Stunned was such an inadequate word.  Overwhelmed, breathless, blindsided… all completely short of useful.

Claire knew her jaw was hanging open in moronic stupor.  Knew her eyes were bugging out, staring at the miraculous personification of her long-dead child as his explanation developed.

Everything.  A life-time’s worth of knowledge, gathered, catalogued, pondered…treasured.  All gone.   Pointless.

“Our best hypothesis,” Daniel continued, waving his hand to support his exposition, “Is that the Goa’uld seized on extant mythology, assumed the personas of the god-figures…”

He was so beautiful.  Alive, breathing, and so brilliant.  Would her precious boy have become the image of this man?

Shaking her head sharply, she pulled her attention back to the breathtaking, unbelievable picture that Daniel was painting. 

Mel leaned forward, gaze fixed on Daniel’s face.  “So, the gods walk, so to speak.”

A rueful nod.  “Oh, yes.  And they are not nice people”  Daniel lowered himself back into his chair.  “Even the ‘good’ version, the Tok’ra, are frighteningly self-focused.”

O’Neill snorted.  “Not nice.  Cripes, Daniel.  Not nice?  They’re vicious, soulless sons of bitches, with enough power to be really dangerous.  After three years, we still don’t really have the tech to stand up against even one snakehead, face to face.” He scowled at the table’s innocent surface.  “Bastards pretty much buy into their own P.R.  Most of them seem to figure they really are gods, with all of the fringe benefits that go along with the position.”

He lifted his gaze to meet Doctor Carter’s ashen face. 

“And when they notice you’re around—and they will notice—they are going to wipe you off the bloody face of the planet.  You won’t stand a chance.  You just really have no idea.”

“So…”  Doctor Carter stared down at her tightly folded hands. ”Just where does that leave us?  We can’t conjure up someone who died on our world twenty-five years ago.  And I’m really afraid it’s rather too late, even if we could.“

Mel shook his head sadly.  “There’s not much chance of demilitarizing our project at this date.”

“None at all, I’d say,” Doctor Carter agreed.  She met her double’s eyes, mouth twisted in a rueful grimace.  “The country’s military is riding a rather impressive ‘high’ just now, and our new president...”  The sound she emitted might have been a raspberry, coming from someone less polished and sophisticated.

“President?”  Daniel leaned forward slightly.  “Oh, God.  Don’t tell me…”

“President Kinsey.”

“Shit!”

“Oh, damn!”

The colonel’s and major’s exclamations sounded in chorus.  Daniel slumped back again, face grim. Claire tightened her fingers around his, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand.  His grip firmed, and he tilted his head to gift her with a small smile.

“That stupid asshole’s figuring to chase the presidency over here, too,” O’Neill growled.  “Over my dead body, as much good as it’ll do.”

“He rode a wave of patriotic and military fervor into office.  He was an influential part of the faction of the government that ‘managed’ the cleanup after the Soviet Union dissolved, and a big portion of the public adores the ground he walks on.”  Mel’s voice dripped with contempt.

“Over here, he’s pretty down on the Stargate project.”  O’Neill’s voice held an intrinsic question.

“In our world as well,” Doctor Carter nodded.  “Initially, he was powerfully opposed to funding the Doorway Project.”

“Let me guess.”  O’Neill leaned over the table.  “The words ‘Pandora’s Box’ entered into it somewhere, right?”

She smiled grimly.  “How did you know?  But he came around when General West’s people convinced him of the possible military benefits of exploring other worlds.”

“West?  He still in charge over there?”  O’Neill gave his head a sharp shake.  “He was a good man.  Hard, but pretty reasonable.  He was the one who okayed letting Daniel past the ‘need to know’ restrictions, way back at the beginning.  He retired just before General Hammond, here, took over.”

“Hmm.”  General Hammond gazed pensively at Colonel O’Neill.  “I don’t know him well, but everything I’ve heard indicates that he’s sound.  Of course, there’s no guarantee that this other West will be as reasonable.”

O’Neill quirked a brow upward.  “You thinking… What, a little ‘informational expedition’?”

“I think we might be able to put together enough information to open his eyes a bit.”

“But, Sirs…!”  Major Carter leaned forward to look at the general around O’Neill’s body.  “We’d be interfering…”

“Sam, we’ve already pretty thoroughly ‘interfered with’ one alternate universe,” Daniel interrupted.  “This isn’t the same as messing around with our own history.”

Claire felt her jaw drop.  Again.  Messing around with history?

Major Carter’s mouth tightened stubbornly.  “But…”

“Carter, swallow it.”  O’Neill’s curt interjection allowed no argument.  “These folks are heading for a fall of Godzilla proportions, and getting General West to understand the real stakes might be the only way to give ‘em a chance to haul themselves out of it.  This is no time for this crap!”

“Sam, it’s not the same.  We aren’t changing anything.”  Daniel reached his free hand out toward her.  “No interference means turning our backs and letting the Goa’uld overrun them before they even know what risks they’re running.  Can you think of any other way to help them?”  Claire felt his fingers tighten painfully around hers.  “We’ve basically got two choices.  We help them, or we send them back, knowing what they’re almost certainly facing.” 

The major’s gaze dropped to the table.  After a moment, her head shook.  “All right.”

“Sure?”

She looked up to meet his eyes, and smiled.  “Yeah.  Okay.  You’re right.  It just feels… funny.”

“Funny?” O’Neill sputtered.  “Our primo science geek, and all you can say is ‘it feels funny’?”

She shrugged. 

“Besides,” the colonel continued, “If West doesn’t listen, I don’t figure they’ve got a chance in hell of making it another year.  He’s going to have a tough enough time as it is.”

Major Carter’s head was shaking sadly.  “With Kinsey in office… God, remember…”

Daniel shuddered slightly.  “Oh, yes.  He’s so arrogant about the power of this ‘great country’ that he’ll leave you completely vulnerable.  We couldn’t get him to understand, and I’d seen where we were heading.”

“Seen?”  Claire glanced up into his blue eyes.  “Seen what?”

Daniel turned to stare blindly through the observation window.  “I… um… well, that was the first time…”

“That was our first experience with the Mirror,” Carter interrupted.  “Daniel took a little… accidental trip.  He saw the destruction of another version of our world.”

“And they were a lot better prepared than you’d be.”  He drew a deep breath.  “You know, Jack… We’ve got another problem.”

“As if we hadn’t already thought up enough?”

Daniel’s gaze softened as he smiled at the colonel.  “Well, you aren’t going to like this one a lot.”

O’Neill groaned.  “Like I’ve really loved what you’ve said so far.  Okay, hit me.”

“Well… We’ve already established that they’ve excluded their non-military staff from what they’re really up to, right?  The military people in command will never give… um…” He glanced apologetically toward Mel, “…Two archaeologists any credence.  And something tells me that while Doctor Carter may be on the inside of the technical side of things, General West isn’t in the habit of asking her for operational advice.  Right?”

Doctor Carter’s mouth tightened.  “Right.”

“So, Doctor Carter… If you show up with this story, how much chance do you think there is that General West will listen to you.”  His gaze dropped to the table’s surface, lips tightening.  “Trust me, he’s not going to take you seriously.  And you don’t really want to know where you’re liable to end up if he decides you’re not… quite all there.”

She grimaced.  “And this story is going to make them figure I’m a candidate for a white room.”

Daniel’s body jerked, his eyes squeezing shut.  “You have no idea.”

“So, it’s hopeless?”

He inhaled, then blew the air out forcefully, straightening and lifting his eyes to meet O’Neill’s.  “No.  Not if the information comes from… the right source.”

O’Neill’s slouched body abruptly jerked upright. “Oh, no.  No, no, no, no, Danny boy.  Not a chance!”  His silvering head was shaking vigorously.  “Once was enough.  I’ve done my duty to the universes out there that got it wrong.  I am not playing footsie with that goddamned mirror!”

“But Jack!”  Daniel leaned forward over the table, earnest gaze fixed on the colonel.  “Think about it.   He’s not going to listen to these three; I’d go, but he won’t listen to me any more than he will to my p… parents.”  His cheeks pinked slightly as he stumbled over the word.  “Sam could go—at least she might be able to convince him about the mirror.  But to him, Sam Carter is just one of those scientists.  Besides, she’d have to worry about entropic cascade.   But you… He’ll know you.  He’ll know you can’t be his Jack O’Neill, but he’ll listen to you because you so obviously are… you.  There isn’t anyone else, except maybe Feretti…”  He glanced quizzically at Doctor Carter.  After a moment’s puzzling, she nodded.  “But he was only a Captain.  It has to be you!”

O’Neill’s jaw jutted mutinously.  “Daniel…”

“Colonel O’Neill, should we decide on this course of action, you are the obvious courier.”

“But General…!”

Daniel had slowly leaned back into the padding of his chair, passion leaching from his features as the two officers argued over O’Neill’s participation.

“You know,” he said softly, “It really might be a completely moot point.”

They all turned to stare at him.

He shrugged, an expression of vague helplessness sweeping over his face.  “Just what advice can we give them?  Contact Thor?  Find the Tok’ra?  Visit the Nox?  They’ve already burned so many bridges.  No Abydos; no Chulak; no chance to ally with Teal’c.  And no cultural substructure associated with the Gate command.  What help can we give them?”

“Well…”  O’Neill snarled irritably.  “This was your idea.  And,” he snorted in self-derision, “I figure it’s a good one, even if my desire to touch that damned mirror is non-existent.  So what can we tell them to help?”

Major Carter’s fingers tapped against the wooden table, her brows lowered in concentration.  “Well, we’ve lost the colonel’s little “Dial Thor” device, but there’s always Cimmeria.”

Daniel’s head tilted as he considered the suggestion.  “Without Teal’c, they won’t get grabbed by the Hammer, but we could help them contact Thor the same way we did on our second trip.  If we help them get through the tests and give them the right message to send, maybe he’ll help.  But the Asgard aren’t so good about ‘getting involved’ in the long term.  At least, not in a practical sense, and I think these people need help of the really practical kind.”

“Well,” O’Neill scowled at Daniel.  “At least he’ll help.  Even with you along, we didn’t make the grade with the Nox, so it would be pretty stupid to hook them up with the little guys.  What about the Tok’ra?  Or the Tollan?”

“The Tok’ra, maybe,” Major Carter said.  “But they’re pretty self-absorbed, and if you recall, they were pretty scornful of the possible benefits of an alliance with us. And the Tollan will never violate their convictions to get involved with defending unknowns, and they won’t have our rescue history as an invitation.  Can you imagine how they’d deal with Omac?”

Claire’s brain was spinning as the implications of their discussion sank into her consciousness.  The names—most of them unknown, the rest impossible—these were obviously the result of encounters this alternate world had experienced through the use of their device. 

O’Neill laughed harshly.  “Yeah.  Guess what—no Daniel, no deal with the Tollan.  And the Tok’ra will probably either completely ignore them or lock whoever they send up for the rest of their lives.  If they don’t ‘convince’ them to agree to being hosts.”  His fingers drummed on the table. “Ya know, it would probably do this other Earth’s people a hell of a lot of good to get a good thumping from the snake-heads.  A nice dose of humble pie.  If they survived. Can’t think of anything else that might make an impression on a butt-head like Kinsey.”

“Jack, they wouldn’t survive.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.  But still…”

“So…”  Daniel picked up a pencil and idly twirled it between his fingers.  “The best bet for help would be the Asgard, and maybe the Tok’ra, though I agree that they probably won’t have much luck with the latter.  Particularly since they don’t conveniently have Jacob to influence the council.  Actually, I think the most urgent issue would be to get an iris over their Gate.  In the immediate sense, defense would be the paramount concern.”

Major Carter was nodding briskly, quickly writing on the yellow legal pad in front of her.  “And trinium—we need to help them find sites to increase their supply.  And we’d better warn them about the Antarctic Gate.”

“Trinium, but not Naqadah!”  Daniel’s emphatic words silenced all of the discussions among those at the table.

“But Daniel…”

“Sam, the last thing we want to do is promote the development of their weapons technology, even at the risk of keeping them vulnerable.”

“Doctor Jackson, I really think…”

Daniel’s mouth tightened stubbornly as he shook his head.  “General, think about what we know about this version of the SGC!  How often do we argue about military vs humanitarian imperatives here?  And they’ve got no one providing a voice for moderation in the pursuit of bigger and deadlier weapons technology.  And they’ve got Kinsey in the president’s office.”

Clair felt her throat tighten.  She now saw no vestige of the shaken, vulnerable man who’d walked into the room between herself and Mel.  This man stood up to a general and spoke his mind.  And the general listened.  Suddenly, Major Carter’s assertions about Daniel’s impact on this organization didn’t seem quite so remote.

“In view of their danger from the Goa’uld…”

“No, Sir.  I’m sorry, but the worst thing I worry about here is that the military developments gained through our exploration will be used by us against us.  You know how I feel about this.  Imagine what a man like Kinsey would do with some of the technology we’ve brought back and reverse engineered!  Better they get wiped out by the Goa’uld than turn that weaponry on each other!”  He tossed the pencil onto the table top with enough force that the stick bounced and rolled across the smooth surface.  “I don’t know… Maybe they’d be best just to bury their Gate and shut themselves off from anyone who might come through!”

“This might suffice in the present, Daniel Jackson.  But eventually the system lords will recall the presence of this world, particularly as the Tau’ri of this alternate universe have been using their Stargate.  And they will come in their ships.”

“Yeah,” O’Neill agreed with the big black man.  “Kinsey was right about one thing.  Once you open up that Gate you’ve let all kinds of things out that you can’t put back.  Sorry, Daniel, I don’t think the ostrich routine is going to work.”

Daniel was nodding, a resigned moue turning the corners of his mouth downward.  “I know.  But it seems pretty hopeless.   We have to get a lot of information to General West, we have to make him pay attention to what is going to sound to him like a particularly nasty hallucination, and if we can get him to believe it, he has to figure out a way to change their approach without letting Kinsey know what’s going on.  Because you know there’s no evidence in the universe—either one—which is going to convince Kinsey that this situation is real.  He’s too arrogant, and too immune to rational thought processes.”

“So…”  Major Carter’s voice was brisk.  “I figure this is our best bet.  Pretty much our only bet.  We need to send the colonel through with Doctor Carter and the Jacksons.  We need to send a pretty carefully considered packet of information with them, because we really need the colonel to come back.”

“Please!”

“So what information do we send?” At her question, all eyes turned to Daniel, who was contemplating his recaptured pencil.

“Well, as I see it there are three things we need to do.  First,” the pencil dropped as he raised his index finger. “We need to convince him beyond any possibility of denial of the danger they are in.  Second…”   Another finger joined the first.  “…We need to give him whatever instructions we think he needs to get an iris installed.  If they’re using a DHD, they probably don’t have the computer interface we do, so Sam, you’re going to have to give the Siler I sincerely hope they’ve got over there enough information so he can rig up a system.  And finally…”  A third finger.  “…We consider what help we can give them for the future.” 

“And all in about thirty-six hours,” O’Neill added, sarcasm coloring his voice.  “’Cause that damned mirror is gonna get fried as soon as we send these folks back where they belong.  No way are we setting up any long-term communication, here.  That thing is just way too much trouble!”