Paradox

Captain Linda Craver looked at the box in disdain. Her report on the object sat beside it.

"Sorry, sir, I couldn't crack it. The complex cipher used in conjunction with the mix of ancient languages…" she trailed off.

"You gave it your best Captain, and that's all we can ask of you."

"But what are we going to do?" asked Craver, "I did translate the cover stone where this was found and it's a dire warning. We need to crack the code to know what's inside."

"I'm aware of the stakes, so I'm sending you to a specialist who should be able to crack it."

"A specialist sir?" asked Craver a puzzled expression on her face, "I thought everyone on earth who knew anything about the SGC was here."

"You said it yourself," said the General, "on earth. You'll go through with your team in an hour," he checked his watch, "if we time this right you'll get there before closing time," The Captain wasn't any less confused as she was dismissed from the office.

Captain Craver and the rest SG-56, Lieutenants Kettle, and Lancer assembled in the gate-room. The gate began its dialing sequence.

"Don't forget this," The General handed her a case; "he'll need it for the translation." Craver took the case a strange look on her face.

"I thought were bringing the specialist back here."

"No, he won't come here, and we won't force him to," said the General giving Craver a hard look and handing her a letter, "Take this to the tavern in the village, it's a about a mile from the gate, just hand it over, return to the gate, wait four hours."

"And then what?" asked Craver.

"If he doesn't show, after four hours we'll know we're on our own."

The gate finished dialing and engaged. Craver followed her team through the wormhole to the other side.

The tavern was small wooden and dilapidated and so was the old crone who stood behind the bar. Craver tried to imagine what she'd look like with more than the three teeth she showed them, but the image was somehow wrong. The crone smiled at them as they entered.

"What can I get you?" she croaked.

"We have this," Craver handed over the envelope. The Crone looked at it smiled her three-tooth smile and put it under the bar.

"Anything else?" she asked.

"That's it," said Craver.

"Call back soon," she cackled as they left the Tavern.

Craver threw a pebble at the pond that lay a few yards from the gate.

"I love that metaphor," Craver looked up with a start and the rest of her team took up arms and aimed them across the pond. A man stood there smiling his hands in his pockets. "The pebble in the pond," said the man pointing to the ripples across the water, the soldiers tensed but if the man noticed he didn't show it, "The impact of the impact is far reaching and continues long after the pebble has fallen to the bottom," the man smiled, "I should know," he looked more closely at the group aiming weapons at him. He examined them one by one, but his gaze stopped on Craver. The young Captain was doing her own inventory, the man was younger than she'd expected, still on the good side of fifty if she had to guess. He wore Jeans and a T-shirt, and thin wire frame glasses on his face.

"You're the specialist?" she asked, her face belied her incredulity.

"Not what you were expecting?" the man grinned, "I never am."

"It's not that," she started, but he just grinned wider, "okay, it is that, it's just I don't expect the specialist I was sent to consult with on a different planet, could be a guy I passed in the supermarket this morning."

"How do you know I wasn't?" said the man smiling at her again.

"Well you weren't," said Craver, "you couldn't be, it's impossible."

"One thing I learned a long time ago is that when it comes to the Stargate, nothing is impossible."

"But the General told us you wouldn't come to Earth."

"I don't," the man said, "that is I can't," he frowned, "I could though, if I had the means, but I don't so I don't, go to Earth that is, not anymore."

"Why?" asked Craver, unable to stop herself.

"That story is not told to a person on the first meeting," Craver looked chagrined, but he shrugged it off, "Let's get to work," he said turning and walking away, after a moment he came back, "come on then!" he called and again walked off.

Craver told Lancer to report to the General that they'd made contact; the young Marine scowled but did as he was ordered. Kettle and Craver continued on following the mysterious consultant.

The man led the way across a field and into a nearby copse of trees. He stood by a totem that had a large red gem in the middle of it.

"Come on," he said waiting for Craver to catch up, "I'm getting old just standing here."

"Isn't that always true?" said Craver standing by him near the totem.

"There are so few absolutes in the world," he said and pressed the gem.

A flash of light took Craver by surprise and suddenly she was stood near an identical totem in a clearing, and the consultant was already striding across it towards a small cottage set back near some trees and a small creek.

"Where's my team?" asked Craver looking around.

"They're still at the totem. Come on keep up!" He walked straight into the cabin and pulled the letter Craver had given the crone from his back pocket. A man sat at the back of the room hunched over and writing. He looked up when they came in.

"Rodney, may I present Captain Craver of SG-56?" Rodney sat up, the other man handed him the letter.

"SG-56? You've got to be kidding!" Rodney took the letter opened it and scanned the contents, "She's for you Daniel," he said tossing the letter onto desk.

"I know, but I thought you'd like to see that they're from John."

"But he's not my John; he's their John, General and Commander of SGC. I miss my John, Daniel," Rodney pouted.

"I know, but at least we're in our own lifetime now it can't be much longer."

"If he's a General then it's got to be at least twenty or even thirty years more."

"Really? You think it would take that long for John to go from colonel to general?"

"You hear him tell it, he was lucky to get from major to lt. colonel."

"Humility," said Daniel, "Something you'd know nothing about."

"Why should I pretend to be stupider than I am? It serves no purpose," said Rodney.

Craver watched the by-play in silence, before finding a spot to interject.

"This translation is of the utmost importance," she said.

"Of course it is," said Rodney rolling his eyes, "whatever old and dusty thing you found, from whatever god forsaken future you've come from where John Sheppard is a General and my God," he said as if just realizing, "you don't even know who I am do you?" He seemed genuinely stricken.

"Was I supposed to?" asked Craver confused. Rodney turned puce and glared at her.

"Come on now Rodney, they're soldiers they're not going to know the 'who's who' of famous physicists," said Daniel comfortingly, he gave Craver smile, "Why don't I take a look at what you have?"

Craver handed over the case with the artifact in it. Daniel laid it on the table opened it up. On top of the artifact a small bag had been laid, "Oh now what's that?" Daniel mused grabbing it and opening it up, taking a big whiff he groaned a little, "Now that's good; Blue Mountain," he passed the bag to Rodney, who perked up instantly and grinned blissfully at the smell, "Do you think this is just a little bit sad?" asked Daniel.

"I don't care," said Rodney, "I haven't had coffee in 14 years, and he remembered my favorite." He smiled and walked out of the room.

"He'll be happier for days," said Daniel grinning. He went back over to the box. "I best get to work, this window won't be open for long," he pulled the artifact out of the case and began to examine it carefully, "Beautiful," he murmured.

"What do you mean?" asked Craver, "What window? Who are you guys?"

Daniel sat down with the box, and started working. Craver almost thought he'd forgotten about her.

"We're the past, and future collided, a future event that effects the past, we're a paradox Captain," he took notes as he spoke pausing for several seconds between words, "we were you, your predecessors, and we got trapped Rodney and I, here in this idyllic bubble between timelines. Periodically we pop into a timeline, that's when we meet people like you who are sent by people we knew or will know, or sometimes people we might have known, timelines and parallel universes are in constant state of creation and destruction, splintering and reforming. Ha got it!" he said suddenly looking down at his notes.

"You've cracked it? Already?" asked Craver astonished, "I worked on it for weeks."

"Oh, it wasn't that hard, I've seen this code before," he smiled to soften the blow, "John said something about a tablet, you translated that didn't you?"

"Yeah for all the good it did, 'Beware the destroyers of Time.' What does that mean?"

"I think," said Daniel look over his written translation, "I think it means me."

"What?"

"Or us rather, Rodney and me. It seems sometime soon we're going to have a choice to make," he checked his notes and called out to Rodney, "Come here and see this!"

"Why do I want to see your dusty old rock?"

"Because it's written in the code we developed because we were bored," said Daniel, "you know the one using mathematical regressions and an Ancient language base key."

"The one I just finished last week?" asked Rodney significantly more mellow now holding two mugs of coffee and handing one to Daniel. "That's interesting."

"Interesting?" cried Craver astonished by the nonchalance of the two men and the incoherent explanation of who they were and where they came from.

"Look," said Daniel, "it says there's going to be a lightning storm it'll rip a hole it a cozy little bubble here, and we can escape."

"That's great!" said Rodney, "What's the catch?"

"The catch is by going through we widen the rift enough to crack subspace and cause a major astrological event on the other side. The planet we end up on will be devastated at the get go, we'll be beamed up by Asgard, but the entire solar system will be lost," said Daniel.

"How?" asked Rodney, taking up Daniel's notes.

"The planet will be knocked off it's axis causing it to shift and change position on it's arc around the sun, it passes very close to another planet gravity between them near enough pulls them apart, but enough is left free of their orbit and head directly into the sun."

"Whereby the foreign particles in the sun's already fragile make up accelerate it into a supernova; the entire system is lost," said Rodney scanning the notes.

"The system is Asgard and a key component in their territory with planets rich in neutronium. We're still several decades outside our desired timeline, and the Asgard are forced into another galaxy to find neutronium," Daniel finished the story pointing it out on the tablet.

"So when are we avoiding this catastrophe?" asked Rodney.

"The date is here," said Daniel, "I need you to go over it, I told you, you'd made the numbering system too convoluted."

"You don't study, that's all," said Rodney, taking the tablet and sitting down, he looked quiet pleased to be working, almost as happy as when he'd opened the coffee.

"What date is it in your timeline Captain?" asked Daniel.

"July 26th 2060," said Craver, "why what time period are you from?"

"Let me put it this way," said Rodney, not looking up from the tablet, "your mother hasn't been born yet."

"Have you got it yet?" asked Daniel.

"Yes, the date is written in our standard time, and we're currently sitting in 2/47/08/14, this appears will be enacted on 3/00/11/5. So not an imminent threat then," said Rodney leaning back in his seat.

"I can go ahead and plant those fruit trees," said Daniel.

"I don't understand what do those numbers mean?" asked Craver.

"It's our calendar to record how long we've been here," said Daniel.

"So what, months, years, days, hours?" Craver asked.

"No," said Rodney, he got up and walked out of the room again.

"What else is there?" asked Linda.

"Centuries," said Daniel quietly, Craver looked at him confused, "we're stuck in a time paradox, we don't age, or die we just exist separate from time, until we can find a window to escape. The first number is centuries, the second is years, months and days. You've just brought us news that we'll be stuck here for another 50 years before a window opens that we can leave through and we can't use it, because it'll cause a cataclysmic cosmic event." Daniel gave Craver a sympathetic smile, "He'll get over it, he'll remember there's coffee in a couple of hours. Here I'll write out a full copy of the translation for you to give to John, he might want it for reference." He sat down and wrote out the full translation on a clean sheet of paper, then he replaced the tablet in the box and handed the paper to Craver.

"I'm so sorry," she said taking the paper and the tablet case.

"It's okay," said Daniel, "do something for me?"

"Sure," she said without thinking.

"Look me up when you get home, you never know I might be living in retired bliss by your time," Daniel grinned at her, "Dr Daniel Jackson,"

"And Dr Rodney McKay," Rodney called from the next room.

"July 26th 2060?" Daniel asked her she nodded and he wrote it down.

"She should go back," said Rodney walking back into the room, "You don't want to get stuck here," he said to Craver.

"Yes, it's about that time," said Daniel he offered Craver his hand and she took it, "Pleasure to meet you Captain, I hope we meet again."

"Good luck," she said shaking McKay's hand as well and turning to go.

"Go back in to the meadow and touch the totem," said Daniel, "it'll transport you back."

Linda Craver stood before her commanding officer, as he reviewed her report and the translation provided by Dr Jackson.

"Thank you Captain," said General Sheppard.

"But sir," Linda began.

"What is it? Do you have something to add?"

"I just wanted to know what was being done to help Drs Jackson and McKay," she said.

"Doctors Jackson and McKay?" asked Sheppard, "They're perfectly fine, living in semi-retirement, we consult with them now and again. Why do you ask?"

"But the place you sent me to," Craver began.

"Is in their past, I recognized the code, Captain, I knew it was about their time in the bubble, that's why I sent you."

"But if this message stopped them from escaping 50 years into their future, how long does it take them to escape into their own timeline?"

"No time at all," said Sheppard, Craver frowned at him, "Didn't Daniel tell you? It's a paradox."

Rodney, Sheppard and SG-1 in the form of Sam, Teal'c Mitchell and Daniel stepped through the gate. The world was a luscious green world and Rodney was immediately up front with his energy detector.

"Whoa there lemon man," said Mitchell grabbing Rodney's collar, Sheppard snorted at the nick name, but didn't comment. Rodney sent him an evil look and glared at Mitchell, "let's secure the area first and make sure there aren't any critters out there looking to eat some delicious Tau'ri.

"This isn't the Pegasus galaxy Colonel," said Rodney, "there are no Wraith here."

"That's true," said Daniel smirking at Mitchell.

"But I'm sure you'd taste good to any of the large predators in these woods McKay," said Sam slapping him on the shoulder and taking point as the rest of SG-1 spread out walking down the path, but aware of their surroundings.

"There was nothing about large predators in the reports from this world," said Rodney coming up alongside John.

"I don't know McKay, we are on another planet."

"Well we didn't actually see them the last time," said Daniel from their left.

"See?" said Rodney.

"Yeah," said Mitchell from the other side, "we only saw what was left their latest meal."

"Yes, well fine, if you feel the need to be all you can be,"

"That's the Army McKay," called Sam from out front, "The site is about a mile ahead, why don't you start taking readings."

"That's actually what I was doing before Rambo here nearly throttled me!" said Rodney indignantly.

Sheppard snorted again and hooked an arm over Rodney's shoulder, "Buck up McKay," he said, "Look on the bright side, they've already done the hard stuff of make sure it's safe and there are no death traps waiting for us, all you have to do is find the on switch so we can fly this baby home."

The group came up out of the woods and into a clearing on the top of a hill.

"Well that looks like a great high tech Ancient outpost," said Sheppard staring at the tiny village of little more than a few ramshackle houses and well at the center.

"Wait," said Sam frowning, "this isn't right, there was a small outpost here with an advance experimental jumper."

"Did we get sent to the wrong planet again?" asked Mitchell.

"It doesn't make sense for the gate to let us through before and not again," said Sam.

"Well, I'm still picking up that energy signature, maybe there's someone in town who can tell us what's going on," said Rodney.

"We should scout the area," said Sheppard, "if there's Ancient tech nearby maybe, Rodney or myself activated it and it..."

"What made a village appear?" asked Daniel.

"Sam made one disappear," said Mitchell.

"That's true," said Daniel, "Maybe your guys genes made it reappear from some cloaking technology."

"It's possible," said Sam, "My calculations show that the settlement is right where the outpost should be."

"Is it logical that a dump like that is what's really there and the Ancient Outpost is the a disguise?" asked Rodney.

"Fair question," said Sheppard.

"Why don't Rodney and I go down and talk to the locals like he suggested, and you guys can scout around the village?" said Daniel. Rodney looks surprised at the suggestion.

"Good idea," said Mitchell slapping Rodney on the back, "give you and Jackson time to bond." Daniel rolled his eyes, and they all started down the slope to the village.

Sam and Mitchell paired off as they went into the settlement and Sheppard walked out with Teal'c at his side.

"You don't talk much do you?" he said to Teal'c as they walked around a corner.

Daniel took quick stock of the village, and started towards the building in the middle.

"Come on Rodney," he said, "I'll buy you a drink." Rodney followed his eyes still on his scanning device.

The tavern was dark and dingy, and empty but for the crone at the bar wiping up. She smiled her three tooth grin.

"Wanna drink today?" she asked with a voice that sounded like a car backfired and exploded. Daniel frowned at the turn of phrase, but shrugged it off.

"No thanks," he said, "we just wanted to ask you about your village." Rodney grunted agreement from behind his scanner and muttered something to himself about building power outage.

"You'll learn to like me," said the crone, and handed Daniel a letter.

"What's this?" he asked seeing that the letter had his name written on it.

"A chicken," said the woman with her three teeth grin, "or it could be an egg. Open it and see, and maybe one day you'll stay and have a drink." She walked away leaving him with the letter. Without anything else to do, Daniel opened the letter.

"Dear Daniel,

I want to tell you to run, but I know it won't help, Rodney will get his power surge shortly and you'll be reading the rest of this letter when it's too late to tell you…"

"Daniel!" cried Rodney, "the energy source it's surging we have to warn the others!"

"Sam, Teal'c come in!" said Daniel into his radio as they left the tavern, "Rodney says the power source is surging we have to clear the area!"

"It's climbing higher!" said Rodney.

A bright white light flashed before them, and the two men, and the village were gone.

"What the hell just happened?" cried Mitchell. All four remaining team members met up in what was now an empty field.

"We reached the edge of the village in our search and then I heard Daniel Jackson calling to us on the radio," said Teal'c looking pensive, "then a bright light shone from the area, and the village vanished."

"That's what we saw, too," said Sam.

"Where are Jackson and McKay?" asked Sheppard.

Sam thumbed her radio. "Daniel, Rodney? Do you copy?" She shook her head.

"Think that whatever, happened to the village happened to them too?" asked Mitchell.

"It's possible, I think Daniel said something about an energy surge, before he got cut off."

"Great!" said Sheppard, "were they vaporized or transported?"

"There's no way to know," said Sam, "we should get reinforcements do a perimeter search, maybe get an aerial search of the area, maybe locate some clue as to what happened."

"Fine," said Mitchell, "we'll head back to the gate, but we will be coming back," he said this his eyes firm, "I'll be damned if I'm leaving that man behind again."

They all trooped up the hill to the gate platform and there sitting on the steps were Rodney and Daniel. Daniel jumped up when he saw them.

"I told you!" he said happily to Rodney.

"It took you long enough!" Rodney groused, before breaking into smile.

Daniel sat on the porch drinking a glass of lemonade, his movements were slow, but sure and he smiled when he heard the noise coming from the house.

"God damn, bloody cats, and yappy dogs," Rodney groused as he lumbered out of the house, Daniel handed him a glass and smiled, "I don't know what you're so happy about," he said taking a long swig from the glass, he blinked, looked at Daniel and chuckled, "well now I know. Did I ever tell you I love lemons?"

"Only everyday since they cured your allergy," said Daniel.

Rodney sat down with a groan, "I'm getting old," he said leaning back with a sigh.

"I don't know," said Daniel, "I think you look good for someone pushing 500."

Rodney snorted, "I just got off the phone to John, we might be getting a visitor."

"Oh yeah who?" asked Daniel.

"Captain Linda Craver." The two men looked up and saw Craver stood in the driveway.

"Captain Craver," said Daniel, "it's been a long time."

"It's been no time at all," said Craver with a smile.

Daniel threw up his arms to shield himself from the light, but a moment later there was nothing. He lowered his arms, nothing had changed, the village the sky, Rodney who was also looking around puzzled and looking down at his scanner with a frown on his face. Daniel thumbed his radio.

"Sam, Teal'c?" he paused, but there was no response, "Sheppard, Mitchell. Guys?" Static sounded back to him.

The two men searched the village quickly, but found nothing and no one even the old crone was no longer in the tavern.

After an hour they decided to go back to the gate and get back up, but when they got to the top of the hill all that stood there was a totem with a red gem in the center of it.

"What the hell is that?" cried Rodney, "Where is the gate?"

"It looks like an Asgard beaming totem, like what we found on Cimmeria," said Daniel.

Rodney scanned the totem, "It's giving off a low energy signal, are we trying to transport or…?" He looked at Daniel who had suddenly started looking through the pockets on his vest, "what is it?" he asked.

"I just remembered, that woman at the bar gave me a letter just before your scanner showed the energy spike, I got through the first sentence and then just stuffed it away while we searched."

"So?"

"So, I've never been here before and that letter was addressed to me, in my own handwriting, a-ha!" he said pulling the crumpled envelope out of his pocket.

"Dear Daniel," he read aloud.

"I'm riveted," said Rodney. Daniel glared at him and he subsided. Daniel read on.

"I want to tell you to run, but I know it won't help, Rodney will get his power surge shortly and you'll be reading the rest of this letter when it's too late to tell you…'

"That's when you called out about your power surge," said Daniel, Rodney made a 'get on with it' motion with his hand, and Daniel returned to the letter.

"You've probably done a search and found the totem in the gate's place, it works just like the ones on Cimmeria and it'll transport you to where you'll be spending the next little while. The cottage, will serve you well, even if Rodney will complain forever about the out-house."

Rodney curled his lip at that. Daniel continued to read.

"This is what none of Rodney's scans can tell you, and I only know because I read it in a letter extremely similar to the one you're reading right now. You're trapped in a time bubble, it's yet another failed Ancient gizmo gone awry, the old crone at the bar is the sole survivor of the village below, she'll take messages for you when you get visitors from earth, don't get excited, they'll only visit when they want help, and to tell you how you can't escape, I'll go into more detail about that later, or rather, I'll have Rodney include a few pages to flesh out the limitations of our wonderful time prison. You won't grow old, you won't die, and you'll be here for a very, very, very, very, very long time." Daniel paused frowning.

"I guess he made that point," said Rodney, "can you skip ahead apparently we'll have time to go through it in detail."

Daniel scanned the page, and stopped with a smile, "No Rodney," he read, "you can sit there and be patient for once, I only have 3 more things to say and then you can leave the rest for later. 1) ration the coffee. 2) start planting your first crops with in a week 3) there is hope, I'm writing in the date we leave in our calendar, you'll have to figure it out yourself 3/59/12/2.

Start counting at 1."

I hope you enjoyed this twisty-timey wimy adventure! Cynic_al