Teal'c knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for anyone to allow him entrance. Inside the room were Colonel Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Doctor Fraiser, Cassandra and Daniella. Teal'c inclined his head slightly as greeting. "Colonel O'Neill, Anise has requested you."
"For crying out loud, T! I'm not a damn Zanex thing."
"Zatarc," Teal'c corrected and he was rewarded with a 'look' from O'Neill.
"Jack, come on. We're all being tested," Daniel Jackson reasoned. "There is a strong possibility that someone on this base is a Zatarc. Testing everyone and finding them could lead us to Sam or at least give us some leverage over them to find out something."
"Clearly the Tok'ra have no other possibilities to follow," Teal'c added.
"What about Bra'tac and the Jaffa?" O'Neill asked Teal'c hopefully. Teal'c shook his head because the last that he had heard from Bra'tac was that they had no information on Osiris or Major Carter. Whilst O'Neill had not been entirely truthful in front of Anise and General Carter, he had told everyone else exactly what had happened on P6X and Teal'c was sure that he laid a large proportion of the blame on his own shoulders. Teal'c understood O'Neill's reluctance to remain on Earth and merely be tested. Both men were warriors, men of action and Teal'c would rather be on another planet, gathering information rather than sitting on Earth doing nothing and feeling helpless. Daniel Jackson was correct that testing the base for a Zatarc was the only course of action to take. "It's just," Jack mumbled, "that Anise and Zatarcs is where all this began. I wasn't a Zatarc then and I know I'm not one now."
"Jack," Daniel started hesitantly, "does your reluctance have anything to do with the fact that you're going to have be one hundred per cent honest? With Jacob and General Hammond in the room?"
Teal'c had been present on P6X when Major Carter had announced that she and O'Neill had been intimate once more within the past few weeks. Being aware that not only was this against regulations but that Earth fathers frowned upon such things, Teal'c could understand O'Neill's reluctance.
"You heard Jacob! He's going to blame me as much as I already blame myself for treating Sam how I did. If I'd have done things differently, Sam wouldn't have been in that position."
"I disagree," Teal'c commented. "Osiris was expecting Major Carter on that mission and so would have attacked anyway. If you had not rearranged the mission and removed Major Carter from it, she would have been on that planet. As it stood, Major Carter's arrival on the planet was completely of her own doing. And if Major Carter is part of Osiris’ plan, she would have tried again after a failure."
"I don't think Jacob's going to see it that way, do you?" he asked sarcastically.
"Jack, you have to do it," Daniel prompted.
"The General will court martial me and then Jacob will kill me."
"That is highly doubtful," Teal'c suggested, opening the door and indicating that O'Neill should follow him. "I believe Jacob Carter will kill you before General Hammond can begin the paperwork."
"Thanks for that, T."
SG – SG – SG
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