Complete
Drama, POV
Set in Season 1
Spoilers for Children of the Gods
FR-C+
Disclaimers:
Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.
The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Sho for her tireless efforts as a beta reader.
George Hammond stood in the briefing room, deep in thought. The hard-nosed military man in him kept insisting that Daniel Jackson had no place on an Air Force special operations team; that whatever the man's history with the Stargate programme it was a mistake to let him join the mission that had left twenty-four hours ago. But what else could he have done? For thirty years, there were just some decisions he had not been able to take independently; some moments when he had felt some inexorable force of history guiding his actions. The moment that the young archaeologist had stepped through the Stargate, Colonel O'Neill on one side, Captain Carter on the other, had been one of those moments; he had been having so many of them these last few days.
It was odd, but the photographs never did it; he always had to meet them face-to-face, hear their voice, see the way they moved before he knew them. He had looked at the file photographs of Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson a hundred times since he had taken over the Stargate Programme from General West and never thought a thing about it. Hell; he had been in denial for thirty years before the 'Sam' in Jake's family photographs had turned up in his command as the Samantha Carter he remembered so vividly.
Then Colonel O'Neill had been escorted into his office, and another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. He did not know what was going to happen next, but whatever orders came down from the Pentagon, the arrival of O'Neill had convinced him beyond doubt that the Stargate was not going to be decommissioned any time soon. With Daniel Jackson it had been the same; one minute he was a geek in a photograph, the next a living, breathing human being, standing between O'Neill and Carter, and for all his doubts George could not question that this was exactly where he was supposed to be.
That was why, for all his bluster about consultant positions, he had allowed Daniel Jackson to leave with SG-1 and SG-2, and it was why he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that at least three people would be coming back from the mission. They had to come back, because they had to go back; that and Jacob would never speak to him again if his daughter was killed. Moreover, having met Colonel O'Neill, George was almost positive that he would bring both teams back more-or-less intact; he did not seem the type to leave anyone behind, especially not with a disaster like the second Abydos reconnaissance so recent in his mind.
What really worried George was what else O'Neill would bring back. The fourth time traveller; the dour man with the gold tattoo. Seeing that tattoo on what appeared to be an airman had seemed odd to George at the time, but since a few days ago it had seemed downright eerie. To see that serpent mark on the foreheads of two soldiers who had invaded his base and killed his men was the worst shock of his career. He had spent thirty years living on the belief that four strangers had been good, honest people, but what if they were not? What if they had been suborned by this enemy? What if he were as well?
Could he be the weak link that allowed an alien power to conquer the Earth? Had he already become so when he held off on the immediate burial of the Stargate, because of what he had seen in the past?
He had to believe not. He had to believe in what he saw, and what he saw of the men and woman he had assigned to SG-1 told him that they were the right people for this job, although how that worked out he did not know. O'Neill was a walking guilt complex, Carter was raddled by insecurities and Jackson was...well, he was a geek, and his motives while understandable were not appropriate to a military field operative. Looking at them however, George saw something more than the sum of their parts; he saw more than an angry feminist vying with a misanthropic commando sparring with an academic-gone-native searching for his kidnapped wife.
But still they had something missing, and from all George could know that something was an enemy soldier. How that enemy, a grim-faced warrior from an alien race, could complete an already mismatched team, what strange alchemy could work on four incompatible souls to create the bond he had witnessed in 1969, George had no idea; all he had was faith.
"Sir," Samuels said, reminding George of his presence, and of the decision that had to be made.
Faith, George thought. Nothing to go on but faith. "Alright," he said at last, although his instincts were against it. "Seal it off. Lock out their transmitters."
"Yes, Sir." There was something almost indecent about the alacrity with which Samuels leaped to obey the order to condemn both teams.
George looked out onto the Stargate with a heavy heart. "Come on," he muttered to himself.
Alarm klaxons broke into George's reverie, and a moment later Samuels was back, as the blue light of the Stargate's event horizon shone out across the embarkation room.
"Sir," Samuels gasped. "A wormhole has just been established on the other side."
"Belay my last order!" George snapped, without hesitation. He turned and hurried down the steps to the control room. "Do not seal the Gate or lock out their transmitter codes!"
"Yes, sir."
The control room was in a state of high tension; the iris stood closed against invasion, but no-one could be sure it would work against alien weapons until it was tested in earnest. In the embarkation room the SFs stood ready, nervous fingers gripping their M16s tightly.
"Do we have a remote transmitter signal?" George asked, as he crossed the room to the technician's station.
"No signal yet, General," the sergeant on duty replied. He paused a moment, then said. "We have an incoming traveler; still no...Wait! There it is!" He hit the release switch and the iris slid open.
The event horizon rippled, disgorging Captain Carter, and George breathed a sigh of relief. A moment later he was worried again, as a troupe of total strangers began appearing in his command.
"Hold your fire!" Carter insisted. "They're refugees."
"I hope you know what you're doing, Captain," George cautioned through the intercom, but although he would have been in his rights to have those passing through shot or arrested at once, he did not; instead he trusted that she did know what she was doing. The refugees continued to pour through, followed by Daniel Jackson.
"Are they behind you?" Carter asked.
"I hope so," Jackson replied.
The wormhole rippled again, and a long-haired, fur-clad giant of a man tumbled through. The SFs raised their weapons, but Carter and Jackson held out their hands and called once more for them to hold their fire.
"Whoa!" Carter cried. "They're with us!"
At that moment, one of the alien warriors stepped through the wormhole, one of those staff weapons in his hand. Hammond knew that his look of shock was the same as Samuels', but that the cause was very different. There he was, as large as life and twice as grim. The fourth member of that strange team; the fourth member of SG-1. Carter walked up the ramp to face the big man, and he handed her his staff weapon without hesitation, facing the barrels of twenty rifles without fear.
Finally, O'Neill and Kawalsky stumbled through the wormhole, carrying Casey between them. Casey fell, and the other two officers barely kept their feet.
"Now!" Carter yelled. "Lock it up! Lock it up!"
Samuels entered his command code into the computer.
"Closing iris!" The sergeant announced, and the defence shield slid shut. Moments later, three heavy thuds impacted with the titanium barrier, before the wormhole shut off. "Wormhole disengaged," the sergeant said, with some relief. The iris retracted, and the Gate was still; no sign of whatever had struck the shield remained.
Kawalsky looked up "Medic!" He cried. "Medic!" A corpsman ran out from the entrance of the embarkation room and up to Casey's side. George watched for a moment before heading down to the room himself.
The embarkation room was in uproar, as the tension which had gripped the refugees and SFs alike dispersed into relief and joy. SG-1 were at the centre of a press of grateful aliens - all human in appearance - looking as though they did not know how they had survived. Shaking his head in wonder, George made his way up the ramp towards them, moving aside so that a stretcher team could reach Casey.
"Let's get him into the infirmary!" The medic declared. "Get him inside."
"Colonel O'Neill?" George said. "Care to explain?" He was not at all surprised when Carter stepped up to answer for her CO. These people were already a team; they already looked out for one another.
"Um, we can use the Stargate to send these people home, sir," she said.
"What's he doing here?" George demanded, making himself seem more angry than he was as he gestured at Teal'c. His fear and suspicion did not have to be faked; he had hoped that his knowledge of their future would help him here, but in all honesty the man's powerful bearing and air of otherness made George nervous. This was a man who could kill without question or hesitation, and such men were hard to trust when they were on your side.
"General Hammond," O'Neill said, and once more George was not surprised by who it was that was first to defend the alien. "This is Teal'c. He helped us."
"Do you know what he is?" George asked, still fighting that suspicion.
"Yes, sir. I do," O'Neill assured him. "He's the man who saved our lives. And if you accept my recommendation, sir, he'll join SG-1."
By the looks of things, George was the only person not surprised by that statement. Even Teal'c looked thrown, and the moment of hesitation in his eyes did much to relieve George's fears; there was a person in there after all.
"That decision may not be up to you," George cautioned, although he did not really believe it.
"Stand back!" The medic called. "Let's get him off the ramp."
George stood away as Casey was stretchered down. Kawalsky half-stood, but grimaced as though dizzy.
"Kawalsky! You all right?" O'Neill asked, momentarily forgetting about his angry CO. His men always came first; yet another thing to endear him to George.
"Yeah, I'm good," Kawalsky promised.
George decided that they had earned a rest. "Colonel O'Neill, Major Kawalsky, the sure-to-be-very-interesting debriefing for SG units 1 and 2 will be at 0730," he told them.
"Yes, sir," O'Neill replied.
George turned and walked away, Samuels with him. As the Major began to organise SFs to find places for the refugees until they could be sent to their own worlds, George turned and looked up at the ramp.
There they stood, those four figures whom George could never forget, bound together by the circumference of the Stargate which surrounded them. They were not the people that George had met in 1969; not yet, but they would be. They were not the team that he had met either, but again, in time they would be; as they grew as people, they would grow as a team, the bonds which already held them growing stronger.
As he stood and looked at them, George felt an unaccountable certainty that he was looking at four people who would change the world.
It was just one of those moments.