Title: Thor's Obsession
Authors: UndyingWisdom Snake-Head and Inanimate Object
Rating: PG to be safe.
Summary: O'Neill is transported to the Daniel Jackson where Thor has gone missing. It is up to him, with little help from the ship-with-attitude to locate Earth's best friend and save him – before it's too late. Warning: May contain peanuts.
Warning: Banter.
A/N: Let me tell you all just how this story came about… I was sitting in Science one day, bored as all hell, although I had no reason to be, I had a worksheet in front of me. Somehow the topic of c came up, or at least the word did and I think it was Baz who randomly mentioned the Asguard and somehow, the idea came to be. We started writing right then. :reads the past few lines: Oh, shhh-ugar… :bleeps out word:
It was a dark and starless night in Colorado and Colonel Jack O'Neill slept soundly. That is, until he was clouded by bright light and transported to an Asguard vessel in orbit around Earth.
O'Neill shook awake as he thudded to the cold floor. He stood up, ready to go off at whoever was responsible for his less-than-comfortable landing. Looking around, he saw that he was in a large, open, yet empty chamber, styled in typical grey Asguard taste.
"Hellooo?" Jack called out, his voice reverberating off the metals. No answer but a slight crackling sound came from above. He decided to go in the other direction. He doubted that any immediate threat was on board the ship, so why worry?
"Hellooo?" A voice bounced throughout the ship. Jack swung around, the voice was not his own. It was metallic, mechanical. Time to worry now, he thought.
"Anyone there?" The Colonel yelled out again.
"Anyone there?" the metallic voice echoed.
"Ah, so we have a smart-ass in our midst, do we?"
The disembodied voice obtained the vocal skills of a parrot. "Smart-ass, smart-ass," it squawked.
The Colonel growled. He knew now where the voice was coming from.
"So, Daniel, when did you become so sarcastic?"
There was a moment of silence before the voice replied, "It is I. Thor programmed me to take control if the need ever arose."
"Take control? Why would you need to do that?" Jack talked to the air around him, he looked at a high corner of the wall facing him.
"If all the personnel of this vessel were incapable of doing so their selves."
"Ah. OK. So where exactly are all the personnel?"
There was another pause. "Only Thor is on board this vessel."
Jack thought for a second, "And where is my favourite little grey alien?"
Only silence answered him.
"Daniel?"
Nothing, then, "You were brought here for the purpose of helping Thor. You must find him, he is in a place that has escaped my surveillance equipment."
"What? What happened to him?"
There was a small crackling sound and a finalizing silence.
"OK," O'Neill said to himself.
He set off in the direction he thought might hold the control room to the ship. He was going to call in some help.
Jack walked into the control room of the ship, looked around, and shrugged. He sat on Thor's 'throne' and placed his palms on the crystals. He had no idea of how to make anything work, but he figured if he mucked around for long enough something would happen.
Just not self-destruct, please not self-destruct.
Quicker than he expected he had projected his image into… A Mexican shopping centre? Jack stared as a couple of security guards rushed him, only to run right through him. They turned and tried to punch him repeatedly, but with no avail.
"Sorry guys! Gotta run!" called Jack as he fumbled to remove his face from the confused shoppers' lives.
Jack reconsidered what he was trying to do, but didn't spend too much time on it. Just because it is harder than first thought, doesn't mean I can't do it, he thought, and pressed a few buttons.
He turned to some fishermen and swore under his breath. He liked fishing, of course, but not in below-zero conditions around a hole in some ice.
"Bit cold there fellas?" Jack asked them.
"Are you… God?" one of the men whispered.
"If I had a penny…" muttered Jack as he pressed the same combination as last time to disappear. Only he didn't disappear. "Dammit."
The two men slowly edged over to him, eyeing him as if he were dangerous. Jack backed away but he could practically hear Carter telling him not to make things worse than they already are. So he waved. And he waved jovially, too. And he kept on waving until the men were practically upon him.
"Hi?" he squeaked and abruptly ceased all hand movements.
"Who are you?" the so-far silent man questioned, "And how did you get here?"
Jack remained quiet and watched them watch his frantic hand movements as he tried to remove himself from the cold, white picture.
"It's been great, guys, but I've really gotta get going…" he told them, "Really… Gotta get going…"
A few seconds of expectant silence and at last O'Neill managed to start the process of disintegration.
"Now remember folks!" he said to them, "Brush twice a day!"
O'Neill, back aboard the Daniel Jackson, began pacing. He figured he couldn't afford any more unscheduled in-store appearances, and he knew that he needed help.
"I need help!" he yelled into the echo-ey stillness. There was no vocal reply, but a diagram materialized onto a hologram screen that hung in the air a couple of meters in front of Thor's chair. Once more, he sat, and followed the instructions.
Finally, still quicker than expected, his image appeared in Daniel Jackson's lab on Earth. He saw his friend sitting at a desk with his back to him, crouching over an artifact he had been studying since forever.
"Nice to see you're resting up well Daniel."
Jackson swung around on his rolling chair, rocking dangerously.
"Jack," he said in his pondering voice, "What are you doing here?" He studied the CO, "Ohh," drew Daniel as he noticed the familiar golden digital-like shimmer that was Jack.
"Yes Daniel, I'm a hologram."
Daniel sat from his alarmed half-upright stance. "Where from?"
"An Asguard ship in orbit of Earth," Jack spoke of the normality of the situation.
"Thor's ship?"
"Apparently so, according to Daniel Jackson. Actually, haven't come across the little guy yet. I was hoping you could help me out."
Daniel paused on this for a moment.
"Daniel Jackson?"
"The ship, remember?"
"So it must be Thor's ship."
"Hadn't thought of it like that."
Daniel shook his head to clear it, "So how exactly did you get here?"
"Daniel! I am perfectly capable of operating these.. thingies," he waved a carefree hand around him. Daniel flinched as it passed through an engraved crystal perched on a lower shelf.
The archaeologist nodded. And so Jack explained his experience so far, and the weird feeling that there was no need to be alarmed, although he couldn't explain why.
"Well stay on your guard OK Jack?"
"Yah, OK."
"And I'll go see General Hammond as soon as I'm sure he'll be awake and civilized. Just work on finding Thor."
"Agreed. And I'll see if this ship wants to break its silence and help me out."
"The ship called The Daniel Jackson," Daniel laughed.
Jack chuckled as his frame flickered electric blue, silver and red before turning bright white and disappearing.
He rose from his seat and walked over to a control panel in the middle of the room. His eyes scanned the various buttons and levers and bright flashing lights and crystals for a moment before realizing he had no idea what to do. He touched a shiny silver square, and instantly a small holographic screen appeared in front of him.
"OK," he said to himself, "Now we're getting somewhere."
He found that he could use the hologram as a kind of touch screen, dragging things here and there, trying out various combinations without even knowing what anything said. It had been about fifteen minutes before Jack got frustrated with himself and the ship for not having actually done anything groundbreaking.
"THOR!" he yelled into the emptiness, "YOU COULDN'T HAVE PUT SOLITAIRE ON THIS THING COULD YOU?"
He jabbed the silver square again, in an attempt to make the screen disappear. Nothing happened, so he hit it again, and again. Nothing. He ran his hands through his hair and slammed his elbows down onto the panel, causing a shock of pain to reverberate up his arms.
"OW!" he yelled, "Why are these things so damn HARD?" Rubbing his elbows he began to pace. "Where's Carter when you need her? She always thinks of smart things to do under these circumstances!" he mumbled to himself.
Jack walked slowly back to the controls, glaring at them, and began to jerk the crystals around violently. The screen disappeared.
"Wow. Now we're getting somewhere," he muttered sarcastically.
"Use the force," the ships voice came, mocking.
"Oh, it's you again, is it?" said O'Neill, "Mind giving me some help here?"
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"Oh, really? You know, I'm sure finding your main engines and TRASHING THEM won't be as hard as using these controls, will it?" O'Neill growled, disregarding the fact that without power, there was no way he could get back to Earth.
There was a pause. "No, I suppose not…" replied the ship in its echo-ey tones, "OK, here, look," it said, and another, larger screen appeared over the control panel. It was a kind of heat-sensitive set of blueprints for the ship. But there was no sign of Thor anywhere.
O'Neill stared at it. "So where is he?" he asked.
"As I said before," the ship said, "He is either in a part of the ship that is not seen here, which is highly unlikely, or he has cloaked himself somehow."
"Yes, you did say something along those lines, didn't you?" Jack sighed.
There was a pause, and then the ship said a few words that O'Neill really didn't need to hear.
"This ship, as sizable as it is, is small in comparison to the many other ships in the Asguard fleet."
Jack stopped abruptly from his pacing and gestured aggressively to the blueprints of the multi-storey ship, "Did I really need to know that?" he exclaimed. He resumed his track and began muttering under his breath so rapidly that it was amazing he had time to breathe.
The ship had had enough. O'Neill had to find Thor soon, before it was too late. "You have wasted enough time!" the ship said in a mock-Mexican voice, "I will help you locate Thor, but from then on it is up to you to save him, my friend."
Jack nodded, it sounded easy enough-how much saving could a supreme commander of a highly advanced race of super-people need, anyway? A lot more than he first thought, it turned out…
The ship navigated O'Neill around the vessel - up ramps, down weird little tunnel things, into what seemed like broom cupboards until you walked out the other side into a science lab – for almost an hour before Jack stopped and interrupted Daniel's directions.
"Hold up!" he yelled.
"Now you have to go up there an-" the voice stuttered to a halt, "What?"
"Are you sure you know where I'm going?" Jack demanded.
"Yes!" came the indignant reply. There was a skeptical pause, before the ship continued, "You just need to trust me!"
"Sorry to burst your mechanical bubble, but I've had some bad experiences with machines, y'know?"
"Yes. Well, I think you'll find that if you just open that door in front of you there, you'll find what you're looking for."
"How do you know? You can't see him, remember?"
"I have my sources."
Jack raised an eyebrow but walked forward to the large opening, where he saw quite clearly an empty dull grey space. He knew, however, from his experience with the broom cupboards, that this was a trick, and hit the large silvery-blue button on the wall, and watched the scene change as the doors slid open. He strode in, and walked up to the small shivering shape in one of the far corners. He stood a few meters away and sighed. It seemed that he had found what he was looking for.
"Shifty little buggers aren't you?" he said to the crouching shadow, "With you're holographic doors. What are you trying to do, trick your own people into head-butting them?"
There was a long silence, in which the colonel waited patiently, listening to the twitchy movements of the Asguard, until Thor finally turned and stood up, his eyes to the floor.
"Not my people, O'Neill," Thor's clear tones rung into the silence, "Just you."
Jack stared at the small alien, but nodded.
"I'm supposed to save you Thor. What do you need saving from, huh?"
"There is no threat aboard this ship, O'Neill."
"Damn, this is one of those psychological problems huh. I didn't think you guys had issues?" O'Neill punched the air downwards half-heartedly.
Thor raised his head, almost ashamedly, and his gaze met Jack's exactly. Jack was shocked, his breath caught in his throat and he coughed a little. The alien's eyes were fuzzy and red, blood-shot. There was a sickly gold tinge to his blue-grey coloured skin, and a definite droop beneath his eyes.
"Thor!" Jack muttered in a whisper. He tried to say something, he opened his mouth several times, and once succeeded to make a dry grunting sound, but apart from that nothing came out. He cleared his throat, trying to conjure some moisture.
"Are you-are you on something?" he stuttered.
"On something?" Thor questioned.
"Yeah, on something. Have you taken drugs or something?" O'Neill's eyes widened.
"No."
"Then why do you look like this?" he kneeled to the level of the alien, "Or is this just what Asguard look like when they're sick?" he asked suspiciously.
"Asguard do not 'get sick', O'Neill," replied Thor.
"Ah," Jack looked around the dark room, "Can we get some light please?" he requested to the ship. Instantly, the room was illuminated, causing Thor to retreat a step and shield his eyes.
Jack's eyes were averted to his left, where stacks of white cardboard boxes were reaching for the ceiling, gently swaying almost unnoticeably. They were marked in english, and each wore an orange streak along its side.
"Thor," Jack scolded, "Have you been stealing?"
"No?" Thor answered, ashamed, "Yes. Do you recall a gift I received from yourself and your comrades almost one year ago?"
"No?" Jack tried to remember.
"None of these," Thor gestured to the columns of boxes, "seem familiar to you?"
"Oh!" realization hit O'Neill like a truck with failed brakes, "Oh!" he held out a hand to his friend, "It has this effect on you?"
"Only, I believe, in extreme situations," Thor said, taking O'Neill's hand and walking with him to the door, "As I am in."
"You know buddy," Jack smiled, "We have addicts on Earth too. We can help you. Just come back with me to the base."
"Of course O'Neill. I believe I owe a thank you to my ship as well."
"Aw shucks. It was nothing," chirped the Daniel Jackson.
Jack laughed, "You know Thor, if I had known…"
"It is ok, O'Neill. But what do we do with all of the-"
"Chocolate!" exclaimed Jack, beaming at the faces of SG-1 and General Hammond.
"You're kidding!" Carter giggled.
"No way! I mean, I know of chocoholics," Daniel gave Carter a purposeful look, "But that is way out!"
"Yep!" Jack chuckled, "Anyway, the Doc was able to help him out. He's heading home soon."
"Perhaps we should send him a good luck gift?" suggested Teal'c.
"Not chocolate…" Carter warned.
"I was thinking balloons," mused Hammond.
There was a pause and glances were swapped, but soon enough the room erupted with laughter once more.
A/N: OMG! I can't believe it finished like that! It happened so quickly! Sorry if the ending was disappointing… But oh well! It's done! This one was around for a while. Actually, more like AGES :D