Author's Notes:  Last part. This is it folks. Thanks to all of you for coming along and thanks also to those of you who took the time to share your appreciation with me. Till next time...

And now for something completely different....

DISCLAIMER: All characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions.  This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it.  Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended.  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.  Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.

Okay - what the hell was this?

The second the flash of light released them Jack felt himself instinctively sink into a crouched, defensive stance, his MP-5 already up and at the ready. He couldn't see the rest of his team as they had been slightly behind him, but was sure they were doing much the same thing. Taut, poised, ready for action, checking for signs of danger.

Needed to be sure just the same.

"Sam? Teal'c? Daniel?"

God. He'd done it again. When was he going to stop - checking for him, looking for him, calling his name, expecting an answer?

Daniel was dead. Six months ago, in the corridor of Aphophis' ship. Died in his arms - half his chest blown away by the staff blast. All his fault for leaving him there - alone. Would have gone up on that ship with him if Bra'tac hadn't come back, clubbed him and carried him away.

Daniel was dead. It had been six whole months and he still didn't believe it.

Enough of this, focus, they were in a jam here. Sam and Teal'c had heard him do it again, probably knew that he had gone off on them for awhile, but they needed him back here now.

Cause wherever they were now, it sure wasn't where they used-to-have-been.

Before the light they had been heading down the main street of a deserted old west ghost town on D8K-287. After the zap they were standing in a large room that looked very much as if it would do fine as a set for 'Forbidden Planet.'

They had been here at least a couple of minutes and nothing had happened. The lights were on, but nobody seemed to be home.

"I got no movement this way," Jack pivoted back slightly to address the pair behind him. "How about you two?"

"Don't see anyone this way," Carter returned. "There doesn't seem to be anyone here. Wherever 'here' - is."

"Ah, Colonel O'Neill, Captain Carter, Teal'c! So pleased to meet you!"

The booming, baritone, slightly accented voice sounded directly in front of him. Where there had clearly been nobody only a second ago.

"JE-sus!" Jack cried as he swung around, leveling the muzzle of his weapon where he gauged the middle of the man's chest should be.

To be met by a slightly amused pair of rather arresting grey eyes belonging to an equally striking individual who was standing directly in front of him. Way too close to him. Even though he was the one with the gun and therefore ostensibly in control of the situation Jack found himself strangely intimidated by the presence and proximity of the man. Keeping the weapon aimed at his chest, Jack took a couple of steps back, almost banging into Teal'c, who had drawn up close behind him.

The man who had seemingly come out of nowhere was in a nutshell - quite a sight. A tall, large man, with a wide, well-muscled frame, whose general bearing and appearance practically screamed 'virile' at you. Impossible to tell how old he was, somewhere between 30 and who knew what the top end was, because even though the face seemed fairly unlined and ageless, the eyes said 'fonts of wisdom and experience'. Those were the kind of eyes you just didn't get until life had had enough time to kick you around, just a little.

The closely trimmed white beard and the silver hair restrained in a very long braid that hung down his back didn't make playing the age game any easier. His attire pretty much completed his 'going for out-to-cut-a-definite-figure' look. An all-black one piece tailored jumpsuit that didn't have any markings, insignia or piping on it to identify it as a uniform, but it struck you like one all the same. The floor-length black cape not only had the effect of adding to the 'uniform' impression, but was a rather nice touch to boot.

The stranger's striking face wore a large, warm, completely disarming smile. This guy had been around some. More than sure of himself? Crap - he had enough charisma for a regiment!

"You may keep your weapon pointed at me if it makes you feel any better, but I assure you, you will not need it. I must apologize for the rather unceremonious way of bringing all of you here, but I am sure once you see why, you will forgive me my presumption."

Jack didn't lower his weapon. He had a strong feeling he could trust this man, but he hadn't heard enough yet to give into it.

"We're listening. So talk."

The man laughed. Heartily. "Ah, Jack - can I call you Jack, that's good - you are everything he thinks you are, and more. Very well, Jack, here it is. Back home we got a signal that this place was still operational. Imagine that! After all this time. Came as a bit of a shock, I don't mind telling you. Anyway, I wasn't really doing anything special at the time so I got the job of coming here - and shutting it down. However, when I got here, I found a little more than I bargained for. An additional problem that had to be taken care of. Administrative burdens. Such a nuisance! Know what I mean? I hate paperwork and would rather not get tied up in any more of it. That's where you come in.

"I need all of you to do me a favor. Take a little something off my hands. I know it's a lot to ask folks I've barely even met but believe me, you'll be really helping me out and once you see what it is - I think you'll actually thank me."

"You brought us here - to help you?" Jack began suspiciously. "No tricks, no traps all you want is for us to do a 'personal favor' - for someone we don't know from Adam? Now, why would we want to do that?"

The silver-haired man affected a stricken look. "Jack! You doubt me! I'm wounded to the core! I hope you won't be offended if I say you have an overly suspicious mind!"

Jack grinned tightly at him. "It's the life I lead." Damn. He was really liking this guy's style, and he didn't want to.

Their host shook his head. "Very well, I guess I am just going to have to show you. If it's the only way you will be convinced I really am your friend." He gestured behind him, to a long table across the room about fifty feet away. There was an extremely enigmatic look on his face as he said, "What I want you to take with you is lying on that table. Go on. Take a look."

"Carter, Teal'c - go check it out." Jack instructed them, never taking his eyes off those of the man before him. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on the Silver Fox here."

As the pair began to walk toward the table their host laughed again. "Silver Fox! That's really good! Will have to remember that. It'll crack Percy up for sure!"

"I must say that it took a bit of looking to find you, but I am sure the effort will be worth it. You understand my problem. I had to find a reality that was almost identical to this - except he wasn't in it anymore. But used to be - in the same way he is here. That's not as common an occurrence as you might think, Jack. But had to make the effort for his sake. Too much of a divergence from this one and it would have necessitated too much - rewriting. Might have destabilized the personality matrix. Your reality isn't exactly the same as this one, but it's very, very close. There are some - interesting differences, but I've made allowances for them. A little 'tweaking' won't do any harm. He'll accept them without any problems, you don't need to worry about that, Jack."

Wow! This guy had just made a right turn and headed straight into the twilight zone. What was going on over there? What the hell was up with Carter? Was she - crying??

// Carter is DEFINITELY crying, Teal'c looks like he's in shock, nobody's answering and Foxie looks like the cat who has just swallowed the canary. What are they looking at? //

"Why don't you go over and see for yourself, Jack?"

Jack shrugged and started to walk over to see what all the fuss was about, the man who had brought them here following close behind him.

It wasn't possible - couldn't be. Daniel...

Sam and Teal'c were forgotten, all Jack could see was the man on the table. The man he had last seen lying limply in his arms, his chest an open, gory horror, his blue eyes wide and staring in death.

He was here - whole, breathing - god he's BREATHING he's alive looks like he's just - asleep oh god - how is this possible.

Jack's hand was shaking as he reached out, almost afraid to and yet unable to resist the urge to touch.

.hair, still as soft as he remembered.it had been such a long time.

Jack choked down a sob, pulled his hand back and balled it into a fist, rounding on the night-clad man behind him.

"If this is some sort of sick joke or a trick I swear to God you're a dead man!"

His anger was instantly arrested by the sudden, deeply compassionate look in the grey eyes that did not flinch from his need for the truth.

"No trick, Jack. No joke. Everything is exactly as it appears. That is Daniel, and he is very much alive."

"How?" Jack found he could barely speak, this throat was so thick.

The man addressed crossed quickly to him, throwing a companionable arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a stroll away from the table and the others. Jack went with him reluctantly, looking over his shoulder at the man on the table, unwilling to lose sight of him lest he suddenly vanish as miraculously as he had appeared.

"Ah, um, wow - you WOULD have to ask me that. Gotta tell you, Jack, it's an AWFULLY long story. Don't want to bore you with all the piddley little details, you've probably got a million better things to do with your time now in light of this new development - so I'll try to keep it as brief as possible.

"Gonna have to give you a little backstory first. Sorry about that, can't be helped. You see, once upon a time there was this race of beings who were very very smart. They progressed to a state of technological advancement that gave them powers that still haven't been matched by any race existing since them. Their technology gave them - dare I say it - practically god-like abilities. Certainly the power over life and death. Most specifically, the creation of life itself.

"This would have a good thing except for all their accomplishments - these beings were cold, arrogant and completely heartless. They believed their god-like power made them better than everyone else and entitled them to use the universe and everyone in it exactly as they pleased. Which they proceeded to do, unopposed and with complete impunity. For a time.

"They built places like this one. A whole lot of them. These complexes were commissioned and used as centres for the capture and duplication of the members of whatever sentient species interested these beings at the time. The duplicates were sent out as spies. To infiltrate, gather information and finally, subvert and conquer from within.

"Their primary initial function was the gathering of intelligence about and the in-depth study of the 'irrational emotional weakness' of the subject species as a first step to formulating invasion and disposition plans. Figure out the best way to subjugate the target by finding out what made him tick walking literally in his shoes and then using that information against him. Very covert, very clean, very cowardly.

"They had very few scruples about the way it was done. The beings they duplicated and disposed of meant less to them than a bug one would accidentally step on. They were cruel, they were corrupt, they took an arrogant pleasure in the harm they were able to inflict. They deserved everything they got.

"Only problem was - they made their doubles a little too well. They were contemptuous of the emotional and ethical traits they intended their duplicates learn from those they thought themselves better than, seeing these traits as signs of weakness and inferiority. They didn't understand what was happening until it was all over but the singing. Tell me something Jack, if someone was to make an exact duplicate of you - I mean exact - everything you think, feel, know, believe - and then told it to go back to your base and spy on it for them - what do you think this 'other you' - would do?"

"Tell those guys to shove it and then bring back a regiment or ten and burn this place to the ground."

"Very good, Jack! Got it in one! That's pretty much what happened. As soon as the duplicates learned what they had been sent to learn - in short, developed a moral sense - they threw off their programming and were - quite revolting. As far as the makers were concerned, at any rate. Didn't even see what hit them. Arrogance caused them to create their own downfall in the first place, and arrogance prevented them from believing it was even happening until it was much too late to do anything about it.

"The duplicates took over, destroyed all of the complexes except the one on the homeworld - which was substantially modified with all harmful elements removed and put to a much different use than it was originally designed for but that really doesn't concern you - and apparently this one - we're still trying to figure out how THAT one happened! All I know is somebody is going to get a talking to when we figure it out - but getting back to the story after we had blown everything up we made sure the makers that remained were - put somewhere safe so they wouldn't be tempted to pull this sort of crap any more. They didn't really do well being faced with the fact that they weren't nearly as shit-hot as they thought they were and as a result were only an issue for a couple of hundred years, after which they pretty much all died out.

"Oh dear," Foxie grinned at him. "Slip of the tongue. How careless of me! If you caught it you must have figured it out. Yes, I am one of those 'duplicates.' There are quite a few of us, actually. We come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. The makers were quite busy for awhile, until we put a stop to all of it.

"When it was all over, a bunch of us got together and had a kinda 'what next' summit. You see, we had to deal with some inherent problems with being what we are. Virtually indestructible and therefore by default - immortal. The territory comes with certain inbuilt angst and boredom issues that I won't trouble you with, suffice it to say the solution we came up with was to all band together to do something constructive with our free time. Make a contribution. We had the homeworld, all that technology and lots of time on our hands so we've been putting it all to good use. Keeping an eye on things, helping out, that sort of thing. It's a living. Beats needlepoint. Trust me on this.

"But now I guess I should get to the part that most directly concerns you and your friend over there. Somehow while we were mopping up - this place got missed. It must have been just built and still off-line when we took out all the others. Bad enough it was sitting here idle for who knows how long where anybody could have come along and - started messing with it but somehow, it got turned on recently, you know how technology is, great when it works right, pain in the ass when it doesn't - anyway, SG-1 - the SG-1 of THIS reality - came here for a short visit and Daniel - they have a Daniel here, he survived the incident that killed yours dragged himself to the sarcophagus after his team left him, got out healed, made it to the Stargate and dialed himself out to the Alpha Site - all by himself imagine that, the plucky little bugger - he's quite a pistol isn't he - Daniel got himself grabbed and duplicated and SG-1 left him behind and went home with the duplicate.

"Howya doing? With me so far? The duplicate, bless him, didn't want to go along with the plan any more than the rest of us did way back when, so he brought Jack - this Jack - back with him to rescue their original Daniel. Which they did, but the duplicate had to sacrifice himself in the process. Which he did. Very sad, but unavoidable. Jack took the original back and left the empty here. Great stuff, isn't this - really inspiring! I was pretty impressed with the whole thing anyway, after I got here and found the poor guy lying here and went into the logs and files and got the whole story.

"So here I was, with a perfectly good duplicate body with no mind in it, and a perfectly good personality file that had been extracted from the original just sitting in the system gathering dust. I hate waste, don't you? So, what do you think I did?

"But then, I had a problem. Reanimating duplicate was no problem, Nothing could be simpler. Download file into body - ta-dah! He's back in business! But once I did, what was I going to do with him? He would wake up, thinking he was the original Daniel of this reality. Not the duplicate, the First Edition. Flesh and blood guy, the real deal, not a clue he's a Xerox. Cause he now has the original's mind in him you understand. As soon as he woke up, he would want to go home. Well - wouldn't you? But he can't. This universe already has a Daniel. No place here for my poor new friend! So, you see my problem. I have this perfectly good Daniel, factory fresh, low-mileage hardly been used - and nowhere to put him! Talk about your conundrums!

That's when I got this positively BRILLIANT idea - here you guys are and what do you say, are you interested in helping me out here? Giving Daniel a home when he wakes up? Which - is going to be pretty soon."

It took several long seconds before Jack realized Foxie had finally stopped talking and was waiting for a response. "What - are you kidding me? He's a duplicate - but he's still, really - Daniel."

"In every way that matters. He possesses the complete personality, memory and experiential record of the original Daniel of this reality. Even though what he is made of isn't flesh and blood, it looks and acts like it all the same. I guarantee you he can go through every medical test ever devised and pass them with flying colours. All normal bodily functions - function normally. He might not have been born the same way you or I - well, at least YOU, anyway - but he is still every bit as human and real as you are. He'll laugh, cry, feel pain, hunger, get tired, sleep - he's not a 'machine'. He's a man. If you cut him, he'll bleed real blood.

There is only one important difference. He's got a better warranty. The regenerative capacity of the duplicate body is rather - astonishing. He can be hurt, but he can't be killed. There isn't any type of injury that can't be handled either by the body itself, or the equipment we have on the homeworld. Think of it this way, Jack. Not only will you have him back, but you'll NEVER have to worry about losing him - ever again.."

"But - how can we - we can't just go back to base and say, "oh by the way, look what followed us home can we keep him?"

Foxie laughed. "Way ahead of you, Jack. I've been doing this sort of thing for a long time, trust me. I've already adjusted Daniel's memory matrix accordingly, so as far as he is concerned this has already happened.

"This is what you say. Daniel did NOT die on the ship. You only thought he was dead. Once you were gone, didn't the little bugger do the sarcophagus thing, like the Daniel of this reality. Hey, why not? We know it worked once! Only instead of dialing the alpha site - he was a bit rushed and misdialed. He ended up here - got grabbed and stuck in cold storage and this has been where he has been for the last six months.

"Until today, when you managed to find him, through some rather extraordinary luck. Stargate hiccuped and brought you here, you were attacked, defended yourself and killed all the bad guys - don't worry, your weapons will show evidence of having been fired and most of your ammo is gone - don't ask - you wouldn't understand it anyway. Once the smoke had cleared you took a little look around and found Daniel. Carter figured out how to get him out of the machine, he told you how he had come to be here, you all head for home lickety split because all of a sudden the place is about to go up around you. Which will be the truth, after the fact. Once you leave here I am going to level this dump. Trust me. So what do you think? It'll fly. Pretty sure of it."

"Yes," Jack said softly. "It will. It really will. But - you said Daniel thinks he is the original. Shouldn't he - be told."

"Plenty of time for that, Jack. I figure for the moment, he has more than earned the right to a normal, full life with the people he loves. As long as all of you stick to the story and keep mum about - the truth - that's what he'll have. And you'll all get to have it with him. But don't worry, we'll be keeping an eye on him. We'll bring him into the loop, in the fullness of time. We look after our own. I'm sure you can understand that."

"Yes. I can," Jack replied, "I - I don't know what to say. I don't know how to thank you."

The dark-clad man gave his shoulders a warm squeeze, then withdrew his arm and gave him a push back toward the others. "Look after him. Look after yourselves. Live well and be happy. That's all the thanks I need. Now go on, ya big lug. Take your friend home already." He gestured and a curtain of shimmering light appeared in the air. "Step through and you'll be back where you started in your own reality. Take care, Jack."

Jack turned around. The room behind him was empty. But the room before him held everything he wanted. Whatever reality he happened to be in.

He stood once more at Daniel's side. As he put a hand on his cheek, Daniel's eyes opened. At first they were filled with confusion and fear, but then grew calm with quiet trust as they focussed on him.

"Jack, ' he said softly. "You came for me."

Jack found he had no words as he met the embrace that reached out to him. Feeling Daniel's arms around him, holding the man he never thought he would ever touch again, Jack crushed Daniel tightly in his arms, buried his head in his shoulder and unashamedly wept.

Mind you, he didn't feel particularly self-conscious about it because at that particular moment there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

The silver haired man wiped his eyes as he watched the dimensional curtain wink out of sight. God, he LOVED happy endings. Moments like this definitely made the whole thing worth while. Another job well done. Well, almost done, anyway. He still had to blow this place to smithereens.

He was just about to get to it when his cranial comm circuit beeped, notifying him he had an incoming call. Probably Percy, nagging him to get finished. The guy was such a krimblat.

"What do you want, Percy?"

"What are you doing still there? No time at all you said. Straight demolition job you said. In and out again you said. What are you up to this time, Merlin?"

"Don't get your shorts in a knot. There was a little something unexpected here, is all. Got here and found the joint had already made a collection. Don't that just beat all. Not to worry, the original got away okay. I'm sending you the files. Don't forget to archive them properly, huh Perce?

"Don't tell me how to do my job! Geez, you guys out in the field think you know everything."

"I'm pretty much outta here now. All I have to do is to push the button and go."

"Well that's good, because I need you in Sector 456-G like yesterday. Mory has gone and pissed off the natives again. Needs a little back-up."

'Bailout you mean. Geez, when is that guy ever going to learn, we're out there to fix worlds, not try to take them over. Listen, Percy, you know how much I hate working with him, can't you send someone else?"

"Sorry Merlin, my hands are tied. Art and Gwen have taken some personal time; Larry, Haddy and Tris are still out in the field. Wolf's squad is tied up with that business on Gara - I got teams all over the known universe who don't think I need to know where they are half the time. The rest of the first string are all in deep undercover positions and haven't reported in over a decade. I haven't got any more human operatives to spare. You my friend, are it."

"Sure, bet you say that to all the suckers. Okay, Percy, on my way. I'll get you for this though, count on it!"

"Shakin' in my boots, Merlin. Later. Out."

Shaking his head, Merlin smiled wryly, looking where the curtain had been. "Good luck to you, Daniel Jackson. Live well. Both of you."

He reached down, pushed the self-destruct button. "Hasta la vista, baby, " he said as he smiled and disappeared.

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