maddersahatter

By Helen Earl aka Maddersahatter

With a hasty glance over his shoulder, Daniel dodged the blast of a staff weapon and dove for the Quantum Mirror, his heart pounding. The others had made it through, he was sure. He was the last. He just hoped that this time they were returning to their own reality. He’d lost count of the alternate worlds they’d travelled to, trying to get home. He felt like Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap.

Emerging on the other side, Daniel instantly realized they were not home at all. This new mirror appeared to be mounted atop a high brick wall. He barely had time to think, Stupid place to put a Quantum Mirror, before he fell headlong to the foot of the wall, knocking himself out…

… Regaining his senses, he found himself surrounded by a hundred soldiers on horseback. A hostile force about to take him into captivity? He didn’t think so. They looked friendly. Even concerned.

“Looks like Jack’s sent in the cavalry,” muttered Daniel groggily.

“Actually, I sent them,” a familiar voice informed him.

“Jacob?” Daniel struggled to focus. It seemed that in this reality, Jacob Carter was in charge of a regiment of very old-fashioned looking horsemen. Jacob himself was dressed all in dazzling white, and had a crown on his head.

“I had hoped we could help,” Jacob told him, his voice melancholy. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. Your body is just too badly broken.”

“I uh, I’m dying.” It was a statement rather than a question. Daniel was surprised, given the prognosis, that he felt neither pain nor panic. He guessed that after all this time death was becoming pretty routine. He only hated that it was such a senseless waste of a death.

He felt himself fading into blackness, followed swiftly by a blinding light. Then a sensation of weightlessness, of rising upward. He was ascending again. Yes, as he looked down, he was sure he could see Oma Desala. She was dressed head to foot in red, and was running swiftly across the vast landscape, which took the form of square fields mown alternately in different directions to resemble a chess board.

Scanning the countryside from his elevated viewpoint, he could see all his friends and colleagues, not to mention a few enemies too. Yet they were all but unrecognisable in their garb and manner. This was a strange reality indeed.

On the other side of the wall, behind him, stood Teal’c and George Hammond, who wore strange school uniforms with peaked caps, that appeared to be two sizes too small. Nothing like the proper SG attire at all. They seemed to be arguing with each other, while a black crow flew around over their heads. Nearby, just visible as he lay under a tree, Jonas Quinn was snoring loudly. He was dressed in the same shade of red as Oma, and, like Jacob, he had a crown on his head. So too did Oma, now he looked again. Curious.

Further behind, the fields gave way to coastline. On the beach Sgts Walter Harriman - sporting a walrus moustache that really didn’t suit him - and Siler were sitting eating oysters, which Siler was breaking open with his chisel, seemingly without a care in the world.

There was a brook near the wall, and next to it was a small shop. Why would anyone put a shop out in the middle of the countryside like that? Standing outside it was Sam Carter, dressed in a white bobbly woollen outfit. She was shouting at Cassie, who was struggling to control a small rowboat. Cassie was wearing a pale blue dress with a white apron, which made her look far younger than she was.

Looking forward again, to ‘his’ side of the wall, Martouf had appeared, and was speaking earnestly with Jacob, pointing a short distance to his left. Following his gesture, Daniel could see Nirrti locked in battle with Anise of the Tok’ra, who was defending herself with a long crystal shard shaped like a Unicorn’s horn.

Daniel blinked and, in the time it took him to do so, he realised that Cassie was now at the edge of the forest some way beyond the fighting. She was in Ba’al’s red-robed clutches, struggling to free herself. Daniel tried to come to her aid, but his ascended powers had not engaged yet. To his relief, Jack appeared, riding a horse as white as his armour. He fell off, but in doing so knocked Ba’al over so that he released his hold on Cassie. Running away, she collided with Oma and started shaking her, as if insisting she do something.

At this point, Jonas woke up from his snooze under the tree, and simultaneously Daniel’s vision blurred. He felt himself falling again, plummeting toward the ground…

…And he awoke with a start. 

He was in the SGC infirmary, surrounded by his friends looking down at him with concern. Janet Fraiser was taking his pulse.
“He seems to be calming down now,” she announced, relieved.

“You had us worried there,” Jack informed him. “You took quite a fall on that last world. We had to carry you through the Mirror to get you home.”

“We’re home? Home-home?” Daniel asked hopefully.

“Yeah, where did you think we were?”

“We were in an alternate reality, and you were all there but…”

He frowned, as if working out some puzzle.

“Oh my God! I think I must have been dreaming. Jack, you were the White Knight, and Sam, you were the White Queen, and Teal’c – uh, Teal’c and Hammond were Tweedle dum and Tweedle dee and…. Cassie was Alice! I dreamed we’d all gone Through the Looking Glass.”

“And who were you then, Dr Jackson?” Fraiser asked.

Jack looked at Sam and they both broke out into identical grins.

“Let me guess,” Jack offered. “You were Humpty Dumpty.”

“Well, I suppose it was only logical, seeing that he gives Alice lessons in semantics and portmanteau words.” Daniel reasoned. “And I’m a linguist.”

Jack patted Daniel’s arm. “Yeah, sure thing, Daniel, that’s why you’re a natural fit for an egg-head who falls off a wall!”