Loki's Curse

by Jonah in the Whale 

So Daniel had said to Jack, just before they packed him and Jonas off to Anubis' mothership.

At the time Jack had appreciated the sentiment, and distrusted the words themselves. How could Daniel, who had forgotten nearly everything anyone tried to remind him of, think he remembered enough? Remembering the concept of being on a team, remembering how to use a weapon, how to watch his own back, how to react under fire--that was what Daniel had meant by "I remember enough"; and maybe that was the kind of reassurance he thought Jack had needed, in order to have confidence in him to carry out the almost-suicide mission. Sure, it had been great that Daniel had gotten all that stuff back so quickly. Muscle-memory. Instinct and reaction. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't anything like enough.

Three months on, and Jack still wasn't certain that Daniel remembered 'enough'. Little things made him *almost* sure; the gradual reappearance of exchanged glances, of looks where words need not be spoken; confidences given and received. Being allowed to touch him again, too, that was a biggie; an occasional pat on the arm, Daniel no longer flinching as he had from Carter's touch on that planet that may not have been The Lost City but had at least returned to them what they'd lost.

But then something would fall between them; Jack would push too far to recapture a shared experience, and discover that Daniel didn't remember. Sometimes big things, usually small stupid things, but each time it happened he found it hard to resist examining Daniel, noting his stance and expression and gestures, trying to insist to himself that this was really *their* Daniel at the core, and not someone fundamentally unknown to him.

How much did a person need to remember of you, in order to stay your friend? If they remembered you only part-way, did the things they didn't remember not count anymore?

Worse, he was beginning to think even flakier stuff, such as; did people have an essence, or was memory essential to everything that made up a person?

This existential stuff made his head hurt. Or maybe that was just the acapella music on the restaurant speakers.

Jack watched Daniel across the table, twirling his fork through spaghetti. After getting it wrapped precisely around his fork, Daniel regarded it, then put it in his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully. "Hmm," he said, then reached for the parmesan cheese shaker and upended it over his spaghetti. Nothing came out.

The waitress who had been hovering nearby dived upon them. "Sir, I'm so sorry, I forgot to fill the cheese. I'll get you some more straight away."

Jack watched her go, shaking his head, before turning back to Daniel, who was looking a little bemused by the waitress's eagerness.

"Remember this place yet?" said Jack.

Daniel put his fork down and took another look around the restaurant. "This is not the place we got thrown out of?"

"No, because they'd throw us out if we ever went back there." Maybe they should try that. Maybe Daniel needed some sort of shock to the system, something to shake up all those wonky memories. "This is the place with the flirty waitress. You know? She's always coming on to you."

"If I recall correctly, you're always pointing out that this person or that is flirting with me, and usually I have no idea."

"But this waitress, she's so blatant, even *you* noticed the second time we all came here."

"Jack..." Daniel shrugged, and twirled his spaghetti some more. "Eating establishments are still blending together for me. I just don't remember which one has the steak, and which one has the lobster that Teal'c likes, and which one has the-"

"Come on. You must remember the chocolate sauce incident." At Daniel's sudden expression of concern, Jack grinned. "Order extra chocolate sauce with your dessert. Maybe it'll come back to you."

"I have this feeling I probably shouldn't."

"Aw, you're no fun."

"But seriously, it's probably not a big deal that I don't remember something like that. I'm more concerned that I've had to, for example, re-learn all the planet designations, which is something I'm sure I would have known."

"Everything's important, Daniel." Maybe you're more concerned about any areas of actual knowledge you've lost, but your friends are just as concerned about Daniel-the-person, Daniel the friend, the listener, the one who *knows* us. But Jack didn't say that. He was suddenly afraid it might be true, that Daniel's efforts to remember Jack, and Sam, and Teal'c, might not be as important to Daniel as it was to everyone else. And that made him feel... bad. "Memory all hangs together," he said instead. "Getting it back, it's like... like pulling on the loose thread in a sweater."

"Nice analogy."

"Thank you."

Daniel sighed. "I've lost my memory before, Jack. Back on P3R-118, when we had our memories overwritten so we would be willing workers in their little underground slave camp."

"So you remember that."

"Not exactly. I've been going through the old mission reports. The point is, if I've done it once, I can do it again. Pushing won't make it come any faster."

Jack felt guilty. Carter and Teal'c already thought he was too pushy. Now Daniel was saying the same thing. No one understood how Jack felt. "I just thought it couldn't hurt, being somewhere different from the SGC," he said. "Every time I look for you, lately, you're locked away in that lab of yours."

Daniel gave him a quick smile. "And this is different from before, how?"

"Okay, so you always were a workaholic, but..." but Jack couldn't shake the feeling that Daniel was hiding away from them. From him.

"See? I'm still the same person, Jack."

"I didn't mean you weren't, I just... I want to make sure you're okay, that's all."

Their eyes met. Daniel was looking at him so calmly, so solicitously, like Jack was the one with the problems here, and Daniel the one trying to help him out.

"I'm really okay, Jack."

Jack spotted the waitress returning, and gestured with his head in her direction. "Don't speak too soon. Heads up."

The waitress descended upon Daniel, apologising profusely, and eagerly commenced shaking cheese over Daniel's spaghetti. Daniel's eyebrows went skyward. "It's okay, it's okay," he said, trying to motion her out of his plate. "That's enough, honestly, that's enough parmesan."

"I'm sorry, is that too much? I know how you like parmesan, and I'm so sorry about forgetting it-"

"It's fine," said Daniel. "Really. Um..."

She put the cheese shaker down in front of him. "I'll just be over there, if you want me. Just wave! I'll see you straight away."

Daniel watched her go, then dropped his eyebrows and turned on the grinning Jack. "Is this usual behaviour for her?"

"Oh, yeah."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Come on, you don't remember this place even a teensy little bit?"

Daniel stirred the cheese into his spaghetti. He pointed towards a mark on the worn lace tablecloth. "I think I remember this particular stain. It reminds me of a serpent guard's helmet."

"Wait. You're saying you don't remember the menu, or the decor, or the waitress, but you remember a stain on the tablecloth?"

"Um. It's like..." Daniel took another mouthful of spaghetti, chewed, and grimaced.

Jack glanced at the waitress, who was flitting about near the kitchen door. He leaned forward. "Too much cheese?"

Daniel nodded. "Shh." He swallowed, and continued. "It's like when I first saw the SGC after you found me on P4T-3G6. I didn't recognise the place, looking at it, but when I closed my eyes, I knew how to get to certain places that I simply couldn't fathom with my eyes open. What I'm saying is, the bigger picture seems a lot harder for me to deal with, in terms of memory. It's like I have to find the details before I find the context."

"You called me Jim," said Jack. Petty, O'Neill.

"There." Daniel pointed his fork eagerly at Jack. "That's a perfect example. Looking at you, at all of you, I had absolutely no idea who you people were. Your names meant nothing to me. But when, for example, you came to talk to me in the tent, and I wasn't being overwhelmed by, by everything; something like listening to your tone, not your words but your tone, and, then, seeing the gestures you made with your hands... those sorts of things began to resonate more deeply within me. But at first I couldn't be sure. It was all so unbelievable, what you were telling me. But there was that resonance, that said I could trust you. It just took a week or so for my mind to overlay the sense details with words I could use to refer to them by. Like your names."

"Okay. I think I get it." Jack held up his hands. "I promise. No more pushing for tonight."

He ordered a second beer. He hadn't intended to drink--they had a mission tomorrow morning, after all. But he needed to relax, and two beers wouldn't kill him. Daniel's driving of Jack's truck back to base afterwards might, but he'd have to risk that. Nah... Daniel was a perfectly good driver these days. He'd just been a bit tentative the first couple of years, and Jack was never one to leave a joke alone.

Some time later, after Daniel had proven his survival instincts intact by *not* ordering any desserts with chocolate sauce despite Jack's urgings, they paid the bill and left. Jack knew he was sober enough to drive, but he was feeling very tired and didn't argue when Daniel asked for the keys. Off they headed, up to the base, having already decided to sleep there given their mission at 0700 the next morning.

A police car pulled up behind Jack's truck just before they started to climb the mountain.

"Daniel?" said Jack from the passenger seat.

"What?"

"What were you doing?"

"What do you mean? Nothing," said Daniel.

"Then why are there flashing lights behind us?"

"Oh," said Daniel, looking in the rear mirror, and beginning to slow down. "I wonder what they want?"

"Whatever it is, just try to hurry them up. I'm tired, and we've got that mission tomorrow morning. And don't tell them you've been drinking. Half a beer doesn't count."

"I'm not going to lie, Jack."

"No one cares about half a glass of beer."

Daniel pulled the car to the side of the road, and the police car pulled up behind him. While they waited, Daniel took his glasses off and rubbed them on his shirt. An officer approached the driver's side. "Good evening, sir," he said to Daniel, shining a torch through the open window into the car.

"Good evening," said Daniel, blinking in the light.

"Do you have your license on you, sir?"

"Yes." Daniel left his glasses in his lap and began searching in his pockets. "Somewhere here."

"Have you been drinking tonight, sir?"

"Yes," said Daniel.

Jack howled. "No!"

The flashlight shone in his face. "Are you all right, sir?"

"We're fine," said Daniel. "He's just my superior officer. In a sense."

"You're from the base up on Cheyenne?"

"That's right."

"How much have you had to drink, sir?"

Jack leaned over. "You're not going to make him walk in a straight line, or touch his nose with his eyes closed? Officer, Daniel couldn't find his nose with boxing gloves and a mirror."

"I had half a glass of beer," said Daniel.

"It's true," said Jack. "I keep coaxing and encouraging him, but he won't turn off the good path."

"Have *you* been drinking tonight, sir?" the officer said to Jack.

"Yes, I have. That's why I'm not driving, officer."

Daniel began proffering his driver's license. "Is there something wrong?" he asked the officer.

"We're doing routine checks on-"

**WHOOSH**

Jack and Daniel hung in a gravity-defying position for a moment, then both of them collapsed onto the floor on their backsides.

"Thor!" shouted Jack. "What have I told you about that!"

Daniel, unperturbed, was getting to his feet, pocketing his driver's license, looking around the wide, contoured room they had found themselves in. "Thor's ship," he noted.

Thor came around the side of the transporter-thing. "O'Neill, Doctor Jackson. Greetings."

"My knees are not up to this," Jack groused, climbing to his feet. "Ever thought about zapping your targets onto a mattress or something? We weren't exactly upright."

"A good idea. Next time," Thor promised.

"Next time. Who says there's going to be a next time? You owe me a beer. Several beers," Jack informed him. He turned to Daniel. "Can you see the headlines? I can see the headlines. 'Colonel and Archaeologist Disappear in Beam of Light. Cop Says; It was Aliens!'"

"Was this an inconvenient time?" asked Thor.

"What seems to be the problem?" said Daniel, shrugging everything off. Well, at least he had no memory problems with regards to the selfish behaviour of superior races, thought Jack.

"It seems a problem we had a short while ago was not sufficiently resolved," said Thor.

"Oh, a problem *we* had," said Jack.

"Jack." Daniel patted his arm briefly. "Which problem in particular?" he said to Thor.

"You remember Loki, and the experiments he was conducting," said Thor. "Unfortunately we did not, at the time, discover all of his transgressions. The Asgard Council have discussed it amongst ourselves, hoping we would have no need to involve the both of you; but agreement has been reached that there is no other course of action."

Jack dropped the posturing. This *was* important. Perhaps not so important that Thor couldn't have tried a more conventional means of communication first, but, as the saying went, you can't teach old dogs new tricks. After glancing at Daniel, he said, "This is all with regards to what?"

"If you'll come this way," said Thor, beckoning them to follow. "I have someone you should meet."

"This is not good," whispered Jack to Daniel.

"Loki made *more* of you?" Daniel whispered back.

"You look first. Then tell me if it's safe."

"Okay."

The door to another chamber slid back, and they stepped inside, Jack looking firmly at the floor. He heard Thor say, "This is who I would like you to meet. I hope you will be able to help him."

Daniel said nothing, for long seconds. Then, "It's not Jack. Uh... who is he?"

Jack looked gratefully up, to see standing before them a teenage boy, dark blond hair overgrown and a little unkempt, blue eyes flicking nervously between him and Daniel. "I'm Daniel Jackson," he said.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" said Jack, while Daniel went pale and wobbled backwards, so that Jack had to catch him to steady him.

****

They had Thor return them to the briefing room at the SGC. Jack's truck had probably been impounded; and if not, there would be cops crawling all over the area from which they'd disappeared.

"I have to do damage control with the General," Jack told Daniel, as they walked out of the briefing room, younger Daniel in tow.

"He doesn't start work until 6:00am."

"I know. I'm going to have to wake him up. You'll be all right with..." Jack gestured to teenage Daniel.

"I'll be fine."

Jack regarded the silent, wary youngster. "Take him to the commissary. The Asgard idea of food should be a human rights issue. And then you'd better see if the Doc is around."

"Okay," said Daniel.

"You sure you're all right? I know it can be a bit of a shock..."

"Really. I'm fine." Daniel gestured to his counterpart. "Are you hungry? We'll get something to eat."

Jack watched them go. There was something a little strange about it all. Well, aside from the obvious. From what he'd been told, teen-bodied Jack had been mixing in it right from the moment they met him, cocky and arrogant, pushing his case, having his say. Being Jack. He would have expected teen-Daniel to be full of questions, pushy in his Daniel-way, talking, trying to work things out. Maybe being in a different body had traumatised him in a way it hadn't with Jack. Daniel had always been more sensitive, he told himself, as he made his way to the General's office. And being in yet another form, after being ascended, and descended, on top of losing his memory, and becoming temporary host to some dozen other personalities just last month; it was all bound to be upsetting. Maybe the poor clone thought if he kept quiet, he'd wake up from the nightmare.

He phoned General Hammond using the General's office phone, and tried to explain the situation as briefly as possible. Fortunately the General was on base. Unfortunately, this made hardly any difference to the amount of time spent on sorting out a satisfactory solution. Various members of SGC intelligence and security had to be contacted. The press reports had to be obtained, as well as the incident report submitted by the police officer. Two ranking SGC officers had to drive down the mountain and check over the site of the 'abduction'. Jack's truck had to be located. A story had to be hammered out.

"Can't we just report my truck stolen?" Jack said from the other side of the desk to a now-present and correct Hammond.

"The descriptions given by the police officer of the truck's occupants match that of yourself and Doctor Jackson," said Hammond.

"Oh, come on. A possibly superficially inebriated guy with grey hair, and another guy in glasses--wait, Daniel didn't even have his glasses on, he'd taken them off to clean them. And it was dark. How accurate could they be?"

"The report says that the inebriated man called the younger man 'Daniel'."

"Damn. Why did I do that?"

"Why were you drinking, Colonel?"

"I had a couple of beers, General."

"Before a mission? That's not like you."

"Sir, I know my limits. Two beers still puts me under the safe driving limit--I just felt Daniel should take the wheel, as I was a little tired."

Hammond leaned forward. His words were authoritative, yet his manner was paternal. "It's a condition of travel through the stargate that no one consumes alcohol the night before the mission."

"I know that's in the rules, sir. It's also in the rules that we don't consume alcohol while on duty, and yet I can't begin to tell you the number of missions I've been on where we've joined the natives in their toasts to the tree spirits or whatever."

"I understand that, Jack, and I have no problem per se with you having a couple of beers. It just happens to be that lately you've been a little-"

Jack interrupted. "I'm a little stressed, yes. Can we not talk about this now? I want to get this sorted, so that I can see how Daniel and Daniel are doing."

The General sighed. "We've done all we can on this for now. It's down to the PR boys to minimise fall-out."

"Can I go?"

"I'd like to see the two Doctor Jacksons for myself. Where are they likely to be?"

Jack looked at the time, realised they'd been at this for a couple of hours, and that the Daniels would have done the tour of the commissary and infirmary already. Hammond phoned Daniel's lab and hit pay dirt. He directed the Daniels to go to the briefing room. After he put the phone down, however, it rang. The PR guy had news of Jack's truck; it was being held at the police station for processing. Jack was forced to spend some further time grousing about this, with the result that the Daniels beat him and Hammond to the briefing room.

"We've got a problem," said grown-up Daniel, as kid-Daniel hovered behind him.

"Just one?" said Jack. "The general and I have a whole mess of them."

"Sit down, everyone," said Hammond. "Now, Doctor Jackson, and," he nodded to teenage Daniel, "Doctor Jackson. Colonel O'Neill has filled me in on the initial story. Have you had time to visit the infirmary yet?"

"Yes, we've done that," said grown-up Daniel. "Physically, he's fine. We're still waiting for the results of the DNA analysis, so we're not certain if he carries any anomalies like Jack's duplicate did, but I assume since Thor was aware of that possibility, he would have fixed any problems of that nature already."

Jack found it hard to look at the younger Daniel as being Daniel. Not simply the fact that he looked ridiculously young and out of place, not his overgrown hair and smooth skin, and his skinny physique compared to their Daniel's toned body. It was more than the physical difference.

"Then this would seem to be simply a matter of finding some satisfactory arrangement for," the General nodded at young Daniel, "your future, I imagine."

"You know, there could even be an up side to this," said Jack. "All those teams who keep trying to borrow Daniel--well, now we've got a spare."

"You're not suggesting we send children, no matter what their knowledge, out into first contact situations, Colonel," said the General severely.

"You know I'm joking, sir."

Daniel--their Daniel--was interrupting. "Before you speculate any further--I told you, we've got a problem."

"So what is the problem, Doctor Jackson?"

Daniel--kid Daniel--appeared to be ignoring them, looking about the room instead. No, thought Jack, it wasn't only the physical difference. With teenage Jack, it hadn't apparently caused anyone too much effort to see Colonel Jack O'Neill in his behaviour and mannerisms. This Daniel, however, was too quiet. And wary. Jack could see the sideways looks they were all getting. Maybe it was just that he didn't have his glasses, and was having trouble seeing. Shouldn't affect his mouth, though. And the clone was fidgeting with his sleeves in a manner reminiscent of a depressed bird worrying at its own feathers.

"Watch this," said Daniel, before turning to kid Daniel. "Do you remember Sha'uri?"

"No," said kid Daniel. "I-I've told you, I don't know her."

Jack and Hammond exchanged glances, before Jack whistled. "This is... a twist."

"It's not just Sha'uri," said Daniel. "Daniel, do you remember any of them? Skaara? Kasuf? No? Nothing about Abydos at all?"

"A-Abydos, that's in Egypt." Young Daniel spoke quickly, but with a stutter, as though his thoughts were in hyperdrive and he couldn't quite slow them down to match the pace of his mouth.

"Yes," said Big Daniel encouragingly. "But not only in Egypt. Do you remember, um, Kawalsky? Charles Kawalsky?"

"No."

"Do you remember me?" Jack said to him.

Young Daniel turned frantic eyes on Jack. "No. I don't know you, not any of you. Including him!" he said, pointing to Daniel.

Hammond got the point quickly. "Son," he said, suddenly gentle, "what's the last thing you remember about your life as Daniel Jackson on Earth?"

"I don't know. I su-suppose I'd gone to bed. I'd been preparing a p-p-paper for my archaeology professor. Um, Sarah came by briefly, and... that's it. It feels like it happened just yesterday, but-but yesterday, I was on Thor's ship. So it couldn't have. "

"Is that the paper on Kherit-Neter and the errors of Eurocentric thought?"

"Kherit-Neter?" said Jack.

"The so-called 'necropolis'--thank you, Mr Budge--on the Giza plateau. The pyramids of Giza?" he added, as Jack continued to blank him. "Khufu, Khafre, Menkaure..." At kid Daniel's nod of recognition, Daniel told him, "We got an A minus."

"A minus? Why minus?" asked the kid.

"The Professor said, while our research had been thorough and our passion invigorating, our creative approach to the interpretation of certain unarguable 'facts' ultimately let us down."

"Those boneheads," said Jack, having recognised the code-word 'Budge', at least.

"Unbelievable," agreed kid Daniel, shaking his head. "So... S-Sarah, and Steven. I mean, I guess if wh-what you're saying is correct, then they must be..." he looked down, and rubbed the spot between his eyes again. "They must be older. Much older."

Actually, Sarah must be goa'ulded, and Stephen must be simply a psychotic asshole and *not* worth your concern. Jack found himself being blunt. "Sarah and Steven are no longer alive."

"What? But-but-but... but they're my friends. What happened? Are they part of this too?"

Daniel, beside him, had jerked at Jack's words. He looked uncertainly from Jack, to Hammond, as though not quite sure of the truth. Hammond himself was looking startled.

Jack was unrepentant. How could they even begin to tell the truth to the kid? "They got involved in something they shouldn't have," he explained to kid Daniel. "Some of the bad guys we deal with got to them."

Kid Daniel looked stunned. He blinked rapidly and looked down.

"I'm sorry," said Big Daniel to the kid, before glancing back at Jack once again, still looking uncertain.

"I'm okay." After a moment, kid Daniel rubbed his eyes, and raised his head again. He looked depressed, but mostly composed. Hiding it well, thought Jack.

"So, Daniel, how old are you, exactly?" asked Hammond, changing the subject.

"Twenty-three."

"You wear your age well," said Jack.

"Please, Jack," said SGC Daniel.

"I'm well aware I look about f-f-fifteen," said kid Daniel. "Thor explained to me about the experiments Loki was conducting. He explained about-ab-ab-about the SGC."

"What did Thor say when you didn't remember the SGC?" asked Hammond.

"I... well, actually, it's strange. It seems like..." everyone waited patiently while Daniel chewed on his lip and pushed at the bridge of his nose. Jack realised he was pushing at non-existent spectacles. "The only way I can explain it," Daniel finally said, "is that I *did* remember it at the time. But now, it's just like some science fiction story. I don't remember ever being here. No-nothing is familiar."

"In that case," said Hammond, "I should introduce myself properly. I'm General Hammond, of the Stargate Command. This is Colonel O'Neill."

"This is a m-m-military base."

"It is indeed."

"Air force," Jack specified.

"So... I joined the airforce?" That seemed to be the last straw for the kid.

"Daniel, didn't you explain anything to him?"

"It took me a while to figure out what the problem was," Daniel defended himself. "And then... I mean, where do I start? And, if he doesn't know, do you all really want him to know?"

"You're referring to security issues," said Hammond.

"Yes, but also, I'm thinking of his own best interests. I wish he didn't even know this much, it could already compromise his ability to have a normal life."

"You're thinking he's going to go out there, pick up where you left off, become the toast of the archaeological world?" said Jack.

"No, that's not what I... I suppose it might sound like that, but..." Daniel dropped his head abruptly and scrubbed his face with his hands. "What am I thinking? How could he ever hope to get away from the Stargate program?"

"Daniel?" said Jack, concerned. Daniel was sounding almost panicked. Daniel never panicked.

"I'm sorry," said Daniel, and looked up. He was flushed. "I'm really tired, I'm sorry. This has been a long night."

"It has, General," said Jack to Hammond. "And I hate to point this out, but we have a mission in," he looked at the clock, which said 4:00am, "three hours."

"Obviously, the mission will be postponed," said Hammond. "I suggest we break this up for now. Colonel, you and Doctor Jackson should get some rest. I'll inform Major Carter and Teal'c about the status of the mission."

"What about..." Jack indicated, "this Daniel?"

"I'm tired too," said kid Daniel, looking more cowed than anything.

"You can come with me," Hammond said to him. "I'll find somewhere for you for now. I want you to know, son, that Earth is your home, and we'll do our best to get you settled and happy. There's just a few things we have to work out first so, if it's okay with you, we'd rather not tell anyone who you really are."

Daniel bit his lip again. He was going to have a bleeder, soon. "Okay," he nodded. "Besides," he looked at Daniel, "I'm not him, anyway."

Hammond led the youngster out, and Jack quickly moved into Daniel's personal space. "What's wrong?" he whispered.

"Nothing."

"You were acting like a cornered rat."

"It's not every day you come face to face with your younger self," said Daniel, standing, but not looking at him.

"It happened to me."

"I know, and I don't know how you remained so calm."

"Hey, this is the SGC. We've even joined forces with our adult clones. There's nothing that we can't face, Daniel."

"It's not about what *I* can or can't face," said Daniel cryptically. Then he fixed Jack with a look. "You lied."

"What?"

"About Steven. He's not dead."

"Nope. Unfortunately not." Seeing Daniel turn away, Jack softened his tone. "Come on, Daniel, you think we could tell him the truth? What would be the point? I was just trying to protect him."

"You took advantage of my memory problems. I thought at first you were telling the truth."

Jack held out his hands helplessly. "I didn't know you didn't remember, Daniel. I wasn't taking advantage of you. I was doing damage control."

Daniel shrugged. "I remember now, I guess." Then he yawned, and looked like he was about to drop back into his chair.

Jack nodded towards the corridor. "Come on, bed." After waiting for Daniel to move, he followed him out of the room. Daniel walked slowly, staring at his feet, tension curving his back.

"Daniel," said Jack.

"Yes, Jack."

How to phrase this? "I'd never deliberately lie to you like that."

Daniel chuckled wryly. "That's very you, Jack. You'd never deliberately lie."

"I'm trying to be honest, here. Not unless I had a very good reason."

"So you've lied in the past."

"Under orders, yes. And hell, probably regarding injuries, my opinions, my feelings... I'm a fucked up person. I don't know what I can say, Daniel. All I can tell you is I've tried my damnedest to help your memories return."

Apparently a bit of self-deprecation went a long way. Daniel's back straightened a little. "I know that, Jack. You've been very..."

"Helpful?"

"Thorough."

"Pushy," decided Jack.

"I didn't say that."

"Everyone else has."

"Sincerely, Jack. You've been very thorough, and yes, helpful." Daniel glanced at him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"About the duplicates. You didn't feel at all... responsible, when you realised that young Jack was you?"

Ah, now they were getting to the real reason why Daniel was behaving so skittishly. "What could I possibly feel responsible for, Daniel? It was Loki, not me."

"In the sense of obligation, I mean."

"Right. Well, you know, he was me. He had his own ideas. I'm afraid I didn't have much say in it."

They turned the corner in the corridor, heading for the far elevators. "I guess that's why I'm feeling... because Daniel is me, and yet not me. He's a me from a long time ago. Just when I was on the verge of either greatness, or disaster. Relatively speaking."

"He's twenty-three, right? The stargate was still years away."

"But all the research I did to formulate my theories as to the cross-pollination of Earth's ancient cultures, that started when I was twenty-three. That was when the spark came to me. When I first realised that I could see something that no one else had seen! I knew how important this discovery could be for our entire understanding of ancient cultures, and not only that, but for our entire understanding of the very foundations of modern civilisation-"

"Daniel, you're shouting."

Daniel put a hand to his head. "Right." He took a couple of deep breaths. "You know how you've been worried about my memory, Jack? Well, it's all flooding back now."

"You'd forgotten all this stuff."

"In a sense, yes," said Daniel, the palm of his hand kneading above his eye. "It all seems to be flashing back at me, rather too vividly."

"Well... sleep will help," said Jack lamely.

Daniel didn't reply.

They travelled via elevator to their usual sleeping quarters. Daniel leaned against the elevator wall, looking thoroughly drained. Jack wasn't sure what to say to him, so he pretended not to notice anything. He was good like that when it suited him, he thought sourly to himself, but couldn't bring himself to task for it.

Once they started up the last corridor, Daniel spoke again. "When you first met me... you thought I was a real geek."

"You were," said Jack.

"I was worse than that. I was completely cut off from people. Emotionally autistic. It was the only way to cope with the continual rejection of my theories by my peers, and not just my peers, but my friends. You see, at the age of twenty-three, I had friends. I had Steven and Sarah, people that I cared about, and who cared about me. Until the whole... anyway, I know what my duplicate must be feeling right now. Finally, he gets some people in his life who care about him and look like staying around, and they get wrenched away."

"I'm sorry, Daniel, but we couldn't tell him the truth about Sarah, and I don't see how knowing that Steven is still alive, only fifteen years older and a confirmed asshole, will make him feel better, anyway."

"I know, Jack. It's okay."

"That guy was so not worthy of you. Little worm."

Daniel shook his head. "It's okay," he repeated. "He'll deal with it. It's not like he's not used to it."

They had reached Daniel's door. Jack said, "You had a pretty crap life as a youngster, didn't you?"

"Oh, it wasn't bad. I had food, and clothes, and I had a library card to every library within an hour's bus ride... I was quite often happy, Jack. Don't look at me like that. I really really need to lie down."

Jack stepped aside to allow Daniel to unlock his door. "Well, sweet dreams," he said.

"I doubt it," said Daniel, and disappeared inside.

Jack took a moment to sigh expansively, and tromped off to his own quarters.

****

Jack slept later than he intended. His body didn't deal with alcohol as well as it once did. Not that he was hung-over or anything; just tired.

A knock at the door woke him up. Daniel, he thought. Perhaps he'd heard Daniel's familiar footsteps approaching as he still slept. Perhaps it was his style of knock. Whatever.

"Jack," came Daniel's voice. "Jack, it's me, Daniel."

"I know!" said Jack.

"General Hammond wants to see us."

Jack groaned and rolled over. What time was it?

"It's 9:00am," Daniel added. "As in, 0900."

"Did I ask that?"

"You didn't have to."

Jack snorted, and heaved himself off the bed, searching for the fresh uniform he'd cleverly laid out before he fell asleep. Not so cleverly, it was now in a crumpled heap on the floor. "I'll be along soon," he called to Daniel.

"I'll wait."

Jack emerged a little later to find Daniel leaning, eyes closed, against the wall. Sleep-standing, thought Jack. "Daniel. Daniel!"

Daniel jerked. "I'm awake," he said.

"Did you get any sleep?"

"Just then?"

"No. Earlier."

"Some," said Daniel.

They stopped by the commissary on the way, and Jack grabbed a sandwich which he'd all but finished by the time they arrived at the briefing room. Everyone appeared to be present except for the General. Jack nodded to Carter and Teal'c as he sat down, Daniel beside him. This was not an SG-1 meeting, this was a Stargate Command meeting; but usually these days, an observer wouldn't know the difference. SG-1 had for a long time been the inner circle of the SGC. Sundry PR managers and security officers today completed the numbers at the table.

Carter leaned across the table to say something, but was interrupted by General Hammond's arrival. "These are from today's newspapers," he said, passing around the pertinent pages from both 'straight' and tabloid newspapers. Jack glanced over the headlines.

*Car Occupants 'Beamed Up' Says Cop*

*Police Spokesman Denies UFO Theory*

*Secret Military Experiments With Star Trek Technology*

Fast work. "I take it you couldn't make it go away," said Jack, looking at the PR officer.

"With all due respect, sir, it's difficult to cover something up when it's seen by a credible witness. If you could have been more careful-"

"Oh, now I'm to blame for the fact that Thor thinks he's evolved beyond common courtesy-" Jack thought someone should ban the phrase 'with all due respect', or at least charge people with insubordination for using it. No one who meant to respect you said 'with all due respect'.

"Gentlemen," said Hammond. "Casting blame is not the purpose of this meeting. Major," he said to the PR officer, "could you bring us all up to date with the current situation."

Everything was as predicted. The patrolman was steadfast in his insistence that two people had been 'beamed up' right before his eyes. He was presently the subject of disciplinary action for making statements to the press without authorisation. The press itself was deluging the base with phone calls, asking for comments and enquiring about the two 'missing' air force officers who had, according to the patrolman, been in the truck. Jack's truck was still being held for processing.

They talked damage control for a while, Jack bored out of his skull, Daniel uncharacteristically quiet beside him.

"Any further suggestions?" said Hammond.

"Yes," said Jack. "Perhaps me and Daniel should go down to the police station, present ourselves, say 'hey everyone, here we are, we weren't beamed up'."

"That's an idea," nodded Hammond. To the PR guy he said, "What's your opinion on that?"

"We'd need to work out a cover story, something feasible, otherwise it would look too much like a cover-up."

"Which it is," Jack couldn't resist saying.

"Which we don't want to draw attention to," countered the PR guy.

Carter spoke. "What if the Colonel and Daniel confirmed the police officer's story, to a point?"

"What do you mean, Major?" said Hammond.

"I mean, if things they said correlated with the officer's story, without actually giving away the truth. That they were stopped by the patrolman, that they were asked to get out of the vehicle, that the patrolman told them he wanted the Colonel's truck for some sort of evidence and they would have to find their own way home..."

"It could work," said the PR guy. "That way, the onus is on the patrolman. He looks foolish, it all gets swept under the carpet. I like it."

"So we allow everyone to believe that the patrolman is lying?" said Daniel, the first words he had spoken thus far in the meeting.

"Not lying," said Carter. "Just confused, perhaps. I don't know, it was just a suggestion."

"I'm with Daniel," sighed Jack. Until Daniel had spoken, it had seemed like a good idea. "The patrolman's career would be shot to pieces."

"The patrolman's word is already lacking credibility," said the PR guy. "His career might be over anyway."

"Look, this is the USA," said Jack. "I think we're overestimating the general public's concern. We're allowing the fact that it's actually true to influence us. It'll blow over. The Agent Mulder types will believe, and yet won't be able to do anything, while the average American will just chuckle over their cornflakes."

"But they have your car, Colonel," said the PR guy. "How do we explain that?"

"Engine trouble. We left it behind, the cop must have found it."

"So the patrolman is lying again," said that irritating voice of conscience called Daniel.

"Okay. Somebody stole my truck, and the thieves passed themselves off as airforce officers," said Jack. "Is that better, Daniel?"

"I guess I can live with that," said Daniel. "Provided they don't actually pick anyone up for stealing your truck."

Jack checked his watch. "Right. Colonel Jack O'Neill just attempted to leave Cheyenne Mountain, only to discover that his car had been stolen from the carpark some time during the night."

"That's going to bring another set of problems, Colonel," said Hammond. "It's too difficult to steal a vehicle from base. The police are trying to retain credibility over this, and they'll look here for suspects."

"Perhaps, sir," said Carter, "you just woke up at home, and noticed your car missing."

"Won't they have tried to contact me already?"

Carter invented further. "You only got home from a mission late last night, you were so tired that you left your garage door open and your keys in the car, and fell into bed, where you slept like the dead."

"Great," said Jack. "So now I'm the one who looks stupid. I'm so pleased you're happier with this scenario, Daniel."

"Go and make that phone call, Colonel," said Hammond. "Use the secure line in my office so that your location can't be traced. Identify yourself first, and see what they say. Play it by ear."

"Will do, sir," said Jack, and left the room for a few precious minutes of breathing time. On the phone to the police, he heard relief in the voice of the officer he was patched through to. It didn't sound like the patrolman from last night. Jack gathered they'd tried to contact him a couple of times at home. "I'm guessing you know the whereabouts of my truck?" he said to the officer. Yes, indeed, they did. The officer asked him to come down and fill out a statement, due to the fact that his truck had been involved in 'an incident'. Jack said he'd try to be there around lunchtime.

Back at the briefing room, Jack reported on the phone call, then matters turned to Jack's potential culpability in this whole situation. For the record, of course.

"Don't you get some sort of warning when this Thor is about to contact you?" the PR guy asked Jack.

"A few seconds before, I sometimes get this particular feeling," agreed Jack.

"Wasn't there anything you could have done?"

Daniel butted in. "Let me see. I suppose Jack could have used the time-honoured 'Look! There's a flying pig!' trick on the policeman, or perhaps he could have just hit the man over the head. What do you think, Jack?"

"We could have taken him along with us," Jack suggested to Daniel. "It was rude of us not to invite him."

"Thank you Colonel, Doctor," said Hammond, as though they had given food for thought. Hammond was too used to them to be ruffled, although the PR guy gave them offended looks.

After a little more discussion, things wound up. "This meeting is concluded," said Hammond finally, before adding, "SG-1, stay where you are."

Daniel perked up a little. They were getting to his problem at last.

"All this discussion about Thor," said Carter, when the PR and security people had left. "And our mission being postponed. It's true, then. Loki cloned Daniel."

"How do you know that, Major?" said Hammond.

"Janet told me. Don't worry, sir, she didn't tell anyone else. She wanted someone to verify her results, but given her orders for secrecy, she couldn't ask one of the other doctors."

"I am unaware of what we are discussing," said Teal'c.

"We'll take it from the beginning," Hammond assured him. "Colonel O'Neill, do you want to explain?"

"I'd be delighted to," said Jack, and did so. Daniel never once interrupted him. Jack resisted the urge to feel his friend's forehead for fever. "Anything to add, Daniel?" he said at the conclusion of his brief but functional statement.

"Basically, as Jack has just explained," Daniel said to Teal'c and Carter. "He's me, only his memories stop at the age of twenty-three."

"So he has no understanding of the SGC, or the Goa'uld," stated Teal'c.

"He knows what Thor explained to him. But he doesn't recall any personal experience of it, no. So how useful Thor's explanation actually is, is debatable."

"Do we get to meet him?" asked Carter.

"At the moment, he's with Doctor Fraiser, having more tests," said Hammond. "She'll bring him by when she's finished."

"I bet a teenage Daniel would be cute," said Carter.

"Wasn't I cute?" asked Jack.

"Yes, sir, but... you were very obnoxious, too, so the cuteness wore off."

"Pending the results of Doctor Fraiser's further testing," said Hammond, "we're working with the theory that somehow Loki's cloning process is responsible for the memory fault seen in the duplicate. Does anyone have anything to add to that?"

"That theory seems most likely," said Carter, "given that, as happened with Colonel O'Neill's clone, things didn't work out in a physiological sense exactly the way Loki had planned."

"I have a theory," said Jack. "Assuming that Loki abducted and cloned Daniel recently, what we're seeing could be a side effect of the memory problems Daniel was already having."

"A good point, Colonel. What do we know about the actual process of the cloning? Major Carter?"

"Well," said Carter, "we know Loki didn't simply use DNA. He was trying to get an exact specimen of the current state of the particular human, with memories and thought processes intact, rather than a simple 'clone' per se. Now what the Asgard do when they clone themselves is preserve the mind separately from the body, so that it can be transferred to the new form. But firstly, the Asgard physiology and body chemistry is different from ours, and secondly, we all know the problems they've been experiencing after thousands of years of cloning-"

"Carter-"

"Yes, sir. My point is, when you're talking about something as complex as the mind, the margin for error is very very slim. Just look at the existence of organic memory problems, and things like mental illness, and brain tumors, in our society. So the idea that the cloning process could produce faults is most likely. If, as Colonel O'Neill pointed out, Daniel was already having memory problems, then-"

"Wait a minute, you're saying the clone could have other problems?" said Jack.

"Yes, sir."

"There's another possibility, too," said Daniel.

"Go ahead," said Hammond.

"Well..." Daniel looked down at the table top, then to Jack. He looked troubled. He turned to the General. "Admittedly I'm no biologist, but... you remember the way Jack's duplicate began to physically degrade. Well, Thor fixed that. But what if, somehow, despite that, the duplicate's actual mind continues to degrade?"

"I can't see how that's possible," said Carter. "Not in such a systematic way."

"I can't see how any of it's possible," said Daniel. "And yet, it is. You see Daniel--my duplicate, that is--said something interesting. You remember, Jack, he said something like, he remembered the SGC when Thor initially told him about us. But at some point, he lost that 'knowing' and it became more like a science-fiction tale. He had lost the lived experience of it."

"He said that?" said Carter.

"Yes, I remember," said Jack.

The General nodded agreement. "You have a point, Doctor Jackson. But it will take time to prove."

"No, it won't," said Daniel. "If my duplicate is experiencing memory degradation, then," he glanced at Jack, "Jack's duplicate might be, too."

"Surely if the Colonel's duplicate was having problems, he'd have contacted us by now. We assured him he should do so at any time," Carter reminded them.

"Maybe not," said Jack.

"Sir, it would be in his own best interests."

"This is me we're talking about," said Jack, "at least, me in many ways. And perhaps, if I was making a new life for myself, I wouldn't want to contact you guys. I'd try to figure things out on my own."

"When did you last see Jack?" Daniel asked.

"We agreed we wouldn't see each other. Less... less *something*, that way."

"I haven't seen him since, either."

"Nor I," said Teal'c.

"No one's seen him," said Jack. "That was the point. New life. He's not even Jack O'Neill anymore, he's Jack Simpson." After 'The Simpsons', of course.

"Could you do that?" said Daniel.

"What?"

"Jack, he's *you*. Could you really walk away, from all of this, from all of us? I can see you thinking you could, for a while, but..."

"What, you think you're actually important to me?" teased Jack. The look in Daniel's eyes stopped his teasing cold. He looked around the table. Thoughtful silence seemed to have descended. He sighed, dropped his chin in his hand, regarded the table top. Could he have stayed away? Daniel, Carter, Teal'c, even Hammond... they were his family. The idea of having to create, from scratch, another family; he admitted he had no taste for it, not at all. The only way he could imagine dealing with the loss of his family would be to go far far away, from *all* people, not just familiar ones. He could see himself coping by living in a cabin in the wilderness, spending his days fishing. An old fantasy surfaced, that of returning to the uncomplicated life he'd had on Edora. But that was no longer a viable option, either; he'd long since recognised it as an escapist dream, finally abandoned at his own personal ground zero, Daniel's death and ascension.

Aside from all of that, could he have gone back to fucking *high school* and *not* gone insane? He'd hated it the first time round. Now he was an often-grumpy 46 year old. He hated the music, he had no interest in talking about sexual fumblings or role-playing games, he felt paternalistic rather than comradely towards teenage boys, and as for teenage girls... dating! God no! He was attracted to grown adults, not children. He couldn't imagine being suddenly thrust into a teenage body would change any of this.

He closed his eyes, put his hands over his face, and pressed. It didn't stop the feeling of threatening headache. "Has anyone checked up on clone Jack recently?" he said, hands still over his face.

"We've maintained a link with the foster parents," said Hammond.

"I was not aware duplicate O'Neill was in need of parental guidance," said Teal'c.

"In this country, we can't have people who look like teenagers running around without guardians," explained Hammond. "Even if they are former Colonels in the Air Force."

"So, where did he end up?" asked Carter.

"You remember Major Thredman?" said Jack. "He led SG-6 for a couple of years, until he was badly wounded in the line of duty and took medical retirement."

Carter nodded. "He retired a couple of years ago."

"We approached Matt Thredman and his wife about taking on young Jack," said Hammond. "Naturally, we couldn't tell them the truth. Instead we told them that young Jack was from off-world and considered an adult in his own culture, therefore used to being independent. They agreed to act as token guardians and allow him to live with them until he turned legal age."

"We did, after a lot of head-banging, manage to convince my duplicate that this was the only reasonable option," said Jack.

"In any case," said Hammond, "as far as we're aware, he's doing fine. Perhaps he's a little moody, but the parents don't think much of it. He is, after all, a teenager."

"He's *not* a teenager."

"As far as the parents are concerned, he is."

"But *we* know he's not. They wouldn't be looking for the right things."

"The colonel has a point, sir," said Carter. "If Jack's duplicate was losing his memory, it's likely he would be very confused. He could be acting out, but the parents would just assume it was normal teenage behaviour."

Jack looked up. "Why do we never think these things through properly?"

"To be fair, Colonel, these are not situations we have manuals and procedures for." But Hammond was looking troubled. "I'll ask Doctor Fraiser-"

"Ask away, I'm here," came Fraiser's voice from the doorway. "Sam, Teal'c, this is Daniel."

Carter and Teal'c greeted him in their particular ways--Carter with a smile and a wave, Teal'c with the head nod. Jack could tell by the look in Carter's eyes that she thought kid Daniel to be extremely cute.

"What's that on your forehead?" kid Daniel asked Teal'c.

"It is a tattoo, made of gold."

"Pure gold?"

"Yes."

"Y-y-you're not from Earth, are you?"

"I am not," said Teal'c.

Kid Daniel looked at Carter. "Are you from Earth?"

"Yes. I'm completely from Earth."

"Daddy's a Tok'ra, though," muttered Jack, and looked innocently at Carter when she swung around.

Hammond took control once again. "Please make your report, Doctor Fraiser, then take young Daniel back to his room in the guest quarters."

"I want to know, wh-what's going on," said kid Daniel.

"And you will, as soon as we figure out what's going on ourselves," said Hammond. "Doctor Fraiser?"

Kid Daniel hovered close to Fraiser, as she said, "The DNA analysis is back, and it's just as we'd expected. Daniel is Daniel. Also he has no physical damage or infirmity, other than the expected eyesight and allergy problems. There's no brain damage that we can see from the MRI. The base psychiatrist conducted a quick intelligence test, and he scores in the same range as our Daniel. What did you want to ask me just then?"

"If a person is experiencing a dramatic degradation of memory, what would their behaviour likely be?" said Hammond.

"Do you mean chronic memory loss, such as dementia for example, or do you mean the acute memory loss of amnesia?"

"I mean a person who is losing, over a period of weeks, large chunks of their life experience."

"You're referring to Daniel," she said, glancing at the duplicate.

"Yes. I'm also wondering about Colonel O'Neill's duplicate."

"Well, I can only speculate," said Fraiser. "I'd say in the circumstances you describe, the person would initially be withdrawn and irritable, and if it progressed, they would become moody, angry, probably depressed, certainly with self-esteem problems... is that what you were looking for?"

"Thank you, Doctor," said Hammond. "You may be dismissed." After Fraiser took kid Daniel away, he looked around the table. "Perhaps there's nothing to worry about, but we need to talk to young Jack as soon as possible."

"He'll be in school, sir."

"There's no need to pull him out of school. What's happened has happened. A few more hours won't make a difference. Do we have anything else to discuss at this stage?"

It appeared they had not. Hammond broke up the meeting, directing Jack to drive down to the police station. Jack suggested that while he was down there, he could pick up young Jack for questioning, as by the time he'd driven all the way down and made his statement to the police, it wouldn't be long before high school broke up for the day. Hammond agreed with him. "I'll contact the foster parents and ask them to get a message through to young Jack," Hammond told him as they left.

Daniel followed Jack into the elevator. "Up or down?" Jack asked him.

"I'm coming with you."

"Why?"

"You don't have a car. I do."

"Good point. Although I could use one of the base cars." Jack pressed the button for their sleeping quarters. He was not going to hang around a high school dressed in military garb.

"My car's got a better stereo," continued Daniel.

"Don't you want to go hang with your clone?"

"No, I do not want to 'go hang with my clone'," said Daniel. "I spent some time with him earlier, while you were sleeping. We're both rather bemused with each other. Although I did try to explain the circumstances of Sarah's and Steven's 'deaths' more satisfactorily."

"He still remembered them? Hadn't forgotten them?"

"It had only been four hours since we first questioned him. I doubt the memory degrades quite that fast. Broadly assuming Loki took me a few weeks before he took you, the rate of degradation is, very approximately, about a year per week. This time next week, I expect his memory will stop at the age of twenty-two."

"So, by your calculations, how old would Jack be?"

"We haven't any proof that Jack has problems, yet."

"*If* he had memory problems."

Daniel thought for a moment. "Remember, this is an extremely rough estimate."

"Go on."

"You can do the math."

"You've already done the math," said Jack. "Why waste my energy, too?"

Daniel capitulated. "He'd be around thirty-seven, thirty-eight," he said.

Good years, Jack remembered.

****

Jack dropped Daniel at a mall a few blocks from the police precinct he needed to attend. They didn't want to risk Daniel being recognised by the cop; bad enough Jack had to take the risk.

"Wear this," said Daniel, fetching an old boonie off the floor in the back seat.

"Why do you keep a boonie in the car?" said Jack, frowning at the hat Daniel had deposited in his hands.

"You never know when you might need one. Like right now."

"Why do I need a boonie right now?"

"It will disguise you."

"They're cops, Daniel. You can't put a hat on and hope they won't recognise you."

"We could stop at the Magic Mart and buy you a false moustache." At Jack's quelling look, Daniel added, "It was dark, and you were in the passenger seat, so even given that you were drawing undue attention towards yourself, I honestly doubt he'll recognise you if you pull the boonie down over your eyes."

"Well, thank you Daniel, I'll consider it. Now off you go... shopping."

"I'm buying clothes for Daniel," said Daniel.

"So go do it."

Daniel hopped out, and Jack drove on to the police station, parking in the visitors' parking. Before he got out, he considered the boonie. Sighing, he put it on. Despite what he'd said to Daniel, he actually agreed it was a good idea.

He announced himself at the front desk, and soon enough a young officer came down and brought him to a small room, giving him a form to fill out, and asking him some questions.

"So," said the officer, "you said you didn't notice the truck missing until this morning?"

Jack explained, in minimal detail, that he'd got home late last night, that he must have left his garage unlocked, and his keys behind in the truck.

"But if you left your keys in the truck, how did you get into the house?" asked the officer, obviously thinking he was clever.

Jack began pulling keyrings out of his pocket. He dumped the four separate rings in front of the officer. "House keys," he said, pointing to one, before pointing to the rest in turn. "Work keys. Sundry keys. Daniel's keys. I keep all my keys on separate rings. More organised that way."

"Oh," said the officer. "Who's Daniel?"

Shit. He hadn't meant to say that name. That was the name in the initial officer's report. A moment later, Jack shrugged it off. Daniel was not exactly a rare name.

"A friend," he said easily.

"You realise that insurance companies don't tend to pay out on claims where the keys were left in the vehicle."

"Has my truck been damaged?"

"Well, no."

"Then what's the problem? Can I get it back now?"

"No," said the officer. "It's currently being processed by our technicians. I need to ask you some more questions. Where were you around eleven pm last night?"

"Why?"

"We need to eliminate you from our investigation."

"You think I stole my own truck?"

"There's some discrepancies in our information," said the officer.

"Fine. I went out to dinner last night," said Jack, having already decided to ease into the untruths. "To a restaurant on Smith Street. I left around ten thirty, went home, went to bed. Woke up this morning, did the usual breakfast, newspaper, ignored my incoming phone calls because it's my day off, eventually decided to go out only to realise my truck was missing."

"So at eleven pm last night, you weren't anywhere near the route to the mountain?"

"Why would I be there?" said Jack. "I don't live anywhere near there."

"You work in that direction," the officer pointed out.

I could lean over this table and kill you with my bare hands before you'd even moved, kid. "Oh," said Jack, as if it had only just occurred to him. "Yes. Well, like I told you, it's my day off. I don't go to work on my day off. Most particularly, I do not go to work on the night before my day off."

"Who was with you last night?"

"A friend. Would you like me to give you his details?"

"For the record," said the officer, so Jack reeled off Daniel's contact details, emphasising that Daniel was 'Doctor Daniel Jackson', which seemed to impress upon the officer to a certain extent. People with PhD's did not go around getting abducted by aliens.

There was a knock on the door. "It's Officer Graham," came the voice.

"Come in." As the door opened, the officer interviewing Jack added, "Is this the man you saw last night, Officer Graham?"

Quickly, Jack put on his sternest, most Colonel-in-the-field-of-death expression and turned to face Officer Graham. Officer Graham stepped back, looked quickly away. "No, this man isn't the man from last night," he said firmly.

"Thank you, officer. You may go."

That concluded the interview. After grousing about not getting his truck back one more time, and hoping they caught the bastards who stole it, Jack left. It was around forty-five minutes since he'd dropped Daniel at the mall. He drove back there, and waited on a bench seat at the atrium in the centre of the mall, where he'd arranged for Daniel to look for him every half hour. The clattering of shopping carts and chatter of scores of voices faded gradually away. He'd been dozing for a while when someone sat down beside him, bumping into him. He breathed in without opening his eyes. Familiar Daniel scent. "Hi," he said, not moving.

"Hi, Jack. You've still got my boonie on."

"It allows me to sleep, while still intimidating people into not sitting beside me."

"So..." Daniel shifted plastic bags about, "you haven't been arrested, at least."

"No. They believed me. The officer who stopped us looked right past me."

"See, the boonie was a good idea."

"It was." Jack opened his eyes and pushed the boonie off the bridge of his nose. Shoppers, many of them women of varying ages, some with small children, wandered past his vision. They carried plastic bags, some translucent, showing the goods inside, others opaque, all the colors of the rainbow, emblazoned with store names. Their clothes, too, were a kaleidoscope of color. The colors washed in with the movement and sound, reminding Jack he had a headache. He looked at Daniel beside him. Daniel was familiar, dressed in a dark knit shirt and dark trousers.

"What is it with people and outlandish color?" said Jack. "Don't they realise how painful it is to look at?"

Daniel joined him in looking at the passing shoppers. "All this color is basically an expression of freedom," he said. "And the result of the assimilation of other cultures. We have an enormous amount of meaningless choice. We can choose what we want we want to buy, what we want to wear..."

"The Asgard are free," complained Jack. "And they don't," his eyes lighted on a particularly appalling specimen, "wear fluro pink stripes while standing next to a yellow ochre storefront and dangling a kid in orange and blue off their hand."

"The Asgard have evolved beyond the need for adornment and consumerism. They're happy in their own skins."

"Unless their name is Loki, in which case they're not happy unless they're stealing someone else's skin," said Jack.

"Well," Daniel patted his bags. "I've got some clothes for Daniel, anyway."

"Let me see what suffering you have wrought upon your teenage self."

"Jack, he's not going to want to wear X-Men shirts and," Daniel gestured to a young man walking by, mid-riff shirt exposing the piercing in his belly, "things like *that*, no matter what all the other kids are wearing. I've bought him some ordinary, comfortable clothes that he won't find too threatening, but will help him to blend in somewhat."

Jack was already going through the bags. White button-down shirt, dark button-down shirt, dark pants, a sweater. All a little preppy, but Daniel was right, the kid wouldn't stand out half as much as the real teenage Daniel probably had, given that Daniel had found clothes-sense only since he'd met Carter and Fraiser. "Looks good, Daniel," he said. "What time does this school get out?"

Daniel checked his watch. "Forty-five minutes."

"Time for something to eat, then?"

Daniel gathered his bags up. "Absolutely."

****

Jack hung an arm out of the window, tapped his fingers on the side of the car in time to the beat of the radio. His headache had receded during their late lunch, and he could only put that down to the company. Just hanging out with Daniel could centre him like nothing else. Strange, particularly considering that on missions, no one made him lose more sleep or put more grey hairs on his head than Daniel. A lot of that wasn't anything Daniel did, Jack admitted, it was just that all the nasties in the galaxy seemed to find Daniel irresistible, causing Jack endless worry. But when not on missions, hanging with Daniel, even if Jack technically had a job to do at this moment, was one of his favourite things.

Who could explain friendship? Theirs had survived, despite everything. It hadn't been the Goa'uld, the NID, the life-or-death situations that had nearly broken them, it had been Jack's spiralling hatred of it all, the spin-doctors, the false diplomacy, the Pentagon suits who wanted only to see new and exciting technologies, and didn't care shit about the people; not the SGC people who died procuring those technologies, not the people on other worlds, not the people subjugated by the Goa'uld; not any people, as long as their budgets balanced. No, they didn't care if Jack lost the faith of his teammates because he and Hammond had been secretly snowballed by the Pentagon into accepting a revised directive--"new technologies at any price", a directive brought about, ironically, because Jack had busted up their little black ops weapons-stealing ring. They didn't care that Jack would do what they said because he was a good soldier and he loved his country, they didn't care what Jack sacrificed in order to carry out his orders. And they certainly didn't understand Daniel Jackson; the significance of his knowledge of cultures and languages, the importance of his research, and the necessity of having someone on a first contact team whose special skill was not threat-assessment but a straightforward interest in other people and their lives. Daniel approached everyone the same way, whether primitive or advanced, or even Unas, and if it had been up to the military, Jack didn't have enough fingers to add up the number of cultures and worlds that would have been destroyed through ignorance--those little white men on the planet with the singing plants, the Salish world, and the good old Unas, just to name three. They wouldn't have wiped out so many Goa'uld without Daniel's contribution. Earth would have been taken over by Apophis years ago. They'd have made a deal with goddamned fascists on Euronda if it wasn't for Daniel. SG-1 wasn't just Colonel O'Neill and Major-Doctor Carter, like the Pentagon seemed to think. It was Teal'c, too, and Daniel. All of SG-1 had their areas of speciality--and together they completed each other, forming the team who, if Jack said so himself, was legendary across the galaxy and beyond for their achievements. The Pentagon didn't get that.

The Pentagon didn't understand friendship.

Even with Daniel being a contrary mix of vulnerable and keep-e-off since his descension, and his memory not fully returned, his presence here with Jack suggested something significant; that Daniel still turned to Jack when he was worried about something. Daniel might not be talking about his worry, but quite often you didn't need to talk about it, despite what psychologists, and a certain proportion of women, thought. You could just *be* with someone, and that was enough. Would Jack have survived Ba'al's continual torture without becoming a total head-case if it hadn't been for Daniel just being there for him? He doubted it.

Or was he projecting? Was Daniel really so comfortable with him? Did Daniel remember enough of their shared experiences over the years to count his friendship with Jack as something special, or was he here by default, because he still didn't feel he had a special relationship with anyone?

Nope, not going there, Jack told himself firmly. He needed to simply accept Daniel being here with him, and not pile on the baggage.

They heard the bell announcing the end of school, and almost immediately students began appearing.

"We stand a good chance of missing him," said Daniel, regarding the flood of teenagers with raised eyebrows.

"Hammond called me on my cell," Jack told him. "He said that the foster parents had got a message to the kid, told him to hang around the front and wait for us."

"Shouldn't we get out of the car?"

"I don't know what it will do to his rep to have two grown men turn up to collect him."

"You could get out by yourself."

"We'll wait. He'll be the kid staying put, looking about for someone. Easy to spot."

Sure enough, as wave after wave of students disgorged, a few hovered around the street entrance, looking up and down the road. Jack recognised one of them as kid Jack.

"That's him," said Daniel.

"Yep." Jack opened the car door, and stood out on the pavement. Before he did anything else, young Jack started walking towards them, so he dropped back into the car seat, leaving the door open.

"He doesn't look quite as cocky as he did," commented Daniel.

Jack, too, found himself scanning the kid for any of Doctor Fraiser's signs. The kid wore an oversized jacket and baggy jeans. His hair was effusive with gel. He looked cool enough, thought Jack, given his time and distance from the theory of 'cool', yet he stumped along the path, frowning, head down. He stopped before Jack's door.

"I take it you got our message," said Jack.

"Yeah. What do you want?"

"We want you to come with us, back to the SGC. Something's come up."

"I'm not supposed to get into cars with strange men."

"We're not strange," said Jack, hoping kid Jack was displaying evidence of sarcastic humor and not evidence of memory loss. "You know us."

Kid Jack nodded. "You're still strange."

"But you know us, right?"

Kid Jack rolled his eyes, and pointed to Daniel. "That's Daniel. You're the guys from the SGC."

"I am you and you are me," Jack couldn't resist sing-songing.

"Huh?"

"You know, clone? They copied you? You're a mini-me?"

Kid Jack stepped back. "What are you talking about?"

Jack and Daniel exchange looks. "Uh oh."

"Jack," said Daniel to the kid. "We really need to talk to you. Matt Thredman told us it's okay, if it's okay with you. If you would just come with us..."

But young Jack was backing off. "No way. I don't want to be involved in any more of your weird experiments."

"What do you mean, weird experiments?" asked Jack carefully.

"You never even mentioned Charlie!" Jack yelled at them. "Where is he? Why are you keeping me from him?"

"Oh, shit."

"I'm not going anywhere with you people!" And the kid ran off, into a knot of students. Jack vaulted out of the car, intending to follow, but his stupid knee decided it hadn't been given enough warning, and baulked painfully, forcing him to stop still. On the other side of the car, Daniel had popped out, but kid Jack was gone.

"I suppose we can pick him up at his foster parents'," said Daniel.

"Not today. We'd just scare him off. We've found out what we wanted to know, anyway."

They climbed back into the car.

"Well done, Daniel," added Jack.

"Me? How is this my fault?"

"No, dumbass." Jack cuffed him gently. "I mean the age. That's paranoid, Special Ops, married-with-a-kid, late thirties Jack if I've ever seen him. Or been him."

"Small consolation," said Daniel.

****

"And that was it? You didn't try to speak to him again?" said General Hammond.

They'd returned to base, and were currently attending an impromptu meeting with the General and Doctor Fraiser.

"I made a decision not to," said Jack. "Knowing me, knowing him, he's much less likely to co-operate if we keep at him. Give him a day or two to cool off, think about things, and I think he'll agree to meet with us, at least. Probably in neutral territory, but it's better than nothing."

"So he's definitely experiencing the memory degradation we observed in young Daniel?" said Fraiser.

"I think it's fairly clear. He's trapped in my late-thirties at the moment. Daniel, explain your theory."

Daniel explained his idea about the ratio of memory degradation to the passing of weeks. "I have to emphasise," he said at the end, "it's just theorizing with what we know so far. And I'm only guessing as to when my duplicate was created. It's possible, although not very likely, that he was created even before I ascended."

"That would work in our favour, then," said Hammond.

"And it's always possible that there's nothing exponential about the process--they could wake up tomorrow with memories only up to the age of five."

"Still," said Hammond, "given that Doctor Jackson's duplicate appears to have lost fifteen years or so in some sort of gradual progression, it seems that to the best of our capability we can extrapolate from that. Would you agree with that, Doctor Fraiser?"

"I think we have no choice but to assume that, at this stage," agreed Fraiser, "until we're able to contact Thor."

"And we know how the Asgard are about answering their phone-things," said Jack. "Never there when you need them."

"We'll keep trying," said Hammond. "In the meantime, Jack, you said you think it's safe to leave your duplicate alone for a day or two."

"Yes, I think it's safe. That is, of course, if he doesn't decide we're all really a bunch of alien impostors who stole his body and that of others in the military in order to attempt to take over the world, and consequently decide to take matters into his own hands by buying explosives over the internet and coming up here in the dead of night to blow the whole base up. What?" he added, as everyone stared at him.

"Do you think he would do that, Colonel?"

"How the hell should I know? He's certainly *capable*. But I can't tell you how this memory-thing is affecting his thinking ability and emotions. I don't have experience with that."

"We'll increase security around base," Hammond decided. "And put a twenty-four hour watch on the duplicate."

"He's Special Ops, sir. And he's already suspicious."

"I can't take the risk that we've got a time bomb walking around out there," said Hammond, getting to his feet. "Thank you, people. As always, keep me appraised."

"Where's Daniel?" Daniel asked Fraiser, as the General left.

"As far as I know, he's with Sam," said Fraiser. "The General won't allow him off-base, but he wanted to get some fresh air, so they're on the surface somewhere."

"Thanks. We'll page her," said Daniel. He turned to Jack. "Coming?"

"Yes. There's some questions he might be able to answer," said Jack.

****

They met Carter and kid Daniel up on the surface. While Daniel went to the kid, Jack beckoned Carter aside. "How is he?" he asked.

"He seems fine, sir."

"You think he's cute, don't you?"

Carter looked over at the two Daniels, who were gesturing at each other. "Sir, you have to admit yourself he's-"

"Cute?"

"Adorable," said Carter.

"His obnoxiousness hasn't surfaced yet, I take it."

"It's Daniel, sir."

"Daniel, as we both know, can be extremely obnoxious."

Carter nodded doubtfully. "It's hard to think of him as anything other than a teenager. I mean, I know there's a twenty-three year old inside, but it's hard to remember that, with the stutter, and the... he looks about twelve, sir."

"Well, you can leave him in our capable hands now."

Carter turned to go. "Sir, there is one thing I found out. Before Thor found him, he was being kept on another planet, in a small village or something. Very low-tech. They still used cattle to plough fields. He's not sure how long he was there."

"Thank you, Carter. That's useful information."

She beamed at him, and left. Jack wandered over to the two Daniels.

"I brought you some clothes, some non-military clothes," Daniel was saying. "They're in the room where you're staying."

"Thank you. Wh-wh-when can I get some glasses?"

Big Daniel turned to Jack. "He needs them, Jack."

"Even at that age?" When Daniel nodded, Jack said, "We'll take him into town tomorrow."

"How much worse do my eyes get?" kid Daniel asked Daniel.

"Not much, actually. They stabilised around the age of twenty."

"That's weird," said Jack.

"No. I'm astigmatic, mostly. They probably won't get significantly worse until I'm middle-aged."

"Kid, we have some questions to ask you," said Jack.

"I'm not a kid. I'm twenty-three years old."

"He thinks anyone below his rank is a kid," Big Daniel assured kid Daniel. "He even puts Teal'c in the collective category of a kid, and Teal'c is over one hundred years old."

"Thank you, Daniel. You've just been promoted, by the way, to adult. Temporarily. And kid," he said to kid Daniel, "you're going to have to get used to me calling you that. I get confused trying to deal with two Daniels. Actually, I get confused just trying to deal with *one* Daniel."

"He's a craggy old Colonel," Daniel explained helpfully.

Jack shot him a look. "Perhaps we could sit down while we talk."

They all sat in various postures on the ground, Jack with his knees up and elbows hooked loosely over the top, kid Daniel in the more self-protective form of that posture with knees up to his chest and arms wrapped tightly around, and Big Daniel comfortably cross-legged.

"I know you're having memory confusions," said Jack to the kid, "but we want to get some things straight, regarding how long you've actually been in that body, and where you've been all this time, etcetera."

The kid began explaining, haltingly, as though he was having trouble remembering. As Carter had indicated, Loki had transferred him to a colony of humans, where he had lived for a little while. He wasn't certain exactly how long, but he thought he had been there a few weeks.

"Why?" said Jack. "Why did Loki send you there?" Why didn't he have you destroyed, like the others? he didn't add.

"He suh, he said that, because of who I was... or m-maybe I said..." the kid broke off, shaking his head to himself as if trying to rattle his fragmented memories into line. "I asked to go somewhere where I could help people."

"Did the planet have a stargate?"

"No."

"Did you like it there?" asked Daniel.

"I was able to help them a bit," said the kid. "I didn't want to interfere in their way of life too much, but I helped them design a better p-plough, pro-pro-provided that they shared this knowledge with the other villages."

"How did Thor find you?" asked Jack.

"He just beamed me up one day. I was feeding the pigs, and suddenly I was on his ship. Th-th-that's when he ex-explained he could bring me home."

"And you understood what he was talking about, at the time."

"I think so, yes."

"And now you don't."

"No, not really."

"Wait," said Daniel. "If Thor had just explained this to you, how can you suddenly have not remembered? Unless the memory degradation suddenly accelerated."

"This was a month ago, a month since Th-Th-Th, since Thor th-thound me. Found me."

"Say that five times fast," said Jack.

"I can't even say it once."

"Since Thor thound me," tried Jack. "Nope, I can't either."

"You're saying Thor was out of range," said Big Daniel, ignoring Jack.

"That's what he said. He had to travel closer to Earth. He ha-had to stop on the way t-to help on another planet. It took some time. He asked me if I wanted to stay on the planet where he'd found me, b-but I said I wanted to come home, to the SGC."

"How old were you feeling then?" asked Daniel.

"I..." kid Daniel frowned at his knees, before looking up through his mop of hair. "I remember asking him what had happened to... th-that name you kept saying this morning," he said to Daniel.

"Sha'uri?"

"Yes. But..." he wrinkled his brow, "why would I say that? You showed me a picture of her, but I don't..."

"Do you remember asking about anyone else? Did you ask about Carter, or Teal'c?"

"No. I asked about Jack O'Neill."

"That's me," said Jack.

"But I don't recognise you."

"It's the grey."

Kid Daniel shook his head.

"Jack," said Big Daniel, "I think when Thor found him, his memory might have regressed to a point some time in the first year of the Stargate Program. I'd come back from Abydos, Sha'uri had been taken by Apophis, and I was consumed with looking for her."

"Why would you ask about me, and not Carter or Teal'c?"

"Well, I guess I'd begun thinking of you as a friend... but I still hardly knew Sam or Teal'c."

"If that's the case, Daniel, then his memory is not degrading in the way that you'd thought."

They both regarded kid Daniel, who, if possible, curled up around himself even tighter, eyes flicking back and forth between them. Jack could see what Carter meant about him looking twelve. He looked like a kid needing a hug, but Jack was sure a twenty-three year old Daniel wasn't any more easy with being touched than their Daniel was.

"If Thor, as Daniel said, found him a month ago," mused Big Daniel, "and if we assume at the time he was experiencing my reality during the first year of the Stargate program--that would put him around thirty-one, thirty-two--then..." he looked at Jack. "He's lost nearly ten years in the space of a month."

"That doesn't fit with your theory."

"No. I suspect the degradation is proceeding at an exponential rate, and not reducing by a constant like I previously thought."

"Daniel, you sound like Carter."

"I guess she rubs off on me."

"She doesn't rub off on me."

"Good, because I think I'd be very disturbed if you started talking about quadratic equations and the Special Theory of Relativity."

"I know the Special Theory of Relativity." Jack pointed to his badges. "Air Force Colonel."

"Yes, but you wouldn't drop it into casual conversation like Sam would."

"You're right," said Jack. "I tried; I practiced in front of the mirror for hours, but I never managed to work it successfully into my repertoire."

"You realise what this all means," said Daniel.

"Yes. I'll never get a date with a physicist."

Daniel shook his head, managing to look long-suffering, yet amused. "No, Jack. Be serious for a moment. It means we can't afford to leave your duplicate alone for too long."

"But you guessed his age spot-on."

"But given what young Daniel says, the mental age of the duplicates clearly drops ever faster as time goes by."

"Wh-wh-wh... duplicates plural?" stuttered kid Daniel.

Jack sighed, and said to the kid, "Yes. You aren't the first copy of an SG-1 member we've encountered. Hell, for all we know, Loki cloned the whole damned set of us."

Daniel shuddered. "Don't say that. Can you imagine a younger Teal'c? He'd believe he was still Apophis' First Prime."

"I was joking... sort of."

"No, it's a valid point. We have to consider that there could be others."

"Who else got cloned?" asked kid Daniel.

"I did. Maybe you'll get to meet him." Jack stood up, popped his knees audibly. "Sun's going down. We should go in."

"I'm dying for a shower," agreed Daniel. "Come on, Daniel."

Kid Daniel uncurled, and stood up slowly. "I'm a prisoner here, aren't I? Sam said I wasn't, but I am."

"You're not a prisoner, exactly," said Daniel. "But it's true that you can't come and go as you please. I know you're going to disbelieve me, but it's honestly for your own safety. There's something wrong with your memory, and you need to stay where there are people who might be able to fix it."

"Doctor Fraiser did-didn't think there was anything she could do."

"But the Asgard can help," said Daniel firmly. "We just have to wait for Thor to respond to our messages."

****

More meetings. At least they'd been able to eat dinner first, so Jack wasn't dying of hunger. He was, however, extremely tired. Daniel wilted beside him, hunched and staring into his cup of coffee, having delivered his report on the latest information gleaned from his duplicate.

"So you're saying that there's more urgency than we thought with regards to the disintegration of the duplicates' memories," said General Hammond.

"Yes," said Daniel, "it would seem I assumed some sort of arithmetic progression, when in fact it seems to be more of a geometric progression. Or even completely random."

"Then I'm sorry, Colonel O'Neill, but we need to get your duplicate to co-operate with us. Not in a few days, but immediately."

"But sir-"

"Colonel, this is not up for discussion."

Jack knew if he argued further, Hammond could easily delegate someone else to the task. So he compromised. "Then might I suggest that Daniel and I try again tomorrow. This time we'll make better arrangements. In retrospect I can see that the whole 'get in our car' routine might have come across as a little threatening."

"Doctor Jackson and yourself didn't have much success last time."

"Strangers would have even less success. Sir, I know him. You know I do. Daniel and I should be the ones."

Hammond considered it, then gruffly gave the go-ahead.

Discussion turned to implications of the existence of other clones.

"It's possible," said Carter, "although if you remember Loki's explanation, he hadn't been in the vicinity of Earth for long, so the idea that he would have had time to clone any more people seems unlikely."

"Maybe he had more than one cloning set-up," said Jack. "He could have done more than one at a time."

Carter shook her head. "No. We saw no evidence of that. I think it would have increased his chances of detection too much."

"Daniel Jackson," said Teal'c.

Daniel's head snapped up. "I wasn't sleeping," he said defensively.

"When together we interrogated the others on this planet who had been taken by Loki, all remembered some aspect of the experience. Do you remember nothing?"

"Good point, Teal'c," said Hammond. "Doctor Jackson?"

"Oh, the four green globes, the buzzing around like insects," said Daniel.

"Then you remember," said Teal'c.

"No, I... I'm just repeating what those people said. I don't..." he put his fingers to his temples. "There's nothing like that in my head."

"But his memories are still all jumbled up there," Jack reminded the others. He thumped the table with his fist. "Damn that Loki! He probably screwed up Daniel's memory even more."

"Does anyone else remember an abduction experience?" Teal'c asked.

"Me?" said Carter. "No, I don't remember anything like that."

"Nor do I. Therefore, it is likely we have not been cloned."

"But Daniel doesn't remember," said Jack, "and yet he was cloned."

"All the people myself and Daniel Jackson spoke to remembered something of their experience. Perhaps Daniel Jackson's inability to recall is, as you say, due to his current memory problems."

"Or maybe Loki abducted a hell of a lot more people than we realise, because most of them never remembered anything."

"No, I think Teal'c is right," said Carter. "Loki never seemed concerned with erasing the memories of those he returned. I think he decided we weren't mentally advanced enough to bother with."

They debated it back and forth for a time, until General Hammond motioned to regain the floor. "Doctor Jackson, Colonel O'Neill; what did Thor say to you exactly, when he handed duplicate Daniel over to you?"

"Not much," said Daniel. "I remember him apologising for Loki's audacity. I was kind of in shock, actually."

Jack could elaborate further. "He said that, after further interrogation of Loki, Loki had revealed to him there was another clone--a mistake, he said. Loki had taken Daniel by mistake."

"What did he mean by that?" asked General Hammond.

"I assumed he meant that... I don't know, he accidentally took Daniel?"

"How can you accidentally abduct someone?"

"How should I know? Maybe he pressed the wrong button."

"Wait!" said Daniel.

"What is it-"

"Shh! Everyone." Daniel closed his eyes. "There's something," he muttered. "Something..."

Everyone waited nervously. Jack held himself still, so as not to let the slightest urge to fidget escape. Daniel's brow wrinkled and smoothed, and he bit into his lip like his fifteen year old counterpart.

"There was a night," he said slowly, "about three months ago... a little before Jack was abducted." He opened his eyes and looked at Jack. "I was over your place. I developed a migraine but you'd had a couple of beers and didn't want to risk driving me home, so you put me in your bed."

"Oh," said Jack.

"What is it?" said Carter.

"You're saying," Jack said to Daniel, "that you were in my bed... and Loki assumed it would be *me* in my bed, and he chose that moment to zap you up."

"Did you lose any time?" Carter asked. "From what Colonel O'Neill said, he'd lost the entire week that his duplicate had been in his place."

"I think someone would have noticed if a fifteen year old claiming to be me was wandering around the SGC," said Daniel.

"Right. I forgot."

"Now that you mention it, though, I did wake up at one point, feeling like I was in some sort of bad dream, but I must have gone straight back to sleep again."

"Perhaps Loki realised almost immediately that he had the wrong person," said Carter. "That he'd taken someone other than Colonel O'Neill. So he put you back then and there, rather than experiment further."

"And no one else," said Hammond, "has had any experiences like this."

Carter and Teal'c reiterated that they had not.

"Then it seems reasonable to assume, given Doctor Jackson's explanation for why he was taken, that Loki was telling the truth when he said he'd made no more."

Soon afterwards, they all staggered off to their respective quarters. At least, Jack and Daniel did. It had been a long, long day.

****

Jack awoke early, with a plan. Before stopping for breakfast, he made his way to the General's office, guessing that Hammond would be up. Hammond didn't sleep any better than Jack when there was an on-going situation to deal with.

He was right. Hammond was at his desk, coffee and croissants before him, hanging up the telephone.

"Sit down, Jack," said Hammond, dropping the 'Colonel' as he often did when they were alone. "I've just spoken to one of the SFs assigned to the surveillance of young Jack. He hasn't moved from the Thredman house all night."

"That's good," said Jack. "They *are* watching the front and the back?"

"Yes. And his bedroom window."

"Let's hope his suspicions haven't been aroused. Otherwise you'll need someone assigned to every door and window in the house in order to secure it."

"I don't plan to keep this up indefinitely. We need him brought in here as soon as possible."

"I was thinking about that last night," said Jack. "In between occasional bouts of sleep."

"Go ahead."

"There's one weakness that I, or rather, that Jack has." Jack shook his head to himself. "Kids," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"Jack's weakness. It's kids. Always has been, even before Charlie's death. I think we should let him meet Daniel."

"He's already met Doctor Jackson."

"No. I'm talking about Daniel junior. Kid Daniel. Loki's little mistake."

Hammond settled back into his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"At the moment," Jack continued, "Jack junior is extremely paranoid. He's regressed to the state where he's entirely lost touch with any comprehension of the true mission of the SGC. I've been trying to put myself in his place, and the way I'm seeing it is he's looking in the mirror and he's in an undeniably fifteen year old body with a whole lot of memories that shouldn't be there. Yet because those memories are influencing his point of view, and because at the age of thirty-seven or whatever his brain is at I could never have accepted there was such a thing as cloning, one thing will suggest itself. That he's been brainwashed. That he's in the right body, but something's fucked with his mind. *That* I could easily believe, if I was him."

"Ahem. Sorry to intrude." Daniel was framed in the partly open door.

"Come in, son," said Hammond.

Daniel slipped inside. "I couldn't help overhearing. Sorry."

Jack jerked his head to indicate it didn't matter, while Hammond explained, "Jack proposes taking your duplicate along with him when he goes to collect young Jack."

Daniel was instantly on the same page. Propping a hand on the back of Jack's chair, he said, "That could work. We'd be offering to include young Jack rather than coming across as secretive and authoritarian."

"We weren't secretive and authoritarian yesterday," protested Jack.

"To him, we probably were. 'We know you're having some problems, now get in the car...'"

Jack conceded the point.

"Have you spoken to your duplicate this morning?" Hammond asked Daniel.

Daniel continued to lean on Jack's chair. "Briefly."

"How does his memory seem?"

"Honestly, I can't really be sure. Given my own memory problems, I have a hard time recalling specifics of particular times, but as far as I can tell he hasn't regressed obviously from the point he was at yesterday."

"Where is he now?"

"Sam seemed happy to take charge of him. They're having breakfast right now."

"She thinks your clone is cute," said Jack.

"She thought your duplicate was cute, too," Daniel told him.

"She did?"

"Until he went all, 'That's *sir* to you, Major', on her."

Hammond's phone rang, and he picked it up. "Hammond. Yes?... stay on him, but be careful. Thank you, Major." As he put the phone down, he said, "Your duplicate is on the move, Jack."

"Through the front door?"

"Through the front door."

"Good. Doesn't sound like he suspects anything. Pray your men keep their distance, General. I don't want to screw up our chances of bringing him in willingly."

"How do you intend to approach him?"

"First, I need to speak to Matt Thredman," said Jack. "Then, providing I sense a good trust between him and Jack, I'm going to use him to set up a meeting. Somewhere public, so the clone won't be threatened more than he has to be. Then Daniel and I will swoop in, dismiss Thredman, and introduce kid Jack to kid Daniel. Then we'll explain everything."

"Doctor Jackson?"

"I agree with Jack's plan," said Daniel.

"Good. Make that call, Colonel."

****

Jack always kept his promises, especially to kids. And yes, people in their early twenties still counted as kids. So the second place they went to, after stopping off at Jack's house to pick up something, was to an optometrist's. Jack hung out in the car while Daniel took kid Daniel, dressed in his new clothes and looking not completely preppy thanks to the military bomber jacket he wore over the top, into the shop. A while later they came out.

"They've taken his prescription," said Daniel, getting back into the car, "and we can pick the finished glasses up on the way back."

"You okay, kid?" Jack asked the kid. He was climbing into the back seat, kneading at his forehead with one fist.

"A headache," he said.

"Want some Tylenol? Daniel, do you have any Tylenol?"

Daniel fished on the floor of the back seat and came up with a packet of Tylenol. The kid washed down a couple with the help of Daniel's water bottle.

Thredman had agreed to pull Jack out of school and meet at a well-known Mexican cafe. "Let's hope the little brat shows, and doesn't run off instead," said Jack, as Daniel began driving towards their destination.

"Does he know who he's going to be meeting?"

"I told Matt Thredman to be straight with him. Honesty is not only the best policy, it's the only policy when it comes to copies of me." Jack glanced in the back to check on the other Daniel, but the kid appeared to be asleep, his head curled into the crook of his arm. "You sure you gave him Tylenol, Daniel? Not Ultram, or Darvocet, or whatever else Fraiser has supplied to you in frequent and ample quantities over the years?"

"It was Tylenol, Jack."

"Because he's out. KO'd. No, don't look! Keep your eyes on the road."

Daniel aborted a glance over his shoulder. "He probably didn't sleep well. It wouldn't surprise me, given the circumstances."

Jack said softly into the back, "Hey, Daniel. Kid. You awake?" No response. Jack settled back into his seat. "So, the stuttering. Is that the fifteen year old vocal chords, or the twenty-something personality?"

"It could be either," said Daniel. "Can I ask you something?"

"If you turn right here," said Jack.

Daniel obeyed. "How do you feel about... about your younger version?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you look at him. Do you see yourself, or..."

"No," said Jack. "I don't really remember having that face, except from photographs. He feels more like a nephew, or something. Obviously there's things I know about him, that we share, but... he's got his own life now. We diverge. He's not me."

"I look his face, at Daniel's face, and see..." Daniel's mouth twisted. "At first, on Thor's ship, I didn't recognise him. Not until he said his name."

"If it makes you feel better, I didn't exactly recognise my duplicate when I first saw him."

"It's more than that. You see, while I've been trying to get back memories of my time at the SGC by reading mission reports and the like, I haven't exactly been eager to get back memories of my late childhood. But now it's all flooding back, whether I want it to or not. I wasn't... I guess I wasn't very happy at that age."

This was better than the 'I had my library cards so I was happy, Jack' of two nights ago. "School?" said Jack, knowing there was more to it, but not wanting to push.

"School, and... and everything. Just being generally alone was the worst, really; no parents, no siblings, no friends... it's hard at that age, even if you're naturally a loner, like I was. There's still something wired into you, a need for contact, a need to share something, even a simple exchange of words with someone other than a teacher or librarian."

"Your foster parents?"

"They were nice, it's just that I went through a few sets of them." Daniel braked for a set of lights. "Sorry. You don't need me talking about this, I'm pretty sure I remember telling you this stuff in the past."

"We've got to exercise your memory," said Jack. "I know you were in temporary care at first, while they were tracing your grandfather..."

"Yeah. Then when Nick didn't work out, they had to put me in a different temporary home until they could find a more permanent situation. Then the permanent home they found for me-"

"Green light," warned Jack.

"-well, those people were charged with neglect a couple of years later." Daniel stomped a little too hard on the accelerator as he took off. "I could look after myself, but the other kids they were fostering just ran crazy, all the time. Someone eventually noticed.

"Then there was another couple, who took off back to Italy, as was their perfect right considering they'd been fostering kids for many many years, but it did leave me without a home again. By the time I was fifteen, I was being placed in homes with troubled teens, because those were the only sorts of teens they generally had to deal with. When I was accepted into University two years ahead of my peer group, that was it. I was out of the system for good."

"Ten out of ten for recall," said Jack, but gently, not jokingly. He wouldn't joke about things like crappy pasts.

Soon afterwards, Daniel parked the car down the road from the cafe. "We're twenty minutes early," he said, looking at his watch. "So do I get to find out what you brought from your house yet?"

Jack picked up the plastic bag at his feet, and pulled out a photo album. "I figured he might be more convinced of our story if he could see some sort of photographic proof. His face to mine."

"Let me see."

"You've seen this stuff before."

But Daniel had already taken it from him. "I don't have that many photos of myself when I was younger," he said. "People's photograph albums are fascinating. They're an everyday example of how we like to make myths around ourselves." He opened the cover. "There's no baby photos."

"No, the photos of me up to the age of twelve are in another album."

"I remember. Of course, you wouldn't need those."

"You're not going to look through the whole thing," said Jack.

"I'll be quick."

Anything, Jack decided, if it would help Daniel's memory. He checked on kid Daniel in the back. The kid hadn't moved. He breathed slowly and deeply.

"Sam's right," said Daniel.

"What about?"

"You were cute when you were young."

"And I'm not cute now?"

Daniel looked at him, and grinned brilliantly. "Honestly, Jack. You don't really want to know whether I think you're cute."

"Huh," said Jack, pretending to sulk. "Fine."

Daniel scanned a couple more pages.

"You were pretty cute, when you were young," offered Jack.

Daniel glanced into the back seat. "You think so? None of the girls at my school seemed to think so."

"Like you took any notice of girls."

"You're right. I didn't have much time for girls." Flick, flick. "This ends at 'Jack, age 19, with his new/old car'."

"There's a bunch of loose photos in an envelope at the back. No, don't pull them out. We'd better go in."

Jack stuffed the album back into the bag, then they tried to rouse kid Daniel, eventually succeeding somewhat. The kid sleep-walked from the car into the cafe after them. Jack had a strange feeling that something was not right.

"Where am I?" said kid Daniel, looking around him. They told him, but he didn't seem satisfied. "Wh-What am I doing here? I've go-, I've got to get to class."

"No, you don't have classes anymore, remember?" said Daniel. He waved towards a corner table. "Come on, let's sit here."

"But-"

"Daniel," said Jack to the kid. "Take a seat. We'll sort this out." The kid obeyed, and Jack continued. "You remember our conversation this morning? Me Jack, and Daniel here, and you, all decided to come into town. First we took you to the optometrists, and now we've brought you here to meet someone. Remember?"

Kid Daniel's face showed struggle. "I... I remember the opto-to-tometrists. Now that you mention it. I... it's hard."

Big Daniel asked the question that had clearly been bursting to come out since the first 'where am I?' "How old are you, Daniel?"

"I'm nineteen. Di-did I lose my glasses? I cuh, I cuh, I can't afford to lose another pair."

Yesterday he'd been twenty-three. Now he was just nineteen. Four years of memory loss in less than a day. Or even in just thirty minutes--Jack suspected it had happened between the optometrists and here. What if they hadn't woken the kid up? Would he have lost more of his memory? Glancing at Daniel, he saw that unfamiliar panicky look. He'd always wondered what it would take to get Daniel to panic. Was it concern for the kid, or was he frightened of coming face to face with his past again? Maybe a bit of both.

Jack looked at his watch. Kid Jack could be here any minute. They had very little time to try and patch up kid Daniel's memory.

Fortunately, the others were late, and also fortunately, the fact that kid Daniel had been with them just prior to his memory degrading seemed to make it easier for them to reinforce the tentative memories of the last couple of days in his mind. By the time kid Jack arrived with the former Major Thredman, he seemed somewhat consoled.

"Hello, Thredman," said Jack, rising to shake Thredman's hand.

"Sir. I mean, O'Neill." Thredman walked with a cane. He was in his mid-thirties, yet shuffled like an old man due to the wounds he'd sustained in the off-world attack. "Hello, Doctor Jackson."

"Hello, Matt," said Daniel.

Kid Jack hung back, eyeing them all suspiciously.

"Look, Thredman," said Jack, "you know what the SGC's like. We can't explain to you what's going on, but we need to talk with young Jack."

"I understand, sir. I'll just go sit over there," said Thredman, pointing to a table across the room.

"Order up. It's on us," Jack told him. "And you don't need to call me sir."

"Why can't he stay?" said kid Jack.

"Don't worry. He'll just be over there," said Jack. "Come on, sit down. Order whatever you like."

Kid Jack sat down next to kid Daniel. "Who are you?" he said to the kid.

"I'm Daniel."

"What, we've got two Jacks, and two Daniels? Sounds like a party. Where's the mixers?"

Jack sighed. "Let me tell you a story about my young friend Daniel here. Two nights ago, Big Daniel and I-"

"Big Daniel?" said Big Daniel.

"It's easier that way. Big Daniel and I were visited by our old buddy Thor. The Asgard. Does that name ring a bell?"

Kid Jack only glared at him.

Big Daniel butted in. "Did you happen to read in the newspapers yesterday about a police officer who saw two people get 'beamed up' by a possible UFO?"

Kid Jack looked puzzled. "Yeah, I remember reading that."

Daniel leaned his elbows on the table and hunched his shoulders forward, in a posture of confidentiality. He dropped his voice to match. "Well, we're going to let you in on a big secret, and I hope you won't tell anyone, but that was us. Trust me, Jack and I do not enjoy being beamed across the galaxy at the whim of self-styled superior races, but we like it even less when we arrive to find that one of their maverick operators has made yet another clone of one of us."

"A clone? Oh, come on." But kid Jack was looking more receptive.

Despite popular opinion, Jack did have a good understanding of when to shut up. He ceded the floor to Daniel and signalled a waiter.

****

Kid Jack didn't buy it, but he had managed to listen without making too many smart-mouth comments. Possibly that was because he was consuming a huge quantity of tacos, but whatever.

"Okay," he said, at the end of Daniel's explanation. "So you're saying, I'm not a fifteen year old with weirdass memories of someone else's life--I'm actually that someone else, in a fifteen year old's body."

"Think hard," Daniel implored him. "I know the threads are all getting lost in there, but somewhere-"

Kid Jack snorted. "It's just ridiculous."

"Take a look through this," said Jack, throwing across the photo album.

"What's this?" But he began looking through it. "Looks like me. Oh look," he said, pointing to a picture. "So I do have a mom."

"You did," said Jack. "Mom and Dad died a few years ago."

"I suppose Sara's dead, and Charlie, too."

"Y-you know a Sarah?" asked kid Daniel.

"I married a Sara. If I can believe my memories."

"I have a f-fr-friend called Sarah. Only they told me she's dead now."

"Why am I not surprised?" said kid Jack.

Jack filled him in. "Sara's still alive, Jack, but we split up a long long time ago. Charlie... there was a terrible accident."

"It's all right," said kid Jack, shaking his head sadly. "I figured it wasn't my memory, anyway." He flicked over a couple more pages. "Hey, these photos look familiar. This writing in it, it's mom's."

"Yes."

Kid Jack continued slowly through the album, kid Daniel looking over his shoulder. "You're nosy, aren't you?" he said to kid Daniel, but when the kid backed away, he added, "No, it's all right. You can look."

Hammond had made it clear they had to entice Jack back with them, otherwise more extreme methods would be used. Jack prayed that kid Daniel was beginning to work the Daniel Jackson magic. It had already saved one O'Neill, a long time ago.

Kid Jack came to the end, the frown on his face having increased once he came to the photos age sixteen and upwards. "Look in the envelope at the back," Jack told him. "They keep going."

Those photos were shaken out, and kid Jack went through them, placing each on the table as he finished with it, where it was picked up by kid Daniel and examined. Mostly Jack in various phases of his Air Force career, with only a couple of candid shots. A clear progression, through the years, the lines appearing gradually on his face, his hair growing duller, and then turning grey.

Kid Jack placed the last photo, from two years ago, taken on some off-world mission or another, on the table. The next item in the progression was, obviously, Jack's own self, sitting here in a Mexican food cafe.

The kid said nothing; nor did he look up.

Kid Daniel spoke. "It's true."

"Photos can be faked," said kid Jack, unconvincingly.

"I've done research on f-fuh-fakes, the archaeological world and the world of rare books are f-full of f-fuh-fakes. The quality a-a-and vuh-variety of these ph-photographs, p-partic-ticularly of the older ones, the camera types, the different papers, th-the yellowing-"

"Okay. Calm down, kid," said kid Jack. "So it's co-incidence. He happens to have looked like me, when he was a kid."

"When are you going to get it through that thick skull of yours?" said Jack. "Our explanation is the only one that makes sense, and you know it."

"Jack," said Daniel, in his best 'you're being undiplomatic' voice, before addressing kid Jack. "I understand you feel you have little reason to trust us, but you know that something's not right with you, and I don't see what you have to lose by accepting our help. At the moment I'd imagine you're very confused and frightened; certainly my counterpart is. What we want to do is bring you back to the SGC with us; we have all manner of resources to call upon there, not just the Asgard, but the Tollan, the Tok'ra--all these races with advanced technology and scientific knowledge, who might be in a position to provide a solution."

Kid Jack shook his head, but more in confusion than denial.

"If you don't want to do it for yourself," said Jack, indicating kid Daniel, "spare a thought for him. He's even worse off. He's lost--how many years, Daniel?"

"Nineteen."

"Nineteen years of his life. If we have the both of you, together, the thing that's causing all this to go on might be so much easier to pick up."

"Jack's right," said Daniel. "If we have some point of comparison, we could solve this much sooner."

Kid Jack looked at kid Daniel. "What do you think?"

"They've been honest with me."

Kid Jack thumped the table in frustration. "I don't know. I don't know what to do. This is driving me crazy."

"Jack, please," said Big Daniel. "We want to make this better."

"How could it be worse than it already is?" added Jack.

Kid Jack looked at kid Daniel again. Perfect timing, as kid Daniel was looking all big-eyed and imploring at him. Jack just knew kid Jack couldn't resist that, any more than he himself could.

"All right! I'll do it. Happy?"

Jack felt like kissing both Daniels. They'd double-teamed kid Jack like pros. Trying not to let the relief show on his face, he said, "Let's go talk to Matt Thredman, explain to him what we're doing. You'll want to pick up some clothes and things."

Matt Thredman was happy to release the kid into the SGC custody, despite minimal explanation. The advantage of having placed kid Jack with someone who knew the mysterious ways of the SGC had never been more apparent.

****

Back on base, the kids were shuffled off for more tests, in the unlikely chance that their further memory losses--Jack was apparently now thirty-four--had manifested itself in their blood or brains.

General Hammond congratulated Jack and Daniel on achieving their objective, and informed them that, although they had still to reach Thor, the Tok'ra had sent them a message that Jacob and Selmak would pay them a visit some time that evening. "In the meantime," he said, "the duplicates are to be in the custody of at least one member of SG-1 at all times."

"Babysitting duty," said Jack. "Don't worry, sir," he added, with a meaningful glance at Daniel, "I'm used to it."

After Fraiser had finished with them, Daniel and Jack took the kids to the guest rooms. Kid Jack set up his Playstation--Jack supposed he sublimated his military instincts into the games, or something--while kid Daniel collected some books from Daniel's lab and seemed happy to curl up in a chair nearby.

"We'll do two-player," said kid Jack to Jack, handing him a second control. "This is an easy one. The object is to basically shoot the crap out of anything that moves."

"I can get with that," said Jack. "Cool shirt, by the way." Kid Jack wore a faded Ramones t-shirt with tour dates from 1981 on the back. "Where did you find that old dinosaur?"

"Fifty cents at a garage sale. I can't stand the music the kids of today listen to. Boom-boom-boom and 'bitches they-come-they-go, Monday thru Sunday yo', I mean, what kind of rhyme is 'yo'? It's bullshit."

"What is that?"

"Eminem."

"Oh. Him. I am in complete agreement."

"You have no idea how much high school sucks," kid Jack informed him. "If what you're saying is right, and I'm your goddamned clone, I'd like to know whose wise idea it was to send me back to fucking high school."

"Your wise idea," said Jack smugly.

Kid Jack pursed his lips, then proceeded to beat the shit out of him at Playstation combat. It was a little demoralising. After three thrashings in a row, Jack escaped to his office, leaving Daniel to babysit. While he was grimacing over paperwork, Teal'c came in.

"You have returned," said Teal'c.

"We have," said Jack.

"General Hammond said your duplicate came willingly."

"Well, willingly is stretching it a bit," said Jack. "Daniel and Daniel double-teamed him with their reasonable-unreasonableness, and their dual imploring expressions--you know the one, the 'pleeease, Jack'."

"How is Daniel Jackson coping with his duplicate?"

"He's doing fine. Mostly fine. I think he's not sure how to act around his clone, whether he should be brotherly, or parental, or disinterested..."

"And you are not experiencing this confusion with your own duplicate?"

Jack shook his head. "No. Me and my duplicate had time to sort things out the first time. He feels to me like a distant relation--someone you share blood with, but he's your father's brother's daughter's kid, you only see him once a year during Christmas, and all you can do is comment on how he's grown."

"Hmm," said Teal'c. He sounded disbelieving.

"Look, Daniel's probably going stir-crazy up there, with that Playstation screaming at him. Do you want to take over babysitting duties?"

"Where would I find them?"

"In the guest quarters... know what, I'll come with you." Jack felt like stretching his legs after being stuck in a car half the day, and decided to bring Teal'c up to date on the way.

They arrived in the guest quarters to discover Jack had abandoned the Playstation and was roaming restlessly around the room, with both Daniels observing him covertly from behind their books.

"Cool, you've brought the big guy," said kid Jack. "If we go and get that girl I remember you hanging with, we can play 3-a-side basketball. I know you've got a court."

"My knees don't do basketball," said Jack.

"Oh, come on, Jack, it might be fun," said Daniel.

"You want to play basketball?"

Daniel put his book aside. "I haven't had time to get to the gym for a few days. I'm feeling a little... tight."

Jack decided, in the interests of Daniel's 'tightness', that perhaps basketball was a good idea. "Know where Carter is?" he asked Teal'c.

"I believe she is in her lab. I will find her, and meet you at the basketball court."

"Thanks, buddy. Jack," he said to his duplicate, "you won't be able to get up to the court by yourself. Security and all that. We'll just go change and pick you guys up here, okay?"

"Cool. Come on, Danny," said kid Jack to kid Daniel. "Put the book down."

Kid Daniel was shaking his head. "No, no I don't play."

"Come on. Anyone can bounce a basketball."

"Not me."

"Then all you have to do is throw it to me."

"I cuh, I can't throw it, either."

Big Daniel hovered in the doorway, watching kid Daniel worriedly. "It's okay," he said to the kid. "You used to throw a basketball around with the kids in the Gruber home. Remember? You can do this. It'll be fun."

Jack knew what the problem was likely to be. Kid Daniel, with his intelligence, his glasses, his skinny frame... he was the sort of kid who always got picked last on the team, who sat on the sidelines the whole game, never able to find out what all the fun was about.

"You can be on my team," wheedled kid Jack. He pointed to Big Daniel and Jack. "Look at them! We can take them."

"I'll just let you down," said kid Daniel, but he stood up. "A-a-an I doh-doh-, I don't have any clothes."

"Borrow some of mine," said kid Jack.

Big Jack and Big Daniel left them to it.

"He'll be all right," said Daniel firmly as they walked down the corridor, more to himself than to Jack. "Once someone actually lets him play, he'll probably even enjoy it."

"You didn't get much of a chance, at school."

"I wasn't adverse to sports," said Daniel. "When I was younger, I played the usual ball games, tag, etcetera... after my parents died, I just didn't have much energy for a while, and then I threw myself into study and all those sinful things that the jocks won't forgive you for... how about you?"

"I was pretty good at sports," mused Jack. "I liked to be active. Didn't like to train, though. Practice bored the hell out of me. Sports are supposed to be fun, a chance to unwind. Unless you're getting paid for it--and I was never going to be good enough to get paid for it--what's the point? They shoved all that stuff about having pride in your school down my throat until I gagged on it all and just quit."

"So you weren't a jock."

"Hell, no. I hated the jocks." Jack jerked his thumb back the way they'd come. "That's what I hated about them. They wouldn't give kids like young Daniel--like you--a chance. The jocks were always so pumped up on their own achievements, like they were some sort of divine beings. You know how I feel about people with delusions of divinity."

"That's interesting. I've always seen you as pretty competitive."

"I just know what to be competitive about," said Jack. "Like this game. We're going to show those kids!"

****

Kid Daniel, being half a head shorter, didn't exactly fit into kid Jack's clothes, except for the shoes. The NBA shirt he wore hung halfway to his knees, and the shorts halfway to his ankles. Jack knew the fashion these days was baggy, but... he tried not to laugh.

"You guys had better start praying," Jack said to the kids when they arrived at the court. "Cause we're not giving any quarter, you hear?"

Kid Jack threw the ball at him--hard. Jack only just got his hands up in time. "Maybe you'd better get some practise in," he said. "Teal'c!" he shouted, as Carter and Teal'c entered. "You can play, right?"

"I am familiar with the rules," said Teal'c.

"Then you're on our team."

"That kid is so pushy," Jack complained to Daniel. He noticed Fraiser had come along. Instead of a stethoscope around her neck, she had a whistle. "What are you doing, doc?"

"I'm off duty, so I volunteered to referee. And I want to see your butt kicked by your teenage duplicate. Sir."

"You wish," said Jack. "Come on, Carter, you're with us. What are you like as a basketballer?"

"I haven't played for a while, sir," said Carter, "but I'm sure I remember the fundamentals."

Kid Jack outlined the schoolyard 3-a-side rules for them, and then Teal'c and Jack squared off as Fraiser threw up the ball.

Teal'c won it, and passed it off to kid Jack, who'd gotten away from Jack. Damn! The kid took it all the way to the end and tossed it in the basket. "Two points for us!" he announced.

"Yeah, yeah. Daniel," Jack directed, "it's your turn in the middle."

Daniel faced off against Teal'c. As the ball went up, he got a hand on it, but Teal'c did too, and the ball skittered off to the side, down Kid Daniel's throat. The kid grabbed at it reflexively, and stopped.

"Pass it!" yelled kid Jack, breaking away once again from Jack. Kid Daniel obeyed, and kid Jack swooped it up with one hand, bouncing it while holding his other hand out to keep Jack away.

"Come on, you little tyke," taunted Jack. "Take me on."

Kid Jack passed it to Teal'c. Daniel intercepted it, passed it to Carter, who took it down the other end for a basket.

"Two all!" announced Fraiser.

At first, Big Jack's team appeared to have the upper hand, but at the end of a hard-played hour, the kids and Teal'c had gained the ascendancy. Jack found himself strangely pleased with kid Jack; the opposition team's total was almost entirely due to kid Jack and Teal'c, but kid Jack kept including the under-confident kid Daniel in the game, passing off to him, verbally encouraging him, hi-fiving him every time he had a hand in one of their baskets. The guy might be an arrogant little S.O.B., but he was a good leader. It dawned on Jack that people said the same thing about himself. Except for the 'little' part.

Jack admitted to himself he was playing a touch light on, wanting the kids to win. He thought Carter and Daniel might be doing the same. Seeing the look of joy and excitement on the face of kid Daniel as he participated, somewhat clumsily but wholeheartedly, made Jack warm all over. Feeling good was more important than winning.

Eventually he called game over. "You guys can keep playing, but I'm finished."

"Then I declare the winners to be young Jack's team," said Fraiser, and tooted on her whistle some more, like she hadn't wielded it enough throughout the game already.

Kid Jack high-fived Teal'c, then thumped kid Daniel enthusiastically. "How about that, huh? We creamed them."

"I wouldn't say 'creamed'," said Jack.

"Pureed, slaughtered, wiped the floor-"

"Another five minutes, and we'd have had you."

"We whipped your asses."

Jack grinned despite himself. "I was never that annoying," he assured his teammates.

Carter and Daniel exchanged looks, but wisely decided not to comment.

****

Jacob dropped by, as he'd indicated, that evening after dinner.

"It's hard to credit the arrogance of the Asgard that did this," he said, looking at the two duplicates.

Coming from a Tok'ra, that was rich.

"To be fair," Daniel explained, "Loki was an outcast. These weren't sanctioned experiments."

"You'd better tell Selmak and I all about it," said Jacob. "Right from the beginning. We received your message about Jack's duplicate being cured of the physical problems he was experiencing, but it wasn't very detailed."

Carter and Daniel explained the story, while Jack cracked his knuckles, and the kid versions of Jack and Daniel played endless unwinnable games of tic-tac-toe. Jack was jealous. He couldn't play tic-tac-toe in a meeting. Neither should kid Jack, either, only it seemed his duplicate could get away with such behaviour, just because he was in the body of a kid.

Jack concentrated instead on trying to dislocate his thumb by wriggling it. *Crack*. Nearly.

A hand imposed itself over his. "Jack."

"Want to play tic-tac-toe?" he whispered to Daniel. Daniel smelled nice. Not that he didn't smell nice usually, but they'd all had showers after the basketball game and Daniel had recently acquired some particularly enticing orangey spicy soap. He'd have to filch it while Daniel had his back turned next time.

"No, I do not want to play tic-tac-toe," murmured Daniel, releasing his hand. "If you know how to play it, then it's unwinnable."

"How about scissors-paper-stone?"

"Doctor Jackson," General Hammond began, and Daniel's attention was commandeered once again.

Jack slithered his chair a little closer to kid Jack. No one was paying him any attention, they were all busy speculating on the mechanism of memory decay in the duplicates and how it could be fixed, and he had no opinion to offer. "Hey," he said to his duplicate. "That game is unwinnable, you know."

"We know."

"How about I challenge you to a bout of scissors-paper-stone?"

"Okay," said the kid. "Ready? One, two, three."

The kid had a stone; Jack had scissors. Then the kid had scissors, while Jack had paper. Then Jack had a stone, and the kid had paper. Three losses in a row. Damn.

"One, two, three," they murmured together, and Jack produced a stone again, while the kid produced a finger pointing straight at him. "What's that?"

"A gun," said kid Jack.

"There's no gun."

"There is now."

"Cool. Stone smashes gun. I win."

"Shit," said kid Jack. "Okay. One, two, three." A gun again.

Jack had paper. "Paper covers gun," he said.

"No, gun shoots a hole through paper."

"I don't think so."

"This is a P-90. Paper does not cover it."

"Looks like a .22 to me. Paper no problemo."

"Okay. Rematch." This time, the kid produced a stone, while Jack stuck with his paper.

Cool. Jack two; the kid three. He was gaining ground.

"Use rain," Daniel whispered in his ear.

"Huh?"

"Rain. It pulps paper, wears away rock, rusts gun and scissors."

"There's no rain," Jack whispered back.

"There was no gun, either."

Daniel had a point. Jack turned back. "One, two, three." Then he waggled his fingers at kid Jack's gun.

"What's that?" said kid Jack.

"Rain. Rain rusts gun."

"Oh, for crying out loud."

"You started it. One, two, three. Sorry, kid, but rain also pulps paper." Four vs three. Better and better.

Kid Jack consulted with kid Daniel for a few moments, before signalling he was ready to start again. Jack figured between them they'd come up with something to counter rain, so, on three, produced paper. Kid Jack held his hand, fingers spread, palm facing.

"What the hell is that?" said Jack. "A starfish?"

"It's a sun. Sun degrades paper."

"Fine. One, two, three." The kid gave him sun again. Jack grinned, holding his fist backwards. "Gotcha. Moon! Moon eclipses sun."

Beside him, Daniel burst out laughing. He put his head down in his arms and shivered with mirth.

"Daniel Jackson," said Teal'c, surprised.

The kids were laughing too, but all attention was on Daniel, who had never lost it like that before, particularly not in a meeting.

"Doctor Jackson?" said Hammond. "Colonel O'Neill?" he added.

"Me?"

Daniel, his face still buried, waved a hand. "I'm fine. Sorry."

Hammond continued to regard Daniel, his obvious concern mirrored on Carter's and Teal'c's faces. "Perhaps we should reconvene tomorrow morning," he said.

Daniel lifted his head, his good humor abruptly dissipating. "What about them?" he said, rubbing his eyes with one hand, pointing to the duplicates with the other. "Daniel lost four years in twenty-four hours. He can't afford to wait another twenty-four hours."

Selmak spoke. "We can offer, as we did last time, to put them in stasis, until such time as we can come up with a more permanent solution."

"Freeze me?" said kid Jack. "Like Han Solo?"

"Don't you remember, we had this conversation last time," said Carter, but it was clear Jack had no recollection.

"I don't want to be frozen," he insisted, even when Selmak explained that the procedure was not like cryogenics as he understood it.

"And like I said last time," murmured Daniel, "if I have to throw you through the goddamned wormhole myself..."

"What do you want to do?" Hammond addressed kid Daniel.

It was clear kid Daniel had been swayed by kid Jack's fear. "I... I don't know. Maybe... maybe we could see, tomorrow. Maybe I wo-won't lose any more memories."

"And maybe you'll wake up a five year old," said Daniel, all humor gone. "You both can't just hope this is going to go away. That somehow your memories are going to stall at a point appropriate with your bodies. You have to make a decision."

"What would you do?" said kid Jack to Jack.

"Me? I'd..." Daniel was glaring at him. "What? You want me to lie to them? I don't know what I would do! What would you do?"

"I'd opt for stasis," said Carter, as of course she would.

"Daniel?"

Daniel looked unhappy. "You're right. I just don't know what I'd do. I would hope someone would have more sense than me, and would force me to co-operate. I mean, Jack, when it came down to this last time, I swore I'd drag you kicking and screaming through the wormhole. And I would." He looked at the duplicates. "I would. You've got until tomorrow morning to make your minds up, but that's all I'm giving you."

"Hey, I came here voluntarily," said kid Jack.

"I'm sorry, but this is stupid. You wouldn't refuse surgery under anaesthesia if you had cancer or something--this is the same idea. You'd just be put to sleep for a while." Daniel looked around the table. "I would do it. If it came down to that, I've made up my mind, and I would do it." He stared back at kid Daniel again. "Please."

"Okay," said kid Daniel.

"No!"

"Hey. Settle down," Jack told his protesting duplicate. "It's his decision. Maybe it'll knock some sense into you."

"Danny, you can't let them do this. It's not safe. It can't be safe."

Jacob had switched with Selmak. "Before anyone gets too excited, we have to go back and get things ready. This will take some