McCreary considered him, curious. “Why haven’t you? Put your hand up, I mean.”
He shrugged. “I’ve never been that interested in outer space, sir.”
“But you took this assignment. Standby strike team to defend Cheyenne Mountain from — God help us — alien incursion.”
“Yes, sir. But that’s different.”
“I guess it is,” said McCreary. “Is it your wife? Is that why you’re hesitating now? I mean, I know you’ve only been married six months. The bloom’s not off the rose yet. I get that.”
Scott McCreary had been married five times; he could be forgiven a certain level of cynicism, a teaspoon of tactlessness. Dixon nodded. “Not yet, sir. No. There’s still a bit of the old bloom left.”
“So that’s the problem? That’s what’s holding you back?”
It was part of the problem. It wasn’t all of it. But it was easier to say ‘yes’ than try to explain to his bluff, uncomplicated general what, exactly, had him thinking twice about this mission.
Maybe I do blame O’Neill for Frank. Maybe I’m better at holding a grudge than I realized.
He nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.”
McCreary wasn’t pleased but he wasn’t a tyrant, either. “I understand your caution, Dave. I do. Take tonight to think about it. Give me your answer first thing in the morning. If it’s yes, you’ll hop a transport to Peterson then get taken to Cheyenne Mountain. If it’s no…” He shook his head. “I’ll be honest. I hope it’s not.”
So, no pressure. “And my men, sir?”
“I’ll be talking to them in due course. But I don’t want you and your team discussing this among yourselves, Colonel. Consider our conversation privileged. If any of you come on board I want it to be for the right reasons.”
In other words, team loyalty could be taken too far. It was a fair point. Cold feet, regrets and second-guessing could get people killed.
“Yes, sir.” Dixon shifted in his chair. “You really want me to do this, sir. Don’t you.”
McCreary looked uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“Can I ask why? I mean, I get the feeling it’s not just because General Hammond’s a good man.”
Again, McCreary’s gaze shifted to the window. “You’re right. It’s not.” He sighed. “Dave, this fine country of ours has been cursed with politicians who’ll do the wrong thing, knowing it’s the wrong thing, just to damage an opponent. Or to further their personal agendas. Or both. Now you and I will die for the bastards if we have to because that’s the game we signed on for. But there’s no fine print in the contract saying we can’t stick a spoke in their slimy, self-centered, self-serving wheels when the chance is offered.”
“And this is a chance, sir?”
“It’s a very big chance. Earth needs the SGC, Dave. And right now the SGC needs you.” McCreary shook his head. “I know. I sound like a military recruiting poster. But it’s true.”
Dixon sat in silence, considering. If he closed his eyes he’d see his wife’s face. Lainie. The love of his life, the prize he’d never thought to win. If he stepped through the Stargate he might never step back again. He could die out there, in space, on an alien rock a million light years from home.
Somehow that’s different from dying on Earth. Dying is dying, but still… it’s not the same. Right now I don’t tell her things, but that’s not the same as lying. If I do this I’ll be lying every day. And I could die out there, at the ass-end of the universe, and they might have to leave me behind. Lainie would bury an empty coffin.
The thought was horrifying. To put her through that… how could any man who loved his wife put her through that?
But I put her through the chance of my death every day as it is. I could be deployed to the Middle East or some other disaster zone tomorrow and get killed the day after. She knows that. She knew what she was getting into when she said ‘I do’. If I start cherry-picking assignments now, where will it stop? I owe McCreary. And I owe Frank. When he found out Jack O’Neill was in trouble he broke landspeed records to get to him. He threw his life down that black hole because Jack O’Neill was prepared to throw his own life down there first.
Frank thought he owed Jack O’Neill… and I know I owe Frank.
“Sir,” he said. “I’ll go.”
George Hammond replaced his telephone receiver and spent a moment staring at the pile of completed mission reports O’Neill had delivered to him at 1058. Now it was 1127 and possibly, hopefully, life had just taken a turn for the better.
Or at least the not so bad.
So it’s yes for Dixon. Maybe for his whole team if we’re lucky. We’ve plugged our thumb in the dyke, at least for a while. Provided I don’t lose anyone else. Please God, don’t let me lose anyone else…
Even as he throttled the fear, the base alarm sounded and Harriman’s calm voice boomed through the speakers.
“Unscheduled incoming wormhole. Unscheduled incoming wormhole.”
Jack beat him to the control room. He nearly always did. Almost as though he had some kind of sixth sense that alerted him to the gate’s activation a split second before it chevronned to life.
“It’s all right, General,” said Harriman, glancing round. “We’ve got SG-1’s code.”
He nodded. “Open the door then, Sergeant.” Not that Harriman needed telling, of course. It was just their little ritual, the comfortable commonplace that was their touchstone in a strange and often outrageously unpredictable world.
Harriman flashed him a smile and hit the iris control.
Jack, standing silently, couldn’t quite mask his tension. He wasn’t the only one. Until SG-1 emerged unscathed through the wormhole there was still the chance — the gut-twisting chance — that here was another mission ended in gloom and doom.
They came through the wormhole unscathed, arguing… and soaking wet.
“Daniel, I don’t want to hear it!” Sam Carter, unusually short-tempered. Almost, dare he suggest it, channelling Jack O’Neill.
“Oh, stop trying to be Jack!” Doctor Jackson, of the same opinion. “It was one ravine. I’m telling you, Sam, that rock formation wasn’t natural. Someone carved it and — ”
“And if you’d bothered to look up, Daniel, you’d have seen that weather system sitting on top of the valley!” Sam retorted, squelching ahead of him down the gate ramp, barely hampered by the bulky sample-cases she was carrying. “Do the words ‘flash flood’ mean anything to you?”
“Flash flood,” said Doctor Jackson, scornful. “It’d barely started raining. I had plenty of time.”
With an amused glance at Jack, who was rolling his eyes, Hammond leant into the microphone. “Welcome home, SG-1.”
Sam almost hid a wince. “Oh. General,” she said, nodding. “Er — thank you.”
“General Hammond, we have to go back!” called out Doctor Jackson. “It’s really important. Tell him, Teal’c! You saw what I saw.”
Teal’c, at the foot of the ramp, looked bored beyond description. Raindrops glistened on his scalp. “No.”
The good doctor stared as though he’d been stabbed in the back. “What? Oh, come on!”
“Welcome to my world, sir,” Jack muttered under his breath.
“Let’s make it a short stay,” he suggested, then said to the team, “Dry yourselves off then come up to the briefing room, SG-1. Your post-mission physical can wait.”
“Sir?” said Jack, as SG-1 dripped their way out of the gate room. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? No. We’ve just got a few things to discuss.”
Jack stared at him for a moment, then comprehension lit his eyes. Behind it was a great deal of wariness. “Dixon’s a go?”
He nodded. “He’ll be here Thursday, by 1030. Possibly the rest of his team by 1300 Friday. Which means you and I need to look at the mission roster today, because Fraiser wants you on stand-down tomorrow.”
For a long moment Jack said nothing, just stared at the floor, hands shoved deep in his poc
kets, seemingly oblivious to everyone and everything. Then he looked up, his face and his eyes utterly unreadable.
“Yes, sir.”
The fact he didn’t argue about the day off was telling. Unnerving, even, given the colonel’s impatience for anything that smacked of mollycoddling. Hammond felt the smallest frisson of nerves.
He’ll never admit it, but Cromwell’s a pandora’s box. I just hope I’m doing the right thing.
When the rest of SG-1 joined them in the briefing room he broke the news. As usual it was as good as impossible to gauge what Teal’c was thinking. Doctor Jackson stared at the table, leaning on his folded arms, eyebrows low in a frown. Sam flicked a single glance at Jack then pokered up just like he remembered Jacob doing in the past. She was her father’s daughter, all right.
“Well, sir, whatever assistance you need in reworking our current mission slate from a scientific viewpoint, I’m available,” she said.
“I was counting on that, Major. It means you won’t get quite as much post-mission downtime as Doctor Fraiser might like, but…” He shrugged. “Needs must.”
“Of course, sir. And I’m fine. Even with the extra gravity quotient PX8-050 was hardly strenuous.”
“No?” said Jack, speaking for the first time. “You mean you’re not worn out from all that flower picking? Carter, I’m shocked.”
She gave him a look. “Not flowers, sir. Botanical specimens.”
Hammond cleared his throat, forestalling any lively discussion. “Is there anything I need to know about the mission before I read your reports?”
“Apart from the really really amazing rock carvings, sir?” muttered Doctor Jackson. “Which I wasn’t allowed to examine? No. Nothing.”
He swallowed a smile. “In that case, we’re done here. See Doctor Fraiser for your post-mission medical. Provided you’re cleared, Doctor Jackson, you and Teal’c are on stand-down until 0900 Thursday. Major Carter, once Doctor Fraiser’s given you the all-clear take a four-hour break then re-evaluate the current mission slate. We’ll discuss your recommendations at 1630, after which time you’ll be off the clock too.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Colonel?” he added, standing. “We’ll continue in my office.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack, and shoved his chair back. “Welcome home, kids,” he added to his team. “Play nicely while I’m with the principal. No picking on Carter, Daniel, just because she burst your bubble. I mean, it’s not like you’re not used to having your bubble burst, right?”
“Colonel,” Hammond said again before war could break out. “Let’s go.”
“Hey. I thought you were supposed to be re-evaluating team assignments?” said Daniel’s cheerful voice from the lab doorway.
Sam held up a finger, keeping her eyes on the mass spectrometer readout. “ — seventy-two — seventy-three — seventy-four — damn.”
“Ah — not that maths was ever my strong suit,” said Daniel, “but I think seventy-five comes next.”
“No,” she sighed. “What comes next is Game Over, Back to the Drawing Board, Forget about Collecting a new Patent you Loser.” She shoved the readout away. “Oh, well. It was always going to be a long shot.”
Daniel came a little further into her lab. “What was?”
“That bizarre tree sap SG-12 found on G3D-221. Initial tests revealed some amazing adhesive properties but the mass spec and gas chromatograph test results show unacceptable levels of — ” She stopped. “Daniel, your eyes are glazing over.”
He grimaced. “Not on purpose. Why aren’t you — ”
“Because I’m still waiting for some UAV data. Why do you care? Why haven’t you gone home?”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
“Yeah, it looks like it. Daniel, did you want something?”
“Ah, no. Not really,” he said, picking up a page of readout and pretending it made sense. “Only, you know, to say sorry about the temper tantrum.”
The nasty little knot of tension in her gut unraveled itself. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how pissed she’d been at him. “It’s okay. You were disappointed, I get that. And we will go back. You were right, those rock carvings could be important. They’re just not important enough to drown for.”
He grinned, ruefully. “Yeah, well, maybe. Anyway, I really am sorry.” Then the grin faded. “So. What do you make of this strike team thing?”
Ah hah. The real reason for his visit was revealed. Not that the apology wasn’t sincere. Daniel was sincere the way the sun was hot. But his sensitive emotional weather-vane always pointed Due O’Neill… and not surprisingly, given Hammond’s announcement, she suspected it was now oscillating between ‘poor Jack’ and ‘run for the hills’.
“I think it’s a good idea. God knows we need the help.” She pulled a face. “You got the memo? About Jake’s memorial service?”
“Yeah. I’m starting to hate the sight of my good suit.”
She knew how he felt.
“Anyhow,” Daniel added, visibly derailing incipient grief. “The strike team. This Colonel Dixon, joining SG-1. You don’t think — ”
Oh boy. “Daniel, no. What’s the point? Dixon’s coming. The colonel’s going to react the way he’s going to react and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Daniel stared. “You’re not worried?”
Idiot. Of course she was. The black hole incident and its aftermath had left scars on all of them. The colonel’s silent reaction to losing Frank Cromwell had been… frightening. Almost out of character, for all she truly understood of his character. Daniel had said it was like stepping back in time to the awfulness of his first encounter with the Stargate — and a Jack O’Neill determined to erase unendurable pain with death. Okay, a lot of water had thundered under the bridge since then, but even so…
“I’m concerned,” she admitted. “But the colonel is far too professional to let his feelings interfere with base operations.”
“I know he’s never really dealt with what happened to Cromwell,” said Daniel flatly. “And I know having Cromwell’s former second in command here is going to stir up some muddy waters. What I don’t know is what to do about it.”
She leaned across her lab bench. “You do nothing, Daniel. We do nothing. It’s none of our business.”
Daniel kicked the bench, gently. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Stay out of it,” she said, nerves making her severe. “Please. For all our sakes, Daniel. Leave it alone.”
With a flickering secretive smile Daniel started tidying together her scattered sheets of readout. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Daniel…”
He held up his hands as though surrendering. She wished she could believe the gesture. “I said okay, Sam,” he protested. “And now I’m going home. Don’t work too late. Have a good day off tomorrow, and I’ll see you Thursday.”
“Yeah. Thursday,” she said, and watched him leave.
Dammit, Daniel. Don’t you do anything stupid…
Halfway through Fall the late afternoon sunshine contained a particular grandeur. All around, the leaves of the turned trees burned fiery in its golden glow. Colorado was a beautiful state full of wonders and miracles. Daniel slumped in his car, scowling at nature’s glory even as his fingers still clutched the wheel and his shoulders ached from sitting too long in one place. Maybe Sam was right. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. But on the other hand…
It’s never too late to do more harm than good.
He nearly jumped through the roof when his cell phone erupted into life. Fumbling, heart banging his ribs, he yanked the damn thing out of his pocket.
“Yeah? Hello. Yeah?”
“Hey, Daniel,” said Jack’s radiophonically distorted voice. “Watcha doin?”
Oh crap. He scrunched down in the driver’s seat, wincing as a kneecap collided with the dash. “Hey, Jack. Nothing much. You know, just… hanging out. What about you?”
“You’re not busy?” said Jack, ignoring the question.
So typical.
Heart still booming Daniel risked another look at Jack’s house, which he could comfortably see despite being parked four doors back. “Ah — no. Not so much. A whole day’s stand-down. Time to relax.”
“Uh-huh,” said Jack. “Yeah. Only you’ve been sitting out there for nearly half an hour. I was thinking you might need to pee.”
Daniel dragged his free hand down his face. “Oh. Yeah. About that…”
One of Jack’s front curtains twitched aside and there was the man himself, phone pressed to his ear. He waved, smiling. It was how sharks smiled, sizing up lunch.
“Yeah. Okay,” he sighed, defeated. “I’ll see you in a minute.”
Jack’s front door was unlatched when he reached it. He pushed it open and went inside. Jack was in the sunken living room, sneaker-clad feet propped on the coffee table, perusing a newspaper like a titled man of leisure.
“Oh, look,” he said, not taking his eyes from the front page. “It’s Daniel Jackson, Secret Agent. Who just scored a big fat zero on his surveillance assignment. Tsk tsk.”
He folded his arms. “I wasn’t surveilling you.”
“No? You could’ve fooled me. You know, if you were any good at it.”
“Jack, I wasn’t spying on you! I was — I was — ”
Now Jack looked up. His eyes were glinting. “I’m all ears, Daniel. Do tell. You were what?”
Daniel dropped into the nearest armchair. “Working up the nerve to knock on the door.”
Jack blinked. “Why? Did you think it was going to bite?”
“No, but I thought you might.”
Another sharky smile. “Good thinking, 99.”
Okay. Yeah. So this was a bad idea… “Actually, I think I would like to pee. Do you mind?”
Jack looked back at the newspaper. “Mi casa es su casa.”
He returned from the bathroom to find that Jack had abandoned the newspaper and was standing by the French doors, staring into the garden, a cold beer in hand. He lifted it. “Did you want one?”
“No. No, I’m good.”
Jack sighed. “What you are, Daniel, is a pain in the butt. Don’t tell me, let me guess. You drew the short straw. Again.”