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Adam's Rib                
by Kikkimax
 

Colonel O’Neill climbed the little rise and took a long look around while his team completed the usual sampling and surveys in the immediate vicinity of the gate. “Daniel,” he called out. “What do you make of that?” He handed over the binoculars and pointed the archeologist in the right direction when he joined him on top of the hill.

“Looks like something out of Star Trek,” Daniel replied, training his eyes on what appeared to be a small, modern city.

“Well I could have told ya that,” Jack complained.

“Really, Jack, I don’t see anything about the architecture that I recognize culturally. Very high tech.” Daniel lowered the binoculars and passed them along to Teal’c as he stepped up beside them.

“It does not appear to be Goa’uld,” the Jaffa proclaimed.

Jack shifted his weapon and replaced the binoculars in his pack. “Let’s check it out. Carter?”

“Coming, sir,” Sam replied as she loaded the last sample into its case and trotted up the smooth path to the rest of her team. “Wow,” she exclaimed as she caught the slight reflection over the buildings that rose in a dome-shaped, pastel rainbow, shining like oil on water.

They followed the small paved road that lead through a cultivated landscape. Soon they were standing just on the edge of the town. The colors weren’t visible up close, but there appeared to be a shimmering field surrounding the city, effectively keeping unwanted visitors out.

“How come the UAV didn’t pick this up?” Daniel asked as he poked a digit into the barrier and blinked as his finger tingled and bounced back. He tried again with his whole hand with the same results. Jack joined in, using the tip of his P90.

“Given the probable level of technology, I’d say the people here didn’t want to be seen,” Sam reasoned as she studied the phenomenon intently.

“O’Neill. The inhabitants approach from within.”

Sam undid the strap of her helmet and removed it, while Jack and Daniel stepped away from the transparent fence.

“Hel-lo, ladies,” Jack drawled.

A group of approximately thirty youngish to middle aged women wearing various pastel colors of the same simple smock moved passively towards them. They appeared neither frightened nor aggressive, and carried nothing that could be construed as a weapon. All were statuesque and blonde with light colored skin tones and blue eyes. They passed through the almost invisible barrier without notice and surrounded SG1.

“Hello, I’m Daniel Jackson. This is…” Daniel started, stepping forward only to be cut off by one of the older women as she moved closer to Sam. Another younger woman joined her, then another, effectively separating the Captain from the men. “Um, Jack, they don’t appear to hear me. Or they’re simply more interested in Sam.”

“Carter?”

“I’m okay, sir,” Sam soothed. “They just seem curious.” The group that circled her began to tentatively reach out and touch her hair, clothing and face.

As if reaching a group decision, they gently began to edge her towards the force field.

“I think you’ve been invited in,” Daniel offered.

“I don’t like it,” Jack breathed uneasily. “Carter, try to ease back over here.”

Sam planted her feet but the women around her became a little more insistent. Jack and Teal’c leveled their weapons.

“Wait!” Daniel said as he took off his glasses to remove the clipped on shades so that he could see a little better. One of the women looked into his face and startled. As one the rest turned to look at him.

“Did you see that?” Daniel exclaimed excitedly. “I think they’re communicating with each other telepathically.”

Several of the women advanced cautiously toward Daniel. One of them pulled at his helmet and he reached up to help her remove it. “Maybe our headgear confused them,” he said as she ran her hands hesitantly through his light golden-brown hair.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud,” Jack replied but reached up anyway and removed his own cap and sunshades. Teal’c, of course, had nothing to remove. Both were obviously ignored as the examination of Daniel became more intense. More women crowded around him until he too, was separated out.

“Why choose me and Sam?” Daniel asked rhetorically, thinking out loud as more and more hands investigated him.

“Maybe they don’t like men and they think you’re a girl,” Jack teased. “You are kinda pretty with all that hair.”

“Whoa!” Daniel exclaimed as he suddenly backed up, his face turning red. He placed his helmet over an area it wasn’t originally intended to protect. “Well now they know I’m a guy for sure,” he sputtered.

“Enough. We’re out of here,” Jack announced and once again raised his weapon. He stepped between the women and grasped Daniel by the arm only to be knocked away by a charge of energy.

“Jack!” “Sir!” Daniel and Sam shouted at the same time as they were forced through the translucent shield and released on the other side. Immediately, they rushed the field, but found that once again, they couldn’t get through.

“I’m okay,” Jack said as Teal’c helped him to his feet. “I guess you’ve both been invited,” he added as he dusted the dirt off his backside.

“Maybe it’s because we look like them,” Daniel offered. “Blue eyes, light complexions and hair. I don’t think they’re going to hurt us. We’ll try to communicate.”

“Right. We’ll be here, I guess,” Jack said as he watched two of his kids being led away. “Looks like a good place to set up camp.”

The two wide-eyed scientists were ushered through the silent, immaculate streets. More and more women appeared from every building they passed but they didn’t see any men or children. There was an excitement in the air not lost on the city’s ‘guests’.

“They’re waaay ahead of us,” Sam mused trying to take in everything at once. The buildings had a sheen about them and she couldn’t tell if they were metal or stone or something else entirely. There were flowering bushes all along the polished, narrow avenues. Although there were no vehicles, per se, several small mechanical devices floated quietly about, waiting to be used.

“No kidding,” Daniel agreed, turning with every step to look around. “Have you noticed how much the people all look alike?”

“You mean other than the blue-eyed thing?”

“Yeah. Some of them are identical,” Daniel proclaimed.

Sam looked a little closer. There were an awful lot of faces, but they all sported relatively the same features. “Multiple births?” she asked. “Robots?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel answered, turning the puzzle over in his head, nodding to the smiling faces that seemed way more interested in him than Sam.

The group, now more of a well-behaved mob, stopped in front of a large, central building with open doors. Four members from the original welcoming committee urged the Earthlings forward and followed them inside. A meeting chamber of some type opened up at the end of the short hallway, but another hall crossed it in the center.

Daniel was pushed in one direction at the crossway and Sam in the other, now with two guards apiece. “Sam!” Daniel called out as he was separated from his teammate.

“I’m fine. We’ll just cooperate for now.”

“Seems like we don’t have any other choice,” Daniel replied as doors suddenly slid shut a few yards in front of him and directly behind his guards, turning the hallway into a room. He jumped and spun around to thump experimentally on the solid panel, the two women watched in apparent awe of him. When he turned back towards the room three older, more official looking women in much longer robes stared at him in wonder.

“Hello,” he tried again. “Do you speak at all?”

One of his guards removed his backpack. “I’ll just hold on to that,” he said reaching out for it. His hands were pushed away and the pack was set aside, along with his helmet and glasses.

“You don’t understand what I’m saying at all, do you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “Do you even hear me?”

The two guards nodded as if an order had been given and began in earnest to remove his sidearm and holster, vest, jacket and tee shirt in spite of his protests.

“This isn’t necessary,” Daniel argued as he was pushed into a chair and each of the guards began to remove a boot. “I don’t like where this is going,” he said and shook himself free of their hands as he stood up. He received a jolt of current and found himself back in the chair, grateful that he hadn’t been flung across the room. Slightly dazed he flexed his wrists to work out the tingling sensations that remained. The attendants regarded him for only a moment before picking up his legs and removing his boots and socks.

Pulling him to his feet, one of them reached for his belt. “I’ll do it myself,” Daniel muttered and swatted the hands away, quickly undoing the buckle before he could get shocked again. He unbuttoned the BDU pants and looked intently at the middle woman across from him. She gave him an apparently universal signal by nodding her head. With a sigh of resignation Daniel dropped his pants and stepped out of them self-consciously. One of the guards folded them neatly and placed them with his other clothing.

Sure that he’d found the leader, Daniel once again made eye contact with the middle woman. He knew his cheeks were flushed as he gave a pleading look to her and prayed she didn’t want his boxers as well. She moved closer and gingerly touched his bare chest. Soon other hands skirted his skin and hair, thankfully no one ventured below the waist this time.

Another nod, this one of approval and the women moved away. A bright light came out of nowhere to scan his body top to bottom. Then the three older women gathered around some type of readout on the wall. Daniel squinted, but without his glasses couldn’t make out any symbols. The leader turned to him and smiled.

Jack jumped to his feet and knew without looking that Teal’c was right behind him. Several women approached the force field from the city. A pallet of sorts moved along with them as if floating on air. It continued through the barrier while the natives stopped just inside. Jack pulled back the covering and grabbed one of the packs that it contained, handing it to Teal’c.

“So they don’t have any weapons, clothing, or supplies,” he mumbled as he rifled through the rest of the things. “Crap, they wouldn’t even let Daniel keep his glasses,” he swore as he folded the spectacles and slipped them into his pocket for safe keeping.

Together he and Teal’c unloaded their teammates’ belongings and as soon as it was empty, the pallet hovered its way back through the shield. The females turned and left without another glance.

“I’m starting to feel real unattractive here,” Jack said sarcastically as he once again began to probe the field for a way in.

After what she assumed was some type of medical exam Sam was placed in an elegant, comfortable room to cool her heels. She found a tunic on the overly large bed and pulled it on over her bra and panties. While angry at her own treatment, she worried that it had probably been much worse for Daniel, being not only male, but modest as well. She prowled the bedchamber looking for an escape when the door once again slid open.

“Nice place,” Daniel said sheepishly, glancing around the gilded cage as he entered the room. “You okay?” He jumped when the door slid shut behind him.

“Yeah. Fine.” Sam diverted her gaze from Daniel’s nearly naked body. “This must be for you,” she said handing over the pajama type bottoms that also lay on the bed.

“Thanks. No shirt?” he asked as he stepped into the garment and quickly tied it at the waist.

“Sorry.”

“So after the strip search they throw us in a boudoir?” Once he was more decent, Daniel examined the ornate furniture, running a finger over the dust that lingered over everything. He sneezed twice.

“Bless you. It looks like this room hasn’t been used in awhile,” Sam observed. “At least the linens are fresh.”

“Mmm. They must have spiffed up the place for us,” Daniel said dryly. “The furnishings don’t fit in with the rest of the décor around here. It’s almost like they’re from another era.”

“Antiques, maybe?”

“Maybe. The bed is… impressive.” A richly colored tapestry caught his attention. “Look at this,” he said, pulling the decorative drape away from the wall exposing a detailed series of pictures of cell structures.

“It looks like a genome map of some kind. I think these are actual photographs of DNA,” Sam replied in astonishment.

“Human?”

“I’m not sure, close I think,” Sam said as she moved a finger along the wall. “Not my field of study,” she added absently.

“Yeah, me either,” Daniel agreed. “You think this is some kind of animal husbandry thing?”

“No. I mean, we were treated more like prisoners than animals.”

“Speak for yourself,” Daniel muttered. “So what do we do now? I tried to communicate. What got through was very rudimentary.”

“Wait and see, I guess. Keep trying. Colonel O’Neill won’t wait too long to try to get us out of here.”

The door opened again and several younger women in the short style tunics carried in trays of food and drink. They set down their burdens and stopped to stare at Daniel, silently giggling all the while.

“Thank you,” Daniel said with a grimace, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “That’s a great big boost for my ego.”

“Daniel, don’t take it personally. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a man before,” Sam offered.

“You may be right. I certainly haven’t seen any men since we’ve been here, or children for that matter. In fact, I’d say no one here is younger than thirty or so. Oh, hello,” he added as one of the older women who had examined him earlier came through the open doorway. He stepped closer to Sam in a subconscious, protective gesture.

The servers abruptly stopped laughing and sprinted from the room, apparently chastised for their rudeness. The woman bowed first to Sam and then to Daniel and reached for the first tray. She poured a reddish liquid into a goblet and placed it in Daniel’s hand, indicating that he should drink.

“Okay,” Daniel said and took a cautious sip. “Not bad. Tastes like Merlot.”

The women took the cup from Daniel and handed it to Sam. With a shrug of her shoulders, she also took a small drink. “I hope she didn’t just marry us,” she teased.

Daniel looked serious. “Well, it wouldn’t be binding on Earth,” he managed, his eyebrows knitting together. “I don’t think so anyway.”

Sam snorted and rolled her eyes.

With another bow, the woman began to back away then stopped. As if on a whim, she reached out once more and caressed Daniel’s face. He smiled at her politely and covered her hand with his own. She returned the smile and closed her eyes. When she opened them a tear slid down her cheek.  She wiped it away and left, seemingly happy with whatever had transpired.

“What was that all about?” Sam asked.

“Maybe she always cries at weddings,” Daniel said, ducking the pillow Sam flung at his head.

“Hungry?” Sam asked as she examined the intriguing meal. “It smells good.”

“You think it’s safe?” Daniel asked dipping his finger into a sauce and tasting it.

Sam shrugged. “If they were going to poison us, why would they go to all this trouble? They want something from us.”

“Like what? Except for the peep show and the fact that we’re locked up, they have treated us fairly decently.”

“I don’t know. But I think it’s probably safe to eat.”

They switched off a couple times during the night, one taking watch while the other slept. Sam realized it must be morning as daylight seeped around the edges of the curtain covering the small, grated window above the bed. Apparently Daniel had found something more interesting than sleep as he hadn’t wakened her for the last watch. She stretched and yawned as she took in the totally absorbed posture of her counterpart as he studied the wall where the genomes had been. He had one of the blankets from the bed wrapped around his shoulders as he intently studied pictographs on the wall.

“What’s it say?” Sam asked quietly.

“Um, well,” Daniel said as he spun around on the stool that he was sitting on. “It doesn’t actually ‘say’ anything, more like illustrates. Come have a look.”

Sam wrapped herself up in the other light blanket from the bed and padded across the cold tile floor. “Geez. What I wouldn’t give for my boots right now.”

“This changes the page, so to speak,” Daniel explained as he demonstrated the mechanism he had discovered.

“Cool,” Sam said and played with the device for a minute, watching it change the wall each time.

“Stop on the next one,” Daniel instructed. “I think it’s the one that pertains to us.”

Sam stopped the wall where requested and Daniel waited silently while she ‘read’ it, following along with her finger. She pulled back as the pictures got more graphic.

“Oh. So they were expecting us to… we were supposed to…” her voice trailed off.

“Right,” Daniel said, a slight blush creeping up to his cheeks. “Make a baby.”

“Sorry to disappoint them,” Sam said glibly, pulling her blanket a little tighter.

Daniel rose to his feet and they both turned to look when the door slid open. The older woman from before swept into the room, her smile faded into a look of confusion and concern. She held out a device toward Sam and looked at it intently.

“What’s that?” Daniel asked cautiously.

“Like I know?”

The woman moved closer to the wall and examined it briefly before nodding. She took Daniel by the hand and patiently showed it to him one frame at a time.

“I know how to do it,” Daniel ground out, pulling his hand out of her grasp. “I’m just not going to do it for you.” He pointed to one particularly descriptive picture and then pointed to Sam, shaking his head no.

“No way,” Sam agreed, shaking her head as well.

An expression of understanding crossed the woman’s face and she moved to the trunk at the foot of the bed and opened it by passing a hand over the top of it. Sam peeked in.

“Oh, boy,” she muttered.

“What is it?” Daniel asked, moving forward to look as well.

“Um, I’d say they’re restraints.”

“For you or for me?”

“Does it matter?” Sam asked acerbically and not a little wild-eyed.

“Not really,” Daniel conceded. “Wait, I’ve got an idea.” He pulled the other woman back to the wall and quickly flipped pages until he came to the one he wanted. It showed an adult male and female side by side. Below them in a standard genetic chart stance was a little boy and a little girl. Daniel pointed first to the adults, then indicated himself and Sam as he shook his head. Next he pointed to the children. The woman stared at him blankly and began to back away. More persistent this time, Daniel took her hand and made her touch the male child and then pulled her hand to his own chest before doing the same with the female child and pointing at Sam.

Understanding dawned on the woman’s face and the confusion was replaced with excitement. She hugged Daniel and ran from the room.

“Okay, what just happened?” Sam asked, still slightly bemused.

“I told her that we were brother and sister,” Daniel explained. “At least that’s what I was trying to convey to her.”

“I think it worked,” Sam agreed as she closed the toolbox at the foot of the bed with a shudder.

“Of course, even on Earth there were certain cultures that married off siblings to keep royal bloodlines pure. For example….”

Reinforcements arrived after the Colonel’s last report and now the campsite fairly buzzed with activity as the soldiers and scientists tried to find a way to breach the barrier and retrieve their comrades. After twenty-eight hours and no word from inside, the General had agreed that it was time to take action.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Jack complained as he paced beside the force field.

“As you have said, O’Neill. CaptainCarter and Daniel Jackson are resourceful. If they are able to return to us, they will.”

“I know, big guy. I’m just worried.”

“As am I,” Teal’c admitted.

O’Neill straightened up as Major Griff joined them. “Major?”

“No joy, sir. The force field extends into the ground. We’ve dug down six feet and still keep running into the damn thing. We’re setting up to try the rocket launcher.”

“Well, make sure everyone gets under cover. You should have seen the sparks fly when we hit it with Teal’c’s staff weapon.”

“Yes sir, I’ll give you a heads up when we’re ready.”

Jack nodded and turned to look at the city. For him at least, it had lost some of its shine.

Daniel used a hunk of bread to soak up the last of the creamy gravy in the bowl. “At least they’re feeding us well,” he mused offhandedly.

“If they keep us here too long, you’re gonna get fat,” Sam teased as she reached across and patted him on the full belly.

“We have to keep up our strength,” Daniel argued back lightly.

“You know,” Sam began, thinking out loud, “if they wanted us to procreate, and now they think we’re siblings, shouldn’t they let us go?”

“You would think so. Maybe they’ve got something else in mind,” Daniel replied as he pushed away from the table and headed back to the wall of sophisticated pictographs. “Look at this.” He quickly flipped through the pages to the one he wanted. “If I’m reading this right we’re in some type of reproductive center. By the lack of men, I’d say that it hasn’t been done the old fashioned way here in a long time. Maybe even a couple of generations.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, these appear to be genealogy records. If we go way, way back,” he said as he surfed through multiple pages, “there appear to be equal numbers of men and women. Also, you can see that there was a greater variety of facial features, hair and eye color, body type...”

“They began selective breeding,” Sam surmised.

“It looks that way,” Daniel agreed and moved the page forward several decades. “They begin to look more and more alike and the male population begins to decline right about here. Maybe they were trying to reduce the so-called ‘testosterone’ traits. Perhaps they were a warrior race but desired peace.”

“They bred themselves right out of the Y chromosome.”

“Probably not on purpose, but they do appear to have a Utopian society. Or at least a peaceful one. They also apparently lost the ability to hear. I mean, they have ears so obviously they used them at one time.”

“Or they didn’t need to hear once they started to communicate telepathically.”

“I suppose they found a new way to propagate too?”

“Um. Go back to the other page. See here? Before the males all disappeared, they began to collect and freeze sperm.”

“Yeah, but how long could that last? Not indefinitely.”

“Judging from the age of the population, I’d say they ran out of the frozen stuff about thirty years ago or so. Maybe that’s why they were so glad to see you.”

“But what about Jack and Teal’c? They are definitely alpha male types but the women pretty much ignored them.”

“Well, yeah, but they must seem pretty alien to these people. I doubt they’d ever seen anyone with dark skin or brown eyes. They didn’t pay any attention to you until they noticed the color of your eyes.”

Daniel shrugged, quirking his eyebrows. “I’m sure they did a DNA reading on me. They have to know that I’m alien as well.”

“Who knows, maybe they’re willing to louse up their pedigree a little to get back some males. Their continued survival may depend on it. Besides, you look familiar to them. It would be easier to accept you than say the Colonel or Teal’c.”

Before Daniel could answer the door slid open and a couple of guards stepped inside. One of them clasped Daniel gently around the wrist and led him toward the hall. The other one cut Sam off as she attempted to follow, a hint of electricity teasing the air.

“I have the feeling I’m about to find out what they want,” Daniel commented. “And I really have no desire to find out first hand how they go about collecting… um, specimens.”

“You don’t think they’re gonna…” Sam started before the door slid shut in her face.

A silent argument was brewing full force when Daniel was ushered into a large stainless steel on white room. The woman he had pegged as the leader was passionately gesturing towards the waist high table and back to a large, bulbous looking machine that loomed over everything else in the room. Glancing to his right Daniel could see row after row of similar rooms through partially opened screens. As he watched the partitions began to solidify, forming separate rooms until at last the room they were in became private as well.

Other older women stood around, some looking aghast or angry, others appearing excited or even giddy.

“What do you want with me?” Daniel asked, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

All movement stopped and everyone turned to study him intently. For a moment Daniel wondered if they had actually heard him. The leader stood next to him and after gently pushing his arms away placed her hand over his heart. The angriest of the other women followed her lead and slowly her expression became one of resignation. She met Daniel’s eyes briefly before nodding and moving away.

“What was that?” Daniel persisted. “Some kind of test? Look, it’s been swell, but I’d really like to go home now.”

The leader looked positively smug as most of the other women filed out of the room, the door sliding into place behind them. She smiled at Daniel and patted the table behind him.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” Daniel argued and moved to the door. He still couldn’t figure out how to open it and pounded on it once in frustration. When he turned back to the remaining group, they were watching him closely in apparent amusement. One of the guards lifted her hand in a completely passive yet somehow threatening manner. The older woman once again patted the table.

Licking his lip absently, Daniel paced along the outer perimeter of the room to the place where the opening in the wall had been. Running his hands along the surface looking for an escape, he could almost feel the impatient vibes floating back to him from the other occupants of the room. Feeling like a lab rat, he turned back to face the women but stubbornly stayed where he was when he was beckoned once more. The hair on his neck tingled slightly before he felt the surge of energy that knocked him against the wall. A guard appeared on each side of him and pulled him to his knees, more or less dragging him toward the table.

“No,” Daniel protested as he was pulled up on the table and forced onto his back. He felt weak but continued to struggle until he received another harder shock which left him unable to move except for the involuntary spasms that traveled up and down his body.

Feeling helpless and exposed as his garments were removed, he sought out the eyes of the older woman, pleading silently to her. She placed her hand on his forehead and he could feel a vague wave of soothing, peaceful thoughts flow over him. As he started to drift into the mist that began to cloud his mind he caught glimpses of her people’s desire and fully understood what they wanted from him. He saw the faces of the blue-eyed babies they dreamed of and realized that by the unwilling contribution of his DNA, he would be Adam to a new generation.

As the hours passed Sam grew tired of researching the unending archive of the easily read pictographs. Uneasiness turned into worry which turned into fear for her teammate as time slowly crept by. She had a pretty good idea what these people wanted Daniel for and after his encounter with Hathor, Sam was equally as certain that he would be hard pressed to cooperate.

Lunch and subsequently dinner had been served and still no word from Daniel, or the Colonel and Teal’c for that matter. It had been nearly forty-eight hours since they had been separated and Sam was sure that the rest of her team would be doing everything possible to free them. Once again she inspected the room. Obviously, it had not been designed as a jail cell, although as the restraints in the chest at the foot of the bed suggested, it had probably been used as one from time to time. Apparently there had been an unfortunate few who had been chosen to propagate but for some reason or another were unwilling to do the deed.

Coming up empty in the bedchamber Sam moved on to the tiny bathroom. Other than the odd shaped toilet and the water fountain that served as both sink and shower, it was empty. With a sigh she rolled her eyes heavenward. A slight breeze fluffed her bangs and she narrowed her eyes to study the well concealed vent in the ceiling.

She stopped in the passageway to gather her resolve. Her fear was great, but she could feel Mother’s gentle reassurances. Glancing once more down the deserted hall she picked a door and quickly slipped inside. Taking a moment to adjust to the dim lighting she allowed her gaze to come to rest on the man. She was one of the lucky few who had actually had a living, breathing great-grandfather and a grandmother born of a woman instead of a test tube.  And even now Mother held a powerful position, yet she had not been chosen to conceive. Feeling that the slight had been political and deliberate, she had been upset, but Mother had been devastated.

Her resentment of the choosing council faded as she studied the form resting on the table. Moving closer she was shocked not so much by the differences of the amazing creature she had heard about all her life, but by the similarities. Although men were often depicted in artwork and studied with fervor, they had become more myth and legend than flesh and blood to her. Tentatively she stroked her fingers along an exposed shoulder amazed and awed by the warmth of the skin and the bulk of the muscle beneath it. She ran her hand along the smooth plane of his chest stopping to tweak a tiny pink nipple, delighted as it swelled slightly in response to her touch.

Releasing the breath she’d been holding she turned her attention to the man’s face. He had been deemed gentle and caring of heart but he still held the thrill of unknown danger in the very essence of his maleness. Tracing the full lower lip with a fingertip she felt a jolt of something foreign and exciting. Her heart began to beat harder as her fingers traveled over the stubble roughened cheek and jaw. She had never taken a lover, preferring more esoteric pursuits of the mind over the hedonistic pleasures of the flesh, but now she began to understand the allure.

Mother had helped her to find the appropriate references, so she knew what to do. A brief moment of uncertainty passed over her as she continued to study the handsome face still deep within the sleep. She laid a hand on his forehead to seek absolution for what she was preparing to do. The storm of emotion startled her and she pulled back in shock that a man could feel so deeply. Beneath the brilliant mind she found a loneliness that took her breath away. The man’s inherent goodness was offset by a life of sadness and loss. Yet he retained a joy of learning and discovery that she had felt in few of the scholars of her own world.

Easing deeper into his mind she helped him find a suitable remembrance; one of sand and flesh and passion that set her own pulse racing. Unable to resist she brushed her mouth softly against his. Although his eyes remained closed, his body responded, more to the memory than the kiss.

The city had been devoid of children for so long she found it difficult to want something she’d never had. But Mother longed so for a little one that she couldn’t find it in her heart to disappoint her. Pulling back the thin sheet she climbed onto the table and with only a moment’s hesitation did the thing she thought she’d never in her lifetime do. She gasped inaudibly, surprised by the pain. Her fear returned as she fought the urge to run. As the fierce sting eased into a steady burn she rocked her body forward and back, deciding perhaps she deserved the pain for taking what wasn’t hers to take.

“Shau’re,” the man whispered unheard and joined her in the ancient rhythm.

Not surprisingly, no alarms sounded, no klaxons blared. Sam explored one dark, empty corridor after another. Obviously, it was very late. The last meal had been served hours ago and on their first night in the room, no one had disturbed them. She had to wonder if they even knew she was missing even as she moved about quietly as her training dictated. In reality she knew that even if she shot off fireworks no one would hear her. Still the only break in the silence was the steady flow of her own breath.

A nearby door opened and a hunched over figure scurried away. Flattening herself against the wall, Sam waited for the rapid footsteps to fade before trying to peek into the room. As the door started to slide shut she stuck a foot into the opening and like an elevator it opened back up, only slightly brushing her bare toes.

“Daniel,” she muttered, as she heard the deep, guttural moan emanate from inside the room. Hurriedly she crossed the dark expanse to the table in the middle of what could have passed for an operating suite. There was a soft glow about the room that centered on the table but didn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular. It gave Daniel’s skin an unearthly pallor even next to the pristine white sheet that lay bunched up around his waist and thighs.

“Daniel,” she repeated urgently as she patted his cheek, relieved to find his skin warm if dampened by a slight sheen of sweat.

He groaned and moved away from her touch, refusing to open his eyes. “Please, Daniel. Wake up,” Sam persisted, tapping his face a little harder.

Daniel coughed a couple of times before a frown gathered on his face and his eyes squinted open to reveal slivers of blue. “Sam?” he asked in confusion. “What happened?”

Sam wrinkled her nose as she sniffed the air, not liking the fresh smell of sex. “I think they um, harvested some of your, um… sperm.”

“Just a dream,” Daniel sighed softly, closing his eyes.

“Stay with me, Daniel. We’ve got to get out of here. How do you feel?”

After a long pause Daniel tried to sit up but moaned again and collapsed back to the table. “Sick. Dizzy,” he responded.

“You think you can walk?”

Letting out a small puff of air Daniel gathered his resolve. “I’ll try.” With Sam’s help he managed to sit all the way up with his legs hanging over the side of the table.

As the sheet started to slip away Sam reached to pull it up around his waist but stopped short of touching it. “Oh, Daniel,” she breathed, fear in her voice. “There’s blood on the sheet.”

“Hmm?”

“Blood,” Sam confirmed, a hint of panic in her voice. “Daniel, you need to… check yourself.”

“What? Blood?” Daniel questioned drowsily, fighting to keep his eyes open.

“Yes. Oh God. What if they, um…”

“Doesn’t hurt,” Daniel assured her as he peeked under the sheet and explored the area in question with one hand.

Sam looked away and held her breath while she waited.

“No, it… its okay, Sam. They didn’t cut me or anything,” Daniel assured her, wiping his hand on the sheet leaving crimson finger prints in stark contrast to the white. “Doesn’t seem like a very clinical way to, um, harvest,” he ventured as he realized what must have happened. “Let’s get out of here.”

With Sam’s help he eased down to the floor, taking a moment to fight off a wave of disorientation before he was able to secure the sheet around his waist. Leaning heavily on his friend they made their way awkwardly to the closed door.

“How the hell do these things work anyway?” Daniel grumbled as he thumped the door with a balled up hand, sounding much more like his usual self.

“I’m not sure. The people don’t seem to do anything. Maybe they just think them open,” Sam replied. As if in answer, the door panel slid aside.

“Did you do that?” Daniel queried thoughtfully, still not fully alert.

“No,” Sam responded as she spotted the apparent leader of their abductors in the now brightly lit hallway as a group of guards searched the rooms. “I guess they figured out I got away,” she said as all eyes turned to stare at them.

The leader appeared alarmed and genuinely concerned as she took in Daniel’s appearance.

“You got what you wanted,” Daniel implored with all the dignity he could muster. “Let us go.”

The guards all moved to one side of the hall as a floating cart appeared around the corner, stopping in front of the leader. She gestured to it, but Sam and Daniel didn’t move. With a roll of her eyes the woman touched Daniel’s forehead.

“She’s letting us leave,” he said.

“What? Why?” Sam questioned staring suspiciously at the older woman. “How do you know?” she added as an afterthought.

“I don’t really know how I know. I just do. It’s like she was in my mind for a second there. Oh, she’s back. She wants me to lie on the stretcher thing. I can walk,” he told her taking a cautious step before all but collapsing onto the floater. “No, no I can’t,” he amended grasping his head with both hands. “She thinks I’m stubborn.”

“You are stubborn,” Sam agreed. “Let’s go,” she said sparing a glare toward the women that surrounded them.

The older woman tucked a blanket around Daniel affectionately before moving off down the hall, the stretcher trailing silently in her wake. Sam took Daniel’s hand and walked next to him while the contingent of guards followed along behind.

“O’Neill,” a deep voice called, dragging Jack from the edge of sleep.

“Yeah, I’m up,” Jack said as he popped out of the tent. “What’s going on?”

“A procession approaches from the city,” Teal’c informed him solemnly.

“Kind of early for guests,” Jack quipped.

The sun was just beginning to peak over the hill beyond the city setting the top of the dome on fire with dazzling color.

“Wow,” Major Griff said as he and his men joined the Colonel and Teal’c next to the force field.

“Here they come,” Jack announced as the light-colored tunics became visible just beyond the well tended garden on the other side of the barrier. “Carter?” he called out as one of the figures became recognizable.

“Here, sir,” she reported.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, it’s… it’s Daniel,” she answered cryptically, gesturing at the covered lump on the floater beside her. In the dim morning light Jack could just make out the hand that Carter clutched like a lifeline.

The woman in front stopped and turned to the now motionless stretcher. She brushed Daniel’s hair away from his face and laid a hand on his forehead in a silent benediction. He drifted back into an even deeper sleep without a word. The floater moved forward and passed through the force shield with Sam in tow.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jack demanded, shooting daggers at the women on the other side before falling into step with the now rapidly moving stretcher.

“I don’t know exactly. I’ll explain what I know once we get home. I’m pretty sure we’re headed for the Stargate,” Sam said almost running to keep up. She spared a glance over her shoulder at the women who remained just out of reach, staring back at her, or more accurately, staring at Daniel.

“Griff,” Jack ordered briskly. “Break camp and get your butts back through the Stargate ASAP.”

“Yes, sir,” the major replied as he began barking out his own orders to his men.

Teal’c fell into place behind the stretcher. “Is Daniel Jackson injured?” he inquired.

“No, I think he’s just asleep now,” Sam responded as they approached the Stargate. The stretcher stopped and hovered in place next to the DHD.

Teal’c broke away and dialed Earth. Jack punched in SG-1’s IDC as soon as the event horizon settled into place after the requisite whoosh. Already back at Daniel’s side Teal’c paused as he examined the blood on the sheet.

“I don’t think its Daniel’s,” Sam offered with an embarrassed grimace.

With the raise of an eyebrow Teal’c hoisted the unconscious linguist across his shoulder and trotted up the steps to disappear into the blue.

Near the end of the most uncomfortable debriefing in recent memory Jack rubbed his head and asked, “So what makes Daniel’s DNA so damned appealing to every alien bitch in the galaxy?”

“Well, sir,” Doctor Fraiser answered. “He’s young and healthy to start with.”

“And kind and sincere. Plus he’s good-looking and smart to boot,” Sam agreed.

“He’s got good genes,” Janet summed up.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud,” Jack complained. “It was a rhetorical question. You’re sure he’s okay?”

“As far as I can tell, Colonel, he’s fine.”

“He’s been asleep ever since we left the planet.”

“Yes, sir, but all of his tests have come back within normal limits. In fact, as I already mentioned, the blood on the sheet wasn’t even his.”

“But he’s still asleep,” Jack insisted tapping at his watch.

“Well whatever they did to him seemed to drain him…”

“Ya think?” Jack cut in sardonically.

“Colonel,” General Hammond cautioned as Jack received identical glares from Carter and Fraiser.

“Sorry, sir. How very un-PC of me.”

Hammond stood and sighed wearily. “Dismissed,” he said as he turned to head back into his office. He couldn’t wait to read the mission reports on this one.

“Hey,” Jack greeted softly when he noticed he was being idly watched. He folded his newspaper and leaned forward to rest his forearms on the bed.

“Hi, Jack,” Daniel responded quietly. “Infirmary?”

“Home sweet home,” Jack confirmed. “’Bout time you woke up. You’ve been out for over a day.”

“Mmm,” Daniel replied non-committally as he once again closed his eyes.

“Hey,” Jack said softly as he gave the closest shoulder a firm shake. “Sleepy time is over. I need to know what happened.”

“What happened?”

“On planet of the Barbie dolls? P2C whatever?”

“Oh, yeah,” Daniel sighed, his brow creasing in thought. “I don’t really remember much. I had a dream.”

“A dream?”

“Yeah. It was nice,” Daniel murmured and fell back to sleep.

Jack sighed as he leaned back in his chair and opened his paper.

“Did he wake up yet?” Sam asked as she stepped around the bed to Daniel’s other side.

“Briefly,” Jack supplied, pretending to be interested in the sports section. “He says he doesn’t remember what happened.”

“Maybe that’s for the best?” Sam offered hopefully.

“Maybe,” Jack agreed reluctantly.

“How is Doctor Jackson this morning,” General Hammond asked as Doctor Fraiser entered the briefing room, Colonel O’Neill on her heels with the same question in mind. Carter had called everyone in for an early meeting, but no one knew what it was about.

“Doctor Jackson is very sick,” Janet stated, a slight quiver in her voice as she settled into the chair to the left of the General.

“You said he was fine,” O’Neill accused, taking the seat across from her.

“He was! Sir, I can’t explain it. Yesterday everything came back normal, but as you keep saying, he won’t wake up. We started to repeat some of the tests…” Doctor Fraiser stopped and studied her hands nervously.

“Doctor?” Hammond pressed gently.

“His amino acids are breaking up. I don’t know why and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

“What does that mean exactly?” Jack asked with a cautious tone.

“It means that he’s coming apart at the cellular level,” Sam supplied quietly as she and Teal’c entered the room and took seats around the table.

“We have to take him back,” Jack blurted out.

“What good will that do?” Fraiser asked.

“They did this to him, they can damn well fix it!”

“They’ve been trying to contact us,” Sam cut in.

“What?”

“That’s why I called this briefing. A wormhole from P2C 835 has opened to us six times during the night.”

“Any impact events?” Hammond questioned.

“No sir. They haven’t sent anyone through. It’s almost like they know about the iris.”

“Maybe Doctor Jackson told them about it.”

“I don’t know, sir. But they’re knocking at the door. Shouldn’t we see what they want?”

“I’ll authorize a MALP,” the General decided.

“Do you think that’s wise, sir?” Janet asked.

“It won’t do any harm to find out what they want, Doctor. And they might know how to help Doctor Jackson.”

“I took the liberty of setting it up, sir,” Carter said tentatively. “We’re ready to go.”

Hammond nodded. “Very well,” he said gravely and followed as his people led the way down the stairs to the control room.

Carter nodded at Sergeant Davis who began the dialing sequence.

“They’d better not be trying to sell us anything,” Jack grumbled sotto voce.

Teal’c raised an eyebrow in question.

“Intergalactic Avon ladies... sometimes it’s better to draw the shades and pretend no one’s home,” he explained, confusing the Jaffa even more.

They stood in silence and waited as the mechanics of sending the MALP were accomplished. Carter sat next to Davis and tapped a few keys on the keyboard. “We have visual,” she announced. Heads turned in various directions as everyone found a monitor to watch.

The MALP camera panned around the Stargate, but there was no one there to greet them.

“Looks like they gave up,” Jack intoned gravely.

“Give it some time, sir. It’s the middle of the night there. Maybe they’ll come back when the sun comes up.”

“There is movement in the brush,” Teal’c stated calmly, intently watching one of the overhead monitors.

“He’s right,” Sam agreed. Her mouth fell open as a bare-chested figure looked around cautiously and headed directly for the MALP. “Daniel,” she exclaimed breathlessly.

“That can’t be Daniel,” Jack declared. “Daniel’s in the infirmary.”

“General Hammond?” the well-known voice queried in a strained whisper. “I managed to escape, but I don’t know where the rest of my team is. You have to send reinforcements right away.”

“Doctor Jackson?” Hammond asked sounding very surprised.

“Sir! I’m sorry, I lost Captain Carter. And I don’t know where Jack and Teal’c are either.”

“Doctor Jackson, SG-1 is home,” Hammond said into the microphone. “All of SG-1.”

The man took a shaky breath. “They’re safe?” he asked at last.

“Yes.”

“Thank God,” the man sighed and rubbed a hand over his grimy face. “I don’t have much time, they’re searching for me.”

“Sir,” Carter said quickly. “We can’t just leave him there.”

“Why not?” Jack butted in. “We already have a Daniel.”

“Do we? How do we know that we have the right one, sir?” Carter argued passionately.

“What do you mean, Captain?” Hammond asked.

“I mean, I grabbed the first Daniel I found. I didn’t know there would be more than one!”

“Crap,” Jack murmured. “She’s right. Even if he’s not ours, we can’t just leave him there.”

“Doctor Jackson,” Hammond spoke once again into the microphone. “We’re going to disengage the wormhole. When you dial us back we’ll have the iris open for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” the man sighed in obvious relief. “See you in a minute.”

“Shut it down, Sergeant,” the General ordered. “Sound the alert, just in case.”

“Yes, sir,” Davis said, already disengaging the wormhole. “Security to the gateroom,” he announced as the klaxon sounded. The doors opened and armed SF poured in, weapons trained on the gate.

Within minutes the vortex stormed the room and quickly settled into the sparkling blue light. A man appearing to be Daniel Jackson stepped through and held his hands up in treaty to the airmen. “Don’t shoot,” he implored as he turned back toward the gate.

“He didn’t,” Jack swore under his breath. “He did. He brought company.”

Two more figures stepped through the event horizon, one obviously injured as he leaned heavily on the identical man next to him.

“Holy Hanna,” Sam managed before jumping up and following the Colonel and Teal’c to the gateroom.

“Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c called out. Three pairs of blue eyes turned toward him.

“Daniel. Daniel. Daniel,” Jack drawled cynically.

“Would you care to explain this, Doctor Jackson?” Hammond asked in astonished exasperation.

“I’ve been cloned,” two of the Daniels responded in tandem.

“We. We’ve been cloned,” the injured man corrected.

“Which one of you is the real Daniel?” Sam asked.

The three men looked at each other. They were dirty, barefoot and shirtless with various scratches and bruises. Otherwise they looked, sounded and acted exactly the same. “We are all real,” one of the Daniels said solemnly, sounding slightly affronted.

“And we are all Daniel,” the injured man added.

“But who is the original?” Sam persisted.

“Didn’t you already bring the original home?” the third man asked.

“Well we thought so,” Jack explained with an exaggerated shrug. “But it’s never that simple with you… Daniels.”

“Infirmary,” Doctor Fraiser insisted as she looked over the gash on the injured man’s leg. Teal’c moved quickly to his side and helped the other Daniel support his weight as they made their way out of the gateroom.

Jack glanced at Hammond before following the strange procession. “This is gonna be fun,” he groused.

“Sorry about this, sir,” the last Daniel said meekly to the General as he passed. Sam fell into place beside him. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he told her with a quick pat to her shoulder. “I was worried.”

Hammond motioned for a couple of the SFs to follow. “Stand down,” he ordered the rest. “Sergeant Davis, let’s get that MALP home.”

“They are Daniel,” Doctor Fraiser announced to the group gathered between and around the two infirmary beds where one Daniel slept soundly and another lay with his recently sutured leg propped up on pillows.

“Doctor?” Hammond encouraged her to go on.

“DNA confirms it. They are all Daniel Jackson.”

“Told ya,” the injured man murmured.

“Why the hell would anyone want more than one Daniel?” Jack blurted out. He looked them over, each freshly showered and shaved with wet hair and hospital scrubs, knowing he’d never be able to tell them apart.

“Gee, Jack. That’s certainly flattering,” the nearest Daniel complained with a hurt look on his face.

“You know what I mean,” Jack argued irritably.

“They wanted to repair the damage they’d unwittingly done to their gene pool,” another Daniel explained.

“By introducing alien DNA?” Sam piped in doubtfully.

“Well, they mucked around with their own DNA to the point that they lost certain qualities. You said it yourself, they breed themselves right out of a Y chromosome.”

“Some feminist would argue that’s not a bad thing,” Jack said.

“True, but without the male of the species, they also lost the ability to make children.”

“Why didn’t they just clone some?” Janet asked. “They obviously have the technology.”

“To make copies, yes,” the injured Daniel agreed. “But only copies. By the time they had perfected the procedure, all the children had already grown up. The older the population gets, the older the clones will be until they all die out. When it became apparent that I… that Daniel was a likely candidate to propagate a new generation, they decided to clone him first.”

“Why?” Jack asked, scratching his head.

“They didn’t want to just make a few babies. They wanted to repopulate their entire world,” another Daniel picked up the story. “Instead of one man, they needed dozens. Who knows, they may have made hundreds by now.”

“Now there’s a scary thought,” Jack announced.

“Which one?” the injured Daniel asked acerbically. “Hundreds of Daniels? Or the thousands of offspring that they would bring forth?”

“Adam,” the Daniel across the room muttered. “That was the last thing I… he thought before they put him to sleep.”

“Yeah,” the injured Daniel agreed. “Anyone else have the urge to count ribs?”

“At least that would give us a clue as to who is actually the original,” the third man mused.

“It doesn’t matter. We may all have different memories from the moment we woke up, but inside we are all Daniel Jackson and we have the exact same memories up to that point.”

“Okay, whatever. We can’t keep calling all of you Daniel. I mean, this guy got here first. He should get to keep the name,” Jack said pointing to the sleeping linguist.

The Daniel on the far side of the room gasped softly as he took the unconscious man’s hand in his own. “But he’s not the original,” he announced.

“How do you know?” Teal’c asked, speaking for the first time.

Daniel gently lifted the hand and splayed the digits for everyone to see. “Because last time I checked, Daniel Jackson didn’t have webbed fingers.”

“My God,” Janet exclaimed, rushing forward to examine the hand. “They weren’t like that before. That’s why the amino acids are breaking up. He’s regressing.”

“Into what?” Jack asked urgently.

“Into whatever he was before,” the doctor sighed.

“Why?” the injured Daniel questioned uneasily.

“Maybe he wasn’t finished yet when he got…” Jack paused for a minute and looked at Carter guiltily, “rescued.”

Sam’s face flushed and she sank into a chair next to injured Daniel’s bed.

“No,” the man in the bed insisted firmly. “Sam, this is not your fault. They wouldn’t have let him go if he wasn’t finished.”

“Maybe it would have happened anyway. Maybe this is what we all have to look forward to,” Daniel said as he lowered the other man’s deformed hand back to the bed and covered it up.

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they make an army of defective clones?” Hammond asked reasonably.

“Well, human DNA might be similar but not exact,” Sam guessed, getting a little color back into her cheeks.

“So one of you has to be the original,” Jack surmised, glancing around at the other three.

“Not necessarily,” the injured Daniel cautioned. “I mean, there were initially eight of us who attacked the power supply and escaped. A few more joined us as we crossed the barrier. Who knows how many more weren’t fortunate enough to get away. The odds aren’t that good that one of the four of us is the original.”

Two of the Daniels stood across the regressing Daniel’s bed in a mirror image of crossed arms and creased foreheads. Jack allowed his gaze to follow to where they both were looking wistfully. A pair of glasses lay on the over-the-bed table.

“I saw them first.”

“There’s another pair in my office.”

“Our office.”

“Hey,” broke in the injured Daniel, quickly catching on. “What about me?”

One of the Daniels picked up the glasses and slipped them on with a sigh. “I suppose we could share,” he offered.

“There’s a pair or two of contacts in the desk drawer,” the second Daniel reminded him.

“Colonel,” the General said quietly, pulling aside the uncopied members of SG-1 while the group of Daniels sorted out the eyewear issues.

“They’re really him,” Jack confirmed.

“What do we do about it?” Hammond asked. “Obviously, they can’t leave the mountain. But do we detain them in the infirmary? In the brig?”

“I don’t think they’re a security risk, sir,” Carter stated emphatically. “But we do need to keep trying to find the original Daniel.”

“Agreed.” Hammond walked back over to the group. “Doctors Jackson, I’ll have you assigned VIP rooms. Feel free to work in your office and visit the commissary and infirmary, but try to limit your movements to those places for now.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Thank you, General.”

“I suppose I’m stuck in the infirmary?” the injured Daniel questioned, making puppy dog eyes at Janet.

“That’s correct, um, Daniel,” Doctor Fraiser replied. “That’s a nasty wound and I want to start you on IV antibiotics.”

“If I was a betting man,” Jack drawled pointing a finger at the injured man. “I’d say that one’s the original.”

“Why?” the Daniel in the glasses asked.

“Because that one’s not,” Jack declared jerking a thumb towards the sleeping Daniel, “and he’s the only other one holding down an infirmary bed.”

“Good point,” the other Daniel replied as he left the infirmary, the Daniel in glasses close behind. Jack sighed laboriously and followed as well.

Sam patted the remaining awake Daniel on the good knee and left with the general.

Teal’c pulled a chair between the two beds and settled into his usual straight-backed posture. “You are troubled, Daniel Jackson,” he stated serenely.

Daniel crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the pillows behind him. “I guess,” he replied as he looked over at his regressing twin. “I don’t really know what to feel.”

“Are you certain that you are not the born Daniel Jackson?”

“Born as opposed to created?” Daniel mused back to him. “I honestly don’t know. I feel like I am. That’s who I remember being. But if I’m not…” he stopped and dropped his eyes to study his own hand, separating the fingers and examining them closely. “You don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to, Teal’c.”

Teal’c turned his head to gaze at the sleeping man. “I will remain,” he said simply.

Daniel nodded and glanced at the Jaffa gratefully. “Thanks,” he whispered. “I’m not much for my own company right now.”

When Jack dropped by Daniel’s office the extra pair of glasses had been found and both ambulatory Daniels had changed into fatigues, cleverly one in blue, the other green.

“Daniel… ssss,” Jack greeted, watching the two work in unison to clear the cluttered desk.

“Jack.”

“Jack.”

“How ‘bout Dan and Danny?” Jack said pointing at one and then the other.

“Dan? I don’t think so.”

“Danny? What? Am I twelve?”

“Fine,” Jack snapped. “One and Two then.”

“Whatever,” the newly named One answered with a shrug of his eyebrow, turning his attention back to Two. “Do you want the PX-279 translation or the digital images from SG-8?”

“Images,” Two said with a nod. “So I guess our friends in the infirmary must be Three and Four according to the O’Neill numbering system?” he asked, looking up at Jack expectantly.

“Sure, One,” Jack agreed amicably, pleased with his solution of the name problem.

“I thought I was Two.”

“You are,” One advised without looking from his sorting.

“That’s it,” Jack growled grabbing a roll of large white labels and a marker off the desk. He peeled off a label and smacked it against the nearest Daniel’s chest writing a great big number one on it before turning to the next man and doing the same thing with a two. The Daniels glanced at each other briefly before peeling off their numbers and switching them.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud,” Jack complained.

“Is it too much to ask for an identity?” One asked solemnly.

“What about Three? Are you going to label him, too?”

“No, I’m not gonna label him too,” Jack groused. “He’ll have crutches and no glasses. I think I can figure him out.”

“I thought that he would be Four.”

“No, he’s Three,” Jack explained. “The sleepy one’s just plain Daniel. There is no Four.”

“Right. These decisions from a man who can’t tell the difference between green and blue,” Two mocked.

Jack sighed and rubbed his head wearily. “Fer cryin’ out loud,” he mumbled again as he left the room.

One and Two shared a tiny smile as they peeled the labels off and traded again.

“I’ll bet ‘Three’ would appreciate something to do,” Two replied thoughtfully.

“How about that Phoenician text I’ve been… we’ve been dying to get to that keeps getting pushed back into the ‘later’ file?”

Two nodded. “I’ll take him that and a few references in a bit. If nothing else, it looks like we’ll clear up my… our backlog.”

“Daniel?”

“Yeah?”

“If it turns out that I’m the original… I’m sorry for all this.”

“Yeah, I know,” Two agreed quietly. “Same here.”

Jack froze in the door with a strickened look on his face as he counted infirmary Daniels and came up one short.

“The creature we thought to be Daniel Jackson is no more,” Teal’c informed him gravely.

“What about…” Jack inclined his head towards the sleeping man he had dubbed number Three.

“He is merely sedated. It was difficult for him to experience the loss of one so like himself. It was difficult for me as well.”

“What happened?” the Colonel stammered, returning his gaze to the empty bed.

“Multiple organ failure,” Doctor Fraiser supplied as she came around the partially drawn curtain. “Once the regression started, it was rapid. He quickly reached the point where his vital organs weren’t developed enough to function sufficiently to sustain life. Unfortunately he degenerated just as fast on the outside. I should have had him moved so this Daniel wouldn’t have to see… that. We just didn’t think about what it would do to Daniel’s state of mind at the time. I blame myself.”

“You could not have known, Doctor Fraiser,” Teal’c soothed.

“Did… it suffer?” Jack asked with an appalled look on his face.

“No, he never woke up again,” Janet assured quietly.

Jack nodded and swallowed hard. “Where is it now?”

Janet sighed and rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand wearily. “Well, autopsy isn’t exactly the right word. What’s left of him is being dissected now, but soon there won’t be anything left at all. It’s just… um, melting away.” She dropped her hand and slid her fingers around the wrist of the sleeping man, studiously staring at her watch while she composed herself. When she finished, she surreptitiously examined the space between his fingers.

“So?” Jack asked edgily. Teal’c tilted his head in silent query as well.

“He’s fine,” the doctor murmured unconvincingly and moved away.

Jack gathered up one of Daniel’s hands and carefully looked it over, slowly separating the fingers before lowering it back to the bed and doing the same with the other hand. “He’s fine,” he told Teal’c with all the authority he could muster.

“At the moment,” Teal’c said, voicing the thought that no one wanted to hear.

“No. That won’t happen,” Jack insisted. “I still think this one’s ours.”

“I concur.”

“You do?” Jack asked suspiciously.

“I have spent a great deal of time with this man today,” Teal’c explained patiently. “It is my belief that he is Daniel Jackson.”

“That’s the real problem here. They all are,” Jack stated, distractedly pulling the blanket a little higher up the archeologist’s chest. “But I like this one the best. The other two are just mean.”

“Sam! Hey,” Daniel said glancing up from his desk. “Come on in.”

“Are you alone?”

“Well, I suppose that all depends on how you look at it,” the other Daniel answered as he unfolded himself from the floor behind the filing cabinet and closed the bottom drawer.

“Right,” Sam agreed with a slight smile. “I just wanted to come by and see how you… you both are doing. What’s this?” she asked leaned across the desk and fingered the label marked one.

“Oh that,” Daniel said with a roll of his eyes. “Jack’s having identity issues.”

“He labeled you?” Sam asked incredulously.

“I guess that’s just his way of dealing with this,” the man wearing number two replied casually. “By depersonalizing us he doesn’t feel so out of control.”

“That’s terrible!” Sam exclaimed indignantly, already thinking up ways to get even with her CO without getting caught.

“No, it’s okay,” Two said with a wry grin. “We keep switching them around. It’s driving him nuts.”

“It’s kind of nice to have the upper hand with Jack for a change,” One agreed with a matching mischievous grin. “I can’t wait to get the other two into the act.”

“One,” Sam said sadly.

“Yeah?”

“No, I mean the other one. We lost the one we first thought was Daniel,” she explained softly, fighting back the burning behind her eyes. “I’m sorry. That’s the other reason I came looking for you… guys.”

One crossed his arms over his chest and pursed his lips as he leaned back in his chair. Two stuck his hands deeply into his pockets and dropped his gaze to the floor. Both gestures were so familiar, so blatantly Daniel that Sam was totally unprepared for the startling sob that burst out of her.

“Sam?” she heard in stereo as she covered her face with her hands and tried to reign in the tears.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized profusely. “I’m just… it’s so… it was Daniel,” she cried.

“Shh, it’s okay,” a soft voice crooned into her ear as arms gathered her to a strong chest. She dropped her head onto a shoulder as she felt another chest close to her back and another set of hands settle on her upper arms.

“It’s not your fault,” the second voice whispered into her other ear.

Reaching one hand up to cup the face behind her she released a shaky sigh. “I know,” she replied. “You’re all so… it’s just hard.”

“We know. None of this is easy.”

“But you’ve got to prepare yourself…”

“No!” Sam cried out, pushing away from the chest to look up into the surprised face in front of her and ending up further in the arms of the man behind her. “This isn’t going to happen to all of you. It was a fluke. It was because the process was interrupted,” she insisted.

“Sam, you couldn’t have known…”

“Not by me,” Sam sniffed. One produced a handkerchief and she blew her nose. “No one told you what happened?”

“Uh, nooo,” Two drawled as he and One studied each other in puzzlement before returning their attention to Sam. “What happened?”

“Oh, God,” Sam sighed and wiped at her eyes with a clean edge of the hanky. “Um, on the planet the only reason I found Daniel was because I saw a woman come out of the room he was in. He was really out of it and I wonder now if he wasn’t quite finished. Anyway, there was blood, but it wasn’t his. Janet tested it. It was mixed with semen and vaginal secretions.”

The fingers on her shoulders tightened slightly. “So what you’re saying is that in twenty years an alien youth is gonna come knocking looking for his papa?”

“It doesn’t always happen the first time,” the other Daniel argued.

“That’s not what they told us in school,” Sam teased with a sniffle.

“Yeah, well, scare tactics…”

“But you see what I’m saying? It doesn’t have to happen,” Sam persisted.

“Well, that’s something,” One conceded as he lifted his hand to study it briefly.

Sam pushed his hand down and pulled him in close for a hug with Two still holding her from behind. She let out a congested little giggle.

“What?” Two asked suspiciously.

“A Daniel sandwich,” Sam explained sheepishly. “You know the nurses in the infirmary are beside themselves.”

“Why?” One queried.

“More Daniel to go around.”

“Hey,” Daniel said softly as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Hey.”

“I came to see you earlier, but you were asleep. Here,” he said, offering the glasses in his hand.

“You hate contacts,” injured Daniel observed as he accepted the gift and gratefully slid the glasses onto his face.

Two shrugged. “Yeah, well, so do you. At least I’m not stuck in the infirmary.”

A grunt and a snort preceded a soft snore and both Daniels turned to regard the source of the noise in the chair between the beds.

“Sorry I wasn’t here when, you know, when he died.”

“No, it’s okay. Teal’c was with me. In fact, he sat with me all day. Jack took over a little while ago so that Teal’c could go meditate.”

“Doesn’t look like Jack’s much company.”

“It’s just as well. He’s not comfortable with all this.”

“I know. And we’ve been giving him a hard time,” Two admitted guiltily.

“Yeah?”

Two nodded and peeled the number one off his chest to press it against the scrub top. “The sticky is starting to wear off,” he mused. “We’ll have to make new ones. I brought you some stuff.”

“Good,” Daniel perked up some as he pushed himself into a sitting position. As he reached out to accept the text both men stopped and stared dumbfounded at the webbing between his fingers. “Oh,” he said softly.

“Doctor Fraiser!” Two shouted, jumping up from the bed, scattering reference material all over the floor.

“What?” Jack asked excitedly as he pounced from his chair fully awake. “Oh, crap,” he swore as his eyes connected with the frightened blue ones of the man on the bed.

A couple of nurses reached the bed first with Janet only a few seconds behind. “What’s wrong?” she asked urgently.

“I guess I’m next,” Daniel explained as he raised his hand to the light and spread his fingers.

Janet snatched his hand and held it tightly between her own. “No. We’ll find a way to stop it.”

“It’s okay,” Daniel sighed. “At least now I know for sure. I was never meant to be.”

“Bullshit!” Jack spat savagely.

“Jack,” Two said softly. “That’s fifty percent. It’s probably not gonna stop there,” he reasoned.

“No!” Jack argued. “We are not gonna go from too many Daniels to no Daniels at all. That’s unacceptable!” He turned on his heel and fled the infirmary, his destination already in mind.

“Sir,” Jack pleaded breathlessly as he skidded to a halt in the General’s half-open door.

“That’ll be all for now,” Hammond nodded to the leader of SG-4 and turned his attention to O’Neill. “Jack?”

“We have to go back to that planet,” Jack began as Colonel Halifax brushed by him on his way out the door.

“Why? What could we possibly gain from going back?” Hammond questioned, not without compassion.

“We’re losing another one.”

“I know,” Hammond confirmed as he gestured for the Colonel to take a chair. “Doctor Fraiser called me a minute ago.”

“Those women… those people know how to stop this. They have to. Hell, half of them are clones,” Jack reasoned, pacing in front of the General’s desk and ignoring the offered seat.

“Jack’s right,” Two agreed from the door. “We have to go back. We have to find out what happened to the real Daniel Jackson. I’ll go.”

“I can’t allow that, Doctor Jackson. How do we know they won’t just take you prisoner again? How do we even know that you’re not the original?”

“I’m not,” Daniel stated positively, standing with his hands deep inside his pockets. “And I should probably go soon.”

Jack jerked his head around in alarm to stare at the familiar face of his friend. “No,” he whispered.

“Sorry, Jack.”

“You have a go,” Hammond granted quietly.

“Sir, we can’t let him go alone. Let SG-1 accompany him.”

Hammond nodded. “Very well. If Doctor Jackson’s still out there, bring him home.”

When SG-1 entered the gateroom, One was already waiting for them. He stood on the end of the ramp geared up for a mission, his mouth drawn tight in an annoyed frown.

“Daniel,” Jack said gently. “There’s no need for you both to go.”

“Fine. Take me then,” he challenged, crossing his arms over his chest and refusing to move out of the way.

“Someone needs to stay here with Daniel,” Two put in. “Don’t make him go through the regression alone.”

“You stay,” One argued back calmly. Two tried to step around him, but he shifted sideways to stand directly in front of him. When Two tried to dodge the other way, One anticipated the move and thwarted him again. 

After a third time having his passage blocked Two's frustration became evident.  “Get out of the way,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

“No.”

“Move.”

“Make me.”

“I’m going,” Two growled, grabbing his counterpart by the vest to physically move him.

One braced himself as he glanced down at the hands gripping him. Slowly he returned his gaze back to the livid blue eyes. “That’s what I thought,” he replied evenly.

Two snatched his hands away as if he’d been stung.

“What the hell’s going on?” Jack asked urgently.

“Show him,” One gloated.

Two glared back and tucked his hands under his arm pits.

“He was lying. He’s not regressing.”

“Why?” Jack asked in disbelief, turning to stare at the obstinate man next to him.

One shook his head. “He was just being Daniel. By the time I thought of it myself you had already decided to take him.”

“We can’t take either one of you,” Sam replied worriedly.

“Sure you can.” One solemnly held up a hand causing a series of groans and flinches all around.

“You’re with us,” Jack declared, nodding at One. “I’ll talk to you when we get back,” he shot over his shoulder as he stomped angrily up the ramp stopping at the top.

Sam and Teal’c followed a little slower, waiting as well.

“Is that what I look like when I pout?” One asked softly.

Two snorted, unrepentant. “I’ll miss you,” he said at last. “I kind of got used to talking to myself.”

“Keep Jack in line for me, would you?”

Two nodded sadly and watched as SG-1 disappeared. When the light went out he turned to go to the infirmary. Three still needed him.

“How’d you figure him out so fast?” Jack asked as he sidled up to the single Daniel on the path to the city.

“It’s what I would have done,” One confessed as he walked.

“Right. We’re gonna work on that when we get back.”

“Jack, I probably won’t be going back with you.”

“I know,” Jack sighed. “If it’s any consolation, I always thought you were the original.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes I did.”

“No you didn’t. Teal’c told me you thought Three was the original.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Indeed you did, O’Neill. In fact you said on several occasions that all of the other Daniel Jacksons smelled of Xerox,” Teal’c reported from behind them.

“He’s paraphrasing,” Jack replied shamefacedly, shooting an evil glare over his shoulder at the Jaffa.

One smiled wickedly from Sam to Teal’c over Jack’s discomfort. “You never thought I was the original,” he egged him on.

“I did. That’s why I named you One,” Jack insisted doggedly.

“I’m Two,” One lied with a twinkle in his eye.

“Dammit…” Jack muttered under his breath, pulling his cap low over his eyes.

“I’m kidding, Jack. I am One.”

“No,” Jack said shaking his head. “From now until… whenever, you’re Daniel.”

“I always was.”

They came to a halt just outside of the force field and studied each other intently before reaching a silent agreement to drop the subject.

“What do we do now? Knock?” Sam asked, looking around in nervous anticipation.

“They know we’re here,” Jack muttered darkly, poking a fist into the shield and having it bounce back at him.

“I see they got it back up,” Daniel mused as he too raised a hand to play with the field. “Oh, hey,” he said in surprise as his hand passed effortlessly through it.

“You mean you could come and go all along?” Jack asked.

“No. We definitely couldn’t pass through it before. Maybe they’re just trying to make it easy if any of us wanted to come back.”

“Well don’t go in, you may not be able to get back out,” Jack cautioned.

“It doesn’t appear that they’re going to greet us this time. And frankly, isn’t that why we came?”

“Daniel,” Jack warned too late as his friend stepped through the barrier. “Dammit, Daniel, I’m still your CO.”

“No you’re not, Jack.”

“Try to come back through,” Sam urged.

Daniel put up his hand but met resistance right away. “That answers that. I’ll, uh, just go into the city and see what’s going on. Bye, guys,” he said sadly.

“You’ll be back,” Jack answered gruffly.

“Bye Daniel,” Sam whispered, pushing against the field with both hands.

“Travel well, my friend,” Teal’c added somberly.

“I heard what you tried to do,” the form in the bed managed to get out of what used to be its mouth as Daniel approached.

“You would have done the same,” Daniel said, unable to keep back a sympathetic grimace.

“Probably. You can have the glasses back. I don’t have enough ears left to keep them on my face.”

“Yeah, uh, you do seem a little… out of focus. Does it hurt?”

“Not yet, but it’s kind of scary. It’s happening so fast. Janet’s going to sedate me soon.”

Daniel sat on the edge of the bed and took the form’s flipper-like appendage into his hand. “I won’t leave you,” he promised.

“I know.”

“So Two is the original,” Jack said confidently.

“Sure,” Sam agreed quietly, scuffing the heel of her boot along the polished edge of the road they’d been sitting on for the last half hour.

“O’Neill,” Teal’c intoned, drawing their attention toward the city.

Daniel and an older woman approached slowly, Daniel limping slightly. Eventually, they neared the shield and passed right through it.

“You okay?” Jack asked with concern.

“Yeah, I’m, uh, going downhill faster than I anticipated,” Daniel said, burying his slightly deformed hands in his pockets. “This is Illia. She’s sort of the high priestess slash administrator of the facility.”

“Mother Superior?” Jack asked irreverently.

“Okay,” Daniel answered with a puckered brow. “If it helps you to think of it that way. She’s the one who pushed the council to clone Daniel for breeding.”

“I recognize her,” Sam said with barely concealed hostility.

“Easy, Sam. She knows what a horrific mistake it was and she’s very sorry.”

“Not sorry enough,” Jack growled.

“I already forgave her.”

“Of course you did.”

“What of Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

“He escaped.”

“Or so she says,” Jack mocked, openly glaring at the old woman.

“It’s true. She says that he was in the first group to escape days ago. That was the group I was in. None of the other clones survived. Apparently I’m the last one, so by the process of elimination…”

“Number Two is Danny,” Jack crowed.

Daniel smiled and took off his glasses. “Do me a favor? Give these back to him. You never know when he might need an extra pair.”

“You’re not coming back with us?” Jack asked as he accepted the spectacles.

“What’s the point?” Daniel sighed unenthusiastically.

“You could die with your friends around you,” Sam murmured.

“Ah, Sam. I don’t want you to have to go through that,” Daniel explained guiltily. “Besides, they can put me to sleep and send me off with pleasant dreams. It actually sounds a lot better than what the first Daniel went through on Earth.”

“How do you know all this?” Jack asked suddenly aware that the woman hadn’t said anything.

“She’s in here,” Daniel said, tapping his forehead.

“And you’re sure she’s telling the truth? She doesn’t have Daniel stashed somewhere and is just trying to get rid of us?”

“They tried that the first time when they sent you home with a copy of Daniel to pacify you. Obviously that didn’t work.”

“Uh, huh.”

“Go home, Jack.”

“Are they gonna try this again?” Sam asked.

“They have nothing left to work with. They’ve decided to stop cloning all together. This is their last generation. It’s really very sad when you think about it.”

“They did it to themselves,” Jack declared.

“Yes, Jack, they did. But that won’t make them any less extinct.”

“I don’t want our last words to be an argument,” Jack said, softening his tone.

“Me either. You guys take care,” Daniel said and turned away before they could see the tears in his eyes. He stepped through the force field as Jack reached for him. Illia paused for a moment to pass her hand across Jack’s forehead and then followed Daniel.

“Sir? What did she say?”

“Nothing, really, she just left a warm fuzzy feeling. I think everything is gonna be all right after all.”

They watched until they could no longer see Daniel’s back then turned to go home.

Daniel was waiting in the gateroom when they stepped back through the wormhole and he wandered up the ramp to meet them. “Did you find him?” he asked.

“Danny!” Jack greeted warmly. “You win the prize. You are the man.” He grabbed the label still stuck to Daniel’s shirt and wadded it up to toss it back toward the stargate. “Nothin’ but net,” he bragged as it sailed through the center.

“Sir,” Sam said nudging her CO with an elbow to draw his attention to Daniel’s concerned expression.

“He’s gone already?” Jack asked, his enthusiasm dampening considerably.

“It wasn’t pretty,” Daniel confirmed sadly. “I was really hoping you’d find Daniel,” he added as he looked down at his hand.

Jack blinked. “No.” He refused to follow the gazes of his team as they lowered their heads to look. “No,” he reiterated more firmly as if he could will it away by refusing to acknowledge it.

Sam gasped and Teal’c stiffened. Still, Jack refused to look. “No!” he shouted turning to the Stargate. “You lying bitch!” he roared, shaking his fist in the air.

Jack sat at the briefing room table and stared into his cold cup of coffee. It had been brutal watching Two… watching Danny slip away. Hammond had refused to let them go back and had ordered the address locked out of the dialing computer per orders from further up the food chain. As it stood, Daniel’s desk had been cleared of six months worth of back log, but there was no one left who would really appreciate the difference. Since Daniel did the work of three men anyway on top of his duties with SG-1, Jack knew that in spite of the major catch up the archeology and the linguistic departments would never fully recover from his loss.

Carter had gone home for a long, hot bath and a long, hard cry. She would never have admitted any such thing to her CO he knew, but he’d been standing pretty close when she’d admitted it to Janet. Ol’ Doc Fraiser had been a little misty herself, heartsick in fact at watching yet another Daniel pass. She’d been present for three of ‘em and Jack thanked God he’d only seen it once. He decided to do something nice for her for taking such good care of his kids. And they were, every last Daniel was one of his own.

Teal’c was fasting now. Apparently there was some ritual that he wanted to perform to honor all of the clones, even the ones they’d not had the pleasure to meet face to face. Jack wondered how many failed lives had been created only to die and his anger surged once again.

The general mood around the base was dismal. Hammond had been stoic, but there was pain etched into those pale blue eyes. Several of the nurses had cried openly and Janet had sent a couple of them home. Daniel was already the most ‘dead again’ member of the SGC and Jack counted every recent loss to make him the all time champ. He prayed no one would ever beat that particular record. He ached in his heart because this time, he knew there would be no reprieve for the young scholar.

“Off world activation,” Sergeant Davis announced via the intercom as the tell-tale blue of a wormhole behind the iris lit up the briefing room.

Hammond wandered out of his office and patted Jack on the back as he passed him to see who or what had come calling. No teams were due to arrive home so he was certain it wouldn’t be good news. He was vaguely aware of the Colonel shadowing him down the stairs.

“Sergeant?”

“It’s the Alpha site’s IDC, sir.”

“Open the iris,” the general ordered softly.

The token SFs in the gateroom prepared for the unknown arrival. After the iris twisted itself open a dirty, bedraggled figure staggered through the gate.

“Medical team to the gateroom,” Hammond barked into the microphone before dashing after the disappearing form of Colonel O’Neill.

“No, it’s okay. It’s just mud. I’m not injured. But a shower would be good. Food would be even better.”

Jack sprinted through the door but stopped just short of his goal. He couldn’t do it again. “Daniel?”

“Jack! Hi. Sam made it home, right? I mean I thought that’s what they were trying to tell me, but I could never really be sure.”

“Captain Carter is fine, son,” Hammond beamed shaking Daniel’s mud encrusted hand, not able to resist staring at it. “What happened? Where have you been?”

“I sort of fell into a jail break so to speak and about eight or ten of us got outside of the force field. Some of us were captured right away, a few more got away, I don’t know to where…”

“They made it to Earth,” Hammond supplied. “They kept activating the Stargate until we sent a probe.”

“I see. Well, I guess that would work, too,” Daniel considered briefly. “Anyway, I headed into the woods with two more of… me to wait out the search parties. As the days passed my companions got sick and I’m afraid they both died somewhat gruesomely. I assume that’s what happened here, too?”

Hammond nodded and Jack made a small, choking sound and looked away.

“When I got back to the gate I dialed the Alpha site because I knew they would have an IDC, and well, here I am,” Daniel finished, studying Jack with growing concern. “Jack? Are you all right?”

Jack steadfastly looked at the wall. “Is it really you?” he asked. “Cause if you’re not the original you can just go right back where you came from.”

“I’m not a clone,” Daniel assured patiently.

“How do you know?”

“Uh, well, there were several clues actually.” The medical team arrived, but Daniel held them off with an impatient gesture while he finished his story. “First of all, while everyone else seemed to be able to understand the planet’s inhabitants without any problems, I didn’t get anything but vague images and feelings. I started to think that maybe they had been pre-programmed with telepathic abilities…”

“Yadda,” Jack muttered.

“And then the council started to name everyone these long, alien names but they called me…”

“Adam?” Jack guessed, a smile beginning to form on his lips as he could no longer not look at his teammate.

“Uh, nooo. They called me Daniel actually. And then there’s this,” he said as he brushed the dried mud away from a spot on his side to reveal a small, star shaped scar. “No one else had one.”

“Adam’s rib,” Jack exclaimed with a whoop.

“Rib? No, I’m sure they only took a few cells…” Daniel began before Jack crushed him into bear hug, laughing and crying at the same time.

Hammond joined in the laughter and slapped the much bemused Daniel on the back. “Welcome home, Doctor Jackson,” he drawled happily.

Illia sat in the shade and watched the love of her life happily uncovering whatever mysteries lay buried in the sand. She thought back in time to her fateful mistake and remembered the pain she had caused. That would have been punishment enough but still the council chose to banish her and her kin from the city. Now the family had to toil outside the dome in the elements to scrap together the means to survive from day to day. Yet when she looked into the dancing blue eyes of the one life she’d managed to save, it all seemed worthwhile.

‘Daniel,’ she called with her mind.  He looked up from his task, a profound expression of concentration on his face. ‘Let’s go inside.’

He came to her willingly and she kissed his head as she gathered her small grandson into her arms and carried him into the sparsely furnished hut to prepare the evening meal. They had little, but she wanted for nothing. 

The End

Disclaimer - Images, characters, and settings taken from various television shows are the property of their respective owners, producers, etc.  No copyright infringement intended, I'm just having a little fun.