--One Night On A Doorstop--
Colonel Jonathon “Jack” O’Neill USAF’s truck could never be called a particularly quiet vehicle. In fact many a morning was met with a rather aggravated neighbor wondering why he felt it necessary to leave his house in the early hours of the morning, waking them all up (Jack rarely…unless it was pre-morning-coffee, admitted that he had been coming home). This night, therefore, was like many others that year and the seven years before, at roughly 2300 hours (after a briefing that seemed to defy the definition of brief) Jack drove up to his house, parked, stepped out of the car and stopped on the drive way. He rubbed a weary hand over his face, careful of the stitches through his cheek and stared for a few seconds at the bundle lying in his doorway.
Not so much curious as to what it was, he knew exactly what (well…who) it was, it was more of a question of why it was lying in front of his front door. However, a glance at his watch reminded him the need for sleep as he knelt down and shook the shoulder of the teenager. “Hey kiddo. Inside?”
She gazed up at him for a minute and he felt his heart constrict at the eyes and nodded silently accepting his offered hand.
He argued with the front door lock, growing slightly more frustrated at every seemingly futile turn of the key before shoving his shoulder into the right points on the door and letting them in. “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I’ll fix it before I go to sleep.”
They managed to reach the kitchen before she fell into one of the chairs and he handed her a glass of water. “How long?”
“A day or so. Got here Thursday night. You were on some secret mission?”
“Yeah.”
He quickly gave her the clear, studied surveying glance he gave to field operatives (although he usually allowed some appreciation in regards to one particular field agent but we’re not going there at 2300 hours) and nodded. “You okay to take the spare room for tonight?”
She nodded, kissed his cheek and wondered down the hall silently. He watched the brown hair of the teenager go and shook his head, rolling his eyes. “For cryin’ out loud,” he muttered under his breath before falling into bed himself.
--
When he woke up the next morning, she was still in bed so he managed to call the base-getting the day off (not that he lamented taking off a day of only paperwork), and set up breakfast before she wandered in pulling her hair out of her face. She sat down across the table from him almost hugging the box of fruit loops as she shoveled them into her mouth. He let her eat for a while before he felt he had to start the questions.
“How’d you get here?”
“Taxi to the airport, borrowed some cash from Michael to get a flight.”
“Borrowed?”
“He doesn’t know about it yet.”
He nodded, hiding his smirk and let her keep eating. “Want to tell me what happened?”
“Michael told me to leave.” Jack silently nodded and looked deep into the large mug of coffee (something told him he’d need it today).
“Any plans?”
She looked up, almost surprised that he spoke, and shook her head. “I hadn’t really thought passed getting here.”
Jack smirked, “Always were a smart kid,” and for the first time he saw a tiny smile…more the hint of a smile playing on her lips. “Well you’re staying here right, there aren’t any questions about that.”
“I can’t stay here forever Jack.” She felt she had to argue, never one to accept help easily…just like Jack come to think of it.
He just stood and took the plates to the counter shrugging, “As long as you need kiddo.”
--
His family was a military family, through and through. All his life he had been the definition of a ‘military brat’ and he could see it all played out in front of him. This was a wedding for crying out loud, yet there was one of his sisters sitting at a table with some General…Colonel, (he hadn’t been listening) talking tactics while her daughter sat in her lap listening intently. He rolled his eyes, there was the third generation of the O’Neill donation to the American Armed Forces sitting in a purple frilly dress right now.
His other sister Bea, (Beatrice but even he wasn’t game to call her that) sat grinning madly at the head table in her formal army uniform while her new husband (no, really, we’re talking 2 hours new)smirked into his beer-Michael.
Jack couldn’t help rolling his eyes at the thought of Michael, honestly was there nobody else around? Did she have to marry the definition of brainless thug? Not that he was all brains of course, but he’d like it if his niece’s new father had something going on under the cru-cut.
Speaking of which.
“Hey Jack.”
“Kiddo.”
She’d changed, he noticed. Gone was the dark red lace and conservative neckline, now there were faded jeans and a simple black shirt. “What are you thinking?”
“Wondering how you’ll survive with him.”
Her face hardly changed, a slight twitch in the eyebrow mainly and only visible to someone who knew what to look for. She was already the perfection of military standard lack of emotion. “He’s alright, just need to count the beer bottles.”
He nodded and pulled her to his side, keeping an arm draped over her shoulders. “I’m always around if you need me ok?”
She smiled into his shoulder and he led her to the dance floor as some 80’s ‘classic’ started. At his dancing she burst into a wide grin and they spun around, giggling and tripping over their feet.
He sat down with a groan and smirk, “I’m too old for that.”
She rolled her eyes and poked him in the side, “Too old my ass, you’re what…40?”
Jack pretended to be flattered, waving his hand around and smiling sweetly. “Not quite.”
“You still at the same place?”
“Near Cheyenne?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded looking over at her seriously again. “I’m serious Joanna-“
“How many times must I tell you ‘Uncle Jonathon’, it’s Jo.”
“No, you listen to me. If anything happens, if he gets too drunk or says anything, you come straight to me do you understand?”
She smiled again and nodded ,”Don’t worry Jack, I swear.”
He relaxed, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “I’m going to be away the next week, but I’ll be back on Friday. Give me a call ok?”
“Where are you going?”
“You know the drill Jo, secret classified etc.”
“Yeah…just hoping you’d slip up.”
He shook his head, chuckling under his breath and hugged her tightly. “Love you kiddo.”
“You too.”
He shrugged back on the dress blue jacket, quickly checking the medals that it was his and smiled, “See ya.”
--
They were watching the Simpsons when the phone rang. He was so relaxed that it almost made him jump out of his skin. “Jesus Christ!” Jo laughed and watched him grope around the table behind him to find the small, annoying, ringing device that was interrupting Homer’s tirade. “O’Neill…Hey Carter…Yeah ‘course it’s still on…Oh, I’m not sick, it’s just a family thing…yeah everything’s fine…no you don’t have to, oh wait, bring an alternative movie-don’t’ tell T but there’s only so much Star Wars someone can take you know?...yeah…don’t play too long with the doohickeys Carter.”
He lay back on the couch not noticing the piercing questions Jo was throwing him…not that she was actually saying anything she was just watching and waiting.
He sat up and turned the TV off, walking through to the kitchen, beginning to open and close all the cupboards. “What’cha looking for?”
“Food. There isn’t anything for dinner…oh, pizza…well we’ll need beer, s’pose we’d better go out. Great.”
“Jack?”
“Oh, sorry.” He turned around only just seeming to realize that he wasn’t talking to himself and smiled sheepishly. “I…forgot.” Jo rolled her eyes, immediately letting him know it was alright. “My team, from the secret classified stuff? Yeah well every few weeks we get together…watch movies and all of that. Is that going to be okay? I mean I can call Carter back and cancel it if you don’t want people around…?”
“Nah, it’s fine. I want to meet your team. So we need beer?”
“Yeah, and probably something to eat while we wait for the pizza…although if Carter has her way then we’ll get Chinese and I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Jo picked up her jacket, easily shrugging it on (he rolled his eyes as he noticed it was her cousin’s army issue one) and looked up. “So, can I drive?”
“Nope.”
“Please?”
“Absolutely not. I am not letting anybody drive my truck…well I had to let Carter once but I had a broken leg and that’s not important.”
“So Carter’s a girl?”
She sat in the passenger side watching him carefully, after 17 years she knew how to read the guarded uncle next to her and she almost grinned that even now he couldn’t hold anything from her. “Woman but yes, she’s a she.”
“Let me guess, blonde?”
He glanced as they stopped at traffic lights, “Yeah…how’d you…?”
“Eric was saying how you got really drunk two years ago and told him about the blonde at work.” Jack almost crashed his precious truck as the words registered. “But I suppose you haven’t done anything about it cause you’re well…you’re a chicken.”
“My chicken-ness isn’t the problem,” he muttered under his breath, pulling the truck back under his control.
Jo seemed to smile and turned to look out the window, “So, who’s coming?
“My team,” Jack shrugged. “Just the three of them.”
“Yeah…tell me about them, come on Jack I’m curious.”
Jack rolled his eyes as they pulled up at the store, leaping out of the truck trying to think of what he could tell her. “Danny’s the archeologist…space monkey,” he found himself blurting out. “Wait, you know Danny“
“Yes Jack,” she said slowly, “Remember? Actually I can’t blame you if you don’t you weren’t very sober for the time we were both here.” With a look at his eyes she quickly smiled and changed the topic, “I didn’t think he still put up with you?”
“I think it’s a mutual putting up sort of thing.”
“I’m not allowed to ask why you have an archeologist in Deep Space Radar Telemetry am I?”
He hugged her close as they pulled Guinness off the shelves before moving round to find food. “Sorry. Then there’s Te-Murray.” His mind ran amok with words that only a soldier knew and Jo smirked. Why is it that he was never able to hide anything from her? Well…there were two people he couldn’t hide things from but we’re not going there yet.
“Te?”
“Teal’c, he’s African. But goes by Murray sometimes and I’m just used to calling him T I guess.”
“Teal’c? Interesting name.”
“Yeah, he’s the combat expert and counter intelligence.”
“And Carter?” He stopped pushing the trolley, almost pushing it into her legs as she whipped around and smiled sweetly. She took a bag of chips off the shelf and placed it innocently in the cart. “Carter, the hot blonde?”
“Carter’s an astrophysicist, smartest person on Earth, the universe even.”
“And?”
He rolled his eyes and didn’t speak as they piled all their hard work into the back of the truck and began to drive. Once they came back to his driveway he stopped and looked at her seriously. “Frat Regs Jo.”
Jo looked over at him, a sympathetic glance in her eyes. “That bad?”
“They suck.”
Carter arrived first, slipping a laptop bag over her shoulder and swiping her hair out of her face in annoyance as she opened the door and dropped her stuff in the hallway. “Sir? It’s just me.”
Instead of being met with the CO she was used to, the head that poked itself out of the kitchen was that of a teenage girl with dark brown hair and deeper brown eyes. “Hey, you must be Carter.”
“Hi…” Carter walked through to the kitchen, hiding how glad she was that her CO was sitting at the table fiddling with some string while the teenager muttered about a lack of coffee.
“She won’t let me do anything,” Jack mumbled as she came and sat across from him.
“Who…?”
The girl turned around and grinned, “Don’t worry, I’m his niece. Jo.”
“Sam. How did you know who I was?”
“I did a little interrogating before you arrived, apparently frat regs suck.”
“Joanna!” Jack sat up straight, the childish pout immediately disappearing while Sam began to blush (he refused to admit she was pretty when she did that, bad Jack!).
The girl shrugged again as the doorbell rang, “Saved by the bell.” She grinned and leapt out of the room.
Daniel was the least surprised, greeting Jo with a hug before glancing at Jack. “Don’t worry Danny,” she murmured, “He’s saving me this time.”
“Yeah I was about to ask,” Sam smiled, “Why is it that you have a teenager staying with you all of a sudden? I thought Loki was back with another-“ she stopped herself and glanced at the beer in front of her. “John.”
Jack rolled his eyes, wondering if Jo had laced their drinks (he really wouldn’t put it past her), “Nah. Jo’s just staying with me for a while-“
“My step-dad’s a jerk,” Jo shrugged and joined them, her own beer clasped in her hands. “So I left and Jack’s taken me in.”
Jack was silent for a minute before glancing at the drink, “One, you hear me?”
“Jack, by the time I’ve finished with one you won’t be able to count the rest.”
“I’m better than Daniel!”
“Everybody’s better than Daniel! I’ve never had a drink in my life and I bet I can hold it better than he can.”
“Hey! Don’t I get a say in this?”
--Traditional Team Night--
In true team night fashion, the night ended about 0100 with Daniel passed out on the couch and Teal’c doing his meditation thing in the easy chair while Sam and Jack cleaned up. Jo watched as they worked without speaking, silently moving around each other as though they’d been doing it a hundred times before, which considering how long they’d been a team, they probably had.
Quietly she pried the last drink from Daniel’s fingers and went to throw it out, following Sam into the kitchen. “Hey,” Sam whispered. “What’s up?”
“Just trying to figure out you guys.”
Sam laughed and turned off the tap, leaning on the counter and watching as Jack found a blanket and threw it over his friend. “They’re closer than they let on right?”
Sam followed her look and grinned, “Oh yeah. They actually respect each other occasionally, doesn’t stop them acting like two year olds”
“And you and Daniel?”
Sam thought for a minute, never been one to think about relationships…they were less confusing that way. “I suppose he’s like my brother.”
“And Teal’c?”
“Older brother, definitely.”
Jo grinned, contemplating whether or not to ask her about Jack when he walked in himself. “You want the spare- crap ,sorry Jo’s got it.”
Sam smirked and nodded, “It’s okay, I should get going-got some work to do before the briefing tomorrow and you’ve run out of couches anyway. Just make sure Daniel gets his coffee before he comes to work ok? I don’t want to have to deal with his hangover.”
Jack laughed and Jo noticed him finally relax in his 2IC’s presence. She wondered if she should leave them alone for a minute but then groaned. If she knew anything about these two (and one of them she knew well, the other well enough) it was that these two were the definitions of ‘professional’ and even if they were left alone nothing would happen. She figured Daniel had tried that already.
They walked her to the door, Jack leaning against the frame as she picked up her things, so tired and maybe tipsy enough that her bag upended and things flew in all directions. Jack and Jo both instinctively dropped to the floor and helped her but with one shared glance between Jack and Sam, Jo was sent to grab the dust pan (not that she could see anything broken, but then she didn’t know what half of this stuff was).
When she got back they were having a hushed conversation, Sam apologizing. “I’m so sorry sir, I didn’t know she would be here otherwise I wouldn’t have brought them. I just needed to look at them with some of the equipment at my house and got clearance to take them above ground as long as they were only kept with SGC personnel.”
“It’s okay Carter, I get it.”
She nodded and clutched her bag tighter, finally seeming to notice that Jo was waiting a little behind her uncle. “I’ll see you later Jo,” she grinned, thankful for the distraction. “Call me if you need a girl to talk to while you’re stuck with the caveman alright? Jack can get hold of me.”
Jo smiled and nodded, “Thanks Sam. I’ll see you later.”
“Sir you still able to come tomorrow? It’s a 24 hour trip.”
“Yeah, I should be. I’ll check it over with Hammond to see if someone can come check on her,” he smiled and Carter left-no-one but Jo seeming to realize that she’d forgotten what looked like a shiny crystal under the hall table. She was about to mention it to Jack but something stopped her. The words wouldn’t reach her mouth and she turned and walked down the hall into her room, waving to Jack as she went.
The next morning Teal’c was the first awake, putting on the coffee for the others and setting up what looked like a buffet, although he seemed to be the only one allowed to eat from it. Jack woke up next followed by Jo and eventually at 0800 they were forced to push a mug of coffee into Daniel’s hands and almost carry him to the table. “He really can’t handle alcohol can he,” Jo smirked as they gave him a bowl of cereal and watching him mumble thanks.
“Daniel Jackson does not feel his inability to consume alcohol a bad thing.”
After an entire night of Teal’c individual style of speech, Jo barely looked up as she heard him. “Yeah, it’s just a little embarrassing.”
Jack finished his and seemed significantly more coherent than when he had woken up and smiled at Jo. “Kiddo? I’ve got one of those secret missions-“
“P4X-692” Daniel groaned through his mug. “It’s P4X-692, and my head hurts.”
“Only you would remember that when you’re dead Danny,” Jack smirked and handed him a couple of pain-relief and a glass of water and turned back to his niece. “I should be back by tomorrow, about mid day. Are you alright with that? I’ll have one of the SF’s come over and check that everything’s ok.”
She looked up from her breakfast and smiled. “A cute SF?”
“Jo!”
“Sorry.” They both knew why the SF was coming. Michael had a habit of getting drunk, doing something (such as kicking her out) and the getting more drunk and convincing himself that he had to fix what he’d done at all costs. “And they’ll be able to contact me while I’m away, so if there’s any trouble I want you to call this number,” he scribbled it down on the page, “Ask for General Hammond and say it’s a C15 okay? That should get you through.”
“C15?”
“Family Emergency. Even if you just want to check up okay?”
Jo nodded and Jack grinned. “Don’t worry, it’s only Deep Space Radar Telemetry, very little can go wrong.”
“I fail to agree O’Neill.”
Jo looked at Teal’c for a minute and burst into giggles not listening as Jack told her to stop and Teal’c raised an eyebrow asking what was wrong.
Right before he left she hugged him tightly and wished him luck, “I think we both know you’d never go into Deep Space whatever and one day you’ll get clearance to tell me.”
“I promise,” he kissed her forehead and held her close purposefully ignoring the soldier’s sense that something wasn’t right. “You going to be okay?”
“Yup, I’ll be fine.”
“Sweet.”
It was only a few minutes into her getting ready for school, (yeah, apparently if you’re a Colonel of the USAF with whatever program he was with you could organize to get into a new school pretty easily) that she remembered the glowing crystal.
Come to think of it, that’s all she remembered.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
AN: Thanks for all the reviews guys :) keep 'em coming and i'll keep the chapters coming :D
BTW: sorry if this chapter seems shorter than the first, i accidentally uploaded the first two chapters at once...sorry :(
--The Bad News Voice--
Very occasionally, and we’re talking once in a million sort of occasionally, SG-1 managed to have a quiet mission without getting captured, tortured, killed or bartered. P4X-692 happened once in a million.
“We came, we saw, we … well they were scientists and happy and we left.” Jack announced walking back into the gate room. He handed the P-90 to the nearest Weapons Handler and grinned up at the glass. “The people liked me!” he smirked at Sam who had just come through, already rolling her eyes.
Not everybody in the building was quite as happy. “Colonel, my office now.”
Jack knew that voice. So did Sam from the look of her, “We’ll meet you outside then Colonel,” she answered flippantly and shared at look with Daniel. Secret meaning: we’ll wait for you and make sure everything’s alright.
Daniel glanced between them, not having heard the tone in the General’s voice. As Jack leapt up the stairs and through the control room he turned to her. “What’s up?”
“The General used the ‘I have bad news for you’ voice Daniel.”
“Shit.”
“Think it’s Jo?”
“I can’t think of what else it might be.” They got rid of their gear quickly, getting to the briefing room as Jack stormed out barely noticing them. “Colonel?” Sam called down the corridor.
“Not now Major,” he shouted back. “Go … play.”
She bit her lip and turned to Daniel, “It’s gotta be Jo.”
He nodded, turning to glance at Teal’c. “Any ideas?”
“I suggest we await Colonel O’Neill’s actions on the matter. If he requires our aid he will ask for it. However the situation may be more fragile than that and our appearance may bring more harm than good.”
Sam nodded, still not liking the fact but turned towards her lap. “Call me if you hear from him.”
Daniel nodded, walking towards his own lab hoping Jack knew when to ask for their help.
The door was unlocked. Shit. Despite what he might say about snake-heads, over the top gold paint or the unoriginality of the universal domination gig, nothing scared Jack O’Neill more than a door that was supposed to be locked, but wasn’t. He’d heard it lock behind him as he left yesterday.
Jo, certified military brat and vaguely intelligent teenager knew why he was paranoid about locking doors and never once would she have forgotten. She had more reason to have a barrier between herself and the outside world (read: Michael the jerk) that most of the people he knew.
He bit back the panic he could feel somewhere down his throat and pushed open the door, pulling out the beret from his jeans and calling out her name.
After fifteen of the slowest minutes he rang her mobile and listened to the “this person is unavailable as they are out of range. Please call back later,” message he threw the phone to the couch, only to pick it up and try the only person who had a chance of figuring out a plan to find her.
“Samantha Ca-“
“Jo hasn’t turned up at the mountain has she?”
“No Sir. Wha-“
“Have you heard from her?”
“No Sir. D-“
Perhaps it was the fact he was calling his 2IC about a teenage girl gone missing, or perhaps it was just her voice, but he found himself talking rapidly into the phone-maintaining military professionalism and keeping it brief. “The SF Hammond sent over found the house locked but empty, she’s gone missing.”
“Jack!” (let’s try not to count the amount of times she’d called her CO ‘Jack’), “Don’t worry. Daniel, Teal’c and I will be there in 10 minutes, stay there and we’ll come help.”
“Thanks Carter.”
“Always sir.” She hung up before thinking of the implications and called the others. “Jo’s missing.”
It took roughly 30 seconds to get out of the mountain, all of them picking up a couple of zats and a pistol, throwing themselves into Sam’s car (her being the only one to drive to work). “Any idea what happened?”
“None. The SF couldn’t find her and her mobile’s out of range.”
They searched the house again while Jack called the school (which she hadn’t turned up to) and the friend’s number he found scrawled on a scrap of paper on her desk before finally calling his sister.
“What?”
Jack couldn’t help rolling his eyes as his team set about finding something to eat watching him intently. “Michael it’s Jack. I need to talk to Bea thanks.” He kept his voice calm and even, hiding any emotion (hey, we’ve established that he was good at that).
“She ain’t here.”
“Yeah she is Michael, I know she’s there, I can hear her in the background. Please give her the phone or I will call the police. Or worse, I’ll call in the family.” He wasn’t sure which threat worked, but he soon find the angry, slightly tipsy voice of his sister.
“What is it Jack?”
“Has Joanna contacted you?”
“No. Why would she?”
“She’s your daughter.”
“Fat lot of good that did her.” Jack found himself falling into the nearest dining chair next to Sam. “Why does she need me anyway, she’s got you now.”
“Yeah, just be glad for that. So, you haven’t heard from her lately?”
“Nope.”
Jack hung up and rolled his eyes, “I swear, that woman…I’d rather have a conversation with Hathor.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. Hathor’s sober. Danny?” He looked up from the latest cup of coffee.
“Yeah?”
“Imagine me at the start of the SGC and add whiskey.”
Daniel winced and nodded, wondering for the hundredth time how Jack seemed to now have some immunity to alcohol over the past few years. He didn’t want to consider the possibility that it happened while his friend was contemplating a deeper acquaintance with his gun.
Jack didn’t move or speak for a while as Carter and Teal’c did a sweep of the area outside before coming back and sitting down.
“There are no tracks befitting a girl of Joanna O’Neill’s stature,” Teal’c said, Jack nodded.
“Sir, I’ve been thinking, what about ‘outside influences’?” Sam thought it better to just keep going before he could make the usual comment about her thinking abilities. “I mean, Thor might still be in orbit, or somebody else.” Jack nodded and thought for a minute.
“I fail to understand how Joanna O’Neill could be of aid to one such as Thor, she fails to carry the ancient gene nor is there anything interesting about her.”
Jack finally glanced up, a small grin on his lips and shook his head, trying to focus. “It’s worth a shot T-“
“Yeah, they could be trying to get to you Jack.” Daniel said reaching for another beer only to have his hand swatted away by Jack himself.
“Enough for you. Alright, Carter-you and Danny go back to the SGC, see if you can contact Thor-if he doesn’t have her see if he can do one of those sweepy things and find her. T and I will go to the school and … well T will look scary and we’ll see what we can find out. Meet back here at 1800.”
“Yes sir.”
The most help the school had was to send them to sympathetic looking (at least, text-book-sympathetic) principal who sat across the desk and smiled at them saying that they could call the police but other than that she didn’t know what they expected her to do.
“I am afraid that O’Neill intends to harm you should you not provide more aid,” Teal’c said as Jack’s knuckles were turning white.
“My niece is missing. Can I look at the sign in sheets? See if she made it here at all, look at the security footage?”
“I am afraid I cannot give that information out to the general public.” Jack rolled his eyes, fumbling through his trousers to find his wallet and ID.
“T, show your ID while I find mine. Ma’am, we are not ‘general public’.,” he put on the ‘don’t mess with me CO’ voice and sat up a little straighter, “I am Colonel Jack O’Neill and this is combat expert Dr T Murray in the USAF and we expect your complete cooperation in this endeavor.” The principal leant back in her chair as he finally found his wallet and showed her both of their ID.
“I was under the impression this missing girl was your niece Colonel.”
“Yes and the problem being?”
“I was wondering how the USAF would look upon this misuse of military power.”
Jack had to stop himself rolling his eyes as he looked at the woman. “My time and my team’s time is under my command until such a time as Joanna is found safe. I can call through to General Hammond if that’ll help.”
She wouldn’t know who General Hammond was of course, him being in charge of a completely secret government organization and all that, but the name sounded pretty serious.
“I suppose I can let you look at the sign in sheets and the footage. I assure you no teacher registered her in class this morning.”
Jack didn’t say anything but stepped out of the chair and took back the cards from the woman’s hands. Teal’c bowed slightly (although not low enough for any real respect) and they both walked out to begin the next phase of interrogation.
Sam looked up from her work to Daniel and swore under her breath. “Thor doesn’t have her?”
Daniel sank into one of the stools by her bench only touching the paper in his hands and frowned. “No, but there was a high energy reading right after we left that morning and he can’t find her within his scanners perimeters.”
“What? But his scanners are…huge, like galaxy huge.”
Daniel just nodded, watching as Sam close her eyes trying to get her head back into the work in front of her and not thinking too much about how terrified Jo must have been in another galaxy. “He said he would try again in a couple of hours but not to get our hopes up.” Sam nodded.
“We’d better tell Jack.”
“Can you? Cause he’ll kill me.”
She smirked and picked up her bag, checking the contents, “Why won’t he kill me?”
“You’re the hot blonde.” Sam just rolled her eyes wondering why something in the bag didn’t match.
“Daniel, one of the crystals is missing. One of the ones I took home yesterday to work on…it must be at…”
“Jack’s.”
“Joanna?”
“What did it do?”
“No idea.”
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
AN: thanks for all the reviews :D keep them coming :D:D:D here's another chap...but i'm guessing you already knew that
sorry for the delay btw - just handed in (as in... an hour ago) this huge and VERY important paper...very stress inducing but it's in and i think i did okay... wish me luck :)
disclaimer: dont own it
--Perks of Being A Colonel--
Sam was right. Jo was freaked out. Although if she thought about it, she couldn’t blame herself. In the past hour or so (her watch and phone had been taken off her immediately) she’d found out aliens existed, they liked gold and they didn’t like her. All a bit much.
“Um, excuse me? Why am I here? What do you want from me?” at the very least she expected the guards to shout ‘silence!’ at her-that’s what happened in the movies-but they just stared away from her clutching the long stick things.
She sat on the floor again playing with the frayed edges of her jeans. She’d touched the stone…then everything started getting weird. There was a huge flash of light and she ended up in this room. There had been a man waiting for her who asked her name and if she knew Jack O’Neill, why was she in his house, was Samantha Carter there when she had left?
She answered their questions, not trusting herself to bluff while this man stared her down. “I’m his niece, I live with him now, why do you want Jack? And Sam?”
One of the guards standing either side of the first man had slapped her hard, she heard the crack of his hand as she fell to the ground. “Silence!” She couldn’t help grinning and pointing at him.
“Thank you!”
Which only got her another slap.
“Jack’s not coming you know, he won’t know to look for a giant space ship,” she couldn’t believe she said those words, “he doesn’t believe in you guys.”
The leader steepled his fingers (which made her wonder if all megalomaniacs had some sort of finger dysfunction, I mean come on-Mr. Burns anyone?) and took a moment to look at her. “I had heard that there were secrets on your world about the … gate? Is that what you call it?”
She shrugged and smiled sweetly, “I’m clueless.”
He nodded, “That is evident. Have no fear child, while not what we immediately expected, this will do nicely. He will come.”
“Right, because my uncle has his own space ship. It’s in the back yard and we go out for a spin every weekend.” She could feel herself almost breaking and kept talking, joking around to keep it away, “My Uncle Jack, you know-old guy with busted knees? Yeah he saves the world with a geeky archaeologist and a scientist.”
Third slap.
She shrugged, what could she do? She was Jack’s niece for cryin’ out loud.
And so now, she was stuck alone in what appeared to be a cell, listening to the occasional hiss or cry out of pain and shivered. She might be Jack’s niece but she knew immediately that if they tried that (whatever that might be) on her, she wouldn’t last long. She’d heard stories from her older cousins about Jack, why Sara had left him, what had happened to him in Iraq-fuelled no doubt by the fact that he never talked about any of them.
In her family Jack was an anomaly, quiet and never melodramatic he never seemed to feel comfortable with the rest of them and she didn’t blame him.
He sat, a beer cradled in one hand while the other absently toyed with the queen. “You know, you can’t fool me Jack-I know you’re not as stupid as you pretend.”
He glanced up surprised that she’d spoken and smirked. “That true huh?”
She nodded. “Yup. You forget Dr O’Neill,” his eyes immediately rolled, “I got your mail the other day.”
“It was a weak moment,” he grinned and moved the piece.
She could only roll her eyes and look back out to the garden. “What do you think they’re talking about?” He followed her gaze, noticing her mother and grandmother chatting and glancing through the screen door.
“Probably thinking of ways to spring themselves on us and-“
“Demand to know why you’re not dating,” she beamed.
“Yeah, something like that.”
They were silent for a while, concentrating on nothing more than the strategic moves of their silent army. “You know, I know a few of my friends mums think you’re gorgeous.”
Jack’s head immediately sprang up, staring at her in shock. “W-W-What?”
She shrugged, “Yeah.”
“Jesus Jo, not you as well?”
She smiled kindly for the first time, “I just…you deserve somebody Jack.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that kiddo.”
He was silent and took a large drink from the bottle before moving into check giving her one of the smaller Jack-O’Neill-Smiles.
They were cleaning up dinner (how they were put on that duty was anybody’s guess) when she brought it up again. “How?”
“How what?”
“How is it complicated?”
He sighed and turned around to lean against the counter fiddling with the table cloth. “It just is.”
“Look Jack, we both know I’m not going to shut up on this one. Now I could tell my mum about it and we’d both be in trouble or you can tell me and it never leaves this room.”
He didn’t speak but she knew to wait. She was used to Mr-Rather-Die-That-Talk-About-Feelings-And-Stuff.
“I’m her commanding officer.”
“She’s on your team? Oh!”
“Yeah. That and I doubt she’ll ever speak to me again. Last week there was a bit of a … fiasco at work, we had to admit to…feeling feelings. Look it’s no big deal.”
Ha! No big deal her ass. The fact that she’d gotten this much out of him proved that.
“One day, I’m going to meet your team.”
She could never remember how, but that conversation led to a water fight with the bubbles from the washing up and lying sprawled across the kitchen floor both soaking and having to explain to her grandmother why they weren’t cleaning.
She smiled slightly at the thought, she knew her uncle’s team hadn’t changed since that conversation and she’d seen the way they looked at each other the night before. Maybe if she concentrated on the mess that was her Uncle’s love life she might forget the fiasco that she was in.
Then again, if a USAF Colonel (and they didn’t make complete idiots colonel) and the ‘smartest person in the universe’ (a term Jack would never use about a scientist unless he actually meant it) couldn’t figure it out in eight years, what the hell was she going to come up with?
After maybe an hour she was left with not much.
And the screams were getting closer. They were working on the cells next to hers as she curled up in the furthest corner, hoping (pretty stupidly, she got that) that they’d forget about her and move onto the next poor victim.
They didn’t.
--
“Carter?” She shouldn’t be so glad that he had his Air Force voice right then, over the past couple of hours they’d seemed to forget about everything to the point of him calling her ‘Sam’ every so often and her openly smiling as he tried to take his own mind off what was happening to his niece at that moment.
However thrilling and dangerous that might have been, they needed to concentrate, they had to get her back.
She tried not to think about how much she worried about this completely unknown teenager. From the minute she’d realized there was an issue, General Hammond’s orders down to the Gate room, she’d turned cold and felt her skin crawl in anticipation. That feeling hadn’t left her only to be added to the pure adrenaline flowing through her, much the same way as it had not too long ago with him on Paradise.
Why did she care this much? Because it was his niece? Or had she seen something else in that girl, something she might have understood?
“Carter? You with us?”
“Sorry sir. I zoned out for a minute.”
“Have you eaten?”
She restrained herself from rolling her eyes at her commanding officer but felt the light lift that he could still worry about her. “Yes sir. What’s up?”
“Daniel said you’d received word from Thor?”
She sat across from him in her lab as she shook her head. “Nothing useful. Well. He doesn’t have her and his scanners can’t pick her up.”
He was silent for a minute, processing before nodding. “And his scanners are-“
“Big. Yes sir. They’re huge. She was taken out of this galaxy.”
She noticed that he was now pure military bravado. There was no room for raw emotion behind those clear eyes or in the strong brace of his shoulders, he was a Colonel and by god was he going to act like one. For once.
“He’ll still scan every couple of hours, see if he can pick something up but-“
“If she’s out of the galaxy it’s unlikely they’ll bring her back.” She nodded, not knowing what to say for once.
“Thanks Carter. Any ideas?”
“I was thinking we could contact the Tok’ra. They might be able to lend us a ship.”
“But where would we start?” Okay now she knew he was stressed and tired and didn’t want to be dealing with this (not that many did). “You said none of those other crystals we found held anything we could use, she’s a needle in the universal haystack.”
“SG-1 to the Briefing Room! SG-1 to the Briefing Room!”
--
“Does the female reveal anything?”
“No My Lord,”
“Any word on the Tau’ri?”
“They have yet to receive the transmission.”
“When they do, I wish to be informed immediately.”
“Yes my lord.”
“Who is it that is in charge of the female’s…interrogation?”
“My second sir.”
“Take his place.”
“Yes my lord.”
--
She wanted to be clean. She wanted to be completely free of the smell and the feel of that room. She could still feel the sharp burn of the odd pronged stick they’d pushed into her skin spreading fire down her back and through her blood. She could smell the crisp burnt-toast smell of the charred remains of her shirt, barely covering anything anymore, crinkling as she moved. The corner was too large for her to hide from the smirks of the guards (she hadn’t noticed them smirking before).
She wanted to hide.
She wanted to be saved.
Part of her considered the possibility of Jack believing in aliens.
--
Jack crossed his arms and leant against the briefing table, an eyebrow raised in a perfect imitation of his friend. “And what on earth … or any other planet, makes you think we’ll come?”
The Jaffa nodded to him almost pleasantly. “You will come O’Neill.”
“We have acquired something of yours, we feel you will wish for its safe return.”
“What?” Not that anybody needed to ask. Sam sat in her chair and immediately knew who they had.
Jo
“You have a niece do you not? A young girl as frustrating as yourself? She currently resides in our lowest cell.” The messenger transmitted an image of Jo’s cell, focusing on the girl curled up in the corner. Jack leapt to his feet and stared at the picture. “Give me the address, I’ll come. Alone. Unarmed.”
“Colonel O’Neill.”
“No sir, that is Jo. I’m going to get her.”
There was a quick transmission of the address and the messenger left. “Colonel, we’ll think of something. You can’t just go in there alone.” Carter glanced across the table hoping one of the others had a brilliant plan but it seemed left up to her.
“We all go Jack,” Daniel said quietly. “There isn’t any question about that.”
Jack looked confused for a minute, wondering since when he took orders from Daniel, but then realized that he liked the orders and accepted them.
“We have no choice,” Hammond was talking and Jack sat back down. “SG-1 you will go through after the UAV plane. Jack I want a written plan of attack in twenty minutes. Depending on that, you leave in an hour.”
“Any other teams available?”
Hammond shook his head, “I’m sorry. I can’t ask them to do this.” Jack didn’t speak, just nodded and waited to be dismissed. “You are dismissed.”
“Carter, with me.”
She almost expected him to lead her to his office, but somehow doubted he knew where that was. They ended up (as usual) in her lab with him pacing in front of the table of ‘doohickeys’ staring at the ceiling occasionally. “Okay, we have one team, no others and are almost definitely walking into a trap.”
She was facing the Colonel. Jack was probably busy getting out of the way in there, the man in front of her was pure military. It took them fifteen minutes to formulate the basics of a plan that was basically made up of – go in there, get captured, find Jo and break out seeing if they can take out the mother ship (there had to be a mother ship) behind them.
“Ready to go?” She didn’t answer but looked at him biting her lip. “Come on Carter, let’s g- everything alright?” he stood in front of her, desperately wanting to reach out to her but the door was open and even if it wasn’t there were security cameras.
“You alright? You’ve been…quiet.”
He chuckled and nodded, “My ego knows SG-1 is her best shot.”
“All of SG-1 by the way.” He didn’t answer, just lead the way to the locker room.
Chapter 4: Chapter 4
AN: hope you like :) let me know! please keep those reviews coming :D:D please let me know if there's something you think i can work on
Disclaimer: not mine...woke up this morning and was still mid-dream that it was mine...then came to my senses
--Rescue Mission--
“You have a go,” Hammond called down from the control room. “God speed SG-1.”
Jack glanced up at the event horizon, shaking his head as he remembered Sam’s grin the first time she went through. He allowed himself a second to imagine Jo’s face if she was ever shown this. He promised himself that he’d get her back just so he could argue with the politicians to get her clearance.
Then again, if their idea was right h she already knew about aliens.
“Let’s go kids,” he called and they were through.
“Um, folks…where are the munchkins?” Daniel had to hide a sigh of relief, watching as Jack led Teal’c to scan the area while Sam checked the data from the UAV. “Guys? We’re supposed to be walking into a trap?”
Carter stood up and shrugged, “Might as well check it out a bit I suppose. The UAV found a town twelve klicks to the north.”
Jack nodded, calmly placing his hat on his head. “Move out folks, T – watch our sixes.”
SG-1 silently made their way towards the village, none of them sure what to say so instead focused on keeping an eye on the movements in the trees.
Daniel reached the town first, marveling at the roman buildings and the cobbled streets. “I’m thinking … meaning of life stuff?” Jack smirked as his friend almost ran to the nearest piece of writing. “Danny? We can come back, we need to stay on task today.”
Daniel snapped back up, looking incredibly guilty-for a moment he had forgotten the point of this mission but as he turned to apologize he found Jack smirking. “You okay?”
Jack shrugged, running a hand over the P-90 and nodded, “Yeah, I’m good. Jo is so grounded when we get back.”
They nodded and kept going until Sam stopped and raised her binoculars to scan the area. “Sir? There’s nobody. At all. Zilch.”
Jack held up a hand effectively stopping his well trained soldiers (and one … slightly trained archaeologist). “Radiation? Air borne illnesses Major?”
“None that show up on my readings sir.”
“Right.”
“This does not fit with a goa’uld battle plan O’Neill, the buildings are intact.”
“Thanks T.” Jack didn’t want to split anybody up, liking it better when he could see what his friends were doing so instead ordered them to move out and send the UAV for another sweep of the immediate area. “Daniel, is there a hospital or something around here?”
“That building over there, the Roman…infirmary I suppose,”
“Alright people, that’s where we’re headed. Move out.”
The hospital was a large columned building…like most of the others for that matter, with rooms off a large main corridor and the convent to one side. Jack almost had to physically restrain Daniel from running off and reading anything he could get his hands on but was thankful that his friend managed to stop himself. At the moment Jack’s mind was nothing more than running through the plan and so far it wasn’t working, anything else would have to wait.
“Oh god!” Daniel’s muffled cry flew through the otherwise silent halls reaching Jack quickly.
“What’s up?”
Daniel was standing in the doorway to one of the larger rooms refusing to go in further when he came up behind him. The words ‘what is it’ died somewhere up his throat as he looked before him to be replaced with something more along the lines of ‘shit’.
There were bodies. Lots of bodies. Possibly over a couple of hundred. It would be hard to find out exactly how many there were considering they were in pieces, hundreds upon hundreds of heads and torsos and arms and fingers and toes stared at them before Jack pulled Daniel outside and closed the door.
“They were tested upon,” Teal’c murmured behind them (Jack had given up asking how he managed to sneak up on them all the time). “The dismemberment indicates a crude testing method popular with the lesser goa’uld.”
The Colonel reached for his radio wondering how despite his best efforts his team managed to split up, “Carter?”
“Coming sir, I found another chamber-“
“Lots of pieces of people?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t touch and come back.”
“Yes sir.”
They camped in the square that night with strict orders to maintain a ‘lazy watch’. Despite what you might think, it was Teal’c who excelled at those orders. At roughly 0300 Jack was woken up but the deep gravelly and always calm voice of his friend, “O’Neill we are about to be captured.”
His first thought was to laugh as the others woke up soon to be replaced by the immediate need to hide the C4 and a couple of knives under his jacket. While his pistol and P-90 (the most likely to be picked up by the Jaffa) were hidden in plain sight and he could hope they were more than usually stupid.
“Carter?”
“Sir?”
“I recognize the décor.”
“You should sir, we’re in a holding cell. You know I’m almost used to these places.”
Jack nodded and leant against the wall while his head spun. “Danny? T?”
“We are in the adjacent cell O’Neill.” Jack physically jumped as he heard Teal’c’s voice while Carter smirked.
“Danny alright?”
“Daniel Jackson has been taken O’Neill.”
Jack’s smirk immediately stopped and he glanced at his cellmate. “Taken?”
“I too have been thoroughly interrogated.”
Jack swore, glancing as Carter shook her head, “Not yet sir.”
“T, how bad is it? Will Daniel be alright?”
There was silence for so long that Jack felt like breaking down the wall that stood between them and … well he couldn’t do anything to Teal’c but he could try. He was frustrated and willing to take it out on anybody- something he knew would have to stop.
“I am afraid not O’Neill.”
Sam bit her lip and looked up, Jack was pacing before he searched himself, throwing a knife and two blocks of C4 on the pallet. “We can still blow this up, well…make a dent. What have you got Carter?”
“Two bricks of C4, that’s it.”
“What about you T?”
Teal’c’s voice was still calm and collected (only slightly pissing Jack off), “I have nothing O’Neill. Daniel Jackson had a knife but I suspect that has been-“ Teal’c’s voice cut off and Jack’s head snapped up.
“Teal’c!”
“I am alright.” Jack leant against the wall sharing another relieved glance with Carter. “Daniel Jackson has returned.”
Carter leapt to her feet pressing herself against the wall next to Jack, “Daniel! Are you alright?” “Danny?”
“He appears to have lost consciousness.”
Jack swore, sinking back to his feet and began to fiddle with his knife.
Jo could hear voices. This wasn’t particularly interesting in itself, however the fact that they weren’t screams or prayers was. All of that, and it was her uncle.
She was hallucinating. She so desperately wished Jack was here to hug her (what she wouldn’t give for a Jack-O’Neill-Hug right now) and tell her it was all a dream, she would wake up and it would all disappear-all she would have to deal with would be the prospect of Michael taking her back.
She crawled to the closed door, pressing her ear to the gold (although for all she knew it was plastic and this was all some very sick joke…or TV show) and praying for somebody to say something, anything.
“O’Neill, it would appear that Daniel Jackson is unwell. His wounds have contracted an infection.” Then there was swearing that she could only imagine from her uncle.
She knew, she knew that he was just an illusion. Glancing at her body she could probably point at the particular wound responsible for the lack of blood and therefore the madness. “Go away, I don’t want you here. You’re not actually here.”
There was silence on the other side of the door then hurried whispering.
“Joanna, is that you?”
She didn’t want to answer, she didn’t want to encourage herself but could only find her voice acting without her brain having to do anything. “I’m here Jack.”
“We’re coming,” and there was a bang.
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
AN: Hey all, sorry it took me so long. Real life got in the way (don't you hate it when it does that?)
Please review, i know a lot of you have put this on alerts but...what do you think of this? let me know :D
Disclaimer: don't own it, i will stop fantasising that i do
[--------------------------------------------------The Usual------------------------------------------------------------------]
Teal’c lay Daniel on the pallet, moving out of the way so Sam could look at him while meeting Jack’s curious glance. There was sweat pouring down his face and his eye lids flickered in amongst a vivid dream. “Nobody’s got anything from a med pack have they?” Jack asked hopefully as he took the one blanket and stretched it over Daniel’s shivering form. He didn’t bother to look at the other two members of his team shake their heads. “Alright, Teal’c you’re with me. We’re going to break out through the door, grab Jo and come back here. During that time Carter you see if you can get him ready to move. You take Jo and Daniel out, these things are all built the same so it shouldn’t be hard to find. T and I will set the charges for an hour and meet you by the gate.”
“Sir, we have no idea where the gate is.”
Jack nodded, “I know, but we don’t have anything else. Get these two out of here and run alright? T and I should be right behind you.” Sam nodded silently and went back to trying to wake Daniel up with small drops from her water bottle. “T, open the door.” Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to know how Teal’c managed to pick the lock of a supposedly impenetrable fortress cell, instead concentrating on the collection of the C4 they’d managed to keep and slipping his knife into his belt. “Let’s go.”
Jo’s cell door began to shoot out yellow sparks and she absently wondered if these things could short circuit. It couldn’t be the things with weird symbols on their heads, they had the code for the door. She sighed, she had progressed to full blown hallucinations. This would mean months with a psychiatrist if she ever got home.
No! stop thinking about that! If you get home, you get home but there’s no use whimpering about that- why is Jack walking through the door?
“Jesus Joey,” he knelt a foot away from her, looking at her intently. She desperately wanted to leap and fall into his arms and stay there away from all of this, but she found she couldn’t. She couldn’t even look at him.
Her eyes moved all around the room finally landing on the gold insignia on Teal’c’s head. She found herself screaming as Jack ordered his comrade to fetch somebody, she wasn’t listening to care who.
“Joey, it’s alright. That’s Teal’c-do you remember him? He came over that night and had pizza with all of us?” He hadn’t called her Joey in years, since she was a little kid. Maybe that’s what proved to her that this was an hallucination.
She curled back into her corner and turned her face to her knees, trying to block out his attempts to talk to her, he touched her arm but she pulled it away. She couldn’t look at the hurt on his face, even if he didn’t exist he could still seriously kill in the puppy-dog-eye department.
“Want me to try sir?”
The voice was soft, and the fingers reaching out to her now were smaller and daintier. Jack nodded and moved away, “We don’t have much time,” he said.
“I know.”
The woman knelt by her side and lightly touched her face, bringing her around to look at her. Sam?
“Hey Jo,” the woman smiled and her blue eyes twinkled, “We’re actually here. I know this means a lot of explaining and all of that, but right now we need to move alright? We need to get out of here. I know you believe me somewhere in there, or that you want to believe me. And if this was really an hallucination you’d be thinking about kissing the guy you love at the moment alright, trust me on this.” Jo moved her head slightly at the final comment, Sam silently thrilled that her idea had worked, and nodded.
“I…”
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” she smiled and gave her a hand. “Can you walk? Just nod or shake your head.” Jo tentatively nodded, allowing Sam to pull her to her feet. She shook slightly and wobbled, having to lean against the wall for a minute but nodded again. She could walk.
Teal’c walked back into the room, she was grateful that he stayed on the other side. Part of her knew that this was a good guy but the bigger part was imagining him in that room with the stick or worse. He was half carrying the other member of their team, Daniel. He didn’t look so good.
Carter saw her watching and frowned, “Yeah, Daniel’s been banged up a bit, we have to get him back so he can get looked at. You too for that matter, but we’ll talk about that later.” Sam leapt forward and took one of Daniel’s arms, throwing it over her shoulder and looking at him. “You alright to move out Daniel?” he nodded. “Jo, you’re with us. Don’t worry about Daniel, he has a habit of getting banged up.”
“Joey?” she turned around to Jack who was about to leave with Teal’c, “We’ll be right behind you, don’t worry alright, we’re getting home,” she nodded silently telling him that of course she was going to worry, but watched silently as they left.
“Alright, come on, it’s this way.” Sam smiled and helped Daniel out the door and down the corridor. Jo wanted to ask if they had security cameras or if they’d be caught but the words got stuck somewhere between her brain and her throat. Maybe she was just working on adrenaline, depleting amounts of adrenaline. She would crash soon.
She followed Sam and Daniel down the corridor, slipping behind a weird partition when they heard the clanks of the enemy armor. While they waited Daniel seemed to wake up a little bit, looking around frantically until he saw Jo. “What’re you doing here?” he slurred. She shrugged and he chuckled despite his fuzzy mind.
Sam crouched, the perfect soldier stance, thinking of a way to get out quicker through the stream of Jaffa, but came up with nothing but waiting.
They eventually left and they all knew that meant they’d find the hole in the wall and the hacked into code pad for the cells-they didn’t have much time. “Pity we missed the entourage,” Sam muttered.
“You’ve been around Jack too long,” Daniel told her as they ran/hobbled/ambled down the corridor and out through a door. Sam looked around and grinned.
“We’re almost there.”
They had to hide a couple more times, made easier or harder depending on Daniel’s level of consciousness. Sam took a look at him biting her lip, “We must have been in there longer than I thought. Maybe I was unconscious for longer…” she shook her head and opened the final door almost pushing Jo and Daniel down the ramp to the desert below.
As the ramp lifted back up Carter turned back and glanced at the mother ship, silently praying or begging (she wasn’t sure which was which or even if they were the same thing) that they would make it out before pushing the others towards the small patch of trees to her right. Daniel lay down, immediately glad for the shade while Jo brought her knees to her chest and leant against a tree. “You two stay here alright? I’ll take watch.”
Jo could feel herself falling asleep, her eyes drooping closed and the soft buzz in her hears lulling her to sleep. Then, in pure Jack fashion, she was jolted awake by his shouting. Before she registered it she almost felt like she was at his cabin and he was shouting that he was sure this time that he’d almost caught a fish and if she would come out and look he was sure she’d see it too (even if they both knew he just wanted to throw her in the pond). “CARTER! CATCH!”
Sam jumped to her feet and began running towards Jack and Teal’c, both carrying large staffs that she’d seen her captors carry-she supposed they’d stolen them. Jack threw one at Sam before turning and firing on the twenty or so soldiers following them.
She watched in morbid fascination as soldiers fell but were quickly replaced with more. At Jack’s orders, Teal’c began moving back to cover her and Daniel while the other two fought on.
It seemed to be a film to her, with the grainy sepia tone and the sound off. She knew it was going to happen before it did.
Sam was taken first, she struggled in the tight grasp of the soldier about three times her size as Jack was taken shouting “GET OUT OF HERE” before they were taken back up the ramp and out of sight.
“Come on Joanna O’Neill, we must leave.”
Chapter 6: Chapter 6
Sorry! oh I'm sooo sorry!
I've had exams all week (Aargh, final ones ever - graduate next friday :D ) and am doing nanowrimo (yeah ... i know, i'm an idiot) and i just haven't had a chance! but it's here now :) and i swear the next update won't take this long
[-------------------------------------------------------There’s No Place Like Home-------------------------------------------------------------]
He was literally thrown into a cell which, if it had a giant hole in one side, would have been the same cell as before except that Sam wasn’t there. And since when had he thought of her as ‘Sam’. Oh he was lost.
He fumbled to his feet doing a quick sweep of the room and figuring that if he lived long enough he could dismantle the bed and use some of the wire to fashion a weapon of some sort.
But he doubted he’d live that long.
By now he had a pretty clear idea of what had happened constructed from his own observations and vague hints of Carter-esque technobabble from before they left.
The energy signature from the minute Jo went missing was the same as when an Asgard transportation device was in use, so it was safe to assume that somehow someone had transported Jo from his house. Of course, the fact that Carter had brought the stone (something he knew he’d have to convince her not to blame herself for) indicated that it was meant either for her or for another member of SG-1 who was likely to handle it.
Now it was just a question of whom. With a shudder one name came to mind as somebody with a personal vendetta (or as personal as snake heads got) against SG-1.
He swore. This was text-book Baal. Maybe even a dash of Maybourne but he hoped the idiot had better taste than to work with Baal.
Then again.
It immediately worried Sam that her lodgings weren’t a cell. She was placed in a large room that could possibly be the V.I.P quarters from the ornate decorations and the large couch against one wall. It was the bed that sent shivers down her spine. She wondered if this was where they brought Jo and shook her head. Deal with that later! Deal with getting out now.
“Major Carter,” she had to restrain her eyes from rolling at that voice. He was so very…slimy.
And yes, she was sure Colonel O’Neill could come up with some bad joke about slimy snakes but she’d smile anyway because she’d find them funny and we’re getting a little off track here.
Here she is. Stuck in a room with one of the most evil and ruthless men in the universe and she was thinking about her commanding officer. See, there were reasons for frat regs. “Baal, I can’t say I missed you.”
“Yes, well, that can change of course. Colonel O’Neill’s niece I’m sure thought much the same thing when she met me.”
“She had no idea who you were, she doesn’t know anything about all of this.”
He seemed to think for a minute before grinning, “Well that makes the entire experience only more…interesting. Now, I must be going, Colonel O’Neill requires my attention-“ she leapt to her feet, glaring at him.
“You can’t, you’ve tortured him before you can’t again!”
“Oh, but you’ll find I can.”
Part of her accepted what she was about to say next (it mightn’t have liked it, but it accepted it) and only hoped nobody was around to court martial her. “You can have me instead.” Oh she sounded like one of those ditzy blondes from the bad TV shows. She couldn’t help it, there wasn’t another way to say turn jack into that shell he came back as one more time and I swear I will kick your ass you filthy snake bastard…maybe that might have worked.
“Touching sentiment I’m sure. Farewell Major Carter, one of my Jaffa will…see to you.”
Jack woke up spitting blood. Not metaphorically. “You bastard,” he spat and crawled to his knees.
“Yes, your girlfriend called me that. A favorite term?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Jack figured that to stop the pain spreading, he had to keep him talking. “And if I did she’d never be allowed to come here.”
“I doubt even you can control her. Although, after Gar’et has dealt with her that might change.”
He knew who he was talking about. SAM! He swore under his breath, making it seem like a coughing fit before he asked, “Who are you talking about?”
Baal stood up from his throne and slowly made his way over. “Blonde. Tall. Slim. Smart, well, for a human I suppose. Major Samantha Carter.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Hardly out of my mind, not oblivious either. However, let’s talk about the young girl. You know the one. The pretty one. The one I suppose is currently being checked out at your base. That one. Tad curious isn’t she?” Jack couldn’t help the wince etched on his face as Baal took out the small vial of acid. “Ah, I see you remember my friend here.”
Sam struggled against the iron grip of the Jaffa in front of her. She supposed he might be Baal’s first prime but at that moment didn’t really care. “Let me go!”
The Jaffa then did something that surprised her so much she fell back and landed painfully on her tail bone. He let her go. But he was definitely infected with a goa’uld, she could sense it.
“Tok’ra?”
The man didn’t make any indication that he’d heard what she said but nodded to the door. “Come on, we must leave.”
“What about the Colonel?”
“He is with Baal, I cannot get to him.”
She crossed her arms and looked at him carefully, “Firstly, I don’t know if you are the Tok’ra, and secondly I’m not leaving without the Colonel.” It was odd to see a Jaffa sigh, she doubted in the seven years she’d known Teal’c he’d done anything like it at all. But this one did. He glared at her, seeing her stubbornness first hand and nodded.
“Alright, but you must follow me. We will attempt to collect the Colonel when Baal puts him in the sarcophagus, he will be unguarded then.”
“How much time until he does that?” The Jaffa grimaced.
“Even your Colonel will not last much longer.”
Sam nodded and followed the hurried steps down the corridor.
Jack opened one tired eye and couldn’t help groaning. “You have got to be kidding me,” he murmured and the Jaffa helped him out of the shining sarcophagus. “Ba-“
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Sam rolled her eyes and smiled, “Come on, time to get out of here.”
“Good plan,” he checked her over trying to find any indication that she was in pain but found none. When her eyes began to bore into his and they were in danger of a repeat of the arm-band incident he decided to change tack. “Pick up a new boyfriend Carter?” Sam raised an eyebrow and Jack thought for the hundredth time that SG-1 knew each other too well. He nodded to the Jaffa scouting the doorway and heard an almost silent chuckle from his 2IC.
“Well you know me sir, they can’t resist.”
“Tell me about it.” Oh. Did he say that aloud? Crap.
Sam turned around and started walking to the door before turning around smiling softly. “Come on then. Jo will kill us if we’re late for dinner.”
“Carter, I think we’re more than just late.”
Sam nodded seriously before gently brushing a hand over his, “We’ll deal with that later.”
They followed much the same route Sam had earlier, except they didn’t need to hide. Should any Jaffa come upon them all they would see would be one of their Lord’s most trusts Jaffa leading two prisoners probably to their next torture session. Although Jack wasn’t particularly helpful when he whispered in her ear, “if the Tok’ra save my life one more time I might have to start liking the bastards.”
The Jaffa/Tok’ra operative led them out of the ship and to the small oasis they had used earlier. “I will leave you here, the gate is …” he thought back to his orders and smiled, “three klicks that way. Good luck.”
The men grasped arms and quickly separated while he handed them a zat each. “Come on Carter. Dinner time.”
Thanks to the serious lack of GDOs, they had to gate to the Alpha site and from there back to the SGC but they got there eventually still covered in dirt, sand and in Jack’s case caked blood. They barely registered the ‘welcome back’ from Hammond and Jack glared at Daniel as he ran towards them. Stupid antibiotics and their miracle abilities.
“Thank god!” Daniel hugged Sam, not noticing the dirt that soon landed on his shirt. “Jo’s in the isolation room. Physically she’ll be fine but she’s not talking to anybody and screams if a man comes near.”
Jack swore and ran down the corridor, shaking off the half-hearted attempts from the nurses to get him to be checked out first. Sam and Daniel followed slowly behind. “She hasn’t said anything?”
Daniel shook his head, “Nup. Janet says she’s been physically tortured and is in a slightly better condition than Jack was when he got back from Baal. Except she’s a girl and…”
Sam nodded, “Yeah, I got it.”
They both watched from the viewing room as Jack slowly walked towards the bed, staying in his niece’s eyesight the entire time. While she didn’t scream she didn’t move towards him and flinched as he reached for her. He glanced up helplessly at them, begging for any idea. “I’d better go down,” Sam said as she made it out the door.
Jack met her at the huge blast doors running a hand through his hair. “Jesus Car-Sam…I think…well…can you…?”
She smiled kindly at him, desperately wanting to tell him it would be alright, but a) she didn’t know it would be and b) that would lead to a hug and that was never safe. “Sure.”
She walked towards the bed and sat down on the hard plastic chair. “I know this girl,” she started, “she was tiny bit older than you about twenty…more than twenty years ago. And she found out that not all men were nice. Not all men were like her godfather who loved her dearly in fact, some of them are jerks. Absolutely horrible assholes. Some of them, liked control. And in many cases the only way to have that control was to force it on them. Force it so much that she didn’t want to be in her own skin anymore, so she sat in the bath for a very long time despite her brother’s protests that he needed to pee. But that was okay. Because in a couple years, she found out that for every jerk, every asshole, there are at least three of the nicest men she’ll ever meet. Men who, despite their testosterone levels leave the toilet seat down when she’s over, offer diet coke even if they hate it and look after her, not that she needs it. Despite what Ja-your uncle seems to think, I’m not very good with the talking thing. I just figured I’d remind you that you’re not alone here alright? As for the lying thing, you know about classified work and all of that. He couldn’t have even though he wants to.”
Jo slowly opened her eyes, watching as Sam talked and pulled the covers closer. “Is he still alive?”
Sam didn’t pretend to be surprised that she spoke, she simply looked up, “Who?”
“The one who liked control?”
Sam bit her lip and smiled sadly, “no, he’s not. He…um…convinced an entire population that he was a God and SG-1 came and sort of dispelled that and one small mutiny later he was gone.”
“Will Baal and his second ever be gone?”
Sam stood up, to come and sit on the bed next to her, “Yup. One day he’ll be gone for good, and if I know your uncle that day won’t be far away.”
“I’m sorry I was such an angsty teenager.”
Sam laughed and ran a hand through her hair, “It’s alright. Although you might need to talk to Jack.”
“You’ve stopped calling him my uncle.”
She stood up and kissed the girl’s forehead whispering, “He’s always been Jack,” into her ear before walking out. “I’ll bring him in, that alright?”
Sam made her way down the corridor, stopping Jack before he walked inside. “We need to talk later.” Jack nodded very seriously and kept going.
Jack didn’t say anything as he came inside, too scared that he might say the wrong thing and get hit by somebody. Instead he came over to the bed and looked at the wet pillow and then, finally, into the brown eyes watching him so intently. Without a word spoken, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, ignoring the tears that fled down her cheeks and onto his shirt. “Joey, it’s alright. You’re safe now. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“What about you?”
He pulled back and looked closely. “What about me?”
“The doc told me, you got … Baal got you too and Sam. What about that?”
“Sam’s fine, she wasn’t touched. Technically I’m fine too, he has this thing that can revive people-“ yeah, that saying the wrong thing, that happened right there.
“Revive? He killed you?”
“Joey, Baal and I have history alright? I was capture by him and tortured by him before. That’s what he does, he kills people then brings them back to life to do it again.”
“He didn’t to me,” she said immediately. “I never saw it.”
“I don’t know whether to be happy about that or not.”
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me everything.”
Chapter 7: Chapter 7
AAAH!! i'm soooo sorry!
I was busy graduating! HA! In the words of one of my former teachers: I AM NOW AN OFFICIAL PERSON! :D Sweet right? :P
Anyway, here it is and now that I have 3 glorious months of absolutely nothing so, I can assure you the epilogue will be up before/during the weekend! :P thanks for all your support guys, hope you like and if u do (or have something u think i could work on) PLEASE LET ME KNOW :D
[--------------------------------------------------Fishing------------------------------------------------------------------]
It had taken a bit but he’d finally managed with possibly the hardest mission set to Colonel Jack O’Neill. It hadn’t been an easy task. All the opponents seemed to have outwitted him thus far but he had cornered them…or maybe they actually wanted to be there.
He sat on the dock of his cabin balancing a fishing pole in one hand and a nice cold Guinness in the other while Jo, although now she seemed to have adopted Joey, sat next to him with a book and just behind them Carter sat ‘upgrading’ her pole. Jack had rolled his eyes at that one but given up.
“So, I wasn’t listening. What did Danny say he and T were up to today?”
“There’s a festival a few hours from here, the Native American people and Daniel wanted to study them and see if he can find similarities with the civilization on P3X-284.”
Jack glanced at his niece and rolled his eyes to hear her giggle. It had taken at least six months for her to smile, let alone giggle. He still didn’t know exactly what had happened and if she wasn’t about to tell him he had to deal with that.
“Sir?”
“Carter, we’re in Minnesota, must you call me Sir?”
“What about Carter?”
“Nobody else…it doesn’t matter.”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he’d been dreading those words for the past six months, not that there seemed to be an opportunity to have the discussion considering they’d had to save the world a couple of times in between.
“Sure, come on, we’ll do lunch duty. You alright out here kiddo?” Joey saluted with a broad grin and watched them go quickly texting Daniel to tell him to dawdle on the way back.
“I can’t do this anymore.” She leant against the counter in simple jeans and long jumper. Jack had to quickly stop before walking straight into her only to lift the plate of chicken up high over their heads and look closely.
“I never thought I’d hear you say that. What ‘this’ are you talking about?”
He quickly deposited the plate on the counter and turned to look at her, patiently waiting. She waved her hands between them quickly indicating them both, “This, it’s too hard and I’ve been doing it too long and I’m going about this all the wrong way but I just wanted you to know that if things were different…”
“You wouldn’t be here?”
“No I wouldn’t,” she glanced around the kitchen smirking softly before turning back to him. “Well, actually I would…well I hope I would be.”
“Here? Right here? You’d want to be here?”
Without another word she slipped her thin arms around his waist and pulled him close, resting her cheek against his chest. They stayed there god only knows how long before he heard her whisper ‘here’ under her breath and he held on tighter.
Somehow, neither really knew who started it or when it started, but she tilted her head up and he ran a light touch down her cheek until they were kissing lightly. Although lightly soon became passionately and he was pulling on her jumper and she was running a hand down his back…
They leapt apart-back to standing on opposite ends sides of the kitchen Jack looking down and Sam watching him until she started to giggle. “So much for talking,” she muttered.
“Yeah, and as much as I’d love to continue where that left off, if we don’t now we never will. We’re not very good at talking to each other are we?”
Sam shrugged, “we just never needed to be.”
“That’s true.” They were silent for a while, watching the other one and running through what they wanted to say before Jack finally spoke. “I was thinking of calling the president.”
“Of the United States?”
“Yeah, I think he likes us. Maybe we could call in a favor or two?”
“You think he’d do that?”
Jack bent forward, grasping her hand in his own and running a finger over her knuckles lightly. “I can ask. Of course, if the answer’s no then we get court marshaled to within an inch of our lives.”
She lightly kissed him, pulling away before they could get carried away again and smiled. “Call him.”
Jo lay on the couch pretending she wasn’t nervous for them as Jack and Sam sat on opposite sides of the living room with Daniel and Teal’c between them. Jack noticed that his friends seemed to realize that something was up but blamed Jo for running out to meet them up the drive way and no doubt told them everything she’d spied on earlier.
The phone rang and everybody stopped moving. The box set of the Simpsons landed with a clunk as both Daniel and Jack let go of it at the same time, Sam’s book cluttered to the floor, Joey immediately turned off her I-Pod and Teal’c…well if Teal’c had been doing anything he would have stopped.
“Somebody going to answer it?” Joey asked and Jack finally dove for the phone.
“O’Neill…yes sir…yes I understand sir…absolutely sir…thank you.”
Sam was on her feet, biting her lip and standing in front of him waiting patiently before Jack grinned. “Excuse us folks, just a hint- whatever it is, it’s not important enough.”
He took Sam’s hand and led her down the corridor Daniel chuckling as he watched.
Chapter 8: Chapter 8
AN: Urgh, I'm horrible. I'm sorry it took me this long :( I wish I had a good excuse but I don't, I've been asleep for the past week :P
Anyway, here it is - the epilogue, the end ... *sigh* hope you like. PLease review! I'd love to know what you think
P.S. Thanks DeniseM, picked up that problem! eek
[------------------------------------------------------Two Years Later--------------------------------------------------------------]
Jack slipped through the doors, a manila folder clutched under his arm and slipped into the first bedroom he came to. He knelt (ignoring the slightly painful creak) and shook the exposed shoulder. “Whatever it is I don’t care, bugger off.”
“Joanna O’Neill, I hope you’re not like that off world.”
Joey sat straight up in her bed glaring at her uncle as he sat down beside her. “My CO knows not to wake me up unless it’s important.”
“Oh this is important. Well. There are two things. The first is I need to ask why a very flustered Colonel Danvers wanted me to tell you that he’d give you his present later today…?”
“Jack. Danvers is my CO, nothing can happen.”
“Yeah, well we know that things are a different at the SGC, I just want to know if anything’s going on. More as an uncle rather than your boss.”
“Not yet,” she muttered and caught his smirk as he shook his head muttering about role models. “And the second reason to wake me up at…three in the morning? Jesus Jack!”
“I thought I’d give you your first birthday present now…basically I just picked them up and wanted you to see them. Of course we have to show them to everybody once they wake up but I just wanted to know if-“
“You’re rambling Jack.”
“Sorry, here you go kiddo.” The manila folder was passed over and she quickly glanced over the forms. “It won’t change anything much, you know we think of you like this anyway. I just thought we’d make it official. I looked into it and Bea and Michael can already classify as negligent parents and-“
She cut him off by hugging him tightly and kissing his cheek. “Thanks Jack. They’re great.”
--
“Why are you so late?” Jack kissed her neck as he slid into bed feeling her shiver under his cold fingers.
“I only just got in, had to pick up the adoption papers for Joey.”
“You’ve already shown her?” he smirked and nodded.
“Yeah, I couldn’t wait.” Sam turned around and grinned kissing him.
“I married a child.”
There was a wail from the small white monitor on the bedside table and Jack heaved himself up again. “Stay there,” he kissed her again lightly, “Hold that thought. Oh, remind me, I have to be at the white house for a meeting with the president tomorrow evening.”
Sam laughingly rolled her eyes glancing at the Asgard transport device next to the monitor and shook her head falling back to sleep.
“Hello kiddo,” Jack smiled as he lifted the little boy out of the crib. “How are you going Jake? What’s up? I’m not singing cause then you’ll cry more and wake up your mother and Joey might hit me for traumatizing you.” Jack stood there softly talking to the eighteen month old that had his smile and Sam’s eyes (not that he noticed on a regular basis) and couldn’t help grinning. The small boy always seemed to like his talking (why, he’d never know), but as he chatted the baby to sleep he didn’t mind.
The next morning he woke up at 0600 (damn military training) and sat to breakfast with the others. “Joey, any plans before the big shindig tonight?”
Joey blushed and fiddled with her breakfast causing a laughing smirk to go from Jack to Sam over the head of their son. “No, not much.”
“Come on, what was that you were saying about meeting Colonel Danvers?”
“Nice choice,” Sam laughed. Jack could only roll his eyes and shake his head telling Jake ‘not to listen to a word the two evil women were saying’ and that ‘just because they could make nice speeches about reproductive organs doesn’t mean they should be listened to about everything’.
“Yeah my team mentioned something about a picnic this morning.”
“Go on then! Get out of here!” Sam grinned standing up and almost pushing her out the door
That night after SG-1 (although it had changed a bit over the past couple of years they still considered themselves SG-1) had left along with SG-12 (Joey’s team who had decided to move the party to a club downtown), Sam and Jack sat on the couch watching the TV. “What happened to the meeting with the president? He cancel?”
Jack shrugged, “I told him something came up.”
“You told the president of the United States of America, most influential man on this planet, that something came up?”
“Yeah, come on, I told Baal that something came up.”
Sam giggled and he turned over to her, “Colonel, what have I said about giggling.”
“Sorry sir, why did you tell him something came up?”
“I wanted to be at Joey’s party. It's very simple. And then I figured things would move and it wouldn’t be here in particular, the here in my head was in bed and there were less clothes involved and Jo was babysitting and…”
“Shut up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Story Notes: Please review :) Let me know what you think -
Mentions of rape and torture
Mentions of rape and torture
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]