Behind the Scenes
by Bil!
K – General, (mild) Humour – J/S, T, H, (D) – Complete
Spoilers: There But For the Grace of God.
Summary: Daniel thinks he visited an alternate reality. Well, he can't be right all the time. Season One.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, a fact that probably gives them a feeling of great relief.
A/N: They need a category on this site for 'insanity', because that's what this story is. You have been warned. Takes place near the end of There But For the Grace of God. You will not understand this if you don't remember that episode. You may not understand it anyway.
Side note: The Iditarod is a dog-sled race held in Alaska.
Warning: This contains S/J ship (well, come on, it was in the episode!), just in case you don't like that.
"Autodestruct in thirty seconds," the computer intoned. Daniel dived into the Stargate's event horizon, not quite quickly enough to escape being hit by a staff weapon blast. The Stargate shut down.
"And, three, two, one – he's gone. That's a wrap, people! Good job!" General O'Neill strolled into the Gateroom, his hands in his pockets. "Geez, Teal'c, did you have to shoot him?"
Teal'c took the resurrection of his fallen enemy in his stride. "He will require physical evidence of his experiences here."
"I guess. Still, he's not going to thank you in the morning."
"I believe he would prefer to experience a minor wound rather than the destruction of his planet." Teal'c reached up gingerly to touch the ungainly ponytail sprouting out of his head. "This hair is most annoying. I do not understand why it was necessary."
"Atmosphere, Teal'c, atmosphere! Am I the only one around here who's ever watched Star Trek?"
"Probably." An arm snaked around Jack's waist; he grinned and wrapped his own arm around Sam's shoulders. "I have to agree with Teal'c about the hair, though. It's ridiculous." She pushed some stray hair out of her face and sighed.
Jack tugged on one of the blonde locks draped over his hand. "I don't know, this look kind of works for you." She levelled a glare at him. "Or maybe not. Geez, a guy tries to be supportive..."
"Well, don't," she ordered. "It's unnatural and not a little scary."
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed immediately.
"Fine, no more being supportive. I can take a hint."
"If it's applied with a sledgehammer," Sam smiled, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
"Or a ha'tak vessel," Teal'c added.
"Oh, ha ha. No one appreciates me."
The Gateroom was staring to fill up with humans and Jaffa, all animatedly discussing recent events. Catherine entered arm in arm with one of the Jaffa who had killed her and smiled across the room at them.
Jack squeezed Sam's shoulders. "Hey, that thing with the grenade was a nice touch."
"Thanks."
"Completely unnecessary, of course..." She offered him an innocent smile. "You were enjoying yourself, weren't you!" he accused.
"No." He looked at her, eyebrows raised, and waited. "Well, maybe."
"Hah! I knew it! And you thought this whole thing was a bad idea."
"Well, it was your idea," she pointed out. "I automatically think those are bad. It saves time."
"Hey!"
"She is correct, O'Neill," Teal'c said helpfully.
"Oh, don't you start," Jack warned. "I saw the look on your face when you shot me. Next time you kill me you don't have to look so happy about it."
"You had just killed my wife and son," Teal'c reminded him. "Was I supposed to weep?"
"Well... I s'pose. But that was just pretend!"
"As was your death."
Sam laughed and Jack allowed a grin. "Yeah, okay, I'll have to give you that one."
As Teal'c inclined his head graciously, Sam glanced around at the growing crowd. "Oh, don't tell me they're arguing about the Iditarod again!"
Teal'c and Jack followed her gaze to see George Hammond and Apophis in heated conversation. Jack sighed, but before he could move Catherine appeared beside the pair, fobbed Apophis off on Ferretti, and ushered George over. Jack gave her a grateful smile and she rolled her eyes. For good friends, George and Apophis could find time for an awful lot of arguments.
"That man," George said with irritation, "has no notion of the finer points of—"
"Hey!" Jack interrupted hastily. "George, we believe you! You're preaching to the choir, teaching your grandmother to suck eggs—"
George scowled at him without heat. "You know even less than he does."
"True," Jack acknowledged blithely, "but I don't argue with you about it either."
George chuckled despite himself and Sam took the opportunity to change the subject. "So what did you think of our little show?"
"Colonel," Jack tacked on gleefully.
"I still don't see why I had to be the Colonel," George told him. "It's completely unrealistic."
"Maybe, but it gave him a shock, didn't it? Made him start thinking."
"You just wanted to be the General," George accused.
"Well, there's that too. And hey, it can't be that unrealistic if he believed it."
"Very funny," George said dryly.
"I try. So, did it work? You think he bought it?"
"I think he bought it," Catherine said firmly. She chuckled. "You should have seen the look on his face when I told him the two of you were engaged! He's never going to look at his Jack and Sam in the same way again."
"Well," Jack excused himself, "we needed some big, juicy changes to shake him up and keep him on the wrong foot. It could have been worse: we could have said we were married."
"Yes," Sam said, "but would you want to explain to him that we just celebrated our three thousand year anniversary a few decades ago?"
"Yes, well, obviously we wouldn't have told him that bit, would we?" He grinned. "He wasn't such a bad kid really, was he? A bit single-minded about that planet of his, but that's what we wanted."
"He wasn't too big on logic, either," Sam said. "Didn't it ever occur to him that he could go with us to the Beta site and gate to his planet from there?"
"Were we not endeavouring to keep him from thinking?" Teal'c asked.
"Then we must have done our job a little too well," she retorted.
"Or he's too trusting for his own good," Jack said.
"And a tad patronising," Catherine grumbled. "He can speak Ancient Egyptian because he learnt it on Abydos. Well, Mr Daniel Jackson, I wrote the blasted message!"
"Yes, but he didn't know that," Jack pointed out reasonably. "You're the one who told him you couldn't understand it."
She shrugged and smiled. "I thought he'd take it more to heart if he was the one to decipher it."
"I just hope it was enough," George said seriously. "It's one thing for us to convince him, but now he has to convince the others."
Catherine nodded. "I don't like some of the rumours about that universe that are floating around at the moment."
"His friends will believe him," Teal'c said confidently.
"They'll find a way," Sam agreed. "They always do."
"They know about the coming attack now," Jack said. "That's all we can do without interfering."
Catherine looked around the surrounding crowd with her eyebrows raised. "And this wasn't interfering?" she asked with a smile.
"Nah," he dismissed. "This was just... giving him a nudge. Looks like everyone's here, doesn't it?"
Jack pushed his way through the crowd and scaled the gateramp so that he could look out over their heads. It was quite a group, all the bodies that had been needed to convince Jackson that this was a real battle for survival.
"Okay, everybody!" Waving his arms, he got everyone's attention and they fell silent. "Great job, people, mission accomplished. We've convinced Jackson and now the rest is up to him. Thanks for your help, guys! Couldn't have done it without you. You guys die great!" They laughed and he grinned. "We'll hold this place together while you lot scram. Oh, and for those of you who don't know, four universes down we've got a little tournament running, Federation versus Dominion. Feel free to stop by, check it out, maybe join in." He paused. No one moved. "Well, what are you waiting for? Off you go!"
Slowly the assembled crowd began losing focus, blurring at the edges, beginning to glow... Body after body disintegrated into bright white light and vanished.
After a few minutes only his co-conspirators remained.
"Do you require assistance deconstructing this place?" Teal'c asked.
"Nah, I've got it covered. You guys go on ahead."
"Call us if you change your mind," Catherine said as she and Teal'c glowed away.
That left only Sam, who came up the ramp to wrap her arms around him. "This was a good idea," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder.
"If it works," he caveated, slipping his arms around her waist.
"It will. I'll see you soon." She kissed him even as she faded out of his grasp, like the kiss of a ghost.
'Jack' smiled and reached out with his mind to break the moorings of this little piece of reality before following her. After he'd gone, the base in which Daniel Jackson had watched an alternate Earth being destroyed faded gently into the aether, existing only in his memories. It had fulfilled its task – the warning had been delivered.
What Daniel did with that warning was up to him.
Fin
...because, you know, I'm insane...