Chapter Text
Colonel Jack O’Neill was running late. He didn’t have any briefings or things, but was supposed to be in by 0800. A leaky toilet made that not happen. By the time he had gone to the hardware store (twice) and fixed it, he would be arriving at work closer to 1000. But again nothing was scheduled so when he called the general that morning to let him know about his little bathroom flood, he was told to come in when he was finished.
Earlier that day as he was making his second trip to the hardware store, his phone rang.
“O’Neill,” he said as per his normal answer.
“Colonel, are you coming in today?” It was Carter
Jack smiled at the phone. “Yes, Carter, I’m coming in but I’ll be late. I had a toilet problem.”
“Oh…OK,”she answered, clearly a little uncomfortable.
“Wait, no! Carter, it's an actual problem with my toilet. It wasn’t me having the problem ah, I mean not biologically.” He shook his head, that was awkward.
On the other end Sam laughed. “Not that you don’t share your potty activities with us anyway, but I’m glad it’s not a digestive issue.”
It was true. Jack always said something when he was going to pee or would happily claim his farts. Even in the tent when they were in there together. It was a silly game that Sam didn’t usually participate in. His favorite was to fart in his sleeping bag then open it and expose the world. Sam was frequently next to him and got the full force of it. She had become really good at holding her breath on those occasions. Also farting by the fire while off world was a real competition sometimes. Teal’c usually won though.
“I’ll be in later, Carter. I already talked to Hammond. I just need one part. I’ll replace it and be in. Wait, you owe me cake. I expect you to produce it at lunch.”
“You want mess hall cake as payment? For winning a bet?”
“I want cake. You can get me that for now, but I see a bakery in your future.” The bet had been how many marshmallows Teal’c could eat in a minute.
“Deal, so standing lunch team date then?”
“Of course. I'll be in just before lunch I think.”
“Good, come to my lab when you do, sir. I have something cool to show you.”
“Your version of cool and mine are different, Carter. What do you have?”
“Well SG-11 brought back some interesting stuff. It’s like tar, but it seems to move on its own. I have a small sample in my lab.”
That didn’t sound too terrible, just black tar. “Sure I’ll come in when I get there. Have fun with your tar.”
“You know me sir, I love this stuff, It moves on its own. I have it in the fridge now and that makes it stop, but I’ll take it out and warm it up when you get here. It’s all over the place on PX-311. The crews are having difficulty getting it off their shoes.”
“I know you love this stuff, Carter, I’ll come see your new toy. I’ll see you later.”
“Yes sir, goodbye.”
Jack ended the call with a smile on his lips. He and Carter were… well he didn’t know. But they talked all the time now, even off duty. He came over occasionally to her house to help with things and she did the same. Sometimes with and sometimes without the team. He didn’t know what was happening, if anything, between them. But it was fun and comfortable. He looked forward to seeing her every day.
He had been able to go in a little later and went to get dressed before finding her. He had just made it out of the locker room after changing when the alarms began. “INTRUDER ALERT” was blaring out of the speaker.
“Shit!,” he exclaimed. He needed to get armed and find Carter. He always found her first. She always knew what was happening. He ran the halls both looking for what the problem was and for Carter or any member of his team.He made it to the armory without any resistance, where encountered Col.Reynolds gearing up.
“Reynolds, what gives?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know much. All I know is SG-11 came back with black tar on their shoes and gear. They went to go examine it and it started to grow.”
“So we're getting invaded by the blob?”
“I guess it keeps separating. But I don’t know any more.” He made for the door.
“I'll be right behind you,” Jack said, suddenly remembering that Carter had said something about the black tar.
“Where’s Carter?” Jack asked.
“No idea now, but I saw her near the control room a little bit ago.”
“Thanks,” Jack replied. Reynolds nodded and ran out.
Jack needed to find Carter, he needed to find out what was happening. Nothing seemed to be in the corridors, save airmen running around with guns. No one really knew what was going on. But the feeling of chaos and fear was inexplicably thick. He could see it in the eyes of the men and women running past. Something was very, very wrong.
No one knew exactly what was happening and in the absence of concrete knowledge, Jack headed for the control room.It was always the center of activity and maybe Hammond would be there, or maybe someone could explain it all to him. Maybe he would even find the intruder there. All he knew was that he hated not knowing what was happening.
Sure enough, when he approached, he heard gunfire. He cautiously took the steps, speeding up when he heard Sam’s voice.
“Carter!” he called as he got close to the top step then he froze. Instead of the bustling control room he found Carter, Walter and Teal’c, guns firing. The target? A seven foot tall tar blob that seemed to have arms and legs or tentacles of some sort, almost humanoid, but undulating like it was a liquid.
The bullets were going in, and the being seemed to morph and react to being hit.
Sam turned her head to him, ”Sir get out, it’s growing and our shots aren’t doing anything!”
Jack’s eyes were trained on the being. It had started to swell. He took two steps back onto the steps, at the same time reaching for Carter, who was still firing.
“Carter, something’s happening!” he called.
The being grew twice in size as if it was filled with air. “SAM!” he called.
She turned to him and started to move to the stairs and Jack scrambled down, giving room for the others. Sam had reached the top stair when the being rapidly and forcefully deflated. Jack could only see a little bit, but he heard the most awful noise. The being had forcefully expelled all of the bullets back out at the same time.
He watched Sam's face as she was hit at least a hundred times, all at once. Her look of utter terror and the shriek of pain lasted only a second before she fell, her head turned toward him in her now ghostly white face streaked with blood.
“CARTER!” he screamed, as he started up the stairs again, a black tentacle looking thing wrapped around her legs, dragging her back to the being. The last thing Jack saw was his 2IC, being enveloped.
“CARTER!” he screamed again, terror and horror nearly taking his voice. He lunged forward, but the being moved towards him. He jumped back and scrambled down the steps. When he hit the corridor again it was chaos. Black blobs were everywhere. They hadn’t been there even minutes ago. There were cries, screams and anarchy as the blobs absorbed gunshots and spit them back out, hitting everyone near.
As he ran, Jack got clipped in the shoulder by one of those bullets.
He screamed in pain only to look up and see blobs coming towards him. Some rippled like waves, some had human form but they were coming. So Jack ran. He needed a plan. Guns weren’t working. He called for others fighting to retreat and found that everyone was down. Everyone.
Overhead the announcement of self-destruct rang out. He didn’t have much time. He ran down the corridor, whipped around the corner, only to find more blobs coming at him. Behind him was a door. He whipped out his key card and opened it, practically falling in.
It was a storage room. Jack recognized some of the items in it. He weaved around boxes and crates to get to the back of the room. He was breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his chest. Sam was dead. Everyone was dead. He didn’t have time to grieve if he wanted to survive.
And now something was banging on the door he just closed. Nope not banging, the door was quickly starting to bend out of shape.
He looked around trying to find anything to stop the advancement of the blob or to hide, Either was an option. Next to him was a big box, labeled fragile. The sticker on it was labeled “Quantum Mirror do not activate.”
No, he couldn’t. It was a terrible idea. But they were coming in no matter what and there was no stopping them. Maybe he could go through and come back? No matter what happened, he was going to die if he stayed. He tore at the box, opening it. The box was filled with straw like fluff. He dug in it desperately. He felt the edges of the mirror and hauled it out. On top of it was the controller. He lifted it, the banging on the door getting louder. Now the door was making a terrible bending, screeching sound. They were close.
He leaned the mirror on the wall and started to fidget with the controller. How did that work again? Before he could get it to activate, the door burst open. The light from the corridor was blocked out by the being in the now decimated doorway. Jack shrunk down. Behind the being in the corridor, he could hear the countdown to self-destruct.
As the being oozed into the room, Jack tried to hide. But it found him, oozing around the boxes. It stopped when it came upon him. It was about six feet away and started to swell. It was going to spit out bullets again. Jack frantically pushed on the mirror device.
The bullets came flying out just as the mirror lit up, showing another place. The last thing Jack felt a searing pain in his right wrist as he jumped through, device in hand.
He landed hard, hitting his head on something hard. His last thought involved smacking the device to shut the mirror down before he lost consciousness.
OoOoO
“Ma’am?” asked Walter as he held the phone in his hand.
“Yes Walter?” answered Colonel Samantha Carter.
“I’ve got a call from security. There is motion detected in the main store room. IR shows a human form.”
Sam frowned. “Is security responding?”
“Yes ma’am. They said the form is not moving and is lying down.”
Sam exhaled. “I’ll go take a look too.”
She jumped down the steps leading to the corridor and took the elevator to the appropriate level. There were several armed airmen waiting at the door to the storage room. One handed her his side arm.
“Ma’am?” asked the one at the front.
“Go ahead,” she commanded.
The door was opened and the lead yelled inside for anyone to come out. There was no answer. The room was dark, but their movement turned on motion detector lights. Slowly they advanced to the designated area. Sam took up the rear as she was not in protective equipment.
One of the airmen peeked behind a box, he kicked at something. “Uh ma’am? We found him. He looks unconscious and there’s blood all over the place.”
Sam hurried to him. Sure enough, there was a man, in uniform, covered in blood that looked to be coming from his arm and shoulder.
“Get a med team up here, but keep him covered,” she said, indicating the guns already pointing at him.
Jack did not wake when moved and was taken to the infirmary under heavy watch.
Sam approached the doctor as the techs swarmed around him, starting IVs putting him on oxygen and holding pressure to his wrist and shoulder.
“Doctor?” Sam asked, “do you know anything?”
The doctor, a graying man in his fifties, turned to her. “No, not really. His wrist looks to have taken a bullet. It’s pretty bad. The shoulder is just a scrape. He also looks to have struck his head. Once we control his bleeding we’ll get a CT scan, but that wrist will need surgery. So I doubt he’ll wake up and tell us anything until after we fix him.”
“Who is he?” she asked.
The doctor’s face sobered. “Honestly I don’t know. Take a look at his dog tags.”
“Jonathan O’Neill?” she read. “Why does O’Neill ring a bell?” She shrugged. “Well tell me when he’s waking up. I need to talk to him. In the meantime keep him handcuffed to the bed and we’ll keep guards here. I don’t know who he is or how he got there and I don’t want him disappearing on us.”
Sam turned as Daniel appeared at her shoulder. “Who is he?” he asked.
“His tags said Jonathan O’Neill.”
“Wait, Jack O’Neill? Sam, he was who I went through the gate with on the first mission. He died on Abydos. Where did they find him?”
“In the main storage at the back.”
“Sam?”
“Daniel?” She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Where is the quantum mirror?”
“It’s in sto- oh shit. Do you think he came through it? Wasn’t that thing supposed to be sent to Area 51?”
“Yes, but you know how that goes. Plus if it did get sent there and they found him, he would just be sent back here anyway. Did you see it in there?”
“I was focused on him… maybe.”
“We need to look,” Daniel said.
Sure enough, on further examination, Jack was found at the foot of the mirror. The device that operated it on the floor, mixed with Jack’s blood.
“I'm going to go research this guy, “ Sam said, turning to go, “I feel like I know him or should know him.”
“Has anyone called the General?” Daniel asked.
“I’ll do that too. He’s due back tomorrow but I’ll give him the highlights.”
“Good Idea.”
OoOo*Hours later*OoOo
Sam got the call in her lab. “Colonel, he’s awake.”
Sam ran into Daniel along the way to the infirmary. “He’s awake, want to come down with me?”
“Sure,” Daniel shrugged.
They entered the infirmary together. Jack’s bed was near the back, surrounded by curtains. There were voices behind the curtain. Sam recognized one as the doctor, the other, more scratchy one she didn’t recognize.
Slowly she pulled the curtain back to expose herself and Daniel. In the bed was a man, older, maybe in his forties, with salt and pepper hair and deep brown eyes. Eyes that were currently widened in confusion. “Sam?” he croaked, staring at her.
Sam stiffened. “I’m Colonel Carter, who are you?”
Jack's face dropped. He shook his head. Of course she didn’t know him. Well, they probably had an idea, especially since he woke and noticed his dog tags were gone. “I’m Colonel Jack O’Neill. Have you heard of me?”
Sam stepped closer. “In fact we have. I looked you up. You’re supposed to be dead.”
Jack took his left hand, the one not in the giant splint, and tried to motion down his body, only to find that he was handcuffed to the bed. He frowned. “Well I’m here and very alive, at least in my reality.”
Sam eyed him for a moment. “So you know about the quantum mirror,” Sam said coolly.
He nodded. “We had a couple of… situations with it in my reality.”
“Us too. But why are you here? What injured you?”
Jack took a long breath. Thinking back it still stung. He hadn’t had a chance to metabolize it, especially Sam’s death. And there she was, a different her. One that didn’t know him, standing in front of him. She was still beautiful with that spark in her eye. But her expression looked harder, like she had been wrung though. Maybe she had. And she was a colonel. Wow. She was getting close to promotion in his reality, but it was still a little bit off. “Uh, it’s a very long story and I am very tired.” He was, he wasn’t kidding. “Can you give me a few hours to think it through? I want to get it all straight.”
Sam nodded. “It’s 1800 now. I’ll come back in a few hours.”
Jack lit up again. “I see you and my… well, you still don’t have a life.”
Sam balked. “I’ll talk to you later.” With that she turned on her heel and left.
Jack frowned and looked up again into the eyes of Daniel. “Daniel!” he exclaimed.
“Hey, I’m guessing you know me where you’re from.”
Jack sighed.
“Am I dead there?”
Jack let out a puff of air. “Everyone is. But you have died a few times in my reality and you just keep popping back up.”
“Here too, they just can’t keep me away.”
Jack smiled. “I like that about you.”
Daniel took a seat next to Jack’s bed, clearly intrigued. “So Jack, It’s weird that I don’t really know you but you know me. I mean I know you from before, but not really. I know you’re tired, but I’d love to hear a little about what you know about the other me. At least until you get too tired.”
“Yeah. Sounds good. We’re friends. You went to Abydos with me and I decided at the last minute not to die. I ended up blowing up Ra’s ship. You stayed there because of Sha’re. Then I retired. But years later we had an incident with the Goa’uld and they had to when they figured out the gate again I un-retired, well actually they un-retired me. Then I brought you back. Oh and Sha’re was taken by the Goa’ulds too. And Skarra.”
“That story aligns with mine. But after you died on the ship, Sam figured it all out and came for me. Of course it took years, but that’s basically what happened.”
“Did you guys get the cartouche?”
“Yup, and that has led to other travel.”
“Did you go to Chulak?”
“We did, and tried to save Sha’re. It was too late. Skarra too.”
“Did you meet a big scary guy there, a Jaffa named Teal’c?”
“We were helped to escape by one, A big guy. But he took heavy fire and went down. I never got his name.”
“Too bad, we brought him back. He was is- was the most loyal member of my team. That sucks.”
“Sounds like it. We could have used the help.”
“Who is your General here, how come I haven’t met him… or her.”
“We are under the command of General Hammond. He’s in Washington, but he’ll be back soon. Sam is briefing him on the phone, probably now. She read your file so she knows about you… well, the other you.”
“Well, I’m glad… kinda that the other one isn’t here. I would be freaking out by now if he was.”
“Oh yeah the entropic cascade thing?”
“Yeah, I’m guessing you had that too.”
“We did, with an alternative Sam. It was weird.”
“Yeah. In her reality I died, but we were married. It got really confusing for a while with two Carters.”
“I bet it did. Did you and Sam have… something in your reality? I don't mean to pry, but when you talk about her your face changes.”
Jack took another breath. He was getting very tired. “Sam and I, well we had a thing, but also not a thing. We never did anything, you know, chain of command and all, but we had some pretty deep feelings. She died in front of me.” That was the first time he had said it out loud. He looked away from Daniel as his eyes misted up.
Next to him he felt a couple of pats on the bed. “Jack, I want to talk more, but I know you have a lot to process. I’ll be back. Have a good nap.”
“Thanks”, Jack croaked, not looking at Daniel.
He didn’t turn back until he heard Daniel leave. That’s when the tears came. It wasn't sobs, but solid crying. Everyone was gone.The SGC was gone, maybe the whole world. There was no way to tell, as the SGC self-destructed. Everyone he knew, loved, was loyal to, gone. No one knew him here. Well maybe Sara did, but she thought he was dead. Contacting her would be traumatic and bring up too much. So he was alone in a place he called home. It was so similar but also so different.
He cried for a while, finally wiping his nose. No one came in and noticed and he was good with that. He needed to think it all through, but first he needed sleep. His eyes closed a few minutes later.