magibrain

...I feel like the person Neal really needs to meet is Vala, but I so rarely write anything touching ond S8 or further that I'm not sure how I would pull that off.

Also, I'm apparently much better at thinking up ways to facilitate these interactions than I am at actually writing these interactions.

Also also, Jack needs to stop stealing every scene I put him in.

Daniel was taking the whole getting-called-into-the-SGC-on-a-weekend thing better than Jack was. Then again, Daniel seemed not to value his weekends much anyway, and knew that the things he'd get called in for usually fell somewhere on the spectrum from "fascinating" to "crisis," whereas for Jack that spectrum was usually more like "aggravating" to "crisis." So all in all, Daniel probably had less reason to dread the folders that flopped down onto the briefing table in front of them.

"SG-14 found another quantum mirror," Hammond announced, without prelude.

Solid hit on the aggravating and fascinating ends, then.

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"SG-14 also found someone who'd apparently come through the mirror from the other side," Hammond said. "Lucky timing, too. According to Major Blasdale, it looks like he was in the process of starving to death."

Daniel flipped through the folder to the reconnaissance photos of the area. Another completely enclosed region, quite possibly underground, with shelves upon shelves of objects he couldn't identify. He had to wonder if it was the people who'd made the mirrors who tended to stock their rooms like this, or if they were stumbling after some long-gone galactic collectors who found the mirrors and tucked them away.

Still, there were some differences in architecture.

"Fountains," he said. This place didn't have the Goa'uld symbol of irradiation; it looked almost stately. A subterranean receiving hall, converted into storage. "Pillars, arches. I guess he was lucky there was a source of fresh water there."

"Why wouldn't he go back?" Sam asked, and Hammond shook his head.

"The mirror appears to be damaged. On our side," he said. "I was hoping you could take a look at it. Use whoever you need."

A moment of silence hung suspended over the table, and then Sam said, "With all due respect, sir, the first mirror was ordered destroyed before we had any real idea how it functioned. It's not likely we'll be able to repair it."

"Still," Daniel put in, "if there are two of them in our universe, that probably means there are more. It'd be a good idea to learn as much as we can about them."

"And about our visitor," Hammond said. "He's not a member of the SGC in his home universe. Apparently he found the mirror in a private collection on Earth. If it's at all possible that another mirror exists in a similar position on our Earth..."

"Headache city," Jack agreed. "We'll talk to him."

"Preferably without revealing too many secrets," Hammond said.

"Neal Caffrey," Daniel read, glancing back to the information at the front of the folder. No photo. Then again, snapping his picture probably hadn't been a high priority, and if he'd really been dragged in half-starved, he was probably in the Infirmary, under Frasier's eagle eyes.

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"It's the ankle tracker thing that worries me," Jack said. "They don't exactly hand those out for being model citizens."

Daniel pushed his glasses back up his nose. "No," he agreed. "But they don't hand them out if you're a danger to yourself or others, either."

Jack gave him an odd look, which Daniel ignored, choosing instead to focus on the elevator doors. He'd managed to escape the foster-care-to-prison pipeline, but he'd still existed in that world, and he was still more familiar than he particularly wanted to be with he applications of the law.

But here in the SGC that aspect of his past was a nonissue, and he preferred to leave it that way.

After a moment, Jack got over whatever surprise he had about Daniel's sudden attack of worldliness, and said, "So, probably a criminal, but probably not a really bad one."

"Well, he's from a different universe," Daniel said, as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open for them. "Maybe in his universe they do hand them out for being model citizens."

Jack made a disparaging noise.

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who didn't look fully resigned to the absurdity of the situation yet, and who was picking at a tray of food. A soft beeping came from his left ankle.

Jack winced, almost immediately. "Jeez, that has to get annoying."

"Hm?" The man – Neal Caffrey, Daniel presumed, looked up, and fixed Jack with a calculating stare. After a moment it shifter to Daniel, then back to Jack again, with a tired kind of insouciance. "You tune it out, after a while," he said. "They said they'd have someone down to look at it."

"Probably Siler," Jack said, and located a stool to sit on. "Enjoying the food?"

"It's not the worst I've had," Neal said.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "My condolences."

Daniel cleared his throat, because the way things were going, it didn't seem like they were going to get to introductions anytime soon. "I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson," he said, leaning over and extending a hand. "This is Colonel Jack O'Neill. We'd like to talk about what happened to you."

"Is this a talk with an explanation involved?" Neal asked. "Because I have to admit, I haven't worked out how you pulled this off, and I'm usually pretty good at these things."

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