Fic: Commencement (all ages)
Title: Commencement
Author: Six Before Lunch
Rating: All Ages
Fandom: Stargate SG1
Warnings: Gratuitous sentimentality.
Pairing/Characters: Teamy Goodness, some Daniel/Vala, but it's not central to the story
Spoilers: Through Unending.
Summary: Cameron loses his team, one by one. This is not a bad thing.
Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to the author. No copyright infringement or disrespect is intended.
Notes: A response to the 'Keep the Gate Open' Challenge: "One Last Jaunt". Sort of. I don't think I was true to the spirit of the challenge, but I did write this in under 38 minutes, which may or may not be obvious...
They lost Vala first. She came into the mission briefing, all smile, and glowing actually, which Cameron had always thought was a myth, but maybe not.
"I can't go with you anymore," Vala said. "At all."
"Excuse me?" Landry asked.
"I can't be on SG1 anymore. Sorry." She paused. Bit her lip. "Well, actually, I'm not."
Cameron looked at Sam who looked confused and Teal'c who looked...like Teal'c. Jackson's expression was completely unreadable.
"Vala, what's going on?" Sam asked.
"I just peed on a stick and it turned blue."
Daniel did an actual, real life, double take and then jumped up and hugged her, grinning like Cameron had never seen. His reaction pretty much answered the questions of "who's the daddy?" and "were you planning this?" at the same time. ("We weren't trying and we weren't not trying," Daniel said later.) It also won Bill Lee sixty dollars in the "what members of SG1 are sleeping together?" pool, but he didn't tell anyone about that.
They lost Jackson six months later after Daniel missed an ultrasound because he was stuck on some wasted rock of a planet, getting shot at by the Lucian Alliance. "I won't let my child grow up without a father," Daniel said. "Not if I can help it."
This time, at least, Cameron had Jackson sitting next to him as he interviewed replacements. Jackson asked questions about glottal stops, phonological hierarchy, and chronometric dating while Cameron sat there and tried to decide if he liked the person in front of him enough to spend fifty years trapped on a ship with them.
In the end, he ended up with Major Doctor Jennifer Vaughn who corrected Cameron's grammar more often than he liked, but also had a knack for communicating with the natives and was a crack shot to boot.
Two weeks after they lost Jackson, Sam came to him with an expression that told him everything he needed to know.
"You're leaving."
"They're making amazing strides with the Asgard technology," Sam said. "They've offered me an entire research base down in Antartica. It's going to be the most advanced scientific outpost in world, possibly the galaxy."
"And you get to run it," Cameron said and Sam shrugged.
He couldn't argue with the excited look on her face, so he hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then it was back to the briefing room, interviewing the most overqualified people in the Air Force.
He got Captain Juan Menendez, Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Engineering and one of the best basketball players Cameron had ever gone up against.
Things settled down after that. Vala had the baby and they named her Jackie. ("She was cranky and infantile when I first met her," Daniel said. "It seemed fitting.") Motherhood suited Vala, they were all a little surprised by how well she took to it. Vala more than anyone. When SG-5 brought home a four year old boy, the only survivor of a devastating famine, Daniel and Vala offered to put him up for a few nights, "just to get him off the base." He never left.
Then the Stargate program went public and they all spent a year testifying before Congress and getting their names splashed all over the headlines. But at the end of that year, they appeared on Oprah and Sam said, "If Oprah likes us, we're good."
Teal'c left shortly after that, having been offered a teaching position at the Air Force Academy. ("We'd be fools not to take advantage of that kind of tactical experience," one general was quoted as saying.)
Again, Cameron ended up doing interviews, but at the end of the day, the person he chose as his fourth wasn't an Air Force Officer, but a refugee from the Pegasus galaxy that Cameron had met during a trip to Atlantis and offered a job before Sheppard noticed the kid and decided to keep him for himself. Van didn't have Teal'c's hulking stature, but he was quick and deadly when he needed to be, cautious and kind most of the time.
When Van officially got his badges, Cameron called SG1, the original SG1, and said, "Come on, one last trip."
It was uneventful and quiet and at the end of the trip, Daniel and Vala and Sam and Teal'c and Jack O'Neill stood in front of the gate. And Cameron put his team in formation, standing there like recruits while his mentors, his friends, looked them over. Finally, O'Neill looked at him. "They'll do," he said and Cameron smiled.
He'd gotten the band back together to teach him, and they had. He'd learned more from them, gained more from working with them, than he could ever repay. But he couldn't live in their shadows forever. Now it was time for someone else to carry on the tradition.
Author: Six Before Lunch
Rating: All Ages
Fandom: Stargate SG1
Warnings: Gratuitous sentimentality.
Pairing/Characters: Teamy Goodness, some Daniel/Vala, but it's not central to the story
Spoilers: Through Unending.
Summary: Cameron loses his team, one by one. This is not a bad thing.
Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to the author. No copyright infringement or disrespect is intended.
Notes: A response to the 'Keep the Gate Open' Challenge: "One Last Jaunt". Sort of. I don't think I was true to the spirit of the challenge, but I did write this in under 38 minutes, which may or may not be obvious...
They lost Vala first. She came into the mission briefing, all smile, and glowing actually, which Cameron had always thought was a myth, but maybe not.
"I can't go with you anymore," Vala said. "At all."
"Excuse me?" Landry asked.
"I can't be on SG1 anymore. Sorry." She paused. Bit her lip. "Well, actually, I'm not."
Cameron looked at Sam who looked confused and Teal'c who looked...like Teal'c. Jackson's expression was completely unreadable.
"Vala, what's going on?" Sam asked.
"I just peed on a stick and it turned blue."
Daniel did an actual, real life, double take and then jumped up and hugged her, grinning like Cameron had never seen. His reaction pretty much answered the questions of "who's the daddy?" and "were you planning this?" at the same time. ("We weren't trying and we weren't not trying," Daniel said later.) It also won Bill Lee sixty dollars in the "what members of SG1 are sleeping together?" pool, but he didn't tell anyone about that.
They lost Jackson six months later after Daniel missed an ultrasound because he was stuck on some wasted rock of a planet, getting shot at by the Lucian Alliance. "I won't let my child grow up without a father," Daniel said. "Not if I can help it."
This time, at least, Cameron had Jackson sitting next to him as he interviewed replacements. Jackson asked questions about glottal stops, phonological hierarchy, and chronometric dating while Cameron sat there and tried to decide if he liked the person in front of him enough to spend fifty years trapped on a ship with them.
In the end, he ended up with Major Doctor Jennifer Vaughn who corrected Cameron's grammar more often than he liked, but also had a knack for communicating with the natives and was a crack shot to boot.
Two weeks after they lost Jackson, Sam came to him with an expression that told him everything he needed to know.
"You're leaving."
"They're making amazing strides with the Asgard technology," Sam said. "They've offered me an entire research base down in Antartica. It's going to be the most advanced scientific outpost in world, possibly the galaxy."
"And you get to run it," Cameron said and Sam shrugged.
He couldn't argue with the excited look on her face, so he hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then it was back to the briefing room, interviewing the most overqualified people in the Air Force.
He got Captain Juan Menendez, Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Engineering and one of the best basketball players Cameron had ever gone up against.
Things settled down after that. Vala had the baby and they named her Jackie. ("She was cranky and infantile when I first met her," Daniel said. "It seemed fitting.") Motherhood suited Vala, they were all a little surprised by how well she took to it. Vala more than anyone. When SG-5 brought home a four year old boy, the only survivor of a devastating famine, Daniel and Vala offered to put him up for a few nights, "just to get him off the base." He never left.
Then the Stargate program went public and they all spent a year testifying before Congress and getting their names splashed all over the headlines. But at the end of that year, they appeared on Oprah and Sam said, "If Oprah likes us, we're good."
Teal'c left shortly after that, having been offered a teaching position at the Air Force Academy. ("We'd be fools not to take advantage of that kind of tactical experience," one general was quoted as saying.)
Again, Cameron ended up doing interviews, but at the end of the day, the person he chose as his fourth wasn't an Air Force Officer, but a refugee from the Pegasus galaxy that Cameron had met during a trip to Atlantis and offered a job before Sheppard noticed the kid and decided to keep him for himself. Van didn't have Teal'c's hulking stature, but he was quick and deadly when he needed to be, cautious and kind most of the time.
When Van officially got his badges, Cameron called SG1, the original SG1, and said, "Come on, one last trip."
It was uneventful and quiet and at the end of the trip, Daniel and Vala and Sam and Teal'c and Jack O'Neill stood in front of the gate. And Cameron put his team in formation, standing there like recruits while his mentors, his friends, looked them over. Finally, O'Neill looked at him. "They'll do," he said and Cameron smiled.
He'd gotten the band back together to teach him, and they had. He'd learned more from them, gained more from working with them, than he could ever repay. But he couldn't live in their shadows forever. Now it was time for someone else to carry on the tradition.