Silence fell between them, then, crowded with complicated feelings that two lifetimes of military service would not allow to be spoken. Not that speaking was necessary. In fact most times words only got in the way.
O’Neill sat back. “
Soil samples
? Carter’s after
soil samples
now?
Oy vez mamma mia
.”
“And plant samples,” said Hammond, grinning. “Let’s not forget the plants.”
He pulled a face. “She talks to them, you know. She talks to plants. Shouldn’t that, I don’t know,
disqualify
her from romping in alien pastures picking flowers?”
“Now, now,” said Hammond reprovingly. “That’s just sour grapes because the last plant samples she gathered — over your vigorous complaints, if memory serves — look like they’re turning the world of pharmacology on its head.”
“Oh. Yes. That,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “Well if you’re going to count
that
as an excuse for her to run around the galaxy impersonating Maria von Trapp…”
Laughing, Hammond stood. “I should head home. It’s late and tomorrow’s a busy day.”
He stood too. “When do Dixon and his team arrive on base, sir?”
“Nothing’s finalized, but if it’s going to happen I’d say within
forty-eight hours,” said Hammond, heading for the door.
Walking with him, O’Neill felt an unwelcome twist in his gut. “The sooner the better, sir, if this oversight committee crap is as real as you say.”
Some of the warmth died out of Hammond’s face. “Trust me. It is. I’m going to have to sit down and re-evaluate the mission slate, Jack. We’ve got some fancy juggling to do in the next few days. I’d appreciate your input on that.”
“Of course, sir. Whatever you need.”
“What I need is those incomplete missions reports completed,
Colonel,” said Hammond, only teasing a little bit. “On my desk by 1100 tomorrow, understood?”
O’Neill stared.
Y’know, he’s like a dog with a bone. He needs to learn to let go
. “Understood.”
“Good,” said Hammond, nodding. “Thanks for the meal and the beer, Jack. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yes you will, sir,” he said, and watched until the general’s car had pulled clear of the driveway. Then, unsettled and restless, he returned to the television and what turned out to be a marathon-rerun of Cheers season three.
He fell asleep in front of it, to wake just after dawn with a cricked neck, an MSG hangover and a tedious sensation of impending doom.
Returned to the SGC by a whisker past 0800, he looked with sour disfavor at his paperwork-cluttered desk.
Homework. It’s like homework. I’m too damned old for homework
.
He had till 1100. Three whole hours. That was a little time up his sleeve. And there were sick people in the infirmary, after all. It was his duty, wasn’t it, to go cheer them up?
And if it wasn’t before it’s going to be now.
“Hey, here’s trouble,” said Janet Fraiser as he sauntered through the infirmary doors. “Something I can do for you, sir?”
Hands shoved in his pockets he waggled his eyebrows at her. “Ask not what you can do for your colonel, ask what your colonel can do for you.”
“Ah.” She clipped the pen she’d been using onto the clipboard in her other hand, put that on top of the medical gizmo she was playing with and tipped her head a little to one side. He knew that look. It said:
Don’t try playing me, buster. I know all your moves
.
She didn’t. But she did know most of them… a fact that sometimes he relied on, sometimes he resented… and all the time knew he couldn’t escape.
“Just dropped in to say hi to your patients,” he said. “If that’s all right with you.”
She grinned. “Boy, those reports have really got you cornered, haven’t they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied loftily. “You must have me mixed up with some other dilatory colonel.”
Still grinning, she waved a hand in the direction of the base wards. “Visit away, sir. With luck you’ll scare a few of them back onto their feet.”
She did that a lot. Called him
sir
. When they both knew she had the drop on him, day and night. She followed his orders when it suited her medical agenda to do so and blithely countermanded him whenever that suited her better. She was a pint-sized autocrat, a dictator in four-inch heels. She was the best damned doctor the base would ever have and she could countermand him every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
The trick was not letting her work that out.
With a last smirk he headed for the sick people, only to be stopped by her gentle voice. “Colonel… I’ll be in my office when you’re done, if you want to talk.”
Damn the woman. She
always
knew when he had a bug up his butt, she had some kind of radar, and it never failed. But he had no intention of talking to her about this one, about Cromwell or David Dixon or sleeping dogs stirring out of their dreams. So why in hell did he give her the chance to see something was bugging him?
Damned if he knew. And double-damned if he was going to let her ferret out the truth. And anyway, there was nothing to ferret out. David Dixon used to work with Frank Cromwell. Big deal. So what? A lot of people used to work with Frank Cromwell. He’d been in the military a whole lot of years.
What do you want? You want
me to forgive you? Is that it?
Yeah. I guess I do
.
He threw Fraiser a smile over his shoulder. “Thanks, Doc. I’m fine.”
Ariel Lee was pretty depressed, which was hardly surprising. He sat with her for a while remembering Jake Andrews, who’d been her friend since basic training.
“I was going to be a bridesmaid at his wedding,” she said, her eyes bright in the base’s harsh fluorescent lighting. “Me in baby-pink satin, there’s a laugh.” Her fingers twisted in the sheets. “I haven’t seen Mandy, yet. She was hysterical on the phone. I don’t know what to tell her when I do see her. God, Colonel. What do I tell her?”
“You tell her the truth,” he said softly. “That Jake was a hero. That he loved her. That a lot of people are sorry he’s dead.”
A tear slipped onto her cheek. “He hated lying to her. It really tore him up inside. He was even thinking of…” She sniffed. “You know.”
Oh, yeah. He knew. He remembered what it felt like, telling lies to his family. Keeping terrible secrets. Shutting them out of his life. Bad enough when the secrets were just about Earth. He could only imagine how hard it was for the Jakes of the base, who had to hide truths the size of galaxies.
Marriage and the Stargate: not a match made in heaven.
After Lee he visited with the other people stuck in the windowless concrete limbo that was the SGC infirmary: Mike Powell, Ed Mason, Sharon Roskovitch, Mick Coburn, Felicity Samson. They were all ridiculously pleased to see him, eager to know what was happening out there while they were stuck in here. He told them what he could, played the optimistic cheerleader, threatened them with dire repercussions if they didn’t get off their butts and back to work.
They made fun of his trick knee, and he let them.
“Thanks for stopping in,” said Janet, waylaying him as he took his leave of the infirmary. “It means a lot to them, that you take the time.”
She was always professional, always immaculate, even in the midst of a crisis. But he knew her well, now, as well as she knew him… and beneath the consummate professional was a sensitive woman in pain.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“I’ll tell the truth if you will,” she countered. “Has something happened?”
She was such a hard-ass. “I’m fine,” he said again.
The glint in her eyes said she heard the lie, but she didn’t challenge it. “Okay. Well, I’ve got work to do. I’ll catch you later.”
That was another thing about Janet Fraiser; she almost always
knew when to push and when to back off. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, pushing a little himself for a change.
“I’m sad,” she said, after a moment. “And I’m angry. And I know we did our best. And I know our best isn’t always good enough. Sometimes you lose. And I hate that.” She sighed. “I’m fine.”
He let her see his doubt. “Yeah?”
“I’m as fine as
you
are,” she said sharply.
Ouch. “Then we’re both hunky dory,” he replied, and kept on walking.
Break your ankle, Dixon. Crash your car. Get heatstroke. Anything. Just… don’t come.
“So, Dixon,” said General Scott McCreary. “That’s the mission, in a nutshell.”
David Dixon, Colonel, Air Force Special Forces, Pentagon strike team leader, nodded slowly and hoped his face was suitably blank. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
He was being seconded to the SGC? Handed over like a piece of spare equipment? Surrendered to the tender mercies of one Colonel Jack O’Neill? Still…
I’m going through the Stargate? Okay. Breathe, Dave. Breathe
.
“It’s not mandatory,” McCreary added. “You can turn this one down if you want to.”
That made him blink. “Ah — I can?”
His boss nodded. “I know the military’s not a democracy, and if this was a normal, ordinary kind of mission I’d put your butt on a transport and not lose a moment’s sleep. But this is different. I’m not going to order you — or your men, for that matter — to turn intergalactic traveler.” He snorted. “You know, just saying that makes me feel ridiculous.”
Dixon swallowed a smile. He had a lot of time for Scott McCreary. “Yes, sir.”
“It doesn’t make
you
feel ridiculous, Dixon?” McCreary’s ice-gray eyes squinted. “You don’t feel like an idiot, thinking of yourself as an intergalactic traveler?”
“Well… the thing is, sir, I
don’t
think of myself like that. I doubt I’ll think of myself like that if I
do
take the assignment.”
“You’re turning it down?”
“I didn’t say that, sir.”
“George Hammond needs you, Dave,” said McCreary, spatulate fingers drumming his Pentagon desktop. “You and your team. His people have taken one hell of a beating the last few weeks. They’re still standing but they’re rocky. Hammond’s a good man. One of the best. I want us to help him out if we can.”
Dixon knew as well as McCreary did the kind of beating the SGC had been taking lately. They both read the classified mission reports. It was… odd… experiencing the disasters from a distance. He’d never met the dead and injured SG team personnel but still… After reading about them and their fantastic exploits for so long it
felt
like he knew them. He grieved for them as though he had. As he’d grieved for Frank, lost to the voracious and unforgiving Stargate.
He nodded, cautiously. “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Is it O’Neill?” McCreary asked abruptly. “Is the idea of working with him the problem?”
A simple question, with an answer so complicated he didn’t know where to begin. “No, sir. I have no problem with Colonel O’Neill.”
McCreary shifted in his chair to stare out of his office window at a bug-eyed helicopter whop-whop-whopping its way through the sky. Off to the White House, possibly. Or Arlington. Or Andrews. Somewhere. “O’Neill’s a maverick bastard but he’s a genius at what he does. And he didn’t get Frank killed, Dave. The investigation was clear on that.”
The investigation had been crystal clear. Frank Cromwell died in the line of duty, no ifs, ands or buts. He died a hero, saving the planet from a black hole. He died a victim of dumb bad luck. It could as easily have been O’Neill’s harness rope that was cut by the flying glass. It could’ve been Jack O’Neill who died. It nearly was. Frank’s death was random chance. It was one of those things.
“I know, sir,” he said. “O’Neill wasn’t responsible.”
McCreary sat back, his attention diverted from the normal world beyond the window. “But you still blame him.”
“No, sir, I do not.”
Unreasonable, passionately defended grudges are Jack O’Neill’s hobb
y, not mine
.
“I understand it’s a big ask, Dave,” said McCreary. “If you wanted to be part of the Stargate program you’d have put your hand up for it long ago. God knows if you did they’d take you in a heartbeat. They’re crying out for people of your caliber.”
“Thank you, sir.”
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?”