Brotherhood (20/27)
Title: Brotherhood ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen
Chapter1 Chapter2a-- 2b Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5 Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10a-- 10b Chapter11 Chapter12 Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14 Chapter15 Chapter16a-- 16b Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19a-- 19b Chapter20
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Choice and Duty
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20 April 2000; Edora; 0600 hrs
Jack decided he was never again going to drink the piss-water Paynan called alcohol--not until their next feast, of course, at which point in time he was going to get good and drunk again. Then again, the night hadn't exactly ended badly. As Paynan had said, Laira was a fine woman, and after they'd danced around each other for months, maybe...well, she wanted a child. Maybe Jack wouldn't mind a second chance, either. There were worse ways to have to start over.
Still, the axe was really starting to get on his nerves. Something about the way it sounded as he sharpened it, which made it hard to ignore the hangover that was still pounding away in his head.
He looked up as the door opened and smiled involuntarily to see Laira walk out, until he saw the basket in her arms. An SGC symbol was visible among the olive drab.
"Going somewhere with that stuff?" Jack asked her, putting the axe down casually.
Laira hesitated, then said, "I just thought you might not need these things anymore."
With a sudden jolt of alarm, Jack protested, "Oh, hang on, some of that's pretty good. The jacket...it's..."
"Does it remind you of home?" she said bluntly.
Jack stopped with a hand out to touch his SG clothes and equipment, catching Laira's eyes. There were some things that couldn't be recovered. Sometimes, it was best just to forget--he'd learned that a long time ago. He was going to go ask Paynan for some more of the alcohol later. "Toss it," he agreed.
...x...
20 April 2000; Laira's Residence, Edora; 0730 hrs
"Hockey's a good one," Jack said, trying to make Laira stop frowning at the table. "There are two goals--one net at either end of the ice, and you use sticks to hit a disc across and try to get it into the net."
She gave him a half-smile, humming, "Mm," as she sat down at the table. "That...sounds like..." She looked down and laughed uncomfortably. "Interesting. What other things are there?"
Jack searched his brain for something he hadn't mentioned before--he'd explained baseball, basketball, football, soccer... "Curling," he blurted. "Big where my grandfather's from in Northern Minnesota. You throw a big, round kinda slab of rock down this slab of ice and...sweep..." Laira wasn't meeting his eyes anymore. "What?"
With a sigh, she said, "When I was taking your things away today, I thought I heard a sound come from this. Perhaps a voice." She held out his radio.
He looked at the thing in his hand. Voices from a radio. There was no way, not with everyone gone and the Stargate gone and no way for people to mount a rescue...but then again, there was no other explanation.
And if anyone could do it, his team could. Teal'c would dig through on his own; Carter would build something to dig through for her; Daniel would wheedle or bully some ally to help...well, he was on Abydos. Still, SGC resources weren't nothing, and Hammond would probably let them try.
Jack stood and left the house, hope rising in his chest, and called, "Garan! Get a shovel!"
Garan, looking confused but not complaining, caught up with him as he keyed the radio and dared to remember how it felt to be Colonel Jack O'Neill of the United States Air Force. "This is Colonel O'Neill, come in," he said.
And then a familiar voice answered, "O'Neill."
Jack gaped at the radio for an entire two seconds before calling back, "Teal'c!"
"I am attempting to reach the surface."
...x...
23 April 2000; Edora; 2000 hrs
With the help of both Teal'c and the Edorans, they had the Stargate up by nightfall, but it was another three days before they dug their way to the DHD. By then, Jack was starting to lose the euphoric feeling that came from hearing a familiar voice talking to him in English.
"We should inform the SGC that we were successful," Teal'c reminded him.
"Ah...right," Jack said, wondering why he hadn't thought sooner of how worried people might be. He waved Teal'c toward the DHD and listened with half an ear as the Jaffa reported to General Hammond and said O'Neill was fine and the Stargate was freed.
He was aware of muffled cheering noises coming from their radios. It reminded him oddly of the time they'd blown up two Goa'uld motherships and were stuck on the Land of Light without GDOs. It sounded like quite a celebration was going on, even though it wasn't like Jack's life was the same as all of Earth's.
He almost flinched when the wormhole opened again, from the SGC, this time. He wasn't sure how the kawoosh had become such an alien sight, either.
Major Carter stepped through immediately, and his first thought was that she looked like she hadn't slept in days. "Colonel!" she called, looking so ecstatically relieved that he decided she might not have slept in days. "God--we're so glad to see you, sir."
The wormhole deactivated immediately, but a minute later, it began dialing again, which was pretty weird, but he wasn't in the mood for asking questions at the moment. "Carter," Jack said, loping toward her.
She rocked forward a little, a hand out like she was going to reach for him, then stopped, remembering her position and saluting instead. "Sir," she said smartly, noticing his glance, "Daniel's been planet-hopping, coordinating with all involved parties. He must be bringing the Edoran refugees now--they'll be arriving any second."
Even as she spoke, Daniel came through, looking almost as tired and disheveled as Carter, a bandana tied over his head to keep hair out of his eyes. He was speaking Edoran--of course he was; he was Daniel--to the man walking through at his side as a stream of more and more refugees came out. "What's he doing here?" Jack said. "I thought he was on Abydos."
By then, Daniel had spotted him and broke off in mid-sentence to run toward them and yell, "Jack! Jack!"
"Huh," Jack said, wishing he was as excited as they were. What the hell was wrong with him? It wasn't like he didn't want to go home.
Then he turned and saw Laira and remembered exactly what was wrong.
XXXXX
25 April 2000; O'Neill/Jackson Residence, Earth; 1100 hrs
Someone had said, "We should have a party!"
Jack didn't think he'd made a face, but maybe he had, because Daniel had said, "Actually, maybe we should just go home. The four of us--we can get the house cleaned up and everything?" He'd calmed down, too. Jack decided it was disorienting when Daniel was calm instead of nervous about something and couldn't tell whether it was an act or something that had happened over the last...wow. It had been four months since they'd last seen each other.
"Yeah, let's do that," Carter had agreed. Jack had decided to agree, too, since it was his house they were planning to clean up.
First, however, they'd had to examine him for every possible disease and made him fill out far too much paperwork. Daniel and Teal'c had zipped through the 'gate a few times by the time he was done, though their only response to his questions was to say that they were telling people he was back. Jack decided he could get the details on that later.
And then he'd been called into the general's office. Even the Tollan had been there to welcome him home, which had felt kind of flattering, until he'd realized that wasn't why they were there.
So then came talk about official business with the Tollan and the Asgard and the stolen technology scams, which actually sounded kind of exciting until he found out what the plan was. The plan sucked, especially at a time when he was still trying to remember how it felt to wear pants that hadn't been made by Laira for her late husband.
Quiet time at home with a few friends was looking a lot better than a party of any kind.
So now Carter was fussing over his kitchen, because, according to her, "It was good of Major Ferretti to help, but the refrigerator really needs to be cleaned out, sir."
"Ferretti?" Jack said.
"He offered to drive me here a couple of times," Daniel said, wearing the same not-quite-frown that he'd had since shortly after everyone had burst out of the ground--more or less--on Edora. "He helped me clear the refrigerator and said to turn it off, since things would just go bad anyway, and he came back with me twice after that."
"Why?" Jack said, watching Teal'c help Carter as Daniel sat on the edge of a chair.
Daniel's not-quite-frown became a confused, real frown. "He was worried about you."
"But why'd he drive you here?"
And then the confusion became uncertainty. It was a few, very long seconds before Daniel said, "I...had a key?"
So then Jack said, "I didn't mean it like that. 'Course you can come here anytime. I just meant you didn't have to." Daniel nodded, looking nervously toward where Carter and Teal'c were pretending not to listen as they looked for sponges and towels and soap. "I'm surprised my electricity wasn't cut off. I think I was behind to begin with, what with the original mission taking longer than it was supposed to."
"You were," Daniel said, which...okay. That explained that.
Jack looked around his surprisingly clean house, looked back at his unusually quiet Abydon and his kitchen-cleaning Jaffa and his second-in-command who had decided to put his whole house in order, and shut up. He wondered if this was what Daniel had meant when he'd said that it felt different that first time he'd gone back to Abydos. He'd missed something--or several somethings--and couldn't quite figure out where to jump back in.
"You don't have any food," Daniel said into the silence. "I mean, just cereal, a couple of cans of something, but that's about it. Oh, and your beer--we left that." He gestured toward Jack, who was currently holding one of those beers. "Which...you already know."
"Why don't I go shopping for a few things?" Carter said, sounding relieved.
"Carter--" Jack started.
"No, it's fine, sir," she said.
"Yeah, good idea," Daniel put in, starting to stand up. "Should I--"
"I will accompany you, Major Carter," Teal'c said.
So then, all of a sudden, the door had closed, Jack was wondering how they'd managed to fly outside so fast, and Daniel was looking like he wasn't sure whether or not he wished they'd taken him with them.
"So you checked on the house while I was gone," Jack said, not sure what else to say.
"Only a few times," Daniel said. "I can't drive, of course, and I couldn't ask people to keep ferrying me back and forth all the time. Major Ferretti helped me figure out how to get back and forth by bus--"
"Are you serious?" Jack said, trying to think of what route went from base to his house.
"It's a longer trip, but I can get past the college and almost to Fort Carson without even getting out of my seat, and then it's just--"
"Did you walk to the Mountain from Fort Carson?"
"The bus stop is close to Norad Road," Daniel said, starting to look defensive, "and then only a couple of miles to the security checkpoint. Sometimes Ferretti or someone else dropped me off at the stop on his way home or picked me up on his way in, and he said only to go in the daytime otherwise, so it's not...I mean, that's why I didn't come here very often. Every couple of weeks, maybe."
Jack imagined Daniel--perhaps the second most classified person on the planet, after Teal'c--walking down streets in the open from one military installation to the other. "Oy," he said.
"I was careful," Daniel said, because, despite his training, he didn't know the outside world well enough to be able to truly understand secrets and leaks and conspiracy theorists. "It's really not bad, and I don't carry classified materials with me. And at least now I know how to come home whether or not our schedules match."
With a sigh, Jack decided to worry about that later and said, "Yeah, guess that's true. So, when d'you get back from Abydos?"
Daniel blinked at him. "Um...well, Teal'c came to tell me about the Edora fire rain," he said, as if that explained it all, and then, "You don't have to look so surprised."
"But you left your home," Jack said, suppressing the irrational pang that said he'd just done the same. It was a stupid thing to think while sitting in his home.
"I left my home before when a brother was missing," Daniel said in a patient tone.
"So why aren't you there now, since I'm all good and rescued?" Jack asked.
Part of him really did want the best for Daniel, wherever that was; part of him just wanted to know if there was a good reason, because he could really use one right now.
A hurt expression flitted over Daniel's face before disappearing. "I think I could have found a place for myself on Abydos, if I really wanted," he said calmly, "but when I think about it, I can't imagine giving this up. I did try." He dropped his eyes and gave a shrug with one shoulder. "And I have a home here, too."
"What about people on Abydos?" Jack said.
"Skaara understands. He'll watch over Nagada, Kasuf will govern, Sha'uri will govern when he cannot...they don't really need me there. Even Skaara could tell I didn't...fit...anymore. And Jack, the Stargate's not buried anymore--you can still visit Edora."
For a second, Jack thought he'd heard wrong. And then he remembered that Daniel just did that sometimes, started talking or thinking about something else that seemed like a non sequitur but really wasn't because it was linked in his own head. Daniel watched Jack. Jack took a sip of beer. "Just like that?" he said.
"Not just like anything. I think," Daniel said carefully, "it's very hard to think of it in terms of choosing the life you like more, especially so soon. It's more about choosing the one you can't bear to give up."
"That's semantics," Jack said.
"Semantics is meaning," his miniature linguist countered.
"It's also about where your duties are," Jack said, trying not to sound bitter about the fact that he'd just gotten back after three goddamned months, and they were already giving him orders like this. Which meant they knew he could do it, that they had confidence in his skills and trusted that he wasn't a traitor, but he couldn't manage to find it flattering just now. "So much for choice, huh?"
Daniel didn't try to deny it, but he tilted his head thoughtfully and stared long enough for Jack to be tempted to look away. "True. But I've decided that duty is a personal, psychological issue as much as it is...you know, actual orders from your boss."
"You've decided this, have you?" Jack repeated, amused despite everything.
"I've decided," Daniel said with a quick smile. "I've had a lot of time to think about it."
"Okay," Jack said, setting his bottle down with a soft clunk. "So explain it to me."
"All right," Daniel said, folding his legs on his chair seat and leaning forward. "In my case, the idea of duty has always been murky, because no one could figure out whether I'm old enough to be given duties. Therefore, I was told that I could go to Abydos and stay and...and do nothing for the rest of my life, but I came back, even though I wasn't bound to do so by any authority."
"Ri-ight," Jack said, still a little unclear on that part and the whens and whys and exactly whats that came with it. "You're really here to stay?"
"Yes," Daniel said seriously. "I've always felt a little like I was forced into this. Not by the SGC or Teal'c or Kasuf or anyone, you understand, but I just...felt like I had to. But now Skaara and Sha'uri are safe, it's a chosen duty, see, which is better. By the way, if you still want me on your team..."
"Well, I told you you'd be back," Jack said, pulling out a smirk.
Daniel smiled again, the familiar lightning-quick grin. "Anyway, in your case...well, I know being a military officer is different, but after all you've done, if you...really wanted...you could probably retire, free yourself from official duty, and live your life on Edora. Not that...I-I mean, you could."
"Why do you say I want to stay on Edora?" Jack said.
"Because," Daniel said, unperturbed, "I'm uniquely qualified to know what it's like to get stranded on a planet and be unsatisfied about leaving it behind. Well, actually, Teal'c is another example of that, but with him, there really is a lot less choice, what with the price on his head on his home planet, although I think by now he'd agree he's chosen this life as much as he's been forced into it."
The thought of retiring on Edora struck something in Jack, although whether it was a wish of his own or a part of the grand scheme Hammond had been cooking up with the Tollan and the Asgard, he couldn't really say yet. Both, maybe. "Retire and live on Edora," he echoed.
That wasn't a bad idea. He could work with that.
Daniel leaned back, slumping a little and dropping the philosophical air. Jack thought that he looked a lot more normal that way but wished he didn't look so uncertain, too. "W-well. I'm just saying that it's not as though you're stuck. There is a choice--and you can make that choice, and I, uh...I don't think people would stop you if...if it's what would really make you...happy."
Footsteps sounded outside his door. A perfunctory knock came.
"But I really wish you'd stay," Daniel blurted in a rush, and then the door opened to reveal Carter and Teal'c, laden with grocery bags.
XXXXX
"Carter," Jack said. She turned hastily away from a picture of Sara and Charlie on his mantle.
"Sir," she said nervously.
"So," Jack said, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I hear you built me a particle beam thingy."
She gave him one of her almost-sheepish smiles, the one she always wore when she invented things with inhuman speed or, on occasion, shattered known laws of physics to write new ones that were better. "Yes, sir, you could say that."
"Which means I'm responsible for one of our most advanced pieces of technology," Jack said, letting his words become a little smug, because dammit, they knew each other well enough by now that she shouldn't be looking undertain around him. "On Earth," he added.
Her smile grew into a genuine amusement. That was better. "Yes, sir," she said in the way that meant she was trying not to laugh. "That's exactly it."
"Um," he said, looking around himself. Daniel and Teal'c were washing dishes from lunch in the kitchen, and barely audible conversation floated to him. "So...what's been going on lately? I know what you were doing, obviously, so I assume SG-1 was standing down."
"Both Teal'c and Daniel joined teams that needed an extra pair of arms and eyes, sir; Teal'c went mostly to the combat teams and Daniel to exploration teams needing a translator. And they went around to Cimmeria every once in a while to see if the Asgard had a ship ready that could reach you faster than I could build."
Jack felt something like betrayal drop into his stomach. Hammond said the Asgard had contacted the SGC a few weeks before Carter's particle thing was finished, complaining about things getting stolen by people who looked like SG personnel. It was only a week, true, but who had delayed--the SGC or the Asgard?
"Cimmeria, you say," Jack managed in a casual tone of voice.
Carter grimaced. "Granted, that only went to Thor, not all of the Asgard. I wasn't too surprised that Thor himself wasn't reachable, as the supreme commander of their fleet, especially if they're caught in a war of their own, but it was the best we could do."
"Ah." Well, at least it might not have really been a personal betrayal, then, per se. The Asgard who'd contacted Hammond had said some of their work was severely impaired; maybe the plea for help had gotten lost somewhere. Jack liked to think Thor would've come if he'd known.
"I tried to rebuild that power source you built with the Ancient knowledge, sir," she said apologetically, "but it's a little complicated to try to figure out on my own. Dr. Lee adapted a...a version of it, and Daniel and Teal'c both volunteered to make the trip to Othalla, but Bill's prototype bypassed so many safety protocols just to establish a wormhole that seemed to lose stability by the second...it was too big a risk. I'm the one who nixed it. We decided I'd be better off spending my time on the particle accelerator, not knowing if the Asgard could help us even if we reached them."
"And I'm very glad you built it, Major, believe me," Jack assured her, wanting to take the guilt out of her face. "It's not like I know how to build that power thing, and I'm the one who...built it."
She gave him a half-smile. "Good news, though, sir--I don't know if you heard, but just yesterday, the Pentagon authorized SG-1 to try opening negotiations with the Tollan."
Jack could feel his face taking on his blankest expression and braced himself: if he was going to do this, he might as well start the act now.
"It's about time," he said, injecting a dose of exasperation, which was pretty easy, considering what he thought of the Tollan's smug smiles. "Think they'll let go of any of their precious technology now that we've saved their asses?"
"Well, that's what we're hoping for, sir," Carter said earnestly. "In fact, the general's allowed Daniel and me to work with the diplomats on the appeal, since we've had so much direct contact with the Tollan lately--Daniel won't say it, but he's really happy about being given a responsibility like this, instead of just taking something over as the last choice."
Great. Maybe Daniel really was getting better at the fancy side of diplomacy, but he still shouldn't be the one handling it. In fact, Carter shouldn't be either, except as a technical advisor--this was the kind of thing they usually handed over to SG-9 or SG-14. But SG-1 had to be part of it if the plan was going to work, and that meant putting both Carter and Daniel in that position instead. For a moment, Jack hoped viciously that Hammond was losing sleep over this.
"Well, good," Jack lied, smiling.
"Sir, if you don't mind my asking..." she said. He raised his eyebrows at her. She still hesitated before saying, "Did, uh...I mean, you must have talked a lot to Laira."
"Yeah," Jack said, not wanting to talk about exactly what they'd talked about.
"I was...just wondering if she's still open to that treaty," Carter said, with her usual inability to tell a convincing lie, but she followed up with usual quick thinking. "I'm sure the Edorans will need to finish rebuilding, but I was thinking we might be able to offer help. At the same time, the meteor strikes would've deposited a new layer of naquadah."
This was so not what he wanted to be thinking about right now. Forgetting things that went wrong was a good plan--it had worked for him before; he could make it work again, but only if people would stop bringing it up. "Yeah," Jack said again.
But then he remembered Daniel's words about choice and retiring on Edora. He might need to play that card when the time came, and he might as well plant the suspicion in their heads now. Daniel wasn't the only one he'd have to alienate in a few days' time.
"Laira and I got to be..." Jack paused, deliberately looking away from Carter. "...ah...really close...friends. I promised her I'd be back someday."
"Uh...wh..." Carter said, her eyes wide. Her expression shifted several times, cycling through being confused about whether she should interpret that the way any normal person might, and then confused about whether she was allowed to interpret her CO's words that way, and something that Jack might think was hurt if he'd been allowed to interpret his subordinate's expressions that way. "Oh. Right. Sir."
"So, yeah," Jack said, as if he'd missed all of that. "I'm all for that plan. We should get this Tollan business over with first, but I'll request a return trip to Edora afterward."
"Yes, sir," she said uncertainly.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to build a house by hand?" he said, continuing in the same tone. "Well, let me tell you--it's harder when you have to make the hammer and the nails first."
Carter nodded, back in her element. "Well, I can't say I've done that, sir, but it sounds like there's a lot we can offer them. Do you mind going over their construction techniques with me? It'll help me devise a coherent plan we can present to them."
XXXXX
"Nice digging back there," Jack said to Teal'c that evening as Carter and Daniel huddled together over two laptops inside the house.
"I am grateful to you as well, O'Neill," Teal'c answered, sitting with Jack on the roof and watching the sunset. "If you had not helped me, I would undoubtedly have suffocated."
Jack had to suppress a shudder at the idea of Teal'c's dead body buried forever under a pile of molten naquadah until someone eventually got a sturdy enough plow and tried to start replanting their crops. "You took a big risk trying it in the first place."
Teal'c gave him a look, then returned to examining the sky. "You would have done the same if I had been in your place."
"You sure about that?" Jack quipped.
"I am," Teal'c said in complete seriousness.
Jack felt a twinge of pride at the thought that they, the SGC--and Jack himself--had had a hand in changing Teal'c from the man who'd saved them and then bowed to their superiors' wishes to experiment on him. Jack, Carter, Daniel, and others would die for Teal'c, and there was no question about it anymore.
"However, there is a matter I do not understand," Teal'c said.
"Yeah?"
"Daniel Jackson believes that you had resigned yourself to never seeing Earth again."
Jack frowned. So that was what they'd been talking over dirty dishes at the sink. "Well, for all I knew, the Stargate might've been destroyed, and it's not like I found it when I tried digging. We had more urgent issues--like rebuilding houses and finding food from one day to the next."
"A Tollan ship would have reached you in no more than five months," Teal'c said. "Only when I reported success did Daniel Jackson tell them to call the ship back."
"Five months is a long time," Jack pointed out, not sure he wanted to think any deeper than that.
"It is possible to survive for longer than that on strange planets."
"I know, Teal'c," Jack said, standing up. "You've been here for years, Daniel was trapped here for almost a year, okay, I get it. But he knew the Abydos 'gate was going to be unburied."
"What I do not understand," Teal'c said in a low voice, "is why you did not know we would undoubtedly find you, as well, O'Neill."
Jack watched the sun sink under the horizon, remembering the night on Edora when he'd tried to figure out which direction Earth was in. Now that he was back, he wished he knew where Edora was. Carter could find out, he thought, and he turned to see her and Daniel through the nearest window, although they looked like they were arguing about something now. It took Daniel's sullenly kicking a sofa cushion and then sheepishly straightening it to make Carter laugh, pulling them out of their argument. Jack wondered how many times something like that had happened when he wasn't there to make his kids behave.
"You didn't know I was alive," Jack said.
"I was certain that you were," Teal'c said.
"Well, that was dumb."
"It was immaterial to our efforts. We would have tried nonetheless. If I had failed after a maximum of ten days, and even if the Tollan had continued their journey, another man would have gone through the wormhole and attempted to finish what I had begun."
And that left him with the rather creepy image of Daniel's body joining Teal'c's under a pile a naquadah, only to be joined by Carter's after she taught someone how to use the particle beam...
"Nice thought," Jack said. Teal'c inclined his head. After a minute, Jack decided that maybe it was a nice thought, in a really twisted sort of way that probably would not have been considered nice anywhere outside of the SGC. Definitely still creepy, but nice.
XXXXX
Once Carter left with Teal'c for the night, Jack wandered through his house until he found himself at the door to Daniel's room. Daniel popped his head through the top of a shirt he'd just pulled on and joked, "What, are you going to tuck me in?"
"Just wanted to say good-night," Jack said. He hesitated, then said, "You're...different."
Looking surprised, Daniel said, "Am I?"
But there was no good way to say that Jack had been expecting someone more wound up or more awkward or more freaked out about something or other, so he said, "Uh...taller." Not really--half an inch, maybe, but...there was something.
Daniel looked down and then back up, as if he could measure himself that way. "Four months."
"Yeah," Jack said. "How've you been, really?"
His smile slipped a little. "We've managed." He hesitated, then said, "You know, I've, uh, never been at the SGC without you. Not for that long at a time, anyway. I kept checking your office for the first few weeks, certain you were hiding in there or something."
And then Jack had the disorienting image of going back to base and finding that everyone had managed just fine while he was gone--that people might go to Makepeace as the most senior field commander because he had been without Jack, that Carter and Teal'c might be more used to dealing with each other alone instead of deferring to Jack, that Daniel had enough brothers by now and didn't need a father any more than he ever had...
"I killed someone," Daniel said all of a sudden, folding his arms. "With a, um...a gun, I mean."
Alarms in Jack's head cut off his morose train of thought as he tried to keep his expression neutral. "When?" he asked.
"A couple of months ago. It was, uh...a few someones, actually. Well, two for sure. For one, I don't know who shot him--I keep reviewing it, but I can't see the...I still don't know whose bullet it was. And there was another I shot but I couldn't see what happened. I'm pretty sure he died, though--he fell hard and there was a...a lot of blood."
Jack watched him rub his arm--not one of his usual nervous habits--then stop deliberately. Jack nodded and stepped fully into the room. "You wanna tell me what happened?"
Daniel glanced at him, then looked down. "Um...Cronus's Jaffa. We were ambushed at the 'gate. We escaped without any...well. Everyone's okay, but..." His right hand reached down to his thigh, where his holster would have been, then twitched away. "I just...pulled it out and fired. Didn't even think about what I was doing until he was already dead."
"Well," Jack said carefully, sitting down on the bed, "there's this funny thing about Jaffa who ambush you. They're not there for tea parties. You shoot first or you get shot."
Daniel's eyes followed him to his seat and stared for a long time. "I know," he said finally. "I don't actually feel guilty. Or regretful. I think. It just...I froze. Just for a second--from surprise more than anything, I think. It was...really..."
"A shock?" Jack said.
"Maybe," Daniel said. "I hadn't realized that I'd...that that reflex had become so..." He trailed off, then plunked himself down on the bed, too. "But I think I'm being very rational about it," he added.
"Okay," Jack said cautiously.
"I mean," Daniel said, "I know I've done stupid things before, more than once, pushing too hard or being too rash instead of...thinking things through, but I know better now. I don't think this will impair me or my work in any way, and I'd stop myself if I thought otherwise. I just...wanted to tell you. So, you know, next time it happens when it's SG-1 in the field, you'll know I'm not going to panic."
Jack tried to remember what he told airmen whose eyes went wide when they first figured out that the guns they carried weren't for decoration, but Daniel had already seen more than truly green soldiers; he'd just never felt it with the gun in his own hands. Zats could be just as deadly as normal guns, but they looked cleaner. It was easy to tell yourself that you were only stunning with zats, which was a danger on its own, but bullets were bloody and messy and not so easy on the eyes and the psyche.
And Daniel might not be fourteen and naïve, but almost-seventeen was still young. He'd brought the issue to Jack, and Jack was his commanding officer some of the time and his friend the rest. That meant something. That meant a lot.
"Have you talked to anyone?" Jack said calmly, because sometimes 'rational' didn't have anything to do with it.
"The general, briefly," Daniel said, "but he didn't want to force me to talk to a counselor."
"Yeah, I can see that," Jack agreed.
"I don't think I need to, either. I talked to Teal'c."
"Well, good," Jack said, relieved, because he trusted Teal'c's judgment more than someone like Mackenzie's when it came to Daniel. "What'd he say?"
Daniel hesitated, looking down at his hands and chewing his lip, then quirked a half-smile. "He convinced General Hammond that I wasn't going to need therapy and then taught me to use staff weapons and submachine guns."
Jack inhaled wrong and tried not to choke. "Ah..." he said. Daniel snickered.
"I'm joking. Well, no, I mean, he did, but...we've talked, too. But also, for future reference, I know how to use staff weapons and submachine guns now."
"Ah," Jack repeated. Private conversations on alien philosophy, then, against a backdrop of automatic weapons. Good enough for him.
"Wish I could've talked to you, though," Daniel muttered, still staring hard at his hands. "Just...just like this. You know?"
Jack couldn't decide whether to feel guilty or flattered or both. "I wish I'd been there. And I wish I could be more helpful."
Daniel shook his head. "I just wanted to tell you and have you say it's okay."
"It's okay," Jack said. Daniel laughed a little.
"I really missed you, Jack. I'm really, really...glad you're back."
"Hey, you rhymed," Jack said. Daniel laughed again, a little watery this time, so Jack looped an arm over his shoulders and wished he had more than a week with these people before he'd have to betray them all. "I missed you, too, kid."
Jack didn't tuck Daniel in for the night, but he waited until Daniel was about to climb into bed to say, "So you joined a team that got you into a firefight with Cronus's Jaffa."
"You make it sound so nefarious," Daniel said, though he looked amused.
"Just wondering which team it was," Jack said innocently.
"Why? What are you going to do to them?"
"Me? Would I do anything?"
Daniel laughed delightedly. "Gods, you sounded exactly like Skaara then!" Jack raised his eyebrows. "Like Skaara right before he plays a prank," Daniel added. "You're a lot like him, sometimes."
"I'm your commanding officer now, not just your friend," Jack pointed out, ignoring the crack about Skaara, because he'd tasted the kid's moonshine and he was pretty sure that had been meant at least partially as a prank. Carter had actually measured and found some criminally high alcohol content in the stuff. "I need to know these things, so 'fess up."
"Are you going to make that a direct order?" Daniel said, still looking far too amused, because everyone knew he didn't follow direct orders that didn't make sense to him. If Daniel was the only one who could deal with SG-1, SG-1 was probably the only team that could deal with Daniel for long periods of time, too. He was very useful; predictable and easy to handle, he was not. "Teal'c didn't think they did anything wrong," Daniel said. "Is that good enough?"
"No," Jack said, though it did help to know no one had endangered his linguist out of neglect.
"Hm. Well, Captain Freeman was injured, too--he even needed the sarcophagus and had to stay under observation for almost three weeks," Daniel finally said, lying down with a smirk as if to show Jack how much he didn't care about standing at attention when his CO asked him a question. "And Captain Griff hustled me through the 'gate right away, so they did protect me as much as possible. Don't yell at them."
"Ah. SG-2," Jack said.
"Yeah. Captain Pierce had a broken arm, so I was filling in."
"Okay," Jack said.
On his way back to his own room he remembered Daniel's wording--Freeman had been injured, too--so he turned around. "What did you mean, 'too?'"
"Hm?" Daniel said sleepily. "Who's mean, too?"
"What?"
"What?"
Jack frowned suspiciously. Daniel blinked at him.
"Good night," he said after a minute. Daniel mumbled something and went to sleep.
XXXXX
2 May 2000; Courthouse, Tollana; 1000 hrs
Jack was the only completely fair choice. He understood this.
The theft from the Tollan and the Asgard had started while SG-1 had been on Edora and continued while Jack had been stuck there. Theft from the Tok'ra and the Nox, on the other hand, had started shortly after that, when the Edora Stargate had already been buried. Besides the fact that the Asgard and the Tollan tended to like him--and he didn't think he'd pissed off the Nox--there was really no way he could be implicated in those.
His team, though, he'd argued...how could his team be under suspicion?
Well. Funny he should ask.
Apparently, Daniel had been pretty desperate looking for ways to reach Edora via their allies, and they couldn't say with certainty what he'd been doing on Abydos. Hadn't he reported once, years ago, that members of the NID had seemed to be trying to recruit him through less-than-official channels?
Teal'c had been marginally calmer about the Edora situation, but then, the Tok'ra and the Asgard still had their doubts about Jaffa in general. The Tollan and the Nox didn't, as a whole, but he was still a traitor who hated the Goa'uld. Who could say when he'd turn on another master if he thought it would win the war?
Major Carter was the only one who had a nearly pristine record by any stretch of the imagination, but there were those who were suspicious about what soldiers, Tau'ri or not, would do when given an order, so no one was above suspicion, just in case the higher-ups were the ones ordering that alien tech be stolen.
Jack had yelled at them that they were idiots if they thought Daniel or Teal'c would steal technology, or if they thought Carter had managed to mastermind an operation while building a particle accelerator from scratch. Still, what it boiled down to was that it didn't matter. The Asgard had once picked Jack as a negotiator for the fate of Earth out of blind favoritism. He had to admit that being picked for an operation like this made a hell of a lot more sense.
Anyway, they couldn't bring all of SG-1 in even if they'd wanted to. Teal'c might be able to pull off an undercover scheme, but his removal from the SGC and recruitment by whoever the mole was might cause a few logistical problems, especially since Earth as a whole didn't trust Teal'c any more than the SGC's allies did. Even Jack would admit Carter didn't have the training for this kind of thing, and there was no way they were trusting the acting skills of a sixteen-year-old who had no formal training at all.
Jack would never be able to fool his team, he'd insisted. They knew him too well. He was good, sure, but one of them lived with him, for crying out loud. He'd never be able to--
Ah-ha, he'd been told. Three months on an alien planet could change a person. Yes, his team would be suspicious, but they'd wonder, too, if maybe they were wrong about him after all. Besides, if Daniel or Teal'c had to believe that either Jack O'Neill or Samantha Carter had been stealing alien tech for misguided personal reasons...well, which would they suspect first?
Neither, Jack had said. They wouldn't suspect either of us.
You, they'd corrected. They would find it easier to believe of you than of Major Carter. And who would Major Carter suspect first, Colonel? Teal'c, who prefers open intimidation to stealth and is notoriously hostile to dirty NID agents? Or Daniel Jackson, who has literally written the handbook here on respecting alien cultures? Or you? Do they know the kinds of missions you ran before you retired?
No, they didn't. That had all been secret, and they knew that, too. Jack was well aware which of them looked more suspect, and that was the worst part.
"Sir, isn't this against regulations?" Carter said nervously as Jack studied the Tollan weapon disarming device on the wall. Teal'c's silence was becoming an almost physical force of disappointment.
"I suppose it is, Carter," Jack said, looking over his shoulder as if checking to make sure the hallway was clear before he grasped the device with both hands.
"Jack, what...?" Daniel hissed, sounding shocked. "Are you--Jack, you can't do this!"
"Shut up, Daniel," Jack said, then yanked it out of the wall. "Watch me."
He walked away before he had to see their expressions.
From the next chapter (" Direct Orders"):
"Don't look so shell-shocked," Jack told Daniel as they waited for the general to join them.
Daniel didn't answer. He didn't try to look less shocked, either, because he'd only end up looking very angry, instead.