The alien was short, gray, and – not surprisingly – spoke English. But then, if you believed all the B-movies they showed on Saturday nights, all the aliens and monsters spoke English. And this was definitely an alien.

"Do not worry, O’Neill," said the alien. "No one will know the difference." If these aliens could have had evil smirks, then this one would be smirking like the evilest of them all. But his weird little mouth was way too small. Still, he was sure the alien was smirking at him.

There was a bright light and three strange green balls of energy floated above him.

And then there was nothing but darkness.

Jonathan O’Neill sat straight up, gasping from the bizarre nightmare. What the hell had that been about? Little gray aliens? Yeah, right. Aliens attacking high school kids in Minnesota...

Actually, that did sound like the plot of a horror movie.

He took a deep breath and then looked around him.

Wait a minute.

Something wasn’t right.

 

The knock on the door was hesitant. That ruled out a good ninety percent of the base, General Hammond surmised, and decided that it was most likely one of the civilians.

And that meant it was almost certainly Dr. Jackson.

Hammond sighed. Jackson rarely spoke to him alone; usually he was in the presence of his SG-1 colleagues. That meant that something serious was the matter.

"Come in."

Well, he’d been right on one count – it was Jackson – but he wasn’t alone. Major Carter and Teal’c were with him, too. "Dr. Jackson, Major Carter," said Hammond, "Teal’c." The Jaffa nodded at the acknowledgement, but the other two looked nervous. Hammond waited a moment, but Jack O’Neill did not follow them in. Teal’c closed the door behind him as the human contingent moved forward. "SG-1 seems to be missing its leader," Hammond finally said.

Jackson and Carter exchanged a brief glance. "Yes, sir," said Carter. "Actually that seems to be our problem, sir."

 

It was a cool house, Jonathan admitted to himself, but it was weird. There were all these...things he didn’t recognize. And things he did recognize didn’t look right. Like the fridge. The stove. The TV – which he had finally managed to turn on. Even the phone looked a little weird – and there was this little thing next to it that talked sometimes. There had been three calls so far, and each time he jumped – first at the sound of the phone ringing, and then at a male voice that reminded him of his father, which said something about not being home and the caller should leave a message. And then some other voice would start talking.

"Hey, I’m not home right now, or maybe I am and I don’t want to talk to you. Anyway, leave a message after the beep."

"Sir? It’s Carter. We need to talk about the topography of PX3-393 before we gate out. Hopefully you’re already on your way to the mountain and I just missed you. I’ll try your cell."

Breakfast was simple: there was some milk – not much; whoever actually lived here needed to go shopping, and some of the other stuff in the fridge was starting to go the way of an experiment he’d done in Biology I last year – and he’d found some cereal in the cupboard. Fruit Loops. Not bad.

"Hey, I’m not home right now, or maybe I am and I don’t want to talk to you. Anyway, leave a message after the beep."

"Jack? It’s Daniel. Uh. We’re sorta wondering where you are. Sam really wants to talk to you about the lay of the land – we’ve got some new readings to go over, and I gotta admit they’re making me a bit nervous, too. You’re not answering your cell and you never called Sam back, so we’re starting to, you know, um, worry. Anyway, call us back ASAP. And if you’re sick or something, you know, Dr. Fraiser would be happy to make a house call. See you later."

He washed the bowl and the spoon and put them away. He thought maybe the machine next to the sink was a dishwasher, but he wasn’t sure. Like everything else, it had a weird, almost scifi look to it, but then again, he could be wrong about that. His mom didn’t like dishwashers, and didn’t see the need for one for just the three of them.

"Hey, I’m not home right now, or maybe I am and I don’t want to talk to you. Anyway, leave a message after the beep."

"O’Neill. You have not responded to our prior inquiries. If you do not respond, we must report your absence to the General. Your compliance would be appreciated. Major Carter will attempt to reach you on your cellular phone again. I hope you did not overexert yourself during our training yesterday. I did give you sufficient warning that Jaffa techniques are not usually appropriate for Tau’ri of your years."

None of the voices were familiar, and that last one had been downright creepy.

Was the guy who lived here in the military? The last voice had said something about a general, and a major, and training techniques. The first two had talked about topography. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost say they were talking about some kind of mission. Like James Bond.

Nah. That sort of stuff doesn’t happen in real life.

But if it did, maybe that would explain all the weird stuff.

And what on earth was a cellular phone?

 

Hammond glanced at the little clock he kept at the corner of his desk. It was almost noon. "Weren’t you scheduled to go off world this afternoon?"

"Yes, sir," Carter replied. "But Colonel O’Neill hasn’t shown up yet."

Hammond looked at her in surprise.

"And no one’s answering the phone at his place, General," added Dr. Jackson a little nervously.

"When was the colonel supposed to report in this morning?"

"He was due at oh-nine-thirty, sir, and it’s not like him to be this late," Carter explained. "We’ve called his house several times, as well as his cell phone, and there’s still no answer."

Hammond looked at each of them in turn. Teal’c had not said anything, but the concern was there, if you knew how to look for it. Jackson and Carter were both worried. After a moment he nodded. "Track him down. Whatever it takes."

 

Exploration of the house had led him to find a bathroom, which by this point was sorely needed. As he washed his hands, he looked into the mirror.

"Do not worry, O’Neill," said the alien. "No one will know the difference."

He jumped at the memory. That had been the weirdest nightmare he’d ever had. No one will know the difference? What difference? He dried his hands on the towel and then balanced himself with them on the countertop, leaning in towards the mirror. There was nothing different to be seen: just the same face he’d had yesterday, except...

Damn. Was that another pimple?

After a few minutes, he managed to figure out the shower controls – this whole place was like some science fiction story come to life – and he took a quick shower. The oversized clothing had to go – he kept almost tripping on the long sweat pants – but he hadn’t thought to look for new stuff. He settled for a towel wrapped around his hips, Egyptian pharaoh style, and then went searching for clothes.

 

Sam drove. It had happened automatically, without thought or discussion between any of them. She kept her eyes on the road. The silence was making her nervous again –

"If O’Neill is injured or ill, it may be my fault."

She almost swerved at the sudden sound, but somehow managed to keep control.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

Teal’c almost looked remorseful. "We sparred yesterday evening and I may have inadvertently injured him."

"You sparred?" said Sam.

Teal’c nodded. "I was demonstrating a particular style of hand-to-hand combat techniques which are adapted from standard Jaffa training exercises, and O’Neill insisted on attempting them himself. I warned him that it might not be appropriate for a man of his age, but he insisted. If he became injured in the process, it is possible that he would not have mentioned it."

Sam pursed her lips. "Well, if we’re lucky, that’s all it is. But, no. We’re SG-1. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong on a grand scale."

 

There were no clothes in his size. Almost everything was way too big, and what wasn’t too big, was too small, like for a kid, or was for a woman, and even those things were hidden deep, deep in the back of the closet. He opted for another plain T-shirt like what he’d woken up in that almost looked like a dress on him, and the smallest pair of pants he could find. He had to roll up the pant legs a bunch, and the waist was like an ocean, but the belt he’d found kept them up over his hips when it was on the tightest notch. The only thing that came close to fitting were the shoes, and they were still a bit big, but doable if necessary. There might have been more clothes in the other rooms, but they had been locked. He later realized that the doorknobs were different on those doors and clearly had little slots for keys to unlock them.

But he had gotten an answer about the military thing – a blue uniform hung behind a bunch of normal button-down shirts. There were a bunch of colored stripes on it that he guessed were commendations or whatever they were called. This guy must have done a lot of cool stuff in his day.

And the weirdest thing was the name on the uniform: COL. J. O’NEILL.

He was the only J. O’Neill he knew. But the phone calls had been for someone who called himself Jack.

He hated being called Jack. He hated nicknames – being on the receiving end, at least.

He was Jonathan O’Neill, and that’s the way it was going to stay.

 

Daniel had rung the doorbell four times. Still no answer. Sam sighed. "Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all that had happened was that he’s still asleep?" she asked her teammates.

Teal’c raised an eyebrow at her. Daniel declined the opportunity to comment and instead fished his key chain out of his pocket.

"All right, Daniel," she said, "open the door."

 

He had jumped again when the doorbell rang, just as he had with the telephone. A doorbell meant people, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face people yet.

Or maybe it was aliens.

Come on, Jonathan. It was just a stupid dream.

If it was just a stupid dream, then how’d I end up in this crazy house?

Clutching the baseball bat he’d found and toeing off the too-big shoes, he quietly emerged from the bedroom.

 

The TV was on, an old Perry Mason episode that Sam didn’t recognize. "Well, someone’s been up and about," she said.

Daniel nodded, standing by the phone. "But no one’s checked the messages," he said, pointing to the answering machine, which was blinking.

"Indeed," called Teal’c from the kitchen, "but someone has eaten this morning. There are Fruit Loops scattered across the countertop and that is not O’Neill’s usual form of disarray."

"Okay," said Sam, sighing. "Teal’c, why don’t you head that way –" She pointed towards the bedroom. "And Daniel and I will look in the garage."

 

The people were inside. He could hear them, and they sounded human enough. In fact, they sounded like the people who had called earlier.

Amazingly, the woman was in charge.

(Which in itself wasn’t a bad thing. It was just that the only women he’d ever known to be in charge of anything were teachers, and sometimes housewives, and if he was guessing correctly, these were military people.)

The heavy footsteps were headed in his direction. His fingers tightened around the baseball bat.

And around the corner came the biggest black guy he’d ever seen, wearing the dorkiest hat he’d ever seen.

Was a baseball bat enough to get rid of this guy? Something inside him didn’t think so.

"Who are you?" said the guy in a really deep voice. This was the creepy guy from the phone, the one who had talked about ‘training’. This guy had definitely done some weight training in his time.

Jonathan steeled himself. "I’m Jonathan O’Neill," he said, trying to keep the nervousness and the fear out of his voice.

The guy frowned. "You are not O’Neill. You are a child. We will speak to Major Carter about this."

With a move that came out of nowhere, the guy had disarmed him of his baseball bat and then grabbed him around the chest and started walking off, carrying him like he was nothing. By the time they reached the living room, Jonathan had given up on the struggling and calling the guy names.

If only he were five inches taller! Was he going to be a shrimp the rest of his life?

 

"Teal’c," called the woman as she came into the living room. "Did you find anything –"

She stopped short of the couch, only to have a skinny, geeky guy about her age run into her from behind.

"Yes, Major Carter," said the black guy – who must have been this Teelk. "I have found something." He gestured to Jonathan, who was sitting as still as he could possibly manage on the couch.

Teelk scared him.

"This child claims to be Colonel O’Neill."

"What?" said the geek.

"Hey! I never said I was this Colonel O’Neill guy. I’m Jonathan O’Neill, okay?" Jonathan told them, hoping to set things straight. "And I don’t know anything."

 

"What on Earth...?" The woman – Major Carter – trailed off as she stared at the teenager. Jonathan glared back at her semi-defiantly. Finally, she said, "Teal’c, was there any sign of the Colonel?"

"No, Major Carter, only the boy. But I had not searched for long when I found him. There is still much of this dwelling and the grounds to be investigated," he reported. "I will stay with the boy while you and Daniel Jackson finish the search."

"Good idea," Major Carter replied. She walked over to the couch and looked Jonathan right in the eyes. "Do you understand how much trouble you're in right now? Impersonating a military officer is a federal offense. Not to mention the little issue of breaking and entering."

"I am not impersonating anyone!" Jonathan tried to tell her. "I’m Jonathan O'Neill – O’Neill with two L’s – and I have no idea how I got here, lady." He reconsidered his word choice. "Um. Ma’am. I went to bed last night, same as usual, and when I woke up, I was here. Honest!"

Carter and the geek – Daniel Jackson – exchanged a glance, and then Major Carter looked at Teelk. The big guy simply nodded. These folks knew each other, Jonathan mused to himself.

"All right," Carter said after a moment. "Stay here and we’ll be back in a few minutes." She patted his shoulder awkwardly. She stood up and then went to the geek. "Come on, Daniel."

The two of them left. After a moment Jonathan looked over at Teelk, whose eyes never left him. It was creepy. "So, this Jack O’Neill guy, he a good guy?" he asked.

Teelk lowered his head – not a nod, but more like a bow. "He is. He is the finest warrior it has ever been my privilege to serve with. He is an honorable man."

Warrior? Wasn’t that taking the whole military thing to the extreme?

 

"Sam?" Daniel was hesitant, but he knew the theory had to be considered. "Is there any possibility that the kid is Jack?"

They had arrived in O’Neill’s bedroom, the final room of the house, a few minutes earlier and Daniel had begun his search on the outside wall. A number of framed pictures stood on a shelf, and one in particular had caught his eye only a moment earlier. The midday sunlight, strange as it might seem, had touched it, making the metallic frame shine more than the others.

Sam looked up. "Why do you ask?"

Daniel walked over to her, the photograph in hand. "Look at the picture," he said, handing it to her.

It was a color picture of a man and a young boy. The man was clearly Jack O’Neill, albeit about ten years younger than he was right now. The boy looked not unlike the kid they’d found, the one calling himself Jonathan, and seeing both faces together in the picture, she began to see the resemblance to Jack. "Who is this?" she asked.

"That’s Charlie," Daniel answered simply. "But if you add a couple of years, you’d get Jonathan, wouldn’t you?" he added softly.

"My god," whispered Sam. "You’re right." She sat down on the end of the unmade bed. She of course knew about Charlie, what had happened to the boy, but she’d never seen a picture of him. The family resemblance was amazing. "But how could this be? I mean, a person doesn’t just regress thirty years overnight. We both saw him yesterday. He was fine. And we haven’t been off-world for a week. If it was caused by something alien, it probably would have happened sooner than this – and it would be happening to you and me, too."

"Maybe," Daniel replied, "but who knows? I think we can’t rule out the possibility that Jonathan is in fact our Jack O’Neill. Did you pay attention to how he was talking? The kid even sounds like him. At least the loud, grating parts."

Sam sighed. "I think it’s time to inform the General."

 

Hammond and his entourage arrived twenty minutes later. Major Carter had been...cryptic over the phone, but knowing SG-1, Hammond was prepared for the worst and took her words – "It’s something you might want to see for yourself before we bring him back to base, sir" – at face value. All he got was a glance at the boy before SG-1 ushered him into the kitchen, leaving the kid guarded by MPs.

"Major, who is that child and what is he doing in Colonel O’Neill’s house?"

"Actually, sir," Carter told him, "Daniel and I think that might be Colonel O’Neill, sir."

"There is a physical resemblance," Jackson added.

Hammond thought back on the boy he had so briefly seen. "But he can't be more than 15 years old. Are you saying Colonel O'Neill has, somehow, regressed more than 30 years overnight?" Teal’c nodded at the question; clearly, he had not yet been privy to his teammates’ idea.

Jackson gave them an apologetic look. "Stranger things have happened..."

"Name but one," Teal’c requested, narrowing his eyes.

"Well," said Jackson, "there was the time he got really old, the time he became a caveman, the time we all swapped bodies..."

Hammond held up his hand. "All right," he told them. With any other SG team, he would have been hesitant to accept the possibility, but this was SG-1 after all. You’d almost think they were TV show characters with all the scrapes they got into every week. "Why don't we move on to the testing portion of this exercise? We’ll take him back to the Mountain, have Dr. Fraiser run a few tests and so on. If it is Colonel O’Neill, that’s the best place for him. And if not, then at least we’ll be able to keep our eyes on him."

 

The trip to Cheyenne Mountain was uneventful. Jonathan had realized that it would be in his best interest to behave himself and so he was silent the entire way, staring at his too-big sneakers or his hands. He would have liked to look outside and try to figure out just where on earth he was, but they had him in a big van without windows, surrounded by Team Capture Jonathan. He wasn’t sure what was up with them yet, except that they were pretty upset about something. As if it was his fault that he woke up in this Colonel Whoever’s house! But he didn’t say a word once they loaded him into the van. The bald guy, General Hammond, reminded him too much of the principal at his high school.

Not that he, Jonathan J. O’Neill, ever got in trouble and actually had to meet the principal face to face.

The big guy, Teelk, was just way too creepy for words. And scary. The others were okay, the blonde woman and the geek, but since they were the ones to call the military police on him, he was watching himself. Who knew what they were really up do. At least he was certain that this wasn’t some kind of elaborate kidnapping and ransom scheme.

Construction workers’ sons didn’t pull in very big ransoms.

When they finally stopped and let him out – with an MP at each elbow – he had to admit to himself that there was some part of his brain saying, "Whoohoo! Military conspiracy and I’m right in the middle of it!"

(However, the greater portion of it was wondering if he was about to be executed for treason or something. Didn’t spies sometimes have amnesia about what they had done, and then get in trouble for it? Nah. They don’t hire fifteen-year-olds as spies.)

(Right?)

It was kind of pretty, though. The base was built into the side of a mountain. He imagined taking away the base and sticking a cabin there instead, or maybe a bit higher up on the mountain, with a nice view. That would be cool. He’d always liked going to his grandfather’s cabin, even if there weren’t actually any fish in the lake. It was the idea of fishing, not the fish themselves, that mattered. He turned around, and the MPs and everyone let him, and he looked out over the valley –

"Okay, Dorothy," he whispered under his breath, "you’re not in Minnesota anymore."

Minnesota didn’t have views like this.

And Minnesota didn’t have super-secret military bases, either.

Did it?

 

He’d never been on such a long elevator ride. He didn’t know that elevators could go that far – especially going down, instead of up. He wasn’t a country idiot; he’d seen skyscrapers, and elevators had to go up to the top floors of skyscrapers, but this was new. And scary.

Not that he’d admit it, with that Teelk guy watching his every move. It reminded him a little of a field trip he’d gone on in seventh grade, and Miss Jamison, who was a few thousand years old, keep staring at him as if to make sure he was actually still there.

Just because he and Tommy Malone had gotten lost the previous trip and had hitched a ride back home –

"–Dr. Fraiser before anything else," said the big bald guy. ‘Hammond,’ he reminded himself without really thinking about it, ‘the guy’s name is General Hammond. Can’t call a general ‘big bald guy’. He’d probably lock me up for good.’

Waitasec.

Doctor?

What, they were going to do crazy military experiments on him now?

His eyes went wide at that, uncontrollably, and strangely enough, Hammond seemed to pick up on it. "Don’t worry, son," he said. "The doctor will just draw some blood to do some tests. We’re not going to hurt you." The man laid a hand on his shoulder, in that it’s-supposed-to-be-comforting sort of a way, like dads and football coaches do.

It wasn’t particularly comforting.

The corridor echoed as they walked. What the hell kind of a place was this?

 

The doctor was a woman. A little woman, too, who reminded him a little of his mom.

Especially that evil glint in her eye when she approached with the weird little needle to get his blood. It was the same look his mom got when the vegetable of the day was Brussels sprouts. Served with ‘special’ meatloaf.

Not that his mom was psycho enough to do that more than once or twice a year. Women who married O’Neill men were universally known as excellent cooks. It was practically part of the marriage vows. ‘In sickness and in health, and forever serving up dishes worthy of New York and Paris restaurants...’

The thought distracted him just enough that he almost didn’t feel the needle going in. Chalk it up to another of those weird science fiction things about this place.

He hated needles.

In the background, he thought he heard a giggle. Looking up, he saw the blonde woman, Major Carter, with her hand over her mouth and a faint blush on her face. Was she laughing at him? He scowled at her, and she turned away, but he could see the tiny tremors of her laugh.

Evil military whatchamacallits.

 

They made him sit at the far end of the table, like a little kid. Like they didn’t really want him to hear what they were saying.

He wasn’t deaf.

"Are you certain, Doctor?" asked General Hammond.

Jonathan had been half-listening the whole time, as Major Carter and Mr. Jackson and Teelk recounted how they had come to the cool, futuristic house (not that they seemed to be gushing over how Jetsons it was, but then again, this was the military and maybe they’d all had this sort of stuff for years themselves) and found him there. But now it seemed like they were actually going to talk about something that they didn’t already know, and so he looked up and paid attention.

For such a psycho, the doctor had a soft voice. "Initial tests show that within an acceptable margin of error, the boy's DNA is virtually identical to Colonel O'Neill's."

Huh? DNA? What was that, and why would his be identical to this Colonel O’Neill guy’s?

"What size margin of error are we talking about?" asked Major Carter.

"Very small. In a court of law, the DNA sample we took from the boy would be considered a high-probability match to the DNA we have on file from Colonel O'Neill."

Court of law? Lawyers knew about this sort of stuff?

The doctor continued as if this was all perfectly normal. "There is a...tiny abnormality, but for all intents and purposes...it's him."

"Tiny abnormality? Like the fact that he's suddenly quite a few years younger than he's supposed to be?" That was Mr. Jackson, who – he had to admit it – was the least scary of them all. But what was this stuff about being younger than he was supposed to be?

"To be honest, this is out of my league. We've got some specialists flying in. We're going to run more tests, see what we can learn," Dr. Fraiser replied.

"There’s no chance that he’s actually, oh, say, Jack’s son Charlie, is he?" asked Mr. Jackson. "Just, you know, off hand. Devil’s advocate. Quantum mirror alternate universe or something. You know."

Major Carter nodded. "The resemblance is rather impressive."

Dr. Fraiser shook her head. "No. Absolutely not. The only way a DNA test would have produced a result like that – given, of course, that we had something from Charlie to test it against, which we don’t – is if Charlie had been a clone, which was not the case."

What – clone? Where had he heard that word before? One of those scifi magazines that Tommy sometimes read...

Hammond leaned back in his chair and stared down at Jonathan. He blinked at the odd look in the general’s eyes. It was almost as if he were amazed and horrified at the same time. "What do we do with him in the meantime?" the general asked, but it must have been rhetorical because no one answered. All they did was turn their heads and look down at Jonathan.

What had he done this time?

He shrunk down in his seat – not that being any shorter really helped matters. After a moment, he finally spoke. "Am I under arrest or something?" he asked softly.

"No, son, you’re not," said Hammond.

"Then why am I still here? Can’t I just go home? I can keep quiet about all this secret stuff. Honest. Swear to God."

The adults looked at each other quizzically. That was never a good sign.

"Well," said Mr. Jackson after a moment, "this is the safest place for you right now. We’re still trying to figure things out."

"Safe?"

Mr. Jackson sighed. "Jack, what year is it?"

"Don’t call me Jack," Jonathan told him, and then tacked on a remorseful "please" when Major Carter’s eyes widened, as if in surprise. "My name’s Jonathan."

"Okay, Jonathan," said Mr. Jackson apologetically and then repeated his question. "What year is it?"

Jonathan looked around the table. What kind of question was that? "What?"

"Just answer the question, son," said the general.

This was just getting weirder and weirder by the minute. And any second now, he was going to wake up, and this would all just be a really bizarre dream. It was going to be Sunday – ugh! – and his mom would be calling him down to breakfast and she would complain about how he always managed to wrinkle his clothes before they even got into the car to go to Mass, and when they picked up Grandma O’Neill she’d cluck at him about it, too – ‘Jack-me-boy, just like his da, he is...’ – and his father would laugh about it all the way to the church...

"It’s 1965," he said matter-of-factly.

The adults looked at each other again, except for Teelk, who had no reaction.

Oh, god. This was not good.

"Isn’t it?" he ventured.

Mr. Jackson sighed again and seemed to fight to decide how to say whatever it was he was about to say. "Actually, Jonathan," he finally said – and then he seemed to debate how to procede. Again. After a moment he finally spoke:

"Jonathan, it’s the year 2003."