![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nightspear) wrote2008-11-07 08:50 pm
Diplomacy (19/27)
Title: Diplomacy (Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen
XXXXX
Hosts, Part II
XXXXX
26 January 1999; SGC, Earth; 1500 hrs
"It's good to be back," Ferretti said, turning his own hands in front of his eyes.
"You think you had it bad?" Robert said, rubbing a hand over his chest as if he couldn't believe he was still breathing.
"Yeah, nice to have you back, too, Dr. R."
Daniel turned when he heard a door squeak softly behind him, and he saw Griff finish pulling the infirmary door closed. The four of them stood awkwardly in the corridor just outside for a moment, staring and trying not to stare, and then Ferretti cleared his throat and beckoned them away.
"We should go to the briefing room," Robert said. "The general will want to know what happened when he gets back from wherever." Daniel took a final look back at the infirmary's closed door, where he imagined he could still see Janet pulling a sheet over Machello's broken body, then followed Major Ferretti away to the elevator.
When they neared the bottom two levels, however, the distinctive grinding and sequential locking of chevrons made them reflexively veer off-course toward the control room to see who would be establishing an outgoing wormhole when there were no missions scheduled.
"General Hammond!" Ferretti said, taken aback. "Uh, welcome back, sir. You missed...quite a scene."
The general turned around, nodding when he saw Robert. "Tell me everyone's back to normal, Major."
"Yes, sir, we're all ourselves. Is anything wrong?"
"Chevron two encoded," the technician called as Jack--he must have gotten back with that incoming wormhole a few hours ago--walked through the side blast door into the embarkation room, turning back as if waiting for someone else to follow him.
"Did they really find the Tok'ra, sir?" Daniel asked, frowning. "Where are they going?"
The general nodded. "They did. However, the Tok'ra needed something to show that we can be not only trustworthy but also useful allies to them."
"What, killing a few System Lords doesn't count?" Griff spoke up.
"Apparently not," General Hammond said dryly. "According to Captain Carter, what they want the most from us is hosts that can blend with their symbiotes."
Daniel felt alarm shiver through him and looked again at Jack through the control room window. "General, you can't be saying that he's going to offer himself as a--"
"No, I'm certain Colonel O'Neill would never agree to that. However, we may have another candidate."
"...is the alien thing you found?" an unfamiliar voice reached them through the 'gate room speakers.
An older man stepped through the blast door, looking around in awe and not a little disbelief. Sam followed, taking his arm to lead him into the room ahead. "Yup," Sam said, smiling at him.
"That's Major General Jacob Carter," General Hammond said. "If all goes well, he will serve as Earth's liaison with the Tok'ra."
"Carter?" Robert said. "As in...?"
"Sam's father is a general," Daniel told him. "But sir, I thought...isn't General Carter..." He bit off the words 'terminally ill' as he watched Sam lead her father gently toward the base of the ramp, Jack hovering carefully nearby, as if preparing to catch the man if he stumbled. General Carter certainly didn't look like he was ready to take on any sort of mission.
"We already knew that symbiotes have a remarkable healing ability," General Hammond explained. "Supposedly, they can cure most human injuries and diseases, and we're hoping that Jacob Carter's becoming a host might solve his problem as well as ours."
"Really." The Goa'uld healing ability was one of those facts that they all knew but never really thought about, except in the sense that it made System Lords particularly difficult to defeat for good. "That could be the basis of the mutual relationship that Jolinar claimed the Tok'ra have with their hosts."
"Wait, Captain Carter agreed to let her father...be snaked?" Robert asked, shuddering. "Being Goa'ulded has got to be one of my worst nightmares."
The general gave him a wry look. "Believe me, Doctor, I understand. This was, in fact, her idea."
Robert snorted. "We should've sent Machello through when we had the chance. It might've cured him of his problems, or at least let him live without taking over my body."
"There's no way Machello would have agreed to that," Daniel countered, half of his mind wondering that either of the Carters were able to agree to it while the other half tried to grasp an idea that was floating just out of reach. Hosts. Healing. Symbiotic. "He hated the Goa'uld."
"They're Tok'ra, Daniel," Robert reminded him. "But yeah, maybe you're right about that. It's too late now, anyway." General Hammond looked at them questioningly at that.
"He, uh, didn't make it, sir," Ferretti said. "We barely finished the transfer before Machello's heart stopped. Dr. Fraiser couldn't do anything."
"Other people might agree to it, though," Daniel said slowly.
"Body-switching?"
"No, blending with the Tok'ra." The thought of doing that made Daniel cringe, but he was aware that some people might entertain the idea, and perhaps with good reason. "There must be people on Earth who are injured or ill, or who want to live longer and gain millennia of knowledge. Maybe the Tau'ri could provide the Tok'ra with willing hosts."
"Chevron seven, locked!" the technician called.
General Hammond looked thoughtful, then told the four of them, "I'll tell Colonel O'Neill to offer that possibility to the Tok'ra, and I want to hear about Machello once I see General Carter off."
As they took their seats in the briefing room to wait, Daniel asked, "What about the sarcophagus? Couldn't we revive Machello with that?"
Robert shook his head. "If it were just a matter of injuries, maybe. But Dr. Fraiser thinks it can't undo the cumulative effects of aging on cells and DNA. You know what telomeres are?"
"The, uh...end...parts?" Daniel guessed, though in this case, the etymology wasn't particularly illuminating on its own.
"They're pieces of DNA that...uh...okay, never mind the details," Robert said. "The point is, they get shorter with old age, and the sarcophagus can't grow them back once the cells have shut off...whatever it is that makes them grow back when you're younger, you know?"
"Not really," Daniel said honestly, "but okay. So..."
"Machello's body is old. That's just how it is. We could probably keep him alive, but he'd die of old age again soon after or might end up with other irreparable defects, and I don't think anyone would risk those kinds of side effects for such a short reprieve. He'd have to be revived again and again and would go insane pretty fast."
"That is," Ferretti added, "if the general would even authorize it, given that the guy just tried to kill Dr. Rothman here. And there's a time limit--by the time his body got to Area 51, it might be too late to avoid permanent damage."
"Why can't we just keep it here, then?" Daniel asked. "It makes no sense."
"Too risky," Ferretti said. "Too much temptation, with so much sensitive stuff around this facility. If one person slipped up and got hooked on it, a lot could be compromised. More importantly, we still don't know if there are long-term side effects of using it."
"I've been revived in a sarcophagus twice, and nothing's happened to me," Daniel said, frustrated. "What's the point of having it at all if we never use it?"
"Pete Freeman was healed last month using it," Griff pointed out. "Would've bled out and died otherwise, so it's saved people. But if you ask me, that thing's more trouble'n it's worth."
Scowling, Daniel retorted, "Does Captain Freeman think that, too?"
"Jackson, that's enough," Ferretti ordered. "That's not what anyone's saying, and you know it. Remember Lieutenant Blakely?" Daniel dropped his eyes and nodded. Blakely had been brought back three weeks ago with a fatal staff wound and refused flat-out to be sent to Area 51 to be healed, saying he'd rather die naturally than get 'hooked up to Goa'uld voodoo that messes with people's heads.' "It's not that simple. That's all."
...x...
"How exactly was Machello convinced to do this?" General Hammond asked when they'd almost finished their story.
Ferretti raised his eyebrows at Daniel from across the table. "Not totally sure what Daniel said, but he did most of the convincing."
Robert had an knowing look in his eye, though, and Daniel wondered just how much of the conversation with Machello he had been conscious enough to hear. "Machello decided on his own," Daniel said. That was important. "Eventually, he saw that what he'd done was wrong."
"And then we all switched around until everyone was back in the right body," Griff finished. "Just in time, too, sir, because Machello went into a coma just after that and...died soon after."
"I see," the general said. "Were you all examined by Dr. Fraiser at any point?"
"No, sir, not yet," Ferretti answered. "The doctor was occupied with...uh, taking care of Machello's body." Daniel wondered whether they were all as uncomfortable as he was with what had happened in the infirmary. "Anyway, we all felt fine, so she didn't push it."
"You'll be seen by someone in the infirmary as soon as we're done here, then," the general ordered. "I don't want any more surprises today. Do we know enough about that device to use it safely?"
"It doesn't seem to be harmful in and of itself," Robert said with distaste. "It seems to be mostly a matter of being careful about who's being switched, and you need more than...three people, I think, if you want everyone to get back to normal."
"But I'd consider it potentially dangerous," Ferretti said. "It's an easy way of taking someone else's identity, and Dr. Lee thinks it would be difficult to physically force someone to use it, because anyone touching the thing might be affected. Layers of insulation didn't protect us from the effects, and we're not quite sure what would."
"For what it's worth, I don't see how it could be useful," Daniel put in.
"Well, it definitely could be useful," Griff said. "Really useful, if we got creative."
"But not without serious moral question."
"Yeah. And a huge risk if it falls into the wrong hands."
The general nodded. "In that case, I'm going to suggest sending it back to the planet to remove that temptation from anyone's mind. Major, do you see any reason to visit that planet again?"
Ferretti considered. "Machello seemed to be the only person there--"
Because he let two billion of his people die for him, Daniel thought, unable to imagine what would make someone let that happen and still horrified by that fact, even if Machello had proven he was still human in the end.
"--so it was him and a lot of high-tech devices, and we don't know how they work or what they do. If an engineering team wants to take a closer look, though, I recommend a lot of caution."
"I'll keep that in mind. What about the items you've already brought back?"
"No one's made much progress on the tablet with instructions for using his inventions," Daniel said. "The phonology was... It was as if it wasn't a real language at all, but just strings of meaningless sound with no apparent pattern or rules."
"I doubt that," Robert countered. "Probably not meaningless, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it was a code Machello used, maybe to prevent anyone from ever figuring it out. In that case, I'd say the chances are slim to none if we're trying to find rules of natural language."
"I picked up a few more notebooks in a much more decipherable language," Daniel said. "We can work on those when we get the chance. Dr. Lee will be interested in the other devices."
"Dr. Lee will have to live with the disappointment," General Hammond said firmly. "They'll be sent to Nellis for storage, given how potentially dangerous any of those devices could be. You can continue with those notebooks if you'd like, but it's not a priority."
Those notebooks weren't technical notes--Daniel was certain of that, even after only a few minutes of quickly skimming through them. They were journals, like the ones his parents used to keep, not for cultural observations but for their personal thoughts. Reading them now felt like violating Machello's privacy. Archaeologists did it all the time, of course, and when the civilization was long dead, it was called data and evidence. Somehow, it seemed wrong when the man had just died--when they had watched him die, and had a hand in bringing it about.
They had convinced Machello to die with his body; wouldn't it be wrong to read his thoughts? Would it help them understand what had happened to Machello, or what he was trying to do, or what had made him long so fiercely for another life? Did they have that right?
"Mr. Jackson, did you hear me?"
"Wha--uh, I'm sorry?" Daniel said, snapping back to attention. The others were watching him, as if waiting for an answer.
General Hammond raised his eyebrows. "I asked if there anything else that needs to be said?"
He shook his head, embarrassed. "No. No, sir."
"In that case..." The general stood. "This is as good a time as any to say this. You've all heard about team reorganizations. Thank you all for your work on SG-2; I'm confident that you'll uphold that excellence in your new assignments or with your new teammates. Starting two days from now, Major Ferretti, you'll start working with SG-12. Captain Griff will be joined on SG-2 by Major Coburn and Captains Pierce and Freeman as a support team. Dr. Rothman, Mr. Jackson, you can take regular training missions with SG-1 or the research or diplomatic teams for the time being. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," they chorused, tiny looks darting around the room as each person received his assignment.
"All right, then," the general finished. "Report to the infirmary."
XXXXX
((
Daniel was already waiting when the incoming wormhole was established. Sam stepped out first, waving a symbiote in her hand. "I found a friend," she called, holding up the snake, which squealed and twisted angrily in her fist. Then Jack stepped through, and she put the struggling Goa'uld on the back of his neck, explaining, "It needs a host, or it won't trust us."
Jack shrugged and let the symbiote sink into his skin as Teal'c and General Carter followed them onto the ramp. "I will never trust a Goa'uld," he said, but that didn't stop the symbiote from digging into his neck.
"What?" Daniel said, confused.
Then Jack's eyes flashed white and Daniel recoiled, stepping backward onto Robert's toes. Robert gave him a wry smile and said, "I know. Being Goa'ulded has got to be one of my worst nightmares. Go on up and finish the physics problem set Captain Carter gave you."
"No, wait, but," Daniel said inarticulately, pointing at Jack. "But! But look!"
"There is nothing, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c told him, staring at Jack. "You must not let them distract your focus."
"But it was just there," Daniel maintained. "General?" He'd meant General Hammond, but when he turned, he found himself looking at the Goa'uld light in the eyes of Sam's father.
"It's all right," General Carter's Goa'uld said, his voice deep and distorted. "It's a good Goa'uld, remember? Its very name says that it's against the System Lords, didn't you say that?"
"He, not it," Daniel said. "The symbiote is male, because he stole the personal pronoun of the host."
"But the host is female," Jolinar said through Sam. "Is she not?"
"You're dead," Daniel said to her.
"Of course I'm not dead, Daniel," Sam said reasonably, in her own voice. "Think about it logically. You did remember to input everything in base eight, didn't you?"
"I don't even know what that means! If the answer is so clear, why does it take more time to realize it?"
"Trees," Jack said sagely, as if that explained it. "The wind whistles, and everyone stops listening, but only after you cook your meal with a candle."
"Not to worry, son," General Hammond told him, patting him on the shoulder with a heavy hand. "We'll get them back."
Daniel turned his head in bewilderment from the general to his friends. "But how?"
"Use my device," Machello offered. "Here. You can switch Sam with Sha'uri and Jack with Skaara."
"I can't," Daniel insisted, and he couldn't remember the reason why he couldn't, or maybe shouldn't, but he was sure there had to be a reason. He raised his hand and found a zat'nik'tel primed and ready to fire. "Change them back," he demanded.
Machello shook his head, disappointed. "How are you any different from them? Or from me?"
'I won't fire,' Daniel thought, then saw his friends' eyes glow all at once. 'I won't!'
When he looked back, the blast door was opening. Skaara walked in, smirked, and raised his ribbon device. Panicking at the sight of the Goa'uld device that he secretly feared more than any other, Daniel aimed the zat'nik'tel and--
))
"Mr. Jackson?"
Daniel's eyes snapped open. He reflexively tried to throw himself out of his chair when he saw someone's shadow hovering over him, but he succeeded only in tripping over the chair leg and taking the entire chair to the ground with him with a gasp. He landed sprawled on the ground, and only when the carpeted floor registered did he realize that he was in the briefing room, not in front of the Stargate ramp.
"Daniel," General Hammond said, bending over him in alarm. "Are you all right?"
Stilling, Daniel turned instead to look through the window to the embarkation room. The Stargate was inactive. The briefing room was empty, except for him and the general, and a closed physics book lay on the table before him.
"S-sorry, General," he muttered, jumping to his feet and nervously straightening his jacket. He tried to adjust the glasses on his face but pulled them off instead when he imagined he could still see the zat'nik'tel in his hand. He cleared his throat, embarrassed, and tapped the unopened book before him. "I was trying to study, but I guess that didn't really...um." He bent quickly and righted the chair. "Wow. Sorry."
"What are you still doing here?" General Hammond asked, not unkindly. "In fact...have you been awake ever since you got back to Earth last night?"
"No, no, sir," Daniel said. He'd caught a few hours of sleep in between watching Sam dream through the observation window after she had gone to his office around midnight to ask about the vision, and obviously, he'd just been asleep now, hadn't he? "Not exactly," he amended. "I'll turn in my report, General, but there's not a lot to say from...from my perspective, since I didn't go to the planet originally, with...uh...with..." He cleared his throat again and tried to organize his thoughts. "With Robert and SG-2."
"Well, you've managed to have quite a day, anyway," the general pointed out, taking a seat. By habit, Daniel sank back into his own chair, as well. "I'm not worried that your report will be late. Why don't you go get some rest first?"
"I wanted to wait for SG-1," he said, unable to stop a glance out the window. Inactive. No wormhole. No Goa'uld. No Goa'ulded friends. "I mean, I know they're good at getting out of trouble, but you said the Tok'ra were suspicious, and Sam's father is there, and I just... Well, I can see 'gate activations from here, so it's easier... Oh, uh, am I in the way of--"
"You're not in the way," the general assured him. "I understand the sentiment completely. You were distracted this afternoon, and when I saw you out here...well, I wanted to see that you're taking care of yourself."
Daniel folded his hands, still trembling from the abrupt awakening and maybe from more than just that, and made sure they were hidden in his lap. "Sir?"
"You've had a difficult year," General Hammond said, "and, around here, it never seems to get any easier, I realize. If you're falling asleep over your books, maybe it's time to take a break."
"It's okay," Daniel protested. "Robert restricts the amount of work I'm allowed to do at a time. It's not usually this busy, but we don't usually get, uh, transferred into other people's bodies, either. Heh."
The general chuckled. "Fair enough. I'm sure Dr. Rothman exercises good discretion. If you're sure, then, I'll let you get back to your studies."
"Yes, sir," Daniel said, starting automatically to stand as the general did, only to remember halfway through, as he often forgot, that that seemed to be one of the military customs he wasn't required to follow. General Hammond patted him on the shoulder, just the way he had in the dream, and Daniel cringed back into his seat before he could think about it. He peeked at his hand one more time to make sure he wasn't holding a weapon, which, of course, he wasn't.
"Are you sure you're feeling all right?" the general asked him.
"I'm sorry," he said again, shaken and sheepish at once, feeling oddly trapped in his seat with the general standing over him. "I had a...strange dream, that's all. I'm still a little...just. Um."
General Hammond stopped and pulled back. "Mr. Jackson, we can't save the world every day on no sleep."
"I'd settle for saving one person," Daniel heard himself say before he could bite back the words.
The general pursed his lips. "Is this about Machello?"
"No, sir," he said, because it wasn't. Then, because it kind of was, in a way, "Maybe, sir. I don't know."
"Dr. Rothman is alive," General Hammond reminded him. "I'll count that as a victory, and from what I hear, you played a part in saving him from someone who would have taken his life."
"Machello dedicated his life to fighting the Goa'uld," Daniel said, looking up from where he sat. "He was...he'd just been hurt so much, I think he lost sight of...of things. General, do you think...was he more like us, at first, and after years and years, he just became...it just became too hard?"
"It's possible. We may never know...but there's a difference between him and us."
"Sir?"
"Machello was alone," the general said. "I can't say if that was his fault or the Goa'uld's, but he was alone. Look around you, Daniel--we're not any of us on our own here, and we're not even on our own out there." He pointed toward the Stargate. "We have people here and allies all over the galaxy to make sure we don't forget what we're fighting for."
"Allies like the Tok'ra?"
"Probably, from the looks of things," General Hammond said. "Captain Carter believes the Tok'ra might be the most important allies we'll ever have."
"Even though they don't trust us," Daniel said.
"Trust is a complicated thing, son, especially when the stakes are this high," the general told him.
Daniel couldn't help but think that trust shouldn't be complicated, but he knew that it often was, and that 'should' often had a weak correlation with reality. "There was really nothing else we could offer them, besides a host?"
The general sighed. "Colonel O'Neill said the team offered to share what intelligence and technology we have. They even offered the sarcophagus, but the Tok'ra refused. They refused, in fact, to deal with anyone who made use of a sarcophagus and even...advised that we destroy it."
Daniel raised his eyebrows in alarm. "Sir, you're not going to, are you?"
"I've considered putting it away," he said. "I can't even begin to imagine the ethical dilemmas that device will cause, especially because of its secrecy, not to mention what we've witnessed of its side effects. The only uses I've approved thus far were life-and-death situations."
"What about the ethical concerns of destroying a life-saving device?" Daniel asked. Even Colonel Maybourne had recovered, and while he was no longer working at Area 51, he was back at NID headquarters in some restricted capacity, the last Daniel had heard. "Surely, if its use is regulated carefully..."
Sternly, the general said, "Mr. Jackson, I'm aware that this isn't a simple decision. I'm not taking any action now except to make sure the sarcophagus doesn't do any more harm, but the fact that the Tok'ra are so wary of its use should tell us something."
It was all down to the Tok'ra's word now--not just the sarcophagus, but the lives of SG-1, SG-3, who'd been sent to help them and hadn't come back, and General Carter. How could the SGC be certain that they were trustworthy?
The Tok'ra were enemies of the Goa'uld. That would have to be enough. Machello hadn't been a Goa'uld, either. But he'd been wrong, even if he'd given in at the end. Jack was always reminding him that the enemy of their enemy wasn't always a friend they could trust. What if the Tok'ra were like that?
"Yes, sir," Daniel finally said. "Thank you for your time, General."
General Hammond smiled faintly, and this time Daniel didn't flinch when the older man lay a hand gently on his shoulder. "You let me know if you need anything, son."
"Off-world activation!" Sergeant Harriman called. "Incoming wormhole!"
"That's probably them right now, coming back from the Tok'ra," the general said, and they went together to the control room. "Wait here," he added, and Daniel stopped before the console to watch through the window as the general hurried to the 'gate room.
"Hey, Daniel," Ferretti said as he descended into the control room as well--it was standard procedure for the most senior team or the most senior commander on base when the 'gate was activated unscheduled. He glanced at the dialing computers, then said, "How much you wanna bet that's SG-1?"
"SG-1's iris code," Harriman said.
"No bet," Daniel said.
XXXXX
26 January 1999; SGC, Earth; 1800 hrs
Jacob Carter turned to Jack, smirking wryly. "Selmak says--let me see if I can translate this--'don't call us; we'll call you.'"
The other guy--Martouf--tore himself away from staring at Carter and joined Jacob and Garshaw on the ramp. Jack snuck a glance at his second-in-command and found her looking intently into the wormhole until all three Tok'ra disappeared through it and it disengaged. Carter's gaze lingered another moment on the inactive Stargate before she turned away.
"SG-1?" the general said. "What happened out there?"
"Basically, there was snake in the grass," Jack couldn't resist saying. Teal'c raised an eyebrow at him. "There was a spy, which is why they wanted to move to a new planet to set up their base."
"And we have no way of contacting them," Hammond clarified.
"I'm guessing not." 'Don't call us; we'll call you.' What the hell was that, anyway? "But frankly, sir, I get the impression they need help as much as we do, and they seem willing enough to share intelligence and technology, if only to make sure we don't accidentally kill their undercover operatives."
"General," Carter said, "thank you, sir, for allowing this to happen. With my father, I mean."
Hammond nodded, giving her a brief smile. "Captain, I can't tell you how glad I am that this worked out for him. Now, if that's all, I'd appreciate it if you would go upstairs and reassure someone that your mission went well." He pointed upward. Jack raised his eyes to see Ferretti watching from the control room, but he suspected Hammond was referring to Daniel, who was hovering anxiously behind Sergeant Harriman's chair. "Take thirty minutes before the debrief, and then you're all on stand-down until your next missions."
Makepeace's team left first, and, as Jack was about to walk out after them, Hammond stopped him by adding, "Colonel O'Neill."
"General?"
"Take Daniel home tonight, Jack. We've been a little tightly wound around here lately."
Jack exchanged a glance with his team, then looked up once more, where Ferretti raised his hands as if to say, 'well?' while Daniel had started to rock slowly, nervously, on his heels. Hammond tried to stay out of what passed for their personal lives most of the time, even Daniel's, whose personal life mostly took place on base. If he was interfering now, it meant he thought it was necessary, so...
"Right. Will do, sir," he said, then moved toward the stairs so he could figure out what had being going on while they'd played at houseguest to the Tok'ra.
"All clear, Ferretti," Jack told the major when they were in the control room. "You can relax."
Ferretti gave him a thumbs up. "You look happy," he commented. "I take it the rebel Goa'uld thing with General Carter was a success?"
"Yeah, you could say that," Jack said. "There were some, ah...internal problems on their end, which we helped them fix, but overall, we made friendly contact with the Tok'ra."
"My dad will liaise with them for the SGC," Carter added.
Jack thought it seemed more a matter of having Selmak liaise with SGC for the Tok'ra--he was staying with the Tok'ra, after all, not with the SGC--but either way, it worked out okay, because hell if Jacob Carter hadn't turned out to be a better man than Jack's first impression of him had been. "By the way, how did you know about the...?"
"We saw you and General Carter walk through here," Daniel explained, visibly relaxing upon learning that nothing had gone horribly wrong. "We'd just gotten Machello out of Robert's body when we saw you leaving."
Jack blinked. "What?"
"Machello was a human alien that SG-2 and Robert found," he explained without explaining anything. "He had a device that did something to our minds, but it's okay now. We all have a few bruises, but I only had both of SG-2 in my body at one point or another, and I was only in Major Ferretti's--"
"Jackson!" Ferretti exclaimed.
"Whoa!" Jack said, slashing his hands apart in the sign for 'stop.' "Hold it right there!"
"It's not what he made it sound like, Colonel," Ferretti said emphatically, his face pink and glaring at Daniel. "It was this alien device that switched our bodies."
Carter's eyebrows rose. "Switched your bodies?"
"No, it didn't," Daniel said impatiently, looking annoyed. Carter looked a little disappointed for a moment, but then he added, "We think it switched our minds. The bodies stayed physically in the same place. Janet said something about...scrambling our neural networks."
"Yeah," Ferretti agreed more calmly. "That's why we're off-duty at least twenty-four hours until she's sure our brains aren't going to fall apart."
Jack took a moment to wonder if that was a joke, but both of them looked frighteningly serious. "Uh-huh," he said.
"Something was actually able to exchange the neural connections that determine personality, knowledge, memory...everything?" Carter asked. "Sir, do you know what that means?"
"No," Jack said.
"It means that this...Machello person must have understood the anatomy and physiology of the human brain extremely well. There's no other way he could have invented a device that has such precise effects on the brain. I mean, not even thinking about the device itself, that kind of understanding could have a profound impact on our understanding of basic neuroscience."
"Machello is a name well known to the System Lords," Teal'c added, his voice taking on a tinge of interest. "Since before I was born, he has been developing advanced technology to battle the Goa'uld. One of my first assignments as First Prime of Apophis was to hunt him."
"Teal'c," Daniel started, shuffling uneasily. "I don't think...uh..."
"Machello is dead," Ferretti explained seriously. The discomfort in his expression--and Daniel's--wasn't only disappointment about a fallen ally, though Jack wasn't totally sure what it was. "If you'd like details of what we managed to learn about the device, Captain, then Dr. Lee, Dr. Fraiser, or I can explain later."
"So can I," Daniel allowed, though he still sounded disturbed by something, and Ferretti gave the back of his head a wary look and silently mouthed 'Ask me' behind his back. "Oh, Sam, I'm really glad your father's better."
Subtle, Jack thought.
Carter was looking somewhere between confused and disappointed at the loss of someone who knew a lot of neuroscience, but in the end, she gave him a small, sincere smile. "Yeah, me, too. Uh, we should really get the post-mission exam over with, but we'll see you later."
"Have fun, guys," Ferretti said, waving as he walked away.
"Hey, team night," Jack declared. "Carter, Teal'c, any objections to leaving as soon as the debriefing's over?"
"I have no objections," Teal'c agreed.
"No, sir," Carter said. "I'll drive Teal'c."
"Good," Jack said. "Daniel, you might as well get ready, too. There's not much left we need to get out in this debrief, so we'll be done pretty soon."
"Oh," Daniel said uncertainly, "that's okay; I was going to stay and..."
"Aht!" Jack cut him off. "Nope. Ferretti just said you're all off-duty for tomorrow, at least. If you still have something you want to work on, bring it with you."
XXXXX
"General Carter's a host now," Daniel commented once they were in the car and on their way home.
Jack focused on carefully navigating the snowy road. "Jacob Carter? Yeah, that's right."
"It was his choice?"
"We didn't make him, if that's what you're asking."
"Would you do it?"
He glanced over. "What, be a host? You know the answer to that, Daniel."
"Would you, Jack?" Daniel pressed, more urgently this time. "Would you agree to being a host to a symbiote, if you were asked and if it were a Tok'ra? Even if it was a...an ally, and he needed you to be a host to save his life?"
"Honestly, I don't think I could," Jack admitted, starting to get a little worried now. "What's bringing this on, kid?"
This time, there was no answer. When he looked over, Daniel had crossed his arms over his seatbelt and was staring moodily out the window, frowning hard at something.
"Something you need to tell me?" he tried to tease. "'Cause if you got Goa'ulded without consulting m--"
"No!" Daniel growled, turning sharply to him. "How can you say that?"
Surprised, Jack stopped at a red light and looked at Daniel more fully. "It was a joke," he said, realizing belatedly that joking with Daniel about Goa'uld was touchy at the best of times, much less when he clearly wasn't in a joking mood. "Bad joke, but I'm...kidding. Seriously, Daniel, what's going on?"
Instead of responding, Daniel slumped back in his seat and asked, "Are the Tok'ra really different from the Goa'uld?"
"Yeah, they do this thing... They switch between the symbiote and the host. One minute you're talking to a Goa'uld, and the next minute you're talking to a regular...person."
"Are you sure?" Daniel insisted. "They try to trick you sometimes, you know. Jolinar did it to fool us--even Sam doesn't deny that Jolinar wasn't honest."
"Daniel, do you think Carter would've asked her dad to join the Tok'ra if we weren't absolutely sure they were the good guys?" Carter honked impatiently from behind them, and Jack looked back at the road to find that the light had turned green. As he started driving again, he added, "You were pretty optimistic about them this morning. Something happen?"
"Teal'c said he hunted Machello. The System Lords wanted to capture him, probably as much as they wanted to capture the Tok'ra."
"Ah...yeah," Jack said slowly, not following whatever connection Daniel had just made there. "So I hear." When nothing more came, he offered, "Look, according to Teal'c, this Machello guy was on the run for more than a hundred years. If he didn't make it...I'm sorry to hear that, but it was probably just his time to go."
"I'm not sorry," Daniel said.
Jack felt his eyebrows shoot up.
"Oh, gods. No, I mean, I am, really, I really am," Daniel babbled once he'd heard his own words, "because he didn't deserve to die like..." He sighed, a quick, frustrated sound. "I can't believe I said that. It's just that it was...it was him or Robert, and it was Robert's first. I told him he was wrong, and then he died."
Jack didn't have a clue what was going on there. They hadn't taken the time to ask anyone for specifics about what had happened while they'd been off saving the Tok'ra's asses, and he was starting to think it was something he needed to find out. Whatever the issue was, it probably wasn't about Machello's being dead on its own; they had all seen people die, including Daniel, some of them enemies and some of them friends, but something else must have happened this time. And what was this about Rothman?
"You didn't kill the guy," Jack said, probing.
Daniel made a valiant attempt to shrink into the seat. "You weren't there."
"No, I wasn't, and I don't know what happened, but I know you, Daniel." Besides, someone--Fraiser, Ferretti, the general--would have done something if anyone had acted inappropriately. "I bet I can guess most of it. You were pissed as hell at whatever it was, but you didn't kill him."
"Robert said Machello was in pain. All the time," Daniel said, wrapping his arms around himself. Jack turned the heat up an extra notch. "He'd been tortured. You could tell. Janet said so."
"And he...came to us for help?" Jack said, still confused.
"He had no right," Daniel said vehemently.
"I'm not doubting you," Jack said, not really sure anymore whether Daniel was trying to condemn himself or Machello. Maybe Daniel wasn't certain, either, because his words certainly weren't. "If he had no right, then whatever it was that happened to him isn't on you if you just convinced him of that. Whether or not he was against the Goa'uld..." He trailed off.
Oh. So that where he'd made the connection. Against the Goa'uld, hated by the Goa'uld, and, apparently, not as friendly as he looked--like the Tok'ra might be.
"Ah," he said.
"Yeah," Daniel replied.
"Daniel," Jack said, "you know how I feel about snakes, and even I think we should give these Tok'ra guys a chance. So do Teal'c and Carter. Makepeace was even helping them move to their new home. And even though we're pretty sure they are the good guys, we're not going to be trusting them without being careful. Does that help?"
Daniel was silent for a while, considering. "A little," he allowed finally. "Sam's father really is okay, then. He's not just a host to some..." He waved a hand. "You know."
"They're serious about the host," Jack said again. "You should've seen--there was a spy, and they were in a hurry to escape and still tried to get rid of the Goa'uld without hurting the host."
That had to count for something. Jack still didn't trust all of them--they said that they cared about the host, but that Martouf character was practically the only one who ever spoke instead of his symbiote--but the fact remained that no other Goa'uld he had ever seen before would have even cared to mention trying to save the host when the symbiote was the criminal. Whatever the Tok'ra were, they were different.
Somewhat reassured, Daniel relaxed minutely. "Do you think, maybe...I could meet them next time?"
"I don't see why not, if it's not in the middle of something," Jack said. "In fact, Jacob Carter'll probably be the one who stops by. I'm sure Sam would want to introduce you to her dad."
"What's he like?"
"Jacob?" Jack said. "He's, ah...a...well. You've really gotta meet him for yourself. Trust me on this one. Good man, though."
Daniel turned his head to the side until it was leaning against window.
"Okay?"
"Sam must be happy that her father's all right."
Jack glanced at him again. "Yeah, I think she's very happy," he said, remembering the regretful but pleased expression on the captain's face as her father joined forces with some wise old fart of a symbiote and walked briskly up the ramp and through the Stargate.
"I'm glad," Daniel said, quiet now. Wistful.
"Me too," Jack agreed softly, remembering also the look on Daniel's face when he'd learned his father wouldn't be all right again. "So...let's all take the next day and relax. Celebrate how cool we all are, huh?"
Daniel returned to watching the trees pass them through the window.
Just as Jack rounded the corner into his street, Daniel finally spoke again to say, "Can I go up to the roof later? I mean, do you mind?"
Jack glanced upward at the clear sky and said, "Yeah, sure. Good night for stargazing. But it's the dead of winter, so we shouldn't stay out too long."
"You don't have to stay out," Daniel said. "I know how to use the telescope."
"Are you kidding? We live and breathe Stargate Command and practically never get time to go out and look at the stars. 'Course I want to take a look."
Daniel glanced at him. "Thanks."
Somehow, Carter and Teal'c were already waiting when Jack pulled up next to his house. "How did you get in front of us?" he asked.
"Captain Carter enjoys transportation at great velocities," Teal'c informed them. "The snow does not appear to be a significant deterrent." Carter looked like she was still riding high on the success of their latest mission and the recovery of her father, and she smiled a little smugly at Teal'c's words. Jack would have felt insulted about being beaten to his own home, but he decided he'd rather stay on her good side, particularly since the food was in her car.
"It's cold," Daniel said, shivering in the winter air as he stepped out of the car and reached back in for his backpack.
"Freezing," Carter agreed. "Literally."
"Yeah, and it's getting late," Jack added. He pulled Daniel's coat out when he forgot and draped it around him before locking the car doors behind them. "C'mon, let's get inside. Who's hungry?"
From the next chapter ("Gods, Part I"):
"Colonel?" General Hammond asked.
In answer, Jack turned to Teal'c, who was not-so-gently lifting their prisoner down from over his shoulders and onto a gurney, where Dr. Fraiser and her nurses were already beginning to fuss over him.
"General," he said, "Apophis. Apophis...General Hammond."
no subject
“It’s possible—we may never know. But there’s a difference between him and us.”
“Sir?”
“Machello was alone,” the general said.
Ah, George. You will always and forever be the best general the SGC ever had.
Very nice and introspective. And I do look forward to Jacob meeting Daniel... but not as much as I'm looking forward to the next chapter, because oooooh. How much does Apophis know about Daniel via Amaunet via Sha'uri? Where is Amaunet now? Are the Tok'ra going to show up? Can't wait to see what happens next!
no subject
no subject
This is a really great story and I'm enjoying it immensely. Retelling/remixing the stories of Stargate SG-1 as well as you have isn't an easy task!
no subject
The sarcophagus thing in general *will* come to a sort of resolution down the line. Part of my problem is that canon doesn't give us full details on how the sarcophagus and its addiction works :) In my fanon...like any other addiction, there's a potential for falling back in and/or being a little too interested in it if one has been hooked on a sarcophagus before. For AU!Daniel, yes, his being exposed to it in the womb is supposed to have made him a little more susceptible, but I think there's also a curiosity and/or attraction to interesting and powerful things that we can see even in canon!Daniel. AU!Daniel here also hasn't gone through "Need," so it's not quite as personal for him (yet :) ). Thanks again for the comment!