Disclaimer: I own nothing that anyone recognises.

A/N: Spoilers for Fragile Balance, again.

Acid Shadows

Part One

General Landry sat and stared rather blankly at nothing in particular, gathering his thoughts and trying hard not to look quite as blind-sided as he felt by the news Walter had just given him. News Walter had whispered to him, in fact, in the confines of his office while the four members of SG-8 waited in the briefing room for their orders. He wasn't quite as blind-sided as he felt he would be justified in being, after – hell, how long had it been now? – commanding the base hidden beneath Cheyenne Mountain, but nevertheless, this was Hank sinking to new levels of incredulity. He thought privately, most of the time, that he was coping with the job, with the command, with this new life; this was clearly only when he wasn't convinced that he was on the verge of having a complete mental breakdown.

The root of this newest problem, of course, was alien technology. Alien technology appeared to be the prime cause for most of Hank's problems in life, in fact. Unfortunately. This wasn't to say that it couldn't be beneficial – but life would sure be a heck of a lot easier if it wasn't around. It would be less interesting, though. If by "less interesting" you meant "less dangerous" or "less likely-to-blow-up-in-your-face-at-any-given-moment", anyway.

In this particular instance, the alien technology messing up Hank's life was of Ancient origin. And therefore held to be – as with every bit of Ancient technology ever found, during Hank's time at the SGC and previous – possibly containing the secrets of the universe, and potentially incredibly important. Held to be so by SG-8's linguist, anyway, as SG-8 was currently – although who knew how long that state of affairs would last, given the extraordinary grapevine in this place – the only team to know of its existence.

But while the artefact currently inhabiting P4X-182 was undoubtedly wonderfully interesting to those interested in such things, and could even be interesting to Hank once he had it explained to him, there was a bit of a sticking point involved in the process of finding the artefact's purpose. Dr Rob Cochrane, the aforementioned linguist, had repeatedly insisted that the team needed someone with the ATA gene to further the research, and any hopes of finding what the device was meant to do. Lyons, Richards, and Chapman – the military contingent of the team, being a major, captain, and a lieutenant respectively – had been no more eager than had Cochrane to let anyone else have a go at what they considered to be their technology.

And with everything in the galaxy heating up, and seemingly everyone out to get the Tau'ri, anything Ancient that could do Earth some good was on the priority list these days. Especially when such a device was on a planet with natives willing to let an SG team study the technology.

Unfortunately, the ATA gene was in short supply at the SGC, what with the majority of those possessing it having been shipped to Atlantis. In fact, of those currently on Earth and not the other side of the galaxy, let alone another galaxy altogether, the sole person Hank could think of with the gene was General O'Neill. And O'Neill was irretrievably entangled in paperwork and interminable meetings, unable to go offworld whether he wanted to or not. Even generals have superiors, and orders, and information they didn't have the clearance to know.

And that thought brought him onwards towards the news Walter had just given him. There was, in fact, unbeknownst to Hank previously, a carrier of the ATA gene not only on Earth, but far closer than Washington D.C. and General O'Neill. And not only that, but the person in question had a gene as strong as that of the General's, and lived, last the SGC had heard, in the state of Colorado itself. As such, all well and good; actually, better and better.

There was just one small thing that Hank had a problem with; the identity of said ATA gene-bearer: a young – in appearance, at least – man going by the name of Jack O'Neill. Last known whereabouts: attending high school somewhere in Denver.

Of course, there was still the problem of actually convincing the aforementioned ATA-gene-bearer to help, once they found him. Why would O'Neill feel as though he owes them anything? For all intents and purposes, they – even if Hank hadn't been a part of "they" at that point – had just discarded him, a tool no longer useful, and then forgot him until he was needed. Surely they couldn't just rely on his sense of duty, could they? And besides, this was Jack O'Neill they were talking about. If anyone could hold a grudge, it was him.

With this startling – though no less welcome – news of potential help in mind, with all its accompanying positive and negative factors, Hank dismissed SG-8, telling them merely that the matter of finding someone with the ATA gene to accompany them to P4X-182 was in hand. And Hank then turned to Walter, who – as per usual – pre-empted his request by saying that he would contact the teenager's school immediately. Some days Hank really wondered if that man wasn't a psychic. Or at the very least a reincarnation of Radar O'Reilly.

'Uh, General, sir?'

Walter's voice came from a position roughly three feet in front of General Landry's desk. It was a fact that Hank discovered when he looked up and found his aide standing there, having somehow appeared there without making any sound whatsoever.

'Walter?'

Hank could have said more, but he was sure Walter would get the drift. He always did, anyway.

'There's been a bit of a problem.'

Hank dreaded to think what the elaboration on that statement might prove to reveal. Hopefully nothing quite like the last time...actually, nothing could be quite like that, surely. Maybe. He didn't say anything – if I pretend it's not there, maybe it'll go away – but just waited for Walter to continue.

'We haven't been able to locate Jack O'Neill. He's missing.'

For a second, Hank's thoughts flew to General O'Neill in Washington DC, wondering firstly why they had been trying to locate him, and secondly why he hadn't known earlier. Then his brain kicked in, and he realised which Jack O'Neill it was that Walter was talking about, leaving him glad he hadn't verbalised those initial thoughts he'd had. And then Hank wondered why on Earth Walter couldn't find O'Neill. He was only a teenager, wasn't he? How hard could it be?

Then he thought, no, it was never that easy. Anything related to the SGC immediately became strange and disconcerting, so why should this be any different?

'He's not at that high school?'

'No,' Walter confirmed. 'And, actually, I'm not sure if he ever went. I haven't been able to find him in any other school's records, either.'

Hank sighed, loudly, ignoring the fact it was in front of Walter and Generals probably shouldn't show stuff like annoyance and resignation to their subordinates.

But, hell, wasn't this just like Jack O'Neill?

So for all their intentions of leaving important Pentagon meetings undisturbed, Stargate Command ended up disturbing them anyway. Of course, General O'Neill didn't seem all that displeased.

The important Pentagon meetings had probably been boring Pentagon meetings.

Leaving the General's non-existent possible displeasure aside, he hadn't seemed at all surprised by the news of his clone's disappearance, either. But then, if anyone would know what the clone had been doing, it would be General O'Neill. Hank wasn't too surprised when, whilst on the phone to Jack, the latter told him not to worry about not being able to find the apparent-teen.

Hank also expected that, at least in part, Jack's assurances that he'd find the errant clone and hand-deliver him to the SGC to prevent further disappearances were – presumably successful – attempts to weasel his way out of further imminent boring Pentagon meetings.

On the other hand, it was pretty much a given that if the clone didn't want to be found, then General O'Neill would likely be the only one who would be able to find him. After all, they were basically the same person, weren't they?

True to his word, General O'Neill had hand-delivered his clone to the SGC a week after Hank had phoned him. Neither of them had mentioned exactly where the clone had been that the Air Force had been entirely unable to locate him.

Hank didn't ask.

Hank also hadn't searched for records of the clone's existence. Possibly that was wrong, not finding all available information on someone that no one really knew anything about, or where he had been since parting ways with Stargate Command. He justified his decision with the reasoning that such a background check would undeniably be an invasion of privacy, one that Jack didn't deserve (whichever one it was he was checking up on, neither deserved it, he was sure).

Hank didn't tell himself that he just didn't want to know if the records still existed. He didn't want to know if they had been wiped, and if they had, who exactly by. And whether they existed or not, Hank didn't think he really wanted to know what was contained in them.

He suspected that he had enough nightmares to be going around.

Jack – either version – hasn't so far told Hank that the clone will be helping out with the, ah, situation. Hank's looking on the bright side, here, trying out that new optimism thing people have been talking about. He doesn't think that Jack – either version – would bother to turn up just to rub Hank's nose in the fact that he wouldn't be getting any help.

Well. He hopes Jack hasn't turned up just to be annoying and sarcastic like that, anyway. Because, well, you never quite know, with O'Neill. And coming to supply help would doubtless entail bountiful annoyance and sarcasm regardless, so that part of the deal at least was probably a moot point. Hank doesn't know why the clone would be willing to help out. If he had to make a guess, though, then he would estimate that it had something to do with the lure of another trip off-world, even if it only rubbed in the clone's face all that he no longer had.

The apparently siren call of the stargate, steadily overruling the teen's common sense.

But then, Hank had never really managed to understand why all members of his SG teams were so enamoured with what lay beyond that gate. There was more than enough unpredictable action during Hank's day merely remaining ensconced within the confines of the base. No, everyone at the SGC was insane to some degree, and those with a position on an SG team more so than most. Of course, Hank wouldn't really dream of having it any other way.

And either way, insane personnel or not, Hank's not particularly looking forward to the experience of explaining to Major Lyons and his team just who, exactly, was their requisitioned ATA-gene-bearer for the mission. Unfortunately, it's probably not one of those things that he can get out of.

Then again, there's always the chance that the potentially slightly-humiliating occasion will be made more bearable by the presence of the teenager, whether intentionally or not. At least having the clone there would more readily convince SG-8 that he wasn't joking.

Small favours, yes?

to be continued...

A/N: A word of warning - the next chapter contains violence, and has considerably more gore than does this chapter. For more detail, think about the name of this fic: Acid Shadows. The rating won't change, but...uh, yeah. That's my obligatory warning.

- Elemnestra