AN:First Fanfic I wrote back in October 2006. Edited in August 2007. I've rated it T as there is swearing. Set in season 7 before Heroes so anything before that may be mentioned. I have to say that it will be AU as I may take several creative curves and I don't remember the team 'drifting apart' at this point. I will appreciate all reviews and as a new writer, constructive criticism is welcome as I can't get better on my own. This story was spell checked by me and could still contain errors. I apologize in advance if there are any. Please read and enjoy...
Disclaimer: Stargate is on my Christmas list and that's as close as I'll ever get to owning anything Stargate!
He was bored. Tapping his pen on the desk over and over. Daniel actually stopped talking to glare at him. Jack shrugged an apology, put the pen down on the table, and Daniel continued. They'd already been sitting here for what felt like hours listening to Daniel prattle on about the planet and the potential uses it had. Teal'c raised an eyebrow as Jack picked up the pen absentmindedly and began tapping again.
They were sitting in the briefing room going over a proposed mission to an Asgard planet. Thor had communicated with them that the Asgard had an old goa'uld planet under their protection. The Asgard had scanned the planet and found no life signs but there was a possibility that technology had been left behind.
Teal'c grabbed the pen out of Jack's hand and General Hammond gave Teal'c a grateful look. Sam smirked at Jack. She was looking forward to this mission, as was Daniel. He was currently showing them the information about the planet that Thor had sent already. Jack forced himself to pay attention as Daniel was discussing the geography of the area around the stargate.
" As you can see from the display, the stargate is situated in what looks like a caldera. To the east..."
"Danny, caldera as in volcano?"
" Yes Jack, volcano. As far as we can tell this one is dormant or even extinct"
" Well, I'd rather find out before..."
" Sir, we're going to send out a UAV at daybreak on the planet and it will do some geothermal scans to see if there's any active volcanoes on the planet. Also with the information the Thor sent us we are able to determine the size and age of the caldera" Sam added. Looking towards General Hammond she added " I would also recommend that we send a team through to collect soil and rock samples so we can determine when the last eruption occurred and how frequent they are"
Daniel nodded his agreement with Sam's last statement. He wanted to get this mission started as soon as possible as Thor's information regarding the technology looked very intriguing. It looked like there was a temple and several abandoned villages , an archaeologist's paradise.
"How long would you need to determine if any technology was useful on the planet Major?" General Hammond inquired
"Sir, I wouldn't know until I had a look at what was there. We can see that the planet was abandoned but we don't know why. Thor told us that the Asgard are planning on using this planet as an outpost and wanted to give us a chance to search for anything that could be useful to us before they levelled the area. We are expecting another communication from Thor today which should provide us with more detailed maps and then we can better calculate the distance between the villages and the temple."
"Ok. Major have a UAV ready to go at 0900 and once the analysis is complete you may have a go. SG-1 you are dismissed" Daniel gathered up his papers and followed Teal'c out of the briefing room. Jack lingered behind
"Coming sir?"
"Ummm not right now Carter. Just going to have a chat with the General." With that Jack headed into General Hammonds office. Sam started to gather up her papers for the meeting and accidentally knocked her coffee mug over. Fortunately it was empty, but in the quick move to rescue it she'd dropped her papers and they'd scattered on the floor. Swearing under her breath she bent down to collect them and put them in some kind of order.
Meanwhile, Jack had gone in to talk to Hammond, but hadn't closed the door.
"General, Thor says this planet is uninhabited. Why send SG-1?"
"Jack, who would you send?"
" SG-7 sir. They're the science guys."
"Why not SG-1 Jack? You've got an archaeologist who can read many languages, a Jaffa who is knowledgeable of goa'uld technology and a brilliant scientist on your team. I can't think of a better team to send."
"Well sir, not meaning to be my usual insubordinate self, but this doesn't seem like a good use of my team. We've been doing a lot of these kind of missions lately. I know that Carter and Danny enjoy them. Why not send them with SG-7 and me'n Teal'c can join another team for a few missions. "
At this point Sam had finished picking up the last of her errant papers. She couldn't help overhearing the Colonel complaining about the mission. She smiled as he voiced his thoughts, in a few short words, on the last few missions. She remembered the last one where he complained the entire time and directed most of his negative comments towards Daniel who had been eagerly deciphering the base of every statue they'd come across. Due to the amount of statues, Daniel hadn't really taken any notice but the Colonel had made it very clear he was bored and wanted to go somewhere 'more interesting.' Normally she wouldn't mind the mundane missions but they had seen more than usual in the last few months. She was starting to wonder if she would remember how to use her weapon if she needed to anytime soon.
"Jack, we don't know what this planet is like yet. We only have the info that Thor sent us. If anyone goes through the gate to that planet, it's going to be SG-1 first, then we'll see about after."
"Ok sir. If everything checks out can we leave Carter and Daniel there with SG-7 to fiddle around?"
"As I said, we'll see. Why don't you go home for the night. You don't have to be here until we retrieve the information from the UAV. That should be at least 24hrs. Go home, get some rest Jack." There was a hint of impatience in his voice as he dismissed Jack.
"Ye'sir." Jack got to the office door just as Sam was leaving the briefing room. George, curious, asked him one more question before he left.
"Why are you so eager to head off with Teal'c and leave Major Carter and Dr. Jackson with SG-7?"
"Well sir, all that science stuff isn't for me and it feels like I'm only there to babysit." Jack paused reflecting that what he said could be quite rude. "I'm not useful to them and I feel like I'm getting in the way. I'm sure that Carter and Daniel would work quicker if I wasn't there interrupting them." With that Jack exited the office.
Sam had left in a hurry. She had heard the Colonels comment about baby sitting and almost ran out of the room fuming. She knew that he had not enjoyed the last few missions but didn't realise he saw them as baby stitting trips. True, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. No one had been injured and they had only run across one village of very friendly people in the last 4 missions. But still, SG-1 was a team. Sam couldn't imagine a different team to work with. They all had their quirks but she felt they were the closest team on the base.
Wandering into her lab she reflected on the other teams. Most of them had undergone major changes. SG-1 was the only team with all 4 original members. They'd had their times when they weren't together, as when Daniel had ascended. She'd been worried about the team dynamics then, especially Colonel O'Neill and his reluctance to allow Jonas onto the team. Happily Daniel had returned to human form after a year away and the team 'gelled' one again. In the years they'd worked together, they'd come to know how each other worked in the field and in her opinion it made them a better team. She knew without looking who would be watching her six and they could almost communicate with each other without words in certain situations. Yes they had their bad share of missions but always made it through together.
She remembered something her father once said. Working with a close team was like being married except being married to many people at once. Marriages went two ways: to divorce or long and meaningful. The odds were against their team to stay in their 'marriage'. Recently she'd noticed that Daniel and herself were spending more time in their labs while Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c had spent their time in the gym or when not on the base, the colonel was showing Teal'c the 'sights'. Maybe they were starting to drift apart. Sometimes teams were shuffled slightly so members didn't get complacent. She hoped that if time apart was what they needed, it wouldn't be permanent and that they would beat the odds.
Meanwhile General Hammond was having similar thoughts sitting in his office. He knew that Jack voiced his opinions quite freely around him and usually didn't mind. Lately Jack had been doing a fair amount of it and it was starting to get on his nerves. George knew he gave Jack a great deal of freedom and felt that Jack respected him more because of it. Lately he had noticed the team appeared to be drifting apart and just assumed that it was due to the stress and unusual jobs they were required to do. It was nothing that warranted much concern for his front line team and he had given them some easier missions as a chance to relax a little more and loose some of the stress.
In the past year, they'd had some unnerving missions. Dr Jackson had been 'possessed' with multiple personalities. They'd run into Anubis's new supersoldiers, had Dr. Jackson kidnapped on Earth, the supersoldiers had discovered the Alpha site and Major Carter was almost killed. Not so much drifting apart but they were starting to go different ways, yet the changes were so subtle that he doubted that they knew what was happening.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. SG-1 was his flagship team. They'd done the impossible many times over and lived to tell many interesting tales. He'd seen teams drift and suffer the consequences before. The stress of going through the stargate was different than normal combat and he knew that SG-1 had handled it quite well as a team before. He had hoped that a few missions without every one's lives on the line would help get them all back to where they were a few months ago but apparently that hadn't happened.
His eyes glanced over a memo from the President. It was informing him of a reporter who was going to do a documentary of the stargate program to be archived until the program went public. The reporter, who after signing the confidentiality agreement, had read several mission files and was requesting to speak with SG-1 specifically. George wanted SG-1 to be a little more relaxed as he suspected that this could get stressful. The reporter wasn't arriving for another month and he hoped that that would be enough time. If SG-1 didn't figure things out soon he would be forced to shuffle the team. He wasn't going to allow that to happen until he'd tried everything he could.