Uncommon Threads
Chapter 1
~Threads~
"I tell ya, I'm going nuts!"
I thought my little declaration would get a bite out of Carter, but nope. A slight shudder—as though I caught her off-guard—is the most she gives me, preferring, instead, to keep her gaze fixed on whatever it is that has her so damn glued to her laptop.
Now, see, this is a change from the Carter of not so long ago. There was a time when me strolling into her lab had her straining every muscle to come to attention. It was respect back then. Now? Nadda. Oh, don't get me wrong though, because her fronting up in my office is a different thing. She gets all tense—checking the proverbial coast is clear of 'our' leg-hugging tyke—before she'll even dare to utter a word. See, our tyke is one freshly descended and very smaller than normal archaeologist, who—for reasons we can only speculate over—has a deep seeded fear of Carter.
Last time any of us saw Daniel, he was picking off bugs with a P90 before being mysteriously zipped away. According to Carter, the Replicators beamed him up with their nifty beaming thingy. They did the same thing to her not too long ago, only back then it was a love-sick Fifth with an axe to grind and some deluded fantasy to fulfill.
Anyway, after the whole kidnapping Daniel incident, the Replicators started to make good on their plan for galactic domination and did a real number on the System Lords. If anyone expected me to get all teary-eyed over their loss, they'd be sadly mistaken. The Replicators, however, didn't stop at snacking on Hat'aks. Nope, they decided to advance on Dakara. The Tok'ra poked their heads into proceedings—okay, just Jacob—and then Ba'al showed up for the party dressed in his gooldy best and forcing his 'higher than thou' attitude down our throats. Anubis got himself lost somehow; and Carter and Jacob reprogrammed the weapon at Dakara, sending a lovely message to the Replicators, who went to pieces. Literally.
Would have been quite the heroic ending if not for Jacob and Selmac checking out on life towards the end. Not taking away anything from the old General's death, but I could feel the seams of Earth's already shaky friendship with the Tok'ra, fraying just that little bit more. All in all, it was a pretty crappy couple of days. Carter had lost her father and we'd lost Daniel.
Or so we'd thought.
Really, should have known something was up. Ya, see, during all of this there were a few freaky things that made me wonder if our formerly ethereal teammate hadn't dipped his toes in the Ascended pond again. I was gonna kick his butt six ways to hell if he had, but at the same time, those instances of freakishness saved our collective assets.
In that moment of quiet that inevitably comes into being after such a hectic week of playing hero, what was left of SG-1, that old coot Bra'tac, and yours truly, gathered around the hallowed oak table for a briefing.
"I still don't understand what happened," Carter says, looking more than a little perplexed. She hates it when there's a mystery to be solved and she doesn't have all the clues. "One minute Anubis is about to push the button that ends all life in the galaxy and the next minutes he's just… gone."
Hey, I don't have a problem with that!
"Indeed, it is a great mystery." Teal'c readily agrees with his best raised eyebrow. How does the man do that?
Bra'tac, who I never truly took for being a great believer in all this Ancient mumbo jumbo and gobbledegook, decided he'd found some faith. "One can only assume he was vanquished by some beings. If not, why would he forfeit the weapon and his army?"
Damn! I hate it when the old guy makes sense… which is most of the time. Carter obviously agrees with him, and for once, we find ourselves locking gazes in some kind of freaky understanding.
"You think?" she says to me, using my favorite catch-phrase.
"I do." Heck, what else was I supposed to say? To disagree would require me to give a reason why, and I don't do that whole subjective reasoning thing very well.
"It's the only thing that would explain the self destruct not going off."
Hmm… bad wiring? Replicators in the circuitry? Bats in the belfry?
"Of what do you speak?" Bra'tac asks.
"O'Neill believes that Daniel Jackson was somehow responsible."
I do? Sure, why not.
Before I can answer in my own defense, there is a flash of light from my office that triggers the base alarms.
"Sir?" Carter starts to stand, rubbing her eyes. "I think it came from your office."
Really? What gave it away? The blinding flash? "Stay here," I order in my best base commander voice. Naturally, no one listens to me. Teal'c is off down the stairs, probably looking for a weapon. Carter decides to cover my six, while Bra'tac covers hers. Old geezer!
I peer around the door jamb, expecting Thor to be sitting in my chair or a Replicator to be hanging from the light fittings, but instead—and much to my total dismay—I find a kid curled up on my desk, totally buck naked and shivering.
"Carter, get me a blanket." My ever 'thinking on her feet' 2IC decides to improvise and pulls down the SGC flag, offering it up to me. "You call this a blanket?"
"Close enough," she shrugs.
It was at that very moment that our mysterious child-visitor sprang from my desk and all but leaped into my arms, his mouth open in a silent scream, eyes locked firmly on Carter.
To be continued.