement show, and sure enough, one of the teeth feels different.

Teal’c has no other weapons, and does not believe he would ever be cowardly enough to fail to commit suicide if necessary. Therefore, the tooth must contain some means of destroying the Goa’uld. A bomb, perhaps, created by one of the SGC scientists who escaped the initial assault on the mountain.

While Apophis continues to rant, Teal’c meets the eyes of each of his teammates in turn. He knows better than to even hope for a flicker of familiarity; no matter how hard his friends may struggle, the host is never a match for the parasite.

“I am sorry,” he tells them, and bites down hard on the tooth.

And then he is back in the false desert, on his knees, the black-eyed man crouched over him looking thoughtful. His pain is rapidly fading away, although the adrenaline is not.

“What was that?” he gasps, shaken.

Einstein straightens. “The wormhole network connects all places and times. Even ones that do not come to pass.”

“You speak of alternate universes?” With effort, Teal’c stands.

Einstein nods. “There are infinite paths your life can take. Infinite realities. I am surprised you know of this.”

“I have encountered alternate realities before,” Teal’c tells him. He doesn’t like them. “I consider none but my own to be of consequence.”

Einstein shakes his head. “The universe is not stable. It is constantly in flux; the course it takes is informed by the decisions of every living being within it, by forces beyond even their control.”

“I do not understand.”

“Time is fluid. It can be shaped. Altered.” Einstein sketches a motion in the air, and Teal’c can almost see the threads of time bending around the alien’s hands. “If you travel to a destination and are not retrieved, that reality will become yours from then on.”

“So there is a chance that, through my actions, my reality may cease to exist.”

“Yes,” Einstein confirms, no hint of concern in his voice.

“Then should I not stay here? If my wanderings endanger my reality, would it not be better to die?”

Einstein smiles. “Fear is good. It will keep you vigilant. However, the role you play in shaping the course of history is vital. You must return.”

“Even at the risk of doing irreparable damage?”

“You shall not.”

“How do you know?”

“I have faith that, when you are ready to permanently enter a reality, you will select the right one.”

Teal’c feels he will need to travel a lot more in order to match Einstein’s level of optimism. “Then I am ready to try again,” he says. With a nod from Einstein, he is gone.

This time, instead of searching for a specific planet, Teal’c looks for his team. He sees a flash of an SG-1 patch and follows it. From behind, the man who wears it closely resembles Daniel Jackson, but the archaeologist has never worn a P-90 with such casual ease, and Teal’c has certainly never felt quite this mixture of amusement and annoyance towards Daniel. Intrigued, he gets closer until he finds himself blinking in the dappled sunlight of an alien coniferous forest.

“Yo, Teal’c, come on. Whatcha waitin’ for? We gotta get a move on if we want to make it to the village in time for Carter and Jackson’s shindig.”

A dark-haired woman in pigtails who has been walking just ahead of Teal’c turns to take his hand. “Wouldn’t want to miss that, would we, Muscles?” she says lightly and swings their arms together, skipping a little. “It’s all Daniel’s been talking about for weeks.”

Both she and the man who spoke before are wearing SGC uniforms, but he has no idea who they are. Except he does.

Teal’c smiles down at Vala Mal Doran. “I too am most excited to see this demonstration,” he tells her. “If Merlin’s device works the way that Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson hope it does, we will have a powerful defense against the Ori.”

Vala leans closer and says confidentially, “I think Samantha’s just hoping that if the test is successful, she won’t have to work with Dr. McKay anymore.”

Teal’c smiles a little. “Indeed,” he agrees.

Ahead of them there is a blinding flash of light, followed seconds later by a massive shockwave. Colonel Mitchell dives behind a boulder as Teal’c falls to the ground on top of Vala, shielding her with his body.

“What the hell was that?” Mitchell asks once the shaking has stopped. He’s already on his feet, straining to see the village ahead unsuccessfully.

“It can’t have been the device,” Vala says. “They were waiting for us to turn it on.”

“Unless they felt they were in danger,” Teal’c points out, prompting them all to look upwards. There is a dark speck in the sky. An Ori ship.

“Right, okay, the woods could already be crawling with Ori soldiers,” says Mitchell. “First priority is to get back to the gate.”

“What about Samantha and Daniel?” protests Vala.

“Either the device worked and they are safely out of phase where we can’t get to them anyway, or they are already dead, along with everyone else in that village,” Mitchell says bluntly. “We need to get out of here before it’s too late.”

It still takes both Mitchell and Teal’c to get Vala moving towards the gate, so none of them are paying enough attention to their surroundings. Teal’c sees motion in the bushes just as the first shot streaks out, catching Mitchell in the shoulder. The colonel goes down with a cry, causing Vala to stumble as well. Teal’c reaches down to pull her away from Mitchell, to carry her to the gate if need be, but two blasts hit him simultaneously in the leg and the chest, and he topples to the ground instead. Before his vision goes dark, he sees both of his teammates lying beside him, blood trickling gently from Vala’s mouth.

Teal’c gasps his way back to life lying on the rough sand. There is a slight breeze now, lifting fine particles and propelling them at Teal’c’s face.

Einstein is watching him, looking thoughtful. “That was the future. One possibility anyway.” For a brief moment, Teal’c sees Mitchell on an iceberg in a black space suit facing a black-eyed man. Sees Vala alone in a cell praying to a god whose name he does not recognize; from the story she tells, though, Djancaz-bru’s actions sound like those of a Goa’uld.

“I knew his thoughts. The other Teal’c’s.”

“I am tiring,” Einstein admits. “It is harder for me to maintain the link necessary to retrieve you.”

His words make Teal’c uneasy. “Perhaps I should attempt to return home now,” he says, but Einstein rejects his offer.

“You are not yet ready,” he says, and pushes Teal’c headlong down a wormhole.

The ride is much wilder than before, and much faster. Sensations and emotions speed past far too quickly for Teal’c to catalogue, let alone investigate. With effort, he manages to maneuver himself into a side-tunnel chosen at random.

Ahead, there is only one exit. It reeks of unwashed prisoners and fear and death. There is dust mingling with blood in his mouth. Frantically he tries to turn himself around, but the inexorable current is dragging him in and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

He is wearing armor again, but this time he takes no pleasure in it. His staff weapon is warm in his grasp from being fired again and again at the defenseless prisoners in Apophis’ fortress. One of them had pleaded with him before the shooting began, insisting that he could save the prisoners with Teal’c’s help. Teal’c still is unsure why the man even tried.

Wait. No, he isn’t. O’Neill, the man’s name is O’Neill, and he has served under O’Neill’s command for more than four years now. Teal’c allows the adrenaline now coursing through him to clear his mind as he struggles to separate his memories from those of a Teal’c who never studied under Master Bra’tac. A Teal’c who is Apophis’ loyal servant.

The other Jaffa are waiting for him to tell them what to do next, but he hesitates, the realization of what this universe’s Teal’c has just done overwhelming him.

“Is there something wrong?” Ker’on asks quietly, standing at attention to Teal’c’s right.

Although Teal’c’s face is hidden beneath his serpent helmet, he still takes a moment to school it to immobility before turning to face his lieutenant. “There is nothing wrong,” he says, firmly controlling the cheek that wants to spasm. “Instruct the slaves to clean up these bodies,” he orders, command settling on him with a familiar if unwelcome weight. “Lord Apophis will want to leave now that he has selected a host for Klorel.”

Ker’on bows with his arm across his chest and does as his First Prime directs.

Teal’c picks his way through the pile of bodies on the floor and finds his team. O’Neill died protecting Major Carter and Daniel Jackson with his own body. Not that it did much good; they lie near him, Daniel Jackson’s glasses smashed to pieces when he hit the stone floor. There is no sign of Skaara.

O’Neill’s watch is now bloodspattered, but Teal’c bends down anyway and gently unfastens it from the limp wrist, tucking it into his belt. He whispers the prayer for a fallen brother, and tries not to think about the fact that he just killed his team in the name of a false god.

“Einstein,” Teal’c calls, still crouched over the bodies of his friends. “Take me back.”

“Teal’c?” On the other side of the room, Ker’on frowns. Teal’c can’t bring himself to care if the Jaffa is questioning his sanity. This universe is not real, and he wants to leave.

But the fortress stubbornly remains. “Einstein?” he calls again, and finally the desert returns. But this time the illusion feels paper-thin, insubstantial. He can see the undulations of the wormhole through the sand. Then it blinks out completely, and he is on the shores of a lake, fishing lazily.

Master Bra’tac kneels on the stony beach beside him. There are no mosquitoes on this planet, one of its few redeeming features, but he has a flash of memory of himself and Colonel O’Neill at the cabin in Minnesota. He almost misses it now.

Bra’tac is old now, losing his strength, losing his mind in a way that has just as much to do with regrets as it does his advanced years.

“Today is Ry’ac’s birthday,” Bra’tac says, breaking the silence.

“Yes.” Teal’c knows. This planet’s orbit is similar enough to Chulak’s to allow him to keep track of the days.

“He will be twenty years old today. Ready to complete his training and join the ranks of Apophis’ army.”

“Ry’ac was a strong, determined child. He will make an excellent warrior.” Ry’ac almost certainly will not be given a position in the army. Not as a kresh’ta, an outcast, with a shol’va for a father. If he still lives, he probably has not even found a mentor to teach him to fight.

“Do you ever think of how things could have gone differently?” Bra’tac asks. “If we had had the courage to rebel against the false gods, to lead our people to freedom?”

Teal’c draws his line in and casts it out again. “Many lives would be lost,” he answers. “Perhaps my wife’s or my son’s. Perhaps yours or mine.”

“Is this life, then?” Master Bra’tac waves a hand that encompasses the deserted planet, the hut Teal’c built for them, the tiny garden behind it that Master Bra’tac still tends lovingly even though the days are getting colder and hardly anything was able to grow in it anyway.

“This is our freedom,” Teal’c reminds his mentor, who laughs bitterly.

“Our exile, you mean.” His voice is dark.

“There are no false gods here ordering us to slaughter the armies of their enemies, to lay waste to planets.”

“No. But there is also no honor. And what is life without that?”

Teal’c replaces the bait on his hook and doesn’t answer. Maybe he’ll build a boat in the spring, he thinks, as the world dissolves around him.

Einstein is slumped on a dune some distance away, his head down. Teal’c shakes his own to clear it, reminding himself of who he is and what he fights for, then staggers over to the alien. Behind him, the sky is darkening and Teal’c can feel the breeze steadily becoming stronger.

Einstein has managed to push himself to his knees but no further by the time Teal’c reaches him. “My strength fades,” he breathes. His words are punctuated by a bolt of lightning, which strikes the ground only yards away from them and sends sand spraying in all directions to join the grains already dancing madly in the air.

“This is your last chance,” Einstein warns him. He has to shout to be heard over the howling winds. “I will not be able to retrieve you from the next reality you enter.”

Teal’c nods gravely. “I believe I have acquired sufficient data to be able to determine the correct portal,” he says, in an effort to convince both Einstein and himself. “Thank you for your assistance.”

“Go,” Einstein orders, and Teal’c does. He falls through the wormhole, searching for any sign of the familiar.

He smells Major Carter’s hair, hears Colonel O’Neill’s chuckle, feels Daniel Jackson’s hands stir the air minutely as he gestures wildly. He tastes the peach cobbler from the commissary (they’ve added too much cinnamon again). Lets himself experience the satisfaction of knowing that Shan’auc has been avenged. This is his time. This is his place. This is his reality.

Teal’c steps through the event horizon. He sees a smoking, sparking DHD wired to the gate, an unfamiliar man with Daniel, Siler unconscious, and thinks I have failed. A moment later, he can’t remember why.

feedback

V is for VAH-fels
by campylobacter

The bell over the door makes a musical ring as he and his grandfather enter. Daniel hasn't eaten much of anything in two days, and is surprised when his mouth waters at the sweet scent of maple syrup. The aroma is the same as when his parents took him to a Rhode Island sugarhouse over a year ago, when the snow was beginning to melt.

The sign on the hostess podium says, "Please SEAT YOURSELF". A short, blonde, curly-haired waitress walks by with a plate of waffles and fruit. His grandfather spots an empty booth, and they each slide into a vinyl-covered bench the color of pea soup.

"H-how do you say 'waffles' in Nederlands, Grampa?"

"Nick."

"Ik zal nik eten."

"What?"

The kitchen next to them is noisy, so Daniel speaks louder. "IK ZAL NIK ETEN."

"No, no, Danny," he scolds, his kind, tired face darkening into an angry scowl. "You must call me Nick, not Grampa. And it is very, very wrong to say 'I shall eat Nick'."

Daniel slumps lower into the booth seat. The weight in his chest feels heavier. He's always called him Grampa. So many things have changed forever that he's not sure of anything now.

His grandfather continues: "Waffles is wafels. You say 'I would like'. Ik wil graag wafels."

VAH-felz. Change the W sound to a V sound. Easy. The kgrahgch word is much harder; the consonants not at all like English. Daniel takes a deep breath. "Ik wil kra... um, graak… graag wafels."

"Very close."

"H-how do you say milk?" He's surprised to suddenly feel hungry after almost a week of not having an appetite.

"Melk."

"And syrup?"

"Siroop."

The words sound the same as the English ones, only pronounced with a Dutch accent. "Ik wil kra... graag wafels en siroop en melk, atsub-alsub-alstublieft." Why is "please" so many syllables? Daniel sits up straighter. "Ik wil graag wafels en siroop en melk, alstublieft."

"Very good," Daniel's grandfather says sternly, his face impassive. "Your stutter is much improved. Maybe you will become a linguist like your dad."

"But Daddy is— was..." Speaking of his father in past tense is still so new, so frightening. Should "daddy" become only one syllable, like Grampa becoming Nick? "Um, Dad was also an archaeologist. I wanna be an archaeologist like him. And Mommie. Uh, Mom." He looks into Nick's hard, ice-blue eyes, the same color as his mother's. "A-a-and you."

Nick shakes his head dismissively. "My daughter Claire was twice the archaeologist Melburn was. But her colleagues mistook her achievements as being her husband's. However, I shall allow that she married an exceptional linguist, and a good person. There is no shame in that. I am proud of her."

For a brief moment, his grandfather's eyes soften, and grow a little brighter with tears.

Then the man continues, his eyes unfocused, "Uy ah ual ing ual ing wetail."

Daniel has no idea what it means, or what language it's in. "Now that you're back you can teach me to speak Dutch, Gramp— uh, Nick. And archaeology, too."

"No. I could do neither subject justice for a young, growing mind. I cannot stay here with you, and you cannot come with me back to Belize. I will be travelling all over the world because of my latest discovery."

Daniel's stomach clenches at each word. Everything is crashing down again. His grandfather must have noticed him trying not to cry.

"Danny, you know that nice couple at the funeral who sat next to us?"

Barely. Daniel shakes his head.

"The ones who hosted your first birthday party in Baja?"

That was seven years ago.

"They want to foster you. They have houses in Martha's Vineyard and Montreal, Budapest and Cairo, but have always wanted children. They appraise art and antiquities for an insurance company, and can send you to the finest schools. You will learn so much, so many languages, visit so many museums. More than I—"

"But I can be helpful on a dig. Mommie said I was more helpful than some grad students."

Nick ignores him and says, "Yes, miss, my grandson would like waffles, syrup, and milk. I would like a ham sandwich, and scrambled eggs on toast with hash browns."

There is no waitress standing where Nick is looking. He is speaking to someone who isn't there.

Daniel sees across the room the only waitress in the diner, busy and frazzled as she clears plates and refills coffee.

But Nick continues giving his order to no one, as though a waitress were standing right next to them and responding. "Well, perhaps he'd also like warm apple pie with a slice of cheese."

No one is there. The diner is full of people, but his grandfather is talking to nothing.

"Danny, she asked you a question. Do you want bacon on the side?"

Daniel's appetite is gone. "No." The ceiling is falling. The walls are crashing down. His parents are underneath and he can't save them. "I gotta go to the bathroom, 'kay?"

"Yes, go." Nick sounds relieved. "Our breakfast should be ready when you get back."

Daniel slides out of the booth and flees to the men's room. He pushes open the door and enters the diner. The bell over the door rings musically as he enters.

The place is familiar, but he can't quite recognize it. The sign on the hostess podium says, "Please SEAT YOURSELF".

Daniel spots an empty booth, and slides into a bench colored pea soup green. He talks to the waitress, who reminds him of his mother, even though she looks nothing like Claire Ballard Jackson.

"How deep is the river if you cannot see the bottom?" she asks.

He knows exactly who she is, but can't remember why he knows her so well.

"Frank," she calls to the short-order cook behind the counter, "I need a Noah's boy in a blanket, two hen fruit wrecked on a shingle, with a mystery in the alley. A warm Eve with a moldy lid and two checkerboards, all right?" She clips the order to a carousel. "Oh yeah, hold the pig."

He remembers being eight years old, crying in the bathroom, and coming out later just after the other waitress had put breakfast on the table. Waffles for himself, and only a cup of coffee for Nick. His grandfather never got what he ordered from the waitress who wasn't there. Nick just kept pouring sugar in his mug as he drank it, while Daniel ate. Daniel had eaten both his waffles before realizing Nick's order would never come.

He had then wished for four waffles, to share half with Grampa.

Now Daniel's alone in a diner filled with people eating breakfast. He speaks to them, but they act like he's not there.

feedback

W is for What Would Walter Do?
by gategremlyn

It was 0600 when Walter entered the 'gate room. Yeah, the old girl looked just like he'd left her. He took the stairs two at a time and entered the office. His in-box dribbled paperwork and the outbox didn't look much better. What was it with people? He'd only been gone a week. Couldn't this place survive without him for a week? An envelope on the edge of his desk slid gently to the floor. Obviously not. He shrugged off his jacket and got to work.

When Hammond arrived at 0700, Walter was hard at it. “Welcome back, Sergeant. How was your leave?”

Startled, Walter stood. “You're early, sir.”

“I'm doing the same thing you are, sergeant. I'm trying to get to the bottom of the paperwork.

“Yes, sir.”

“How was your leave?” he asked again.

“Good, sir. Thank you. But it's good to be back to work.”

“Glad to have you back, son.”

“Thank you.”

“I think we both need coffee before we do anything else, don't you?”

“I'm on it, sir.”

He delivered a fresh cup of coffee to his boss and placed his own on the file cabinet.

Right. He needed to organize this mess. He tackled the in-box first, sorting phone messages from external mail from internal mail. He sorted the outbox, putting to-be-filed mission reports on the top. Those were the ones he wanted to see first. What trouble had the teams gotten into without him?

The first file had pictures of SG4 infected by something that looked like poison ivy. He skimmed the report. They'd been quarantined for five days and were on medical leave until next week. The next file on SG9 had a report of Jaffa activity on P49 552.

SG1's file was the one he'd been waiting for. The 'gateroom pictures told their own story: Teal'c with hair, Colonel O'Neill with blue jeans, Doctor Jackson with a jacket that really didn't look all that different from the civilian clothes he'd seen in Jackson's locker, and Samantha Carter in a pair of round, pink glasses. He hoped Siler had video footage.

But as he read the fine print, he learned about time travel, a young George Hammond, two hippies named Jenny and Michael something or other, and... a psychedelic bus. Was there any other job on the planet like this?

Walter dealt with backlog as quickly as he could.

*

Jenny watched her new friends walk away. She hoped they made it back to their planet and that whatever “establishment” they were in trouble with didn't punish them too much.

A few days later she watched unbelievably groovy music at a concert in upstate New York.

Six months after that she watched troops leave for Vietnam. Even with his hair cut short and his uniform pressed, Michael looked like the boy she'd fallen in love with. She wondered what she would do without him. She cut her hair. Her friend Sam would understand that.

*

Two more cups of coffee later, Walter was ready to handle the now-organized piles. There was a phone message from Doctor Langford to General Hammond. He put it in the General's in-box. When she came to the mountain—as she no doubt would in the next few days--she always managed to visit the 'gateroom, and she always made General Hammond scowl. That was something. Walter liked Doctor Langford. She didn't take crap from anybody, Generals included.

*

Her life never seemed to take a straight path, Catherine thought as she watched her two guests walk down the front steps to an odd looking bus. Just when she had her life in order, two unusual strangers brought back memories of a past she'd been trying very hard to forget, of a man she'd been trying very hard to forget: Ernest Littlefield, the man she loved.

She dug around in the desk drawer for her book of Washington contacts. It was time to go back to pressuring people in power to do the right thing, and the right thing was to continue research on the “doorway to heaven” as her guest had so elegantly put it.

Ernest had always said she was stubborn; he would understand.

*

Walter sorted through the stack of external mail. This envelope doesn't belong here, he thought, looking at the handwriting. It should go to Doctor Jackson. He undid the clasp and pulled out the top page. Yep, it's for Doctor Jackson. It was Cassie's French homework. She was a lucky girl to have a tutor like Doctor Jackson. Walter smiled and put it in the pile he was going to hand deliver.

*

Cassie watched four people go through the Stargate. She loved those four people more than almost anyone in the world. Jack and Daniel were her uncles, and Teal'c her guardian angel. Sam had been her second mother. Well, her third mother really. How young they looked, how vibrant, how... innocent. She knew they would see the death of her mother, Janet Fraiser. Cassie still missed her mom even though she'd only known her for a few years. She knew they'd see the death of friends, a couple of whom had been standing on the ramp before her. She knew they'd see the Stargate program grow and change and fade... as she herself had done. But she also knew their journey was just beginning.

She sighed and turned away. Her youngest daughter was due to visit this afternoon, with the two grandchildren. It was time for Cassie to tell them some more stories about the Stargate.

*

Walter checked the calendar for any urgent meetings. There was a new-staff orientation going on in a couple of hours and then meetings for each of them with General Hammond before they went to their postings. General Hammond: the man was a born leader, and there wasn't a day went by the Walter didn't thank whatever real gods existed that he worked for the man. Walter flipped open the 1969 file. What he wouldn't give to see a young Lieutenant Hammond in action.

*

George Hammond picked himself up off the pavement and cursed himself for a fool. He didn't watch Jack O'Neill and the rest walk away because he'd been zatted by a ray gun. To make it worse, his wallet was empty. Damn the man. He shook his head and wondered just what kind of idiot he'd become that he was reading notes from his future self to his present self—and believing them. He rubbed the back of his head. Maybe he had a concussion.

Still, Jack O'Neill, who'd emptied George's wallet without a second thought, had known about George's father. He'd know about the first heart attack and the second.

As he moved around the scene, helping people up, “looking” for the escaped and dangerous foreign agents, and dealing with the aftermath of his own lunacy, he made plans to see his father. His dad would want to know that his son planned to be General Hammond...in thirty years. He hoped his father lived to see it.

*

Walter put on his jacket. It wouldn't do to look sloppy in front of the newbies. General Hammond made it a point to meet all new staff at the mountain. Walter briefed them first, explaining that the meeting would be short because the General was a busy man. They always came out a little dazed and starry-eyed. Walter passed them on to an SF in the hallway who directed them wherever they needed to go.

He would be back in the control room tomorrow, thank goodness. The technicians took turns handling the office work and staffing the control room. It gave everyone a break and kept people sharp. He didn't mind the paperwork, not really. It was a necessary evil in a place like this. He also liked to think that the people who worked in the control room were a little more diligent in their tasks than anyone else would be, overflowing in-box aside.

Walter sipped his coffee as he waited for Doctor Abernathy (a biologist, botanist, something like that) to exit. Next in line was the man standing beside him, a retired army captain and an electrical engineer whose last name was also Abernathy. Walter flipped back to the first file to confirm his suspicion. They were husband and wife. They'd given off a husband-and-wife vibe when they first came in, with the nods and the winks, kind of like Jack O'Neill and Teal'c. No, that was unkind. He'd never stick someone as nice as Teal'c with someone as antsy as Jack O'Neill.

When Doctor Abernathy came out and her husband went in, Walter stopped her. “Could you wait in the hallway a moment, ma'am?”

Puzzled, she nodded.

Walter closed the door behind her and got on the phone. “Doctor Jackson? I need you to come to General Hammond's office right way.” He paused. “I have Cassie's homework here. It ended up on my desk by mistake. Why don't you bring her with you?” He paused again. “No, sir, it's not an emergency, but it is important.”

He placed another call. “Captain Carter? You're needed in General Hammond's office right away, ma'am.” Unlike Doctor Jackson, Captain Carter didn't argue. He knew she'd beat Daniel to the office. He placed two more calls to Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c. He stopped the interviews, rescheduling them all for tomorrow. When Mr. Abernathy came out, he put up a hand. “Please wait, sir.”

“Sergeant?” Hammond asked, stepping out of his office.

“If you'll give me a minute, sir, I'll explain.”

As it turned out, he didn't have to. The squeals from Captain Carter and Doctor Abernathy came right on the heels of Colonel O'Neill's “what the hell?”

He heard the laughter as O'Neill said, “a long time ago,” and Doctor Jackson's voice continued, “in a galaxy far, far away.”

He stepped back and watched as pandemonium moved into his office and introductions were made: “General Hammond, this is Michael. Cassie, this is our friend, Jenny....”

After the noise died down, Jenny said, “Jack, you told us you were in trouble with the establishment.”

General Hammond answered. “As the establishment in this facility, I can tell you he usually is, ma'am.”

Walter grinned. Best. Damn. Job. Ever.

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X is for Xenogeneic
Plausible Deniability
by traycer

They had come to rebel against him. Just as their ancestors had thousands of years ago.

But Ra was xenogeneic, derived from the Goa'uld and he stared at the humans, determined that they would not succeed. They would never succeed.

His thoughts went to the bomb these humans had brought with them. They had come far in their knowledge, much farther than he thought they would. Their weapons, the bomb. But Ra would not be defeated. He was their god, and he would prove it to the people of this planet. He would put an end to this rebellion before it began.

He turned to look at the humans, relishing in their subservient attitude. They were on their knees as they should be. Yet something about them was familiar. Ra searched his memory, relying on the reliability of the Goa'uld recall, until he found what he was looking for. He focused his thoughts on the faces of those who led the rebellion on Earth, two of which appeared to be kneeling before him.

He stood up and walked toward his captives. The resemblance was uncanny. They appeared to be younger, but Ra had heard of the experiments of the Ancient ones. They must have succeeded in making time travel a possibility, and somehow these mere humans had gained access to that technology.

Or will gain access, perhaps. He stared at the younger versions of the men who led the rebellion that forced him to flee his kingdom during his reign on Earth and swiftly chose an approach to determine the truth.

"Show yourselves," he ordered his Jaffa. He wanted the humans to see the faces of their downfall. His ploy worked well, for he easily read the truth in the eyes of the humans. They had not known his guards were humans like themselves. This proved that the rebellion in Ancient Egypt resulted from journeys through time that had not yet taken place. Ra transformed his own image then, relishing in the triumph he felt that he would succeed. He was their god and he was determined to deter that journey. They would no longer have the opportunity.

The older one turned on his guards in a desperate attempt to overpower them, but Ra was not surprised. The man had done the same during the other rebellion. They never learn, he thought as he watched their rapid defeat. But he needed one of them to show his slaves that he was still their god. He looked down at the body of the younger one, who was clearly the leader of the rebellion. It was he who had rallied the slaves during the rebellion on Earth, and Ra knew that this time would be no different. The younger one, he decided, as he ordered his Jaffa to revive the human. The younger man who stupidly gave his life for another. Ra knew he would do it again, and in doing so, he would then show the slaves that loyalty to their god is the only way to survive.

Yes, he thought with savage satisfaction. The younger man would prove to the slaves of this world that Ra was their true god, and afterward he would sacrifice the human in a public display of dominance before punishing both worlds for their betrayal.

"Gather my slaves," he told his First Prime. "Bring them to me."

He walked over to his throne and sat down, knowing that the rebellion on Earth would be no more. He was and always would be victorious.

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Y is for Yearning
by zeilfanaat

They couldn’t change things. It could cause a butterfly effect. Probably would. It was dangerous enough just being back in time. As Carter had said, they had to focus on damage control.

And yet…

He’d listened as his team had discussed the possible opportunities of going back in time. Wryly amused at Daniel’s enthusiasm at the thought of going back in time to see with his own eyes what he could only read or theorize about now. Heard Teal’c’s comment on being able to change or influence important historical events.

And all he heard was that one gunshot. He flinched, as if hearing it for real again, the sound echoing through his mind.

As often as he’d revisited those moments, and had punished himself for it, he’d never allowed his mind to wonder ‘what if?’. Whenever his thoughts would turn in that direction, he would push them away, lock them up in a mental vault, and focus on something else.

He had played that game early on his career, and he knew it was both futile and damaging. That blown up mission in East Germany in 1982 had shown him that. How often he had not gone over that mission again in his head, to try and figure out what they could have done differently… He’d driven himself nuts. And in the end, it was useless.

In the aftermath of the mission with the Keeper, Jack knew his team had wondered why it was that particular mission that he and Teal’c had been set to relive. Why not the one thing that jumped into everyone’s mind as ‘number one occurrence to change’? He had considered it himself.

The Keeper had definitely been going for the big impact memories. And while there was no question that that mission in East Germany was right up there, if there was one occurrence in his life that had a huge impact, losing his son… well, that was just in its own private category. So why had he not let Jack try and save his son? Jack could venture a guess as to why.

The Keeper had zoomed in on those memories that the person had repeatedly revisited in their minds to try and figure out a way they could have changed the outcome. Jack–however much he longed for Charlie to be alive–had pretty quickly stopped allowing himself to really think of how his actions might have caused a different outcome. Yes, he had been suicidal right after Charlie had died. But that was because he had focused on the reality. Not because he’d imagined how it could have been.

He knew if he allowed his mind to go in that direction, he’d lose it. His heart would break anew. Just as he could never bring back John, he would never be able to bring back Charlie. It would never be real. If he had to guess, that was why the Keeper had not put him in that spot. It had simply not been a possibility in Jack’s mind. So it took the Keeper a while to latch on to the fact that there was in fact a higher emotional impact experience.

Jack figured that there were probably a couple of shrinks out there who would frown on his coping methods. But if that was what had kept him from having to relive that life-changing day, Jack could only be grateful. The one and only time when he’d come close to playing the ‘what if’ game again with respect to Charlie had been when the blue crystal had taken on his form, and later that of his son.

Interestingly enough, that had shown Jack just how capable he actually was of imaging an unbroken world. And it had made him all the more determined not to allow it.

And yet, here he was. Back in time. This time the ‘what if’s could become reality…for real.

Possibilities to prevent that–to make sure the gun was not in the house, to make sure there was no ammunition, to let his son play with the water gun so maybe, maybe he wouldn’t go looking for his Dad’s real one–these possibilities could now actually come true.

Here was his chance. The one he had longed for with his entire, yet broken, being, no matter how often and how far he’d pushed those thoughts and feelings away.

A simple letter would do. A note. Didn’t have to contain much information. Drop it off at a law firm or something, make sure the note would be delivered to himself, two weeks, maybe just a day, before three lives would be shattered. That shouldn’t affect the time line too much, right?

Who was he kidding. It would affect their timeline in an enormous way. That was the point.

Just for once, he allowed himself to think of just how their lives could have been. A family of three… whole. There would have been fights, there would have been laughter, there would have been tears, but most importantly, they would have been alive. All of them. How he yearned for that to be reality. To be able to play catch with his son, and watch him grow up.

And then reality slammed him back to the here and now. Or rather, to the here and then.

He shouldn’t have let his mind conjure up what might have been. He was right. It hurt…so…much.

Because he couldn’t change it. Not a thing. It would cause too many changes. For all they knew, even a note to himself not to leave his gun home that day, might destroy the world, the universe as they knew it. Facing that possibility, he knew he’d have to choose to let only his personal world be destroyed. And it hurt.

Over these few days, he distracted himself reliving a slice of 1969. They taught Teal’c to drive. He fixed the truck. Ok, that was only partially a good distraction, as it reminded him of Sara. But at least he was able to fix something.

At some point Carter was staring off into the distance, but just as he was considering having a chat with the Captain, she seemed to reach a decision. Whatever it was that had her in a reflective mood, it was now firmly behind a wall.

He actually saw the moment Daniel realised just what he could stop from happening in just a few years from now. Recognized the gutted feeling that flitted across the face of the archaeologist when he too concluded that he couldn’t do anything to stop his parents from being killed. Their eyes met from across the hippie van.

Daniel flinched as the realization hit him just what Jack would like to change. And couldn’t. So much power and yet they were powerless. Daniel worked his jaw a couple of times, trying, for both of them, to find loopholes that weren’t there. “This…sucks,” Daniel concluded eventually. Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

He was so happy to see Hammond waiting for them, when they stepped back into their own time. Relieved. Not just for having made it. Relieved for no longer being in that extremely tempting position to change what his heart longed to change.

He could only hope he wouldn’t regret it. A part of him always would. Because just for once, he had allowed himself to imagine a different world. And now he’d have to carry those images with him as well, knowing they could actually have been reality. Sometimes he hated being one of the good guys.

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Z is for ZPM
Flight of Future Days
by goddess47

"Unscheduled off world activation!"

Sam Carter locked her computer screen and went racing to the Gate room. She tapped her foot impatiently when she had to wait for an elevator to go down the four floors to the Gate Room.

"What do you have?" she demanded, dropping into the seat next to Walter.

He nodded at the now quiet Gate. "We had a brief connection, but no IDC," he replied. "The source seems to be blocked but it was an 8 symbol address."

"Pegasus?" Sam asked.

"Need to verify that," Walter replied. "But there was a data burst. I've isolated it for you to look at."

"Thanks," Sam answered absently. She started to dig into the Gate logs to see what she could find out about the dial-in.

"Okay, almost certain this was from Pegasus," Sam decided, starting to read the logs. "But it's not an address I'm familiar with."

"What ya got, Carter?" Jack O'Neill gave the illusion of wandering into the Gate Room. Sam knew he had been in meetings with yet another group of IOA representatives, all of who were attempting to blame the SGC for 'losing' the city of Atlantis.

O'Neill was 'hiding' from Homeworld Security and Washington politicians at the SGC. His rationale was that their off world allies needed some care-and-feeding, but he really just wanted to hang out where he could 'get his head on straight.'

Sam secretly cheered on McKay, Sheppard and Woolsey for stealing Atlantis, leaving Earth six months ago to go back to Pegasus. There was even a part of her that wished they had asked her to go with them, but she knew she could help everyone better from Earth.

"Brief wormhole, made contact before dropping, probably from Pegasus but we won't know for sure until we do some more analysis," she reported. "Walter has a data burst that was received when the worm hole was connected. It's isolated at the moment, and the next thing we're going to look at."

"Atlantis?" O'Neill asked, raising an eyebrow.

She shrugged. "Most likely, but we won't know for a bit."

"Think it's something malicious?" O'Neill went on.

"Again, no idea," she replied. "If it's really Atlantis, I'm going with 'probably not.' But we'll handle it with kid gloves until we know more."

"Okay, then." She knew O'Neill was as frustrated as she was with those answers. "Keep me in the loop."

"Will do," she replied.

O'Neill went back to his meeting, while Sam and Walter worked to move the data burst to an isolated computer where Sam could work on it. She'd have to think about who, if anyone, she'd ask to help her.

Sam debated about where to start and figured the data burst would be more important. She downloaded it to a disposable laptop and gingerly looked at the file.

Not totally surprised, the 'outer wrapper' was a semi-sophisticated cipher code and the encryption screamed Rodney McKay at her. Knowing it was from Rodney made it, relatively, easy to open.

The message was brief.

Sam, sending some presents your way, but since it's a 3rd party delivery, no ETA. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

--MRM

PS - Found a puzzle I think you'll enjoy.

Sam sat back and considered her options.

The larger part of the data burst was further encrypted. Pretty sure it was from Rodney, she knew it wouldn't be impossible to solve, but he did enjoy giving her a challenge. Rather than take the time with that part now, she decided to move on to the Gate logs.

"Carter?" O'Neill was at the door of her lab.

She sat up and stretched. "Hey! What time is it?"

"Late," O'Neill answered. "Almost midnight."

"Damn," she replied. "Cassie's in town for two days, and she's staying at my place. We were going to go to a movie or something."

"She called Daniel earlier, and he warned her you might not make it out of here too early," O'Neill grinned. "I think he went over there to visit."

"Oh, good," Sam sighed. "Glad she didn't have to be alone all night. She'd have managed, it's just that we haven't had a chance to talk in person in a while."

"Well, at this point, unless there's something important, you should take a break and take tomorrow off like you had planned," O'Neill said firmly.

Sam sat back in the chair, reluctant to leave just as yet.

"Sam..." O'Neill growled.

"Yeah, okay," she agreed, reluctantly. "There's nothing that's going to happen soon." She recounted Rodney's message, and her conclusions about the dial-in.

"Almost certain it's from somewhere in Pegasus, but not necessarily from Atlantis," she reported. "I've compared the dial-in to other Atlantis dial-ins, and there are enough differences in the connection signature that I'm pretty sure it's not from the city."

"Thought Atlantis had the only crystal that could dial us from Pegasus," O'Neill asked.

"The only known crystal," Sam replied gently. "Doesn't mean there wasn't a backup, somewhere."

"Damn Ancients," O'Neill swore.

"Amen," Sam answered.

"Okay, close up, and get out of here," O'Neill directed. "Unless you tell me there's some kind if immediate danger, stay home and do whatever girlie things you and Cassie do."

"You coming for dinner?" she asked.

"Youbetcha," O'Neill promised.

It took Sam another week to get through the encryption for the rest of the message. Looking through the file, she knew it was a good thing she was still isolated from the SGC network. She stared at it for a long time before she saved it, turned off the computer and went to talk to O'Neill.

"Hey!" Sam said cheerfully. "How about some lunch? I could use some air."

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. Important? "I happen to have some free time."

Sam gave a terse nod but kept up the smile. "We can get some pizza," she suggested.

"Want to include Daniel and Teal'c?" O'Neill asked. Do we need some security?

"Teal'c got a message this morning and went off to Dakara," Sam informed him. "But Daniel could join us." We should be okay.

The pizza place wasn't crowded and they got a table in the back room separated from the other guests. They waited until their food had been delivered before O'Neill said, "So, what's up?"

"That data burst from the other day," Sam started. They nodded. "It's essentially from the future. Or at least part of it."

"Carter! Time travel?" O'Neill whined. "You know that gives me a headache!"

She grinned. "Sorry! But, that's what it looks like."

"What makes you think that what you have is from the future? And where did Rodney get it?" Daniel asked.

"It's definitely from Atlantis," Sam answered. "The file has headers from the city database."

"Damn Ancients," O'Neill muttered.

"I know," Sam sighed.

"What did it say?" Daniel asked.

"It had information on an advanced power source," Sam said. "It'll take some time to work through the math, and then some work to actually build the device, but it should be do-able."

"What kind of advanced power source?" O'Neill asked.

"Not quite unlimited," Sam hedged.

"But close?" Daniel asked.

"Close." Sam agreed.

"And dangerous, if the wrong people get their hands on it, I assume," O'Neill frowned.

"Yup," Sam agreed.

"Damn," O'Neill replied. He took another piece of pizza.

"Now what?" Daniel asked.

"I'd like to work on the math, at least," Sam replied. "I'd like to get some help, though."

"Who?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, Jeannie Miller would be an asset," Sam proposed. "And if I have her work off site, it'll help keep attention off the project."

"At least she has the proper security clearance," O'Neill agreed. "Will it be safe?"

Sam had to shrug. "If I deliver the files to her personally, and make sure she keeps it secure, it's no worse than dealing with the moles we have in the SGC. She's the only one I'd trust with this."

"True," O'Neill had to agree. He didn't have to like it, but the reality was there were too many members of the SGC who had multiple masters. Between the Trust, NID and the free-lancers selling information to the highest bidder, O'Neill often wondered if there was anyone outside SG-1 and his immediate staff that actually worked for just the SGC.

Sam worked on the problem on and off, as she had time. Irregular discussions with Jeannie Miller helped move the process along. But Jeannie was doing most of the work, since Sam had other work and missions to deal with.

Sam had come to have a love/hate relationship with serendipity. At the same time Jeannie reported she had done as much as she could with the math, they got a report from an ally that there was a 'package' that had Sam Carter's name on it.

Remembering the original message from Rodney McKay, Sam decided to go and see what was going on.

"This is it?" Sam asked, eyeing the crate warily. It was the size of two-drawer file cabinet and probably weighed almost fifty pounds.

"Yes," Nath, the local headman said. "Traders asked if we knew your name. They brought the box and we paid them, hoping you would be interested."

"We certainly are," Sam agreed. "What do we owe you?"

Sam let Daniel haggle the price, knowing it was only fair that they reimburse Nath and his village for what they had paid, as well as give them a reasonable profit on the transaction.

Back at the SGC, Sam looked over the crate carefully. If it was booby trapped, she didn't want anyone to get hurt. But it was also carefully sealed; no one had been able to open it before it got to her.

Actually opening the crate turned out to be simple. It was biometric, taking both her handprint and a retinal scan to open the crate.

"Where'd they get those?" O'Neill asked when she told him.

Sam shrugged. "Atlantis. We did enough of this sort of thing when I was working there that it would probably be in the city database."

"What the hell was McKay thinking?" O'Neill demanded.

"It's about the safest way to ensure the crate was delivered intact," Sam answered.

"So?" O'Neill asked. "What ya get?"

"ZPMs," Sam grinned.

"What?" O'Neill's jaw dropped. "Plural?"

"An even dozen," Sam confirmed.

"Where'd they come from?" O'Neill asked. "Atlantis was always running through those like water."

"It's the other part of the equation," Sam said. "Literally. With the equations Jeannie has worked through, the ZPMs serve as the batteries for the power source. We still have to work through the engineering, but, well, these ZPMs and the generator we can build will provide enough energy to power the globe for the next couple hundred years."

"Carter!" O'Neill exclaimed.

"Yeah, I know," Sam sighed.

"How long would it take to build your generator thingy?" O'Neill asked.

Sam shook her head. "No idea just as yet," she admitted. "Maybe a couple of years."

"What do you need?"

"No one can know what we have here," she started. "If anyone knows what's here, they'll disappear faster than you can blink. Everyone will have a legitimate reason to have just one, and I suspect it takes all twelve to get the generator running."

"That's not going to be easy," O'Neill frowned.

"The fact that I'm the only one that can open the box will be useful," she said. "If we can get it out of here without anyone knowing that it's even here, that would be better."

"Where would you put it?" O'Neill asked.

Sam frowned for a moment, then grinned. "If I don't tell you, you have plausible deniability."

"True," he admitted. "You'll keep it safe?"

"Promise," Sam replied. "I think I figured where it came from."

"Besides Atlantis?" O'Neill said.

"Well, it is from Atlantis," Sam explained. "But Atlantis in the future. That accounts for the not-quite-right information in the Gate logs. They've somehow gone to the future, found the ZPMs and the power source information, and sent it back to us."

"Why would they do that?" O'Neill was puzzled. "I mean, they don't owe us anything."

"If they're in the future, let's hope they know something we don't," Sam pointed out.

With some help from Siler, Sam and Daniel managed to get the crate out of the mountain and into the back of a pickup truck she had rented. She figured someone needed to know what she was doing, and Daniel was the best insurance she had.

They drove north to Denver. Sam figured the bigger city would provide at least the illusion of security that Colorado Springs wouldn't provide.

When she explained her plan to Daniel, he laughed at her. "Really? You think that's going to work?" he said.

She shrugged. "If you have anything better to suggest, I'd be glad to hear it!"

"No, no, no." Daniel shook his head. "It's almost so much of a cliche that it should work."

"That was my thought," Sam said.

Sam had done the research ahead of time and followed the GPS to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, on the same block as the Denver Zoo. They met a friend of Siler's at the loading dock. The man introduced himself as "Steve" and helped them load the crate on to a dolly.

"It's going to be labeled as 'on loan from the personal collection of Meredith McKay,' as you requested," Steve told them as he handed them a business card.

Daniel snickered.

"Daniel!" Sam admonished him.

"Come on," he rolled his eyes. "It is funny!"

"When you're ready to pick it up, bring that card back," he said. "Even if I'm not here, it has the storage number on the back."

Sam turned over the card. Z47-McKay She had to laugh.

"Thanks!" she said.

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Comments

[martyfan]

Your formatting is a little borked. Looks like it goes to italics at the start of the entry for S and never changes back.

[fignewton]

Thanks for the heads up! Will fix.

[lightbird]

Thanks so much for putting this together. An incredible amount of work.

[fignewton]

Stargate is worth it! :D