Reflection
by
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DISCLAIMER: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
It was Daniel's fault. Of course. When I look back over the last few years most of the worst things that have happened to me – with one obvious and terrible exception – have been down to Daniel for one reason or another. Not that he ever intends it to happen like that. He hadn't meant to land me and my men on a planet with no way of getting us home that first time; hadn't meant to get himself shot and killed with a staff weapon right in front of me; hadn't intended to get himself grabbed by the Touched on the Dark Side of P3X-797; and of course when Daniel obligingly drew an answer in the sand to that alien creature's question about whether or not we were of the race that built Babylon, he hadn't anticipated the Godawful hell it was going to put the rest of the team through. Damnit, as I'm being selfish here, put me through.
Watching Daniel repeatedly barbecued, seeing the flames lick all over him as he screamed out for help I couldn't give him, was never going to make one of my Top Ten Favorite Memories. Even if it was never true, just an implant designed to make us all clear out and leave Daniel alone with an underwater alien who brought whole new meaning to the word 'patience', it still carried a hell of a kick. And, although it could still rankle, I did know Daniel hadn't mean any harm when instead of doing as he was damn well told, he'd touched that mirror on P3R-233.
And, okay, if he hadn't, we'd all be dead now; Apophis would have turned up and wiped us all out without so much as a whimper of opposition; but even knowing that it was downright necessary for the future of mankind for Daniel to slip into that alternative dimension, doesn't quite make up for those six hours of fruitless searching after he vanished, apparently into thin air.
I remember sitting in the infirmary afterwards, telling Dr Fraiser to stick some more morphine in the poor kid because that wound to his shoulder was clearly making him delirious, torn between relief and anger because Thank God we'd got him back, more or less in one piece, but what the hell had he been doing getting himself lost like that? Daniel is like every parent's worse nightmare: you take your eyes off him for one minute and he wanders off or gets himself grabbed, and when you do get him back by the skin of your teeth half the time he's in nothing like the condition in which you lost him. He was one big bruise when we got him back from the Touched. He slept for thirty-six hours straight after that Nem character had finished using his memory like a radio set. And he was bleeding from that staff weapon sear to his left shoulder after he staggered back through the Stargate from that Alternative Reality, shaking with the shock of the wound but so full of all he'd seen he hardly even noticed the pain he was in. So, it's not as though there are never any consequences for Daniel as well; it isn't all me collecting more grey hairs while he gets off Scot free; which just makes it all the more inexplicable that Dannyboy – a multiple PhD let me remind you – can never learn from his mistakes.
Because it doesn't seem to matter what stuff we've all been put through on the last mission, the next time we go through the Stargate Daniel is as bright-eyed and curious as though it's his first time out; doesn't matter how many artifacts he's touched that have turned around and zapped him like adders, he'll still bounce up to the next one full of fascination and without fear.
There were always two ways you could go with Daniel and I realized that way back when: either you tried to change him, or you accepted him for what he was and lived with it. I decided to go with option two: let the guy keep his sense of wonder, keep an eye on him, hope to rein him back occasionally before he really got himself hurt, protect him as best I could but let him retain that essential – Danielness – that made him who he was.
Option one would have been short, sharp, shock time, bully him into being something he wasn't, tell yourself it was about keeping him safe, but know all the time it would have been about power, about imposing your will on someone else to such a degree that you changed him into something he wasn't. Even in my darkest moments, those occasions when Daniel's been mislaid again or definitely has to be dead this time, I've known that option one wasn't an option, not for me.
Then we went to P7Z-284 and right after I'd said, "Daniel, I told you not to touch it!" just, in fact, after I'd grabbed him by the arm and made to haul him back physically, option one popped up and shook hands with both of us.
There was a flash of blue light, a mild fizzing in my nerves like I'd just touched an electrical outlet, and then Daniel and I were standing exactly where we were, right in front of that liquid black glass that had so stolidly refused to reflect us. But everything had changed.
As the torchlight picked us out and we turned round to be dazzled by it, stood there in the dark with our eyes watering and our hands up to try and shield our faces from the glare, I heard someone who sounded frightening familiar, say, "What the hell – ?"
And then they came forward; I thought only three at first because the fourth one was lagging behind nervously, men with guns and flashlights. I lifted my own light and shone it straight at…myself.
I thought at first it must be something to do with the mirror – although it was behind me and anyway hadn't bothered to reflect either one of us last time I checked – but then I saw that this reflection moved when I didn't, and anyway, had eyes so cold and dead they could never, please God, be mine.
Beside me, Daniel said, "Jack…?" in bewilderment, stretching out a hand to touch me on the arm, to make sure that I at least was flesh and blood.
"Still here," I assured him.
"Do you think maybe we've…?"
"Oh yeah." I was still looking fixedly at my doppelganger, not trusting this guy for some reason even though this was the face I had to look at every day when shaving. "I think we could go out a limb and say yes to that, Daniel."
As the bewildered alternative Kawalsky and Ferretti spun us round and slapped the cuffs on, Daniel gave me one of those sheepish little kid looks that could have softened a heart a lot harder than mine. "Sorry, Jack."
"No problem," I told him, hoping it was true. "Always wanted to meet one of my Other Selves."
The trouble was, this other self was an asshole and then some. At least that was what I kept telling myself, but the truth was the guy was a little worse than that. This Jack O'Neill was positively scary: A military automaton, the do-it-by-the-rules-or-else/speak-when-you're-spoken-to/clean-that-goddamn-latrine-with-a-toothbrush-soldier kind that I've always hated. Which was annoying and also slightly embarrassing in front of Daniel because there must be some part of me that could have been like that for this version to be playing out in an alternate dimension. The Daniel Jackson they had here, however, was much worse.
Never mind the fact that he was a good ten pounds lighter than he should have been and looked like he hadn't slept in a month, or that someone appeared to have cut his hair with a blunt hacksaw, this was a Daniel who'd had all the wonder removed, all that childlike curiosity and trust, that openness to new experiences, new people, completely knocked out of him. This was a Daniel who was so nervous he stammered and, most unnerving of all, this was a Daniel who did exactly as he was told when he was told to do it.
And it's odd, given how maddening I've always found it the way Daniel reinterprets my orders – 'Dial it up, Daniel, no arguments' translating as: 'Could you possibly begin to see about getting us home as long as nothing of more interest pops up in the interim, whereupon I will of course prefer to have it brought to my attention'; 'I don't want to hear it, Daniel, we're out of here' becoming 'In your own time, when you're good and ready, and only, of course, after you've had a good look around at anything that might catch your eye' – but I hated the way this Daniel jumped to it. Literally. When the O'Neill holding the gun on us said, "Jackson, dial it up. Now!" the alternative dimension Daniel actually started like a scared deer before scuttling across to the DHD to do as he was told.
Daniel – the real Daniel as I thought of him – was gazing around the chamber in fascination, saying, "Look, Jack, there are differences in the tablets in this chamber. The other inscriptions were in Akkadian cuneiform while these are definitely Sumerian." Then he smiled at the alternative Ferretti who was shoving him along and said, "You know, we're really not dangerous. We just must have come through an inter-dimensional portal to an alternative reality. It happened to me once before on – "
That was when the other O'Neill stopped right in front of us. He looked at Daniel out of those dead dark eyes that were already giving me the horrors and said, "Did anyone give you permission to speak, prisoner?"
"Well, no, but I wasn't aware that there was any reason to – " Daniel was still smiling as he said it, trying to keep things light, darting a quick glance in my direction to have it confirmed that he was handling 'me' okay.
That was when the alternative dimension O'Neill said to Ferretti, "Gag him." Just like that.
Angry and, if I'm honest, getting a little bit worried now, I said, "Hey, come on, there's no need for that. It's not like you don't know who we are and we just do things differently where we come from."
The other O'Neill didn't even bother to look round. "Gag both of them." Then he raised his voice, tone like a whip crack but with a silky undertone to it that was positively chilling. "Are you there yet, Jackson?"
"A-almost, sir. I-I'm just pressing the fifth s-symbol."
I winced and couldn't help looking at Daniel's shocked face beside me. This alternate Daniel was scared of this alternate O'Neill. It was so unthinkable I almost couldn't get my head round it myself but it was obvious that however hard I found it to cope with, to Daniel it was like someone had just pulled the world out from under his feet. It had clearly never occurred to him that Jack O'Neill was someone that Daniel Jackson could ever be afraid of. I wondered what that said about my leadership qualities, something good I hoped. Or maybe I ought to bawl him out more often to keep him on his toes. Whatever: scary clearly wasn't how Daniel saw me.
I watched as the other Ferretti tied a cloth across Daniel's mouth. The soldier seemed to be trying to be rough as possible and my fingers itched to interfere, but the cuffs around my wrists cut into my skin coldly, reminding me that punching someone wasn't an option right now. When Daniel was gagged, he was shoved forward so hard he stumbled and almost fell. Even though his hands were cuffed behind his back, no one made any attempt to help him and he barely stayed on his feet. I could feel anger licking through me but tried to keep it out of my face. I suspected that these different versions of people I knew and liked would probably be more likely to hurt Daniel if they realized how much it was bugging me to watch one of my team being manhandled.
Only the other Daniel said tentatively, "Sir, is it really necess- ?" and then broke off as the alternate O'Neill gave him a blood-freezing glare.
The other me said softly, "I told you to dial, Jackson. When I want you to speak I'll tell you that too."
As the alternative Kawalsky was stuffing a gag into my mouth, I noted that the other Daniel just looked pale and ill while 'our' Daniel's familiar pallor appeared healthy by comparison. When he turned his head, I saw that the other Daniel had a scar across his left cheekbone that chilled me and I found myself checking back just to make sure that the 'real' Daniel was as unmarked as I remembered him. Glancing between the two, I thought how much more substantial our Daniel seemed; a proper three-dimensional human being with a mind very much his own; the other one was a shadow puppet by comparison. Pity twisted in my guts for him; for whatever he had undergone that our Daniel hadn't. I knew I should probably be extending the same sympathy to O'Neill but couldn't bring myself to do it. I had a pretty good idea what had turned this man into the brutal, arrogant robot in front of me and even it wasn't enough of an excuse.
Having been ignominiously dragged back through the wrong Stargate, to the wrong ramp and the wrong infirmary – tests as invasive as they were uncomfortable being run on the both of us for what seemed like hours to check that we weren't harboring any Goa'uld, we then had to sit through a debriefing-cum-interrogation with this SG-1 and an alternative General Hammond.
This was the point where we were treated to watching the alternate O'Neill snub, belittle, and generally dismiss the nervous stammering opinions of the alternate Daniel. The scientist was trying to back us up in his way, explaining that parallel universes had been postulated as a possibility and that perhaps Dr Carter…? But no one ever let him finish a sentence; the alternative Kawalsky and Ferretti were smartasses who were clearly used to picking on him with impunity; the other O'Neill was coolly cruel to him; even the alternative Hammond didn't help him out once.
As it went on, I could hardly bear to look at the 'real' Daniel's eyes getting bigger and bigger with disbelief, occasionally checking back with me just to have it confirmed that this was really happening. I was hating my other self by this point. Daniel was such an easy target, after all, in any dimension, you didn't need any intelligence to crush him; you just had to resent his intelligence enough to stop seeing him as a human being. I mean, yes, sometimes it bugs me that Daniel knows so much more stuff than I do, I admit it, sometimes I wonder where he keeps all those languages and mythologies and histories he knows. And sometimes I think that if he starts on one more of those damned interminable lectures I'm just going to have to explode. But Daniel being clever has been pretty useful in the past; very useful on occasion, so to be honest, most of the time, I get a kind of vicarious pride out of him knowing all the things he does. 'That's our boy,' I think as he does his stuff for the eighty-fifth time: communicating, translating, comprehending. All fairly useful attributes when you think about it.
And if, on occasion, it makes me feel a bit like I was at the back of the queue when the brains were being handed out, I remind myself that while he might be able to speak twenty three languages and can translate God knows how many more, he still can't read the difference between a guy who you can win over with reason and a nice smile, and one who's just going to deck you or blow your head off any time now. That's my department. And it's as impressive and inexplicable to him that I know exactly when to pull him out of the way of some lethal projectile or ham-sized fist as it is to me when he looks at a lot of squiggly pictures and says, "Ah hah, Minoan!" You don't have to be the same to be equal. Just because I'm stronger than he is and have faster reflexes, doesn't make me better than him, any more than him having two – or is it three? – PhDs makes him better than me.
But looking at this other Daniel, so drained of any confidence, I realized that this O'Neill hadn't exactly embraced Vive la difference! as his personal philosophy. He'd taken one look at Daniel and decided he wanted him to shape up, pronto, and he didn't care how long it took or how much it hurt, he wasn't going to stop bullying until he did. This O'Neill hadn't let Daniel stay behind on Abydos after that first trip out, the bastard had dragged him home again, probably by the long hair he'd since made him cut so short; no doubt invoking the paperwork they'd made him sign to keep him on the program where he could continue to whip him into shape: a geeky kid with nowhere else to go who they'd made toe the line and do his buttons up properly, or else. He'd had nothing and no one except what was definitely the wrong O'Neill looking out for him.
At some point, if we ever got home again, I filed away a mental note to tell Daniel that him wearing his uniform wrong wasn't a problem; the long hair, not a problem; even strapping his sidearm on incorrectly, still definitely not a problem, and if I'd ever said anything to the contrary in the heat of the moment, well he was just to expunge that from his memory. And, damnit, it isn't as though he doesn't try to look a bit like a soldier, try to turn up on time, work out what the various equipment actually does, follow orders as best as he can as long as he hears them and can see the relevance. He's an archaeologist for crying out loud, not an Air Force officer, surely it's obvious you have to cut him a little slack?
Afterwards, I was sure they'd decided to interview me and Daniel separately as much out of spite as paranoia, keeping us apart so we'd feel that much more alone stuck in the wrong dimension. I remembered that Daniel had already done this once by himself, kept looking at people who he thought he knew but who didn't know him. It was chilling, certainly. I frankly hated looking at Charlie Kawalsky and seeing the outline of a good friend, a friend I still missed, blurred by the petty spitefulness of this alternative interloper. I especially hated looking at the alternate dimensional Daniel and finding the kid too scared of the face I shared to meet my eye.
When Daniel did this the first time, I asked him about that other O'Neill, of course, but all Daniel had said was that although he certainly liked the Jack he knew a lot better, that given the circumstances – the world being destroyed around him – the alternate O'Neill had still been a pretty decent guy. A pretty decent guy, nevertheless, who'd sent a bomb through to Chulak. God, I hoped I wasn't a Roger Ramjet in every goddamn universe except this one.
Daniel and I had only been in the holding cell for five minutes when the guards came to take me away for questioning. Daniel looked after me anxiously and I made some stupid quip to try and tell him not to worry about me. Not that it would work, of course. Daniel spends far too much of his time worrying about people who are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and almost none worrying about someone who actually merits at least a nine on the anxietyometer – i.e. himself.
Then I went through it all with the other O'Neill over and over; told him what I remembered about parallel universes, how they worked, what they meant, asking, as Daniel and I had both been asking since the gags had been removed, for someone please to go and fetch the Carter in this dimension so she could come and explain all this to everyone. I'd been sort of assuming she'd be his wife or his fiancée or something, so it was only when the wrong O'Neill finally admitted that Dr Samantha Carter wasn't even involved with the program anymore that this right O'Neill felt his heart start really sinking. We'd already been prepared to find that Teal'c wasn't around, but this? I knew Catherine was out of the loop before I was halfway through the question, hardly needing the other guy's impassive shake of the head. No Teal'c. No Carter. No Catherine. And a Daniel too scared to voice half of what he might know and to whom no one would even listen anyway.
That was when I felt it flicker through my head that this time maybe we weren't getting home; if this was where we got handed over to some other Maybourne and used as guinea-pigs. I kept asking if we could go back now, pretty please? Trying to explain that actually we were kind of needed there and clearly not at all needed here. I really tried to keep the wisecracks to a minimum, not wanting anyone else to reap the storm; but nevertheless when the other O'Neill got fed up with me and stamped off to interrogate Daniel he was already in a bad temper and I could only hope he wouldn't take it out on our maddening but really-quite-likeable-when-you-get-to-know-him linguist.
Trouble is though, I remember the first time I met Dr Daniel Jackson and a big fuzzy uprush of affection was definitely not what I felt. Ditzy, long-haired, four-eyed, sneezing geek I sure as hell didn't want to have to waste my time baby-sitting, that was more like it. I mean to know Dannyboy is to love him, of course, but to be briefly acquainted with him is sometimes to want to smack him round the head. New people meet Daniel, they're either won over before they know it by all that innocence, trust and candor, or they try to zap him with something lethal or hit him with something painful. Unless of course they're a recently-released-from-suspended-animation ancient Egyptian sex Goddess, or a lonely princess who's been through the sarcophagus spin cycle one too many times – they tend to want to do something else to him entirely. Basically, you just never know which way people are going to take him.
While I was waiting for this other O'Neill to finish questioning him, I reminded myself of all the people that have gone down before that clumsy charm of his like the proverbial ninepins. I mean, look at Nem. He didn't think twice about zapping Carter, Teal'c and me to make us think we'd all got to watch Daniel being flame-grilled and couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. Not a nice image to carry around in your head, I can tell you, especially when there are all these other parts of your brain telling you it ain't necessarily so. This is a guy – with gills I hasten to add – who's waited four thousand years to find out what's become of his Beloved, but forty eight hours of Daniel being Daniel and he's having second thoughts, just can't bear the thought of SG-1's worst-dressed member getting damaged. In the end, Daniel has to practically beg the guy to mind-probe him to find out what happened to his mate.
Teal'c and Carter think Daniel's being heroic when he downplays the pain that probe caused him, but I think the truth is he was so damned interested in finding out what had happened to the gill-guy's girlfriend himself by that point that he probably didn't even notice it hurting him: simply no brain space left available to properly register the pain. God help anyone who ever tries to torture Daniel in a room with hieroglyphs on the wall. He'd be so busy translating it would take about three days before he even noticed what they were doing to the rest of him. Actually, thinking about torture is probably not a good idea right now. I mean I have learned how to do things during Black Ops that I really wouldn't want someone trying out on one of my team. No, definitely don't want to go there. Think positive now.
Okay. So and then there was Omac, leader of the Tollans, a guy who'd watched two entire planets and God knows how many billions of people go belly-up because he gave too-advanced technology to a too-primitive people. By primitive, of course, I mean Earth-level sophistication, or what those lovely people the Nox call the 'very young'. Basically, you and me. We turn up, rescue Omac and his party from certain death – which Omac could just about tolerate although he wasn't exactly brimming over with gratitude all the same – but then we start asking questions. Not surprisingly, the guy thinks we're after their technology and starts making your average clam look like a guy on a bar stool with one too many Johnny Walkers inside him. None of us can get zip out of him. But then along comes Daniel – being Daniel – and before Omac knows it, he's taken our linguist by the hand, demonstrated how it is the Tollans can walk through solid walls, and then, just because Daniel asks him nicely, is trying to explain how they can send a signal faster than the speed of light. Of course, Daniel's an archaeologist not an astrophysicist so the explanation goes way over his head and there's no harm done, but the fact is Omac was one hell of a tough nut and he still cracked.
And the clincher is, Daniel's already done this. Through the mirror into the parallel universe to meet up with a hardass Jack who started off hostile and brusque and yet still managed to be won over. My God Daniel got the guy to go and talk to a Teal'c who'd just shot down the presidential plane, for crying out loud. I mean Teal'c is scary enough in our dimension and he's a good guy there; elsewhere he's terrifying. But Daniel persuaded that O'Neill to go and do it, and you know how? He told him he'd understand if he didn't want to; and it wasn't even clever reverse psychology or anything like that, Daniel just meant it. He hates anyone to feel bad, especially me; even a 'me' that doesn't know him from Adam. So, he'll be fine. He'll do that sideways look that makes people forgive him anything, or just be so much himself the guy's defenses will crumble, and they'll bring him back here without a mark on him, clutching an assurance that he and I can catch the next 'gate home.
Except…except…Try as I might though I can't help thinking that 'our' Daniel is going to come as a hell of a shock to an O'Neill used to dealing with that stuttering 'Jackson' who can barely get through a sentence if the man looks at him hard. I think of Daniel trying to be reasonable, explaining the science Carter has sketched out for us both as patiently as he can, perhaps unconsciously addressing the other O'Neill the way he does me – as though he were a room full of students in a lecture hall; and I have to admit it's annoying. Sure irritates the hell out of me every time he does it, anyway, and I like him. He's probably my best friend in the world, in fact, and to be honest it annoys me big time. And I think of Daniel – who interprets orders as requests that must inevitably be open to negotiation – trying to have a meaningful dialogue with a man who seems to think military rank is only a step away from divine right and my heart sinks. There's a level beyond which Daniel has never really been able to take the whole military set-up very seriously, a game the rest of us are playing that he joins in with but whose rules he doesn't really understand; what's more, a game he feels you can ignore if its obvious silliness begins to encroach on what Daniel regards as reality. I picture Daniel patiently humoring my alternate dimension counterpart and groan inwardly. Somewhere along the corridor I very much fear an immovable force is about to meet an irresistible object with a resounding thud.
So I wasn't really surprised by how many hours had passed before they shoved Daniel back in the cell with me, or by that bruise on Daniel's face that had no business being there. Expecting it didn't stop it ticking me off, though, and I felt anger well up in me at once but I tried to keep things light and normal, saying, "Well, Dannyboy, I'd say this dimension pretty much sucked, wouldn't you?"
"Big time." Daniel sat down on the edge of that uncomfortable bed, saying conversationally, "Hate the other you, by the way, Jack."
"I'm with you on that," I assured him. "The guy is a Grade A dickhead."
"Mind you the other me isn't anything to write home about either. I've met invertebrates with more backbone."
"At least he tried to explain about alternate universes."
"Yes and didn't he get everyone's attention?"
"Oh, let's cut the kid some slack. I think he's had a rough ride." I nodded at the mark, trying to sound casual. "Did 'I' do that?"
"No, Jack 'you' didn't. You're you and he's definitely – him. Apart from a face, a name, a genetic code, and a few life experiences, there are absolutely no similarities between you." Daniel gave me one of those looks that clearly hadn't worked on my doppelganger. "Apparently I talk too much."
"If killing a parent is parricide and killing a king is regicide what's the word for killing yourself in another universe?"
"At the moment, suicide. I think we should just keep grinning and bearing it until they get fed up with us and kick us back to P7Z-284." He frowned then. " Do I talk too much, Jack?"
Well, I couldn't tell a lie, could I? Sighing, I said, "Way, way too much, Daniel."
***
Later, I was sent for again. Marched to an office where the other O'Neill was waiting for me.
"Are you going to let us go home now?" I demanded. It's difficult to appear in control of the situation when you have your hands cuffed behind your back but I did the best I could. I wondered if I should take it as a compliment that he'd left me cuffed but released Daniel. Or perhaps he just knew how much I was wanting to punch him right now.
"I'm thinking it over."
If I started on the guy hitting Daniel I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop. Or if I asked what he'd done to the Daniel in this dimension to make him jump to it like that I'd probably end up head-butting the son-of-a-bitch. Better to think about other things. I asked about Carter again, so, if she wasn't in SG-1 what was she in this world?
Oh, yes, someone this O'Neill had vetoed getting on the program, because apparently this O'Neill didn't think women were suitable for dangerous missions. Because obviously every civilization we came across through the Stargate was going to want to leap on every earth woman they saw and rape her, weren't they? I mean, it stood to reason. As I angrily began to tell him that we'd never found it a problem, and that leaving gender right out of it, Sam Carter just happened to be the best goddamned Air Force office I'd ever had the honor to serve with, the man cut through my words coolly with a sneer about maybe it only wasn't a problem in our dimension because given the way our Jackson looked, he guessed the hairy primitives tended to make a beeline for him first.
"Don’t they have a dress code in your dimension, Colonel?" he added contemptuously. "Or are you just out of practice at enforcing any kind of discipline? From that sissy hair to his incorrectly tied bootlaces, your Jackson is a disgrace to the uniform he doesn't know how to wear."
I gritted my teeth. "You know, given the fact we share the same DNA, I'm really trying to see something in you that I can like, but I have to say up to now it's eluding me. He's a scientist for crying out loud, what the hell difference does it make how he dresses?"
The other O'Neill just shrugged dismissively and went on flicking through the file he'd been reading from. Letting me know that the Samantha Carter in this dimension was someone who'd left her low-grade desk job on the Stargate program in despair when it was obvious no one was going to utilize her talents. Someone now apparently doing research into sub-atomic particles at an alternate Berkeley. Maybe she'd crack quantum physics in this dimension, at least that would be something, but it was still a goddamned criminal waste and it hurt, really hurt to think of Sam Carter being excluded from the Stargate program she so deserved to be on. And Teal'c? Although I knew it was probably hopeless, I tried to explain about Teal'c, about that First Prime of Apophis out there just itching for a chance to rise up against injustice, free his people, free the galaxy from the Goa'uld, a guy with more integrity in his little finger than most human beings have in their whole bodies. But no, this O'Neill didn't know and didn't care; had never heard of him and didn't want to. They'd never gone to Chulak, of course, only Abydos. But this O'Neill had never bonded with Skaara, had indeed dragged Daniel back through the Stargate even though he'd wanted to stay with Sha're every bit as much as the Daniel I knew, and then…and then the son of a bitch had sent a bomb through, killed all those innocent people just so he could write 'Mission Accomplished' on the end of that file. This O'Neill, I decided round about now, was 100% proof scum.
He confirmed that conclusion a second later by adding, "I made Jackson watch us send it through. I was tired of his sniveling and the guy needed a reality check."
By this time I was hating the man so much I couldn't bite it back any longer. "So was that what did it to him? The Daniel in this dimension? Was that how you destroyed all that sense of wonder, that childlike curiosity about the world? Making him watch you murder the woman he loved? Or wasn't that quite enough to finish him off? Did he need a little bit of extra help from you?" Mentally I added, How did you make him afraid of you, you son-of-a-bitch?
He looked at me and his eyes were dead. "He couldn't follow basic orders and he was becoming a danger to himself and others. He needed to learn that he had to do exactly what I told him the second I told him to do it, not ten minutes later – for his sake as well as everyone else's. The last straw came when we went on a mission to rescue Ernest Littlefield…"
I knew where this was going now. I hardly needed to listen until it got to the crucial moment.
"…had to go down there and drag him up the goddamned stairs. That's when I knew it didn't matter what it took, he had to learn to do as he was told…"
I interrupted him then. "He would have come with you."
"What?"
"If you'd let him go when he asked you to, he would have come with you. Don't you remember him looking at you and saying 'Jack, please?' as in 'Jack, please…don't impose your will on me just because you're stronger than I am?'; 'Jack, please…show me you have enough respect for me as a human being to let me make my own decisions?'; 'Jack, please…trust me to do what I think is right?' Do you remember him asking you for that, Colonel? And would it have killed you to let him walk out under his own steam instead of hauling him out of there like he was a naughty child?"
"Even with me dragging him, he damned near got us both killed. I had to practically throw him through the gate. After that, I knew he needed to understand that when I gave an order I expected it to be obeyed. Immediately." He had put down Carter's file now and was opening Daniel's.
"What did you do?"
"I told the General that I wanted Jackson suspended for a fortnight. Then I went over to his place and I taught him a lesson. Since then, we've had no problems. Can you say the same, Colonel? How did you happen to cross your – inter-dimensional portal anyway? Because your Jackson doesn't do as he's told, does he? He's still the same flaky, undisciplined, pain-in-the-ass mine used to be."
"What sort of a lesson?" I was amazed at how none of this white rage I could feel was sounding in my voice. This was the man who'd murdered Skaara and Sha're along with at least five thousand innocent civilians; left Teal'c to serve Apophis; denied Carter the career she deserved and could have excelled at, just because of her gender; and, I knew without it needing to be spelled out for me, had beaten the crap out of Daniel, just because he could.
I have to admit I've sometimes found myself treating Daniel a little bit like a son, in that I've found myself digging deep into those reserves of patience that you only really have for your own child. I remember that reservoir being virtually limitless and that's what I have where Daniel's concerned – almost infinite tolerance, patience; a willingness to put up with him doing stuff that I would never permit from someone else. I mean I don't tell him that. The last thing I want Daniel knowing is that it doesn't matter what he does I'm going to forgive him anything up to – but not including – him getting himself killed, but that's pretty much how it is. Christ, the kid pointed a gun at me once when he really wasn't himself and all I felt for him was pity. When Daniel Jackson gets under your skin he really burrows in deep.
But I guess the dark side of that could be if you let Daniel slot into that place in your psyche your child used to occupy and if your child had died through a combination or your carelessness and his disobedience, even though you'd told him and told him and told him never to touch that gun; that it wasn't a toy, that he mustn't ever…Shit. Well then the Daniel you got to know later could be in big trouble. Especially if you had a lot of rage left inside you that was really directed against yourself but that you just had to let out somehow…
I was feeling a little sick now. I asked him again, "What sort of lesson?"
"I think you know." The man still seemed to think it was the only thing he could have done and he was pleased that he'd done it as efficiently as he had. He turned the file round then and tossed it across the table. I didn't deign to look at it. Instead, to prove I knew what page we were both on, I said: "Had the bruises faded by the time his two week's suspension was up?"
He met my gaze and there was nothing in those dark eyes but ice: not the faintest glimmer of remorse. "Not quite. But he was out of the hospital."
"You son-of-a-bitch!"
Despite my clever reasoning, I really hadn't expected that and the shock of it made me see red. I tugged furiously at the cuffs but they just bit deeper and in the meantime my other self was still talking:
"That's the only scar tissue our Jackson's got, Colonel, the scars I gave him. We shot all the Touched before they got near us; got rid of the virus that way. That underwater alien who grabbed your Jackson and zapped the rest of you? I put three rounds in it as it stuck its head out of the sea. That time you lost your Jackson on P3R-233 through that inter-dimensional portal? When I told my Jackson we were going home, he jumped to it, he didn't hang around and touch any quantum mirrors, and you know what, Apophis never came here, I think he realised our race wasn't one to be messed with. Our Jackson isn't just a better soldier than yours, isn't just someone I've damned well turned from a liability into an asset, he gets injured less often as well. Sometimes, Colonel, you really do have to be cruel to be kind."
I could see the medical report in the other Daniel's file now, proof that this wasn't just a bluff to shock me. Shock me? This was like a cattleprod applied straight to the brain. Christ, Intensive Care…? Four pints of…? Surgery to remove ruptured…? Fractured…? Splintered…?
I tried to stay calm but I couldn't help showing I was shaken to the core, that this was light years worse than I'd feared. This guy was me, after all; a me who had really really lost it with Daniel. "So what happened, Colonel?" I made myself say it tautly. "Did you have a couple of drinks before you went round there? Get carried away on whiskey and hate at the world that let your son die, and take it out on Daniel Jackson?"
I'd hoped to make the other man angry but the jibe didn't seem to have gone home. God, perhaps he'd done it sober. That was more terrifying by far than the thought he'd done it drunk. The other O'Neill was shrugging it off. "I did what had to be done. Jackson thanks me for it now. He knows he wouldn't have lived this long if he hadn't been made to come to his senses in time."
"Uh – hello? Our Daniel's still alive as well, in case you hadn't noticed. And ours doesn't have a scar on his face from getting the shit kicked out of him by his so-called commanding officer." Only a bruise on his face from where you hit him, you power mad son-of-a-bitch.
The other O'Neill just shrugged. "I doubt he'll stay that way for many more missions. Frankly, I'm amazed yours has lasted even this long."
He said it so dismissively, like what the hell would it matter anyway if there were one more or less Daniel Jackson in the cosmos? Like he and I had bought matching coats and he bet one day I was going to lose mine while his would only have a rip in it. I'd been more upset about my neighbour's cocker spaniel getting run over than this O'Neill was by the prospect of 'my' Daniel getting killed. I hated this guy.
And with a sense of disbelief, I realised that there was no guilt there for me to slip a fingernail beneath. The man didn't feel bad at what he'd done on any level. He still honestly believed he'd done the right thing.
"How could you do it? How could you blot out that light inside him that comes on every time he sees something new? How can you enjoy looking in his eyes and seeing fear where there used to be curiosity? Damnit, don't you know what you've lost? Carter and Teal'c and Daniel – the best three friends any Jack O'Neill in any dimension could ever have. And you blew it. You could have had their respect and trust and liking, and all you have is their dislike, their enmity, and their fear. You could have had friends who'd walk through fire for you, Colonel, the kind of friends that come along once in a lifetime if you're lucky, and what have you got in their place? The knowledge that you stuck to the rules, that you enforced discipline, that you did it by the book." I shook my head. "You know, I was feeling sorry for the Daniel in this dimension having to deal with you every day, but now maybe I'm feeling even more sorry for you. Daniel's a survivor, he's resilient, he'll bounce back even from having to work with you, but you, you don't even know how much you've lost, what you could have had. You, I really do pity."
I didn't see the fist coming, just felt it connect with the side of my jaw; once, twice, thrice, before light and blackness exploded in my head.
***
When I woke up I was lying on a bunk in the holding cell and Daniel was saying anxiously: "Jack? Jack? Are you okay?" He was all concern: kid brother having just seen big brother get decked again. Not particularly competent, of course, Carter would probably have applied a cold compress or something, but at least his heart was in the right place and his eyes weren't full of fear. I smiled despite the pounding in my head as I squinted up at the pale blur that was his face. Oh yeah, definitely 'my' Daniel: always panics whenever any of the rest of us gets hurt; never occurs to him for an instant that we might worry about him in the same way when he gets himself damaged or stolen.
I groaned and forced my eyes open wider. At least someone had uncuffed me; that was something, but my arms were still aching from when I'd hit the floor. The way the bruise on Daniel's face had darkened from dull red to an interesting mauve-blue suggested the passage of hours. Damn, I wished I'd got in just one good punch before the other O'Neill had hit me as payback for that one.
Daniel seemed to read my mind without difficulty. "Yours is much more spectacular."
"Nice guy. Thought I might keep in touch. Maybe invite him over for Thanksgiving."
"They're letting us go."
"Well whoopy doo."
"Apparently the me that's here managed to persuade the alternate Hammond that we'd upset the space time continuum if we stayed here so they're chucking us back through the Stargate like those little fish you're supposed to…you know, throw back in the water."
"Kind of lost your metaphor there, didn't you, Dr Jackson?"
"Simile, Jack. And I don't know anything about fishing."
"Remind me to teach you."
Daniel shook his head. "I have pet fish, remember? How could I look them in the eye if I went off and did hook and line type things. Is your head okay?"
"Just peachy," I made the effort to sit up, putting a hand to my head as he did so. The room shivered as though it was a Stargate event horizon and performed a slow revolution before coming to rest in more or less one place. "Have to give the guy credit – great right hook."
"His backhand's pretty impressive as well. Guess he's a tennis player."
I put up a hand to examine the mark on Daniel's blurry face, the muscle in my jaw clenching as I looked at it. It's funny but there are some things I just can't grow out of and even after all these missions, people hurting my team on purpose still really makes me want to spit.
Daniel was saying, "How many fingers am I holding up, Jack?"
I stalled. "Daniel, you don't have your glasses on, which means you probably don't know how many fingers you're holding up."
Daniel imperturbably dug his glasses out of his jacket pocket and put them on. "Okay. How many?"
"Two."
"No."
"Four?"
"No, Jack."
"Okay. Best of three?"
"Maybe I should ask for a doctor or something?"
"Don't bother, he'll probably have you keelhauled for speaking without permission."
"Wasn't that the British Navy who went in for that – keelhauling? And anyway wasn't that back in the seventeenth century or – ?"
"Daniel."
Letting the etymology go for once, Daniel peered at my face with a kind of awestruck curiosity. "Amazing mix of colours, like sunset on Abydos. You know your left eye is turning the most beautiful shade of purple and your jaw is…"
"Daniel." We know each other so well after all this time; the words 'Can it' didn't even have to reach my lips. Daniel just subsided obediently at that quiet but firm mention of his name. You see? I can exert discipline, I can show some control, and I don't need to knock him around to do it.
"It is kind of Jackson Pollock spectacular though, Jack."
Or maybe not. I sighed. "Any timescale for them chucking us back through the mirror, mirror, on the wall or do they want to torture us a little first?"
"No, I think they're pretty much done. I told them everything we've ever done since birth, you did the same, they decided it was so unlike their dimension it was all fairly irrelevant anyway and now I think they'd much rather have the space where we're not."
"Well, much as one wants to be wanted, I don't have a problem with that."
In the end we were frog-marched back through the Stargate and more or less shoved towards the mirror. I looked over my shoulder at the other me before I touched the chill stone. "Can't say it was nice knowing you."
"Actually, I liked that robot version of you better, Jack," Daniel added next to me. " Much more warm and cuddly."
"Yeah, and he didn't even have a heartbeat."
I sighed as my gaze fell on the tense scarred face of the other Daniel. That haircut was truly brutal, made him look simultaneously too young and too old, didn't soften the way his cheekbones were way too visible or disguise the shadows under those oversized blue eyes. I knew without needing to be told that the other me had made him look at things no Daniel in any dimension should ever have been made to see. "Quit," I told him gently. "Go back to archaeology. I hear Egypt's nice this time of year. Dig up stuff. You'll be happier and out there no one can slap you around or make you kill anyone you don't want to."
"Or you could try standing up for yourself," Daniel added beside me. "That might work too."
I couldn't help thinking it was ironic that the one person in the whole galaxy Daniel didn't have any sympathy for was himself. "Cut the kid some slack, Daniel. You have no idea what he has to put up with." I couldn't help looking back at O'Neill then but his eyes were still dead. Maybe your son killing himself with your gun could do this to a man, but it had to be in you to be like that, to rage for so long and with so little justice at anyone who dared to go on drawing breath that wasn't poisoned with hate. I said, "I'm sorry that your son died, Colonel, and of everyone in the whole inter-dimensional pan-galactic soup kitchen, believe me, I know how much it hurts. But if you'd just – "
The other O'Neill flicked off the safety catch of his MP-5 and held my gaze unwaveringly. He didn't even blink as he said, "Touch the mirror, now, or I'll pull the trigger."
And maybe Daniel is starting to learn how to recognize when a guy is serious about killing you, because I felt him grab my arm in one hand as he reached out with the other, even as I had my mouth open to finish my next withering sentence. Again, everything tingled; blue light washed over us.
"O'Neill! Daniel Jackson!"
"Teal'c!" Daniel hugged the Jaffa with one arm while still hanging onto me with the other, apparently afraid that I might slip back through the inter-dimensional portal to finish delivering my closing speech.
I slapped Teal'c on his massive shoulder. "Damn good to see you again my friend. Daniel, you can let me go now. I promise to stay this side of the mirror."
"Colonel! Daniel!" Carter came up at a run, flashlight in her hand, pale with anxiety and with dark rings under her eyes. I looked at her fondly. Oh yes, I've been there, done that, hours and hours of fruitless searching for the inexplicably disappeared, mind racing with impossible possibilities; not fun; not fun at all. Getting zapped into an alternate universe was never an easy option but being left behind really sucked. Odd to think that Daniel and I had actually drawn the long straw on this mission.
Daniel was displaying his bruised cheekbone to Carter and Teal'c like a kid showing off a scraped knee, kind of proud and embarrassed at the same time. "…He only hit me once but Jack got really pounded."
"Thank you, Daniel. That reinforces my authority wonderfully."
"Who did it?" Carter peered at our wounds curiously.
"An alternative dimension, Jack – "
" – who I take no responsibility for," I put in.
But Carter and Daniel were already meshed into scientist speak; Daniel providing data and Carter extrapolating information from it, like someone weaving a rug of fantastic complexity from small twists of dry fiber. "…much greater differences than…all possibilities played out…the fact that the personalities showed such divergence could mean that…Abydos but not Chulak…then how did they allow for planetary…found the cartouche but didn't learn to speak…" Oh yes, those two were going to have hours of fun with this one. Probably keep them amused for days.
"Okay, so we're even," I told Teal'c as we walked back to the Stargate.
"How so, O'Neill?"
"Well a you from another universe shot Daniel in the shoulder, and a me from another universe thumped him, so I guess that makes us even."
"…I can’t believe I wasn't even in the Stargate Program!"
"…well I think that was the alternative Jack's fault. He was a major chauvinist. Actually he was a major dickhead in every possible way."
I could feel them both darting a look at me, wondering which layer of psyche I was keeping that repressed prejudice hidden behind, no doubt. I cleared my throat. "Well the other Daniel was a credit to the other me's training: obeyed orders in a nanosecond, did up all his buttons correctly, apparently never wandered off even to look at interesting ruins, never answered back, said 'Yes, sir' and 'No, sir' just like a proper soldier, and, boy, did he have short hair."
Daniel was pulling a face. "He was a spineless jerk," he conceded with a sigh. "Let the other Jack walk all over him."
"Yes, Daniel, probably because the other me put the other you in hospital for not obeying orders lickety-split enough."
"What?"
"As in broken bones, ruptured spleen, intensive care, blood transfusions, you know the kind of thing. I got to read the medical file. Where did you think that scar on his face came from? Certainly wasn't from running off by himself to look at interesting inscriptions, was it? Because the other Daniel doesn't do stuff like that. Not any more." I realized I was starting to sound a little like someone who was miffed because a rival owner's dog could heel, roll over, and sit better than his, and so swallowed the next ten things I'd been going to say. And of course I didn't want Daniel to be scared of me. It just might have been nice if he occasionally did what he was told, that was all, but the price the other O'Neill had paid to achieve it was still too high. Way too high.
"I find it unacceptable that this other O'Neill would do such a thing to any Daniel Jackson, even one from a parallel universe." Teal'c had that ominous look on his face that usually means someone is going to be nursing one hell of a headache very soon and I could just see how much he wished he'd come to that alternate dimension with us. Damned lucky he hadn't, of course, as that other me would have put a bullet in him as soon as look at him but I could see those weren't the lines Teal'c was thinking along.
"Hey, I wasn't too thrilled about it myself," I protested, "but it was kind of a done deal by the time Daniel and I went through the mirror."
"He put the other Daniel in hospital just for disobeying orders?" There was a kind of awe as well as disapproval in Carter's voice. I could just see her mentally adding up how many hospital visits that would have meant for 'our' Daniel if I'd ever decided to follow suit. I'd tried to do that sum myself back in the holding cell on the wrong side of the mirror but had quickly run out of fingers. I mean Dr Fraiser and I have kind of joked about getting Daniel a bed with his name on put ready in the infirmary for the next time he bounces up to the natives with a big smile and no sidearm or says 'I wonder what this does…?' right before he touches something he shouldn't, but if I'd put him in intensive care every time he'd just not done what I told him…I saw Carter give her blonde head a shake to clear it, her mind literally boggling at the thought. "The son of a bitch," Carter murmured before adding belatedly, "Sir." She looked at me with a hint of accusation. "And you left the other Daniel there?"
"Could only bring one Daniel back, Captain. Thought it had better be the one I’d taken with me. Not that I'm saying it wouldn't have been character-building for the other me to have to deal with our Daniel for a while but I'm not sure it would have done our Daniel a whole lot of good. The other me wasn't too hot on the patience and tolerance front."
Daniel was still shocked, really shocked, as shocked as…well as shocked as I had been. I wondered if I should have told him. God, was Daniel going to start thinking it might be possible for me to ever…? Daniel looked up and met my gaze and I was relieved to see that he just looked thoughtful, like he was considering something very carefully from every angle. He said, "I'll never criticize you again, Jack."
"Yes, you will, Daniel."
"I won't."
"Will."
"Won't."
"Will too." I shrugged. "I give it a couple of days. Maybe a week." As we reached the DHD, I said, "Dial it up, Daniel."
Daniel looked around at the chamber. "But Jack I never got to translate these tablets. Damn, that's a point, I should have made sure I videoed the Sumerian cuneiform in the other universe, tried to find out if the two were saying the same thing or if the civilizations had significantly diverged. I wonder if it would be worth going back just to – ?"
"No, Daniel."
"Well, the other you and me have probably gone home now and you have to agree it would be fascinating to compare – "
"No, Daniel. No. N-O. No."
"Jack, just for once, could you not be such a - ?"
"Ah-ha," I held up a finger, "that sounds suspiciously like a criticism." I checked my watch. "Thirty two seconds. So much for 'never'. Daniel, pretty please, dial it up and let me go home. I'm older than you and I got pounded, remember? I have a headache you wouldn't believe."
"God, I'm sorry, Jack, I should have thought." Scratchy markings on the walls forgotten, Daniel practically tripped over his own unlaced boots in his attempt to get to the DHD more quickly.
Watching him, I smiled and glanced down at Carter. "See? Your basic psychology. Works every time. Quicker, cleaner, and on the whole generally less morally indefensible than beating the hell out of your subordinates."
Daniel's hands were moving across the symbols so quickly they were almost a blur. The chevrons engaged and the Stargate 'kerwhooshed' beautifully in blue. Daniel skipped back across to take my arm carefully, like I was an old lady who needed to be helped across the street. His big blue eyes were filled with contrition. "I can't believe I forgot about your head." He turned to Carter. "He was concussed. Out for half an hour at least. I thought he was never going to wake up."
Okay. That was too much guilt now. Time to rein it back a little. "Yeah, but I'm feeling much better now. No double vision or anything."
"He couldn't tell how many fingers I was holding up."
Damn. Damnit. Daniel on a major guilt trip here. "Daniel, I'm fine. Let's go."
"I thought his jaw was broken at first…"
Shit. Should have just hit him after all. I said forcefully, "Daniel! I'm fine. Couldn't be finer if I tried. Now let's have less talking, less thinking, and more doing. Okay?" I gripped his arm gently, making him look at me. "Let's go home."
Daniel must have read in my eyes that I wasn't in pain, or concussed any more, because he smiled in relief. "Okay, Jack. Home it is."
Yes. Home sweet home. Terra firma. The dimension where everyone who knows your name doesn't hate the sound of it. The place where you may not be everything you want to be, but at least you're who you are.
No place like it, in my opinion.
The End