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Elizabeth Weir turned up at Sarah's door one day, her driver waiting a discrete distance. They'd met only once and briefly at that, not long after Sarah had been released from secure psych at the Academy Hospital, while Weir was making rounds after taking command of the SGC. "Dr. Gardner," she said. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything. Could I have a few minutes of your time?""Of course. Please, come in," Sarah said. She led Weir into the dining room, and spent a few minutes putting on tea and setting out some biscuits. "I believe you're aware of the Atlantis expedition?""Only the general outline. Daniel told me what he was allowed, mostly while complaining he hadn't ever made it, thanks to Vala mal Doran.""Yes, he mentioned that more than a few times." Elizabeth leaned a bit more over the table. "Don't tell him, but while he certainly would have been welcome, the ship full of nuclear weapons and marines would have been even handier.""I can imagine.""I understand you've been doing a lot of work on the Ancients and Asgard," Elizabeth said. Sarah nodded."I've been trying to branch out more into the Nox and Furlings as well, but yes, they've been my main focus." Much to the chagrin of the people at Area 51, who had unending questions about the Goa'uld and their technology. There had come a point she'd stopped answering their calls entirely, only working directly with Anthropology & Translation at the SGC and doing that remotely as much as she could. She couldn't retreat back into Egyptology, sticking her head into the sand like Steven had, but she refused to be treated like a walking encyclopedia of horrors just to further the careers of men too limited in skill and ambition to work at the SGC itself. "How would you like to come with us and get a chance to work on Ancient material first-hand?"Sarah had to set her china down to keep from dropping it. "With you?""Since we've re-established contact and what we hope is reliable communication with Earth, we're significantly expanding the expedition. I'm particularly interested in getting more experts in the social sciences. Atlantis has proven an incredible treasure trove of technology, but we've had considerable trouble deciphering the database to figure out how to use any of it. For that matter, just knowing more about Ancient society could help us greatly in planning how to use that technology here on Earth.""Did Daniel suggest this?" Sarah asked, fighting down a wave of suspicion."Not directly, no. You were already on my candidate list, although I did consult him on that," Elizabeth replied. "He's actually going to be joining us as chief social sciences officer. Sarah hid a frown behind her cup. "What about the team, though?""With the System Lords gone, a lot of things are changing. General O'Neill is moving to Washington to take over from Hammon. Teal'c has a nation to found, and the Air Force has finally gotten a chance to give Colonel Carter the organizational experience she needs to keep her career moving. I understand Area 51 is closer her adopted daughter Cassandra.""Which leaves him," Sarah finished. "He must be terribly excited. The lost city of the Ancients.""And an entire new galaxy, completely isolated from all Earth influences," Elizabeth agreed said with a grin. "Either one could be the work of a lifetime. A dozen."It really could be. Genuinely original research - how many people could say they were doing that? "You're sure you want me?""Absolutely," Elizabeth replied with grin. "I can't think of anyone more qualified.""There's no need for flattery," Sarah said, even as she preened a little. She wasn't entirely wrong, even if there were a few people working full-time at the SGC who might have better claim in some fields, and she'd worked very hard to get to that point. "I won't pretend it's going to be all fun and games. There's all the usual dangers of stargate travel, including some very hostile aliens. Even the city itself has proven hazardous at times. Just a couple months ago we lost several people to a weaponized nanovirus.""I've been living on borrowed time for quite while. I'm not going to flinch away from a little danger," Sarah said. "I have one condition. I'm going as an expert on the four great races, not the Goa'uld. If it's life or death I'll do what needs done, but otherwise I don't want it brought up. In fact, I'd prefer knowledge of my past not be spread around at all."Elizabeth nodded. "I think that's completely understandable. There's a few people from the SGC going who've been around long enough they might recognize you, but I can have a word with them. They'll understand.""In that case, what do I need to sign?"At the time, Sarah absolutely meant it about not telling anyone. She'd forgotten how it felt to have colleagues she actually liked and trusted. Dr. Xerox made her right away, of course, but she'd met the original enough times to do the same, and he well understood the desire for privacy. They didn't actually talk about it, of course, but the potential to do so was there. She'd corresponded with Lorne, and naturally Dr. Heightmeyer and Dr. Cole needed to know. Otherwise, though, even most of the leadership was in the dark. Nate was a bit of an accident, but a welcome one. He put various comments Sarah had heard about Marines the last two years into context; who else but one would be both brave and insensitive enough to find out someone was a former System Lord and decide, yes, that's who I want to recruit for my offworld team?Which is how she got woken up in the middle of the night and dragged off to the site of a Wraith culling. She was pleased to keep her calm through the experience, save for one moment when a dart was sighted. For a brief instant she was absolutely furious, not at what had been done, but at the fact that she was hiding under a bridge. She, once master of an empire, whose fleet and armies had crushed a hundred worlds beneath her heal, slayer of Thor himself - cowering like a peasant! She decided to stay back and work on other things when search and rescue switched to recovery operations. Later that night, Sarah retired to the balcony of the reading library. Despite the pleasant ambiance of the place, it was deserted as usual; there was a small selection of print books people had pooled together, but most of the volumes were Ancient, and the number of people who could read it recreationally were small. That just added to the appeal on nights like these, and the balcony put another layer of isolation between her and passer-byes. She spent an hour out there, reading by a dim table lamp and listening to the ocean, until she heard bootsteps in the main room. They paused, then approached the balcony door."You okay?" It wasn't Nate like Sarah had expected. Instead JD McNeill padded out of the darkness and settled into an armchair across from her."I'm perfectly fine.""You're sitting in the dark and brooding."Sarah sniffed. "I'm reading a book. You youngsters with your video games have no appreciation for culture."He flashed her a momentary shark-like grin. "It's alright. We all react differently to stress. But seriously, are you okay?""Are you asking as a programmer, a linguist, or a scholar of Ancient foibles?" He didn't answer, and after a minute she sighed and closed her book. "Why are you here, JD?""Because you're a colleague who might be hurting. And because he'd be upset if you were and I did nothing."Sarah nodded in understanding. "It's odd, isn't it? You can try to start anew, go to school and retrain your speech patterns and escape to another galaxy entirely, but some things just stick with you.""I've ditched a lot of things. Loyalty wasn't one of them.""I really am fine," Sarah told him. She'd say assured, but to be frank sometimes she had to stop herself from laughing at the word these days. "I think, at least. Is it odd that I wished there were more bodies?"McNeill shook his head. "The deserted ones always gave me the creeps too. When everything's hidden, it lets your imagination run wild. Massacres are straightforward at least.""Massacres I've seen. I've ordered them.""You didn't," he responded, swift and firm. "That was Osiris.""It was my voice that gave the orders. My hands on the gunnery controls. And I let him out into the world in the first place, so if nothing else at all I bear that singular original sin."He was quiet for a minute. "That's not what original sin means. Father Reese would throw a fit.""I think I liked you better when you were stupid."McNeill rolled his eyes. "I liked me better when I was stupid. It was a lot easier when people didn't expect a boy genius. Are you staying on the team?"Momentarily thrown by the sudden change of topic, Sarah hesitated. "Yes. It was... exciting. Meaningful.""Nothing quite like it.""What about you?" Sarah asked. "Have you considered applying for a slot?""No, I've had enough teams for one lifetime. I'll stick to exploring the database," McNeill replied with only the slightest hesitation. "Besides, who would even have me? Trust me, no one wants a teenage geek on their team.""Hmmm." She almost believed it. He probably did. She gave him a few months for the shine of Atlantis to wear off before he started to reconsider.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It started with a missed phone call, one of a dozen waiting on the machine when Brad got back from two weeks of field training SBS candidates. It had been the last bit of real work expected for his stay; from there out it would be administrivia to wrap things up. He was looking forward to getting back to the states, no matter where his detailler ended up putting him. He wasn't sure whether he'd prefer the Quantico position or the one back with Recon in California. Nate's voicemail was short and to the point: "Brad, I've got a new job that's got me out of the country for a while. Check your email." The email was only slightly more enlightening, and most of what it did explain was worrisome. Overseas posting? Attached marine unit? How the fuck had he managed to get himself into trouble just weeks before Brad finally got to see him again?To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Lt FickWhere is he?----
To: Brad [[email protected]]
From: Ray [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Lt FickFuck if I know.---
To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Lt FickWhat do you mean, you don't know? ----
To: Brad [[email protected]]
From: Ray [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Lt FickIt means he couldn't tell me any more details that what he's told you. It's all confidential or classified and shit. About all I can add is he sounded pretty excited when he talked with me. Don't know why you thought he'd tell me anything extra.----
To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lt FickYou're the one who visits him regularly.
----
To: Icedick [[email protected]]
From: Ray [[email protected]]
Subject: DefinitionsIt's only 'regular' by the standards of the asshole who moved across the ocean. Seeing him a few times a year isn't 'regular'. By that standard I see my aunt in Florida 'regularly' because she flies up for holidays that don't have snow.----
To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: DefinitionsYou literally spent ten minutes last month complaining that your mom likes him better than you. I don't want to think how much that cost me. ---
To: Icedick [[email protected]]
From: Ray [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: DefinitionsIt still doesn't mean he spills all his secrets to me like we're a pair of teenage girls.---
To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: DefinitionsI know he tells you things he doesn't want me to worry about. You also said you were meeting up at Mike's for his birthday, so I assumed there was some communication occurring and you weren't planning to just show up uninvited like a herpes infection.---
To: Icedick [[email protected]]
From: Ray [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: DefinitionsFuck off.---
To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: DefinitionsI can't believe this bullshit. I trusted you to keep an eye on him and you let him run off on some classified op that apparently requires a marine escort?---
To: Icedick [[email protected]]
From: Ray [[email protected]]
Subject: Twisted panties1) Nate's not actually my brother, no matter what mom thinks
2) Ergo I am not his keeper
3) Did I mention you moved across the ocean?
4) Fuck off.---
To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Twisted pantiesPick up the fucking phone.---
To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Twisted pantiesNow, you chicken-fucking cocksucker.---
To: Icedick [[email protected]]
From: Ray [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Twisted pantiesIt is 1 am here and I have a fucking exam in the morning. Fuck off!---
To: Inbred Hick [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Twisted pantiesFine, I'll ask Mike.Mike knew even less than Ray. Brad didn't bother trying anyone else. The only obvious people who Nate might share more with than them were his parents, and Brad wasn't going to risk making them worry. He could do enough of that for all three of them. Anything that made a high-level arms control specialist disappear for a year and required a marine escort was bad news. The thought of Nate out there with a bunch of strangers, possibly being shot at while trying to do something stupidly brave and idealistic, didn't so much create a sinking feeling as open up Brad's guts like an iceberg.Eventually he dug out his copy of the phone tree. Someone had to have the connections to at least point Brad in the right direction.To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sixta, John [[email protected]]
Subject: Fwd: Re: Looking for contact infoMaj. Patterson says youse is looking for your lieutenant. An old officer of mine named Reynolds worked with your Dr. Weir for a few months. He may be able to put your mind at ease if you're sure you want to dig.To: Sixta, John [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Colbert looking for contact infoSergeant-Major, you understand that you don't need to type out 'youse', right? I can still hear it in my sleep sometimes.To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sixta, John [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: Fwd: Re: Looking for contact infoSon, I know you've been playing with the Brits since becoming a staff NCO, but once you've had to deal with two unplanned pregnancies, a DUI, and an eight-person spiderweb of adultery in one week, you'll understand the urge to fuck with Marines any chance you get.I'll have Al get in touch. Give my regards to Cap. Fick if you find him.To: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Transfer inquiryLt. Colonel Sheppard, Colonel Reynolds gave me your contact information. He said that you are head of the force protection detail for Dr. Weir's project, and that you are still in the process of filling out the unit. I would appreciate it if you would consider my request to transfer in. I have attached a copy of my file as well as information on why I think I would be a good fit based on what I know of your mission. I know this is an unusual request and apologize for going outside normal channels.Gunnery Sergeant Brad Colbert---
To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
Subject: your crazy job appand here I thought I was hardcore about not leaving anyone behind---
To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
Subject: your crazy job appokay so I have to admit, that's a really nice cover letter you wrote about why I should ask for you to be transferred here. your jacket is good too, very joint, much impressive as the kids say these days-js---
To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
Subject: your crazy job appi should mention that all my email gets sent and received on monday so don't expect quick responses. chuck refuses to let us edit ones we've already put in the queue because he claims it messes with his database. canadians, what can you do?-js---
To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
Subject: your crazy job appso you understand this is classified enough I can't just describe it it even over our supposedly secure military network, right? you're basically asking to join what could just be, hypothetically, a unit where they send all the misfit rejects to guard geeks in Antarctica or fly them around between their top secret holes in the ice. you'd be consigning yourself to a year or two of absolute boredom -js---
To: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
From: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: your crazy job appI am aware of this, sir. Thank you for your consideration of my request.---
To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Re: your crazy job appwell if you re really willing to jump in without knowing what we do, call this number and ask for lt col mitchell. he will set up an interview. don't say i didn't warn you - js----
To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
Subject: Fwd: Re: Re: your crazy job appI don't care what you say. The team sucks, the coaches suck, and the entire program sucks. The only bowl they're going to this year is the toilet. Maybe if you convert to Origin and prostrate hard enough they'll win a few games, but even divine intervention won't get them near a championship.Lorne says yes to macarons but he's curious how they would get here without going stale. If you try to ship them frozen and ready to bake, Elizabeth might ask if we brought enough for everyone. By the way, keep an eye out for this Colbert guy. I think he's stalking one of my geeks. (You know, like you did.) Elizabeth's intern respects him so he's probably a good choice. Check him out and if he seems like a good fit go ahead and approve him so he can ship out on time.----
To: Colbert, Brad [[email protected]]
From: Sheppard, John [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: John you dumbass, that's not how BCC worksignore that last. also, congrats, you're approved to be a space marine. i guess bother walter until he tells you what you need to do to get ready. he's the short guy in the control room who encodes chevrons all day, you can't miss him.----
To: Colbert, Brad [colbert.brad.768@sgc-internal]
From: Lorne, Evan [lorne.evan.67@sgc-internal]
Subject: Onboarding ProcessGunnery Sergeant, please see the attached files for a checklist and other materials. The SGC should have started the bulk of it by the time this email gets to you, but there's a few Atlantis-specific items they don't usually handle due to our location and international nature. Pay close attention to sections regarding medical proxies and living wills, they're not what you're used to seeing. Dr. Lam's staff can help clarify any questions you have regarding terminology.Captain Trenton on Level 19 is our current USMC personnel liaison and should be able to care of everything as far as the PCS goes. Lieutenant Hailey will also be in touch regarding orientation and training - I've asked her to put together an accelerated course to fit in the essentials before you depart. Don't be afraid to bother Mitchell either, he unofficially watches our for our guys Earthside.Welcome aboard.Major Evan LorneNate wasn't happy to see Brad. In fact, he was pretty damned pissed, and Brad should have seen it coming. He couldn't even say he wouldn't be himself if their positions were reversed. He hadn't thought that far in advance, just focused on getting to the point where he could see Nate and make sure he was safe. Now that Brad taken care of that part, all he had to do was keep him that way, while making sure he didn't let that old, ridiculous crush flare back to life. It couldn't possibly be that hard. He'd managed to go his entire adult life without doing more than occasionally admiring the male form from a distance. Sure, this team thing meant they'd be spending more time in close proximity than they ever had before, without the shelter of the officer-enlisted divide to force at least a pretense of professionalism, but maybe by now Nate had found some nice girl to settle down with. Or even a crazy one like his new lieutenant. Anything to remind Brad's treacherous hindbrain that he was straight.Brad was really fucked.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Evan wasn't surprised when the young apprentice showed up. He might not have been one of the city's trueborn sons, but she liked some of her adopted ones well enough that their comings and goings were heralded in the sensory stream, in this case spreading before him like warm sunlight. Even without that, well, he didn't get where he was without having a decent idea of how junior officers thought. When one kept watching you during a memorial service, there were only so many things they could be thinking."How'd you find me?" Evan asked as Nate joined him out on the balcony. It was a nice little westward-facing alcove at the joint between two piers, hard to reach if you didn't know it was there, and with a good view of the outer skyline and sunset."Once a recon Marine, always a recon Marine, Major. Have some faith," he replied. Evan wondered if he knew how much like Colbert he sounded. Was the arrogant self-assurance something they taught at the fancy recon courses, or did it just come naturally? "You looked like you could use a friend. And a drink." Nate held up a bottle of something pinkish and a stacked pair of Solo cups.Evan could see why he was making the claim to 'friend' even if the reality was still closer to coworker. The logic was simple enough to follow, because it was what Evan would have done. Sheppard was asleep in the infirmary still, the remaining officers were all Evan's subordinates, and there were only a handful of civilians with offworld experience. That left Nate, a fellow team leader, as the closest thing he had to a peer, a half-dozen or more years younger or not.Evan waved for Nate to take the seat next to him. "I won't say no to that."Nate filled the two cups, handed one to Evan, and sat the bottle down between them. He gave him a few minutes to down a fair portion of it. It was some sort of raspberry wine, the good stuff they got from the Athosians or another trade partner, not whatever the three competing groups of amateur moonshiners made for the black market. "I'm sorry about your men," Nate said after a while. "I never met Stevens, but Walker seemed like a nice guy.""So I'm told. I barely knew them," Evan admitted ruefully. "Stevens was new and I'd only taken Walker out a couple times. He was good in the field, but I hadn't had a chance to really interact with him outside of work.""Does that make it any better?" Nate asked, cautious but curious."It makes it..." Evan thought of Ritter, young and eager to please. Even Edwards had liked him. He'd probably been about Nate's age, transferring into the SGC right around when OIF was about to kick off. "Hurt differently."Nate nodded. "I was lucky. There were a lot of coin flips that could have gone the other way.""Objectively, I am too compared to most men my rank," Evan said. "Even in the Air Force. Objectivity hard to manage right now.""I've read the reports," Nate said. "With the information and mission parameters you had, I don't see what you could have done differently. You got the civilians clear first and otherwise it was a matter of luck who was out in time.""I gave the orders. I had responsibility for what followed.""Yes. Yes, you did," Nate agreed, although Evan suspected they might not be talking about the same thing anymore. "But as things to be responsible for, it's not the worst."Evan wondered sometimes if all the baby lieutenants and captains out in the real world were like Nate. The SGC tended to pick junior officers up before they'd seen combat, the better to mold them into tools for a different fight, or well after they'd made captain and had time to season. Grogan had the same kind of scary steely-eyed intensity at times but being the sole survivor of a TPK could do that to a guy. It was odd to think that the two of them, and others like Cadman or Hailey, might be among the last peacetime officers for a long time. What did that mean for the future of the service?"Part of me wonders if I made it worse just by being there. By being alive to take this job.""How's that?" Nate asked with a skeptical, filling their cups again. "If I weren't here, maybe someone else could have brought those men back.""We've all had our near misses. You can't think like that, blaming every little thing that goes wrong after one on some bit of cosmic fate.""Nothing cosmic about it," Evan said with a dark chuckle. "No blind luck, either. I died by the order of his celestial excellency Yu Huang Shangdi, and by his grace I lived again."He could see the moment the light went on in Nate's eyes. He wasn't old school SGC; there weren't that many of them around in Atlantis, really. But he was Gardner's friend and team leader, and he would have read up on all the essentials to get a handle on her."The sarcophagus?" Nate asked quietly. "My team was doing a survey of what turned out to be one of Yu's planets. A local turned us into the Jaffa. The first prime very politely told me he had orders to make examples out any Tau'ri trespassers, but he let me argue him down to just the senior officer." Evan shivered, remembering the flash and the sudden fall, and took a big gulp of his wine. "Yu also didn't want to mess up our cooperation against Ba'al, so Oshu had me revived. Let me off with a warning, so to speak." "And you think you should have stayed dead.""It's what most people do when they're executed.""So you think it's, what, a curse or something?""Yep.""The sarcophagus doesn't work like that. It's a purely bichemical -" Nate stopped, focused, and more carefully repeated, "biochemical process. There's nothing metaphysical about it. I am assured of this.""Of course there is. It uses some sort of mystical life-energy, just like the Wraith. If that exists, if minds can exist separate of the body, then luck could be a thing too. Fate. Karma.""Daniel Jackson," Nate said, as if the name alone was refutation."Daniel Jackson, even at his bitchiest moments, has always been the best of us. He could die a thousand more times and it wouldn't be a drop compared to the lives he's saved." Evan stared out to sea and finished his cup. "You know what the weirdest thing is? Right before Oshu fired, I thought, 'at least I broke up with my boyfriend'. He couldn't handle the absences and secrecy. I was glad he wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath."He could feel Nate studying him. "My first one in grad school got freaked out by the nightmares. The second thought I was cheating on him with at least one of my Marines."Evan refrained from asking about the current one. He wasn't sure there was one, after all, even if flying off on a rescue mission to another galaxy seemed awfully familiar and the city was singing hallelujah like it did every time it thought someone was trying to make babies."I could probably get morbid," Nate said after a while. "Start comparing mistakes and death tolls. I'm pretty sure that I have a lot more red in my balance book than you do. I also think that ends up with us both smashed off our asses and needing therapy. Kate will be disappointed in us.""What's your alternative?""The way I see it, four of the six people in that cave escaped, despite extremely dangerous circumstances, including both civilians. Maybe that's because you were there and not someone less experienced. Maybe Ronon Dex is alive and free because you were the first man on the spot.""You're really reaching there.""The point is that you've probably accomplished at least one or two good things since then, and you've got an entire life to do more. You can't focus on just what's gone wrong without accounting for what's gone right."Evan responded to that by refilling their cups again, putting them well past the halfway point of the bottle. He was starting to wonder if it was a lot stronger than it tasted, but it was too late to worry much about that. They might as well keep going and see what happened, in the interests of cross-cultural discovery."How long ago was it, anyways?" Nate asked. "Your injury?""About, what, six months now? Right before the Prometheus rescue mission. I was supposed to be on that but instead they had me on psych leave.""So you've gone on multiple missions with at least two teams, and this is the first time something bad has happened?" Nate asked. "Major Lorne, far be it for me to question the wisdom of a superior officer, but I'm doubting the statistical validity of your curse.""Statistical validity?" Evan repeated incredulously. "What, is the p-value of my missions not hitting the right percentage for you?"Nate suddenly was back to his usual boyish look, serious gone and sober even further way. "To be honest, no.""You're a Marine. You're not supposed to have opinions about probability.""The Air Force isn't supposed to be walking around in the dirt and mud, but there you are," Nate said, crossing his arms. "I've got two degrees.""Classics and security studies," Evan scoffed. "I'm not sure you even had to take rocks for jocks, let alone any real math classes.""Maybe if you'd taken a few classics courses you wouldn't be married to a lizard.""Who told you that?" Evan demanded. "Was it Grogan? That little fucker knows better.""It was Dr. Jackson.""Jackson - and any other member of SG-1, but especially Jackson - has no room to talk about unwanted offworld romance. Let me tell you about the time he fell for the Destroyer of Worlds." They spent a while trading stupid marine and airman stories. By the time they finished the bottle, the sun was under the horizon and neither of them were in any shape to be moving around. There was a sudden chill in the air, and moments later the door hissed open. A ginger, a Viking, and a towering behemoth with dreads entered into view, the first crossing her arms and sighing. "Are you two capable of standing?" Cadman asked."Teyla assured me," Nate said, "that this wine was only mildly intoxicating and suitable for light drinking by two men." He lifted the empty bottle and eyed it suspiciously. "She assured me of this.""One of these days, sir," Colbert said, "I'm going to teach you to be less credulous about what people tell you.""I'm very incredulous, Brad.""We're fine," Evan said. "Mostly."Cadman shook her head. "Ronon, you take the major. Gunny, you get Fick.""And you, ma'am?" Colbert asked while pulling Fick to his feet. Evan pushed himself up, almost fell over, and then found himself lifted over Ronon's shoulder like a sack of potatoes."I'm an officer, Brad. I'm here to supervise."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Walt was three weeks into a month's leave before he had to get out of Virginia. It was good to be home and see everyone, especially after that epidemic scare, but there came a point where the comfort of family and old friends he barely knew turned to claustrophobia. He made his excuses, flew back to Oceanside, and spent the remaining time luxuriating in having an empty apartment all to himself, without a marine or aunt in sight. No one else either. Walt still hadn't figured out how to handle the long-distance girl thing. He'd been hoping maybe something about the transition to sergeant would spark subtle intuition, let him see how men like Wynn and Espera managed it, but instead the only thing he learned was how many STDs and pregnancies a single squad of Marines could be responsible for. Attempts at dating while stateside never seemed to finding anyone worth the effort and risk, and in the workup to deployment he'd stopped trying. Better to be a little lonely than lonely, heartbroken, and bitter like Jacks and so many other divorced assholes.Or to leave a widow, like one of his guys. "Your lieutenant and I were impressed with your work this year. Battalion definitely noticed too," Captain Summers told him when he reported back in. "If it were up to me, we'd slap a rocker on you and give you a platoon, but you know how the Corps is with its schedules. Have you given any thought of what your next move is?""No, sir," Walt replied. "There's some junior instructor slots opening up at BRC. Spend a couple years there, and you'll be good for staff by the time you get back. Then you'd be looking at least another six months or more to work up with a new unit before you deploy again. Give you a little stability."Walt felt a strange unease. It seemed like a great idea, but there was still some small part of him saying to just stay where he was, even if it meant he'd be looking at a third deployment within a year. "That sounds nice, sir.""A better option might be OCS. We can get you in, no problem. You'd still have a few years in one place, and I think you'd make a good officer," Summers continued. "Or there's this other thing. Word came down from the Pentagon about some special ops program that's always sniffing around for recruits. It's some sort of joint operation based out of Colorado. Seems someone asked about you in particular. Any idea why?"Walt frowned. "I couldn't say, sir. I've never heard of anything like it.""Well, they're flying you out to interview. If nothing else, think of it as a chance to get a little more R&R. I hear the Garden of the Gods is beautiful this time of year."He was in Colorado Springs a few days later. He wished they'd sent him on a C-130 or something but instead they'd shipped him commercial, with all the awkward stares that went with travelling in uniform. A driver was waiting to haul him away, not to Peterson AFB but to Cheyenne Mountain. It was hard to imagine why; NORAD wasn't exactly full of marines, and supposedly they were planning to move it all out to the air base anyway.The escort got him as far as Sublevel 13, where an Air Force colonel was waiting for him at the security checkpoint and introduced himself as Cameron Mitchell. Walt was feeling a little overdressed; he was in his Class As and Mitchell was wandering around in plain blue utilities."Sorry about all the fuss," Mitchell drawled as Walt was x-rayed, wanded, and had a cold ultrasound thing jammed against his neck. "There was a little security whoopsie with a sister project and the guards are a bit uptight at the moment.""Sir?""Come on, sergeant," Mitchell said, waving for him to follow into a nearby elevator. "Flight go well?""Yes, sir.""Not very talkative, are you?""Sorry, sir. I'm just not sure why I'm here," Walt replied as they descended further and further underground. NORAD's main level was already under a mountain, why could they possibly need two dozen more floors below it? "Are you in charge of recruiting, sir?"Mitchell shrugged. "Lorne asked me to show you around. It's not like I have anything better to do today anyways." The elevator stopped to admit a huge black man. "Morning, T.""Good morning, Colonel Mitchell.""Hasser, this is Teal'c. Teal'c, Sergeant Hasser.""Sir." Walt had been around a lot of big guys, but this Teal'c was one who just filled the room far beyond his mere physical reach. He had to force himself not to stare as Teal'c little head tip made the light glint off the golden forehead tattoo. As a marine he was no stranger to tats, good, bad, or just plain stupid, but this was a new one even for him. Weren't the Air Force supposed to be the stodgy, conservative ones?"We're going to skip a lot of the introductory bits and go straight to the cool stuff," Mitchell said as they got off on Level 27. "Apparently some people think I'm not any good at giving the history speech.""It does leave something to be desired," Teal'c agreed. "Oh, come on. You do not get to have opinions on it. Your intro was probably Bra'tac throwing you head-first through the gate for some sort of ritual survival thing.""The first time I traveled through the chappa'ai, my mother was carrying me in her arms as we fled for our lives."Mitchell shook his head. "Well, sergeant, you can see why he doesn't do the speech either.""Yes, sir," Walt agreed. Teal'c's name didn't sound like one he recognized, but Africa was a diverse continent. If he was a refugee from one of the smaller ethnic groups it might explain the tat as well. "You do have a larger vocabulary than that, don't you?" Mitchell asked as they stepped into a conference room. There was a wide glass window that opened into a much larger room, dominated by a large metal ring. A few SFs in camo were standing around chatting, a couple manning fifty-cals aimed at the ring."Maybe, sir.""Now you're just fucking with me.""I couldn't comment, sir.""Marines. Can you believe this guy's a sergeant, T? I'm not sure he's old enough to drink.""I suspect he is much closer in age to you than you are to me, Colonel. Perhaps you should not hurl stones in glass homes."Mitchell released a long-suffering sigh and checked his watch. "Pay attention to the gate, sergeant. The magic's going happen right… about… now."He snapped his fingers. Nothing happened."I swear," Mitchell said. "Major Griff does this just to ruin my timing."Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "That seems unlikely. While there are certainly some officers who might do such a thing, I have found the major to a diligent and punctual man.""Should I take that personally? I feel like I should take that personally."A shudder ran through the floor as the ring began to spin and light up. "Offworld activation.""You did sign the NDA, right?" Mitchell asked. "Yes, sir, before they flew me," Walt started, only to stop as a flare of blue light filled the room. "Out?"Five men - no, three and two women - stepped out of the shimmering puddle inside the ring, which flashed out of existence a few seconds later. One waved up to Mitchell as they tramped down the ramp and out a side door, chatting as casually as if they'd just stepped off a plane. "Now I could give you a spiel about about serving your country," Mitchell said. "About the grandeur of space travel and the excitement of exploring strange new worlds. But I'd say that demo's worth a thousand words."Walt found himself grinning. "It's the fucking dragon all over again, isn't it?""Huh?""That's me asking where I need to sign, sir.""Thought so. Let's take this to my office. I should mention, the actual position's in another galaxy."Walt had absolutely no context for whether that was unusual or not, but it sounded pretty cool. They put him through several weeks of training while he waited for his ship to come in. Apparently the wormhole could let you step between planets but not ones as far as his destination. The physics was all a bit over his head, but he could handle the bits about shooting Jaffa and Wraith. Flying on a starship was a new experience. He'd never actually had to cram aboard an LHD before, but from what he'd heard this was much more comfortable. Score one for the Air Force, he supposed. Atlantis was a pretty neat, but it could use better signage. He almost got lost twice while trying to find his new supervisor, who was hanging out with a bunch of other brass watching some sort of death robot demonstration. He was a little embarrassed when he didn't immediately recognize the two men hanging around at the back. Maybe he just wasn't used to seeing them happy."Captain Fick! Brad! What are you doing here?" And what are you standing so close together for, when there's no longer nonstop noise to talk over and other forms of enforced closeness? Walt had his suspicions."Funny," Nate said while shaking his hand, "I was going to ask you the same thing.""Honestly, sir, I don't know. They said the posting was with a Marine unit, but the only people on the ship were the Air Force crew, some scientists, and a dozen Canadian sappers.""Oh, hey, my mail-order marine came in," another man said, who Walt thought was his new boss. He had a broad grin, quite different from the serious portrait Walt had seen in the unit's roster. "I figured the recon marine thing was working well for you, so I'd give it a try.""You have no one to blame but yourself," Brad told Nate. "You brag about us too much."Walt's heart gave a little flutter of pride at that, so he clamped down in it in favor of embarrassing them. "So have you guys seen the photos yet? Of little Bradley Nathaniel Trombley.""Oh, fuck," Nate said. Apparently they had not. The boy was an adorable little shit-making machine, Walt would give him that. It had to be thanks to Trombley's wife. Brad eyed Walt suspiciously. "Did Ray put you up to this?""No, I haven't actually talked with him in quite a while." Walt had been seriously disappointed about that. Even after Ray had gotten out he'd always been one of his best friends. "He said he got a nice job somewhere, but he's been super vague about it. He claims the NSA reads his email. You know if he's okay?""I don't think anyone would call him okay," Lorne said, nodding over toward the crowd. "But he seems happy."Walt followed the gesture and couldn't help but frown. He loved Ray like a brother, but he was a really stupid brother at times, bless his heart. Seeing him remote-controlling a robot with some sort of cannon attached wasn't something that filled him with optimism. "Captain, why does he have a robot with a gun, and who thought that was a good idea?"Nate tried to distract him with some moto bullshit, but from Brad's amused look it was definitely the captain's fault somehow. It was nice to see Ray again. He didn't shut up for about two hours straight, barely letting Walt get a word in edgewise, but it was nice. At least until he briefly flipped out about Walt going places with Major Lorne, because apparently he was the replacement for two guys who got eaten by space bugs. And maybe another guy who was eaten by space lizards? Also they were all burned to death, but actually kidnapped by fascist Amish? It was a little confusing even by Ray's standards."It's really not that bad," Lieutenant Cadman said a couple days later, while the team geared up for a routine follow-up mission. "Mostly we just go look at things for a few hours and then write up reports. Occasionally we have to rescue the colonel's team.""Occasionally," Lorne agreed, possibly sarcastically. "Your main role with the team is to be our tank," Cadman went on. "Specifically, the doc's tank. Keep an eye on him so he doesn't wander off, and if there's trouble your job to keep him safe.""There's a reason we leave him behind for those rescue missions," Lorne said. "Action Jackson, he is not. Maybe someday.""Okay," Walt said, looking across the room where McNeill was trying to help Parrish get his vest on straight, without a lot of luck. He could see why they only let him have a stunner. "What about the other doc?"Cadman shook her head. "He's fine. He gets super cranky if he thinks you're babysitting him. About a lot of things, really. "It felt a little weird, walking into the gate room with an Air Force officer, a female lieutenant, and two civilians. Riding around in a humvee with Reporter below him hadn't exactly prepared him for this level of strange, let alone the more normal typical nature of his other two deployments since then. Ray standing up on the balcony sending death glares down at the major just added to the surreal feeling."They really let him go to other planets?" Walt asked as the gate kawooshed. He waved to Ray. Ray waved back, then pointed at his eyes and down at the major. "Nate does, yes," Lorne said. "I'm not sure what his problem is. I taught him to fly, but apparently kids these days have no gratitude." He flipped Ray the bird and stepped into the puddle. Walt frowned at Ray, disappointed, and followed.
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Who, Nate? He's basically another Daniel, only instead of a geek turning into a soldier, he's a soldier turning into a geek. Oh, sorry, a Marine-with-a-capital-M. Look, JD feels no obligation to respect the Marine Corps' branding efforts. If you want to know more about what he thinks or feels, you're going to have to break out the mind probe. Good luck with that.No, seriously, go away.
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So the first thing that needs to be said is that Ray didn't intend to cyberstalk Nate and Brad. Let's get that out there to start, okay? It's just that Nate's disappearance is a little bit irksome and poorly timed. Ray hasn't been relying on him, exactly, he is a grown-up boy capable to taking care of himself even if his mom and gran seem afraid he's going to starve to death. That's not a problem, it's Kansas City, it literally has an entire food group named after it, god. But Ray can see the looming chasm that's after graduation and he was kind of counting on Nate's advice to help him jump over it without getting stuck as a nine-to-five desk drone until his brain melted into corporate slurry. The college thing is all his fault anyway. Well, no, even if mom thinks Nate is the sole reason he's the family's first college grad - sorry to steal your thunder, Sally Jane, but you could have done eighteen-credit semesters and summer school too - Ray did manage to get in on his own. But it's Nate who walked him through his career options, when by all rights he should have been focused on his own plans and not the former lead driver of his former platoon. And it was Nate who took an epic cross-country road trip with him their first full summer back to decompress, because they fucking needed it. Civilian life is fucked up and college even moreso. Getting that shit sorted with someone else who was going through the same thing and didn't mind if Ray very occasionally woke up inexplicably crying was a lifesaver. Anyways, the point is that Nate's supposed to be sitting around Maryland or northern Virginia at some think tank thinking about tanks. At worst he might be lured to State and venture overseas to unfuck Iraq out of some misplaced sense of guilt. Instead he calls up Ray one morning to say that he's going overseas with his fucking graduate advisor to work for some IGO that he conspicuously fails to name. He fucking apologizes for the inconvenience. Also he insults Ray's band, which is just mean. Ray can't be blamed for being a bit concerned, right? Elizabeth Weir's a big name in international arms control, but the Google suggests no one has a clue what she's been up to for a year. At the time Ray assumes it's the North Koreans. Maybe Iran, given that they're a little bit pissy about the entire Iraq thing. Just going off Nate's too-short description, it definitely involves the military and it definitely sounds a bit dangerous, though. And then Brad freaks the fuck out and decides to follow the LT down whatever rabbit hole he'd disappeared into. Yes, that's what it was, a freak out. How else can you describe dropping everything, a month before you're supposed to be heading back home anyway, and immediately signing up for some top secret bullshit? Brad barely made time to see his parents, let alone his darling Ray-Ray, before fucking off into the great unknown. Fucking frustrating is what it was. He didn't say he was running off to throw himself between Nate and the forces of evil, of course, but the timing was a bit suspicious. Apparently it's okay for Brad to worry the LT is dead in a ditch somewhere, but when Ray voiced concerns about Brad during his deployment it was reason for mockery and demands for more deer jerky, as if Ray didn't have anything better to do than shoot Bambi's entire extended family.The synchronized emails just proved Ray right. At that point comments Wynn and a couple other guys had made about Brad being pussy whipped start to go ping in Ray's mind.Let's be clear here, Ray always thought that Brad was completely straight. Maybe he'd jerk it with a buddy or got up to wacky military school antics or something, but if so it'd happened before Ray met the Iceman. Could be that those sergeant's stripes sucked all the fun out of him and replaced it with responsibility or some shit. God knows the LT was a lot less fun than Nate is. The latter can use those lips for something other than payment for batteries. That's beside the point, which is that - actually, Ray's not sure what the point is. Probably that Ray had spent a lot of time convincing himself that Brad was only interested in pussy and ignored some shit that didn't fit that worldview. Maybe that was for the best. Otherwise Ray might have let slip something embarrassingly personal and had to kill Reporter, assuming Trombley didn't murder them all first. The LT would have been super sad and disappointed either way, and that is the worst thing in the world. The absolute worst. Where was he? Right, emails, thanks doc.The emails come in like clockwork every Monday morning at 0900 Mountain Time. It doesn't matter how many they send or what service they use: they're pretty fastidious about sticking to their personal accounts, but Ray managed to get them both to reply with work email to a reminder about Walt's welcome home extravaganza. Brad may have his .mil address and Nate's at pegasusgroup.org - a site that wins an award for most frustratingly vague - but all four get batched on the same schedule. A bit of route checking also shows that they all originate out of a server at Peterson AFB, which isn't suspicious at all, especially when further study suggests there's a couple hundred other people using that same server for personal messages. Ray gets the feeling someone threw it together in a hurry and didn't expect anyone to do serious traffic analysis.It raises a lot of questions, doesn't it? It's not the fifties, where you have to rely on postcards to say hi to the family. The American military has spent a lot of time and money on building fancy satellite links to allow instant comms anywhere on the planet. Relaying a few hundred kilobytes of text shouldn't be a problem at even the most isolated base. Maybe no phones could be excused, but even that's dubious. Walt had been at a remote FOB consisting of ten guys and a depressed donkey and he'd usually been able to call home every week or two, even if he'd always wasted that on his mom. Speaking of moms, was it too much to expect that dearest Bradley and Nathaniel deal with their own, instead of leaving it to Ray? He has no idea why they expect him to know anything. He would have told them to bother Wynn, except Ray has bothered Wynn several times and he doesn't know jack shit. No one knows shit. There is a suspicious lack of shit. No one can blame Ray for being worried about that and starting to poke around looking for a septic tank or one of those vacuum-sealed hippy composting toilets.It's really for the best that Nate arrived before Ray could actually figure out how to hack to NORAD. So Nate shows up out of the fucking blue, and Ray knows an ambush when he sees one. The LT doesn't just drop in unannounced, because he was raised better than that. Ray was raised better than that, he just ignores that sometimes. Maybe he doesn't consciously realize that he's done it to throw Ray off-balance, but let's face it, that's pretty much Nate's style. One minute he's all weepy about bleeding children and the next he's quoting Shakespeare or saying, 'here's your LSA, Walt, I'll stand here and lick my lips while you thank me, nothing suspicious about that.' People call Ray a troll but Nate is king of the trolls and no one even seems to notice. It's bullshit.Seriously, folks, that boy may look innocent but it's all a big lie. Anyways, Nate's at his doorstep and then in his living room, like a physical manifestation of his gran's warnings about keeping the house straight because you never know when you'll have guests. Ray's left scrambling trying to clear out some space to sit and internally sobbing about the state of his pantry, and wondering how to ask if he should be putting clean sheets on the spare bed or if the one will suffice. Then shit starts glowing, and at first it's amusing because last time Ray was in Texas he got glitter-bombed and this seems like more of the same, but Nate's in LT mode and calling up some colonel. As an aside, while Ray gave up on God a long time ago, he's thinking maybe there's something to this Athar thing. It can't entirely be a coincidence that Nate visits at basically the one time he's got a reason to have Ancient tech with him, ready to go gaga over Ray's x-gene. Right?Ray would call what happens next 'getting abducted' except Hermiod gets pissy when you say that sort of thing, and Hermiod's got too much stress in his life already so Ray generally refrains from anything except the most necessary probing jokes. The point is the people from fucking Deep Space Radar Telemetry (TM) beam him into their secret underground lair. A lot of poking and prodding follows, because SG-1 are a bunch of freaks and every time something like this happens to them people start seeing things or turning into slime creatures, and this has made the SGC paranoid. SG-1 are also some of the most beautiful people Ray has ever met, which is presumably why everyone else puts up with them. Carter is particularly stunning, although Teal'c is in close behind in second place, and the fact that she's the same Dr. S. Carter who just published a paper on quantum cryptography is icing on the cake. Ray has no idea how any human can be so perfect. Even fucking Rudy isn't a special operator and a fighter pilot and an applied physicist all at the same time. Ray wants to have her babies, and not even in a sexual way.Mostly not in a sexual way.Nate gets the idea that he's going to leave Ray behind. Ray endeavors to disabuse him of this notion. He even, Christ help him, threatens to rejoin the Marine Corps. He means it, too; he'd shoot for OCS but being a sergeant at the SGC would be better than a civilian in Missouri. He's not stupid, all appearances to the contrary. He knows you don't stick your space door in an underground bunker surrounded by blast shields and hundreds of Marines and Air Force security forces if everything is safe on the other side. But it's the stars, right? When Ray was little and his dad still lived with them, sometimes he'd lay outside at night looking up at them and dreaming about being out there instead of down here. He's not going to let a chance to see them slip past his fingers.Nate takes Ray seriously when he explains himself. He always does. It's one of the reasons Ray loves him, and Brad too for that matter. Drill instructors, officers, professors, sometimes even his own mother: they generally settled on some level of bemusement at their pet idiot-savant and ignored him. He doesn't blame them, most of what he says is bullshit. Nate's willing to pay enough attention to filter out what's not. So he puts his trust in Ray, which he should but also really, really shouldn't, and finagles him into the program. Ray rewards that trust by putting a degree of effort and focus into preparing that he hadn't mustered since BRC. He reads every manual and training document the SGC has, and interviews Carter, Siler, and a half-dozen other technical experts to figure out what he might be able to offer. On the ship he attends every seminar and training session that's available, starts studying Ancient in his free time, and ingratiates himself with Hermiod to learn even more. Too many people have let Nate down. Ray isn't going to be one of them.If setting foot in the city of the Ancients didn't make it all worthwhile, seeing Brad again certainly did.And that, doc, is the story of how Ray came to Atlantis. You were here for the stuff that comes after but if you want Ray can repeat all that too. You understand this is just between us, right? Ray can't be held responsible for what he says while having a psychedelic reaction to alien goat milk. Hopefully it's clear he's under the influence, he doesn't usually refer to himself in the third person, he's not fucking Godfather. By the way, if Nate or Brad show up, you should gag him or knock him out with the hand thingy. There's a lot of shit he really doesn't want to spill to them.