Daniel in Wonderland-Part 1
This story is dedicated to the anonymous giver of gifts. I hope this story gives you as much pleasure as your gift gives me.
Title: Daniel in Wonderland-Part 1
Author: SG_Betty
Word count: 11,782 (Parts 1 and 2)
Genre: Stargate SG-1, Gen (with allowances for humor)
Characters: Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter, Jack O'Neill, Teal'c, Vala Mal Doran, Cam Mitchell
Rating: PG-16 (PG-13 isn't quite enough, R is massive overkill)
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: While the situations and dialogue in this story are my own (with the exception of the section of dialogue taking place in Daniel's office, which is quoted from 'The Light'), all characters are wholly owned by Gekko Productions, Double Secret, and MGM.
Thanks: Thanks to Lokei, for a wonderful beta of the initial story that started the ball rolling, and for reassuring me as to it's amusement value. Thanks to Aurora Novarum for an equally wonderful beta of the behemoth that it became. Her help was invaluable in so many ways that they cannot all be listed here. Great thanks and appreciation to you both!
When they found the second quantum mirror, Sam wanted to leave it where it was, just leave it and forget that they ever found it. She was very clear about that.
Daniel pointed out that if they could find it, so could all kinds of people-and things-that they’d rather didn’t. It hadn’t been difficult to convince Sam. She’d known that already-even if she wished she didn’t. He could tell that she really, really wanted to leave it there.
Teal’c suggested that they destroy it. That actually seemed like a pretty good idea. After all, General Hammond ordered the last one destroyed. It was almost certain that General Landry would follow precedent and have this one destroyed, too. Daniel wasn’t in favor of that sort of thing, generally, but in this case, he had been more than willing to consider it.
The only one who disagreed was Vala, and she disagreed strenuously. She thought it was much too valuable to waste, and that they should sell it to the highest bidder-among their friends, of course. Daniel let that go, because she kept those kinds of comments to a minimum these days.
Mitchell had been very quiet while they were talking about what to do. After listening to the argument go back and forth for a while, he’d brought up the alternate teams that had showed up through the Stargate, and reminded everyone just how difficult it had been to send them back. Damn him. He also reminded them that even if the Ori were dead, their followers weren’t-and that if things got really bad, well, even “more really bad”, they might need to find a solution where they’d rather not. Daniel hadn’t wanted to agree with him, but he had to admit that Mitchell was right.
They couldn’t leave it. They couldn’t destroy it. As much as they might regret it, they had to take it back. This time, it would stay on the base where they could keep an eye on it. At least this time, they found the control device with it.
That was how Daniel ended up in a small utility closet looking at a quantum mirror. The location was out of the way, the room was too small to be otherwise useful and, as of that morning, it had multiple surveillance cameras, and a very heavy door.
Vala was making an otherwise simple task more difficult than it had to be. Her behavior had improved a lot since she had first showed up on the base, but she still didn’t have enough to occupy her time. It made her annoying. Frequently.
Daniel had been talking to General Landry about ways that she could be more useful when the team wasn’t offworld, but other than the occasional undercover mission, they had drawn a blank, which is how Vala happened to be standing behind him holding the control device.
“What does this button do, Daniel?”
“No! Don’t-” He swung away from the mirror and reached out for the device, overextending himself while trying to grab it before her finger hit the button. That wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if Vala hadn’t also turned, in an effort to hold onto the device, and knocked her shoulder into him. The control device slipped from both their grasps and went hurtling through the air. Unbalanced, Daniel put out a hand behind him instinctively...where the mirror was. The last thing he heard was the sound of a small object hitting the wall.
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Daniel regained his balance and found himself in a room very like the one that he had left, except that there was no control device-and the mirror wasn’t showing his SGC anymore. It was showing some kind of storage facility. The window between realities must have changed when the device hit the wall. Not good … It might not even be working properly; it hit the wall pretty hard. On the plus side, he was alone, and there were no cameras.
Staring at the mirror hopefully had no effect, although he tried that for a long time. There was no change. No view of his own reality appeared. He crouched down and leaned against a wall for a while. When that got too boring, he paced. Finally, he had to admit to himself that the device must have been damaged. Vala would have gone for help long before now, and he didn’t think it would take this long for Sam to find him.
He moved to the door and tried the handle. To his surprise, it opened. How very convenient. Not secure, but convenient… He opened the door a crack and peered into the hall. Still on level 19... No Goa’uld, no priors, no replicators… So far, so good. Maybe he’d lucked into an SGC that wasn’t in imminent danger of destruction-or not. He wasn’t going to count on it.
Easing the door open, he slipped into the hall. Getting the control device was his first priority, but to do that he was going to have to talk to someone. He wanted some idea of what kind of place this was before he did that. Security seemed more than a little lax, he could tell that already. The threat level must be very low. Maybe he’d find the device just lying around. His mouth turned up in a wry smile. That would be way too easy. One thing he knew about quantum mirrors, they never seemed to send you anywhere nice. None of the alternate SG-1’s had come from pleasant, peaceful places, and he sure hadn’t found one when he’d gone through the mirror that other time.
Sam’s lab-that was the first place to look. If the device was anywhere that he would be able to find it, it would be in Sam’s lab, and if he ran into Sam, that would probably be okay, too. The Sams from alternate universes had been pretty reasonable, once you got past the usual scientific doubt; maybe this one would be too. Besides, he might be stuck on this level-there was a good chance that his keycard wouldn’t work on the elevator. There was no way that security could be so lax that he wouldn’t need one, this was still Cheyenne Mountain.
He took his keycard from his pocket and tried it on the lock at the stairs. No luck. He didn’t find that surprising given the complexity of the cryptographic algorithms used in the cards. Still, it was disappointing. At least this was a good level on which to be stuck-if you had to be stuck…
Daniel thought about stopping at the armory, but decided against it. He’d better make sure he wasn’t dead here before he went traipsing in, asking for a weapon--and they wouldn’t exactly be handing those out unless he could come up with a pretty good reason. ‘I’m from another reality and feeling kind of twitchy’ wasn’t going to cut it.
He moved quickly through the halls, which were surprisingly empty. His SGC was a hive of activity, with upwards of a hundred people on duty even in the latest hours. If time was the same, it was only about 14:00 hours. This SGC was barely populated. He saw one airman get in an elevator, but apart from that, he saw no one.
Damn! Sam-a Sam-was in her lab. He wouldn’t be able to search for the device, or even have a look around to see if they were working on something creepy and genocidal.
He had to do something. Eventually someone was going to come by and wonder why Dr. Jackson was lurking outside the lab with his back against the wall. Time to bite the bullet. Daniel knocked on the frame of the open door.
“Uh, hi… I don’t know if-”
“Oh, hi Daniel. That’s a new look. More subtle than some.” She gave him a grin.
New? Subtle? “Sorry, what?” His eyebrows rose.
Sam, well, AU-Sam, narrowed her eyes and looked at him more closely. “Wait, you’re not ‘our’ Daniel, are you? You must have come through the quantum mirror.”
Daniel nodded, relieved that he wasn’t going to have to explain the existence of alternate universes. That was always awkward. “Does that happen a lot?”
“More often than you’d think. That’s why we don’t lock the door any more. It’s almost always you, and you’re hardly ever a threat to us. Except when you’re military, and General O’Neill is an archeologist. Sometimes that’s not so good.”
“Jack-an archeologist?”
“You find that odder than you being in the military?”
“Yes! No… I don’t know.” He rubbed his forehead. “If I could just borrow your control device…”
“Sorry, first we have to debrief you. Protocol, you know.” She left the project she was working on. It had a lot of blinking lights, but no obvious function. “Follow me, please.”
They left the lab and moved toward the nearest elevator.
“I guess I must be alive here. You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“Oh, yes. Right now, anyway.”
That didn’t sound good. “You’ve defeated the Goa’uld?”
Sam nodded “And the replicators. We think we’ve killed the Ori, but their armies are still a problem.”
“No differences there. We’re in the same position.”
They reached the elevator and she pushed the button. “The most common difference seems to be the instances.”
“Instances?”
“We experience persistent anomalies that seem to be unique to our universe. Dr. Felger theorized that it’s some kind of quantum bubble affecting the fabric of our reality, a distortion of some kind. I think that’s a bunch of hooey, but something changes who we are, and how we perceive ourselves, on a basic level. We call the periods of instability ‘instances’. Frankly, it’s easier to show you than to explain.”
Okay, that made no sense. Daniel decided to take her at her word and wait to see what happened. It sounded like something big was going on here, but if Sam couldn’t understand something about physics, he probably wasn’t going to figure it out.
The elevator door opened to reveal a Marine who was strangely reluctant to move aside to allow Daniel to enter the elevator. That was odd, and the marine kept sneering at him. Very odd-and more than a little irritating. Daniel turned to face the Marine and stared back with a frown, which got an even stranger reaction. The Marine looked shocked and got off at the next floor. What kind of response had he been expecting? Daniel frowned at the closing door.
When the door opened on level 27, he was greeted by an unnerving sight. It was himself, carrying an enormous pile of books. The hallway was suddenly full of people and his other self bumped into at least half of them before tripping over his own feet and sending books flying through the air. Daniel winced and bit his lip.
As his other self scrambled to retrieve the books, Daniel could see that he was covered in bruises and had a large bandage on his leg. His condition didn’t seem to be bothering him, though. He bounded up to them and started talking excitedly to Sam. “We have to go to P3C-278, Sam! I know there’s a Jaffa base there, and the atmosphere is toxic, but look!”
He put the books down on the floor and pulled a UAV image out of the pile. “It’s an obelisk! I don’t know what it says, but it might be important!” His other self wasn’t so much showing the image to Sam as waving it wildly in the air. One hand smacked Daniel in the head.
“Oh, Sorry! Hey, you’re me… Tell me all about your reality-it might be important.”
Sam interrupted. “We’re on our way to the briefing room, we’ll meet you there.”
“Okay!” He picked up his stack of books and bounded away again.
Daniel leaned toward Sam with a frown. “What’s wrong with him? Does he have brain damage?”
“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. That’s all part of this instance, and not the worst part.”
The other ‘Daniel’ had almost reached the end of the hall when a light fixture fell out of the ceiling directly on him, trailing live, sparking wires.
Sam gave a sigh and looked at Daniel. “That’s the worst part. Let’s get him to the infirmary”
Luckily, the electrical current ceased just as they reached the unconscious other ‘Daniel’. He couldn’t help thinking of himself as the ‘real’ Daniel. It was egotistical, but it was hard to take his other self seriously and even harder to think of him as an alternate version of himself. He picked up the injured ‘Daniel’ in a fireman’s carry and headed toward the infirmary. “So, this happens a lot?”
“Constantly, but don’t worry. He’ll be fine. He’s always fine.”
Once they got to the infirmary, and Daniel lowered the unconscious man to a bed, Sam seemed to forget what she had said about this ‘Daniel’ being fine. She held his hand with an intensity usually reserved for the dying.
“What has occurred?” Teal’c arrived at the infirmary, without being called and stood at the end of the bed.
Teal’c seemed pretty normal. That was a relief. “He was-”
Without turning away from Sam, Teal’c raised a hand to silence Daniel.
“Daniel brought our ‘Daniel’ to the infirmary-he was hit on the head and electrocuted.”
“Is ‘Daniel Jackson’ seriously injured?”
Daniel tried again. “He doesn’t-”
The hand came up again. This time there was a sneer to go along with it.
“Is there a problem?” Daniel lifted an eyebrow.
Teal’c turned back to the man on the bed. “Ours is the only reality of consequence.”
“I could say the same, but it wouldn’t be polite.”
Teal’c ignored him and moved to Sam’s side.
The man on the bed stirred. “Jaaack…”
Sam leaned forward. “He’s not here right now, Daniel. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
‘Daniel’ nodded weakly and tried to smile.
Jack came running into the room and to the alternate’s bedside. That was a big surprise-Daniel would have expected Jack to be in Washington. He was hardly ever in Colorado Springs anymore, but he was here now, ruffling ‘Daniel’s’ hair.
“Hey, Danny. You okay?”
“F-fine… ‘m fine…”
His alternate held onto Jack’s hand like a lifeline. They were being awfully dramatic about what appeared to be a relatively minor injury. Maybe it was a cumulative thing-‘Daniel’ was really beat up.
Daniel raised a hand. “Excuse me… Uh, I really have to get out of here. About that control device, I-”
Shaking her head, Sam pointed at the other ‘Daniel’. “Sorry, we can’t leave him, he needs us.”
“If you could just tell me where it is, I could-”
“It’s in Daniel’s office, but you’ll have to wait for one of us to take you there.”
Suddenly the faces of everyone in the room blurred. Jack disappeared-that was unnerving. The man on the bed… transformed. That was the only way to describe it. The other ‘Daniel’ hadn’t been small, he’d been the same height as Daniel, and built like a hockey player, but this new ‘Daniel’ was huge. Daniel had never been exactly slight. He’d started out pretty much like the ‘Daniel’ on the bed, and he’d been working out for years now. He knew it showed. His new alternate self was larger-much, much, larger-and armed to the teeth.
Daniel must have looked stunned, because Sam smiled at him. “This is one of those rare instances that I was talking about.” She was wearing a TAC vest now, and had a P-90 clipped to her chest, not to mention grenades in her pockets and an M-6 slung over one shoulder. “It won’t last long.”
The heavily muscled, black-clad ‘Daniel’ swung his feet off the bed. “I’m fine. Let’s go fight the Ori.”
Daniel gave a little wave. “Sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if I could borrow one of your zats… or maybe an intar?”
“Sure.” Giant ‘Daniel’ gave him a zat. “Is it an incursion?”
Everyone blurred again, and Daniel put the zat in his pocket in case this instance didn’t prove to be as free with weaponry. This was strange enough that being armed seemed like a good plan-just in case. He looked at the new team and gave a little sigh of relief. They all looked pretty normal. He took that as a good sign.
Sam was staring at him and the other ‘Daniel’, with a weird look on her face, but at least no one was bleeding or deformed. Jack was still gone and Teal’c was… Teal’c. Daniel wondered why Teal’c didn’t seem to change as much as the others. He was being awfully quiet, though…
Daniel raised his eyebrows and tried to get Sam’s attention. “So, the control device?” She seemed to have forgotten about the debriefing. He wasn’t going to remind her.
Sam moved to stand next to the alternate ‘Daniel’, but kept staring at Daniel. “Do you really have to go so quickly? We could order some pizza and watch movies. Or go shopping!”
“Well, I’d kind of like to avoid the entropic cascade failure, and I don’t know how long it will take to find my reality, so yeah, I really do. And Big ‘Daniel’ was right-there are Ori out there that we have to do something about, in both our universes.”
Daniel hoped this Sam wouldn’t remember that he had forty-eight hours before there’d be a problem. He hadn’t even been here for two and he knew he didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary.
She sighed and shifted her attention to the ‘Daniel’ beside her, who was completely oblivious. He’d pulled a book out of his pocket and was reading, while mumbling in Abydonian. His verb usage was completely… wrong. Okay, this was starting to get disturbing. “Sam? The Ori?”
“We don’t really fight the Ori that much. Mostly we just talk, or eat pie.”
“You… eat pie? You don’t look for weapons to use against Adria, or try to help the worlds the Ori have taken?” Daniel took off his glasses and cleaned them vigorously. They weren’t that dirty, but he was getting increasingly irritated, and he thought he’d better not say anything for a minute. He took a deep breath and put his glasses back on. “Don’t you think that’s a little-”
Sam wasn’t listening to him. She was holding on to ‘Daniel’s’ arm and leaning on him. ‘Daniel’ only noticed that he was having trouble turning the page.
The world changed again. This time, everything was the same, except alternate ‘Daniel’ had noticed Sam’s attention. He tossed the book on the bed and stared back. And now he was touching. Oh, good… That wasn’t embarrassing at all. Nothing uncomfortable about watching yourself grope one of your best friends. “What say we go get that device now? Please? I just can’t stress enough how much I’d like to do that.”
Other ‘Daniel’ tore himself away from… what he was doing, and nodded. “Okay, I can understand you needing to get back. I’m sure you have… good reasons to want to hurry back. He turned back to Sam and stared into her eyes, then led them from the room.
Just as they got on the elevator, ‘Daniel’ disappeared and Jack appeared in his place.
“No, damn it! I have to get to level 18!”
Jack looked at him with a grin. “What’s your hurry, Danny-Boy? It’s time for pie.” He pushed the button for level 22 then turned his attention to Sam. He was as, uh… interested in her as the now-missing ‘Daniel’. Was that was better, or worse? Neither, actually. It was absolutely every bit as uncomfortable, if not quite as surreal.
“I don’t have time for pie! I have to get to ’Daniel’s’ office.”
“There’s always time for pie!”
“I don’t think you appreciate how much-”
“Daniel! Pie!”
Oh, God… Okay, he’d eat pie, but then he was getting that device, one way or another.
The pie and coffee both turned out to be really good. Urgo-good. He wondered why, but couldn’t resist a second piece. He was uncomfortably reminded of Persephone in the underworld-without the reproductive metaphor, of course.
He’d kept his eyes on his plate the entire time, and consequently had seen nothing disconcerting for the last fifteen minutes. He laid down his fork. “Well, that was great pie, I admit, but now I really have to get to ‘Daniel’s’ office.” He raised his eyes. Mistake-big mistake.
He launched himself toward the exit. He’d find another way to get to level 18. This was so not worth it.
Vala stepped into the doorway and blocked his path. She was wearing a great deal of leather and a very disturbing smile. “Want some company, handsome?”
Oh, no… Seriously, no... Not in this universe. “Uh, not really. I’m just on my way to level 18. I’m in a bit of a hurry.” He tried to side-step her, but she moved to block his path again then reached out to wrap her arms around his waist.
“Are you sure? It’s not like we haven’t had fun in your office before.” She leaned against him.
He tried to pull her arms away. “No, we haven’t! Sorry, but you seem to have me confused with a different ‘Daniel’. I guarantee you that we have had no ‘fun’.” He was still trying to disentangle himself when she suddenly dropped her arms and stepped back.
“Oh, you’re one of those dreary, prudish, alternate Daniels! That’s no fun, and I’m so veeeery bored.” She put her hands on her hips, frowned at him, and then smiled slowly. “Not all of them are dull, though. Once in a while, not often, but once in a while-” She paused with another one of those alarming smiles. “I’ll take you to level 18, then boring Daniel will be gone, and amusing Daniel can arrive.”
Daniel could have pointed out that he didn’t have to leave for another ‘Daniel’ to arrive, but he didn’t, and he rather doubted that many of the alternate ‘Daniel’s’ were sufficiently amusing for this Vala-a depressing number of them weren’t sufficiently alive. He rushed her to the elevator as fast as possible. He had to get to level 18 before Vala changed or disappeared.
She didn’t appreciate being dragged down the hallway to the elevator by her arm, but although she was complaining loudly, she got on, ran her keycard through, and pushed the button for level 18.
Collapsing against the side of the elevator, Daniel closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. Thank God.
“Are we as different as all that?”
Daniel opened his eyes to find Vala looking at him curiously. “Oh, yes. So very different…”
“And you find us unbearable.”
Well, sort of, yes. “No, not exactly.... This… just isn’t my SGC. You aren’t the people I know. You aren’t what.... You’re not-”
“We’re not your friends.”
“No.” He gave her a tired smile. “I miss them. Being with people who look like them, but aren’t-it makes it worse. I want to go home.” As the doors opened, he stepped off the elevator.
She frowned and nodded. “Good luck, Daniel.” The doors started to close.
“Wait! I need to get back-” The elevator was gone. “-to level 19.” He took off his glasses and covered his face with his hands. Daniel in Wonderland. Oh, crap. Well, he’d have to worry about that later. He put his glasses on and headed to his office.
There was a ‘Daniel’ in there. This must be where he went when Jack appeared. He was sitting in the dark. The desk lamp was on, but his chair was pushed back so that his face was hidden in shadow.
“Hi… Are you… all right?” Daniel knew that when he sat in the dark, he wasn’t in a happy place.
“None of it means anything.”
“None of what?”
“I tried. It just goes away.”
“Okay, that just doesn’t make sense.”
“You can't get it back.”
“That kind of depends on what it is.”
“You don't even know what I'm talking about.”
“No. No I don't. But you could explain it to me.” Quickly would be good. He really wanted to go home, but he didn’t want to leave ‘Daniel’ alone like this.
‘Daniel’ leaned forward, the desk lamp illuminating his face. “You shouldn’t be here.” He reached into his top drawer.
“No, I really shouldn’t.”
“Take this. Leave it in the mirror room. I’ll get it later.” He reached over and put a small object in Daniel’s hand-the control device.
“Thank you, but I don’t want to leave you alone when you’re feeling so-”
‘Daniel’ waved a hand. “When are we not alone, really…”
Uh, wow. That was… existential. Daniel was pretty sure he never went there, but he did wonder if it was creepy that he could relate more to this ‘Daniel’ than the others he’d met so far. Yeah, it was kind of creepy… He’d better think about that a bit, but not until he got home. Now it was really time to go. “Well, if you’re sure that you’re going to be okay… You know, they have some great pie and coffee down in the commissary. Why don’t you take a break?”
“Coffee… I could use some coffee.”
“It’s really good. We could share the elevator-I could use some help getting to level 19, anyway. I don’t have a keycard.”
‘Daniel’ pushed his chair back and they headed to the elevator. “Okay... The pie was good?”
“Really good.” Daniel pushed the ‘down’ button.
“What kind did you have?
“Peach.” The doors opened and they entered. Daniel was a bit worried that this was too easy, which said a lot about his day. It shouldn’t be hard to take an elevator down one floor.
“Ah. I like peach, too. I’ll try that.” ‘Daniel’ swiped his card and pushed 19 and 22 with an air of exhaustion. A minute later the door opened on level 19. “Good luck. I hope you get it back. I think you might…”
“Thanks. I hope you get it back too.” Daniel stepped out onto level 19.
The doors closed as ‘Daniel’ gave him a sad smile.
Well. That was different. He shook off the dark mood that the other ‘Daniel’ carried with him. Things were good. He was on level 19. Finally-in a few more minutes, he’d be back at the quantum mirror with the control device. He could go home.
Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of a blaring klaxon and the announcement of an unscheduled offworld activation. He heard Walter’s voice calling all personnel into position. The hallway filled with marines, some still pulling on gear, all running to the Gateroom. Surrounded, barely able to avoid being trampled, Daniel found himself shoved back into the elevator by the wave of bodies, and heading down to level 28. Caught up in the moment, Daniel ran, too.
The marines lined up opposite the Gate. SG-1 was waiting by the door with yet another ‘Daniel’. This one had long hair and a look of puppy-like innocence in his unnaturally blue eyes that Daniel was sure he’d never had. He ran to join them.
‘Daniel’ blinked and greeted him. “Um… Hi… You didn’t get to the mirror… Uh, sorry… That’s… probably my fault… Sorry… I should have… er… If I’d, uh… been more… Sorry…” He looked at the ground.
This was excruciating. “Why would it be your fault?”
“Well… I, uh… I should have… well… been faster and not so-”
“It wasn’t your fault, okay? Not everything is your fault. There’s no reason to blame yourself.”
“Uh, thanks…” ‘Daniel’ smiled at him shyly and blinked a couple more times.
Walter’s voice came through the speakers. “Receiving SG-7’s IDC”
Daniel heard General Hammond’s voice. “Open the iris!” That was nostalgic…
The iris opened. There was no activity for a moment, then a figure stepped through and took a few steps down the ramp. Her gaze fixed on ‘Daniel’ who seemed mesmerized.
“Hathor.” Oh, no-not a chance. She was not getting her hands on the puppy of an alternate self standing next to him. Hell, no… That would just be… Daniel reached down and pulled ‘Daniel’s’ Beretta from its holster and looked at Teal’c. “She’s a Goa’uld, Teal’c, and if you let her, she’s going to do really bad things.”
He didn’t bother saying anything to the rest of the team, he didn’t know which of them might be competent this go round. Teal’c always seemed to be relatively normal, and time was of the essence-before she breathed on anyone.
Teal’c nodded and the two of them stepped forward firing, Daniel with the Beretta, Teal’c with his staff weapon. He was dimly aware of voices raised around him, but his entire focus was on Hathor.
As she fell forward, the gold light in her eyes fading, Daniel moved up the ramp and put his last three bullets into the back of her neck where he knew the Goa’uld was wrapped around her spine. He lowered the gun and let out a deep sigh. Wow… That was cathartic…
Jack ran up the ramp. “What the hell was that, Daniel? Other-Daniel-Gah!” He rubbed a hand over his face. “She was our best chance to find out what happened to SG-7-until you killed her! I don’t usually have to yell at Daniels for being trigger-happy!”
Oops… Jack had more on his mind than Sam and pie this time. “Sorry, Jack, but I knew what Hathor did in my reality. Some things shouldn’t happen once, let alone be repeated-ever-and especially not to… him.” He waved an arm toward the wide-eyed ‘Daniel’. “She can breathe a drug that’s similar to nish'ta-every man on this base would have been in her control, and she would have…” He stopped and looked down at the dead Goa’uld.
Jack’s mouth tightened. He looked at ‘Daniel’ who seemed shocked by the sudden burst of violence. “Bad?”
“Yeah, bad.”
“Okay then. We’ll have to figure something else out. Hammond’s pretty pissed. You better stay in the Gate room. I’ll go talk to him.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I should be thanking you.” Jack made a ‘stay put’ motion and left the room.
Daniel felt a sudden wave of homesickness, not just for his reality, but for a time when Jack had still been leading the team. Not to take anything away from Mitchell-he was good. The team was good, but sometimes… Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. Get a grip-can’t let this place… You killed her. It’s all right… He opened his eyes and went back down the ramp to rejoin the team.
Teal’c inclined his head with a barely-there smile that reminded him of the Teal’c he had first known all those years ago.
“Good job, Daniel.” Sam gave him a nod and bent her head to check her equipment.
“Sam, you haven’t run into Hathor before? I thought you defeated the Goa’uld?”
“No, she was a new one. Our timeline is often different than the timelines in other realities. We’ve defeated the System Lords, but there are still occasional appearances of Goa’uld we haven’t encountered-and the ones we’ve killed don’t always stay dead.”
“Ah…I see.”
He turned to Teal’c. “You’ll kill Hathor if she comes back somehow, right, Teal’c?”
“I will, Daniel Jackson-with pleasure.”
“That’s what I thought… Good.”
‘Daniel’ filled him in about the mission that SG-7 had been on when whatever happened to them had occurred. He was going to miss this instance, even if it was a bit odd that his alternate was about as worldly as a six year old-at least he seemed to know what he was doing. Daniel savored the moment of relative normalcy. He knew it wouldn’t last-it had already lasted longer than the other instances. He hoped that Jack could calm his General Hammond down so he could get to the quantum mirror before the next change. It might be a lot worse.
The doors opened and Jack came back into the room, followed by a couple of marines bearing packs and weapons. “Hammond gets it, but he’s still not real happy. He wants you to come with us to retrieve SG-7-then you can go back through the mirror.”
“Okay, I can do that.” He might have gone anyway. He still had plenty of time before he had to start worrying about entropic cascade failure and he was feeling a little protective of this other ‘Daniel’, who seemed a bit simple. Daniel paused for a moment to consider his mental health-this couldn’t be good…
“Which marine units are we taking?” One of the marines handed him a pack.
“None. It’s just us.” Jack held up a Beretta in a holster, and a P-90, raising his eyebrows inquiringly.
Daniel took both. “We’re going into a possible hostage situation by ourselves? Isn’t that-” He started to question his feeling of normalcy. Jack seemed surprisingly unconcerned about going in potentially outgunned.
“Hammond is sending someone else along-a sort of expert, but not a marine unit.”
The doors opened again and a girl in BDUs entered the room. Daniel’s eyes widened. She had very long blond hair hanging down her back in a completely non-regulation way. Her teeth were blindingly white, and her eyes were… purple. She looked like a sixteen year old Barbie doll. Daniel was pretty sure that there wasn’t enough room in her abdomen for internal organs.
The girl stopped halfway to them and snapped to attention. Perfectly. “Lieutenant Mary-Sue Unvergleichlich, reporting for duty.”
“Unvergleichlich? Really?” Daniel smiled and leaned over to Sam, keeping his eyes on the ‘lieutenant’. “She doesn’t make replicators, does she?”
“Replicators? No! Why would you think that?”
“Well, when we found an android-”
“She’s not an android. That’s ridiculous. Lieutenant Unvergleichlich is a highly valued member of the SGC. She has more degrees than ‘Daniel’ and I put together, Special Forces training, and has single-handedly saved the Earth on several occasions. She’s… amazing!”
Daniel lifted an eyebrow and looked at Sam. “If she’s human, then she’s a kid-no way she’s a lieutenant.” A frighteningly well-developed kid, but he wasn’t going there. “And Special Forces training? I don’t think so…”
“Really, Daniel, you should know better than anyone that a young person can succeed at the SGC. Look at ‘Daniel’, he’s very young.”
“Sam, that’s crazy-if he’s the same age that I was when I looked sort of like him, then he’s at least thirty-two, and older than you!”
She looked confused, momentarily. “But… No, he’s…” Sam shook her head. “That’s beside the point. Her age isn’t important. Lieutenant Unvergleichlich has proven herself-all the teams are thrilled when she is assigned to them. Everyone just loves her, and she sings like an angel.”
“I’m sure she’s just what every SG team needs...” Oh, she was serious-and glaring at him. Okaaay… That was weird, but what wasn’t weird in this place. He’d go along with it-as long as the lieutenant didn’t start making replicators…
They all blurred again. Damn. This instance hadn’t been so bad. Daniel wondered if emergency situation somehow staved off the excesses of the previous instances. That might explain how they’d managed to do so many of the things that had been accomplished in his reality. If that was the case, this SG-1 might be okay. SG-7 still needed to be rescued.
When the blurring stopped, Jack was still there and ‘Daniel’ was the only one who seemed very different. He had short hair now, and that wide-eyed innocent look was gone. That was probably good. Daniel thought that feeling like he needed to protect himself-well, not himself, but his other self-was not a healthy place to be.
The dialing sequence commenced, with Walter calling out the chevrons as they locked. As he waited for the event horizon to form, He glanced at the rest of the team, trying to gauge their response to the spurious lieutenant. They didn’t seem to find anything about her to be unusual.
“God speed, SG-1.” Daniel smiled on hearing those words from this realty’s General Hammond. Some things didn’t change. He liked that. The blue light of the open Gate filled the room, and when the MALP showed no Jaffa, they went through to find the lost team.
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Daniel in Wonderland-Part 2
Title: Daniel in Wonderland-Part 1
Author: SG_Betty
Word count: 11,782 (Parts 1 and 2)
Genre: Stargate SG-1, Gen (with allowances for humor)
Characters: Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter, Jack O'Neill, Teal'c, Vala Mal Doran, Cam Mitchell
Rating: PG-16 (PG-13 isn't quite enough, R is massive overkill)
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: While the situations and dialogue in this story are my own (with the exception of the section of dialogue taking place in Daniel's office, which is quoted from 'The Light'), all characters are wholly owned by Gekko Productions, Double Secret, and MGM.
Thanks: Thanks to Lokei, for a wonderful beta of the initial story that started the ball rolling, and for reassuring me as to it's amusement value. Thanks to Aurora Novarum for an equally wonderful beta of the behemoth that it became. Her help was invaluable in so many ways that they cannot all be listed here. Great thanks and appreciation to you both!
When they found the second quantum mirror, Sam wanted to leave it where it was, just leave it and forget that they ever found it. She was very clear about that.
Daniel pointed out that if they could find it, so could all kinds of people-and things-that they’d rather didn’t. It hadn’t been difficult to convince Sam. She’d known that already-even if she wished she didn’t. He could tell that she really, really wanted to leave it there.
Teal’c suggested that they destroy it. That actually seemed like a pretty good idea. After all, General Hammond ordered the last one destroyed. It was almost certain that General Landry would follow precedent and have this one destroyed, too. Daniel wasn’t in favor of that sort of thing, generally, but in this case, he had been more than willing to consider it.
The only one who disagreed was Vala, and she disagreed strenuously. She thought it was much too valuable to waste, and that they should sell it to the highest bidder-among their friends, of course. Daniel let that go, because she kept those kinds of comments to a minimum these days.
Mitchell had been very quiet while they were talking about what to do. After listening to the argument go back and forth for a while, he’d brought up the alternate teams that had showed up through the Stargate, and reminded everyone just how difficult it had been to send them back. Damn him. He also reminded them that even if the Ori were dead, their followers weren’t-and that if things got really bad, well, even “more really bad”, they might need to find a solution where they’d rather not. Daniel hadn’t wanted to agree with him, but he had to admit that Mitchell was right.
They couldn’t leave it. They couldn’t destroy it. As much as they might regret it, they had to take it back. This time, it would stay on the base where they could keep an eye on it. At least this time, they found the control device with it.
That was how Daniel ended up in a small utility closet looking at a quantum mirror. The location was out of the way, the room was too small to be otherwise useful and, as of that morning, it had multiple surveillance cameras, and a very heavy door.
Vala was making an otherwise simple task more difficult than it had to be. Her behavior had improved a lot since she had first showed up on the base, but she still didn’t have enough to occupy her time. It made her annoying. Frequently.
Daniel had been talking to General Landry about ways that she could be more useful when the team wasn’t offworld, but other than the occasional undercover mission, they had drawn a blank, which is how Vala happened to be standing behind him holding the control device.
“What does this button do, Daniel?”
“No! Don’t-” He swung away from the mirror and reached out for the device, overextending himself while trying to grab it before her finger hit the button. That wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if Vala hadn’t also turned, in an effort to hold onto the device, and knocked her shoulder into him. The control device slipped from both their grasps and went hurtling through the air. Unbalanced, Daniel put out a hand behind him instinctively...where the mirror was. The last thing he heard was the sound of a small object hitting the wall.
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Daniel regained his balance and found himself in a room very like the one that he had left, except that there was no control device-and the mirror wasn’t showing his SGC anymore. It was showing some kind of storage facility. The window between realities must have changed when the device hit the wall. Not good … It might not even be working properly; it hit the wall pretty hard. On the plus side, he was alone, and there were no cameras.
Staring at the mirror hopefully had no effect, although he tried that for a long time. There was no change. No view of his own reality appeared. He crouched down and leaned against a wall for a while. When that got too boring, he paced. Finally, he had to admit to himself that the device must have been damaged. Vala would have gone for help long before now, and he didn’t think it would take this long for Sam to find him.
He moved to the door and tried the handle. To his surprise, it opened. How very convenient. Not secure, but convenient… He opened the door a crack and peered into the hall. Still on level 19... No Goa’uld, no priors, no replicators… So far, so good. Maybe he’d lucked into an SGC that wasn’t in imminent danger of destruction-or not. He wasn’t going to count on it.
Easing the door open, he slipped into the hall. Getting the control device was his first priority, but to do that he was going to have to talk to someone. He wanted some idea of what kind of place this was before he did that. Security seemed more than a little lax, he could tell that already. The threat level must be very low. Maybe he’d find the device just lying around. His mouth turned up in a wry smile. That would be way too easy. One thing he knew about quantum mirrors, they never seemed to send you anywhere nice. None of the alternate SG-1’s had come from pleasant, peaceful places, and he sure hadn’t found one when he’d gone through the mirror that other time.
Sam’s lab-that was the first place to look. If the device was anywhere that he would be able to find it, it would be in Sam’s lab, and if he ran into Sam, that would probably be okay, too. The Sams from alternate universes had been pretty reasonable, once you got past the usual scientific doubt; maybe this one would be too. Besides, he might be stuck on this level-there was a good chance that his keycard wouldn’t work on the elevator. There was no way that security could be so lax that he wouldn’t need one, this was still Cheyenne Mountain.
He took his keycard from his pocket and tried it on the lock at the stairs. No luck. He didn’t find that surprising given the complexity of the cryptographic algorithms used in the cards. Still, it was disappointing. At least this was a good level on which to be stuck-if you had to be stuck…
Daniel thought about stopping at the armory, but decided against it. He’d better make sure he wasn’t dead here before he went traipsing in, asking for a weapon--and they wouldn’t exactly be handing those out unless he could come up with a pretty good reason. ‘I’m from another reality and feeling kind of twitchy’ wasn’t going to cut it.
He moved quickly through the halls, which were surprisingly empty. His SGC was a hive of activity, with upwards of a hundred people on duty even in the latest hours. If time was the same, it was only about 14:00 hours. This SGC was barely populated. He saw one airman get in an elevator, but apart from that, he saw no one.
Damn! Sam-a Sam-was in her lab. He wouldn’t be able to search for the device, or even have a look around to see if they were working on something creepy and genocidal.
He had to do something. Eventually someone was going to come by and wonder why Dr. Jackson was lurking outside the lab with his back against the wall. Time to bite the bullet. Daniel knocked on the frame of the open door.
“Uh, hi… I don’t know if-”
“Oh, hi Daniel. That’s a new look. More subtle than some.” She gave him a grin.
New? Subtle? “Sorry, what?” His eyebrows rose.
Sam, well, AU-Sam, narrowed her eyes and looked at him more closely. “Wait, you’re not ‘our’ Daniel, are you? You must have come through the quantum mirror.”
Daniel nodded, relieved that he wasn’t going to have to explain the existence of alternate universes. That was always awkward. “Does that happen a lot?”
“More often than you’d think. That’s why we don’t lock the door any more. It’s almost always you, and you’re hardly ever a threat to us. Except when you’re military, and General O’Neill is an archeologist. Sometimes that’s not so good.”
“Jack-an archeologist?”
“You find that odder than you being in the military?”
“Yes! No… I don’t know.” He rubbed his forehead. “If I could just borrow your control device…”
“Sorry, first we have to debrief you. Protocol, you know.” She left the project she was working on. It had a lot of blinking lights, but no obvious function. “Follow me, please.”
They left the lab and moved toward the nearest elevator.
“I guess I must be alive here. You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“Oh, yes. Right now, anyway.”
That didn’t sound good. “You’ve defeated the Goa’uld?”
Sam nodded “And the replicators. We think we’ve killed the Ori, but their armies are still a problem.”
“No differences there. We’re in the same position.”
They reached the elevator and she pushed the button. “The most common difference seems to be the instances.”
“Instances?”
“We experience persistent anomalies that seem to be unique to our universe. Dr. Felger theorized that it’s some kind of quantum bubble affecting the fabric of our reality, a distortion of some kind. I think that’s a bunch of hooey, but something changes who we are, and how we perceive ourselves, on a basic level. We call the periods of instability ‘instances’. Frankly, it’s easier to show you than to explain.”
Okay, that made no sense. Daniel decided to take her at her word and wait to see what happened. It sounded like something big was going on here, but if Sam couldn’t understand something about physics, he probably wasn’t going to figure it out.
The elevator door opened to reveal a Marine who was strangely reluctant to move aside to allow Daniel to enter the elevator. That was odd, and the marine kept sneering at him. Very odd-and more than a little irritating. Daniel turned to face the Marine and stared back with a frown, which got an even stranger reaction. The Marine looked shocked and got off at the next floor. What kind of response had he been expecting? Daniel frowned at the closing door.
When the door opened on level 27, he was greeted by an unnerving sight. It was himself, carrying an enormous pile of books. The hallway was suddenly full of people and his other self bumped into at least half of them before tripping over his own feet and sending books flying through the air. Daniel winced and bit his lip.
As his other self scrambled to retrieve the books, Daniel could see that he was covered in bruises and had a large bandage on his leg. His condition didn’t seem to be bothering him, though. He bounded up to them and started talking excitedly to Sam. “We have to go to P3C-278, Sam! I know there’s a Jaffa base there, and the atmosphere is toxic, but look!”
He put the books down on the floor and pulled a UAV image out of the pile. “It’s an obelisk! I don’t know what it says, but it might be important!” His other self wasn’t so much showing the image to Sam as waving it wildly in the air. One hand smacked Daniel in the head.
“Oh, Sorry! Hey, you’re me… Tell me all about your reality-it might be important.”
Sam interrupted. “We’re on our way to the briefing room, we’ll meet you there.”
“Okay!” He picked up his stack of books and bounded away again.
Daniel leaned toward Sam with a frown. “What’s wrong with him? Does he have brain damage?”
“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. That’s all part of this instance, and not the worst part.”
The other ‘Daniel’ had almost reached the end of the hall when a light fixture fell out of the ceiling directly on him, trailing live, sparking wires.
Sam gave a sigh and looked at Daniel. “That’s the worst part. Let’s get him to the infirmary”
Luckily, the electrical current ceased just as they reached the unconscious other ‘Daniel’. He couldn’t help thinking of himself as the ‘real’ Daniel. It was egotistical, but it was hard to take his other self seriously and even harder to think of him as an alternate version of himself. He picked up the injured ‘Daniel’ in a fireman’s carry and headed toward the infirmary. “So, this happens a lot?”
“Constantly, but don’t worry. He’ll be fine. He’s always fine.”
Once they got to the infirmary, and Daniel lowered the unconscious man to a bed, Sam seemed to forget what she had said about this ‘Daniel’ being fine. She held his hand with an intensity usually reserved for the dying.
“What has occurred?” Teal’c arrived at the infirmary, without being called and stood at the end of the bed.
Teal’c seemed pretty normal. That was a relief. “He was-”
Without turning away from Sam, Teal’c raised a hand to silence Daniel.
“Daniel brought our ‘Daniel’ to the infirmary-he was hit on the head and electrocuted.”
“Is ‘Daniel Jackson’ seriously injured?”
Daniel tried again. “He doesn’t-”
The hand came up again. This time there was a sneer to go along with it.
“Is there a problem?” Daniel lifted an eyebrow.
Teal’c turned back to the man on the bed. “Ours is the only reality of consequence.”
“I could say the same, but it wouldn’t be polite.”
Teal’c ignored him and moved to Sam’s side.
The man on the bed stirred. “Jaaack…”
Sam leaned forward. “He’s not here right now, Daniel. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
‘Daniel’ nodded weakly and tried to smile.
Jack came running into the room and to the alternate’s bedside. That was a big surprise-Daniel would have expected Jack to be in Washington. He was hardly ever in Colorado Springs anymore, but he was here now, ruffling ‘Daniel’s’ hair.
“Hey, Danny. You okay?”
“F-fine… ‘m fine…”
His alternate held onto Jack’s hand like a lifeline. They were being awfully dramatic about what appeared to be a relatively minor injury. Maybe it was a cumulative thing-‘Daniel’ was really beat up.
Daniel raised a hand. “Excuse me… Uh, I really have to get out of here. About that control device, I-”
Shaking her head, Sam pointed at the other ‘Daniel’. “Sorry, we can’t leave him, he needs us.”
“If you could just tell me where it is, I could-”
“It’s in Daniel’s office, but you’ll have to wait for one of us to take you there.”
Suddenly the faces of everyone in the room blurred. Jack disappeared-that was unnerving. The man on the bed… transformed. That was the only way to describe it. The other ‘Daniel’ hadn’t been small, he’d been the same height as Daniel, and built like a hockey player, but this new ‘Daniel’ was huge. Daniel had never been exactly slight. He’d started out pretty much like the ‘Daniel’ on the bed, and he’d been working out for years now. He knew it showed. His new alternate self was larger-much, much, larger-and armed to the teeth.
Daniel must have looked stunned, because Sam smiled at him. “This is one of those rare instances that I was talking about.” She was wearing a TAC vest now, and had a P-90 clipped to her chest, not to mention grenades in her pockets and an M-6 slung over one shoulder. “It won’t last long.”
The heavily muscled, black-clad ‘Daniel’ swung his feet off the bed. “I’m fine. Let’s go fight the Ori.”
Daniel gave a little wave. “Sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if I could borrow one of your zats… or maybe an intar?”
“Sure.” Giant ‘Daniel’ gave him a zat. “Is it an incursion?”
Everyone blurred again, and Daniel put the zat in his pocket in case this instance didn’t prove to be as free with weaponry. This was strange enough that being armed seemed like a good plan-just in case. He looked at the new team and gave a little sigh of relief. They all looked pretty normal. He took that as a good sign.
Sam was staring at him and the other ‘Daniel’, with a weird look on her face, but at least no one was bleeding or deformed. Jack was still gone and Teal’c was… Teal’c. Daniel wondered why Teal’c didn’t seem to change as much as the others. He was being awfully quiet, though…
Daniel raised his eyebrows and tried to get Sam’s attention. “So, the control device?” She seemed to have forgotten about the debriefing. He wasn’t going to remind her.
Sam moved to stand next to the alternate ‘Daniel’, but kept staring at Daniel. “Do you really have to go so quickly? We could order some pizza and watch movies. Or go shopping!”
“Well, I’d kind of like to avoid the entropic cascade failure, and I don’t know how long it will take to find my reality, so yeah, I really do. And Big ‘Daniel’ was right-there are Ori out there that we have to do something about, in both our universes.”
Daniel hoped this Sam wouldn’t remember that he had forty-eight hours before there’d be a problem. He hadn’t even been here for two and he knew he didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary.
She sighed and shifted her attention to the ‘Daniel’ beside her, who was completely oblivious. He’d pulled a book out of his pocket and was reading, while mumbling in Abydonian. His verb usage was completely… wrong. Okay, this was starting to get disturbing. “Sam? The Ori?”
“We don’t really fight the Ori that much. Mostly we just talk, or eat pie.”
“You… eat pie? You don’t look for weapons to use against Adria, or try to help the worlds the Ori have taken?” Daniel took off his glasses and cleaned them vigorously. They weren’t that dirty, but he was getting increasingly irritated, and he thought he’d better not say anything for a minute. He took a deep breath and put his glasses back on. “Don’t you think that’s a little-”
Sam wasn’t listening to him. She was holding on to ‘Daniel’s’ arm and leaning on him. ‘Daniel’ only noticed that he was having trouble turning the page.
The world changed again. This time, everything was the same, except alternate ‘Daniel’ had noticed Sam’s attention. He tossed the book on the bed and stared back. And now he was touching. Oh, good… That wasn’t embarrassing at all. Nothing uncomfortable about watching yourself grope one of your best friends. “What say we go get that device now? Please? I just can’t stress enough how much I’d like to do that.”
Other ‘Daniel’ tore himself away from… what he was doing, and nodded. “Okay, I can understand you needing to get back. I’m sure you have… good reasons to want to hurry back. He turned back to Sam and stared into her eyes, then led them from the room.
Just as they got on the elevator, ‘Daniel’ disappeared and Jack appeared in his place.
“No, damn it! I have to get to level 18!”
Jack looked at him with a grin. “What’s your hurry, Danny-Boy? It’s time for pie.” He pushed the button for level 22 then turned his attention to Sam. He was as, uh… interested in her as the now-missing ‘Daniel’. Was that was better, or worse? Neither, actually. It was absolutely every bit as uncomfortable, if not quite as surreal.
“I don’t have time for pie! I have to get to ’Daniel’s’ office.”
“There’s always time for pie!”
“I don’t think you appreciate how much-”
“Daniel! Pie!”
Oh, God… Okay, he’d eat pie, but then he was getting that device, one way or another.
The pie and coffee both turned out to be really good. Urgo-good. He wondered why, but couldn’t resist a second piece. He was uncomfortably reminded of Persephone in the underworld-without the reproductive metaphor, of course.
He’d kept his eyes on his plate the entire time, and consequently had seen nothing disconcerting for the last fifteen minutes. He laid down his fork. “Well, that was great pie, I admit, but now I really have to get to ‘Daniel’s’ office.” He raised his eyes. Mistake-big mistake.
He launched himself toward the exit. He’d find another way to get to level 18. This was so not worth it.
Vala stepped into the doorway and blocked his path. She was wearing a great deal of leather and a very disturbing smile. “Want some company, handsome?”
Oh, no… Seriously, no... Not in this universe. “Uh, not really. I’m just on my way to level 18. I’m in a bit of a hurry.” He tried to side-step her, but she moved to block his path again then reached out to wrap her arms around his waist.
“Are you sure? It’s not like we haven’t had fun in your office before.” She leaned against him.
He tried to pull her arms away. “No, we haven’t! Sorry, but you seem to have me confused with a different ‘Daniel’. I guarantee you that we have had no ‘fun’.” He was still trying to disentangle himself when she suddenly dropped her arms and stepped back.
“Oh, you’re one of those dreary, prudish, alternate Daniels! That’s no fun, and I’m so veeeery bored.” She put her hands on her hips, frowned at him, and then smiled slowly. “Not all of them are dull, though. Once in a while, not often, but once in a while-” She paused with another one of those alarming smiles. “I’ll take you to level 18, then boring Daniel will be gone, and amusing Daniel can arrive.”
Daniel could have pointed out that he didn’t have to leave for another ‘Daniel’ to arrive, but he didn’t, and he rather doubted that many of the alternate ‘Daniel’s’ were sufficiently amusing for this Vala-a depressing number of them weren’t sufficiently alive. He rushed her to the elevator as fast as possible. He had to get to level 18 before Vala changed or disappeared.
She didn’t appreciate being dragged down the hallway to the elevator by her arm, but although she was complaining loudly, she got on, ran her keycard through, and pushed the button for level 18.
Collapsing against the side of the elevator, Daniel closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. Thank God.
“Are we as different as all that?”
Daniel opened his eyes to find Vala looking at him curiously. “Oh, yes. So very different…”
“And you find us unbearable.”
Well, sort of, yes. “No, not exactly.... This… just isn’t my SGC. You aren’t the people I know. You aren’t what.... You’re not-”
“We’re not your friends.”
“No.” He gave her a tired smile. “I miss them. Being with people who look like them, but aren’t-it makes it worse. I want to go home.” As the doors opened, he stepped off the elevator.
She frowned and nodded. “Good luck, Daniel.” The doors started to close.
“Wait! I need to get back-” The elevator was gone. “-to level 19.” He took off his glasses and covered his face with his hands. Daniel in Wonderland. Oh, crap. Well, he’d have to worry about that later. He put his glasses on and headed to his office.
There was a ‘Daniel’ in there. This must be where he went when Jack appeared. He was sitting in the dark. The desk lamp was on, but his chair was pushed back so that his face was hidden in shadow.
“Hi… Are you… all right?” Daniel knew that when he sat in the dark, he wasn’t in a happy place.
“None of it means anything.”
“None of what?”
“I tried. It just goes away.”
“Okay, that just doesn’t make sense.”
“You can't get it back.”
“That kind of depends on what it is.”
“You don't even know what I'm talking about.”
“No. No I don't. But you could explain it to me.” Quickly would be good. He really wanted to go home, but he didn’t want to leave ‘Daniel’ alone like this.
‘Daniel’ leaned forward, the desk lamp illuminating his face. “You shouldn’t be here.” He reached into his top drawer.
“No, I really shouldn’t.”
“Take this. Leave it in the mirror room. I’ll get it later.” He reached over and put a small object in Daniel’s hand-the control device.
“Thank you, but I don’t want to leave you alone when you’re feeling so-”
‘Daniel’ waved a hand. “When are we not alone, really…”
Uh, wow. That was… existential. Daniel was pretty sure he never went there, but he did wonder if it was creepy that he could relate more to this ‘Daniel’ than the others he’d met so far. Yeah, it was kind of creepy… He’d better think about that a bit, but not until he got home. Now it was really time to go. “Well, if you’re sure that you’re going to be okay… You know, they have some great pie and coffee down in the commissary. Why don’t you take a break?”
“Coffee… I could use some coffee.”
“It’s really good. We could share the elevator-I could use some help getting to level 19, anyway. I don’t have a keycard.”
‘Daniel’ pushed his chair back and they headed to the elevator. “Okay... The pie was good?”
“Really good.” Daniel pushed the ‘down’ button.
“What kind did you have?
“Peach.” The doors opened and they entered. Daniel was a bit worried that this was too easy, which said a lot about his day. It shouldn’t be hard to take an elevator down one floor.
“Ah. I like peach, too. I’ll try that.” ‘Daniel’ swiped his card and pushed 19 and 22 with an air of exhaustion. A minute later the door opened on level 19. “Good luck. I hope you get it back. I think you might…”
“Thanks. I hope you get it back too.” Daniel stepped out onto level 19.
The doors closed as ‘Daniel’ gave him a sad smile.
Well. That was different. He shook off the dark mood that the other ‘Daniel’ carried with him. Things were good. He was on level 19. Finally-in a few more minutes, he’d be back at the quantum mirror with the control device. He could go home.
Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of a blaring klaxon and the announcement of an unscheduled offworld activation. He heard Walter’s voice calling all personnel into position. The hallway filled with marines, some still pulling on gear, all running to the Gateroom. Surrounded, barely able to avoid being trampled, Daniel found himself shoved back into the elevator by the wave of bodies, and heading down to level 28. Caught up in the moment, Daniel ran, too.
The marines lined up opposite the Gate. SG-1 was waiting by the door with yet another ‘Daniel’. This one had long hair and a look of puppy-like innocence in his unnaturally blue eyes that Daniel was sure he’d never had. He ran to join them.
‘Daniel’ blinked and greeted him. “Um… Hi… You didn’t get to the mirror… Uh, sorry… That’s… probably my fault… Sorry… I should have… er… If I’d, uh… been more… Sorry…” He looked at the ground.
This was excruciating. “Why would it be your fault?”
“Well… I, uh… I should have… well… been faster and not so-”
“It wasn’t your fault, okay? Not everything is your fault. There’s no reason to blame yourself.”
“Uh, thanks…” ‘Daniel’ smiled at him shyly and blinked a couple more times.
Walter’s voice came through the speakers. “Receiving SG-7’s IDC”
Daniel heard General Hammond’s voice. “Open the iris!” That was nostalgic…
The iris opened. There was no activity for a moment, then a figure stepped through and took a few steps down the ramp. Her gaze fixed on ‘Daniel’ who seemed mesmerized.
“Hathor.” Oh, no-not a chance. She was not getting her hands on the puppy of an alternate self standing next to him. Hell, no… That would just be… Daniel reached down and pulled ‘Daniel’s’ Beretta from its holster and looked at Teal’c. “She’s a Goa’uld, Teal’c, and if you let her, she’s going to do really bad things.”
He didn’t bother saying anything to the rest of the team, he didn’t know which of them might be competent this go round. Teal’c always seemed to be relatively normal, and time was of the essence-before she breathed on anyone.
Teal’c nodded and the two of them stepped forward firing, Daniel with the Beretta, Teal’c with his staff weapon. He was dimly aware of voices raised around him, but his entire focus was on Hathor.
As she fell forward, the gold light in her eyes fading, Daniel moved up the ramp and put his last three bullets into the back of her neck where he knew the Goa’uld was wrapped around her spine. He lowered the gun and let out a deep sigh. Wow… That was cathartic…
Jack ran up the ramp. “What the hell was that, Daniel? Other-Daniel-Gah!” He rubbed a hand over his face. “She was our best chance to find out what happened to SG-7-until you killed her! I don’t usually have to yell at Daniels for being trigger-happy!”
Oops… Jack had more on his mind than Sam and pie this time. “Sorry, Jack, but I knew what Hathor did in my reality. Some things shouldn’t happen once, let alone be repeated-ever-and especially not to… him.” He waved an arm toward the wide-eyed ‘Daniel’. “She can breathe a drug that’s similar to nish'ta-every man on this base would have been in her control, and she would have…” He stopped and looked down at the dead Goa’uld.
Jack’s mouth tightened. He looked at ‘Daniel’ who seemed shocked by the sudden burst of violence. “Bad?”
“Yeah, bad.”
“Okay then. We’ll have to figure something else out. Hammond’s pretty pissed. You better stay in the Gate room. I’ll go talk to him.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I should be thanking you.” Jack made a ‘stay put’ motion and left the room.
Daniel felt a sudden wave of homesickness, not just for his reality, but for a time when Jack had still been leading the team. Not to take anything away from Mitchell-he was good. The team was good, but sometimes… Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. Get a grip-can’t let this place… You killed her. It’s all right… He opened his eyes and went back down the ramp to rejoin the team.
Teal’c inclined his head with a barely-there smile that reminded him of the Teal’c he had first known all those years ago.
“Good job, Daniel.” Sam gave him a nod and bent her head to check her equipment.
“Sam, you haven’t run into Hathor before? I thought you defeated the Goa’uld?”
“No, she was a new one. Our timeline is often different than the timelines in other realities. We’ve defeated the System Lords, but there are still occasional appearances of Goa’uld we haven’t encountered-and the ones we’ve killed don’t always stay dead.”
“Ah…I see.”
He turned to Teal’c. “You’ll kill Hathor if she comes back somehow, right, Teal’c?”
“I will, Daniel Jackson-with pleasure.”
“That’s what I thought… Good.”
‘Daniel’ filled him in about the mission that SG-7 had been on when whatever happened to them had occurred. He was going to miss this instance, even if it was a bit odd that his alternate was about as worldly as a six year old-at least he seemed to know what he was doing. Daniel savored the moment of relative normalcy. He knew it wouldn’t last-it had already lasted longer than the other instances. He hoped that Jack could calm his General Hammond down so he could get to the quantum mirror before the next change. It might be a lot worse.
The doors opened and Jack came back into the room, followed by a couple of marines bearing packs and weapons. “Hammond gets it, but he’s still not real happy. He wants you to come with us to retrieve SG-7-then you can go back through the mirror.”
“Okay, I can do that.” He might have gone anyway. He still had plenty of time before he had to start worrying about entropic cascade failure and he was feeling a little protective of this other ‘Daniel’, who seemed a bit simple. Daniel paused for a moment to consider his mental health-this couldn’t be good…
“Which marine units are we taking?” One of the marines handed him a pack.
“None. It’s just us.” Jack held up a Beretta in a holster, and a P-90, raising his eyebrows inquiringly.
Daniel took both. “We’re going into a possible hostage situation by ourselves? Isn’t that-” He started to question his feeling of normalcy. Jack seemed surprisingly unconcerned about going in potentially outgunned.
“Hammond is sending someone else along-a sort of expert, but not a marine unit.”
The doors opened again and a girl in BDUs entered the room. Daniel’s eyes widened. She had very long blond hair hanging down her back in a completely non-regulation way. Her teeth were blindingly white, and her eyes were… purple. She looked like a sixteen year old Barbie doll. Daniel was pretty sure that there wasn’t enough room in her abdomen for internal organs.
The girl stopped halfway to them and snapped to attention. Perfectly. “Lieutenant Mary-Sue Unvergleichlich, reporting for duty.”
“Unvergleichlich? Really?” Daniel smiled and leaned over to Sam, keeping his eyes on the ‘lieutenant’. “She doesn’t make replicators, does she?”
“Replicators? No! Why would you think that?”
“Well, when we found an android-”
“She’s not an android. That’s ridiculous. Lieutenant Unvergleichlich is a highly valued member of the SGC. She has more degrees than ‘Daniel’ and I put together, Special Forces training, and has single-handedly saved the Earth on several occasions. She’s… amazing!”
Daniel lifted an eyebrow and looked at Sam. “If she’s human, then she’s a kid-no way she’s a lieutenant.” A frighteningly well-developed kid, but he wasn’t going there. “And Special Forces training? I don’t think so…”
“Really, Daniel, you should know better than anyone that a young person can succeed at the SGC. Look at ‘Daniel’, he’s very young.”
“Sam, that’s crazy-if he’s the same age that I was when I looked sort of like him, then he’s at least thirty-two, and older than you!”
She looked confused, momentarily. “But… No, he’s…” Sam shook her head. “That’s beside the point. Her age isn’t important. Lieutenant Unvergleichlich has proven herself-all the teams are thrilled when she is assigned to them. Everyone just loves her, and she sings like an angel.”
“I’m sure she’s just what every SG team needs...” Oh, she was serious-and glaring at him. Okaaay… That was weird, but what wasn’t weird in this place. He’d go along with it-as long as the lieutenant didn’t start making replicators…
They all blurred again. Damn. This instance hadn’t been so bad. Daniel wondered if emergency situation somehow staved off the excesses of the previous instances. That might explain how they’d managed to do so many of the things that had been accomplished in his reality. If that was the case, this SG-1 might be okay. SG-7 still needed to be rescued.
When the blurring stopped, Jack was still there and ‘Daniel’ was the only one who seemed very different. He had short hair now, and that wide-eyed innocent look was gone. That was probably good. Daniel thought that feeling like he needed to protect himself-well, not himself, but his other self-was not a healthy place to be.
The dialing sequence commenced, with Walter calling out the chevrons as they locked. As he waited for the event horizon to form, He glanced at the rest of the team, trying to gauge their response to the spurious lieutenant. They didn’t seem to find anything about her to be unusual.
“God speed, SG-1.” Daniel smiled on hearing those words from this realty’s General Hammond. Some things didn’t change. He liked that. The blue light of the open Gate filled the room, and when the MALP showed no Jaffa, they went through to find the lost team.
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Daniel in Wonderland-Part 2