Stargate Atlantis, Sg-1- "You're my WHAT?!"
"Unscheduled off-world activation!"
The familiar announcement echoed off the concrete corridors of the SGC as General O'Neill paused in his march to Daniel's office; he sighed as he about-faced and headed for the control room. He wondered why the announcement was never: "Unscheduled On-world activation" after all, there had been several instances in which someone, either alien, a traitorous human, or someone who was simply off their rocker, had hijacked the stargate from the inside and escaped before they could be apprehended. If the SGC just had a warning for that like, "Hijacked gate alert!", then maybe they could have stopped some the escapes. Of course, He and his team had hijacked the gate themselves for various reasons over the years; and Jack wanted to keep the option of fleeing off-world open in case the command of the SGC went to pot. Not that that was too likely to happen now...
"-Sir?" Walter inquired respectfully.
"What?!" O'Neill barked back at him, wondering what he had spaced out through this time.
"Should I put the video feed from Atlantis through, Sir?" Walter patiently repeated.
"Yes, you do that." O'Neill answered- It had been Atlantis, hadn't it. Hmm. He wondered why they were calling off schedule.
A slightly fuzzed, staticy image appeared on the monitor. They really needed to get some new computer equipment down here. For crying out loud, He had a better computer at home! Of course, this signal was coming through a warped pocket of space-time, but still.
While Jack contemplated this, the image resolved itself into Elizabeth Weir's somewhat apprehensive face peering at them.
"Hiya, Doc," Jack greeted her, "how's the far reaches of the universe treating you?"
"Well enough," she sighed, "We've found Sheppard's team."
"We-he-ell! That's great! So why the long face?" was O'Neill purposely cheerful response.
"The whole team is accounted for and in good health, thankfully. However, we have a slight problem involving Colonel Sheppard."
Well, the woman didn't beat around the bush, he gave her that; and why was he not surprised that whatever the trouble was, it involved Sheppard. That boy had the worst luck in the entire Pegasus galaxy. His pension for trouble might just rival O'Neill's own.
"So what's the trouble?" Jack asked, still cheerful.
"Umm," Elizabeth sighed again, "could you- I mean- this is a- somewhat confidential matter."
Jack paused, Dr. Weir was a talented diplomat; she had to be pretty frazzled if she was unsure of her words.
"Walter," O'Neill addressed the technician, "could you transfer this video to General Landry's office."
As acting commander of the base for the moment while Laundry was on personal leave, Jack had made himself at home in the command office.
"Of course, Sir" Walter obediently leaned toward the key-board to input a few commands before the screen went black. "The feed is running in your- the office, Sir."
O'Neill smiled at Walter's slip as he jogged up the stairs to the command office.
"Alright, what's the trouble?" O'Neill asked as soon as he had shut the office door and plopped behind the desk.
"Time is the trouble. We got Sheppard and his team back, but it turns out they were in a time dilation field of sorts." Weir took a breathe before she continued, "It's barely been a month since they've been missing; to them, it's been almost five years."
O'Neill was, for once, momentarily at a loss of what to say, "Five YEARS? Wow. That's some team bonding time there." Jack thought of the longest he'd been trapped in a bad situation: it was probably the time loop, but at least then he'd been on earth with his team and everyone had been safe; unless you counted the danger he had been in of losing his mind.
Elizabeth gave a half-hearted chuckle, "Yes, more than you realize." she cleared her throat and continued, "As you know Sheppard's team took a puddle jumper through a space gate to investigate an abandoned ship nearby, 27 days ago. They missed check 'in, and when we sent a team to look for them they only found the empty jumper. No ship. No team.
"Zelenka thought the ship may have taken them to hyper-space. We sent the dedalus out to their last known location when Caldwell arrived, but there was nothing to track, nothing for the ship's sensors to pick up. Radak-" again Elizabeth faltered, revealing a little of the true turmoil within her. Atlantis really had made a family of the people sent there.
"Radak came up with a theory, after almost giving up. He thought perhaps we should look for the same radiation emitted by stargates-"
This time she was interrupted by O'Neill, who had been uncharacteristically attentive before this, "Ahhp- Dr. Weir! I don't want hear all that technical jargon! I just need the who, what, when and maybe where, not the how or why."
"Alright." Weir smiled a little more easily now, "Anyway, Zelenka reasoned out a theory as to why we couldn't track a hyper-space signature, and found a- different way of looking at it, I suppose you could say. The short of it is: Zelenka found them. Unfortunately, they were orbiting a star that is orbiting a black hole."
"There!" Jack exclaimed, momentarily ignoring his foreboding at the mention of a black hole, "The point wasn't so hard to get to! So they were orbiting a star within a black-hole's gravitational field, for a month to us, and five years to them because of...Gravity!
"Then Caldwell went and beamed them up once you knew where they were. That about it?"
"Well", Dr. Weir said shortly, "I was trying to lead into the situation a little more carefully, but yes, that's the basic story in a nut shell."
She might have said more, but O'Neill interrupted again, "Nut shells are good, doc. You can roll them right along. Now, I don't mean to be rude, but we're using intergalactic minutes here, so maybe paraphrase and we can both get lunch today."
Dr. Weir was looking slightly miffed by now, and Jack had no doubt she was really quite annoyed by him cutting her off, but was hiding it well.
"Fine." She snipped, "To make it short: There were other humans on that ship when Sheppard's team found it; Sheppard formed a relationship with one of the women and they had a child. They named him after you. He's three. And he's missing." As she said the last part her voice softened with worry.
"Whoa! Wait a minute! Sheppard has kid! A three-year-old kid! Why, that little rascal!" Jack couldn't help laughing a little in amazement. He even felt a little proud- perhaps he had been thinking of Sheppard too much as a so-ahem-a nephew. After all, they were eerily similar in behavior and even looks...
Jack halted his mental rationalizing to tune into what Dr. Weir was irately telling him: "...besides he was there five years!" She finished in a huff.
Umm- uh oh, should have paid attention, Jack! he berated himself.
"...o.k.?" he tentatively answered.
Dr. Weir exhaled sharply, pulling a more relaxed expression over herself.
"So," Jack started, "you said this kid was missing? How?"
Elizabeth smirked slightly, "I thought you said you didn't need to know the how?" she continued before he could protest, "Yes, he is missing. There was apparently a stargate on the ship; they hadn't used it because Rodney didn't think it would be safe so close to a black hole. J.J., your namesake, was near it playing when it spontaneously activated; Rodney thinks maybe there was a power surge or a solar flare or both. But the point is J.J. went through the open gate before anyone could stop him, and his mother ended up going through, too, when she tried to grab him."
"So we're thinking they were sent somewhere, not killed or anything?" Jack asked seriously.
"We don't know." Elizabeth sighed heavily,"Teyla was the only witness, and she said the event horizon looked, and I quote: 'like the surface of a pond when a storm blasts it under a green sky.' She said after the boy and his mother went through, the gate gave off what she said was an indescribable noise, then the entire ship lost power. When Caldwell arrived four day later, they were almost frozen and out of air."
"What do your scientists think?" O'Neill wisely withheld speculation over the mother and child's chances.
"They don't know. Rodney couldn't figure out what had happened-he didn't have a lot of time. He managed to copy some data before they were rescued and the team here is going over it with him." There was a long pause as Elizabeth tried to drag her weary thoughts together, "Now I need to ask you a favor of sorts."
"Alright, what is it, and I'll see what I can do." Jack answered slowly, waiting for the hammer to drop.
"Colonel Sheppard would like to be granted official leave to earth for an indefinite period." She stated quickly.
"What the hell for! He's not one to give up and come running home! Why he's-" O'Neill's vigorous defense of Sheppard was cut off by Dr. Weir.
"I know! He's not giving up. Officially, he wants leave. What he really wants is access to the SGC and an opportunity to research- under a blind eye- so he can figure out what happened to his son. You see, on the ship, after J.J. and his mother had disappeared, an- Sheppard's whole team witnessed this and swears to it- an ascended being told them J.J. was on earth. Now as I'm sure you would have told us if a small toddler had come through the gate with his mother, the scientists are guessing they were sent through time. Which would make some sense considering how close they were to the star and a black hole, I mean who knows-"
"Dr. Weir! Thank you, I think I got it. Yes, I will officially grant Sheppard shore leave and unofficially leave the back door open for him to snoop around. Send him when he's ready." O'Neill tried to wrap up their prolonged conversation so he could go get Daniel out of his mountain of ancient literature and drag him to the commissary for a very late lunch.
Weir pulled her lips together and nodded, "Understood, He'll be there tomorrow, 1400 hours your time."
With that she reached beyond the camera range and hit a button, killing the video feed. In the ensuing silence, O'Neill leaned back in the cushioned chair, and pondered yet again the screwy-ness of the universe. He was getting too old for this job- Maybe it was time to maneuver himself out of the service and leave the fight for survival to the younger men, good men. Men like Col. Sheppard.