Stargate: SG-1
Penelope
Chapter OneSitting around the briefing room table, SG1 stared silently at each other as they waited for General Landry to enter. They all knew what was coming. The words just had to be spoken. And from their previous adventures with the IOA, this too promised it's own version of a tour of the SGC.
Mitchell drummed his fingers on the table, staring at the door as General Landry entered. On cue, Carter and Mitchell both stood as the General stopped at the head of the table and motioned for them both to be seated.
Landry took a breath and looked around at the front team of Stargate Command. "It won't be like last time," he said, trying to avoid any arguments before they started, no matter how legitimate they would be.
"Babysitters again, Sir?" Mitchell asked, trying his best not to sound like a child.
"It's an official function," Landry assured him.
Carter straightened in her chair, "When will they be here Sir?" she asked.
"Tuesday, 0900," he said, stepping back from the table to head back to his office. Again, Mitchell and Carter stood out of respect. Landry turned at his doorway and tried to keep the corners of his mouth from curling as he spoke, "Be sure to wear your dress uniforms, they love that." He couldn't resist the last little jab at the team. He knew full well that this was beneath them.
Standing together, Carter, Daniel, Mitchell and Teal'c waited for the General to turn and leave but instead the seasoned two-star general hesitated before looking right at Daniel. "Doctor Jackson," he said, still forming his thoughts.
"Yes General?"
"I want to know what's going on."
"Sir?"
"Get inside their heads, find out what they are up to. The IOA doesn't just pop into the SGC because they feel like a tour. Something is up—and I want to know what it is."
"Sir," Mitchell interrupted. "Are you suggesting…"
"I don't want to know what you do, just get into their heads and figure this out." Landry turned and walked back into his office, leaving the team looking at each other with blank stares.
"Did he just?" Mitchell asked, still confused as to his orders.
"Daniel was just ordered to dig a little deeper," Carter said, trying to rein in any thoughts of extreme measures that Mitchell might be mulling over.
"Yeah, but—" Mitchell tried to start but Carter wasn't hearing it and headed for the door.
"He ordered Daniel to find out. He's the only one here not punishable under military law. It's up to him," she said, hoping that the finality in her voice would curb any cloak and dagger plans he might be conjuring.
She had Daniel's attention now and his mouth dropped open as he watched her leave the room. "But no pressure, right?" Turning back to Mitchell, the two exchanged an awkward glance as Mitchell walked out of the room. Always silent until needed, Teal'c approached Daniel. "Got any ideas Teal'c?"
"Not presently," he answered, before following Mitchell out into the hall.
Daniel stood alone and sighed. This wasn't going to be fun at all. And for a moment he pondered calling Jack up in D.C. for advice…but then the idea formed all by itself…and it was sheer brilliance. The smile on his face grew and with the snap of his fingers he headed for his office for some last minute checks on his plan.
Seeking solitude in any form, Carter returned to her lab to finish up on a few things. As she typed away on her laptop, Daniel appeared in her doorway, with a look on his face that she had never seen.
"Daniel?" she asked, looking over the top of her computer as he walked towards her desk.
Hands in pockets, he was clearly up to something. "I have an idea," he said.
Closing her laptop, Carter braced herself for what Daniel was about to say. "Okay…"
"It's uh…nefarious at best." His voice lowered and Carter was getting worried.
"Should I ask what you mean by that?"
Speaking plainly, Daniel only spoke one word. "Penelope."
It took Carter a few seconds to get Daniel's meaning, but as his plan unfolded in her own mind, her mouth dropped open. "Penelope?"
"Yes."
"Little Penelope?"
"Yes."
"My Penelope?"
Daniel shook his head hard and tried not to sound overly annoyed. "Is there more than one?"
Carter was standing now, and about to speak again when a voice came from the door. "More than one of what?" Mitchell asked. Walking into the room he stopped beside Daniel, waiting for an explanation from either of them.
Daniel looked to Carter for permission to explain and her face contorted into a negative answer, but he didn't pay attention. "Sam has a Penelope."
"Daniel," Carter said, scolding him.
"What's a Penelope?" Mitchell asked.
Daniel ignored the warning in Carter's voice and tried to continue. "She's a tele-"
"Daniel! It's illegal," she said, pulling his attention back to her.
"Under what law?" he asked, sounding less and less like himself.
"All of them!" she said, almost yelling. Mitchell broke in before they got any louder.
"Who or what is a Penelope?" Mitchell asked, pulling Daniel back by his shoulder as Carter leaned back in her chair. There was no winning here. Carter sighed and waved Daniel to go a head and explain.
A short glance between them, and Daniel knew she wasn't irreversibly pissed off. So he started with the explanation. "Penelope is a friend of Sam's from area 51. She's a telepath."
"Whoah…" Mitchell said, letting the information sink in. "We got an ace in the hole?"
"Cameron—"
"Look!" Mitchell said, silencing them both. "She's a telepath, that's a good thing, something we could use."
Standing from her seat, Carter was angry this time and waved her hands at the two men. "This is not going to happen, find another way. Find something else."
In a move that stunned Daniel, Carter stormed out of the room and left Daniel and Mitchell staring at each other.
"Did we make her mad?" Mitchell asked.
"She knows I'm right, she'll come around. Give it a few minutes and I'll go talk to her." Daniel knew he had pushed too much. Carter never yelled at him like that before, and if they weren't of like minds on something, then he was probably wrong…probably.
After lunch, Carter had retreated to her lab for some semblance of normalcy. These days it seemed that everyone had changed while she had been at Area 51. And with Daniel on the war path of exploiting an innocent young girl who was nothing more than a victim of happenstance…well, the only thing that was making any type of sense to her were the fragments of metal she had been staring at under her microscope for the last half hour.
And even that small amount of normalcy was about to be shattered as Daniel knocked softly on her office door. "Sam?" He asked, speaking softly. Hoping he wouldn't insight another walk out.
She didn't look up as he approached but she wasn't focusing on the fragments either. "Daniel--"
Daniel walked even slower now and kept his hands in his pockets as he stopped across from her desk. "I'm sorry," he said, genuinely.
Carter looked up over the edge of the microscope and met the eyes of her long time friend. She tried to think of when Daniel had changed so much. Had it been gradual? Had this happened overnight? Had she been away from the SGC for so long that her once innocent and tenderhearted friend had turned into…someone else. "I know you mean well, and in a way, I see what you are trying to do. But…three years ago, you never would have suggested this. In fact, this is something that Ja-General O'Neill would have suggested—and you would have been the one to talk him down from it."
Daniel nodded, "I know. And you're right. But, if we handle this right, and I think we can, it will answer a lot of questions."
Carter tried to voice her reason but before she could speak, Mitchell was walking up behind Daniel. "Not you too." She said.
Holding his hands up in surrender, Mitchell waved his hands slightly. "I'm the voice of reason. The middleman. I'm here to make sure that—"
She shook her head and cut him off. There was just no reasoning with these two. "Cameron, she's a kid. She can't and shouldn't have to deal with this. I spent months at Area 51 trying to keep her from disappearing into some shadow department of the government. If she leaves the base, she's open to everything. Bringing her here is dangerous, not just for her but for all of us."
Lowering his hands now, Mitchell walked over and leaned on the table as though they were having a casual conversation and not arguing. "So we lie, we flat out lie. We say that she's here as a protégé of yours and she's learning about…Aeon Flux…that way she's covered in the paper work and no one will know who she is."
"That's a movie," she said, narrowing her eyes at Cameron, still unable to be completely frustrated with him.
Mitchell tried to play it off as he stood away from the table and stood next to Daniel. "I know."
Carter rolled her eyes and wondered if this is what the future had in store for her, a constant fight against Daniel and Mitchell for the upper hand…if she wasn't careful, this could turn into a sibling rivalry the likes of which no one had ever seen.
Seeing that this wasn't going to solve anything, Daniel gave Mitchell a disapproving look as he closed in on Carter. "We can do this Sam, we can keep her safe and no one will be the wiser." The tone in Daniel's voice struck a cord in Carter. For a moment, they glared at each other. Her letting Daniel know that this is more difficult than he thinks--and he, asking her to trust him.
Her eyes softened and an easy smile brightened her face as she looked down at the table and back up at Daniel. "You know who you sound like, right?"
Smiling in return, Daniel shrugged. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
Mitchell stood silently behind them but couldn't wait any longer for a decision. "So, does this mean we're going to have company?"
"We're going to need a few things first. And I'm not kidding when I say that you two are to have limited exposure to her. She is highly sensitive and if she's not familiar with you—"
"We got it, no boys allowed." Mitchell said, as a final agreement that she would be in charge.
Daniel looked back to Carter and tried to reassure her. Nevertheless, she began a mental list of the ways this could all go wrong as she reached for a tablet of paper and started writing down the things they would need before Penelope's arrival…
Two days later, and the time table was set for Penelope to arrive a full day ahead of the IOA. Carter had checked and rechecked her travel itinerary and had been ordering Daniel and Mitchell around as though they were her private henchmen. A part of her was still set on this being a bad idea. That she should call it all off and play it safe. But something else was telling her that this was one risk that just might be worth the circumstances. A chance to find out what their would-be enemies had up their sleeves, that would be worth just about anything.
So by mid-day, she had set up a few things in a VIP suit for Penelope and waited for Mitchell to show up with the rest of the list she had sent him out for. She had just set out a few bottles of aspirin on the nightstand when someone pounded on the door twice. Opening the door, she saw Mitchell standing there with a cardboard box awkwardly balanced in his arms.
Walking past her, Mitchell said, "Delivery for Mary Poppins," the comment earned him an immediate glare from Carter but she didn't say anything in reply. Shaking her head, she closed the door behind him. "Did you get everything?"
Mitchell set the box on the table and began to unload the box. "Yeah, got everything on the list. College ruled notebooks, with blue, red, black and green pens. All ball point and retractable. Five boxes of animal crackers, a pack of twizzlers, box of paper clips, two highlighters, one green and one pink. Those little eye cover things, and…the GRAND finale...a dictionary."
Reaching around him, Carter began to look through the box. "Where's the Dr. Pepper?" she asked, just as Teal'c appeared in the doorway carrying two cases of Soda. "Teal'c?"
"Colonel Mitchell asked for my assistance," he said, setting the cases under the table.
It had been a hard choice to include Teal'c in their conspiracy. She thought Teal'c above all would disapprove. But he had in fact agreed to take the risk and had been more than willing to help to misdirect anyone that would question their actions. "Teal'c, I have one more thing I need you to do," she asked, hoping that this last request wouldn't be too much.
Teal'c only bowed and waited for her to speak.
"While Penelope is here, I'll try to be with her as much as I can but eventually I'll have to be with the IOA. I need you to stay with Penelope, the whole time. No matter what, don't leave her. She needs a constant, someone around to be a buffer."
Again, Teal'c bowed his head in agreement but said nothing.
Carter touched his arm and looked back at Mitchell. "So that's everything." It was more of a statement than a question. A last minute attempt at convincing her self that what they were doing was right.
"Alright," Mitchell said, "Let the games begin."
Chapter Two
The elevator doors opened and Penelope Adtkinson looked down another militant hallway. She thought that the fieldtrip away from Area 51 would at least provide her with a wider range of hallway colors, but so far all she had seen was the dark windows of the van that took her to the air field, the windowless cargo hold of an airplane, another car with dark windows and now this place, where all the hallways were the same depressing color like the ones at Area 51. It was suffocating. But at least the guard that had brought her all this way was tolerable and had spoken to her, sort of. A few words here and there, get in the car, get out of the car, we're here…those were words, more than most said.
The guard stepped out into the hall and motioned for her to follow. A short walk down the hall, another elevator ride and Penelope was getting jittery. All this nonsense and hoopla for a friendly visit. As she stood behind the guard, she fingered the metal disc behind her ear and pulled it off. Her eyes wandered around the small elevator, as though she could see through the walls. The doors opened and Penelope walked out behind the guard. Slowly, she looked down one end of the hall and down the other. Waiting…listening…sorting, then without a word, she left the guard and walked down the opposite hallway.
By the time the guard looked back and saw her, she was almost to the end of the corridor. "Ms. Atkinson!" he shouted as he ran after her.
Penelope stopped at the corner and looked down one end, then turned down the other. The guard was nearly upon her now, his hand stretched out to grab her arm when he screeched to a halt, nearly knocking over Ms. Atkinson as Colonel Carter came around the corner in front of her.
Startled only for a moment, Penelope embraced Carter the moment she recognized her face. "Sam! Thank God, I thought I was going to have to roam these halls all day to find you!" Penelope said, ignoring the guard still sanding behind her. Carter nodded to the young guard and motioned that is was all right. She had it from here.
"Thank you Sergeant, I can take it from here." Carter said, as she guided Penelope around the corner. Her arm around the young girl's shoulder, she reached behind her ear and stopped when she didn't feel the disc. "Where is it Penelope?" she asked, as Penelope held up her hand in front of her before she had finished her sentence.
"Right here, I was just trying to find you," she said, slipping the disc back behind her ear. "Sorry."
"It's all right," she said, satisfied once the disc was replaced. "You'll be staying down here, next to my room."
Pulling away from Sam's arm, Penelope glared at her. "I heard that," she whispered, nearly angry as she stared Sam down.
"Heard what?" Carter asked.
Penelope glared at her and pulled the disc from behind her ear. "Don't let them see her? Get her into the room before the General starts the tour? Samantha Carter, what is going on here?" she demanded as Carter took her arm and pulled her into a room a few doors down.
The door closed behind them and Penelope looked around the room. She recognized the objects lying around the room and didn't need to read Sam's mind to find out what was going on. Without a word, Penelope slipped the disc back in place. "All this time you warned me about the people in the government that would take advantage of my abilities. And here you are, getting me here under the guise of a friendly visit among friends. When what you really want me to do is spy for you."
This was the moment she wasn't looking forward to. Carter had hoped that she could explain things without Penelope removing the chip, but that was unavoidable now. She had gotten all the information at once and now it was up to Carter to make sense of it all. "Penny, I'm sorry that this looks the way it does. But I swear, the last thing I want to do is to take advantage of you. I just need you to keep the chip on, I'll explain everything, but if you try to understand everything at once—you know what'll happen."
Penelope nodded and sat down on the bed. "Up to my neck. Already, up to my neck." Spotting the pack of Twizzlers on the nightstand, Penelope ripped open the bag and started gnawing on a strand while twirling a second in her other hand. "Alright Sam, I'll do it the old fashioned way. Start talking."
Carter pulled a chair over from the corner and sat in front of Penelope. This was going to be more difficult than she originally thought; at least they still had a whole day before the IOA would arrive. Maybe that would give her enough time to talk Penelope into this…
