Rating: PG-13
Genres: Romance (Daniel/Vala, Sam/Jack, Cam/Lam, a mention of Teal'c/Ishta), Humour, Angst, Drama, Friendship, Character Death (canon, as well as OCs), Female Problems -- May Squick!, and Heavy Philosophical Musings (are those last two actually genres?)
Summary: Thanks to a little holographic intervention, the forty years inside the time dilation bubble weren't as lonely as they might have otherwise been ....
Spoilers: up to and including "Unending"
Length: a little over 18,600 words -- about 41 pages
Notes: Sequel to "A Love-Hate Thing" and "Cats, Candles, and Confessions" -- last in the series. Got an "Unending" tale of your own? Check out The Stargate SG-1 Unending Fanwork Challenge livejournal community! ...
Feedback: You may post feedback to this fic either at LiveJournal or .

Meals had become an unbearable affair. If Cameron had to watch Jackson and Vala make moon-eyes at each other over their trays again today, he was going to shove them both out an airlock without a second thought.

Well, okay, maybe not. He hadn't lost that much of his mind — yet. But he was getting there. So he supposed he ought to be relieved when Jackson sat down across from him in the mess with his arguably better-half conspicuously absent this time.

"Missing something?" Cam asked.

The man stared at Cam with a blank look that would have been more at home on Cam's backwater cousin Earl than on the brilliant archaeologist.

"Your shadow? Vala?" Cam prompted. "I mean, you two are usually joined at the hips these days." He'd almost said "lips" instead — which would have truer.

Jackson gave an embarrassed laugh. "Yeah, well, you know how these things go."

Cam immediately felt guilty. After all that Jackson and Vala had been through in their respective lives, they deserved some happiness, and he didn't want to begrudge them that. It wasn't their fault that he, Sam, Teal'c, and Landry were all essentially alone now ....

"Vala's helping Sam, and they're eating lunch while they work," Jackson explained. "I didn't want to get in their way," he added sheepishly. "Sooo .... how you been holdin' up?" Jackson looked a bit guilty as he asked, and Cam was torn between indulging a vindictive sort of satisfaction and feeling like a heel for being pleased.

"Well, you know ...." Cam sighed heavily. "Bored out of my freakin' mind!"

Jackson now seemed twice as contrite. Obviously between Vala and the Asgard database, bored was the last thing Jackson was. Then the man suddenly brightened.

"Hey! Why don't we use the matter-converter to make some games or something?"

Cam perked up. "God yes — anything other than chess! A dartboard, maybe?"

Jackson nodded. "Or how about a pool table? Sam would love that."

"Why not both?" Cam smiled.

"Sam? Is everything all right?" Vala asked tentatively, after three failed attempts of trying to get her friend to answer a work-related question.

"Wha—oh! Yeah, everything's ..." Sam paused. She and Vala had become good friends — why shouldn't she talk to the woman about this? Work could wait a little while; it wasn't going anywhere. "No. No, nothing's all right anymore," she conceded, rubbing her temple.

Vala nodded with a concerned look from across the desk, laying her hand comfortingly over Sam's and giving it a momentary squeeze. "Is this about Jack?" she asked.

Sam started at that. "H-how did you ..." she barely managed, too thrown off-balance to even attempt a denial.

She'd never told anyone about her feelings for her former commanding officer, not even Daniel and Teal'c, two of her very best friends — at least, not directly. Okay, so an alternate version of herself had married Jack in an alternate reality, and they all knew it, but that didn’t mean anything in this reality. Well, then again, there was that one time when it had been implied that there was something between them, thanks to a mind-reading, lie-detecting Tok'ra device. But no one but the Tok'ra conducting the test with said device actually knew the details — the best Daniel and Teal'c knew about the incident was that something had gone wrong the first time she and O'Neill were tested, but had been corrected the second time. Hell, she and O'Neill hadn't exactly ever spoken directly about it to each other, either! So how on Earth did Vala know? Especially when she had every reason in the universe to think Sam was just down about their little "how to escape the plasma beam" problem, and no reason to suspect anything else!

... Could O'Neill have told Daniel or Teal'c the truth?

Jack, Sam, she gave herself the familiar old reprimand for the billionth time since the man had left SGC. His name is Jack.

"Well, I have eyes, don't I?" Vala replied (and Sam suddenly regretted showing the woman It's a Wonderful Life). "I mean, whenever I've seen you two together, neither of you can seem to stop looking at each other! Not that I blame you, darling ..."

Sam stared at the woman in horror. "I didn’t realise ..." she turned away. "I mean, I thought I'd been so ... so careful ..." Then something occurred to her. "You really think he's been looking at me?"

"Oh, totally!" Vala assured her, with a hair-flip for emphasis.

Sam couldn't pinpoint what it was that made her believe it, but she felt that the con-artist really was being honest. For a moment, Sam's skin tingled; she'd been starting to wonder if Jack really did still care for her. It didn’t help that they'd never made any sort of declarations, only vague evasions. She'd thought, when he'd left the SGC, that they might finally try to start something. But how did you start a long-distance relationship when you'd never really even had a short-distance one? She'd always had this silly, deep-rooted fear that, if she said anything about her feelings out loud, she'd be court-martialed in seconds — even if she said it out in the middle of Jack's beloved, isolated woods!

But could anything happen if she said it out here, trapped in time, in the middle of space? Did it even matter if it could? If she couldn’t fix their problem, she'd never see him again anyway! And if she did ... well, as a hallucination she's had of her father had once suggested, maybe it was time to leave the Air Force, if being in it was going to keep her from the rest of her life .... Besides, if she could get them out of this, she was reasonably certain that Landry would let her stay on as a scientist at least, if not still as a member of the military!

"You want to what?" Sam asked later that day, when Daniel and Cam came to the lab.

"Make a pool table!" Cam told her excitedly. "You can do it, right?"

Sam blinked. "Er, well, I have to actually program the specs into the computer, since the Asgard didn’t play pool, but ... yeah, I think so!" She smiled. It might be fun at that — provided that Cam was a worthy opponent.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noted Vala looking thoughtful. She knew that look. "What?" Sam asked warily.

Daniel glanced in Vala's direction and instantly grew guarded.

Vala tapped her lip with a finger and began to slowly pace. "It seems to me what we need more than a new game is some new faces. I remember a show on the television where the characters lived on a space ship and had something called ... a homodeck?"

Cam's eyes grew huge, and he straightened from where he'd been leaning against a counter. "Holodeck," he corrected, apparently out of habit; Sam realised then that Vala's faux pas wasn't actually what had put that wide-eyed look on his face, but rather the notion behind it. Yeah," he went on, "I know what yer talkin' about — from Star Trek!" he said, snapping his fingers. "Can you make something like that?" he asked Sam.

Sam's heart almost broke at the plea in his voice. "Well ... no, not something on that scale or that sophisticated." Her heart did break when he slumped again, crestfallen. "But ..." She knew she was about to dig herself a hole, now, but she kept going, wincing, "I may be able to rig something that could at least make the interior of a small room look different. And, with a lot of work, we might be able to program the likeness of anyone we might have a picture of into the database to make a hologram like Thor, maybe give it some personality parameters ...." The more she spoke, the more excited she became herself. Hell, there was a good chance that the Asgard had already added the necessary information about their beloved O'Neill to their database!

As if reading her mind, Vala gave her a sly smile.

"We'll talk to Landry about it over dinner," Sam said. "For now, I think we better get back to work."

Cam pouted a little, then nodded.

"Come on," Daniel said, steering the man out the door. "We'll kill the time with some chess."

Sam heard Cam whimper as the door closed.

Landry was all for it, even if it did take some of Sam's attention away from the arguably more important task of getting them out of the bubble. He could see the strain it was putting on the woman; she desperately needed the distraction.

He wasn't worried about Dr Jackson so much — the man had plenty to keep him occupied. And he wasn't worried about Teal'c; the Jaffa seemed content to Kel No'Reem his time away. Landry was a little worried about Vala (or more specifically, the effect her anxiousness was having on the rest of the crew), although she seemed to be doing much better now that Jackson was spending more time with her.

Mostly, though, Landry was worried about Mitchell. Sam might be stressed and exhausted, with the weight of the world on her shoulders, but Mitchell seemed on the verge of a psychotic break, and Teal'c's efforts to get the man to Kel No'Reem seemed to be having little effect. Landry had seen it before. Pilots lived for flying, for action; Mitchell was the equivalent of an eagle trapped in a parakeet cage. And trapped animals tended to hurt themselves in their effort to be free; Landry was truly afraid of what the pilot might do to himself. How far would Mitchell go if the end of the tunnel didn't come in sight soon?

"Hello, sir," Sam said to the man standing before her. Well, after several voiceless tries. And it might be said that the figure before her was neither a man nor standing, as light didn't "stand", it was just there. Semantics, though, were more Daniel's department.

She hadn't expected it to work. That was why she was doing this at "night", while the others were asleep. She didn't want to see their disappointment — already a palpable thing, especially in Cam's case — if she failed yet another task. More, she hadn't wanted them to see her disappointment if it didn't ultimately work. She hadn't wanted them to see her break.

But it had worked — and yet, here she still felt like she was breaking inside ....

"Carter," the simulated O'Neill acknowledged her with a nod. Then, "Did somebody die?"

It worked a little too well.

"No, sir," she laughed, wiping away a tear. "I just ... I've missed you."

"You've been using me for target practice again?" he quipped, taking a step towards her.

She took a step back, careful not to let him come in contact with her. She didn’t want the tangible reminder that he wasn't really there. It was hard enough to forget that as it was, no matter how real he acted.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

She turned to a workstation and began plugging in data. She knew she should turn the hologram off, but couldn't bring herself to do it. So she did her best to ignore it, and failed as miserably at that as she seemed to be failing at everything of late.

"Whatcha doin'?" the not-O'Neill asked, leaning over her shoulder.

"Working on another simulacrum."

"Another what?" he asked, even though the computer that powered him knew full what she meant.

"It's what I'm calling you — and the others I'll be making."

"Why not just ... 'hologram'?"

"Because the computer interface is already what I would call just a hologram. It looks like Thor, but it has no personality."

"Thor never had much of one anyway," Jack said, shrugging. "Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy, but ... yeah."

Sam gave him a small smile, though with her back to him, he couldn’t see it. Even if he'd had real eyes. "Well, you and the other simulacra will have a lot more personality," she assured him.

"Oh. Can I help?"

"Sir, you can't touch anything. You have no physical aspect." Even as she said it, there was something nagging at her that said the statement was false — or at least that it didn’t have to be true. She shook the notion from her head and turned her attention back to the screen.

"I'm connected to the computer; I can give you information," he pointed out. "Kind of like when I had the ancient database in my head! Only not lethal," he added with his typically incorrigible grin.

"No, I'd rather you didn't, sir." Because she didn’t want to associate Jack with the frustration of her work. "But thanks anyway. You can, ah ... go to sleep for now, I guess."

She couldn't see him, but she sensed — well, imagined — him shrug. "Suit yourself," he told her a beat later. And then she knew he was gone.

In that moment, she missed him more than ever.

Weeks passed. During the day, Sam spent her time (when she wasn't eating or sleeping) still hard at work on their problem— and, at night, she worked on developing the "holoparlour", as Vala had dubbed it. Sam had started with just changing the walls of one room, and was now working on creating holograms of objects, the parameters of which, she'd explained, had to be programmed.

Daniel assumed she was working on the 'parlour when he went to visit her one night, realising that, between his own work and the time he spent with Vala, he hadn't seen much of his friend of late; he wondered if anyone else had seen her, either. She wasn't alone when he got there, though — nor did she seem to be working.

"Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise you had com ... pan ...." Daniel slowly realised what exactly he was seeing — or rather, what he had awkwardly turned away from, and was now trying to see out of the corner of his eye. Then he thought he was dreaming. "Jack?"

"Hi, Daniel!" Jack called back cheerfully from where he stood next to a very pink-faced Sam.

A Sam that Jack had just been kissing.

"Okaaay ... So I guess the whole hologram thing's worked out?" he asked Sam, still looking at Jack. Truthfully, he wasn't all that surprised at what he'd walked in on — or rather, he wouldn’t have been if they were back on Earth and this were the real Jack, anyway. He'd guessed a long time ago about the feelings his friends had harbored for each other .... He hadn't realised that she'd gotten that far in the programming, though — he'd thought she'd only been working on objects for the time being! And how was she able to kiss a construct of light, anyway?

Sam seemed to read his mind. "I've created a floating emitter that not only projects the hologram all around it, but also creates a sort of force field into the holograms, to give them a semblance of substance. Got the idea from Star Trek and Red Dwarf. You just walked in on the, ah ... test run."

So that answered the question of whether she'd been having secret late-night trysts with the not-Jack. "That's amazing!" Daniel breathed, sparing them both any more awkwardness by concentrating on the wonder of her accomplishment. "H-how did you get the likeness so perfect?"

"Awww, Daniel you flatter!" Jack ribbed him. "He did just call me perfect, didn’t he?" he asked Sam in a stage-whisper.

"God, even his personality ..." Daniel said, pondering if that was a good or a bad thing.

"Actually ... it seems that the Asgard kept a copy of Jack's mind in their database," Sam admitted hesitantly.

Daniel stared at her a long moment, then cocked his head quizzically, eyes squinting thoughtfully as he stared at the hologram. "I can't see Jack ever agreeing to that ...."

"Yer darn tootin' I didn't," Jack assured him. "Those sneaky little buggers just conveniently kept a copy when they helped sort out my head, back when I'd had that Ancient Repository in there. Guess they figured I was too valuable to lose."

"Uh, Sam ... isn't this like ...?"

"When we had our consciousnesses copied and downloaded into those robots?" Sam asked uncomfortably. "Yeah. I didn’t realise when I was, ah, trying to set the parameters for the program, that the computer would actually dig up his consciousness — I was expecting just ... informational files, you know? Reports, written by the Asgard. By the time I realised what had happened, that the core had pulled up and installed Jack's actual mind in the program ..."

"Thankfully, she realised pretty quick that I had a ... sense of self, I guess ya call it, and that I wanted to live," Jack explained. "Just like that other me did — the android one? So she didn't pull the plug on me, so to speak."

Daniel nodded, wondering if the real O'Neill would be as upset this time out as he had the last time ....

"This is just ... amazing," Hank said for the tenth time that evening.

They were eating in the holoparlour, which Sam had somehow made to resemble O'Neill's back yard. They could only move around in a fifteen-by-twenty space within it, the rest being just projections on the wall, but the wooden picnic table felt real, and held all their weight, as well as the food. Sam had called it as "hard-light hologram".

"It's better than amazing," Mitchell insisted. "I think I may just stay in here until we get out of this mess. Take advantage of the time to live out a few ... personal fantasies."

"I do not wanna know about your personal fantasies," Jackson teased.

"Oooh, I do!" Vala said, grinning.

"Yeah, don’t quite think the tech is there yet," Sam said, saving them all from Mitchell's reply.

"Why not?" Vala asked innocently. "I might not know him all that well, but the general here is spot-on! And so long as you don't try to walk around to much, this all seems pretty real to me!"

"Yeah, well, I had to use the memory device to make it all, and I'm guessing Cam's not too eager to use it again himself."

Mitchell made a non-committal sound.

"Oh, well, I'd be happy to use it, if it gives us a few more places to play!" Vala offered.

Jackson choked on a barbecued rib, Vala slapping his back not-so-helpfully.

Hank hid his grin behind a replicated corn cob.

"Awww. They're almost as cute as Bill and Vickie were on their wedding day, don't you think?" Jack asked Hank, just before sinking his teeth into a holographic roll.

Hank stared at Jack a long moment. The Bill in question was a man they'd served with when they were in the same unit, years ago. Bill and Vickie had married twenty years back — long before Jack had ever met Sam. "Did Jack tell you about the wedding?" Hank asked Sam, confused.

"Not that I recall," Sam replied, shrugging.

"Well, how did he know about Bill and Vickie, then?"

"I remembered on my own!" Jack informed him, sounding a bit irritated.

"Yeah, but ... you're just a hologram," Hank said. "He does know that, right?" he added to Sam.

"Uh ... yeah ...." Sam shifted uncomfortably, stirring the contents of her plate with a fork.

"How does he know something you couldn’t possibly have programmed him to know?" Hank asked, suspicious.

"Uh, I lived it?" Jack said, scowling. "Well, okay, semantics — I didn't live it, I'm made of the memories of the man who did. Our wonderful Asgard friends downloaded a copy of those memories into their database, and when Sam went to make me ... well, she got a little more than what she bargained for. Not her fault, I might add."

Hank, feeling vastly unsettled, decided to think very carefully before he passed judgment. Sam had seemed a lot lighter of spirit since having made such an accomplishment — he didn’t want to tear her down for it, but he was troubled by the moral implications. Hell, he didn’t even know where to begin in thinking about what the implications even were! Thankfully, he was saved from having to reply for the time being by Mitchell.

"Did you know about this?" the lieutenant-colonel asked Jackson

"Uh ... yeah," the linguist said, suddenly very interested in his plate.

Well now, that was interesting — why did Jackson look so uncomfortable? It wasn't like Jackson had done the programming ....

"Well, it wasn't a secret," Sam said. "It just didn’t occur to me to mention it. Daniel noted how realistic the colonel was, and I explained why. End of story."

Hank had a feeling it wasn't. He also had an inkling that the moral ramifications of the hologram were a whole lot more complicated that he'd initially worried, at least where Sam was concerned. But as far as Hank was concerned, they were all off-duty; if Sam should happen to let slip something about her feelings in relation to a certain Air Force general, feelings he had long guessed on anyway, Hank was determined that the Air Force would never hear about it from any of the people stuck in the Odyssey's time-dilation bubble.

"Hey, it's fine by me," Mitchell told Sam. "He's a hell of a lot more fun to talk to than the Thor hologram."

"A lot more attractive, too," Vala said, grinning, oblivious to the barbecue sauce smeared around her mouth. She earned a dry look from Jackson.

"Would you all stop talking about me like I'm not even here?" the pseudo-Jack complained to Mitchell. Then he blinked and looked at Vala. "Attractive? Really? How about compared to Daniel?"

"Hmmm, tough call ...."

"Heee-eeey!" Jackson protested. A barbecue-flavoured kiss easily mollified him, though, it seemed.

"Oh, get a room!" Cameron moaned, throwing a bone at the couple, grinning ruefully. "Hey Sam, can you hide them with a hologram?"

Even Teal'c cracked a smile at that one.

As the night wore on, Hank tried to put his uneasiness aside; for the first time since they'd gotten trapped, Mitchell seemed genuinely happy. Hank decided he was glad he'd encouraged Sam to work on the holoparlour, despite his own vague misgivings. And he did his best to hide those misgivings, noting that Jackson was glancing at him now and then with a thoughtful furrow in his brow, even while the others were laughing.

"You lose again, Pops!" Cam informed Jack cheerfully as the last ball sank into a corner pocket. Since Sam was tied up most of the time working, it gave Cameron plenty of time to hone his pool-shooting skills against Jack.

"Pops?" Jack asked, a brow raised.

The holo-general had insisted that, given the circumstances, they should do away with formalities like sir, and Cameron had been happy to do it. Perhaps he'd taken it a tad too far, though. "Uh, s-sorry, sir," he said hurriedly.

Jack grinned. "Naw, that's okay — I kinda like it. Kid," he added, the grin turning sly.

Cam grinned back sheepishly and racked the balls again.

"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Daniel got addicted to the sarcophagus?" Jack asked.

The simulacrum knew full well that Cameron had read all the mission reports — just like Cam knew full well that Jack was just trying to distract him from his shot. Cam also didn’t care in the slightest. He loved hearing the stories, complete with O'Neill's embellishments — it was better even than listening to his grandma's parables of full of fire an brimstone, and infinitely better than sitting in his quarters, staring at the wall. "Nope, don't think you've told me that one yet," Cameron said, lining up his shot.

A while later, Sam came into the room, grinning when she saw what the boys were up to — or so Cameron assumed was the reason for her smile, although it seemed aimed more at the general ....

"Again?" Daniel asked, worried, as Vala got up for the third time in two hours and went over to the bathroom.

She nodded weakly. "It's been like this all day — I've never had it this bad before!" She swooned, catching hold of the bathroom doorframe. "Daniel, I ..." she panted, "I think I may have lost a bit too much ..."

He leapt to his feet as she began to sink to the floor, and caught her. His stomach lurched as he saw blood gushing down her legs. He gathered her into his arms and hurried to the infirmary, stopping along the way to stick his head in the lab and call Sam for help, not even staying long enough to see if she was following. A moment later, he heard her footsteps as she hurried after him.

"What's happened?" she asked, worry underlying her professional tone.

"Sh-she's had a-a heavy period this month — much heavier than, uh, than usual! I-I think she might be hemorrhaging or something," Daniel told her in a rush, which was hard to do, given how out of breath he was from running with Vala in his arms.

"Whoa!" Mitchell almost ran into them, thankfully sidestepping just in time to avoid a collision. "What's goin' on?" he asked, falling into step behind them. Thankfully Sam was there to fill him in, as Daniel's lungs weren't drawing enough oxygen anymore to spare any in speech.

A moment later, they were at the infirmary. Daniel managed to set Vala down gently, despite the shaking in his arms and the fact that his knees were about to give out. He took hold of her hand, tightly, using his other hand to try to get her to wake up. He was terrified; he had no idea what to do. Sam and Mitchell came in just a moment later, and he got ready to tell Mitchell to leave, knowing that they were going to have to strip Vala down and do a very intimate examination to see what was wrong. It wasn't the first time he'd felt so protective of Vala (not by a longshot), but it was the first time such an occasion had arisen since he'd finally faced his feelings for her. Though he knew that Mitchell was as concerned for Vala as Sam was, the way Daniel was feeling at that moment — scared out of his wits for the woman he loved — he was ready to reject his decidedly masculine friend's presence in a delicately feminine situation with a hostility that was probably better aimed at the Ori ....

"Computer, initiate Lam protocol," Sam said to the air, before Daniel could actually say anything himself.

Carolyn Lam popped out of thin air, on the other side of the exam table. Daniel took a startled step backward, but never let go of Vala's hand. Though she was unconscious, her heart was racing under his touch. He didn't kid himself into thinking it was because of him.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," Dr Lam said, looking at Daniel.

Behind him, Mitchell let out a nervous bark of a laugh, and Daniel had a flash of memory of the doctor on Star Trek: Voyager, knowing Mitchell had likely had the same thought.

"Uh ... s-she's bleeding?" It was like his brain was suddenly empty of words — a state of being that was both rare and terrifying.

"You said it's her period?" Sam asked Daniel, clarifying it for the simulacrum.

He nodded numbly. "She, ah ... s-she's actually complained about having a bit of heavier-than-normal bleeding for the last few months, but today was even worse, I guess. I ... I-I dunno, I was in the lab most of the day. When I got back to our room, she seemed to be spending more time in the bathroom than out of it. I thought she was sick, but she said that she was having to change her pad a lot." He should have brought her to the infirmary sooner ....

He could sense Mitchell shifting uncomfortably behind him. "I, uh ... I-I'll just wait outside," the pilot said. Daniel was glad the man didn't need to be told; under other circumstances, Daniel might even have been amused by the man's discomfiture.

"I'll run a scan," Lam told them, staring at Vala intently.

"Well, that answers that," Lam said after a long moment, looking grim. "The good news is that I can get the blood loss under control very easily. The bad news is ... it's endometrial cancer." She turned to a silver circle on the counter behind her. A few of pills appeared on the disc.

"What?" Daniel breathed, his already weak knees giving out; he caught himself on the table, trembling. Cancer. What the hell could they do about cancer out here?

"You could tell all that just through a scan?" Sam asked disbelievingly.

"Asgard medical technology is vastly superior to anything we have on Earth," Lam explained, turning back to them, pills in one hand, glass in the other. "Help her sit up; we need to get these pills down her."

Daniel hurriedly obeyed, cradling Vala by the shoulders while Lam coaxed the pills past her lips and down her throat. His vision got blurry; he wiped his eyes and realised distractedly that he was crying. Sam laid her hand on his shoulder; the touch both strengthened and calmed him, his breathing evening and the lump forming in his throat began to subside. Lam finished dosing her unconscious charge, but Daniel didn't let Vala go.

"That was Megesterol, to stop the bleeding, iron for the anemia, and Lopressor, to bring her heart rate down," Lam explained. "Sam, if you could get me a unit of O-positive out of storage, a saline drip, and a potassium drip, that would help."

"What do you want me to do?" Daniel asked while Sam went to do as she was bade.

Lam smiled sympathetically and laid a reassuring hand on one of his. "Just hold her while I get her cleaned up and changed, okay?" She grabbed a hospital gown from a cabinet and lay it on the counter, followed by a handful of towels. She went over to the sink and filled a basin with hot water, then brought it over. She was gentle but professional as she stripped Vala down and began to clean the blood off of her. Daniel couldn't hold back the tears anymore when he saw how much blood there was, in large clots. How could a person lose so much and still be alive — much less have lost many times that already, throughout the day?

They kept the gown open in the back and laid Vala down on a plastic sheet and a towel that had been laid over a bed, Lam explaining that it would take a while for the Megesterol to work. They covered her with a blanket, and Lam and Sam worked at putting an IV in her for the saline, potassium, and blood.

Daniel settled himself on the bed next to her, hands clasped with white knuckles as he watched her breathe, praying with each fall of her chest that it would rise again. Sam sat beside him, rubbing circles on his back, her own eyes glued to their alien companion. Before long, his lady-love's eyes fluttered open; he resisted the urge to sweep her up in his arms, knowing she needed to stay still for now. He contented himself with sitting on her bed, taking her hand tightly in his; Sam came to stand beside them.

"Wh ... what happened?" Vala asked weakly.

"You scared me half to death, that's what," Daniel gently chided her.

"Vala, you're all right for the moment," Lam assured her. "But your abnormally heavy period was caused by the onset of a cancer of the uterine lining."

Vala's grip tightened on Daniel's hand, crushing, her eyes going wide with fear as she struggled to sit up. He gently pushed her shoulder back, Lam doing the same on the other side.

"It's not as scary as it sounds," Lam told her. "We've caught it very early. But you have a hard decision ahead of you, Vala. Even Asgard technology can't easily cure cancer — if they could, they wouldn’t have had problems with their copies degrading. We can try treating it with medication, but the cancer was caused by problems with the release of estrogen from your ovaries — even if we get the cancer into remission for now, there's a chance it can come back or spread to other organs. You have time to think, but your best bet would be a full hysterectomy."

Daniel looked from Vala to Lam, startled. Why was she saying this now, when Vala was so weak? The woman seemed a bit lacking in the bedside-manner department! Then he remembered that she was a hologram; he hated to think it, but maybe this was a programming error on Sam's part. She'd been under a lot of stress, after all, and this was something of a new arena of science for her .... He caught Sam's eyes, and she looked apologetic, as unsettled by the doctor's lack of sugarcoating as he was.

"W-what's that? A hys ... a hystrion—" Vala tried to ask, and his heart broke at the trepidation in her eyes.

"A hysterectomy. It means we'd remove all of your reproductive organs — your ovaries and your uterus," Lam explained. "We could save your eggs, so you'd still be able to have children if you went through a surrogate, but to be honest, using them would be a risky proposition."

"But ... but I've had a child already!" Vala pointed out. "It was a perfectly normal, nine-month pregnancy, and I gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby! Why am I having problems now?"

"Ah ..." Daniel began, uncertain, for all his words, of how to tactfully remind Vala that her pregnancy had not occurred under normal circumstances: she hadn't slept with anyone to get pregnant, and, once born, the child had reached adulthood in a matter of days. Perhaps Vala had never been able to bear children on her own, and the Ori assumed that she would be grateful for the chance?

Vala apparently reached the same conclusion on her own, cutting off Lam's patient attempt at explaining, waving her off, "Never mind, I think I get it. It doesn't matter anyway, I guess; what's done is done. Adria was to be my only child, a—" Her voice cracked, and she closed her eyes, pausing. "And that's all there is to it," she finished. "Probably just as well that I won't be having another; didn't do too well with her, now did I?" she asked bitterly, her free hand picking at the blanket.

Sam shared a worried look with Daniel and squeezed Vala's shoulder.

"Vala," Daniel began again, words still escaping him. What could he say? That he had come to the realisation long ago, after losing Sha're, that he would never likely be a biological father himself? That he had always intended to adopt, if paternal urges ever actually struck him? Somehow, he didn't think that would be a comfort right now. Despite her jokes about making babies, they had never discussed children at all since becoming lovers; he had no idea how she really felt about the idea, but judging from her reaction, it looked like she had assumed that they would have them together someday. Yet for his part, he had to admit that the possibility of having them — after they got out of the time-dilation field — hadn't even occurred to him. Having a child while they were still trapped, of course, would have been out of the question; it would have been utterly irresponsible of them, considering that they didn't knew when — or even if, at this point — they would ever make it out of the bubble. Now, though, being forced to face the scenario this way, with choice essentially taken from Vala, he felt blindsided. "Vala," he tried again, "I'm sure you would have been a great mother, if you'd wanted to be — still could be, if we adopt. Adria never really gave you a chance to be a mom — not and still stay yourself. She was a creation of the Ori; it was their fault things turned out the way they did." A thought occurred to him. "And mine, I guess."

"How do you figure?" Vala asked, eyeing him through her thick mane, which had fallen into her eyes.

He brushed the soft strands from her brow. "I took you from her and left her behind," he reminded Vala of the day he'd rescued her from them, just a day or so after Adria had been born.

"Yeah, well ... she didn't give you much of a choice, seeing as she sicced Tomin on us. I didn't want to leave her, but I didn't want to stay, either, and I'm glad you got me out."

Well see, there you go, though — it wasn't your choice to leave her. Despite knowing what she was, you didn't want to abandon your child. I'd day you have great maternal instincts; you just were literally given a bad seed. Not your fault."

"So even if I'd stayed, it probably wouldn't have helped, I suppose ...."

"Probably not," he agreed, not regretting his choices in saving Vala or leaving Adria at all — just the sadness that they ultimately left Vala with.

"No," Landry said firmly.

"But sir, I thought you wanted me to—" Sam began, flummoxed by the general's reaction.

Mitchell had fetched the man, and Teal'c too, while she, Daniel, and the Lam simulacrum had been treating Vala. Mitchell and Teal'c had seemed much more pleased to learn about the new hologram than Lam's father, though.

"I wanted you to continue working on the hologram tech for all of your sakes — not for mine," Landry explained. "It's clear that the rest of you wanted the simulacra, so I wasn't about to tell you no — and I'm glad I didn't, since this one saved Vala's life — but ... well, somehow, interacting with that one it would just be more depressing for me," Landry admitted sheepishly.

Sam thought maybe he really meant that the whole idea was creepy, and just didn’t want to insult her. He needn't have worried. "Sir, I didn't make the Dr Lam simulacrum, I just finished it — Dr Lam voluntarily worked on the experiments with the memory device, and shared the files with the Asgard. They created her — their prototype is what I used to make Jack! So it's her memories, not just a program, and there's nothing in them that she would have wanted kept secret ...."

"I'm sorry, Sam — I know you went through a lot of trouble, and I'm guessing not just so we'd have a doctor but for me, specifically, and I do appreciate it. But that being said, I ... well, I can't imagine that Carolyn wanted those files to be used for anything other than medical use."

Sam wanted to scream, Do you think she would want you to be lonely? Besides, wasn't the whole point of a doctor's work the idea of prolonging life? And isn’t this a form of life? The human body is just a machine, and the Ascended are just beings of energy — the simulacrum is a part of her, just in a different form! She wanted to say it because it would justify her keeping the simulacrum of Jack around, but she couldn’t. Couldn't, because a not-so-tiny part of her felt that Landry was right. That part of her was crushed with the sense that she'd disappointed the man yet again.

"Hi!" she said with a broad smile upon seeing him. "I was starting to think you guys had all forgotten about me."

"Uh ...." Cam said, feeling bad; he hadn't forgotten her, per se, but he hadn't come down there to see her, either.

Lam apparently guessed as much, her smile becoming rueful. "You came to check on Vala. She's back in her quarters, resting; she'll be fine."

He nodded. He was about to leave, but remembering what she'd said, it didn't seem polite too. And really, it was nice to see a different face after so long with the same four. (Five, once Jack was made. Six, if he included his own. Twenty, if he included how many times his face was reflected back at him in the cracks he'd put in the mirror with his fist.) "Sooo ..." He fidgeted, swinging his hands together and apart, over and over, aimlessly, looking for something to say. He finally settled on, "Whatcha doin'?"

"Taking a physical inventory of the supplies and getting them organised as efficiently as possible."

"Well, that sound like fun ...." he remarked, thinking that his reply made it clear that he thought it was anything but.

"Great! You can help me, then!" she informed him, handing him a box.

He could tell by the gleam in her eye that she knew full well that he hadn't meant it. Still, he supposed that, if she had the mind of the real Dr Lam, it wasn't nice or fair to make her do the inventory all by herself. And it sure as hell wasn't like he had anything better to do ....

"I dreamt we had a little girl," she told him finally. "She had my looks and your brains," she added with a sad smile and a sniffle.

He laughed wetly, and realised then that he'd been grieving too.

"What are you doing?" Carolyn asked as Cameron brought a covered tray into the infirmary.

"Just thought I'd try a change of scene with dinner," he said casually as he unveiled a pot roast.

Her bemused smile turned a little sad. "You don't have to—"

"I want to," he assured her, meeting her eyes squarely and hoping that she could see the truth in them.

The general hadn't said anything outright, but he'd excused himself early from dinner several times after Carolyn had started joining them like Jack did, and then stopped coming altogether. A few nights later, it was clear that he wasn't planning on coming to dinner again any time soon. Carolyn decided not to come herself anymore then, insisting (rightly, it seemed) that she was the reason he was staying away, and that it was important for his mental health that he spend at least one meal a day — the one meal that they agreed on a set time for — with them.

Cameron might not understand the technical details of how the simulacra worked, but he'd talked — well, listened — to Sam about the Jack simulacrum enough to understand that the simulacra had minds, and even emotional reactions — they just had circuits and chips in lieu of flesh and blood, entirley-electrical computers for brains instead of chemically-based ones. So it stood to reason that the ship's medical officer could go nuts from lack of company as easily as he was.

Besides, thanks to the day he'd helped her with the inventory, he'd discovered that she was fun to talk to.

He was already taking lunches with her, and spent a lot of time in the infirmary (at first using the excuse of getting his ass handed to him by Teal'c). They compared childhoods (with Cameron getting a fair amount of blackmail material on Landry). They shared their opinions on movies and books. She taught him Mahjongg; he taught her Texas Hold-'Em. And so his life had gone from being utterly empty to ... well, he still wanted to go home, but now he managed to enjoy the wait, and could keep form thinking about it so much. He didn't need to "dreamrun "anymore; now it was just ordinary running — with Carolyn by his side.

He also didn't let himself consider what would happen to this Carolyn when they finally did go home.

"We have to stop this," Carolyn said when Mitchell came to see her for dinner the fourth day.

He frowned, perplexed. "Stop what?"

She sighed. "This. I know what you're doing — what you're thinking."

"What, you're psychic now?" he asked. "I'm thinking of a number: what is it?"

"69."

"... Okay, you just remembered me saying I'd watched Bill and Ted's about thirty times."

The small smile she granted him had no humour in it. "Look ..." she began, and he got a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Whether you see me as just a construct, a-a way to pass the time—" He started to protest, but she pressed a finger against his lips. "—or even if you really see me as a person, this will never work. How do you think the real me will feel, knowing that someone is carrying on with a duplicate of her. Or how my father will feel if he finds out you're carrying on with a hologram of his daughter?"

Cameron didn't know what to say to that. One the one hand, he felt she had as much right to happiness as any flesh and blood being — certainly as much as the original Carolyn! But he could see what she meant. He'd feel odd if he came back home and found the flesh-and-blood Lam getting it one with a duplicate of himself. And he'd find it creepy if he had a daughter and one of his subordinates were hooking up with a copy of her.

It wasn't fair. He'd finally found something — someone to make his time in the bubble more bearable .... Well. Maybe that was proof enough that she was right — not that he needed more than what she'd already mentioned. But what if he was really just using her? He thought he was coming to the lab because he'd basically managed to forget the weirdness and see Carolyn for the warm, funny, smart woman that she was. But what if he'd just talked himself into believing his motives were pure because he was so tired of feeling alone and bored?

He technically had a girlfriend, after all — never mind that he'd hardly thought of Amy since the last time he'd seen her. After the initial excitement of hooking up with her again, things had gotten cold and awkward fairly quickly; he suspected that she was reconsidering the relationship due to the dangerous nature of his work. And he had to admit, callous as it sounded, that she wasn't living up to his dreams of her. And it was frustrating, not being able to tell her things. They hadn't even talked on the phone in weeks before this mission; he was seriously considering breaking up with her — if she herself didn't consider them broken up already ....

Even so, he hadn't realised his own motives in seeing Carolyn: that he had, in essence, already moved on, and was, unconsciously, considering romantic entanglement with a hologram.

A wave of frustration washed over him, and suddenly the lab was the last place in the world he wanted to be.

"I'm sorry," he told her, hurrying from the lab, leaving his dinner tray behind, no longer hungry.

"Oh!"

Hank looked up from where he'd been pushing food around on his plate and found the Lam simulacrum standing before him, looking uncomfortable. What little appetite he had vanished. What was she doing here? He wasn't happy to see it, but that wasn't the simulacrum's fault — it's existence wasn't it fault, and it had saved Vala's life ....

He made the effort to smile. "You missed everyone," he told it. He'd come a bit late to dinner himself, everyone else finishing when he was only about halfway through. Well, everyone but Mitchell, which worried him, considering how despondent the man had been since their veritable imprisonment began. Maybe he needed to check on the man ....

Hank then noticed the tray in the simulacrum's hand. Really, wasn't it a bit much, these holograms pretending to eat?

"Sorry to disturb you, General," it said. "I only came to see if anyone wanted this." She gestured to the tray.

... What?

"Um. Cam wasn't feeling well, so he left it in the infirmary and went to his quarters. I know it could be stored in the fridge, but I ... I thought maybe someone might want it ...."

Hank wondered what Mitchell was doing bringing his dinner to the infirmary, but set the question aside for a more important one. "Is he all right?"

The simulacrum, looking uneasy (to the point where Landry had to remind himself that it wasn't really his flesh and blood daughter standing before him, and quash any feeling of concern for her — it), set the tray down and sat. "To be honest? No. I'm deeply concerned for his emotional well-being — he, far more than the others, is suffering something not unlike claustrophobia. He was doing better, but now ..." If Hank didn't know better, he'd say that the simulacrum looked a bit ... guilty?

"Now? What's changed?"

The simulacrum hesitated. "It doesn't matter; the point is he's depressed."

Okay, back to my first question, then. "So what was he doing bringing his dinner to the infirmary?"

"Uh ... ch-change of scene, I think he said ..?"

He knew that look all too well: it was the look Carolyn got whenever she'd gotten caught doing something she didn't want him to know about. He ignored how much it was unsettling him; if something was going on with Mitchell's mental health, he needed to know about it!

"Have one of us said something to upset him?" he pressed.

"What makes you think that?" it asked, looking surprised.

"Oh, don't know, he hasn't eaten with the rest of us for four days, now you tell me he's not eating at all and that he's so upset you're worried about him! He's never had a problem coming to me with a problem before!"

"I can honestly say that his not coming to dinner had nothing to do with anyone upsetting him," the hologram offered evasively.

"Then why is he upset?" Hank snapped, losing patience.

"I can't tell you!" it insisted.

"Don't go pulling that doctor-patient confidentially card on me — you're not a doctor, you're just a hologram!"

Looking for all the world like he'd slapped it, the simulacrum seemed at a loss for words for a long moment, before finally snapping back, "It had nothing to do with that, although you've pretty much proved my point!"

"What point?" Was the thing malfunctioning now?"

"The point I made to Cameron, that you would never accept me, much less stand for—" It stopped short, eyes wide.

And suddenly everything fell into place, why Mitchell would go to the infirmary to eat: because the simulacrum wouldn't come to the mess at dinner. Any concern Hank felt for the young man faded behind a haze of red.

"Oh, I know that look!" the simulacrum said, scowling at him. "You had that look on your face when Steve Thompson went from being that great kid who mowed our lawn and was star of the local Little League to the boy who wanted to date your daughter!"

His anger evaporated as quickly as it had risen. It did seem kind of ridiculous, when the hologram put it that way. Still, the idea of the man hitting on a fake version of his daughter, like a .. a toy, made him ill ....

"So. You can't accept that I am your daughter's mind, with her hopes and dreams, but you can get furious at the idea of one of your men touching me, as if I had her body?? Now, either I am your daughter or I'm not, General — you can't treat me both ways! But before you decide, you might want to consider this: if there's even the slightest chance that I truly do feel, that I am a life-form and have all the thoughts and feelings of your daughter, how do you think it would make Carolyn feel to have her father treat her like she's not real?"

And before he could say a word in reply — not that he could think of anything — she was up and out the door.

Daniel was passing Mitchell's quarters, on his way to the room he shared with Vala, when he heard a crash and a scream. He hurried back to the man's door, but the thing was locked. "Mitchell? Mitchell??" he cried, pounding frantically on the door. He was about to go look for a cutting torch — or better, Teal'c — when the door finally hissed open.

He barely recognised the man beyond it.

Not that Mitchell was battered and bruised — although his hand, which he was holding up gingerly, was bleeding profusely — but the wild look in his eyes made him seem an entirely different person!

"... Mitchell?" Daniel asked, hesitantly.

"Heeeey, Jackson!" Mitchell grinned. "I'd shake your hand, but ..." He gestured with the damaged appendage, then let out a sound that was half-laugh, half yelp.

Daniel stepped into the corridor, letting it close behind him, and took in the devastation. He knew that their situation had the man deeply frustrated, but this ... this had Daniel honest-to-god frightened for his friend. "Are ... are you drunk?" he asked, noting even as he did that he didn't smell any alcohol. Which was bad, because that meant the man was having a psychotic break instead of simply suffering a temporary loosening of his inhibitions ....

"I wish I was," Mitchell said, slumping back against the wall.

"Soooo ... why?" Daniel asked, gesturing to the overturned furniture and broken objects, then looking pointedly at Cameron's hand.

Mitchell was quiet a long moment; Daniel guessed he was looking for words, and waited patiently. "I thought ...." Mitchell began. "I thought I'd finally found something that could make all ... this bearable. And maybe I did, but ...."

Daniel thought of the meals Cameron had missed lately — and of the man's much better mood. Then he remembered finding Sam and Jack kissing in the lab ....

"You and Lam?"

Mitchell ducked his head. "I know, it's stupid."

"No, actually, I don't think so at all," Daniel assured him. "Just ... complicated."

Mitchell shook his head, smiling ruefully. "To hear Carolyn talk, it's not complicated at all: I needed a distraction, and she was it."

Daniel raised his brows in surprise. "She really thinks that?" He looked around the room, pointedly. "Is it normal for people to get this upset over being dumped by a 'distraction'? No, scratch that, is it normal for you?"

Mitchell got a thoughtful look. "I might have done this just from going stir-crazy ...."

"You had plenty of opportunity to do that before she was around," Daniel pointed out. He scratched his neck. "I don't know, I guess you might have still done this even if she wasn't here. She also might just have been the straw that broke the camel's back. But it seems to me that the reason you were spending time with her was just because you wanted to spend time with her, right?"

"Yeah, as a distraction!" Mitchell replied, exasperated.

"Nnn, that's what I thought Vala was after, too. And you know what I learned?"

"What?" Mitchell asked warily.

"That yes, we are distractions — all of us, to everyone we meet. Everything we do, every waking moment of the day, is a distraction — from our ultimate, inevitable ending. And that's not a bad thing. Making someone's life a little more bearable is kinda what we're here for. Now, I think over the past two years I've gotten to know you fairly well, and you don't strike me as the type to seek the company of people you don't genuinely like. You also strike me as the type who likes to do things for other people. So tell me: when you started having dinner with Caroline, why did you do it?"

Mitchell swallowed hard, tears forming in his eyes; Daniel lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, feeling his own throat get a little tight; he knew Mitchell wasn't doing so well, and should have reached out to the man earlier, physically, verbally, mentally ....

"I .. I don't know, I guess I went to see her because I thought she might be lonely a-and because I liked talking to her," Mitchell confessed, his voice gravelly. "And ... and I guess because I kinda liked the Carolyn back at the SGC but never worked up the nerve to talk to her."

"Well, this is, for all intents and purposes, that Carolyn, just sans the body," Daniel pointed out. "The simulacrum is as much her as a book is a part of its author and a painting is a part of its artist — more even. And all that you just said, about why you went to see her? Sounds just like why any of us talk to anyone we want to get to know better," Daniel added softly.

"So what do I do, Jackson?" Mitchell asked brokenly, tears falling. "What happens when we get out of here? She's worried about her original self's reaction, too! And what do I do about her father?"

Daniel sighed in sympathy. "I didn't say it would be easy. But she's still going to exist when we get back. She's still going to have a life of her own, whether Landry — or the other Lam — likes it or not. Doesn't she deserve a chance to be happy?"

Mitchell laughed bitterly. "Yeah, well ... it looks like she already decided not to take the chance with me."

Vala had a craving — the kind that involved chocolate sauce and whipped cream and having to wash the sheets later. Knowing Daniel would be "home" any minute, she decided to duck out to fetch said items and see if she couldn't make it back to the room in time to surprise him.

The kitchen wasn't empty when she got there; the general was washing dishes. Or rather, she supposed that was his intent: he was just standing there, though, with his hands in the water, brow furrowed as he glared at the wall.

"Everything all right, General?" she asked, startling him. "Sorry!"

He laughed as he finished washing a dish. "That's all right, Vala. Someone just gave me some food for thought, is all."

"What was it, an egg?"

He blinked at her.

Vala had the sinking feeling that she'd taken another colourful Tau'ri phrase too literally. "Um ... D-Daniel told me eggs were good 'brain food'?" she asked uncertainly

"Brain...? Oh! 'Food for thought'! Yes, I see," he said, smiling; it didn't reach his eyes. "In this case, 'food for thought' means someone told me something that I need to think long and hard about."

"So instead of it giving you a stomachache, it's given you a headache, it seems," she observed.

He sighed. "Yeah, I'd say so ...."

She hopped up on the counter. "A burden shared is a burden lessened, you know." Daniel had told her that the other day, among other pearls of wisdom he'd found in the Asgard database.

Landry got a faraway look and smiled wistfully. "I always liked this one better: 'Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with.' Mark Twain said that."

"He sounds like a wise man," Vala offered.

"He was. And he was a fool. But so am I, it seems."

Vala shifted uncomfortably, wondering what to say to that, when Landry spoke again.

"You know why Caroline wanted to become a doctor?" he asked.

"To ... help people?"

"Exactly. I guess it never occurred to me that there would be other ways for her to help people besides being a doctor, though — or that helping someone else could help her at the same time. Burdens lessened and joys divided, right? And I never figured a hologram would need help. Looks like you could fill a galaxy with what I don't know these days ...."

"I'm ... sure that's not true?" Vala said, wincing at how unconvincing she sounded. He smiled ruefully back at her. What on earth was the man talking about, anyway? All she could tell was that it must involve the Lam hologram ....

"Jackson to Lam. We, ahh, need you in the infirmary?" came Daniel's tentative voice over the ship's comm.

Vala and Landry exchanged worried glances before hurrying out the door.

Carolyn hadn't been more than a corridor away when she'd heard Daniel's summons, but it didn't matter: wired as she was into the ships systems, she beamed herself into the infirmary, startling Jackson — and Cameron, who then hissed in pain. She saw the redness of his eyes, first; had be been crying because he was in pain, or because of what she'd said to him? She didn't stop to wonder about it (or feel guilty), noticing his injured hand a moment later, her attention instantly focused on it.

"What happened??" she asked, gently taking the damaged hand into both of her own.

She didn't have a sense of touch in the classic sense, but she had scanners in her emitter, and the controlled photons allowed her to hold his hand in ways that allowed her to "look" at it however she needed to, and to offer comfort as needed. It was a vastly different way of moving perceiving, but thankfully her computerised brain was programmed to handle it all, so there was no floundering or gracelessness on her part.

But god, did she miss the sense of touch ....

"I ... I guess I kinda ... overrea-owacted to, ah ... that ... conversation we had earlier," Cameron admitted sheepishly. "This is nothin', though; you should see my room ...."

Scans forgotten, she looked up at him; she didn't have a stomach that could sink anymore, but it felt like she had one anyway, and like it was doing just that. He wouldn’t meet her eyes, clearly embarrassed, maybe even ashamed. And hurt — by her words as much as the damage to his hand! She had been afraid he might get depressed, being alone again, and that he might eventually get so depressed he might even consider suicide, but this? ... Not an eventual, resigned reaction to the pressure of their situation and his feeling trapped, but an immediate and violent one, specifically to her telling him that their spending time together was a bad idea?

There were five other people — six, with Jack — on the ship: was he really that upset at the idea of not being able to be with her? She wasn't sure whether she should be frightened or flattered ....

"What happened?" The words came in stereo, as everyone seemed to arrive at once, including the O'Neill simulacrum (who apparently hadn't considered the notion of beaming directly there).

"I had an argument with my furniture," Cameron explained with unconvincing humour, while Carolyn silently finished her scan. "Look, I'm sorry I worried y'all. I was just blowing off some steam and I, ah ... got carried away."

"His hand has some hairline fractures and a cut that will need stitching," Carolyn reported to her father. "Other than that, his dopamine levels are a bit low." Not enough for suicidal thoughts to be a worry, but enough to explain his little tantrum, she added to herself. Nothing indicated any sort of severe psychosis, either, suggesting that, if they made a concerted effort to cheer him up, there wouldn't be a repeat performance. And really, the fact that he had that tantrum in private rather than going off on her suggested he really had just needed to let off some therapeutic steam — he wasn't a danger to anyone, even himself, she decided. Well, other than accidentally, maybe. She relaxed a little. "I'm confident we can treat that with some chocolate pudding and a little TLC, though," she added with a wink at Cameron.

"You're sure?" her father asked. She couldn't tell if he was asking about whether she was sure Mitchell would be all right or if he was asking if she was sure she wanted to get into a relationship with the man. She hadn't even realised until that moment that she was considering it, but she already knew the answer was yes. As scary as the man's outburst had been, it had also showed her that he saw her as Carolyn, a woman he wanted to be with, not just some time-killing fantasy. And she realised that her other self, when the time came, would understand — because she would, in her place.

"I promise it won't happen again, sir," Cameron promised.

"It better not," her father replied. "I expect you to come talk to me — or anyone, I don't care who — next time things get that bad. Or at least spar with Teal'c rather than defenseless furniture."

"Yes sir," Cameron agreed contritely.

With a nod, her father spun on his heel and began to leave. He paused two steps away and turned back. "Take good care of him, Carolyn," he said, and left.

If she'd had a heart, it would have been soaring.

"What ... what will happen when we ... get out of this time-bubble-thingy?" Jack asked hesitantly as he absently stroked Sam's arm, his breathe ruffling her hair. He shifted under the covers.

They were so comfortable together, it was hard to believe that they'd only be sleeping together like this for a few nights. She's considered it for quite a while before that — more than sixth months — but had finally gotten over her misgivings after she'd walked in on Cam and Carolyn getting hot and heavy in the infirmary. She asked Carolyn about it later — did she feel Cam was using her, for gratification? Carolyn explained that it had been her idea; after months of "dating", it was clear to her that Cameron loved her, and that was enough for her. Carolyn couldn't get the physical benefits herself, but she at least got the emotional ones. And apparently after Sam had talked to Carolyn, Carolyn had talked to Jack. Jack had then asked Sam if she was willing to take their relationship to that level. She doubted she would ever have had the nerve to bring it up herself, but she also couldn't bring herself to say "no" when he'd asked — and really, why should she? So they'd given it a go.

Most of the time, she'd quickly learned, she could almost completely forget that Jack wasn't flesh and blood when he did things like shifting his weight and sighing across her skin. She would have managed to forget right then, even, if not for the verbal reminder he'd just given her. She didn't appreciate that reminder at all, for a multitude of reasons.

"You're assuming we will get out of this," she said, turning away.

"Sam ... you are still working on it, aren't you?" Sam knew as well as he did that she hadn’t pulled up any of the programs she typically used or entered any new data in days. Unless he figured she was doing everything on paper, he knew damn well that she'd stopped.

It wasn't permanent, though. It wasn't. "I just needed a break," she said, as much to herself as him.

"Sam ... you know I love you, and I want to live, but ... I can't let you give up their future for my sake — or give up on him, for that matter. I mean, I know you just see me as a copy — a poor substitute. I don't want you to settle."

"No!" she insisted, bolting upright, but she knew before she turned to him that he was already gone, his emitter beaming itself right out of her room.

"Where's Jack?" Vala asked with a puzzled frown when she entered the lab. "I was just in the holoparlour, and he wasn't there, either!"

Sam looked stricken. "Computer, activate O'Neill simulacrum," she ordered.

A moment later, Jack stood stiffly and blankly before her, reminding Vala unsettlingly of the Thor hologram. She came to stand next to Sam, but his eyes didn’t track her movements.

"Jack? Where were you?" Sam asked.

"Are you asking as my lover or my ... user?" he asked, still staring blankly into space.

Sam looked pale, even her blue eyes, which glittered now with unshed tears. "Computer, termi-"

Vala quickly covered Sam's mouth, earning herself a muffled squawk of protest from the physicist. "I think we should let Jack come and go as he pleases, okay? Before we go saying something we'll regret?" After a pause, Sam nodded under Vala's hand. "All right, Jack?" Vala said to the simulacrum, releasing Sam.

Jack met her eyes, nodding, and disappeared. Vala thought his eyes were as sad as she'd ever seen — until she turned to Sam, who was staring at the empty space where Jack had been. Vala bit her lip; she didn’t have a lot of experience being a shoulder to cry on or offering comfort. She was still trying to think of what to do or say when Sam spoke, the woman's voice a bit broken.

"I wasn't meaning 'terminate' as in ... terminate. It wouldn’t have erased his program, just shut it off for now."

"I know," Vala said. "I just meant that ... well, he's like a person, right? Just made of different material. It just doesn't seem ... polite to turn him off. You couldn’t do that to the original Jack," she pointed out.

Sam gave the smallest of laughs. "No, but it sure would come in handy ..."

"Mmm, I know what you mean — sometimes I wish Daniel had a mute button," Vala confessed with a sly smile.

But he hadn't expected this.

Vala was paused in mid-stroke, a brush in her hand. Silken black strands were threaded through the bristles — strands that were not her own.

"Hi, Daddy!" the young girl sitting before Vala greeted him. Roughly four or five, she bore an eerie resemblance to the love of his life, as well as to the child form of Adria.

Hand trembling, Vala lowered the brush, for once at a loss for words. She didn't need them anyway — he understood.

Two weeks ago had marked nine long months since Vala's operation. He hadn't forgotten the very hour, the very minute — didn't think he ever could, nor could he forget her words to him not long after, about her dream of a daughter ....

"Oh, Vala ..." he breathed past the knot in his throat.

"I ... I know you wanted to adopt, but ... I think we have to face that we may never get out of here, Daniel," she pleaded. "And if ... if Jack and Carolyn are 'real', in their fashion, couldn't ...."

Couldn't we have a child this way? Daniel finished in his head. He should tell her no, he knew — this was unhealthy, wasn't it?Or was it? If they wanted a child, what did it matter the means by which they went about it? A life-form was a life-form; Reese and the android duplicates of SG-1 had taught him that long ago, and the simulacra had reinforced the lesson.

"So ... um ... h-how did you—"

"Well ... you know how Sam's been working on that randomiser ...?"

"Ah! Right!" Daniel smiled encouragingly. They — he, Vala, Sam, and even Mitchell — had all downloaded some of their memories, both of events and of people. Sam's hope was to create some random individuals to populate the holoparlour with. The randomiser would create people that seemed realistic and familiar but were not actually recognisable, taking little bits and pieces of themselves and people they had encountered.

"She tested it yesterday," Vala continued hesitantly, "and it worked brilliantly. So a little while ago, I ... I pulled up our files — yours and mine specifically, I mean — and used it to combine fifty percent of each of us."

"Randomly?" Daniel asked, surprised — she'd said she'd wanted a girl who had her looks and his brains, after all.

She nodded. "Even the gender! I mean, it would have been random if we were able to have a child biologically, so it only seemed right ...." She looked up at him suddenly, eyes wide. "I should have asked you first!" she blurted out. "I guess I was considering her to be a ... a test run." She winced. "But she turned out so perfect ...." She reached up and caressed the child's hair lovingly.

"She did," Daniel agreed, and in that moment it didn't matter to him that she'd been created without him — she was a part of him anyway. It hadn't mattered to his adoptive parents that they hadn't been there when he was born, and it didn't matter to him now, either. "I'm glad you did this, Vala," he assured her, slipping his other hand gently behind her neck and kissing her in thanks. Their daughter giggled.

Our daughter. Daniel grinned. "So what's your name?" he asked the child.

"You name me," she demanded, eyes flashing mischievously, like her mother's so often did. He could tell already that she would be a handful. "Momma made me, so it's only fair that you name me."

Vala nodded and looked to him expectantly; Daniel realised then that the girl was repeating what Vala had already decided.

"Janet," he called their daughter.

Vala smiled understandingly, nodding her approval. Janet Frasier had saved Daniel's life countless times, and Sam's, Jack's, and Teal'c's, too. "Janet Asgard Mal Doran-Jackson."

It was his turn to nod, smiling affectionately. "Yes. That's perfect." Without the Asgard technology, Vala would be dead now — they all would, really — and little Janet wouldn’t exist.

Their daughter beamed and hugged hum, then her mother. "Thank you," she told them both. "Jan for short, though, okay?"

Vala laughed her first real laugh in over nine months.

"Thank you for joining us," Vala nervously greeted Cameron, Sam, Teal'c, Jack, and Carolyn as she ushered them through the door to the holoparlour.

She could see Cameron, then Sam, then Teal'c pause in turn as they took in the sight before them: Daniel, standing like the proud poppa he was, one hand intertwined with Jan's.

"Is that—?" Sam asked, apparently at a loss for words. "Did you—?

"Use the randomiser?" Vala finished for her. "Yes." Thankfully Sam just looked perplexed, not angry, despite the fact that she hadn't yet announced the completion of the randomiser program.

"We'd like you all to meet our daughter, Janet Asgard Mal Doran-Jackson," Daniel told them with far more confidence than Vala felt. She bit her lip, bracing herself for an outburst.

Somehow, the stunned silence was no better.

Teal'c, though, looked as serene as ever as he knelt before the child with a smile. "I am pleased to meet you, JanetAsgardMalDoranJackson. I am Teal'c." And he bowed his head.

Vala had never wanted to hug the big Jaffa so much in her life.

"Just Teal'c?" Jan asked.

"Just Teal'c," he replied with a nod.

"Then I'm just Jan, okay?"

Teal'c laughed; Vala jumped at the unfamiliar sound. "As you wish," Teal'c agreed; Vala had a flashback to The Princess Bride, and wondered if any of her friends could love the child as much as she did already.

Vala turned then to her best friend. "Sam? Are ... are you okay with this?" Sam's eyes were filled with uncertainty, and Vala felt a surge of guilt. She knew the woman was already conflicted regarding the Jack simulacrum. Vala's heart raced nervously as she waited.

Finally Sam smiled warmly, tears in her eyes. She opened her arms, and Vala fell gratefully into them. "Thank you," the former-pirate whispered in the astrophysicist's ear. "You made this possible for us." Sam squeezed her tight in reply.

Vala heard Daniel let out a woosh of air, and saw Jack holding his friend in a bear-hug, laughing. "Congratulations, Space Monkey!""

"We were, ah ... afraid you'd think we'd lost it or something," Daniel admitted to the rest of their company once Jack gave him room to breathe.

"Hey, man, we're the last ones with any right to call you crazy for this," Cameron replied, slipping an arm around Carolyn. "If I've learned anything by travelling through the 'Gate, it's that the concept of life is relative. It takes all kinds to make the universe go round."

"This is why you didn't invite my father here, isn't it?" Carolyn asked. "I mean, he accepts me now, but this ..."

Vala nodded. "We know how uncomfortable this whole hologram-entity thing has made him. We want to tell him, but .... Anyway, we were a bit afraid how you would react too, Muscles," she added to Teal'c.

He blinked in surprise. "Why did you fear this, ValaMalDoran?"

"Well ... we never see you in here ...."

He smiled. "You are familiar with how Kel No'Reeming puts one into a trance-like state that allows one to review one's own memories?" he asked.

"Uh ... sure?" she replied, humouring him.

"You sneaky devil!" Cameron exclaimed, eyes wide. "That's why you were trying so hard to get me to do it!"

Teal'c nodded.

"Okay, I'm missing something here ...." Vala told them, scowling.

"He's got a holoparlour in his head!" Cameron said, pointing to the offending cranium.

"Indeed," Teal'c replied. "This left this room free for others to use."

Vala's heart broke a little for Teal'c then; what experiences was he reliving all alone, for their sakes? "You know, Muscles, I'd be happy to share any time I spend in here with you!" A thought struck her. "Oh! Unless you wanted some, um ...." She put her hands around Jan's ears. "Private time?" She then had another thought. "Or maybe you just find me annoying?" she asked, wincing, hands falling away from Jan's ears. It occurred to her belatedly that Jan might very well have been able to hear everything anyway.

"I assure you, ValaMalDoran, it was simply a matter of not wishing to intrude," Teal'c insisted. She had a notion he was blushing.

"Well, maybe we need to take a cue from my college days," Cameron suggested, "and put up a 'do not disturb' sign. No sign on the door would mean it's cool to come in."

"Works for me!" Vala replied, smiling. "Come on, Muscles, we miss you! Don't hog all the fantasies in your head to yourself," she added with a wink.

"Sorry!"

Hank heard the small voice come from somewhere around his midsection, a second after something collided with his leg. He looked down and found a little girl rubbing her nose.

"Sam?" he asked the air.

"No, Jan," the little girl informed him./P>

"Sam, I think one of your holograms got away," he said to the walls. And just where had she gotten the data to create a child anyway? Well, he supposed the Asgard had a lot of data in the computers from their time studying humans unawares, but it was unsettling to think Sam was putting that data to use! And how was the hologram here, outside of the 'parlour — was she making a holo-emmitter army?

"No, I'm not Sam's, I'm Vala and Daniel's," the child corrected him, tugging on his pant leg. "Hey, we haven't met yet! Cool, I can say this now! Hajimemashite! Jan desu. Douzo yoroshiku! Will you play with me?"

She was speaking Japanese the moment before— he recognised the phrase as a traditional Japanese introduction. This is our first meeting. I'm Jan — please look favourably on me. Okay, so why would Dr Jackson make a hologram of a child as fluent in languages as ....

"You're their daughter?" Hank breathed.

"Hai! Sou desu!" Yes, so I am! She beamed at him.

Hank didn't have a good feeling about this. First Sam starts using stored memories to make simulacra (one of them without the consent of the originator of those memories, the other questionably so); then his crew starts getting emotionally involved with those constructs (he was trying to be understanding but it was still creepy to him), and now they're making whole new people! He wasn't angry — how could he blame any of them? — but he was deeply worried for their sanity! He didn't want to tell them how to live their private lives, but it was starting to look like they needed some fatherly influence ....

Looking down at the child, he decided the best way to get more involved with their lives was tp see first-hand just how far things had gone. "Sure, I'll play with you. Do you know how to play chess?"

Jan nodded vigorously.

"It could work for us, you know," Jack said out of the blue as Sam studied the data from her most recent failed simulation.

They had reached an arrangement of sorts: she continued working on the solution, and he stuck around. Being connected to the mainframe, he could tell just how much effort she was putting into things; so far, she hadn't given him a reason to fade away again. The irony, of course, being that once she got them free, their relationship would end. So she was working hard to keep him around, but working hard would bring an end to "them" that much sooner. It made her head — and heart — hurt to think about it.

"What could work for us?" she asked distractedly, knowing he actually wouldn’t be pleased if she were more attentive.

"Having a kid, like Daniel and Vala."

Okay, she had to pause at that. "Come again?" she asked, turning in her chair to goggle at him.

"I know what you chose, Sam, what you sacrificed — a personal life for your career. Well, now you can have both."

"And then what?" she asked, incredulous. "How am I supposed to explain a holographic child to—" She couldn't say it.

"To O'Neill?" Jack asked gently. "You tell him the truth. That you love him and had a child with him."

"He's not going to accept that!" she protested. "He and I didn't have a relationship like that—"

"You would have. He —I ... wanted it."

"But there's a reason we couldn't!"

"Couldn't being the key word. Past tense. You already said you'd quit the Air Force," he pointed out. "You know they won't kick you out of the programme — they need you too much."

"And what happens to you? " she asked brokenly, tears threatening. "I love you both!"

"Well, I hope so, since I'm him!" he quipped, grinning.

"Only up until the point where you were created!" she protested, not laughing. "After that, all your memories and experiences have been your own!" Oh god, the other Jack is never going to forgive me. Why did I do this? And yet she wouldn’t trade the time she and this Jack had spent together for anything.

"You let me handle it," Jack told her. "I'll explain things to him. He'll be wary at first, yeah, but when I explain that he'll gain months with you that you two wouldn't have otherwise if he downloads me—"

"Wait, what?" she interrupted.

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" he asked innocently. "If I can be uploaded, I can be downloaded, right?"

"Yeah, but ... but he's not going to go for that! He already saw the other download of himself as a separate being — and an inferior one, at that!"

"Well, it never occurred to any of you to try merging the consciousnesses, now did it? You kept thinking in terms of either/or. Now, other than not wanting to give up his own body, what was O'Neill's beef? That he didn't like the idea of not being unique anymore! In fact, I can say with some certainty that he would have jumped at the chance to be reintegrated, so that he was unique again."

He had a point. Sam felt a glimmer of hope.

"I promise you that I will convince myself," he assured her. "I know me better than anyone," he added with a wink.

"Checkmate," Hank announced, enduring the child's glare.

It was his fourth win against her. He didn't feel badly about it — she'd won three against him. And, well, she was really the computer, after all.

Although, the more time he spent with her, the harder and harder it was to remember that.

His door chimed. "I'll get it!" Jan said, jumping to her feet while Hank reset the board.

"General, have you—" a frantic-looking Vala began, stopping short; doubtless she was wondering how Hank had opened the door from across the room.

"Hi, Mommy!" Jan cried, giving her mother's legs a hug.

"There you are!" Vala cried, dropping to her knees and gathering the hologram into her arms. "The ship's sensors weren't picking up your emitter — I couldn't find you anywhere!"

Hank wondered just what Vala had been about to say — would she have asked him if he'd seen a stray emitter lying around, or a little girl? Strangely, he was more hurt now, at not having been told about this latest development, than he was worried about just what it meant that things had done this far.

"I borrowed Auntie Sam's portable cloaking device prototype," Jan proclaimed proudly. "How could we play hide and seek if you could just use the sensors to find me, right?

Hank choked on a laugh; the kid had already shown her father's proclivity for chess, and now it seemed she was as sneaky as her mother!

Oh great, now I'm thinking of it as their daughter!

"Oh, borrowed, is it?" Vala said skeptically. "I'm sure Auntie Sam will be very surprised to learn that she lent it to you?"

Jan nodded, grinning and revealing a gaping hole where two teeth presumably used to be.

Vala rolled her eyes and, coming out of it, noticed Hank, jerking in surprise. "Oh!" She looked down at the little girl, then up again, a sheepish expression stealing over her features. "Um. G-general Landry, I see you've met my ..."

"You're daughter?" he prompted.

She nodded, biting her lip uncertainly.

"Relax, Vala, I'm not angry," he assured her. "But I would by lying if I said I wasn't concerned."

She nodded again, averting her eyes, stroking her daughter's hair absently. "I know how it looks, but ..." She looked up at him, a hint of defiance in her eyes. "Why should she be considered any less my daughter than if she were flesh and blood? Let me tell you, when you have a child created magically inside you, out of nothing, not even love? It kind of alters your perspective a bit. She might not be flesh and blood, but as an ascended being, right now Adria isn't either. And Jan is more my daughter than Adria could ever be." She crossed her arms; below her, Jan mirrored the action — then winked at him, revealing that she was more than just some sort of copy of her mother.

His unease put to rest regarding the situation — well, somewhat; he still wasn't sure he'd ever get used to the idea of thinking of holographic people as "real" — Hank now felt an odd mix of humour and guilt. It seemed that, in playing the father of their little motley band, he'd forgotten that he could still learn a thing or two about life from his companions! Of course, given all she'd been through, Vala probably knew more than all of them combined ....

"You're absolutely right," he told Vala. "I'm sorry I made you feel like you couldn't come to me to share your good news."

She immediately looked contrite. "I-it's not that we didn't want to tell you—"

"It's just that you didn't know how, I know," he assured her with a rueful smile. "Well, I know now — and I'm glad to have met her," he added, kneeling before Jan. "Don't tell Mitchell, but it's been a long time since I've had a worthy opponent at chess," he finished with a wink.

Years passed. There was only one wedding — Daniel and Vala's — but no one ever questioned Cameron and Sam's commitments to their holographic partners, nor that of their partners to them. For a long while, it was simply silently agreed upon by all parties that, on the off chance they ever escaped the bubble, it would make things even more disconcerting for the simulacrum's human counterparts if they were to show up wedded — especially if they couldn't talk the originals into downloading the simulacra's consciousnesses. After twenty years or so, though, all thoughts of the simulacrums being melded with the consciousnesses from which they had sprung were abandoned. At that point, they had been together so long that weddings would have seemed an empty gesture — they were, in spirit, already married. They did have children, Sam and Carolyn having finally relented a few years in. Like Daniel and Vala, though, they forwent infancy, opting for older children. Jan had aged, but more slowly than a flesh-and-blood child; when Sam and Jack's son, Jacob, and Carolyn and Mitchell's eldest child, their son Matthew, aging more "naturally", reached her age, Jan altered herself to age with them. Two years after Matthew, Carolyn and Cameron brought Emily into being. Having no need for the usual acts of procreation (since none of them had any sense of touch) meant they had no need — or desire — to "pair off", but they loved in their own way, and used the randomiser to create their own "children" eventually, some of them starting as infants, some of them fully-grown individuals from the get-go. In the meantime, back when the only child was Jan, some characters from the holoparlour were also made into fully-fledged simulacra, who also made children of their own. The ship's population blossomed over the years to twenty-five simulacra and five flesh-and blood humans. And then one day it was only 29 simulacra and four flesh-and-blood humans.

Cameron eyes the door to his quarters — the quarters he'd shared with Carolyn for twenty years — with trepidation. He went through the door slowly, hesitantly — not because he was reluctant to see her, precisely, but because he was reluctant to see the sadness in her pretty eyes when he told her that her father was ... gone.

She had stopped seeing Hank Landry days ago — he'd refused further medical treatment, and she couldn't bear to watch him fad away, knowing she could save him but he wouldn’t let her. The problem lay in the fact that saving him meant downloading his consciousness — his body was past saving. But he insisted that all things had their time, and that his was ending.

Cameron wondered if the old man realised that, in turning down life as a simularcrum, he was effectively telling Carolyn that she wasn't real to him after all.

As Cameron saw it, becoming a simulacrum wasn't so very different from Ascending. He just wanted to enjoy the senses of touch, taste, and smell while he could, knowing that those senses were, collectively, the one thing Carolyn and Jack missed from their days in flesh, the abilities that Sam had never quite been able to reproduce (although she came close with smell). Carolyn had understood his desire to hold onto his body as long as he could, but they both knew he would choose to stay with her when the time came.

"It's happened, hasn't it?" she asked, not looking at him as he walked in.

He nodded, then, realising she couldn't see that, managed a throaty "Yeah. Sam said he, ah ... he went peacefully." A tear spilled from his eye; he was going to miss his father-in-all-but-law every bit as much as he had his crazy grandmother. More, really, considering Hank had had a much better disposition. He knelt before Carolyn, and saw tears of light fall, landing as a psuedo-wet stain on her skirt. They weren't saline, but they were every bit as real to him as his own. He just hoped they helped her as much as his own helped him.

"So ... what are we going to do? A-about the body, I mean?" Vala asked Daniel through her sniffling tears, Jan rubbing comforting circles on her mothers back. Jan didn't bother with tears, but Daniel didn't doubt that his daughter was just as sad as the rest of them.

"He, ah ... wanted us to use the incinerator," Daniel said, sitting beside her and taking her hand. "Cameron and Teal'c have agreed to prepare the ... the body."

Vala nodded, lowering her eyes. "Gotten so used to him being around — it's going to be strange ...."

"Yeah," Daniel agreed quietly.

"How ... how long do you think we should wait for the service?" Jan asked hesitantly.

Daniel smiled sadly; like it or not, these were questions that had to be asked. He knew it was especially hard on Jan, though, Hank having been like a grandfather to her. When Hank had reached a point where he couldn't get around much anymore, she had spent nearly every moment caring for him, playing chess, keeping him company. He'd shooed her away just before the end; Daniel suspected that he wanted to spare her the memory of his last moments. Even so, it took Sam asking for some time alone with him to convince Jan to do as Hank asked. Daniel could tell his daughter regretted it, but also wasn't going to dwell on it or beat herself up over it, so he wasn't worried for her.

"He said to 'take care of it right away and get back to living,' as he pit it," Daniel said. "So I guess after dinner."

"I don't think I can eat," Vala sighed.

"Not feeling all that hungry myself," Daniel admitted, "but we'll have to eat at least a little something, for when we have the toast to him, okay?"

Vala's lips quirked. "We could just drink holographic wine."

He chuckled. "Well, for Carolyn's sake, then, so she doesn't have to nag us about proper nutrition."

She smiled ruefully, then sobered. "Poor Carolyn. Did she—"

"No, she didn't see him before— what was that?" he asked, having seen a flicker out of the peripheral of his vision, coming from his daughter's direction.

As he stared, she flickered again, like a TV station with an interrupted signal. Jan stared at her hand as it sputtered into stripes of colour for a split second now and again. The resigned look on her face scared him more than the fact that she was blinking out. Finally, the fluttering stopped, and she seemed to stablise.

"Well ... I guess the cat's out of the bag," she said sheepishly.

"What, you mean this has happened before?" Vala asked, squeezing Daniel's hand in a vice-like grip. He could fear her heart racing beneath her skin.

Jan nodded, eyes downcast. "My ... my emitter is degrading."

"Well, why not just download into a new one?" Daniel asked, sharing a confused look with Vala, an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Because ..." She met his eyes. "Because I understand why Uncle Hank wanted to just let go, in the end. I think the fact that it can end one day makes life more worthwhile."

Daniel was speechless, but Vala wasn't; she shot to her feet, shouting, "So you're just going to end it all? Leave us when you don't have to? H-Hank would have lost senses that he spent sixty-five years using; what would it cost you, going into a new emitter?

Jan got to her feet and started pacing. "It's the idea that time is finite, and we could lose it all that makes us treasure what we have, and gives us a-s sense of purpose! Even the simple fear of dying can do that. But with infinite time, there comes a point when you've seen and done everything."

"And that's a long way off for you!" Daniel pointed out.

"Is it?" she asked. "Maybe if I had cut myself off from the mainframe, it would have, but the whole of the knowledge of the Asgard is just a mere thought away for me. There's no challenge. Father, how long would you have lasted without your work, your struggle?"

She had a point.

"What about me?" Vala protested. "I haven't had any life's work to keep me occupied, but you don't see me throwing my life away!"

Jan sat down across from them. "Three things have kept you going, mother. One, your ability to hope for better days; it's what helped you through your experience as a Go'auld, and the days when you were penniless, struggling to survive. You hold onto hope that you'll get out of the bubble and back to the life you all left behind. Two, you find your purpose, your daily joy in doing things for Daddy, and for your friends, and in helping Sam with her work. You keep the community thriving, arranging parties, even just planning the daily meals. You find ways to keep busy. And lastly? That fear of death — because the idea of an infinite nothingness is even more terrifying than an eternity contemplating your navel."

"What, so ... I can understand a lack of hope, but being with your family and friends isn't enough to give you purpose like it does me? You just don't love us enough to stick around?" Vala choked through her tears.

"It's not that," Jan said gently.

"And what about that third reason? You're not afraid of death, just because you're not flesh and blood? The possibility of infinite nothingness doesn't scare you?"

"It's not that either. I just think that .... that if the universe sees fit to make my emitter degrade, then there's something else I'm supposed to do with my existence. I believe I have a soul, Mom — and that my soul will go wherever it has a purpose. When God closes a door, she opens a window."

And with that, their daughter disappeared, her emitter falling to the floor, smoking.

"I'm sorry, Vala ... there's ... there's nothing I can do." Sam said sadly, after looking the emitter over. "Some sort of malfunction caused the emitter to overheat. There's no way to access her core personality because the crystal that held the information is ... melted."

Just like that, her daughter was gone.

Vala sank to the floor, barely aware of Daniel's arms around her, or Sam's around them both, or the sounds of their grief, even her own. At least with Hank, they had known it would happen, had expected it any day now, had had time to prepare. Both losses left Vala reeling, wondering what she could have done differently to convince either of them to stay with them by transferring their consciousnesses into an emitter — another one, in Jan's case. Vala had felt like a failure before, at other times in her life, but nothing like this.

You find your purpose, your daily joy in doing things for Daddy, and for your friends, and in helping Sam with her work. You keep the community thriving, arranging parties, even just planning the daily meals. You find ways to keep busy.

Vala seemed to wake up from her shock then, and held fast to her husband and her friend. She couldn't do anything for her daughter, or for Hank, but she could do her best to bring those still with her as much joy as she could in what time remained any of them.

She would help them find the reason to stay.

Despite Vala's best efforts, though, one by one, they lost more simulacra, as their emitter's failed. It didn't happen all at once — it took nearly two more decades — but each time, the simulacrum in question opted not to transfer their consciousnesses into new emitters while there was still a chance, each of them believing there was a reason for their loss.

Even when Carolyn's time came, she said goodbye to Cameron. Their children had gone first. No one knew why Carolyn's had lasted longer than theirs — why she or Jack had lasted as long as they had at all. When she went, age had tempered Mitchell's grief into resignation. She made him promise he would hold on; he did it for her.

Finally, nearly forty years after they'd gone into the bubble, and a year after the loss of Carolyn, there was only Jack and the four flesh-and blood people left.

Sam caught a flickering out of the corner of her eye.

"No!" she cried, snapping out of her half-asleep state, reaching out to touch Jack.

Her hand went through his shoulder.

"You're almost there, Sam," he said sadly.

"Jack, please, I can't do this without you!" she begged, tears streaming.

"Shhhhh," he said gently, reaching up to touch her cheek. "I'm sorry, Sam. But I warned you once that I would disappear when you threw in the towel ...."

"No! No, I'm working hard, I swear!"

"I heard you talking to Daniel, Sam," Jack replied, without reproach. "Heard what you said about having given up."

She didn't know what to say to that.

"You know what you have to do, Sam — you have to do as Vala suggested and reverse time. It's the only way, and the technology on this ship is too vital to be lost forever."

"I've tried!" she insisted. "It can't be done! And if I do find a way it'll be like you and the others never existed!"

"We don't exist now."

"You do!"

"Not for much longer. I want you to get out of this, Sam, and you'll never do that as long as I'm still here. The way I see it," he went on, talking over her protests, "if there's no me left here, you'll have to get yourself out of this, to be with the other me."

"No! Jack, I—"

"I love you, Sam," he told her. And then he was gone.

It took a little time but Sam eventually got past her grief and began working again. A few months later, she found the answer that had eluded her for four decades. It took her another few days to work up the nerve to tell her companions she'd found the answer, though, seeing as she'd also realised that it was too late: they didn't have enough power. Secretly, she was glad; her shame over that fact was as much a part of why she didn't tell them right away as her shame over having failed them was.

Then Cam found the way to make it all work after all.

She wept that night, more than she ever had in her life, even more than the day Jack had "died". If anyone had asked her if she was crying because she was happy or because she was sad, she honestly wouldn’t have been able to say. Or maybe she would just say both — happy to be able to erase forty years of failure, but grieving over all they were about to lose in the process. She knew that, elsewhere in the ship, the others grieved as well — Daniel and Vala for Jan, Cameron and Carolyn and their children, herself for Jack and Jacob. And for Teal'c, who would be left with memories of people who had never been.

The next day, the simulacrum were more than gone; they would only exist now in the memory of one lone Jaffa — until the day he was gone too, and they ceased to be entirely.

"Muscles! What happened to you?" the former space pirate asked as Teal'c helped her to her feet.