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lit_galPairing: John/Rodney
Post-Trinity (Doranda)
Daniel asked Jack to get involved in the dogpile of blame that's landed on Rodney's head.
The Arrival
Jack watched Sheppard turn his back and walk away as soon as the meeting was over. This was worse than he thought. “Come on, Danny, let’s see if we can find some good fishing.”
“You didn’t bring your fishing gear,” Daniel said, but he stood up to follow.
“I’ll improvise.” Jack gave Weir a tight smile and headed out of the post-Doranda briefing. Weir was even angrier in person, and Jack definitely didn’t like the new dynamics he was seeing. McKay’s lips had a stubborn twist, but he wasn’t saying anything, except for one sarcastic outburst about how everything including global warming was all his fault. When Jack walked out, he noticed that the three leaders of Atlantis weren’t even looking at each other.
Jack nodded at Chuck who was manning the gate controls before heading to the transporters. He’d avoided Atlantis until now because he knew the allure of Ancient technology. It sang. Part of Jack wanted to sink into the nearest command chair and not come out again, but he had a job back on Earth.
Hell, he shouldn’t even be here. This was Sheppard’s watch, but clearly he wasn’t up to the job. The silence lasted until the transporter dropped them off in a deserted area.
“Jack, that wasn’t right,” Daniel said the second they stepped out into an empty corridor.
“And, but, so…” Jack let his voice trail off. It felt like old times, like they were teammates again, but that’s what team was. Team stuck together. They could be apart for years, and they still fell into old patterns and had each other’s backs. They stuck up for each other.
Daniel stepped in front of him and stopped. It had been a long time since Jack had gotten one of *those* looks. “I know you don’t like McKay—”
“No one likes McKay,” Jack snapped, and immediately he regretted it. A week ago, Weir and Sheppard had liked McKay. Daniel tolerated McKay. Carter had even admitted after too many beers and a really good steak that she respected his science, and he was right that she had disabled too many safety protocols on the DHD. But now the two people that McKay seemed to care about were acting like assholes.
“Jack,” Daniel said in that disappointed voice that shouldn’t bother Jack. He was a general, for Christ’s sake. McKay’s unhappy expression and Daniel’s disappointed face should not tie him into emotional knots.
“I know, Danny,” Jack said. He moved Daniel to the side and kept going down the hallway.
“This isn’t his fault. When I undug the Stargate on Abydos, I believed it was worth the risk, and like him, I was wrong, but would you really hold that against me?”
Jack considered making a joke about how he did hold it against Daniel, but even he knew that was over the line. “So talk to McKay. Tell him that story,” Jack said. He came to a glass door and he gave it a little mental push. The city opened it for him, and Jack stepped out onto a wide, sweeping balcony.
“I don’t think McKay is the problem. I’d talk to him, only he doesn’t actually care what I think.” Daniel moved to lean back against the rail, giving up the magnificent view of the snowflake shape of the city in favor of glaring at Jack. This was familiar.
“I know he doesn’t care about my opinion,” Jack said as he watched the ocean swells crash against the piers.
“No, but others do. Or bring Carter out here. He’d care about her opinion.”
“Yeah, and the second she tried to be nice, he’d assume she had reconsidered his offer to let her carry his children. The Air Force doesn’t actually allow that sort of sexual harassment.”
“No, they only allow more subtle and insidious forms,” Daniel sniped.
Jack gave him a long look. “Is this some problem I need to know about or are you just feeling the need to complain about the patriarchy again? Because you know, sometimes when you and Carter get going, it’s hard to tell which of you is the woman.”
Daniel aimed a punch at Jack shoulder. Jack made a production out of flinching and rubbing his arm in an effort to play it off as a joke, but Daniel was throwing a nastier punch these days. “You aren’t this stupid, so stop playing at it,” Daniel said without even a hint of humor.
Sighing, Jack looked out over the ocean. “I know. Danny, if I get involved, I could end up making it worse.”
“Worse? Did you see the way McKay was looking at Sheppard? I don’t think you could make this any worse.”
Jack thought about the way Sheppard had emotionally shut down. He wouldn’t even look at McKay, and if that emotional control shattered, Jack figured this could get a whole lot worse. Sheppard played it cool, but he had a hot core to him, and if it reached its melting point, Jack was going to have to take either Sheppard or McKay back to Earth with him.
Weir would not appreciate that. She’d probably accuse him of poaching.
Wait.
Jack smiled. “Danny, I have a job for you.”
“I don’t like that look. That’s the look you always get right before we end up in a prison cell.”
“Yeah, yeah, you miss it and you know it,” Jack said.
Daniel snorted, but he did have a fond expression.
“I’m going to work on Sheppard, but honestly this may blow up in our faces. If I poke him and he decides to have it out with McKay, it could turn even uglier.”
“Why? McKay made a mistake, but every scientist in the program has made a mistake or two. I’ve made a few!”
“Or a lot,” Jack corrected him.
Daniel glared at him. “Fine, I’ve made a lot, and so have you. Why do you keep acting like this is McKay’s fault?”
Daniel had his hands flying through the air, and Jack caught one and pulled Daniel closer. “I don’t blame him. He was trying to save his people, and sometimes that doesn’t work out the way you think. However, you’re the one who called me about this mess. You’re the one who asked me to deal with this, and I’m telling you right now that I’m not leaving McKay here to catch the brunt of everyone else’s bad temper.”
Daniel frowned. “You want to transfer him back to Earth?”
Jack sighed. “No, I don’t. He’s arrogant, and the people out here file fewer complaints about his attitude. I like that our general satisfaction survey numbers go up when he’s not on the planet, but did you see what happened when he walked in the mess this morning?”
“Yeah. They’re ostracizing him. No one was even looking at him,” Daniel said, and while that was a slight exaggeration, he was close to the mark. “Did you catch this morning’s menu?”
“Fruit salad, eggs benedict, and MREs.” Jack listed the options that had been set out. The chef said the fancy food was in honor of having a general on base, but Jack couldn’t help notice how much lemon and orange featured in the fresh options. Either it was the world’s biggest coincidence or someone was asking the cooks for a few favors. McKay had grabbed an MRE and left without a glance at the rest of his team sitting at a table ten feet away.
That Athosian woman had seemed ready to greet Rodney, but when he turned his back, she looked around curiously and had then fallen silent. She was probably confused about why people from Earth were so fucked up. Teal’c got that same expression sometimes.
“If I can’t get this to stop, I’m not leaving McKay here,” Jack said firmly. “He’s an ass, but he’s an ass who’s vital to home world security. So you need to prepare Weir for the possibility that she’s going to have to find a new head of science because I won’t let her break this one.” And if Jack knew his politicians, the second someone threatened one of her favorite chess pieces, she was going to act to shore up her defenses. McKay needed to feel a little defended right now, and if Weir didn’t even try and keep McKay, then this wasn’t a safe place for him.
Jack was already unhappy about what he’d heard through the grapevine when he’d had Walter talk to Chuck about the situation. No matter how angry Weir was, she should not have screamed at McKay in front of the whole city, not when it had ultimately been Caldwell’s decision to push the mission through. A slow smile formed on Jack’s face as he considered what would happen if she’d tried to dress down Caldwell in public that way. He would have put her in her place.
Maybe Caldwell would like a new chief engineer, and as a bonus, McKay could work on new ship designs. If he turned that mind of his to the Asgard/human hybrid ships, he could probably find a hundred ways to improve them, and they needed every edge in their fight against the Ori. Now that Jack thought about it, maybe this was the best thing that could have happened. Two weeks ago, Jack wouldn’t have been able to get McKay away from the Pegasus galaxy with a block of C4.
“I know that look.” Daniel poked him in the chest. “What are you thinking?”
“If Weir really doesn’t trust McKay, you know he can’t keep working here, but the 306 project needs some new talent, and if McKay were stationed as the chief engineer on one of the 304s, he would find personal satisfaction in finding every design flaw in Carter’s work. He’d be in heaven.”
Daniel took a step back. “You want him on Caldwell’s ship?”
Caldwell or Ellis, but Jack suspected that McKay would do better with Caldwell. They could shift a few people around. “Steven respects talent. Besides of all the reports that got filed on this mess, Steven’s the only one who pointed out that McKay was willing to act bravely and put his own life on the line in order to try and secure weapons that would help defend Earth.”
“That wasn’t exactly Sheppard’s description of the event.”
“No, it wasn’t. And if someone on Caldwell’s ship tried playing games with the food, that cook would find himself shoved in an EVA suit and pushed out an airlock with orders to scrub the outer hull.”
Daniel laughed. “Can I volunteer the Atlantis cooks for that duty?”
“Oh, I’m thinking about doing a few inspections of those kitchens while I’m here,” Jack promised. “So, go talk to Weir because if I talk to Sheppard and make things worse, I want us on the Daedalus before sunset. Got it?”
Daniel’s expression frightened Jack just a little—that was the expression that meant someone was about to be so very sorry. “Got it,” he agreed. Daniel turned and headed back toward the transporter. For a second, Jack stared out over the city. He knew Sheppard had gotten more than one rotten deal from the Air Force, and he respected the man’s commitment to his team. He wasn’t sure how to remind the headstrong idiot that McKay was a member of his team. Walking up and ordering him to get his head out of his ass might make Jack feel a whole lot better, but it probably wouldn’t solve anything. This was going to take a little manipulation.
Elizabeth Versus Daniel
Elizabeth was still sipping her tea when she spotted Daniel coming out of the transporter. For a moment she closed her eyes and wished him away. The city was unsettled enough in the aftermath of Rodney’s little disaster, so the arrival of General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson had not been welcome.
She quite resented the fact that Dr. Jackson had ignored every polite invitation to come help with translations, only to turn up when her senior staff was in chaos. And his appearance at O’Neill side had made quite the political statement. As a civilian, he should understand the difficulty of maintaining control in a largely military environment. She had expected to find some sympathy from that quarter. After all, Sheppard and Caldwell had sided with Rodney, encouraging him to take unjustified risks, which did not absolve him for his mistakes. He knew better.
Sheppard and Caldwell were infected with the same lust for weapons that marked so many of the military. She’d had a lifetime of negotiating treaties with men exactly like them, but she’d expected more of Rodney. He was too smart to fall for the sort of posturing that Sheppard occasionally engaged in.
Caldwell engaged in that behavior far more than occasionally.
Elizabeth closed the report she was reading. Radek might not like checking Rodney’s work, but Rodney had to understand there were consequences. He had stood against her and forced her to take a subservient position in front of Caldwell, betraying their friendship. She had to make him see that he could never do that again, and subtle never worked with Rodney. Blunt… that worked. However, Dr. Jackson had worked with Rodney in Antarctica, and she did not want to encourage him to take offense on Rodney’s behalf.
Especially since Rodney had no objections. He understood that he had violated a boundary.
Dr. Jackson stopped at her office door, and Elizabeth stood and straightened her uniform jacket. “Dr. Jackson, come in,” she said with a smile. Hopefully he was here without General O’Neill to offer a few more conciliatory comments.
“Dr. Weir. Beautiful city you have here. The use of script as decoration is designed to make an archeologist happy.”
“I’m glad you appreciate the city. I’m sorry you haven’t had a chance to come out before now,” she said. It was a small enough jab, especially since one of his attempts to visit the city had been interrupted by a kidnapping.
“There’s never enough time,” he said absent-mindedly, his gaze travelling over the wood masks she had hung on the wall.
“North African?” he asked.
She came out from behind her desk. “Yes, from a negotiation I helped handle in that area. The pair was a gift from one of the presidents involved.”
Jackson gave her an odd look, but then he nodded and all expression seemed to vanish except a brittle smile that didn’t fool her. She raised an eyebrow and waited for him to put his cards on the table. He clearly had an agenda, and she had no idea how she wanted to handle that until she saw exactly what he was aiming at.
“This situation with Rodney is messy.”
Elizabeth nodded. “You know how he was in Antarctica. Sometimes he gets something in his head and he refuses to listen to anyone else.”
“Like you?” Jackson asked.
“Yes.” Elizabeth refused to say more until she saw the direction Dr. Jackson planned to take this conversation.
“Did any of his staff speak against the project?” Jackson began to wander the officer, occasionally pushing at his glasses even though they didn’t appear in need of adjusting.
“As I said in the debriefing, Dr. Zelenka firmly believed that more people would die and Rodney refused to listen. Is there a reason why you needed that repeated?”
“So, just the one objection.” He turned and gave her a boyish smile and shrug. Clearly he was used to that working, but Elizabeth was not a novice to be taken in by a smile, and he was a little old to play that angle anymore. She crossed her arms and leaned back against her desk as she waited for him to get to the point. In a way, she almost enjoyed the verbal sparring. They’d had very little time to work together in Antarctica, but she had grown to appreciate his sharp mind. Finding herself at the opposite side of the metaphorical table from him was almost exciting. At least he would engage, unlike John who agreed to what she said and then did the exact opposite the moment the impulse struck.
“Do you want us to take Rodney back to Earth?” Jackson asked, and for a half second, Elizabeth felt almost woozy as the world tilted a few degrees on its axis.
“Excuse me?”
Jackson shrugged. “You’re angry, and every scientist knows that breakthroughs require risks, so if you don’t have the backing of your bosses, you’re pretty much done at a place.”
Ah. So that was the game. That slimy bastard O’Neill had sent his pet scientist to do a little poaching. “Rodney and I will get through this just fine. Besides, there is not another place in the universe that offers him the sort of research opportunities he has here on Atlantis.” And that was her ace. Dr. Jackson couldn’t hope to offer Rodney a better opportunity.
“Oh, I don’t know. The IOC has shown some interest in reopening P4X-639 for research.”
Elizabeth frowned as she tried to place the planet.
“The time loop device the Ancients tried to create,” Daniel offered. “If someone was going to take it apart and research how it was put together, Rodney would be my first choice.”
“You’re going to give him access to another failed Ancient experiment?” Elizabeth could hear her voice rise, and she deplored her own lack of emotional control, but this was absolutely ridiculous.
“You don’t think he’s safe around Ancient technology?” Jackson asked in such a mild voice that someone else might not see the trap, but Elizabeth did. He wanted her to say exactly that, and then O’Neill could sweep in and take Rodney away to “protect” Atlantis from him. Hell would freeze over before she would allow O’Neill to use this incident to further his own grudge against Rodney.
“Rodney is the best we have with Ancient technology and I trust him absolutely.” Elizabeth really wished her office door hadn’t been open for that. She could hardly keep Rodney’s ego sufficiently trimmed if he didn’t have a little fear of her, but if she had to give up on her plan to teach Rodney a little humility in order to protect his position on Atlantis, she would. “I question the wisdom of poking around in any experiment that the Ancients failed to complete. We are not technologically developed to the point that we can hope to make improvements on their work.”
“No, but if someone was going to take it apart in order to better understand Ancient understanding of the physics of time, that would be a Rodney sort of thing to do.”
“Unfortunately, he has an entire Ancient city to run, so the IOC will have to find someone else with the technical skills to disassemble the machine,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll be sure to tell them that next time I meet with them face to face.” She had too much international pull for O’Neill to even try this. The other countries were very happy to court her good graces in order to avoid any sort of American monopoly over the city. In particular, anything which made the Americans unhappy found political support from certain corners.
“And of course we could offer Rodney support staff that valued his life enough to avoid trying to kill him.” Daniel turned and gave her the sweetest smile she’d ever seen on the man. She really wanted to slap it off.
“Excuse me?”
“Breakfast did have an abundance of citrus options. I believe Rodney had to find an MRE.”
“He likes MREs.”
“And I’m sure he also likes it when the only freshly prepared food has the added benefit of being poisonous.”
That was rather overdramatic, but Elizabeth had to admit that Dr. Jackson had a point. “I’ll speak to the cooks.”
“You might want to speak to the rest of the city at the same time. You see, there’s a lack of anyone making eye contact with Rodney right now. I couldn’t help but notice.”
Elizabeth returned to her desk and sat down. “Several people were quite disappointed with Rodney’s choices in the past week or so. I’m sure they’ll forgive him eventually.” She continued to couch that in terms of people in general, but she knew they were talking about Colonel Sheppard. The man did hold a grudge, but then Rodney had nearly gotten the colonel blown up as well. She didn’t blame John for having some concerns about Rodney’s trustworthiness.
“No doubt their opinions were influenced by your rather vocal accusations.”
“And that is a matter between myself and Rodney,” Elizabeth said firmly. She also started mentally adjusting her schedule. Clearly she needed to heal a few of the rifts between herself and Rodney before Jackson got in there and tried to drive a wedge between them. She only wished she had some sort of magic wand to get John over his attitude. If John asked Rodney to stay, he would. Rodney would do anything for John, and John had so few interpersonal skills, she wasn’t even sure he understood that Rodney loved him. John’s anger was going to play a far more significant role in this game than her own.
But on the other hand, she could turn that love against Rodney. If she pointed out that leaving meant that John’s safety would be in the hands of whichever scientist was willing to go out on first contact missions, that might convince Rodney to stick around and protect the colonel, even if their friendship had suffered somewhat.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Elizabeth said, “I have some work that needs my attention.” And Rodney was now at the top of that list.
For a second Jackson simply stood next to her open office door, his hand on the edge of the opening. “I don’t think there’s any excuse, not for publicly dressing Rodney down because he sided with Colonel Caldwell over you, not for leading this city to turn against Rodney, not for the general mismanagement of someone who is, for all his faults, brilliant.” Dr. Jackson delivered that line in the same tone someone might use to list off the groceries. “And if things have not improved by the time the Daedalus leaves, Rodney will have a brilliant job offer somewhere else, with terms he can’t possibly turn down and the sort of autonomy that will look attractive after enduring the sort of bullshit he’s been wading through around here.”
Jackson turned and walked out before Elizabeth could even form a comeback. That man was utterly infuriating. And here Elizabeth had thought O’Neill was the threat. Well two could play this game. She wasn’t about to lie down and let the famous Dr. Daniel Jackson outplay her in her own city. She touched her radio. “Rodney, I was wondering if you could join me for a walk on the east pier. I’m heading that way now.”
Before Doranda, Rodney would have found a million reasons to avoid walking, but now he sounded entirely too eager to meet with her. She smiled. So now she only had to woo Rodney back to her side before Jackson could get close to him. She would be damned if she was going to let the SGC poach her people.
Jack Versus Sheppard
Jack tracked Sheppard down in the training gym, or whatever they called it around it. It had mats and sparring equipment, but Jack hadn’t seen a gym with stained glass windows before. Somewhere this city had an ugly corner, but Jack hadn’t found it yet.
Sheppard was sparring with the Athosian woman, and even though Jack hadn’t been on the sparring mats for a while, he could see that she was holding back. Jack leaned against the wall and watched as Sheppard’s attention was distracted for a half-second, and she was twisting and swinging those batons of hers, giving Sheppard an old fashioned paddling. Sheppard yelped and darted forward, away from her sticks. Yep, she definitely had a few moves that would make Teal’c sit up and take notice.
“One of these days, I’m going to get you back for that,” Sheppard warned with a laugh.
“I look forward to that day,” the Athosian woman assured him.
This was a John Sheppard that O’Neill could recognize from the man’s reports. The irreverence and the irrepressible spirit were unmistakable. The first time O’Neill had read the Atlantis reports, he’d suspected that Sheppard had ordered Ford to write his reports. The taciturn pilot who had ferried him to the Antarctic base and then almost refused to take the transfer didn’t seem like the same man who described his team with such enthusiasm or who had a subtle sarcasm that seemed to slip into every report. There was an optimism there too, one that seemed better suited to Ford than the man Major Sheppard seemed to be back on Earth.
O’Neill supported Weir’s requests to promote Sheppard, in part, because of those reports. Anyone who could be that sarcastic about nearly dying had something going for him.
And that’s what Jack saw now while Sheppard teased his teammate. So the real question was, who was the man who had sat in a meeting with McKay, watched his teammate get raked over the coals by Weir and did nothing but offer a few sticks of firewood?
“General!” Sheppard nearly went to attention in the middle of the mat when he spotted Jack, and the Athosian woman took the opportunity to give him another sharp smack across the ass. This time he just flinched. Idiot. Anyone who trained with an alien knew to look for that trick.
“Colonel.” Jack pushed away from the wall. “Nice place you have here.”
“Thank you, sir. General O’Neill, this is Teyla Emmagan. Teyla, this is General Jack O’Neill.”
Teyla. That’s right. Jack knew it was something that had reminded him of Teal’c, he just couldn’t remember what the name was, and he’d been too lazy to look it up. “General O’Neill,” she said with a smile that didn’t remind him of Teal’c at all. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Ms. Emmagan, I’ve enjoyed your reports,” Jack said. He offered her his hand, and she shook it graciously, although with just a slight tilt of the head that suggested she found the ritual amusing.
“I had wondered if anyone ever read those words.”
“Every single ‘indecorous,’” Jack assured her. She did like that word, but he couldn’t blame her, not when she seemed to be the only mature adult on the team.
Her eyes twinkled with humor as she tilted her head his direction.
Sheppard looked at her. “Indecorous?”
“If you wished to know what I put in reports, perhaps you should read them,” Teyla suggested.
Sheppard grimaced. He probably expected Jack to quote regulations at him, but Jack understood the need to be doing something rather than reading a report about a mission you’d been on. The only reports Jack ever read were Teal’c’s. His were short enough and had an interesting enough point of view to warrant the time. Daniel and Carter both liked words entirely too much for their own good. Besides, they knew he didn’t read them. If they had an interesting insight, they just told him. The very fact that Sheppard was that casual with his team did suggest he might be a decent man worth salvaging. And if not, O’Neill was taking McKay and then tanking Sheppard’s career so badly that not even Weir could save him.
“I hate to be rude, but do you think I could have a few minutes with my colonel?” Jack asked.
Teyla gave him a half-bow that made him feel really old and slightly uncomfortable. Bowing generally didn’t lead to good things in his experience. “Of course,” she said. She shifted her sticks so they were both in one hand. “Colonel, General, good day.”
“Thanks for the workout,” Sheppard said. The man looked painfully uncomfortable as Teyla headed toward the door. Jack walked over and sat on a bench, leaving Sheppard to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“So…” Jack let his word trail off, inviting Sheppard to get this ball rolling.
“Sir?” If anything, Sheppard looked more panicked. He could face down Wraith, but he panicked when Jack showed up. Heightmeyer really had her work cut out with this crew.
“I get it, ya know,” Jack started. “Geeks. Riding herd on them has some disadvantages.”
Sheppard’s gaze darted off. At least he wasn’t taking the opening as a sign to start spewing hate for McKay. Maybe there was some hope here.
Jack stretched his legs out in front of him and propped one ankle over the other. “I remember this one geek General West ordered me to take on a mission. The guy was unprepared and actually misrepresented his ability to work local technology. My whole team would have been trapped on an alien world forever if one of the locals hadn’t taken a liking to us. As it was, I lost some good men.” Ferretti had survived the mission, but too many others hadn’t.
Sheppard frowned. “The General made you take this guy?”
Jack nodded. “Called him the world’s greatest expert on the technology, although it turned out that he was damn near the only one who even knew how to turn it on, so that’s wasn’t a high hurdle to get over.”
Sheppard shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to deal with incompetence in the field.”
Jack stared at Sheppard for long enough that the tips of the man’s ears started to turn red. “I never said that Dr. McKay was incompetent. I only said he was reckless,” Sheppard hurried to add.
“Well he certainly doesn’t live up to the string of disasters I’ve been forced to endure. I had a geek refuse to abandon a collapsing building because he wanted to grab another page out of an Ancient library.”
Sheppard nodded. “I heard that story. But Daniel only put himself at risk.”
With a sigh, Jack started wondering if Sheppard’s official IQ might be a little overrated. The man wasn’t getting it. “Yeah, but I had plenty of other disasters. One of the geeks I was supposed to be protecting broke cover, got all of us captured, and then changed teams and nearly helped work the rest of us to death.”
“I hope they paid for that.”
Jack thought about Danny going through withdrawal as he sat on the floor of a storage room and clung to Jack. “He did,” Jack agreed. “Let’s see, what other stories from my glorious days at the SGC can I share? There was the time someone disabled the DHD protocols and we nearly sucked the planet into a black hole. That one was pretty close.”
“It gives me a few gray hairs to think about how many close calls Earth had when I didn’t even know we were at war,” Sheppard confessed.
“We had more than I care to remember. I had one scientist argue for taking in a refugee who turned out to be a replicator, and another actually helped a replicator overcome our only effective weapon… by accident.”
Sheppard flinched.
“Yeah,” Jack said, “that was bad. The fact that we nearly killed a bunch of IOC members didn’t really make up for the paperwork that time. I’m telling you, scientists can be a menace.”
“Yes, sir. I agree with that.” Sheppard finally sat down on the bench a few feet down. “It’s hard to deal with people who don’t respect the chain of command.”
“My favorite was a doctor who saw an alarm go off in the Stargate dialing program and overrode the safeties so we could go on a routine mission. The wormhole shifted the planet’s entire sun toward the infrared spectrum. We only met with one village, but there were hundreds of towns, and tens if not hundreds of thousands of people slowly being irradiated to death. The doctor talked us into trying to use some fancy element and jury-rigging the Stargate to use it as a transporter to drop the metal into the sun and save the world.”
Sheppard leaned forward, clearly interested in the story. “Did it work?”
Jack shook his head. “Nope, and the people refused to leave. They said their gods would protect them if they prayed hard enough.”
“Christ,” Sheppard whispered as he rubbed a hand over his pale face. It seemed that Jack had finally hit a nerve. “I hope you dropped him into a jail cell for that kind of incompetence.”
“Carter’s been dropped in as many jail cells as I have. It never works for long,” Jack said. He watched as that bit of information sank in.
Sheppard straightened up. “Colonel Carter?”
“Yep. P39-865.”
“They all died? The whole planet?” Sheppard’s voice was uneven, and his more negative emotions were finally starting to show through. It was about damn time.
“They would have only the Asgard stepped in and save our asses…. Or their asses actually. Our asses weren’t in real danger; we just lost about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the adventure.”
For a long time, the room was silent as Sheppard just stared at him. Clearly he needed to do a little mental readjusting. “Carter?”
What the hell sort of pedestal had Sheppard put their scientists on that he couldn’t even believe she would make a mistake? No wonder he was damn unforgiving of McKay.
“Do you ever listen to McKay?” Jack demanded. “Half the fights Carter and McKay get into are because he’s more cautious than she is. Hell yes she’s caused huge problems because she’s trying to fix even bigger ones. She takes risks because that’s her job. And my job is to cover her ass when she does it. But you…” Jack sat up and really focused on Sheppard. “You see more interested in trying to blame McKay for fucking up. Fucking up is a requirement for belonging to the human race, Sheppard. I’ve read your file. You’ve even done it once or twice yourself.”
Sheppard’s jaw was clenched tightly, and Jack waited to see if he’d lanced the boil or made the whole mess worse.
“He blew up 4/5ths of a solar system,” Sheppard said, his voice tense with anger.
“Boo fucking hoo,” Jack said. “Carter nearly became the biggest mass murderer in history. Both of them were doing their best to help us win wars, and sometimes the odds don’t go in our favor. I don’t turn against Carter or Daniel because they screw up. I’m wondering what sort of jackass you are for turning against McKay.”
Immediately, Sheppard shot to his feet. “Zelenka told him not to continue.”
“McKay and Lee and Rothman and Warner and a dozen others constantly tell Carter not to do something, and she takes the big risks.”
“And nearly cost thousands of people their lives!” Sheppard shouted back. Good. He needed to get this out.
Jack got to his feet. “And how many have you killed? How many have I killed? Were they all righteous kills? Are you sure that every time you called in a sniper location on your radio you aimed them at the right house, the one with the Taliban on the roof instead of the one with the family hiding in the basement?”
Sheppard was stiff with anger. “He promised.”
Jack threw his hands up in the air. “He’s a scientist. In the heat of the moment, they’re all idiots. Daniel would let the building fall down around him. Carter didn’t notice she was helping the replicators. They get caught up in their science.”
“Well he shouldn’t! He should have put me first!” Sheppard screamed the words and then immediately shut down.
Well this was interesting. That might not have been telling, and Jack really wasn’t asking, but it came damn close. Sheppard had his hands fisted at his sides and he was breathing hard.
Jack took several steps backward. “So you think Carter doesn’t love her country and her world? Because under your logic, if she gets caught up in her science and puts either of those at risk, that means she doesn’t love them. You know, I really hope you say that to her face because she will kick your ass Sheppard. You spend too much time flying and not enough learning how to fight dirty.”
Sheppard was nearly trembling with emotion.
“Every screwed up mission I just described comes down to two people—Carter and Daniel. And I don’t doubt for a second that both of them love me as much as I love them. We’re family. I’m the much older and more handsome brother, but nothing will ever change how we feel about each other, and that’s a pretty incredible thing because I’ve fucked up as many missions as they have, and my team forgave me every time. I ran an undercover op and put all of them in a situation where they didn’t know they were going on missions with a traitor, and they forgave me. Teal’c was brainwashed into trying to kill us, and we forgave him.”
Sheppard was at parade rest now, his eyes staring at nothing.
“Either work this out or send McKay back on the Daedalus where he can mourn the loss of this friendship of yours and move on. Don’t make him stay here, not when this place is killing him.”
That finally caused a flicker of interest. “What do you mean?”
Jack studied Sheppard. He was so damn young, and young love was a dangerous and illogical beast. If Jack were kind, he’d recall Sheppard and give him time to get his head together, but Jack wasn’t sure that Weir could hold the place together without Sheppard, and he knew someone like Caldwell would ride roughshod over the locals and piss them off. This was war, and Jack needed Sheppard in the field, even if he was a wounded man.
“Try talking to your team, Sheppard. If no one is talking, it’s amazing what goes on in the shadows.” Jack turned and walked out. If Sheppard had any honor, he’d track MaKay out and figure out what was really going on. It hadn’t taken Jack much investigating to figure it out. And if Sheppard couldn’t be bothered to take care of a team member in trouble, then Jack really would take McKay back to Earth with him.
And then he could regret that for the rest of his life, but it wasn’t like Jack didn’t already have a full plate of regrets. This would just be one more.
There's one more part -- John versus Rodney
http://lit-gal.livejournal.com/541501.html
Post-Trinity (Doranda)
Daniel asked Jack to get involved in the dogpile of blame that's landed on Rodney's head.
The Arrival
Jack watched Sheppard turn his back and walk away as soon as the meeting was over. This was worse than he thought. “Come on, Danny, let’s see if we can find some good fishing.”
“You didn’t bring your fishing gear,” Daniel said, but he stood up to follow.
“I’ll improvise.” Jack gave Weir a tight smile and headed out of the post-Doranda briefing. Weir was even angrier in person, and Jack definitely didn’t like the new dynamics he was seeing. McKay’s lips had a stubborn twist, but he wasn’t saying anything, except for one sarcastic outburst about how everything including global warming was all his fault. When Jack walked out, he noticed that the three leaders of Atlantis weren’t even looking at each other.
Jack nodded at Chuck who was manning the gate controls before heading to the transporters. He’d avoided Atlantis until now because he knew the allure of Ancient technology. It sang. Part of Jack wanted to sink into the nearest command chair and not come out again, but he had a job back on Earth.
Hell, he shouldn’t even be here. This was Sheppard’s watch, but clearly he wasn’t up to the job. The silence lasted until the transporter dropped them off in a deserted area.
“Jack, that wasn’t right,” Daniel said the second they stepped out into an empty corridor.
“And, but, so…” Jack let his voice trail off. It felt like old times, like they were teammates again, but that’s what team was. Team stuck together. They could be apart for years, and they still fell into old patterns and had each other’s backs. They stuck up for each other.
Daniel stepped in front of him and stopped. It had been a long time since Jack had gotten one of *those* looks. “I know you don’t like McKay—”
“No one likes McKay,” Jack snapped, and immediately he regretted it. A week ago, Weir and Sheppard had liked McKay. Daniel tolerated McKay. Carter had even admitted after too many beers and a really good steak that she respected his science, and he was right that she had disabled too many safety protocols on the DHD. But now the two people that McKay seemed to care about were acting like assholes.
“Jack,” Daniel said in that disappointed voice that shouldn’t bother Jack. He was a general, for Christ’s sake. McKay’s unhappy expression and Daniel’s disappointed face should not tie him into emotional knots.
“I know, Danny,” Jack said. He moved Daniel to the side and kept going down the hallway.
“This isn’t his fault. When I undug the Stargate on Abydos, I believed it was worth the risk, and like him, I was wrong, but would you really hold that against me?”
Jack considered making a joke about how he did hold it against Daniel, but even he knew that was over the line. “So talk to McKay. Tell him that story,” Jack said. He came to a glass door and he gave it a little mental push. The city opened it for him, and Jack stepped out onto a wide, sweeping balcony.
“I don’t think McKay is the problem. I’d talk to him, only he doesn’t actually care what I think.” Daniel moved to lean back against the rail, giving up the magnificent view of the snowflake shape of the city in favor of glaring at Jack. This was familiar.
“I know he doesn’t care about my opinion,” Jack said as he watched the ocean swells crash against the piers.
“No, but others do. Or bring Carter out here. He’d care about her opinion.”
“Yeah, and the second she tried to be nice, he’d assume she had reconsidered his offer to let her carry his children. The Air Force doesn’t actually allow that sort of sexual harassment.”
“No, they only allow more subtle and insidious forms,” Daniel sniped.
Jack gave him a long look. “Is this some problem I need to know about or are you just feeling the need to complain about the patriarchy again? Because you know, sometimes when you and Carter get going, it’s hard to tell which of you is the woman.”
Daniel aimed a punch at Jack shoulder. Jack made a production out of flinching and rubbing his arm in an effort to play it off as a joke, but Daniel was throwing a nastier punch these days. “You aren’t this stupid, so stop playing at it,” Daniel said without even a hint of humor.
Sighing, Jack looked out over the ocean. “I know. Danny, if I get involved, I could end up making it worse.”
“Worse? Did you see the way McKay was looking at Sheppard? I don’t think you could make this any worse.”
Jack thought about the way Sheppard had emotionally shut down. He wouldn’t even look at McKay, and if that emotional control shattered, Jack figured this could get a whole lot worse. Sheppard played it cool, but he had a hot core to him, and if it reached its melting point, Jack was going to have to take either Sheppard or McKay back to Earth with him.
Weir would not appreciate that. She’d probably accuse him of poaching.
Wait.
Jack smiled. “Danny, I have a job for you.”
“I don’t like that look. That’s the look you always get right before we end up in a prison cell.”
“Yeah, yeah, you miss it and you know it,” Jack said.
Daniel snorted, but he did have a fond expression.
“I’m going to work on Sheppard, but honestly this may blow up in our faces. If I poke him and he decides to have it out with McKay, it could turn even uglier.”
“Why? McKay made a mistake, but every scientist in the program has made a mistake or two. I’ve made a few!”
“Or a lot,” Jack corrected him.
Daniel glared at him. “Fine, I’ve made a lot, and so have you. Why do you keep acting like this is McKay’s fault?”
Daniel had his hands flying through the air, and Jack caught one and pulled Daniel closer. “I don’t blame him. He was trying to save his people, and sometimes that doesn’t work out the way you think. However, you’re the one who called me about this mess. You’re the one who asked me to deal with this, and I’m telling you right now that I’m not leaving McKay here to catch the brunt of everyone else’s bad temper.”
Daniel frowned. “You want to transfer him back to Earth?”
Jack sighed. “No, I don’t. He’s arrogant, and the people out here file fewer complaints about his attitude. I like that our general satisfaction survey numbers go up when he’s not on the planet, but did you see what happened when he walked in the mess this morning?”
“Yeah. They’re ostracizing him. No one was even looking at him,” Daniel said, and while that was a slight exaggeration, he was close to the mark. “Did you catch this morning’s menu?”
“Fruit salad, eggs benedict, and MREs.” Jack listed the options that had been set out. The chef said the fancy food was in honor of having a general on base, but Jack couldn’t help notice how much lemon and orange featured in the fresh options. Either it was the world’s biggest coincidence or someone was asking the cooks for a few favors. McKay had grabbed an MRE and left without a glance at the rest of his team sitting at a table ten feet away.
That Athosian woman had seemed ready to greet Rodney, but when he turned his back, she looked around curiously and had then fallen silent. She was probably confused about why people from Earth were so fucked up. Teal’c got that same expression sometimes.
“If I can’t get this to stop, I’m not leaving McKay here,” Jack said firmly. “He’s an ass, but he’s an ass who’s vital to home world security. So you need to prepare Weir for the possibility that she’s going to have to find a new head of science because I won’t let her break this one.” And if Jack knew his politicians, the second someone threatened one of her favorite chess pieces, she was going to act to shore up her defenses. McKay needed to feel a little defended right now, and if Weir didn’t even try and keep McKay, then this wasn’t a safe place for him.
Jack was already unhappy about what he’d heard through the grapevine when he’d had Walter talk to Chuck about the situation. No matter how angry Weir was, she should not have screamed at McKay in front of the whole city, not when it had ultimately been Caldwell’s decision to push the mission through. A slow smile formed on Jack’s face as he considered what would happen if she’d tried to dress down Caldwell in public that way. He would have put her in her place.
Maybe Caldwell would like a new chief engineer, and as a bonus, McKay could work on new ship designs. If he turned that mind of his to the Asgard/human hybrid ships, he could probably find a hundred ways to improve them, and they needed every edge in their fight against the Ori. Now that Jack thought about it, maybe this was the best thing that could have happened. Two weeks ago, Jack wouldn’t have been able to get McKay away from the Pegasus galaxy with a block of C4.
“I know that look.” Daniel poked him in the chest. “What are you thinking?”
“If Weir really doesn’t trust McKay, you know he can’t keep working here, but the 306 project needs some new talent, and if McKay were stationed as the chief engineer on one of the 304s, he would find personal satisfaction in finding every design flaw in Carter’s work. He’d be in heaven.”
Daniel took a step back. “You want him on Caldwell’s ship?”
Caldwell or Ellis, but Jack suspected that McKay would do better with Caldwell. They could shift a few people around. “Steven respects talent. Besides of all the reports that got filed on this mess, Steven’s the only one who pointed out that McKay was willing to act bravely and put his own life on the line in order to try and secure weapons that would help defend Earth.”
“That wasn’t exactly Sheppard’s description of the event.”
“No, it wasn’t. And if someone on Caldwell’s ship tried playing games with the food, that cook would find himself shoved in an EVA suit and pushed out an airlock with orders to scrub the outer hull.”
Daniel laughed. “Can I volunteer the Atlantis cooks for that duty?”
“Oh, I’m thinking about doing a few inspections of those kitchens while I’m here,” Jack promised. “So, go talk to Weir because if I talk to Sheppard and make things worse, I want us on the Daedalus before sunset. Got it?”
Daniel’s expression frightened Jack just a little—that was the expression that meant someone was about to be so very sorry. “Got it,” he agreed. Daniel turned and headed back toward the transporter. For a second, Jack stared out over the city. He knew Sheppard had gotten more than one rotten deal from the Air Force, and he respected the man’s commitment to his team. He wasn’t sure how to remind the headstrong idiot that McKay was a member of his team. Walking up and ordering him to get his head out of his ass might make Jack feel a whole lot better, but it probably wouldn’t solve anything. This was going to take a little manipulation.
Elizabeth Versus Daniel
Elizabeth was still sipping her tea when she spotted Daniel coming out of the transporter. For a moment she closed her eyes and wished him away. The city was unsettled enough in the aftermath of Rodney’s little disaster, so the arrival of General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson had not been welcome.
She quite resented the fact that Dr. Jackson had ignored every polite invitation to come help with translations, only to turn up when her senior staff was in chaos. And his appearance at O’Neill side had made quite the political statement. As a civilian, he should understand the difficulty of maintaining control in a largely military environment. She had expected to find some sympathy from that quarter. After all, Sheppard and Caldwell had sided with Rodney, encouraging him to take unjustified risks, which did not absolve him for his mistakes. He knew better.
Sheppard and Caldwell were infected with the same lust for weapons that marked so many of the military. She’d had a lifetime of negotiating treaties with men exactly like them, but she’d expected more of Rodney. He was too smart to fall for the sort of posturing that Sheppard occasionally engaged in.
Caldwell engaged in that behavior far more than occasionally.
Elizabeth closed the report she was reading. Radek might not like checking Rodney’s work, but Rodney had to understand there were consequences. He had stood against her and forced her to take a subservient position in front of Caldwell, betraying their friendship. She had to make him see that he could never do that again, and subtle never worked with Rodney. Blunt… that worked. However, Dr. Jackson had worked with Rodney in Antarctica, and she did not want to encourage him to take offense on Rodney’s behalf.
Especially since Rodney had no objections. He understood that he had violated a boundary.
Dr. Jackson stopped at her office door, and Elizabeth stood and straightened her uniform jacket. “Dr. Jackson, come in,” she said with a smile. Hopefully he was here without General O’Neill to offer a few more conciliatory comments.
“Dr. Weir. Beautiful city you have here. The use of script as decoration is designed to make an archeologist happy.”
“I’m glad you appreciate the city. I’m sorry you haven’t had a chance to come out before now,” she said. It was a small enough jab, especially since one of his attempts to visit the city had been interrupted by a kidnapping.
“There’s never enough time,” he said absent-mindedly, his gaze travelling over the wood masks she had hung on the wall.
“North African?” he asked.
She came out from behind her desk. “Yes, from a negotiation I helped handle in that area. The pair was a gift from one of the presidents involved.”
Jackson gave her an odd look, but then he nodded and all expression seemed to vanish except a brittle smile that didn’t fool her. She raised an eyebrow and waited for him to put his cards on the table. He clearly had an agenda, and she had no idea how she wanted to handle that until she saw exactly what he was aiming at.
“This situation with Rodney is messy.”
Elizabeth nodded. “You know how he was in Antarctica. Sometimes he gets something in his head and he refuses to listen to anyone else.”
“Like you?” Jackson asked.
“Yes.” Elizabeth refused to say more until she saw the direction Dr. Jackson planned to take this conversation.
“Did any of his staff speak against the project?” Jackson began to wander the officer, occasionally pushing at his glasses even though they didn’t appear in need of adjusting.
“As I said in the debriefing, Dr. Zelenka firmly believed that more people would die and Rodney refused to listen. Is there a reason why you needed that repeated?”
“So, just the one objection.” He turned and gave her a boyish smile and shrug. Clearly he was used to that working, but Elizabeth was not a novice to be taken in by a smile, and he was a little old to play that angle anymore. She crossed her arms and leaned back against her desk as she waited for him to get to the point. In a way, she almost enjoyed the verbal sparring. They’d had very little time to work together in Antarctica, but she had grown to appreciate his sharp mind. Finding herself at the opposite side of the metaphorical table from him was almost exciting. At least he would engage, unlike John who agreed to what she said and then did the exact opposite the moment the impulse struck.
“Do you want us to take Rodney back to Earth?” Jackson asked, and for a half second, Elizabeth felt almost woozy as the world tilted a few degrees on its axis.
“Excuse me?”
Jackson shrugged. “You’re angry, and every scientist knows that breakthroughs require risks, so if you don’t have the backing of your bosses, you’re pretty much done at a place.”
Ah. So that was the game. That slimy bastard O’Neill had sent his pet scientist to do a little poaching. “Rodney and I will get through this just fine. Besides, there is not another place in the universe that offers him the sort of research opportunities he has here on Atlantis.” And that was her ace. Dr. Jackson couldn’t hope to offer Rodney a better opportunity.
“Oh, I don’t know. The IOC has shown some interest in reopening P4X-639 for research.”
Elizabeth frowned as she tried to place the planet.
“The time loop device the Ancients tried to create,” Daniel offered. “If someone was going to take it apart and research how it was put together, Rodney would be my first choice.”
“You’re going to give him access to another failed Ancient experiment?” Elizabeth could hear her voice rise, and she deplored her own lack of emotional control, but this was absolutely ridiculous.
“You don’t think he’s safe around Ancient technology?” Jackson asked in such a mild voice that someone else might not see the trap, but Elizabeth did. He wanted her to say exactly that, and then O’Neill could sweep in and take Rodney away to “protect” Atlantis from him. Hell would freeze over before she would allow O’Neill to use this incident to further his own grudge against Rodney.
“Rodney is the best we have with Ancient technology and I trust him absolutely.” Elizabeth really wished her office door hadn’t been open for that. She could hardly keep Rodney’s ego sufficiently trimmed if he didn’t have a little fear of her, but if she had to give up on her plan to teach Rodney a little humility in order to protect his position on Atlantis, she would. “I question the wisdom of poking around in any experiment that the Ancients failed to complete. We are not technologically developed to the point that we can hope to make improvements on their work.”
“No, but if someone was going to take it apart in order to better understand Ancient understanding of the physics of time, that would be a Rodney sort of thing to do.”
“Unfortunately, he has an entire Ancient city to run, so the IOC will have to find someone else with the technical skills to disassemble the machine,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll be sure to tell them that next time I meet with them face to face.” She had too much international pull for O’Neill to even try this. The other countries were very happy to court her good graces in order to avoid any sort of American monopoly over the city. In particular, anything which made the Americans unhappy found political support from certain corners.
“And of course we could offer Rodney support staff that valued his life enough to avoid trying to kill him.” Daniel turned and gave her the sweetest smile she’d ever seen on the man. She really wanted to slap it off.
“Excuse me?”
“Breakfast did have an abundance of citrus options. I believe Rodney had to find an MRE.”
“He likes MREs.”
“And I’m sure he also likes it when the only freshly prepared food has the added benefit of being poisonous.”
That was rather overdramatic, but Elizabeth had to admit that Dr. Jackson had a point. “I’ll speak to the cooks.”
“You might want to speak to the rest of the city at the same time. You see, there’s a lack of anyone making eye contact with Rodney right now. I couldn’t help but notice.”
Elizabeth returned to her desk and sat down. “Several people were quite disappointed with Rodney’s choices in the past week or so. I’m sure they’ll forgive him eventually.” She continued to couch that in terms of people in general, but she knew they were talking about Colonel Sheppard. The man did hold a grudge, but then Rodney had nearly gotten the colonel blown up as well. She didn’t blame John for having some concerns about Rodney’s trustworthiness.
“No doubt their opinions were influenced by your rather vocal accusations.”
“And that is a matter between myself and Rodney,” Elizabeth said firmly. She also started mentally adjusting her schedule. Clearly she needed to heal a few of the rifts between herself and Rodney before Jackson got in there and tried to drive a wedge between them. She only wished she had some sort of magic wand to get John over his attitude. If John asked Rodney to stay, he would. Rodney would do anything for John, and John had so few interpersonal skills, she wasn’t even sure he understood that Rodney loved him. John’s anger was going to play a far more significant role in this game than her own.
But on the other hand, she could turn that love against Rodney. If she pointed out that leaving meant that John’s safety would be in the hands of whichever scientist was willing to go out on first contact missions, that might convince Rodney to stick around and protect the colonel, even if their friendship had suffered somewhat.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Elizabeth said, “I have some work that needs my attention.” And Rodney was now at the top of that list.
For a second Jackson simply stood next to her open office door, his hand on the edge of the opening. “I don’t think there’s any excuse, not for publicly dressing Rodney down because he sided with Colonel Caldwell over you, not for leading this city to turn against Rodney, not for the general mismanagement of someone who is, for all his faults, brilliant.” Dr. Jackson delivered that line in the same tone someone might use to list off the groceries. “And if things have not improved by the time the Daedalus leaves, Rodney will have a brilliant job offer somewhere else, with terms he can’t possibly turn down and the sort of autonomy that will look attractive after enduring the sort of bullshit he’s been wading through around here.”
Jackson turned and walked out before Elizabeth could even form a comeback. That man was utterly infuriating. And here Elizabeth had thought O’Neill was the threat. Well two could play this game. She wasn’t about to lie down and let the famous Dr. Daniel Jackson outplay her in her own city. She touched her radio. “Rodney, I was wondering if you could join me for a walk on the east pier. I’m heading that way now.”
Before Doranda, Rodney would have found a million reasons to avoid walking, but now he sounded entirely too eager to meet with her. She smiled. So now she only had to woo Rodney back to her side before Jackson could get close to him. She would be damned if she was going to let the SGC poach her people.
Jack Versus Sheppard
Jack tracked Sheppard down in the training gym, or whatever they called it around it. It had mats and sparring equipment, but Jack hadn’t seen a gym with stained glass windows before. Somewhere this city had an ugly corner, but Jack hadn’t found it yet.
Sheppard was sparring with the Athosian woman, and even though Jack hadn’t been on the sparring mats for a while, he could see that she was holding back. Jack leaned against the wall and watched as Sheppard’s attention was distracted for a half-second, and she was twisting and swinging those batons of hers, giving Sheppard an old fashioned paddling. Sheppard yelped and darted forward, away from her sticks. Yep, she definitely had a few moves that would make Teal’c sit up and take notice.
“One of these days, I’m going to get you back for that,” Sheppard warned with a laugh.
“I look forward to that day,” the Athosian woman assured him.
This was a John Sheppard that O’Neill could recognize from the man’s reports. The irreverence and the irrepressible spirit were unmistakable. The first time O’Neill had read the Atlantis reports, he’d suspected that Sheppard had ordered Ford to write his reports. The taciturn pilot who had ferried him to the Antarctic base and then almost refused to take the transfer didn’t seem like the same man who described his team with such enthusiasm or who had a subtle sarcasm that seemed to slip into every report. There was an optimism there too, one that seemed better suited to Ford than the man Major Sheppard seemed to be back on Earth.
O’Neill supported Weir’s requests to promote Sheppard, in part, because of those reports. Anyone who could be that sarcastic about nearly dying had something going for him.
And that’s what Jack saw now while Sheppard teased his teammate. So the real question was, who was the man who had sat in a meeting with McKay, watched his teammate get raked over the coals by Weir and did nothing but offer a few sticks of firewood?
“General!” Sheppard nearly went to attention in the middle of the mat when he spotted Jack, and the Athosian woman took the opportunity to give him another sharp smack across the ass. This time he just flinched. Idiot. Anyone who trained with an alien knew to look for that trick.
“Colonel.” Jack pushed away from the wall. “Nice place you have here.”
“Thank you, sir. General O’Neill, this is Teyla Emmagan. Teyla, this is General Jack O’Neill.”
Teyla. That’s right. Jack knew it was something that had reminded him of Teal’c, he just couldn’t remember what the name was, and he’d been too lazy to look it up. “General O’Neill,” she said with a smile that didn’t remind him of Teal’c at all. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Ms. Emmagan, I’ve enjoyed your reports,” Jack said. He offered her his hand, and she shook it graciously, although with just a slight tilt of the head that suggested she found the ritual amusing.
“I had wondered if anyone ever read those words.”
“Every single ‘indecorous,’” Jack assured her. She did like that word, but he couldn’t blame her, not when she seemed to be the only mature adult on the team.
Her eyes twinkled with humor as she tilted her head his direction.
Sheppard looked at her. “Indecorous?”
“If you wished to know what I put in reports, perhaps you should read them,” Teyla suggested.
Sheppard grimaced. He probably expected Jack to quote regulations at him, but Jack understood the need to be doing something rather than reading a report about a mission you’d been on. The only reports Jack ever read were Teal’c’s. His were short enough and had an interesting enough point of view to warrant the time. Daniel and Carter both liked words entirely too much for their own good. Besides, they knew he didn’t read them. If they had an interesting insight, they just told him. The very fact that Sheppard was that casual with his team did suggest he might be a decent man worth salvaging. And if not, O’Neill was taking McKay and then tanking Sheppard’s career so badly that not even Weir could save him.
“I hate to be rude, but do you think I could have a few minutes with my colonel?” Jack asked.
Teyla gave him a half-bow that made him feel really old and slightly uncomfortable. Bowing generally didn’t lead to good things in his experience. “Of course,” she said. She shifted her sticks so they were both in one hand. “Colonel, General, good day.”
“Thanks for the workout,” Sheppard said. The man looked painfully uncomfortable as Teyla headed toward the door. Jack walked over and sat on a bench, leaving Sheppard to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“So…” Jack let his word trail off, inviting Sheppard to get this ball rolling.
“Sir?” If anything, Sheppard looked more panicked. He could face down Wraith, but he panicked when Jack showed up. Heightmeyer really had her work cut out with this crew.
“I get it, ya know,” Jack started. “Geeks. Riding herd on them has some disadvantages.”
Sheppard’s gaze darted off. At least he wasn’t taking the opening as a sign to start spewing hate for McKay. Maybe there was some hope here.
Jack stretched his legs out in front of him and propped one ankle over the other. “I remember this one geek General West ordered me to take on a mission. The guy was unprepared and actually misrepresented his ability to work local technology. My whole team would have been trapped on an alien world forever if one of the locals hadn’t taken a liking to us. As it was, I lost some good men.” Ferretti had survived the mission, but too many others hadn’t.
Sheppard frowned. “The General made you take this guy?”
Jack nodded. “Called him the world’s greatest expert on the technology, although it turned out that he was damn near the only one who even knew how to turn it on, so that’s wasn’t a high hurdle to get over.”
Sheppard shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to deal with incompetence in the field.”
Jack stared at Sheppard for long enough that the tips of the man’s ears started to turn red. “I never said that Dr. McKay was incompetent. I only said he was reckless,” Sheppard hurried to add.
“Well he certainly doesn’t live up to the string of disasters I’ve been forced to endure. I had a geek refuse to abandon a collapsing building because he wanted to grab another page out of an Ancient library.”
Sheppard nodded. “I heard that story. But Daniel only put himself at risk.”
With a sigh, Jack started wondering if Sheppard’s official IQ might be a little overrated. The man wasn’t getting it. “Yeah, but I had plenty of other disasters. One of the geeks I was supposed to be protecting broke cover, got all of us captured, and then changed teams and nearly helped work the rest of us to death.”
“I hope they paid for that.”
Jack thought about Danny going through withdrawal as he sat on the floor of a storage room and clung to Jack. “He did,” Jack agreed. “Let’s see, what other stories from my glorious days at the SGC can I share? There was the time someone disabled the DHD protocols and we nearly sucked the planet into a black hole. That one was pretty close.”
“It gives me a few gray hairs to think about how many close calls Earth had when I didn’t even know we were at war,” Sheppard confessed.
“We had more than I care to remember. I had one scientist argue for taking in a refugee who turned out to be a replicator, and another actually helped a replicator overcome our only effective weapon… by accident.”
Sheppard flinched.
“Yeah,” Jack said, “that was bad. The fact that we nearly killed a bunch of IOC members didn’t really make up for the paperwork that time. I’m telling you, scientists can be a menace.”
“Yes, sir. I agree with that.” Sheppard finally sat down on the bench a few feet down. “It’s hard to deal with people who don’t respect the chain of command.”
“My favorite was a doctor who saw an alarm go off in the Stargate dialing program and overrode the safeties so we could go on a routine mission. The wormhole shifted the planet’s entire sun toward the infrared spectrum. We only met with one village, but there were hundreds of towns, and tens if not hundreds of thousands of people slowly being irradiated to death. The doctor talked us into trying to use some fancy element and jury-rigging the Stargate to use it as a transporter to drop the metal into the sun and save the world.”
Sheppard leaned forward, clearly interested in the story. “Did it work?”
Jack shook his head. “Nope, and the people refused to leave. They said their gods would protect them if they prayed hard enough.”
“Christ,” Sheppard whispered as he rubbed a hand over his pale face. It seemed that Jack had finally hit a nerve. “I hope you dropped him into a jail cell for that kind of incompetence.”
“Carter’s been dropped in as many jail cells as I have. It never works for long,” Jack said. He watched as that bit of information sank in.
Sheppard straightened up. “Colonel Carter?”
“Yep. P39-865.”
“They all died? The whole planet?” Sheppard’s voice was uneven, and his more negative emotions were finally starting to show through. It was about damn time.
“They would have only the Asgard stepped in and save our asses…. Or their asses actually. Our asses weren’t in real danger; we just lost about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the adventure.”
For a long time, the room was silent as Sheppard just stared at him. Clearly he needed to do a little mental readjusting. “Carter?”
What the hell sort of pedestal had Sheppard put their scientists on that he couldn’t even believe she would make a mistake? No wonder he was damn unforgiving of McKay.
“Do you ever listen to McKay?” Jack demanded. “Half the fights Carter and McKay get into are because he’s more cautious than she is. Hell yes she’s caused huge problems because she’s trying to fix even bigger ones. She takes risks because that’s her job. And my job is to cover her ass when she does it. But you…” Jack sat up and really focused on Sheppard. “You see more interested in trying to blame McKay for fucking up. Fucking up is a requirement for belonging to the human race, Sheppard. I’ve read your file. You’ve even done it once or twice yourself.”
Sheppard’s jaw was clenched tightly, and Jack waited to see if he’d lanced the boil or made the whole mess worse.
“He blew up 4/5ths of a solar system,” Sheppard said, his voice tense with anger.
“Boo fucking hoo,” Jack said. “Carter nearly became the biggest mass murderer in history. Both of them were doing their best to help us win wars, and sometimes the odds don’t go in our favor. I don’t turn against Carter or Daniel because they screw up. I’m wondering what sort of jackass you are for turning against McKay.”
Immediately, Sheppard shot to his feet. “Zelenka told him not to continue.”
“McKay and Lee and Rothman and Warner and a dozen others constantly tell Carter not to do something, and she takes the big risks.”
“And nearly cost thousands of people their lives!” Sheppard shouted back. Good. He needed to get this out.
Jack got to his feet. “And how many have you killed? How many have I killed? Were they all righteous kills? Are you sure that every time you called in a sniper location on your radio you aimed them at the right house, the one with the Taliban on the roof instead of the one with the family hiding in the basement?”
Sheppard was stiff with anger. “He promised.”
Jack threw his hands up in the air. “He’s a scientist. In the heat of the moment, they’re all idiots. Daniel would let the building fall down around him. Carter didn’t notice she was helping the replicators. They get caught up in their science.”
“Well he shouldn’t! He should have put me first!” Sheppard screamed the words and then immediately shut down.
Well this was interesting. That might not have been telling, and Jack really wasn’t asking, but it came damn close. Sheppard had his hands fisted at his sides and he was breathing hard.
Jack took several steps backward. “So you think Carter doesn’t love her country and her world? Because under your logic, if she gets caught up in her science and puts either of those at risk, that means she doesn’t love them. You know, I really hope you say that to her face because she will kick your ass Sheppard. You spend too much time flying and not enough learning how to fight dirty.”
Sheppard was nearly trembling with emotion.
“Every screwed up mission I just described comes down to two people—Carter and Daniel. And I don’t doubt for a second that both of them love me as much as I love them. We’re family. I’m the much older and more handsome brother, but nothing will ever change how we feel about each other, and that’s a pretty incredible thing because I’ve fucked up as many missions as they have, and my team forgave me every time. I ran an undercover op and put all of them in a situation where they didn’t know they were going on missions with a traitor, and they forgave me. Teal’c was brainwashed into trying to kill us, and we forgave him.”
Sheppard was at parade rest now, his eyes staring at nothing.
“Either work this out or send McKay back on the Daedalus where he can mourn the loss of this friendship of yours and move on. Don’t make him stay here, not when this place is killing him.”
That finally caused a flicker of interest. “What do you mean?”
Jack studied Sheppard. He was so damn young, and young love was a dangerous and illogical beast. If Jack were kind, he’d recall Sheppard and give him time to get his head together, but Jack wasn’t sure that Weir could hold the place together without Sheppard, and he knew someone like Caldwell would ride roughshod over the locals and piss them off. This was war, and Jack needed Sheppard in the field, even if he was a wounded man.
“Try talking to your team, Sheppard. If no one is talking, it’s amazing what goes on in the shadows.” Jack turned and walked out. If Sheppard had any honor, he’d track MaKay out and figure out what was really going on. It hadn’t taken Jack much investigating to figure it out. And if Sheppard couldn’t be bothered to take care of a team member in trouble, then Jack really would take McKay back to Earth with him.
And then he could regret that for the rest of his life, but it wasn’t like Jack didn’t already have a full plate of regrets. This would just be one more.
There's one more part -- John versus Rodney
http://lit-gal.livejournal.com/541501.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-09-21 06:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-21 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-21 07:35 am (UTC)Thanks for the peek into this universe :)
no subject
Date: 2014-09-21 08:17 pm (UTC)I've been following thisavidly and gratefully
Date: 2014-09-21 06:11 pm (UTC)So glad you're writing this; wish that unfilled search (which I check every day in case it's been answered) had inspired me to write instead of just yearn.
Julia, because Elizabeth, especially, behaves so badly in that episode that it can only be explained by incompetent writing from TPOB. Like that ever happens.
Re: I've been following thisavidly and gratefully
Date: 2014-09-21 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-21 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-22 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-23 03:30 am (UTC)Ah, I found this....
Date: 2015-02-08 03:56 am (UTC):D ((Happy to find this))
- Innogen
Re: Ah, I found this....
Date: 2015-02-08 04:00 am (UTC)Re: Ah, I found this....
Date: 2015-02-08 04:15 am (UTC)((Hugs))
I added you to my f-list. I hope you don't mind. And... thanks for checking on that last section. I don't quite remember what happened, except that the situation was diffused and Dr. Weir was worried that Rodney would be transferred back to the SGC.
Re: Ah, I found this....
Date: 2015-02-08 04:19 am (UTC)Apparently people wanted more hair shirts and wailing, but after the third piece of really bad feedback, I just decided that I didn't need the grief and I deleted it. I wrote it for myself anyway.
And you are more than welcome to friend the journal and hang out here. I do a lot more posting here than I do other places.
Re: Ah, I found this....
Date: 2015-02-08 04:25 am (UTC)It's been seven months since I last wrote a story - I really need to get over it [writer's fear], you know?
Re: Ah, I found this....
Date: 2015-02-08 04:27 am (UTC)Re: Ah, I found this....
Date: 2015-11-03 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-03 04:52 am (UTC)