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Chapter Text

The quantum mirror unit was supposed to be inert. It was sitting in a hangar bay off the main Gateroom, wrapped in caution tape, waiting for a complete power-down procedure. Daniel Jackson, hands deep in the remnants of a Goa’uld power converter he was stripping for parts, was only vaguely aware of the technicians nearby.

“If you put the positive regulator next to the negative shunt, you’re going to overload the stabilizer circuit, Daniel,” a voice called, sharp and impatient. It was Colonel O’Neill, leaning against the doorway, arms crossed.

Daniel glanced up, wiping grease on his BDUs. “I remember what Sam told me, Jack.” He looked up momentarily, “Why do you?” Daniel then shook his head and went back to his task. Jack always played dumb. “If I can decouple the—”

The screech of metal cut him off. Siler, operating a poorly secured forklift, shouted a warning just as the pallet—carrying what looked like a hundred car batteries—lurched violently. The corner of the pallet struck the quantum mirror’s containment shell. The unsecured batteries rained down with a resonant clang.

The mirror didn’t shatter; it activated. A blinding, greenish-blue energy exploded from the casing, washing over the hangar bay. The surge hit Daniel directly. He felt less like he was being moved and more like he was being ripped apart at the molecular level. He cried out, not in pain, but in sheer, disorienting terror as the room dissolved into a churning vortex of light and sound. The last thing he saw was the look on Jack’s face—a momentary flash of genuine, urgent panic—before darkness consumed him.

Daniel hit the floor hard, skidding several feet on the polished concrete. The force knocked the air from his lungs, leaving him gasping and clutching his ribs. He groaned, pushing himself up onto his elbows. The immediate disorientation was already fading, replaced by an unsettling sense of wrong.

The room was the same—the SGC hangar bay. The quantum mirror unit was still there, smoking, but its shell was intact now. He didn’t see the offending forklift, and the floor was clean. Even the light seemed... off somehow.

He looked up and saw his team standing over him. But they weren’t his team. Colonel O’Neill—this Jack—was watching him with an expression that was part annoyance, part calculation. His posture wasn’t casual; it was coiled, controlled, like a predator assessing a slightly inconvenient meal. His eyes, usually crinkled with exasperated humor, were devoid of any of the Jack-ness they usually possessed.

“Took you long enough, Daniel,” this Jack drawled, his voice a low, gravelly monotone devoid of warmth. “Did you hit your head, or is this the usual post-mission dramatic flair?”

Daniel blinked, confused and still winded. “Post-mission? I… I just fell. The mirror—it overloaded. Where are the technicians?”

Major Carter stepped forward. Sam’s hair was long and pulled back in a severe bun at the base of her skull. She was stiff, regimental. Her eyes met Daniel’s, then immediately darted away, fixed on the floor next to the mirror unit. Her body language screamed fear. “Major?” Jack commanded, not looking at her.

Sam lifted a small contraption. After watching it for a few seconds, she cleared her throat and spoke tightly, “The unit’s active signature is dissipating, Sir. Whatever caused the energy spike is gone. Diagnostics suggest residual field decay. We… we didn’t detect any foreign contaminants in the bay, Colonel.”

She didn’t meet Daniel’s eyes. She didn’t ask if he was okay. Teal’c stood motionless, a granite sentinel. When Daniel instinctively sought his gaze, Teal’c gave him the slightest, almost imperceptible shake of the head. It wasn’t a warning; it was a plea for silence.

Daniel scrambled to his feet, trying to project competence despite his shaky legs. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I think the mirror inadvertently kicked me into your universe. I’m not your Daniel. In my reality, the mirror was struck, it activated, and I was thrown here.” He didn’t like the horrified stares from Sam and Teal’c, but continued, “I can get back to my universe if you have the control,” he pantomimed the control for the mirror. His next words died on his lips.

Jack tilted his head, a gesture Daniel knew, but on this Jack, it looked chillingly predatory. “Thrown from a different reality. Right. And here I thought you just got sloppy during extraction again, Daniel.” He paused, his vacant eyes raking over Daniel’s startled, dishevelled appearance. “You look… less used up than usual. Maybe the trip did you some good.”

He stepped closer, invading Daniel’s space. Daniel felt a cold sweat break out. This man looked like his friend, sounded like his friend, but his core was alien and hostile. “Listen to me, Colonel,” Daniel pleaded, trying to keep his voice steady. “I need to undo what was done in my reality. I can probably determine the polarity on the phase-shift matrix while the residual field is active, so I’ll be able to get home. This is critical.”

Jack chuckled—a dry, humorless sound that scraped against Daniel’s nerves. He placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder, not in comfort, but in a display of ownership and control. His grip was painfully firm, dark eyes boring into Daniel’s blue. “Carter, does he sound like he knows what he’s talking about?”

“N... No, Sir. Makes no sense to me.” She stared at the floor somewhere along the edge of Jack’s boot.

“S... Sam! You taught me...” Daniel tried to tell her she’s the one who taught him that, but Jack cut him off.

“I thought so.” He squeezed Daniel’s neck again. “You’ll analyze nothing, Daniel. After you just spent a week on P8X-193, you’re dehydrated, weak, and frankly, you’re stinking up my clean hangar bay.” He leaned in, and his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper that held no hint of camaraderie. “If you want to be useful, you need to understand one thing about this team: I give the orders. I decide what’s critical. And right now, what’s critical is that you learn to obey them without whining.” He straightened up, his hand dropping away as if Daniel’s skin disgusted him. “SG-1 is heading out in fifteen for P7T-988. New recon. It’s a jungle. Hot, humid, and full of biting things. Get changed, get your gear, and report to the gate.”

He strode away, leaving Daniel confused.

“Carter, Teal’c,” Jack called without looking back. “Ensure Daniel has his standard pack. Don’t waste time getting him water. He knows the protocol.”

Sam nodded quickly, swallowing hard. “Yes, sir.”

Daniel spun to her, desperate. “Sam, please. You have to believe me. I don’t know any ‘protocol’ about being left somewhere for a week. What is he talking about? You look terrified.”

Sam’s eyes were wide and frantic, but she kept them pointed towards the mirror. “Don’t, Daniel. Don’t talk. … follow orders. Please. He’ll take it out on you, and then… he’ll take it out on us.”

“Sam, if I can’t... Then I need you to. The. The mirror, please, Sam. I know you know what I was talking about. My Sam is on Prometheus right now and I was stripping a Goa’uld power device for parts and Siler...” Daniel flailed his arms helplessly

Teal’c finally moved, his huge frame dwarfing Daniel. He put a hand on Daniel’s back and steered him gently toward the locker room. “The Colonel is… resolute, Daniel Jackson. Compliance is advised. Survival depends upon it.” Teal’c’s voice was the only thing that felt remotely familiar, yet his fear was palpable—a suffocating blanket that weighed down the entire team.

Daniel understood then. This was not just an alternate universe where Jack was mean. This was a universe where Jack was a tyrant, holding the rest of the team hostage to his sadism. And now, Daniel was wearing the face of the team punching bag.

He was hustled into the locker room. Teal'c forced him into a clean pair of too-tight BDU pants; he was then given a pack that felt suspiciously light and pushed out the door just as the final countdown began. Daniel’s Tac vest was suspiciously empty of ammunition, as well.

P7T-988 was exactly as Jack described: a humid, steaming hellhole. The jungle floor was a muddy, tangled mess of roots and decay. The air was thick, suffocating, and smelled of rot. They moved quickly and silently for two hours. Daniel, still recovering from the fall and the sheer shock of his situation, was struggling to keep up. His ribs hurt. He kept pressing his elbow against them to keep the pain from overwhelming him. His anxiety was spiraling out of control, cold dread solidifying in his stomach. Then, Jack stopped abruptly at a small clearing.

“This is far enough,” Jack announced, checking his weapon.

“Far enough for what, Colonel?” Daniel asked, wiping sweat from his eyes. “We haven’t found anything yet.”

Jack looked at him, and the smile that spread across his face was the most malicious thing Daniel had ever witnessed. It didn’t reach his eyes; it was a thin, cruel slash of triumph. “Far enough for you to learn what happens when you’re careless, Daniel,” Jack said, raising his hand.

Before Daniel could process the words, Sam and Teal’c moved, not against Jack, but against him. Sam quickly detached the light pack Daniel was carrying—the one without food or water—while Teal’c effortlessly relieved him of his P90 and sidearm. They did it with mechanical efficiency, their faces masks of shame and terror.

“What are you doing?” Daniel stumbled backward, bewildered. “Jack, what is this? A test?”

Jack leveled his P90 at Daniel’s chest. “It’s remedial training, Daniel. You were sluggish coming through the gate, you complained about my orders, and you suggested I didn’t know my job. You need to remember the chain of command.”

“But… protocol!” Daniel pleaded, looking desperately at Sam. “You need the linguist! You need the archaeologist!”

Sam kept her head down. “He knows what he’s doing, Daniel. Just… survive. He usually comes back.”

Usually comes back. The words were a hammer blow.

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” Jack scoffed, his boots squelching in the mud as he turned to the two frightened members of his team. “He learned last time that the indigenous flora is largely toxic, and the local water is a great way to meet Anubis sooner than expected. He’s already familiar with the ‘survival’ techniques of this region.” Turning back to Daniel, he said, “Think of it as a refresher course.” Jack gestured with his weapon toward a dense thicket of thorns and vines. “Find shelter. I’ll come back for you in four days. You get to think about why wasting my time is a fatal mistake.”

“Four days? Without water? Jack, you’ll kill me!” Daniel’s voice cracked with raw panic. The shock had broken, and pure fear was flooding his system. He stumbled back further, eyes darting from Jack’s implacable face to Sam and Teal’c, who looked miserable but made no move to help.

“Try five,” Jack corrected, his eyes flashing with genuine amusement at Daniel’s terror. “Just to keep you motivated. Let’s see if that annoying resilience survives this rotation. Move it, or I’ll use my P90 to convince you.” He was serious. Utterly, lethally serious. Daniel looked at the cold, calculating cruelty in Jack’s eyes and knew that this man would not only leave him here but would enjoy watching him beg for his life before peppering him with a hail of P90 rounds.

With a choked gasp, Daniel turned and plunged into the undergrowth, the thick vines immediately snagging his fatigues and the sharp, hooked thorns tearing at his skin. As he fought his way deeper into the suffocating green darkness, he heard the crisp, final words of the man who looked like his best friend. “Don’t make me come looking for you, Daniel. I hate having to waste a perfectly good bullet.”

Daniel ran until his lungs burned and his legs felt like lead, the realization chilling him to the core: his trusted friend, his protector, was now his deliberate executioner. He had been left to die, and the rest of the team had not lifted a finger. He was alone, on a toxic, steaming planet, with no supplies, and a broken, monstrous Jack O’Neill scheduled to retrieve his dying body in five days. This was his new, horrifying reality.

Chapter Text

​The first night on P7T-988 was a fevered, trembling nightmare. Daniel collapsed beneath a thick canopy of ferns after stumbling for hours, his raw throat burning with every gasp of humid air. His clothes were soaked with sweat and stained with mud and blood from the barbed vines that stitched painful lacerations across his arms and legs.

​He knew intellectually that he needed to move, to find higher ground or a water source, but his body had already begun shutting down. The fear of being shot by Jack had provided the initial adrenaline, but now, a deeper, colder emotion took its place. He'd lost faith.

Is this the Jack would he would know if he'd not stayed on Abydos? ​Jack had abandoned him.

​Not just his Jack—who he knew was probably frantic in his home reality—but the idea of Jack. This man, wearing his friend's face, had revealed a capacity for premeditated cruelty that fractured Daniel's most fundamental understanding of human connection. If Jack could be this monster, what could he trust?

​He spent the dark hours shivering, not from cold, but from psychological shock. His mind replayed Sam’s terrified face and Teal’c’s plea for silence. They weren't bad people; they were slaves. And Jack O'Neill was their warden.

​The sun rose, transforming the air into a wet, tropical furnace. Daniel woke with a splitting headache and a mouth that felt packed with cotton. He forced himself to move, the memory of that Jack’s smile a whip across his exhausted mind. Five days. He had maybe forty-eight hours before he became critically dehydrated.

​He tried to follow the sound of running water, but the jungle was a deceptive, echoing maze. Every step was agony. He hadn't worn his boots that day; they refused to give him any, and the ground was a mix of razor-sharp rocks and slick mud. By midday, dizziness had overtaken him, his lips had cracked, and large welts covered his face and hands from alien bug bites.

​He learned quickly: this planet was actively hostile. A vine he touched gave him a burning rash. The beautiful, bright crimson fungi growing on a fallen log smelled sweet, but his scant knowledge of botany screamed "highly toxic." Every instinct he had was telling him to stop, to surrender, but his inherent, stubborn will refused. His Jack taught him how to survive. He wouldn't die a broken mess just because this Jack ordered it.

​As he crawled through a particularly dense patch, he saw something unnatural: a faint, faded yellow ribbon tied around a sturdy tree root. A trail marker. Hope — fragile and desperate — sparked within him. ​It was almost certainly placed by someone on SG-1. That was a signature Jack survival move. The Daniel of this universe had been here. He had followed this route. He wasn't the first. Maybe the earlier Daniel had found a safe zone.

For two miserable days, the ribbon trail led him into a maze of limestone-like caverns. By the afternoon of the fourth day, Daniel was hallucinating. The jungle sounds distorted into Jack’s condescending laughter. The long shadows transformed between his Sam and Teal'c and this universe's scared and traumatized counterparts. He stumbled, his vision tunneling. He hadn't slept properly, his caloric intake was zero, and he was dangerously close to death. His body was cannibalizing itself.

​Just one more step, he begged his protesting muscles. One more step before Jack comes back to find the corpse he wants. ​He reached a cluster of moss-covered rocks and saw a narrow, dark opening—the mouth of a small cave, barely hidden by trailing ferns. He crawled inside, seeking the cool darkness, praying something lethal did not occupy it.

​The air inside was stale, dry, and cold. He collapsed fully onto the dusty floor, his hands scraping against the smooth, fine powder. His eyes, burning and unfocused, slowly adjusted. The cool air and fine powder soothed his battered skin.

​The cave wasn't empty. ​In the far corner, huddled against the stone wall, was a man. ​He was curled into a protective ball, draped in what looked like torn, filthy SGC fatigues. His skin was parchment-thin, covered with old, festering sores and cuts. His hair was long and matted, and his beard was weeks old. He looked skeletal, wasted down to muscle and bone, radiating a profound exhaustion.

​Daniel stared, his heart pounding a frantic, desperate rhythm. It took a moment for his brain to process the impossible familiarity of the cheekbones, the thin lips, the fragile collarbone jutting beneath the fabric.
​It was Daniel Jackson.

​This must be the real Daniel that Jack had been using and abusing before he arrived. This broken mess was the original team archaeologist, thrown away, forgotten, and left to die on a hostile planet in filth. ​Daniel, the survivor, the visitor, forgot his own agonizing thirst for a moment. He crawled toward the shape, whispering hoarsely. ​“Daniel? Hey. Are you… Are you okay?” The question was ludicrous, but it was all he could manage. ​The figure didn't move, except for the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

​“Daniel, it’s me. I’m… I’m another you. We need to get out of here. Jack is coming back tomorrow.” ​At the mention of the name 'Jack,' the figure flinched violently, letting out a choked, desperate sound—a high, whimpering cry of absolute terror. He pressed himself harder into the rock, trying to become part of the wall. ​Daniel reached out, hesitantly touching the man's shoulder. The bone beneath the fabric was alarming.

​“It’s okay,” Daniel insisted, his voice barely a rasp. “I’m not him. I know what he does. I’m from the mirror. We have to move now.”

​Daniel finally lifted his head. His eyes were enormous, glassy pools, red-rimmed and empty of comprehension, reflecting nothing but starvation and long-term psychological torture. The eyes of a man who had completely given up. ​“He said I was useless,” Daniel whispered, his voice a horrifying, dry scratch. “He said… he said this time he’d just let the jungle clean up the mess. That he was tired of looking at me.” If he could have cried, tears would have streaked down his dirty face. He wasn't talking to Daniel; he was talking to a wall of fear in his mind.

​A small, dirty canteen lay next to him. It had a pinprick hole in the bottom. Jack's little joke, Daniel realized, a final, cruel flourish.

​Daniel checked his own pockets again. Nothing. Then his hand brushed against the cuff of his SGC fatigues—the ones that they had forced him into before he stepped through the gate. Tucked into the hem, where he sometimes stored a small emergency energy gel packet, was a packet of water purification tablets and a tiny, tightly rolled square of plastic sheeting. A fluke, a piece of his original Daniel’s paranoia that the team hadn't thought to check. They were more alike than he wanted to admit. ​He still had no water, but he had a way to make it safe to drink.

​He looked at the hollowed-out husk of his alternate self—a mirror image of the physical and mental collapse he himself was rapidly approaching. This was what Jack wanted: a husked remnant. ​A fierce, protective rage surged through the exhaustion. If he died, this man would surely die too. Daniel wasn't saving just himself; he was saving a version of himself that was already lost.

​He grabbed the small plastic sheet and crawled to the cave entrance. He didn't have the strength to leave his other self, but he might have the strength to help them both survive the next 24 hours. The thin, transparent plastic could be used to collect condensation overnight, maybe enough to wet their mouths. ​He looked back at the terrified, hollow-eyed figure of the other Daniel Jackson.

​"We have to live," Daniel rasped, his own faith re-igniting with the desperate purpose of protection. "Jack doesn't get to win this time. We're going to use what little we have, and we're going to get ourselves out." ​He set the plastic sheet up on a slight incline just outside the cave mouth, anchored by stones, and collapsed, waiting for the dark. Tomorrow, he had to be strong enough to force the other Daniel to drink and move. This cruel Jack O'Neill was coming for a corpse, but Daniel Jackson refused to be one, and he refused to allow his alternate self to be one, either.

Chapter Text

​The night offered scant reprieve. Daniel, operating purely on survival instinct, had managed to collect barely two swallows of thin, murky condensation. He hoped he scraped enough of the purification tablet into it and forced the water, a drop at a time, past the cracked lips of the man huddled beside him. The broken Daniel didn’t respond, but he didn’t fight it, either—a small, desperate victory.

​When the sun broke on Day Five, Daniel knew he had to move his counterpart, or both of them would be found dead. He managed to haul his original self—who was terrifyingly light—onto his back, fastening the man’s limp wrists around his neck with a strip torn from his ruined fatigues. The effort nearly sent Daniel into shock. He was bruised, scratched, swaying from dehydration and a fever, and running on fumes, but the weight of the other man—his own broken reflection—lent him a savage, singular purpose.

​He crawled out of the cave just as the sound arrived: the familiar, terrifying roar of the Stargate engaging, followed moments later by the heavy, deliberate thud of boots on the damp earth. He spent two days wandering in the jungle, and the cave system was close enough to hear the whoosh of the Stargate.

​Colonel O’Neill appeared at the edge of the clearing, P90 held loosely at his side. He wasn’t sweating. He looked relaxed, almost bored. Behind him, Sam and Teal’c stood with grim, averted gazes.

​Jack’s eyes fixed on Daniel, who was kneeling in the mud, barely holding the dead weight of the original Daniel upright. The surprise that flashed across Jack’s face was brief but genuine—quickly replaced by calculation. ​“Well, look at you,” Jack drawled, stepping closer, his voice laced with patronizing disappointment. “You managed to stay conscious. Good boy. But you look like hell. Not quite the broken mess I was hoping for, but we can fix that.”

​Daniel’s voice was a raw, strained croak. “I’m alive, Jack. And I found… him.”

​He shifted, forcing Jack to look at the man slung over his back. The sight of the other Daniel, wasted and utterly defeated, stopped Jack cold. ​“Well, I’ll be,” Jack said, circling slowly, his boots crushing dry leaves. “The original. I thought the jungle was done with that one. Guess he was just too stubborn to give the local wildlife indigestion.” He chuckled, the sound ugly and dry. “So, the new model finds the old one. Poetic.”

​Jack looked Daniel up and down, a disturbing thought forming behind his eyes. “You actually dragged him, didn’t you? You expended your remaining energy trying to save the previous model. Why, Daniel? Didn’t you hear me? I replaced him with you. He’s worthless.” Jack then sneered. “You don’t seem to be as worthless as him. At least, not yet.”

​Daniel grit his teeth, the movement sending spasms through his jaw. Seizing the opportunity, Daniel said, “He may be worthless to you, Colonel, but he isn’t to me. He’s been out here longer —survived for weeks. We also both know that the mirror has been giving off readings Sam can’t explain for 5 days now. If you want to know how to stabilize the quantum mirror unit back at the SGC and figure out why I was shoved here in the first place, you need me and I’m not leaving here without him.”

​It was a lie, but it was the only currency he had. The lie appealed to Jack’s cunning. Daniel was a new, interesting toy—one who had just shown incredible resilience and a spark of self-serving intelligence. The old Daniel was a known quantity, a failure. But two Daniels? One broken, one defiant? That was leverage.

​Jack lowered his weapon, the cruel smile returning. “Alright, Daniel. Let’s go. But just so we’re clear, if this is a trick, I’ll take both of you back out here and feed you to the local giant centipedes. Carter. Teal’c. Secure the packages.”

Teal’c untied the emaciated man and pulled him from Daniel’s back, setting him on the ground. Sam looked at Jack. He nodded. She handed Daniel her water canteen. He opened it and started to take a sip, and stopped. “You first,” he said, handing it back to Sam.

Jack laughed. “You’re smarter than mine ever thought about being! Drink up, Carter. We both know yours isn’t poisoned.”

She stared solemnly at the ground as she took a sip out of her canteen before handing it back to him. Sam wouldn’t look him in the eye. Daniel took the water and knelt before his doppelganger. “You have to drink, Daniel,” he whispered. “You’ve been without longer than I have.”

As Daniel lifted the other man’s head, their eyes met, dull, lifeless blue to stunning blue. The original Daniel took a small sip, suspicious at the kindness his alternate self was showing him. “You’re good,” Daniel said. “Take what you need.” The other man looked down and took a large gulp of water.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Jack said after several minutes. “Get up. Your Daniel Jackson love fest is making me wanna puke.”

​The return trip was silent, suffocating. Back at the SGC, both Daniels were taken into the infirmary. Sam offered a few whispered, terrified medical instructions, avoiding their Daniel’s eyes as she hooked Daniel up to an IV drip. They didn’t have a Janet.

​“He goes to holding once he’s stabilized, Major,” Jack commanded, standing in the doorway. “The original… send him to the isolation ward for observation. He’s unstable.” It was clear ‘isolation’ was where Jack intended for their Daniel to die quietly.

​Daniel, with the IV hydrating him, felt a rush of cold clarity mixed with panic. He had to act. He had bought time, not freedom. ​He pushed himself off the. “No! Colonel, I need access to the mirror now.”

​Jack strolled into the room, predatory grin stretching across his face wickedly. He wagged a long finger sarcastically. “Temper, temper, Daniel. You just spent five days crawling through toxic mud. You’ll do what I say.”

​“You don’t understand the physics!” Daniel staggered toward him, pulling the IV from the back of his hand with a small hiss. “The unit is running on residual energy. I know how to destabilize it without a full power source! If you want to replace the original Daniel with me, you need to ensure the portal is gone, or another you might come through and kill you in your sleep! My Jack happens to like me!” ​The threat was audacious and reckless, hitting Jack in his most vulnerable spot: control.

​Jack’s eyes narrowed. Daniel could see the wheels turning in his mind. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? Trying to save your replacement. Fine. Carter, you go with him. Teal’c, guard that… waste of space. If he tries to move, end it.” ​Teal’c gave a barely visible nod of miserable assent.

​Daniel, supported by a terrified Major Carter, stumbled down the hall toward the hangar bay. He stopped short, standing in front of Teal’c. ​“I need a minute to assess him,” Daniel insisted to them both, his voice low and urgent. “To find out what he saw on P7T-988. It’s what Jack wanted.” They all knew it was a lie.

“Two minutes, DanielJackson,” Teal’c rumbled.

“Please, hurry. He’ll execute us both,” Sam replied.

​Daniel rushed into the small, sterile room. His alternate self was lying on a cot, staring vacantly at the ceiling. He was shivering violently, but his eyes were beginning to track movement. ​“We’re leaving. Now,” he whispered, shaking his shoulder.

​“No,” the other man whimpered. “He said… no more running.”

​“He won’t hurt you again. Not ever,” Daniel promised the broken man, his voice thick with protective ferocity. He hauled the skeletal man to his feet, throwing him over his shoulder. ​He staggered quickly to the hangar bay.

​“DanielJackson.” Teal’c’s face was etched with pain, but his staff weapon was raised. “MajorCarter and I have changed our minds. You are not worth our lives.”

​“Teal’c, this is the good fight,” Daniel gasped, straining under the load. “This man is me. You are allowing Jack to torture and destroy your friend because you are afraid. Look at him. This is what happens when you let a tyrant win.” The archaeologist growled in frustration. “You traded one false god for another! If you kill us, you will be no better than you were as Apophis’ First Prime. Help us.”

​Teal’c’s resolve dissipated. His head dropped, his arm lowering the weapon. “Go, DanielJackson,” he murmured, the words heavy with self-loathing. “May you find peace.”

​Daniel didn’t wait. He barrelled past, reaching the quantum mirror unit. Sam was waiting, her hands shaking, already inputting diagnostics at the terminal. ​“I need five seconds to reverse the shunt coupling and re-route the residual power to the matrix,” Daniel dictated, setting his alternate’s body gently down behind the casing.

​“I—I can’t do that, Daniel! It’ll kill us!” Sam cried out in frustration.

​“It’s a different reality, Sam. It needs a different polarity shift to stabilize the field. Trust me. No. Trust you. You’re the one who spent days walking me through these steps while my Jack paced around her lab touching things and, apparently, memorizing what she was saying.”

​She stared at the mirror, then at Daniel, the terror of Jack warring with the faint, familiar plea of a friend. She typed furiously, her hands a blur. ​“It’s done! The field is active! Go, Daniel!”

​But it was too late. The heavy steps were already echoing in the hangar. ​Jack O’Neill stood in the doorway, his P90 raised. “Well, well. Trying to run away? I should have known the replacement would be just as much of a sniveling coward as the original.” He advanced, the cruel smile wide and triumphant. “Drop him, Daniel. You can go quietly back to holding. The other one, mine, dies here.”

​Daniel straightened, putting his body between Jack and the fragile form of his alternate self. His face, streaked with mud and sweat, was set in cold defiance. He had nothing left to lose. ​“You’re not my Jack,” Daniel whispered, stepping into the shimmering field of the mirror. “And you’re a monster. I’m taking him home where he belongs.” He reached out and slammed his hand onto the face of the mirror just as Jack shouted his name and fired.

​The world dissolved into a cacophony of white noise and blinding light. Daniel felt a stinging blow across his shoulder—the bullet was close—and then the gut-wrenching rip of trans-dimensional travel.

Daniel hit the floor of his own SGC hangar bay with a bone-jarring thud. The clean, bright lights seemed blinding. He rolled over, shielding the body of his alternate self, who was waiting for the inevitable, cruel footsteps.

​Instead, he heard a familiar, panicked roar. ​“Daniel! What the hell happened? Are you alright?” Jack. His Jack. ​The hands that hauled him up were strong, calloused, and gentle. Colonel Jack O’Neill was standing over him, his face a mask of furious concern, his hands checking Daniel’s head and neck.

​“Are you hurt? What is this?” Jack looked from Daniel, covered in jungle rot, fresh cuts, and a bleeding bullet wound, to the emaciated, shock-ridden alternate Daniel lying unconscious on the concrete among the unsecured batteries.

​Teal’c was instantly at his side, his face a picture of grim relief. “DanielJackson. You have been gone but moments.”

​Daniel felt the familiar warmth of their concern wash over him, breaking the frozen knot of terror in his chest. He was home. He managed a shaky, desperate smile. ​“I’m… fine, Jack. Just a detour,” Daniel rasped, his eyes welling with sudden, overwhelming tears of relief. “But he’s not. He needs help.”

​Jack took one look at the twin Daniel, covered in the marks of prolonged starvation and abuse, and his face hardened with instant, cold fury—the protective rage of a true friend. ​“Get the Med-Team down here now!” Jack barked into his radio, his voice sharp but devoid of cruelty. He turned back to Daniel, his expression melting into concern. “You’re going to tell me everything. But first, let’s get you both cleaned up and checked out. And Daniel… Welcome back.”

​Daniel Jackson watched the medical team carefully lift his broken alternate self onto a gurney. He was physically devastated, nearly dead, but he was safe. In his own universe, surrounded by his faithful friends, Daniel finally allowed himself to collapse back onto the floor, the lost faith in humanity restored by the familiar, protective fury in his Colonel’s eyes.

Chapter Text

​Two weeks had passed since the violent, chaotic return through the quantum mirror. The SGC Infirmary had become the reluctant new home for two Daniel Jacksons.

​For Daniel, the physical recovery was swift. The fever from the jungle toxins broke quickly, and the P90 bullet wound, which had only grazed his shoulder as he made the leap, was already closing. It was the psychological toll that lingered, a cold, pervasive dampness that no amount of clean SGC air could dry out. He suffered the nightmares of the jungle, the agony of dehydration, and the vision of Jack’s lifeless eyes, but above all, he carried the weight of sorrow for the other Daniel.

​His twin lay in the isolated recovery wing, physically stabilized but psychologically adrift. He had been diagnosed with severe generalized malnutrition, systemic trauma, and complex PTSD. The five days Daniel had endured were merely the final, cruel straw for his counterpart, who, as far as he would tell them, had been subjected to the pattern of abandonment, deprivation, and isolation for nearly two years.

​The alternate Daniel became silent. He did not cry, did not scream, and did not respond to any name or touch. The emaciated man simply existed, his gaze usually fixed on the ceiling, occasionally darting to the door whenever it opened—a reflex of fear, not recognition. His acceptance of the nutrient paste and water through a specialized tube, they assumed, was out of fear, but he rejected all human connection. His eyes, the large, intelligent eyes that Daniel knew so well, held a vacancy that was the absolute definition of lost faith.

​Colonel O’Neill had been relentless in his protection and quiet care. He had personally overseen the secure destruction of the quantum mirror and the full internal investigation. The horror of the parallel reality had cemented his fierce loyalty to his Daniel. ​“You’re off duty until you say you’re ready, Daniel,” Jack told him one afternoon, standing awkwardly by Daniel’s bed, holding a mug of coffee. “And for the record, the medical exams all confirm you were out there for five days, not two seconds. According to Carter, the temporal displacement was localized to the mirror’s field. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you got yourself and him out.”

Daniel pushed himself up, resting his head on the pillows. “He’s still terrified, Jack. They won’t even let him sit up yet. He’s skin and bone.”

​“We’re working on it, Daniel. Dr. Frasier is a miracle worker. But we’re treading lightly. She says we’re dealing with years of psychological abuse, not just a few days of starvation.” Jack paused, leaning in, his voice softening. “You saved his life, Daniel. But you can’t shoulder the guilt for what that monster did to him. That’s on the other Jack.”

​“But he’s me,” Daniel insisted, his voice tight with frustration. “Everything that man put him through, I felt in those five days. I know that terror. I know how it feels to have the one person you trusted most in the universe look at you like you’re trash and then leave you to rot. And he—he had that for years.”

​“Which is why you’re the only one who can talk to him right now,” Jack countered, placing a steadying hand on Daniel’s knee. “You understand the nightmare. Use it to pull him back, not to drag yourself down. We all know that's what you're going to do.”

​Sam and Teal’c visited frequently, but their exchanges with Daniel were tinged with awkwardness. Sam admitted, with painful honesty, that she now found herself looking at Jack differently, searching his face for any hint of the casual cruelty Daniel described. Teal’c, for his part, maintained a constant, silent vigil outside the recovery wing—a profound act of penance for his alternate self’s inaction.

​Daniel quickly established a routine. After his own physical therapy, he would move to the other Daniel’s room. Dr. Frasier had noted that the still-healing Daniel’s heart rate and blood pressure lowered slightly when Daniel was near, and he quickly became the only acceptable visitor, aside from Janet herself.

​The room was kept dimly lit, quiet, and sterile. Daniel would pull a chair up to the bedside and simply sit there, sometimes for hours. He never pushed. He never demanded eye contact. Daniel stared ahead at the wall and just spoke. ​He didn't talk about the mirror, or Jack, or P7T-988. He talked about things that only a Daniel Jackson would know or care about.

​“Remember the time on P3X-806, we found that proto-Sumerian dialect? I spent three months reconstructing the lexicon,” Daniel began one afternoon, his voice soft, almost a lullaby. “It was infuriating. I kept translating ‘great fire in the sky’ but the root word wasn’t fire, it was knowledge.” ​He waited. His traumatized alternate's eyes remained fixed, unblinking. ​“I finally realized they weren’t describing a hostile weapon; they were describing the Sun itself. They saw the sun as a great, burning knowledge, a thing to be revered, not feared. We spend so much time looking for the language of war, we forget the language of wonder.”

​He knew he was talking to a hollow shell. Still, he continued, weaving stories of dusty Abydos, the smell of ancient tombs, the beauty of a reconstructed language, and the sheer, unadulterated joy of discovery. These were the things Jack O’Neill had tried to starve out of his counterpart, the core identity that had been brutally repressed. Daniel was using archaeology as a lifeline.

​“You were right about the Ancient language, too,” Daniel whispered, running a gentle hand over a wrinkle in the thin blanket. “We saw a world where they were living. It was incredible. I wish you could have seen it, the libraries—the sheer scope of what they accomplished.”

​He reached for the only object he was allowed to bring into the room: a worn, leather-bound volume of translated Hieroglyphic texts. He knew the texts were utterly meaningless to anyone but a linguist specializing in Ancient Egyptian, and he knew that somewhere inside Daniel, that expertise still lived.

​He opened the book and began to read a passage aloud, choosing a complex, obscure funerary text about the journey of the soul. He didn't read it in English, or even in the modern transcription. He read it aloud in the reconstructed Ancient Egyptian dialect, the language of Sha're and Abydos—a rhythmic, guttural sound unique to Egyptology. ​“...m nfr hrw, m wdt ḥtp, m wḏt m nfr-wt, m prt m ḫrt-nṯr...” ​The sound filled the sterile room, a language of peace and safe passage into a new life. Daniel’s voice continued, soft and steady, talking about the journey, about finding the light after the darkness.

​He felt a sudden shift in the air.

His alternate's head moved. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, his wide, vacant eyes drifted away from the ceiling and settled on the book, on Daniel’s mouth, listening to the strange, familiar music. Daniel stopped reading, his breath catching in his throat. He dared not move, afraid to break the fragile connection. ​His twins eyes, deep in their sockets, finally held something other than fear or emptiness. It was the faintest flicker of recognition. ​Then, a sound. Dry, unused, and barely audible. ​“...tꜣ...”

​The word was Ancient Egyptian. It meant land or earth. The context implied a safe haven, a landing place. Daniel’s eyes blurred with unshed tears. He lowered the book, his voice thick with emotion. “Yes, Daniel. The land. The safe land. We’re here. We made it. You're safe.”

​He placed the book gently on the small table and took his counterpart’s emaciated, trembling hand in his own. For the first time, the other man did not pull away. His grip was feather-light, but it was there—a connection, a desperate anchor. ​“We’re home,” Daniel repeated, squeezing his hand gently. “And no one here will ever leave you.”

​The immediate breakthrough with the word tꜣ provided the emotional spark, but the physical reality of recovery was brutal. Alterative Daniel had lost nearly 40 pounds, and his muscles were atrophied from long periods of malnourishment and fear-induced stillness.

​Dr. Frasier managed his care with a blend of clinical precision and fierce compassion. She began the slow, painful process of physical therapy. He couldn't stand unaided. Every movement was a struggle against the memory of paralysis and the expectation of punishment. When a nurse attempted to gently stretch his legs, his body would lock up, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps—a silent, absolute panic that required Daniel to be present, his voice a steady, grounding murmur, until the tension eased.

​The first attempts at solid food were equally heartbreaking. The fear of deprivation had warped his psyche; when a small bowl of simple oatmeal was placed before him, he didn’t eat it—he stared at it, frozen, as if waiting for it to be snatched away or poisoned. ​It took Daniel sitting beside him, eating the exact same meal, and speaking for ten minutes about the chemical composition of carbohydrates before the other man tentatively lifted the spoon. The small, successful act of swallowing, achieved without a feeding tube, was treated by the infirmary staff with the solemnity of a successful surgery.

​SG1 adopted a coordinated strategy to dismantle the ingrained trauma responses. Each member used methods unique to their relationship with Daniel, offering comfort that was consistently non-threatening and non-demanding.

​Sam focused on recreating a familiar, domestic sense of safety. She routinely brought the same high-caffeine, too-sweet coffee and warm, plain bagels that Daniel always appreciated, placing the small bag on the bedside table without comment. She never pushed him to eat; she simply allowed the smell of fresh food to counteract the terror of starvation. Instead of discussing physics, she began reading quietly from books on ancient history and archaeology—not complex theories, but easy, narrative stories of discovery. She would sometimes simply sit, sketching geometric patterns on a notepad, establishing a quiet, analytical presence that felt familiar and non-judgmental.

​One afternoon, Sam finished reading a passage about the rediscovery of the Rosetta Stone. She paused, then, with excruciating slowness, reached out her hand—not toward the traumatized Daniel, but toward the corner of his pillow. She gently tucked the blanket around his shoulder, her touch brief and clinical. His whole body tensed, but he didn't recoil. As Sam pulled her hand back, she paused, her fingertips resting lightly on the blanket near his face. He watched her hand, then, slowly and hesitantly, raised one trembling finger and tapped the back of her hand, a feather-light contact that signified his acknowledgment of her presence and his willingness to endure it. It was the only physical reassurance he had accepted from anyone other than Daniel.

​Jack never came to the room without Daniel having already been in there. Daniel thought it would be too much for his traumatized self to endure. So, the real Jack intentionally dismantled every signal of military threat. He never entered the room in uniform; his civilian attire—faded fishing t-shirts, worn denim, and soft-soled shoes, never a ball cap—was a calculated uniform of non-authority. He never stood, which would loom over the prone Daniel, but remained seated in a stiff wooden chair, often for hours. His entire purpose was to occupy space without demanding it. Jack chose silent activities: reading 1960s science fiction novels or, most commonly, working on cryptic crossword puzzles. One afternoon, Daniel watched as Jack finished writing the answer to a clue. Instead of clicking the pen, Jack held it loosely, then deliberately placed it on the side table, the light metal tink sound being the only evidence of his movement. This simple action—putting the 'weapon' down—was a constant, unspoken reassurance that the man in the chair was benign.

​Teal’c understood that for the other Daniel, silence had been used as a tool of oppression by the alternate SG1, where his cries were ignored. Teal’c’s response was not to fill the silence, but to imbue it with honor and presence. He did not use the comfortable visitor's chair; instead, he sat on the floor, leaning against the far wall. His Jaffa physique, usually intimidating, was immobile —a bedrock of safety. Teal'c hoped the traumatized man would come to understand that his incredible stillness was not his inability to fight for the weaker, but the antithesis of the chaotic, unpredictable cruelty of the other reality. The Jaffa hoped that the other man would one day see his time in the isolation room with him as an act of penance for what his alternate self allowed to happen. His eyes, the only things that moved, would occasionally meet Daniel's, acknowledging the shared burden of keeping vigil.

One day, Teal'c walked in carrying a piece of paper. Not looking the alternate Daniel in the eye, but merely nodding his head, he laid the paper on the table next to his cup. His gift—the charcoal drawing of the Stargate—was subtle. It symbolized a gateway to knowledge and freedom, not a delivery system for weapons. One day, Teal'c noticed a smudge at the edge of the charcoal gate. It was a thin fingerprint. He didn't smile, but his massive hand closed and opened once, a silent acknowledgement of the trust being painstakingly earned.

​
​By the end of the fourth week, the weakened Daniel was no longer confined to the bed. He could sit in a wheelchair, and his weight was slowly climbing. His first real sentence, other than the panicked whispers of trauma, was a simple, academic inquiry directed at Daniel. ​“The Minoan script… linear A… still undeciphered?” ​The sheer normalcy of the question—a deep-seated interest surviving the starvation and torture—was overwhelming. Daniel wept, then launched into a detailed, thirty-minute update on Minoan research.

​The greatest milestone occurred six weeks after his return. Dr. Frasier deemed him stable enough for a short trip outside the infirmary, provided Daniel was his escort. ​Their destination was the vast SGC library, Daniel's sanctuary aside from his office. Janet made sure everyone but the head librarian was out of there for the trip. He slowly pushed the wheelchair through the quiet corridors. Alternate Daniel looked suspiciously at the familiar hallways. Those they met either paid them no attention or stepped aside to greet the Drs. Jackson. Teal'c and Sam stood at the doors, and Jack, dressed in faded jeans, a flannel shirt, and sandals, stood down the hall a bit, leaning against the wall with a small, kind smile. The two opened the doors for the men, Sam with a small grin and Teal'c with a silent nod, but they didn't follow them in. Inside, Daniel helped him into a sturdy, comfortable armchair by a painting of Cheyenne Mountain's peaceful peak.

​The emaciated man sat there, quiet and overwhelmed, surrounded by rows upon rows of books—an endless supply of the knowledge he had been starved of, all freely available. Daniel placed the worn Hieroglyphic book into his lap, the one that had started it all. ​“We’re here, Daniel,” Daniel whispered, his hand resting lightly on his twin’s shoulder. “You’re safe now. You have all the time in the world.”

​The nearly silent Daniel looked down at the book, then up at the painting. He saw the genuine, uncomplicated concern in Daniel’s eyes, the quiet solidarity of his own team standing guard over his sanctuary. ​He opened the book to the passage about the soul's journey, reading the familiar characters with a clarity that had long been absent. He wasn't tꜣ (safe land) anymore. He was home.

​The journey to heal was long, arduous, and fraught with setbacks. But in the SGC, with his true friends guarding the door, the Daniel Jackson who had lost faith had finally begun the long, slow, quiet climb back to himself.