Story: A New Normal, Part II
Jack was incredibly relieved when Dr. Brightman agreed that he could leave the infirmary. She still insisted that someone be with him, since he was under the influence of an alien drug, but his worrying about what he would say apparently outweighed her desire to personally supervise him. So he and Daniel were set up in guest quarters, complete with two plates of chicken pot pie for lunch.
Brightman had assumed he would feel comfortable talking with Daniel. First, of course, they were lovers, and there was no worry about Daniel’s security clearance. And Brightman wasn’t wrong, but she also didn’t see the whole picture. The rest was that Daniel would accept his silence without offense.
They’d just finished the pot pie when someone knocked on the door. Daniel got up to answer it. “Hi Sam.”
“How -” she caught herself as the door slid shut, hastily covering with, “The Vali are preparing some kind of apology statue.”
“Another statue,” muttered Jack. “Like we don’t already have enough.”
Daniel failed to cover the hurt look on his face. “Crap,” said Jack. He really hated this truth serum. Some things just weren’t meant to be shared. Ever. Now words came spilling forth while he tried to sooth Daniel’s ruffled feathers, and Jack could no more stop them than he could stop the tide. “Look, Daniel, you know I love you. I meant it when I said it’s our house and I want you to have your things. Just don’t expect me to start liking three-headed Gumby men, okay?”
Much to Jack’s relief, his boyfriend agreed, “As long as you don’t expect me to like that singing fish.”
That sounded fair enough. “Deal.”
Meanwhile, Sam was looking terribly guilty. “I’m sorry. I thought it was just questions…”
“Nope. I get the whole kit ‘n’ caboodle.”
She raised her eyebrows a little. “I see. I’ll go, but Eddie really wants me to tell you that he hasn’t told anyone a thing about you. Apparently people have been asking him.” Sam scowled a bit at that.
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Daniel replied.
“You have better judgment than to date a gossip.” As he heard himself speak, Jack decided it was a good thing Sam already knew better than to believe he was as gruff as he acted.
“Thanks,” she said. “See you later.”
Daniel found a book and brought it over. “Apparently our guest quarters now come stocked with reading material.”
Jack looked at the book. It was a legal thriller, which he liked if they were well-written, but he didn’t feel like reading. “Sure. Stick me in a room with you while I don’t want to talk, there’s a perfectly good bed going to waste, and what do I get? A book.”
Daniel tried not to laugh but failed miserably.
*****
It was just before ten at night when they finally got home. Dr. Brightman had proclaimed Jack free of the truth serum once she tested his blood and, while they waited for the results, he regaled her with a complicated story about SG-1’s starring role in bringing about Apophis’s heretofore unknown extra death. By the end his lies got bolder, just because he could.
“Nice clear night,” remarked Jack when he got out of the truck. “I think I’ll go up on the roof for a bit.”
Daniel fished out his keys and wondered if his partner wanted company or not. Sometimes the roof was Jack’s private refuge, but it was also just a place he liked to spend time. “Let me know if you want company,” he offered lightly.
“That’d be good.”
In short order, they were up on the roof with a package of Oreos. It really was a clear night, good for stargazing. They were far enough away from the city that there wasn’t too much light to interfere.
“Do you want a telescope?” asked Jack suddenly. He was looking out through his while Daniel sprawled out in the chaise lounge he’d wedged up on the roof that summer. “We can get another one.”
“I’m more of a panorama man. Besides, you show me the best stuff when it’s already in focus.”
Jack chuckled, a low and happy sound that Daniel never got tired of hearing. “I see how it is.”
“Oreo?” he offered. Jack took the cookie.
Next door, Kelly called, “Mocha! Mocha, come!”
“If people want a pet that comes when it’s called, they shouldn’t get a cat.”
Jack, of course, was not overly fond of cats generally, so Daniel pointed out, “You never think people should get cats.”
“Not true. Cats have their place. Anywhere with too many mice, mainly.”
“Mocha!” called Kelly.
Jack tore himself away from his telescope. “Thanks for today.”
“Sure,” he replied.
To Daniel’s immense relief, they had both survived the experience more or less unscathed. Most of the time he was there keeping Jack company, and satisfying Dr. Brightman’s requirement that he not be alone, without engaging in any conversation. Jack seemed to prefer it that way. Daniel had been slightly offended at first, because even though he was himself very private he shared with Jack. But then he realized a) there were things in Jack’s Special Ops past that he was never, ever supposed to speak of and b) it was a control issue. Jack couldn’t control what came out when he opened his mouth, and so he’d prefer not to open it at all. If it had been Daniel injected with truth serum, he probably would’ve done the same.
Mocha must’ve gone to Kelly, because they heard the Bucklin’s door shut, leaving them alone outside to stare at the stars. (Although Jack seemed to have his telescope pointed at the moon.)
Daniel was hit with an unexpected pang of loss that he didn’t get to look up and see stars in an entirely different configuration, now, didn’t get to regularly take in the view from another world. Maybe he’d never really appreciated that enough when he was on SG-1. It had been a few months since his injury and the disbanding of SG-1, but Daniel still missed going through the stargate regularly. He’d only been offworld once since that last fateful mission.
“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” asked Jack.
“Just thinking.”
“You’re always thinking.”
Daniel gave his partner a little smile. “We had a good run, didn’t we? SG-1?”
Jack left his telescope and wedged himself next to (and on top of) Daniel on the lounge. “The best.” He laid a soft kiss on Daniel’s lips.
There had been days when Daniel was sure they would all die. Together, probably saving the world or at least a world, going out in a blaze of glory, but definitely a permanent death. Somehow they’d beat odds not even Vegas would take and managed to make all of their deaths temporary.
“You know the story about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?” he asked his partner.
“Daniel, my last name is O’Neill. Of course I do.”
Fair enough. “I heard a different version of it once. My last foster mother, right before I left for college, told it to one of the younger kids. She said that the rainbow is a long and hard journey. First you must hike uphill on a narrow path. Then you have to hang on as you go downhill and everything is out of your control. Only then can you make it to the foot of the rainbow and find your pot of gold.”
“Huh,” said Jack noncommittally.
“This,” he punctuated the statement with a hug, “is the pot of gold, Jack.”
Jack kissed him again. “You are such a romantic, Daniel Jackson. Pot of gold, hmm? It works, if you don’t mind your gold a little scratched and dented.”
“I like it just the way it is.”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “Mine’s pretty great too.”
*****
Jack was already thinking of his extensive to-do list when he entered his office. Since most of the previous day had been a wash courtesy of the Vali truth serum, his work was piling up. Not to mention the extra work resulting from that incident. Warren had released the two who weren’t responsible, keeping the assailant overnight. At this point, Jack had pretty much decided to just release her to the custody of the Vali. The Unified Government of the Vali was clearly sorry and the incident put him in a better negotiating position for those promising medicines Brightman was just about drooling over.
There was a magazine lying face-down on his floor. That was odd, but odd was their stock and trade at SGC. And sometimes Colonel Fisk earmarked articles in his aviation magazines that he thought Jack might like. So it wasn’t until he dropped it casually on his desk that Jack realized what had happened.
It wasn’t an aviation magazine. It was Playgirl.
Jack had thought he could just brush anything like this off. Apparently, he’d thought wrong. Suddenly he had an overwhelming need to see Daniel. He’d never called Daniel to his office for personal reasons before. But damn it, someone was determined to blur the lines between personal and professional. And Jack had no real experience with this. Sure, Hammond had taken a little bit to get used to the idea, the late Rosnik hadn’t been thrilled, and his Aunt Kate had needed a few days… but this went beyond that.
He was going to be in a bad mood all day unless he did something. Decision made, he picked up the phone and dialed Daniel’s extension. He didn’t trust himself to leave his office just then.
“Hello?”
“Daniel. Can you come to my office?”
“Be right there.”
Jack stashed the magazine in his desk drawer and poked his head in next door. “I don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s urgent,” he told Lieutenant Phillips.
“Yes sir.”
For a man whose office was three levels up, Daniel made it to Jack’s office in amazingly good time. He could tell something was wrong, because he shut the door behind them. “Jack?”
Jack opened the drawer and angrily threw the magazine on his desk. “Look what I found slipped under my door.”
Daniel took one look at the Playgirl and growled something that sounded suspiciously like a curse Jack had heard on Abydos. Switching to English, he said, “Too cowardly to say anything to our faces.”
“I thought…” words failed Jack, as they had an annoying habit of doing when he wanted to express something personal. “It was easier to not care at home,” he finally managed. It was a rather lame way to sum up his swirling feelings, but was the only way he could.
Fortunately, Daniel understood. He usually did. “It’s easier not to care in theory. But, as cliché as this sounds, it really does get better.”
That was good to know. “No surprise mail for you?” he asked.
“Half the base already thought I was gay. They got their kicks years ago.”
Jack didn’t like the implications of that, but Daniel’s posture and facial expression warned him not to go there. ‘I accepted myself a long time ago, Jack,’ he’d said. And Jack knew his lover; Daniel was outraged, but not on his own behalf. He genuinely didn’t care what other people said or did regarding his sexuality. He just hated to see Jack go through it.
“It’s not…” to his great frustration, words were not coming to mind again. “It’s not like a ribbon device. It doesn’t matter.” He dropped the magazine into the trash, painfully aware how obvious the lie was. It mattered, because this was one of his people. One of the good guys.
“It does,” said Daniel. “I know, Jack.”
He nodded, not trusting his voice for a minute. He felt better already; Daniel had that effect on him. And then one of his trademark deflecting remarks came to him. Only this was one of the special ones, because it was not for general consumption. “Anyway, I don’t know why they think I need that when I’ve got you.”
Daniel smiled, even though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh yes, you’re stuck with me.”
When it came down to it, that was all that mattered. “I’m okay. Thanks for coming down.”
“Para usted, cualquier cosa, cariad.”
Oh, Spanish and Welsh. For you, anything, beloved. He did so enjoy it when Daniel showed off his linguistic talents. Particularly when it involved their own special endearment.
When Daniel left, Jack’s mood had improved considerably, and he was able to get back to the Vali situation.
A few hours later Jack was walking through the corridors headed for the geology lab, where once again there was something he was told he simply had to see. He sometimes wished the survey teams would bring back smaller rocks so they could be brought to him, but more often than not he was happy for the excuse to walk around and be out of his office.
He stopped when he heard an unfamiliar male voice say, "I can't believe they're letting O'Neill stay in command. Jackson, fine. He’s not the only fag in that crowd, and they’re not in the command structure. But O’Neill is the damned director. He might as well still be Air Force."
Jack really wanted to hit something. Or someone.
"He's good,” countered a second male voice. “I don't think there are many people who could keep this all together."
First the Playgirl incident and now some other idiot, and it was barely 1200. Jack was glad to have the second person’s vote of confidence.
"I'm pretty sure that letting a gay retired general command is violating regulations."
"Technically, no."
"But the point of the regs, the bigger picture..."
"Oh, the big picture, you mean keeping Earth safe? How exactly does the gender of O'Neill's lover impact that?"
"You're actually okay with this?"
"More or less. I mean, it's weird. First of all, because he and Dr. Jackson act just the way they always have, but we know. And the whole gay sex thing gives me the creeps. But they're the best. SGC needs them. Earth needs them."
"So you're saying you don't have a problem taking orders from a queer?"
"I'm saying I don't have a problem taking orders from General O'Neill."
Jack hadn’t known how much he needed to hear that until the words were spoken. He couldn’t continue to command a base without the respect of his people. They didn’t have to like his love life, but they did have to trust that he was capable of doing his job, or SGC would go to hell without any snakes lifting a stolen finger.
"It's just wrong," insisted the first man.
"Why are we so afraid of the Goa'uld, even now when most of them are dead and the rest are as weak as they've ever been?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Humor me."
"Fine. Because they want to enslave us and make us hosts."
"Exactly. We want our freedom."
"I still don't see how this has anything to do with O'Neill and Jackson."
"If we won't let people have freedom on Earth, why the hell are we fighting for it out there? Two consenting adults. What they do on their own time is their business."
"What happened to the Geyer I was stationed with in Germany?"
"He learned that the universe is a whole lot bigger than he thought."
They had to be getting close to the corner, so he started softly whistling and resumed walking. Once he crossed paths with the airmen, both snapped off a salute. “Sir,” they said in unison.
Okay, so the part where he might as well still be Air Force was mostly true. He would have been, if he could legally do it and still live with Daniel.
It was clearly a bad morning when he wanted a small emergency. Just a small, non-fatal one. But in the end, there was no way he could be happy without Daniel. He’d put up with what he had to, if it was the price they paid. Daniel was worth every indignity and then some.
*****
Walter hadn’t yet decided what he was going to do with his windfall. Of course, he had far too much respect for both General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson to make public his wager in the pool on O’Neill’s retirement, at the time. No, he’d quietly put his money in with Siler, who was capable of keeping the secret even if he thought it was nuts. But time had proven Walter right, and he was now $2,875 richer.
He didn’t know how the two of them did it. Walter was married to his career. That’s what his ex-wife had told him when she couldn’t take it any more and left him. He’d loved her, but realized that the Air Force had always come first. So he never bothered with the whole remarriage thing. He had an attractive lawyer friend, Fiona, with a similar outlook, and they had a very satisfactory arrangement.
There was only one woman in his heart: his daughter Caitlin. He’d already bought her plane ticket home for Thanksgiving, and now he figured he’d add a check for a couple hundred dollars when he mailed it. You’d think one heart attack over college costs would be enough, but it turned out the expenses didn’t end with the tuition bill. He supposed he ought to tuck away a thousand for the next tuition bill, as well. Walter may not have done well by his ex-wife, but he was determined to do well by Caitlin. Sometimes that meant apologizing for the sins of his gender and letting her cry on his shoulder (nearly as hard as watching staff blasts fly through the stargate) and sometimes it meant trying to keep her student loans to a minimum (easier, though he was really starting to miss good scotch. Oh, good scotch. He’d have to spend some of his winnings on that.)
Walter already had the utmost respect for his CO and for Dr. Jackson. General O’Neill was the kind of soldier most of the Air Force wanted to be, although few of them ever stopped to realize the personal cost. Dr. Jackson had seen more combat than most of the Air Force and he was a civilian. Even when he grew to be a soldier-civilian, he never lost his love of discovery. They were good men and Walter was proud to work at SGC. What he didn’t understand was how, after giving so very much of themselves to the program, they had anything left to give to a relationship. That had been his problem.
More power to them, though. As for the whole gay thing, Walter had stopped caring about that a long time ago. He knew firsthand how many times the world had come close to ending, and simply couldn’t be bothered to care the gender of who anybody slept with or loved, because it seemed so insignificant. As SGC’s senior non-com, he’d taken it upon himself to share this opinion. He figured he owed General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson that.
And if by coincidence he saw a copy of an obscene and entirely disrespectful cartoon, recognized the handwriting as belonging to one of his direct reports, and said direct report would soon find that he’d drawn a month straight of night duty, well… these things happened. Coincidences, in Walter’s mind, were wonderful events.
True, there was something to be said for Teal’c’s way of dealing with things. Corporal Lizotte had been telling a joke about General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson in the gym and made the common mistake of underestimating Jaffa hearing. Nobody ever learned the punch line to his joke, nor exactly what Teal’c had said to him, but Lizotte refused to even be near anyone denigrating the general and/or Dr. Jackson after that incident. Alas, Walter didn’t have the sheer physical power needed to strike that kind of fear into the hearts of Marines. He worked with what he had.
Walter had leave coming in a couple of months. He paused to consider how much a cruise would cost…
*****
For once Daniel didn’t mind that he felt extraneous at a briefing. His part in translating the Greek-derived language had long been passed, and the briefing was delving into technical specifics he couldn’t entirely follow. But that was alright, because Jack was enjoying himself immensely.
Jack loved planes and flying. His degree was in aeronautics. So he was thrilled when SG-28 been given what turned out to be plans for a fighter plane. Sam and Jack had already found a few key areas where this design could significantly improve on the F-302s.
The situation of how SGC got the plans was a little haunting. SG-28 had received the plans from the people of P3L-257, a planet which had nearly been destroyed by Ra. In fact, the inhabitants didn’t even know what the plans were for any more. It was, to them, the blueprint for a weapon to fight the Goa’uld, a weapon their ancestors had never been able to build. But while they forgot industrial development, the people of P3L-257 had never forgotten the Goa’uld, and they solemnly copied the old plans and asked SG-28 to create the weapons their ancestors had designed.
It pleased Daniel to see his partner so enthusiastic. Sometimes the paperwork and bureaucracy of his job got to Jack, but then he had bright shining moments like this, where a big honkin’ space gun practically fell into his lap. And it was a flying space gun, no less.
The Playgirl incident of the previous day was forgotten, and knowing Jack he would never bring it up again.
When he first came back from Abydos, Daniel had endured a few taunts. Nothing physically dangerous, of course - the military bigots behind the incidents were closed-minded but not stupid, and they knew his skills were needed. It was just stupid stuff, like the time he’d gone out to his car and found ‘FAG’ written on both sideview mirrors with soap. Daniel had practice ignoring things like that, but all the same he decided it was best not to confirm that he actually was bisexual. It just made life easier, and it hadn’t mattered because he was devoted to Sha’re. Anyway, it went away after a couple of months.
There was also the matter of his department. Most of the people he spent the day working with were unbothered by alternative lifestyle choices. In fact Trevor Voss, their resident specialist in Pacific island archaeology, was proudly parade-gay. Jack didn’t have that kind of broadly accepting environment with the Air Force. At least most of the SG teams remained confident in Jack’s leadership, if not his personal life. That meant a great deal to Jack, because the base couldn’t run without it.
Jack was, by all outward appearances, the ultimate heterosexual, macho alpha male. Daniel had never understood how learning a man like Jack wasn’t straight would threaten other men (wouldn’t it mean less competition?), unless of course they didn’t want to acknowledge their own non-heterosexual preferences.
It took a lot more courage to admit you were different than to play along. The night after Daniel had given Jack that crazy kiss, they talked for a long while. The conversation was vivid in Daniel’s memory because it had changed his life.
“You kissed me.”
“I know. I thought… hell, Jack. I’m sorry.” He’d thought Jack wanted it too, somehow.
“Don’t be,” came the whispered reply. “I don’t think I’m straight, Daniel. Maybe I never was. Women - they still do it for me. But once in a while it’s not just women.”
They talked for a while, both of them discussing bisexuality without bringing up the idea of them together, until Jack finally said, “I don’t know what I’m doing and I can’t let people find out, and you deserve more than that. But you kissed me, so I’ve gotta ask: can I take you out to dinner?”
That took more guts than any homophobes would ever give credit for. Yet whoever slipped the Playgirl under Jack’s door knew he had guts, knew he was a hero, knew he’d died for Earth and nearly died permanently for it, over and over again. They knew what kind of a man he was and it didn’t even matter. Daniel hated the injustice of it.
But he was supposed to be listening to the briefing, or at least thinking about the injustices of the universe more directly related to what the Air Force paid him for. Thus he forced himself to tune back into the fighter plane discussion.
Teal’c was talking. “… takes advantage of a rarely-exploited tactical weakness of al’kesh: the proximity of the cannons to the shield generator.”
“Which means it’s easier to overload them,” concluded Sam, “disabling if not destroying the ship.”
“Precisely.”
“I like it,” declared Jack to nobody’s surprise. “Can we actually build these things, Carter?”
“I think so, sir.”
Daniel wasn’t good at compartmentalizing, so he couldn’t figure out how Jack and Sam managed to go from first names off-duty to last names and ‘sir’ off-duty. He’d given up trying. It was his inability to compartmentalize that made him good at his job.
“You think?”
“We don’t have a prototype to reverse-engineer. There are a couple of words Daniel can’t translate.”
“Technical terms, presumably for mechanical parts,” Daniel supplied. “If we don’t have anything like it, I can’t translate the word. And the designs don’t have descriptions.”
“Too bad,” said Jack.
“Still, I believe that with a team of engineers, it will be possible to build a model from these blueprints, and then incorporate the best aspects into our own planes.”
“So this is one for Area 51?” asked Jack.
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll let them know it’s coming.”
With that, the briefing was over. As Daniel headed out the door, he heard Jack humming to himself, very quietly. The tune was “We Are the Champions,” which was one of Jack’s favorite anti-Goa’uld songs. Daniel wondered if his partner even realized the irony that it was a Queen song.
*****
One minute Jack was alone in his office reading Hallowell’s report on the algae that had put de Silva to sleep for five days, and the next a small crowd of archaeologists had rushed in through his open door and were all talking at once.
“Why didn’t we think…”
“…imagine who else…”
“…just unbelievable, Director…”
“…the Bermuda Triangle! It could…”
“Wouldn’t that require rings?”
“I never would’ve thought…”
“… amazingly well preserved for the corrosive environment…”
Oddly enough, Daniel sauntered in behind the rest of the group. And he actually knocked. Jack figured this could mean only one thing: whatever astonishing discovery had been made, it was less than a thousand years old.
“Daniel? Would you care to enlighten me?”
It was a sign of the high regard in which Daniel was held by his staff that the rest of the archaeologists stopped talking when he loudly cleared his throat. “Xavier, it was your find.”
Xavier Rikes stepped forward. “We know what happened to Amelia Earhart! She was taken as a Goa’uld host.”
Jack was shocked. Like most people with an interest in aviation, he was intensely curious as to Earhart’s fate, but he’d never guessed that he would know what had become of her. “How do we know this? The short version, please.”
Daniel was giving him an amused smile. He knew this was the most excited Jack had ever been about an archaeological find that didn’t involve weaponry. Jack asked how the archaeology teams knew things next to never.
“The crashed ship on P7S-489,” said Rikes, so excited his words were coming out in a rush. “The ha’tak we’ve been examining.”
“Right.” He remembered having doubts about what good it would do to uncover a seriously smashed-up ship that was under a lot of black sand and had been for decades. Apparently he was now learning.
“We found this.” Rikes dropped three pictures on the desk. “As you can see, it’s a badly damaged Electra. We’ve just confirmed that the special fuselage tanks match those on Earhart’s plane. Match exactly. Now, the ha’tak was obviously badly damaged in a firefight. P7S-489 is practically in our backyard, at least that’s what Colonel Carter’s people tell me. We’re working on the theory that there was a fight near our solar system, and for some reason at least one Goa’uld needed a new host. Maybe the sarcophagus was destroyed in battle? Anyway, after Ra’s experience with rebellion, they wouldn’t want to stick around in a damaged ha’tak.”
“This is very interesting,” he said with more sincerity than he hardly ever used for that statement, “but I don’t see how this translates to Earhart being taken as a host.”
Rikes handed him another picture, this one of a small plaque with squiggly writing. “The natives - very rural, agrarian people, if you recall - told us the rest.”
P7S-489 had only become safe to visit after Yu was killed and Ba’al was so weakened he failed to completely take Yu’s territories. The people seemed nice enough, and were happy that they finally got to keep their crops instead of feeding Yu’s Jaffa. “Yes,” prompted Jack.
“Their name for the site, Director. It’s ‘The Undergod Reborn.’”
Okay, that was a new one.
MacDonald picked up the story from there. “According to Kintai oral history, the undergod Chi had been male since time immemorial. Then a woman emerged from the wreckage at The Undergod Reborn. But it was the woman with ‘the hair of a man,’ which is to say short. The Kintai didn’t believe it was Chi, and retribution was harsh. Chi eventually left and hasn’t been heard from in two generations.”
Jack took a moment to process the information. “So, we’re thinking Chi was one of Yu’s underlords. And could still be out there, for all we know. I guess it makes sense, for a snake. Chi needed a host fast. This one was already airborne.”
“An easy target,” agreed Rikes sadly. “We have no evidence to suggest Noonan survived, though we don’t have bodies either. The Kintai were forced to cremate the bodies.”
“In which case Noonan was the lucky one.”
The archaeologists nodded in agreement, some with shudders. It was a terrible fate for anyone, of course, but there was something wrong about finding out, after all the years and speculation, what a terrible fate had probably fallen to Amelia Earhart. Jack mused that his job sometimes managed to be wonderful and simultaneously really suck.
*****
Eddie thought that the Persian food was just okay. He’d ordered some unpronounceable (except to Daniel, of course) lamb and rice dish that was a bit heavy on the spices. Sam seemed to be enjoying hers, though she’d chosen one of the less exotic dishes on the menu.
“This is delicious,” declared Teal’c. Eddie took Teal’c’s opinions on food with a boulder of salt. After all, the Jaffa liked Spam and creamed corn, two things Eddie avoided without exception. As far as Eddie knew, the only thing Teal’c wouldn’t eat was jalapeno peppers, and that was because they made him sick.
“I’ve had worse,” said O’Neill, who like Teal’c had a tendency to eat almost anything. He did have his limits, like most sensible people. The meatloaf on base, for instance.
The Persian was okay, though. And it had been a long and trying week, for O’Neill and Daniel especially, so it was nice to get out and relax.
“This is almost as good as Roshanak’s,” Daniel said.
O’Neill asked, “Whose?”
“Roshanak. She was an Iranian archaeologist’s daughter whose father worked near Giza with my parents for a while. She used to watch me sometimes when I was a kid.”
Eddie was a bit confused. “In Egypt?”
Daniel nodded. “I spent a lot of my life there until I was eight.”
Sam poked his thigh under the table, warning him. About what he wasn’t quite sure, so he went with what seemed like a safe comment. “So I guess you didn’t need a sandbox, huh?”
O’Neill groaned. “Please don’t get him started on how Egypt isn’t just a desert.”
“Sorry, O’Neill. It was too good an opening to miss.”
Daniel gave his lover a pointed look.
“Ah, you can call me Jack.”
He hadn’t expected that. Even Teal’c still called the director by his last name, although it was possible that was a Jaffa thing. Especially since he used everyone else’s last name, and even used Sam’s rank. But there was really only one appropriate response. “Eddie, then.”
“I usually go back to last names at work. Just ask Sam.”
She confirmed that with a nod. Eddie couldn’t help but feel that he’d unknowingly taken some kind of test and passed, what with the moving to a first-name basis.
He’d finally gotten used to what happened whenever he and Sam were out with O’Neill - Jack, he corrected mentally - and/or Teal’c. Both men had an ingrained habit of quickly assessing the best strategic position and keeping a just-too-sharp eye on people and the situation. Sam didn’t do that, so it wasn’t just a military thing. When eating dinner, it could be unnerving. Of course, Daniel had a habit of laughing when someone said something amusing in a foreign language they thought nobody could understand. Outings with Sam’s friends were always an interesting experience.
It was apparently time for the other eating-out-with-Jack-and-Daniel routine. They were consistent. Every time, Jack would swipe a forkful of something from Daniel’s plate and Daniel would pretend to be offended. Sometimes Jack was stealthy, but this time he went for the bold move and just grabbed a chunk of Daniel’s lamb.
“Apparently we need to go to buffets,” said Daniel with a scowl. It had taken Eddie a few restaurants to realize it was a fake scowl.
“Don’t need to. I’ve got you.”
“It’s so nice to have a purpose in life.”
The two of them were giving off ‘old married couple’ vibes like crazy. Even Teal’c cast a bemused glance their way, while Sam had to put down her fork lest she choke on her dinner.
It was probably a bad time to ask Sam if he could sample her dish.
Continued in ent-alter-ego.livejournal.com/10534.html
Brightman had assumed he would feel comfortable talking with Daniel. First, of course, they were lovers, and there was no worry about Daniel’s security clearance. And Brightman wasn’t wrong, but she also didn’t see the whole picture. The rest was that Daniel would accept his silence without offense.
They’d just finished the pot pie when someone knocked on the door. Daniel got up to answer it. “Hi Sam.”
“How -” she caught herself as the door slid shut, hastily covering with, “The Vali are preparing some kind of apology statue.”
“Another statue,” muttered Jack. “Like we don’t already have enough.”
Daniel failed to cover the hurt look on his face. “Crap,” said Jack. He really hated this truth serum. Some things just weren’t meant to be shared. Ever. Now words came spilling forth while he tried to sooth Daniel’s ruffled feathers, and Jack could no more stop them than he could stop the tide. “Look, Daniel, you know I love you. I meant it when I said it’s our house and I want you to have your things. Just don’t expect me to start liking three-headed Gumby men, okay?”
Much to Jack’s relief, his boyfriend agreed, “As long as you don’t expect me to like that singing fish.”
That sounded fair enough. “Deal.”
Meanwhile, Sam was looking terribly guilty. “I’m sorry. I thought it was just questions…”
“Nope. I get the whole kit ‘n’ caboodle.”
She raised her eyebrows a little. “I see. I’ll go, but Eddie really wants me to tell you that he hasn’t told anyone a thing about you. Apparently people have been asking him.” Sam scowled a bit at that.
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Daniel replied.
“You have better judgment than to date a gossip.” As he heard himself speak, Jack decided it was a good thing Sam already knew better than to believe he was as gruff as he acted.
“Thanks,” she said. “See you later.”
Daniel found a book and brought it over. “Apparently our guest quarters now come stocked with reading material.”
Jack looked at the book. It was a legal thriller, which he liked if they were well-written, but he didn’t feel like reading. “Sure. Stick me in a room with you while I don’t want to talk, there’s a perfectly good bed going to waste, and what do I get? A book.”
Daniel tried not to laugh but failed miserably.
*****
It was just before ten at night when they finally got home. Dr. Brightman had proclaimed Jack free of the truth serum once she tested his blood and, while they waited for the results, he regaled her with a complicated story about SG-1’s starring role in bringing about Apophis’s heretofore unknown extra death. By the end his lies got bolder, just because he could.
“Nice clear night,” remarked Jack when he got out of the truck. “I think I’ll go up on the roof for a bit.”
Daniel fished out his keys and wondered if his partner wanted company or not. Sometimes the roof was Jack’s private refuge, but it was also just a place he liked to spend time. “Let me know if you want company,” he offered lightly.
“That’d be good.”
In short order, they were up on the roof with a package of Oreos. It really was a clear night, good for stargazing. They were far enough away from the city that there wasn’t too much light to interfere.
“Do you want a telescope?” asked Jack suddenly. He was looking out through his while Daniel sprawled out in the chaise lounge he’d wedged up on the roof that summer. “We can get another one.”
“I’m more of a panorama man. Besides, you show me the best stuff when it’s already in focus.”
Jack chuckled, a low and happy sound that Daniel never got tired of hearing. “I see how it is.”
“Oreo?” he offered. Jack took the cookie.
Next door, Kelly called, “Mocha! Mocha, come!”
“If people want a pet that comes when it’s called, they shouldn’t get a cat.”
Jack, of course, was not overly fond of cats generally, so Daniel pointed out, “You never think people should get cats.”
“Not true. Cats have their place. Anywhere with too many mice, mainly.”
“Mocha!” called Kelly.
Jack tore himself away from his telescope. “Thanks for today.”
“Sure,” he replied.
To Daniel’s immense relief, they had both survived the experience more or less unscathed. Most of the time he was there keeping Jack company, and satisfying Dr. Brightman’s requirement that he not be alone, without engaging in any conversation. Jack seemed to prefer it that way. Daniel had been slightly offended at first, because even though he was himself very private he shared with Jack. But then he realized a) there were things in Jack’s Special Ops past that he was never, ever supposed to speak of and b) it was a control issue. Jack couldn’t control what came out when he opened his mouth, and so he’d prefer not to open it at all. If it had been Daniel injected with truth serum, he probably would’ve done the same.
Mocha must’ve gone to Kelly, because they heard the Bucklin’s door shut, leaving them alone outside to stare at the stars. (Although Jack seemed to have his telescope pointed at the moon.)
Daniel was hit with an unexpected pang of loss that he didn’t get to look up and see stars in an entirely different configuration, now, didn’t get to regularly take in the view from another world. Maybe he’d never really appreciated that enough when he was on SG-1. It had been a few months since his injury and the disbanding of SG-1, but Daniel still missed going through the stargate regularly. He’d only been offworld once since that last fateful mission.
“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” asked Jack.
“Just thinking.”
“You’re always thinking.”
Daniel gave his partner a little smile. “We had a good run, didn’t we? SG-1?”
Jack left his telescope and wedged himself next to (and on top of) Daniel on the lounge. “The best.” He laid a soft kiss on Daniel’s lips.
There had been days when Daniel was sure they would all die. Together, probably saving the world or at least a world, going out in a blaze of glory, but definitely a permanent death. Somehow they’d beat odds not even Vegas would take and managed to make all of their deaths temporary.
“You know the story about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?” he asked his partner.
“Daniel, my last name is O’Neill. Of course I do.”
Fair enough. “I heard a different version of it once. My last foster mother, right before I left for college, told it to one of the younger kids. She said that the rainbow is a long and hard journey. First you must hike uphill on a narrow path. Then you have to hang on as you go downhill and everything is out of your control. Only then can you make it to the foot of the rainbow and find your pot of gold.”
“Huh,” said Jack noncommittally.
“This,” he punctuated the statement with a hug, “is the pot of gold, Jack.”
Jack kissed him again. “You are such a romantic, Daniel Jackson. Pot of gold, hmm? It works, if you don’t mind your gold a little scratched and dented.”
“I like it just the way it is.”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “Mine’s pretty great too.”
*****
Jack was already thinking of his extensive to-do list when he entered his office. Since most of the previous day had been a wash courtesy of the Vali truth serum, his work was piling up. Not to mention the extra work resulting from that incident. Warren had released the two who weren’t responsible, keeping the assailant overnight. At this point, Jack had pretty much decided to just release her to the custody of the Vali. The Unified Government of the Vali was clearly sorry and the incident put him in a better negotiating position for those promising medicines Brightman was just about drooling over.
There was a magazine lying face-down on his floor. That was odd, but odd was their stock and trade at SGC. And sometimes Colonel Fisk earmarked articles in his aviation magazines that he thought Jack might like. So it wasn’t until he dropped it casually on his desk that Jack realized what had happened.
It wasn’t an aviation magazine. It was Playgirl.
Jack had thought he could just brush anything like this off. Apparently, he’d thought wrong. Suddenly he had an overwhelming need to see Daniel. He’d never called Daniel to his office for personal reasons before. But damn it, someone was determined to blur the lines between personal and professional. And Jack had no real experience with this. Sure, Hammond had taken a little bit to get used to the idea, the late Rosnik hadn’t been thrilled, and his Aunt Kate had needed a few days… but this went beyond that.
He was going to be in a bad mood all day unless he did something. Decision made, he picked up the phone and dialed Daniel’s extension. He didn’t trust himself to leave his office just then.
“Hello?”
“Daniel. Can you come to my office?”
“Be right there.”
Jack stashed the magazine in his desk drawer and poked his head in next door. “I don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s urgent,” he told Lieutenant Phillips.
“Yes sir.”
For a man whose office was three levels up, Daniel made it to Jack’s office in amazingly good time. He could tell something was wrong, because he shut the door behind them. “Jack?”
Jack opened the drawer and angrily threw the magazine on his desk. “Look what I found slipped under my door.”
Daniel took one look at the Playgirl and growled something that sounded suspiciously like a curse Jack had heard on Abydos. Switching to English, he said, “Too cowardly to say anything to our faces.”
“I thought…” words failed Jack, as they had an annoying habit of doing when he wanted to express something personal. “It was easier to not care at home,” he finally managed. It was a rather lame way to sum up his swirling feelings, but was the only way he could.
Fortunately, Daniel understood. He usually did. “It’s easier not to care in theory. But, as cliché as this sounds, it really does get better.”
That was good to know. “No surprise mail for you?” he asked.
“Half the base already thought I was gay. They got their kicks years ago.”
Jack didn’t like the implications of that, but Daniel’s posture and facial expression warned him not to go there. ‘I accepted myself a long time ago, Jack,’ he’d said. And Jack knew his lover; Daniel was outraged, but not on his own behalf. He genuinely didn’t care what other people said or did regarding his sexuality. He just hated to see Jack go through it.
“It’s not…” to his great frustration, words were not coming to mind again. “It’s not like a ribbon device. It doesn’t matter.” He dropped the magazine into the trash, painfully aware how obvious the lie was. It mattered, because this was one of his people. One of the good guys.
“It does,” said Daniel. “I know, Jack.”
He nodded, not trusting his voice for a minute. He felt better already; Daniel had that effect on him. And then one of his trademark deflecting remarks came to him. Only this was one of the special ones, because it was not for general consumption. “Anyway, I don’t know why they think I need that when I’ve got you.”
Daniel smiled, even though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh yes, you’re stuck with me.”
When it came down to it, that was all that mattered. “I’m okay. Thanks for coming down.”
“Para usted, cualquier cosa, cariad.”
Oh, Spanish and Welsh. For you, anything, beloved. He did so enjoy it when Daniel showed off his linguistic talents. Particularly when it involved their own special endearment.
When Daniel left, Jack’s mood had improved considerably, and he was able to get back to the Vali situation.
A few hours later Jack was walking through the corridors headed for the geology lab, where once again there was something he was told he simply had to see. He sometimes wished the survey teams would bring back smaller rocks so they could be brought to him, but more often than not he was happy for the excuse to walk around and be out of his office.
He stopped when he heard an unfamiliar male voice say, "I can't believe they're letting O'Neill stay in command. Jackson, fine. He’s not the only fag in that crowd, and they’re not in the command structure. But O’Neill is the damned director. He might as well still be Air Force."
Jack really wanted to hit something. Or someone.
"He's good,” countered a second male voice. “I don't think there are many people who could keep this all together."
First the Playgirl incident and now some other idiot, and it was barely 1200. Jack was glad to have the second person’s vote of confidence.
"I'm pretty sure that letting a gay retired general command is violating regulations."
"Technically, no."
"But the point of the regs, the bigger picture..."
"Oh, the big picture, you mean keeping Earth safe? How exactly does the gender of O'Neill's lover impact that?"
"You're actually okay with this?"
"More or less. I mean, it's weird. First of all, because he and Dr. Jackson act just the way they always have, but we know. And the whole gay sex thing gives me the creeps. But they're the best. SGC needs them. Earth needs them."
"So you're saying you don't have a problem taking orders from a queer?"
"I'm saying I don't have a problem taking orders from General O'Neill."
Jack hadn’t known how much he needed to hear that until the words were spoken. He couldn’t continue to command a base without the respect of his people. They didn’t have to like his love life, but they did have to trust that he was capable of doing his job, or SGC would go to hell without any snakes lifting a stolen finger.
"It's just wrong," insisted the first man.
"Why are we so afraid of the Goa'uld, even now when most of them are dead and the rest are as weak as they've ever been?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Humor me."
"Fine. Because they want to enslave us and make us hosts."
"Exactly. We want our freedom."
"I still don't see how this has anything to do with O'Neill and Jackson."
"If we won't let people have freedom on Earth, why the hell are we fighting for it out there? Two consenting adults. What they do on their own time is their business."
"What happened to the Geyer I was stationed with in Germany?"
"He learned that the universe is a whole lot bigger than he thought."
They had to be getting close to the corner, so he started softly whistling and resumed walking. Once he crossed paths with the airmen, both snapped off a salute. “Sir,” they said in unison.
Okay, so the part where he might as well still be Air Force was mostly true. He would have been, if he could legally do it and still live with Daniel.
It was clearly a bad morning when he wanted a small emergency. Just a small, non-fatal one. But in the end, there was no way he could be happy without Daniel. He’d put up with what he had to, if it was the price they paid. Daniel was worth every indignity and then some.
*****
Walter hadn’t yet decided what he was going to do with his windfall. Of course, he had far too much respect for both General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson to make public his wager in the pool on O’Neill’s retirement, at the time. No, he’d quietly put his money in with Siler, who was capable of keeping the secret even if he thought it was nuts. But time had proven Walter right, and he was now $2,875 richer.
He didn’t know how the two of them did it. Walter was married to his career. That’s what his ex-wife had told him when she couldn’t take it any more and left him. He’d loved her, but realized that the Air Force had always come first. So he never bothered with the whole remarriage thing. He had an attractive lawyer friend, Fiona, with a similar outlook, and they had a very satisfactory arrangement.
There was only one woman in his heart: his daughter Caitlin. He’d already bought her plane ticket home for Thanksgiving, and now he figured he’d add a check for a couple hundred dollars when he mailed it. You’d think one heart attack over college costs would be enough, but it turned out the expenses didn’t end with the tuition bill. He supposed he ought to tuck away a thousand for the next tuition bill, as well. Walter may not have done well by his ex-wife, but he was determined to do well by Caitlin. Sometimes that meant apologizing for the sins of his gender and letting her cry on his shoulder (nearly as hard as watching staff blasts fly through the stargate) and sometimes it meant trying to keep her student loans to a minimum (easier, though he was really starting to miss good scotch. Oh, good scotch. He’d have to spend some of his winnings on that.)
Walter already had the utmost respect for his CO and for Dr. Jackson. General O’Neill was the kind of soldier most of the Air Force wanted to be, although few of them ever stopped to realize the personal cost. Dr. Jackson had seen more combat than most of the Air Force and he was a civilian. Even when he grew to be a soldier-civilian, he never lost his love of discovery. They were good men and Walter was proud to work at SGC. What he didn’t understand was how, after giving so very much of themselves to the program, they had anything left to give to a relationship. That had been his problem.
More power to them, though. As for the whole gay thing, Walter had stopped caring about that a long time ago. He knew firsthand how many times the world had come close to ending, and simply couldn’t be bothered to care the gender of who anybody slept with or loved, because it seemed so insignificant. As SGC’s senior non-com, he’d taken it upon himself to share this opinion. He figured he owed General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson that.
And if by coincidence he saw a copy of an obscene and entirely disrespectful cartoon, recognized the handwriting as belonging to one of his direct reports, and said direct report would soon find that he’d drawn a month straight of night duty, well… these things happened. Coincidences, in Walter’s mind, were wonderful events.
True, there was something to be said for Teal’c’s way of dealing with things. Corporal Lizotte had been telling a joke about General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson in the gym and made the common mistake of underestimating Jaffa hearing. Nobody ever learned the punch line to his joke, nor exactly what Teal’c had said to him, but Lizotte refused to even be near anyone denigrating the general and/or Dr. Jackson after that incident. Alas, Walter didn’t have the sheer physical power needed to strike that kind of fear into the hearts of Marines. He worked with what he had.
Walter had leave coming in a couple of months. He paused to consider how much a cruise would cost…
*****
For once Daniel didn’t mind that he felt extraneous at a briefing. His part in translating the Greek-derived language had long been passed, and the briefing was delving into technical specifics he couldn’t entirely follow. But that was alright, because Jack was enjoying himself immensely.
Jack loved planes and flying. His degree was in aeronautics. So he was thrilled when SG-28 been given what turned out to be plans for a fighter plane. Sam and Jack had already found a few key areas where this design could significantly improve on the F-302s.
The situation of how SGC got the plans was a little haunting. SG-28 had received the plans from the people of P3L-257, a planet which had nearly been destroyed by Ra. In fact, the inhabitants didn’t even know what the plans were for any more. It was, to them, the blueprint for a weapon to fight the Goa’uld, a weapon their ancestors had never been able to build. But while they forgot industrial development, the people of P3L-257 had never forgotten the Goa’uld, and they solemnly copied the old plans and asked SG-28 to create the weapons their ancestors had designed.
It pleased Daniel to see his partner so enthusiastic. Sometimes the paperwork and bureaucracy of his job got to Jack, but then he had bright shining moments like this, where a big honkin’ space gun practically fell into his lap. And it was a flying space gun, no less.
The Playgirl incident of the previous day was forgotten, and knowing Jack he would never bring it up again.
When he first came back from Abydos, Daniel had endured a few taunts. Nothing physically dangerous, of course - the military bigots behind the incidents were closed-minded but not stupid, and they knew his skills were needed. It was just stupid stuff, like the time he’d gone out to his car and found ‘FAG’ written on both sideview mirrors with soap. Daniel had practice ignoring things like that, but all the same he decided it was best not to confirm that he actually was bisexual. It just made life easier, and it hadn’t mattered because he was devoted to Sha’re. Anyway, it went away after a couple of months.
There was also the matter of his department. Most of the people he spent the day working with were unbothered by alternative lifestyle choices. In fact Trevor Voss, their resident specialist in Pacific island archaeology, was proudly parade-gay. Jack didn’t have that kind of broadly accepting environment with the Air Force. At least most of the SG teams remained confident in Jack’s leadership, if not his personal life. That meant a great deal to Jack, because the base couldn’t run without it.
Jack was, by all outward appearances, the ultimate heterosexual, macho alpha male. Daniel had never understood how learning a man like Jack wasn’t straight would threaten other men (wouldn’t it mean less competition?), unless of course they didn’t want to acknowledge their own non-heterosexual preferences.
It took a lot more courage to admit you were different than to play along. The night after Daniel had given Jack that crazy kiss, they talked for a long while. The conversation was vivid in Daniel’s memory because it had changed his life.
“You kissed me.”
“I know. I thought… hell, Jack. I’m sorry.” He’d thought Jack wanted it too, somehow.
“Don’t be,” came the whispered reply. “I don’t think I’m straight, Daniel. Maybe I never was. Women - they still do it for me. But once in a while it’s not just women.”
They talked for a while, both of them discussing bisexuality without bringing up the idea of them together, until Jack finally said, “I don’t know what I’m doing and I can’t let people find out, and you deserve more than that. But you kissed me, so I’ve gotta ask: can I take you out to dinner?”
That took more guts than any homophobes would ever give credit for. Yet whoever slipped the Playgirl under Jack’s door knew he had guts, knew he was a hero, knew he’d died for Earth and nearly died permanently for it, over and over again. They knew what kind of a man he was and it didn’t even matter. Daniel hated the injustice of it.
But he was supposed to be listening to the briefing, or at least thinking about the injustices of the universe more directly related to what the Air Force paid him for. Thus he forced himself to tune back into the fighter plane discussion.
Teal’c was talking. “… takes advantage of a rarely-exploited tactical weakness of al’kesh: the proximity of the cannons to the shield generator.”
“Which means it’s easier to overload them,” concluded Sam, “disabling if not destroying the ship.”
“Precisely.”
“I like it,” declared Jack to nobody’s surprise. “Can we actually build these things, Carter?”
“I think so, sir.”
Daniel wasn’t good at compartmentalizing, so he couldn’t figure out how Jack and Sam managed to go from first names off-duty to last names and ‘sir’ off-duty. He’d given up trying. It was his inability to compartmentalize that made him good at his job.
“You think?”
“We don’t have a prototype to reverse-engineer. There are a couple of words Daniel can’t translate.”
“Technical terms, presumably for mechanical parts,” Daniel supplied. “If we don’t have anything like it, I can’t translate the word. And the designs don’t have descriptions.”
“Too bad,” said Jack.
“Still, I believe that with a team of engineers, it will be possible to build a model from these blueprints, and then incorporate the best aspects into our own planes.”
“So this is one for Area 51?” asked Jack.
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll let them know it’s coming.”
With that, the briefing was over. As Daniel headed out the door, he heard Jack humming to himself, very quietly. The tune was “We Are the Champions,” which was one of Jack’s favorite anti-Goa’uld songs. Daniel wondered if his partner even realized the irony that it was a Queen song.
*****
One minute Jack was alone in his office reading Hallowell’s report on the algae that had put de Silva to sleep for five days, and the next a small crowd of archaeologists had rushed in through his open door and were all talking at once.
“Why didn’t we think…”
“…imagine who else…”
“…just unbelievable, Director…”
“…the Bermuda Triangle! It could…”
“Wouldn’t that require rings?”
“I never would’ve thought…”
“… amazingly well preserved for the corrosive environment…”
Oddly enough, Daniel sauntered in behind the rest of the group. And he actually knocked. Jack figured this could mean only one thing: whatever astonishing discovery had been made, it was less than a thousand years old.
“Daniel? Would you care to enlighten me?”
It was a sign of the high regard in which Daniel was held by his staff that the rest of the archaeologists stopped talking when he loudly cleared his throat. “Xavier, it was your find.”
Xavier Rikes stepped forward. “We know what happened to Amelia Earhart! She was taken as a Goa’uld host.”
Jack was shocked. Like most people with an interest in aviation, he was intensely curious as to Earhart’s fate, but he’d never guessed that he would know what had become of her. “How do we know this? The short version, please.”
Daniel was giving him an amused smile. He knew this was the most excited Jack had ever been about an archaeological find that didn’t involve weaponry. Jack asked how the archaeology teams knew things next to never.
“The crashed ship on P7S-489,” said Rikes, so excited his words were coming out in a rush. “The ha’tak we’ve been examining.”
“Right.” He remembered having doubts about what good it would do to uncover a seriously smashed-up ship that was under a lot of black sand and had been for decades. Apparently he was now learning.
“We found this.” Rikes dropped three pictures on the desk. “As you can see, it’s a badly damaged Electra. We’ve just confirmed that the special fuselage tanks match those on Earhart’s plane. Match exactly. Now, the ha’tak was obviously badly damaged in a firefight. P7S-489 is practically in our backyard, at least that’s what Colonel Carter’s people tell me. We’re working on the theory that there was a fight near our solar system, and for some reason at least one Goa’uld needed a new host. Maybe the sarcophagus was destroyed in battle? Anyway, after Ra’s experience with rebellion, they wouldn’t want to stick around in a damaged ha’tak.”
“This is very interesting,” he said with more sincerity than he hardly ever used for that statement, “but I don’t see how this translates to Earhart being taken as a host.”
Rikes handed him another picture, this one of a small plaque with squiggly writing. “The natives - very rural, agrarian people, if you recall - told us the rest.”
P7S-489 had only become safe to visit after Yu was killed and Ba’al was so weakened he failed to completely take Yu’s territories. The people seemed nice enough, and were happy that they finally got to keep their crops instead of feeding Yu’s Jaffa. “Yes,” prompted Jack.
“Their name for the site, Director. It’s ‘The Undergod Reborn.’”
Okay, that was a new one.
MacDonald picked up the story from there. “According to Kintai oral history, the undergod Chi had been male since time immemorial. Then a woman emerged from the wreckage at The Undergod Reborn. But it was the woman with ‘the hair of a man,’ which is to say short. The Kintai didn’t believe it was Chi, and retribution was harsh. Chi eventually left and hasn’t been heard from in two generations.”
Jack took a moment to process the information. “So, we’re thinking Chi was one of Yu’s underlords. And could still be out there, for all we know. I guess it makes sense, for a snake. Chi needed a host fast. This one was already airborne.”
“An easy target,” agreed Rikes sadly. “We have no evidence to suggest Noonan survived, though we don’t have bodies either. The Kintai were forced to cremate the bodies.”
“In which case Noonan was the lucky one.”
The archaeologists nodded in agreement, some with shudders. It was a terrible fate for anyone, of course, but there was something wrong about finding out, after all the years and speculation, what a terrible fate had probably fallen to Amelia Earhart. Jack mused that his job sometimes managed to be wonderful and simultaneously really suck.
*****
Eddie thought that the Persian food was just okay. He’d ordered some unpronounceable (except to Daniel, of course) lamb and rice dish that was a bit heavy on the spices. Sam seemed to be enjoying hers, though she’d chosen one of the less exotic dishes on the menu.
“This is delicious,” declared Teal’c. Eddie took Teal’c’s opinions on food with a boulder of salt. After all, the Jaffa liked Spam and creamed corn, two things Eddie avoided without exception. As far as Eddie knew, the only thing Teal’c wouldn’t eat was jalapeno peppers, and that was because they made him sick.
“I’ve had worse,” said O’Neill, who like Teal’c had a tendency to eat almost anything. He did have his limits, like most sensible people. The meatloaf on base, for instance.
The Persian was okay, though. And it had been a long and trying week, for O’Neill and Daniel especially, so it was nice to get out and relax.
“This is almost as good as Roshanak’s,” Daniel said.
O’Neill asked, “Whose?”
“Roshanak. She was an Iranian archaeologist’s daughter whose father worked near Giza with my parents for a while. She used to watch me sometimes when I was a kid.”
Eddie was a bit confused. “In Egypt?”
Daniel nodded. “I spent a lot of my life there until I was eight.”
Sam poked his thigh under the table, warning him. About what he wasn’t quite sure, so he went with what seemed like a safe comment. “So I guess you didn’t need a sandbox, huh?”
O’Neill groaned. “Please don’t get him started on how Egypt isn’t just a desert.”
“Sorry, O’Neill. It was too good an opening to miss.”
Daniel gave his lover a pointed look.
“Ah, you can call me Jack.”
He hadn’t expected that. Even Teal’c still called the director by his last name, although it was possible that was a Jaffa thing. Especially since he used everyone else’s last name, and even used Sam’s rank. But there was really only one appropriate response. “Eddie, then.”
“I usually go back to last names at work. Just ask Sam.”
She confirmed that with a nod. Eddie couldn’t help but feel that he’d unknowingly taken some kind of test and passed, what with the moving to a first-name basis.
He’d finally gotten used to what happened whenever he and Sam were out with O’Neill - Jack, he corrected mentally - and/or Teal’c. Both men had an ingrained habit of quickly assessing the best strategic position and keeping a just-too-sharp eye on people and the situation. Sam didn’t do that, so it wasn’t just a military thing. When eating dinner, it could be unnerving. Of course, Daniel had a habit of laughing when someone said something amusing in a foreign language they thought nobody could understand. Outings with Sam’s friends were always an interesting experience.
It was apparently time for the other eating-out-with-Jack-and-Daniel routine. They were consistent. Every time, Jack would swipe a forkful of something from Daniel’s plate and Daniel would pretend to be offended. Sometimes Jack was stealthy, but this time he went for the bold move and just grabbed a chunk of Daniel’s lamb.
“Apparently we need to go to buffets,” said Daniel with a scowl. It had taken Eddie a few restaurants to realize it was a fake scowl.
“Don’t need to. I’ve got you.”
“It’s so nice to have a purpose in life.”
The two of them were giving off ‘old married couple’ vibes like crazy. Even Teal’c cast a bemused glance their way, while Sam had to put down her fork lest she choke on her dinner.
It was probably a bad time to ask Sam if he could sample her dish.
Continued in ent-alter-ego.livejournal.com/10534.html