Convergence and Coincidence

Sequel to Convergence

by LJ

Stargate, vaguely season 7? aka Danny is no longer ascended

 

 

Part One

 

PX3-756 was a planet like countless others: trees as far as the eye could see. Which was not far given the dense undergrowth.

Jack O’Neill sighed. It was one of those boring filler missions where nothing was going to happen. Daniel would get excited about some rocks, Carter would take endless samples of soil and whatnot to analyze back on Earth, and he and Teal’c would just hang out near the ‘gate and make sure things stayed quiet. Boring, true, but it made him appreciate the excitement of other missions. Sometimes you just had to sit back and let the boredom soak in, he told himself, or saving the world would get pointless.

He stood to stretch his legs and decided to see what Daniel was up to. The...thing he was examining wasn’t too far away from the Stargate, which made everyone happy. The further from the ‘gate they went sometimes equaled how much trouble they’d get into. And now that they had Daniel back, he wasn’t about to let something – or someone – take him away again.

He left Teal’c at the ‘gate and crossed the several yards to where Daniel stood, taking copious notes on whatever it was on the...thing (he’d have to come up with a better word for it) he was staring at. "Hey, Danny."

Daniel jumped a little. "Jeez, Jack. What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack? I didn’t even hear you coming."

Jack smiled; this was SOP for Daniel Jackson, to become so entirely engrossed in his rocks that he completely shut out the rest of the world. "Sorry," he said with little in the way of apology in the tone of his voice. "Whatcha got?"

"Well," said Daniel, and Jack automatically knew that his friend was about to go into lecture mode. He held up a hand. "Just the short version, okay?"

Daniel smiled. "Short version. Right. Um, it’s supposed to be some kind of device, but I’m not sure what its purpose is. The inscription here –" He pointed to a spot somewhere near the middle of the short obelisk. "This says something about returning to points of convergence or joining. And here..." He pointed to another spot. "This talks about ‘shared history’. And this symbol means ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’." He paused. "I think."

"You think?"

Daniel shrugged. "I’m not entirely clear on that part. I’ll cross-reference it when we get back home."

"Any idea what it might do?" Jack asked.

"Not a clue."

Jack sighed again; alien doohickeys without instruction manuals were always trouble. So much for a boring mission, he told himself, but before he could complete the thought, Samantha Carter returned, bags of dirt and gravel in hand. "I’m done with the soil survey, sir," she said formally and then looked at the two of them. "I take it Daniel found something interesting as usual."

"Oh, yeah," said Jack. "Yet another alien doohickey."

"Doohickey, sir?" She said this with a smile. It was one that he was quite familiar with. It said: ‘yet another attempt by Jack O’Neill to avoid proper scientific terminology’.

"Yeah, a doohickey. A gadget. A thingamabob. Daniel called it a ‘device’."

"Understood." She stepped towards the device and examined it briefly from her spot beside Daniel. "Any ideas, Daniel?"

"Nope. Just something about points of convergence, shared history and souls. You?"

Carter squinted at the device a second time. "Not off hand, no, but –"

Her reply was cut short by a sudden vibration in the ground. Losing her balance, she pitched forward and grabbed a hold of the device to steady herself. Jack and Daniel did the same. After a moment, the tremor ended and they looked at each other, and then back to the Stargate, where Teal’c stood, concerned for his teammates. "Everyone okay?" asked Jack.

Daniel nodded, as did Carter.

"Good. We about done here, then?"

Daniel looked back at the device with a wistful expression on his face. "Yeah, just give me a moment," he said, reaching down to pick up his journal and pen, which had been dropped during the tremor as he grabbed for something solid to hold on to.

"Great," said Jack. "I’ll meet you back at the ‘gate in five minutes, all right?"

Daniel simply nodded and returned his attention to the device, eager to finish his transcription.

 

If ever there was a miracle, Jack told himself, it was the fact that Daniel was finished and ready to go in those five minutes. He loved the man like a brother, but Daniel-time and reality-time rarely met. Normally five minutes turned into ten, or half an hour, and while he grumbled about it most of the time, it was altogether too easy to forgive Daniel for the transgression. Unless they were under attack or something.

"All right, kids, back to Earth," Jack said. "Carter, do us the honors, wouldja?" He gestured to the DHD with the hand not firmly attached to his P-90. She dialed them home and after a few moments, the wormhole was established. Looking back on it, Jack would always be certain that there should have been something for him to pick up on, something weird or different that would have told him that this would not be their usual trip home.

But as it happened, there was nothing that could have prepared them.

When Jack opened his eyes, expecting to see the inside of the gate room at the SGC, he was first disappointed.

Then he was concerned.

Concern was followed by confusion.

And then he was, to be quite honest, scared.

This was definitely not the SGC.

He looked around suddenly and saw Daniel and Carter a few yards off, but something wasn’t right. And then it hit him: they weren’t dressed in their BDUs. Carter was in a fancy, old-fashioned dress with lots of tiny buttons down the front and a frilly hat with a feather on her head. Her hair was suddenly long – he assumed it was long – and pulled up under the hat like a Gibson girl. To top it all off, she had lacey gloves on her hands.

Daniel was in equally foreign clothing, but much simpler and more universal: dark pants, dark jacket, lighter-colored shirt, and a hat, the bastard child of a bowler and a cowboy hat. Lightweight boots completed the late-Western look. A man in similar but much fancier clothing stood beside the two of them, but Jack didn’t recognize him; he seemed to be speaking to Carter, but she simply stared at him in confusion. Daniel was staring at the man as well, but there was a light of growing comprehension on his face.

It took Jack only a moment to cross the street – street? It was a well-tread dirt path – and join them. Daniel and Carter turned to him and he realized that he, too, was decked out a bit differently than usual at their look. He glanced down at himself and realized that he was in well-worn jeans – well, they looked like jeans, but the cut and style was not his usual – and a heavy plaid shirt under a courderoy jacket.

He sighed. "Okay, Danny, what button did you push this time?"

 

Meanwhile, at the SGC, Teal’c and three people who certainly looked like Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter and Dr. Jackson emerged from the wormhole and were greeted cordially by General Hammond. "Welcome home, SG-1. Hopefully a quiet trip this time," said Hammond over the PA system.

At the sound of the booming voice, Teal’c’s three companions looked up in surprise. Teal’c frowned, noticing their reactions. "What is wrong, Colonel O’Neill?" he asked of his nearest teammate.

O’Neill turned to him with a look of utter terror, a look that was copied on Jackson and Carter’s faces. Carter was the first to faint, uttering a quiet, ladylike "Mon Dieu!" before she went down, soon followed by a "Dear Lord!" from Jackson, who also fainted.

O’Neill proved to be of slightly hardier stuff. As General Hammond ordered medics to the gate room, O’Neill continued to stand, despite his shaking. Just before the door opened to let in the emergency medics with their stretchers, he crossed himself – an act Teal’c had seen occasionally in movies and on TV and knew, thanks to Daniel Jackson, that it was part of O’Neill’s religious heritage. Then he uttered exactly four words, all but one unfamiliar to Teal’c:

"Jayzus, Mary and Joseph!"

TBC