Daniel smiled at the barista at his favourite little hole-in-the-wall café. The barista was new she must have started in the last week or so. Jackson had only just got back from a four day off-world trip to the Jaffa Nation so he had never met her. Tyler saw him though and grinned. "Dr. Jackson," he called out, "It's good to see you. Any good stories from your trip?" after a pause he seemed to remember himself, "Would you like your regular." Tyler had caught both Daniel and the new girl off guard. And all the linguist's words fled him; he could only nod his head.
Accepting his coffee from Tyler he wondered over to the stacks of old newspapers. Being restricted to base was almost as bad as being off world when it came to current events.
The person following him wasn't exactly subtle. Dr. Daniel Jackson noticed him as he left his coffee shop. He saw the man's distorted reflection in a number of shop windows as the pair made their way towards Daniel's home. Daniel had decided almost eight years ago – the first time they followed him – that they would not get his home address from him! Even if it meant returning to base to sleep. It normally didn't, he could often shake them or bore them into leaving. There was a book shop two streets over, best to head there for now.
To Daniel's delight the small shop was having a book-signing. Some crime author, David Rossi, was signing a tenth anniversary book. According to the sign Daniel spied, Rossi was an active FBI field agent as well! All he had to do to scare off his tail was talk to the man. Maybe Daniel's friend General Jack O'Neill (with two ells) would like a book; his birthday was in a few months. With that in mind (and maybe the thought of mentioning his unwanted shadow) Daniel grabbed a book and shuffled into the back of the line.
It was late in the day and there were only three people ahead of Daniel. Off in the corner there was a young man apparently speed-reading something maths-y from the reference section. If Daniel couldn't read about double the speed of the average person (in English and a few other Modern Earth Based languages) He probably would have been shocked. As it was Daniel just accepted that the young man was a quick reader. There was another man standing by Rossi's little table. This man wore a black suit like a second skin. Daniel's eyes flicked quickly to the gun at his belt and the bulge at his right ankle. His posture was practically screaming military but given the occupation of the author Daniel was willing to bet all the 'Gate addresses in the Abydonian cartouche that the suit was also an agent. The three people in front of Daniel in line were boring. There was a waitress from a restaurant down the street, a man who looked like he spent his days in an office. Oh, the man at the front just finished up talking to Rossi and turned to exit the shop: he was a Sargent on base.
"Dr. Jackson!" He started smiling, "I didn't know you were interested in American serial killers… though I suppose I don't see you much except on base." The man trailed off a bit awkwardly. Daniel couldn't let him flounder.
"Sargent Samuels, How are you?" Daniel started rhetorically, "The book's not for me: Jack. He likes things like this. Anyway, you have a shift on base coming up don't you? You better hurry: you know how Landry is if you're late and isn't SG-12 heading out in," Daniel glanced at his watch, "two hours?" The Sargent used Daniel's excuse to take his leave and rushed out of the shop. Throughout this exchange Daniel's shadow hovered outside of the shop pretending to read the posters plastered to the windows.
The waitress and office worker disappeared out the door quickly. "Agent Rossi, Agent" Daniel nodded to the two behind the table. With another nod toward the dwindling stacks of books Daniel requested, "Could you make one out to General Jack O'Neill (with two ells), please, with some sort of birthday salutation? You could leave out the General bit if you think that's too much. He knows his rank, no real need for it in a book." Daniel smiled before flicking his eyes to the man still reading the posters in the window with a frown.
As Rossi was scribbling in the front cover of a book Daniel turned to the hovering black suit with his hand thrust out before him, "Dr. Daniel Jackson, agents"
"Agent Hotchner" was the suit's reply, the speed-reader from the corner had wondered over beside Agent Hotchner at some point. Now Daniel could see the gun placed prominently on the young man's belt. Hotchner continued, "This is Dr. Reid and of course you know who Agent Rossi is." Daniel smiled and nodded to Reid and shook Rossi's hand. His eyes flicked back to his shadow.
"Agents I hope this isn't too much of an imposition but you see that man at the window has been following me: I work under NORAD on some very classified things. Did Sargent Samuels happen to mention what he does?" When Rossi told the table that Samuels worked on classified missions into enemy territory Daniel nodded. "I do that too, my team is one of 19 and I am the longest remaining member of our command, other than Jack," he said with a nod to the book resting on the table, "but Jack's in DC now. Any who our command is eleven years old now and for the past eight I occasionally get a tail from an intelligence agency or other. This one is being unusually persistent," he sent a glare out the distorted glass. Would you agents mind if I spent some time with you until my team can extract me?" He grinned at the enquiring look in Dr. Reid's eye, "I might even be able to answer some of Dr. Reid's questions."
The agents consented quickly. While the man went off to call his team the three compared notes, Reid compiled a list of questions. "He's not military," Rossi started, "and he says he's been at NORAD longer than anyone else on base. Reid do you know who this General O'Neill is?" Rossi's dark eyes trained on the younger agent.
It was Aaron Hotchner who answered, "A few years ago a formerly retired Colonel O'Neill was promoted to General and quickly gained a second star before showing up at the Pentagon. His office is unlisted but adjacent to Homeland Security. Very few people know what he does and those who do aren't telling, some say he has the ear of the president. Some even say he has the ears of every president, and prime minister." Hotch said that he heard Jackson and Samuels talk about someone called Landry, he knew of a General Hank Landry who recently fell off the map, into black ops as it were. Their conversation cut off as Jackson made his way back.
"The colonels are on their way. With any luck Vala isn't." His grin didn't meet his eyes, "ask your questions Dr. Reid." He sat on the carpeted floor of the empty book shop, the shop-keep having closed down a bit early at Daniel's request (Colorado Springs knew who he was).
"Well," Reid began with a downward turn of his lips, one that meant to those who knew him that he was trying to think of the right words, "what are you a doctor of?" he settled with.
"Archaeology, Philology, Linguistics and Anthropology. You could likely say history as well but I don't have the class time to claim it. You?" Reid listed his three doctorates, two masters and four bachelors.
"You know, you're the first person I've met with more doctorates than me. How old were you when you got your first?"
Daniel laughed, "I think we're a bit off topic, I got Archaeology when I was 25 and Philology less than a year later. My parents taught me ancient Egyptian and Sanskrit before they died."
"What do you do for your team? Why does NORAD need an Archeologist?" He paused for a moment, "No, wait you said you work UNDER NORAD. What does that even mean? Are there two bases in Colorado?"
Daniel tilted his head back and grinned, the skin around his eyes crinkled giving away his amusement, "There we go! Now we have the fun part. At the start they just needed someone who could quickly and easily translate Egyptian glyphs and I needed a job. Now I help with most first contact situations, I speak 28 languages, 23 fluently, that means that I can normally muddle my way into understanding a people, especially isolated tribes which is what we primarily deal with. I have also been called the moral compass of the base. As a civilian I can take liberties with superiors that others can't." Without turning his head Daniel glanced out the window where his shadow still lurked. "We occupy a small space below the NORAD base as our primary but we have a number of subsequent locations including Antarctic, Atlantes, Alpha, and Beta sights. I cannot tell you any more about them; Under NORAD is the only one that is almost exclusively American military and scientists." He paused, "Next question!"
"Who are the colonels and why do you hope Vala doesn't come?" Reid said taking a moment to digest Daniel's reply.
"Right, the colonel's first: Sam Carter and Cameron Mitchell. Sam's been on my team since my second mission, she's 2IC and only because she didn't want command. Mitchell's been on the team for about three years. He's a good ol' southern boy. He's nominally in charge of SG-1 but even he knows that he has the least experience out of all of us. Vala isn't," here he paused a moment too long, "from America, she is one of our 'Native Allies' if you will. She's not from the places we go but she's spent more than half her life there and doesn't do well in American cultural settings. She spends most of her time on base." Daniel anticipated Reid's next question and told them, "We have one more member who, like Vala isn't from America. He's naturalized a lot better though so I don't worry about him." There was something in the way that Daniel talked about his two non-American team mates that niggled at the profilers.
"Where are they from?" was Reid's predictable question. Jackson smiled; the smile was a gross one halfway between joy and a grimace.
"Where they are from is so classified that no one even knows where Vala is from. We know where Teal'c is from but that is unusual for our Native Allies. We honestly don't know if Vala is her real name," He paused for a beat and watched the shock bleed over the profiler's faces, "but, baring the first meeting, she's proven herself trustworthy and loyal to the Tau'ri." Jackson's eyes widened as he said the last word, he wasn't supposed to say that! Even if the honourific made him feel all glow-y in side, as Jack would say, the name of earth's people was classified.
"Tar-EE?" was Reid's timid inquiry. Jackson rose from his seat against a book shelf and wondered over to the Archaeology section. This was a good bookstore. The owner knew that people from the base were always looking for the latest information about digs all over the world. The man assumed that it was some odd base-wide interest but he brought the books in anyway. Jackson was silent for a good five minutes before he replied.
"Not Tar-EE, Taow-REE, It's an honourific that translates to 'First People' given to us by Teal'c's people based on a legend of theirs. We like it and, as most of the people we deal with know the legend as well, we kept it as a way to identify ourselves. Before you ask the Legend of the Tau'ri is classified." Daniel picked up a book on the Amarna Period affectively ending the conversation. He decided to read it quickly rather than at the pace he set himself on base. He placed two fingers on the page, index and ring, and ran them down at an accelerated pace. Rossi observed and shot a look at Hotch. The author was skeptical about the man, what kind of top secret archaeologist (what?) would spill apparently secret information to strangers in a bookshop. He even seemed to laugh as he read the book. It had been nearly a half hour and still no sign on the Colonels, but then his shadow outside the distorted glass hadn't left yet either.
After Daniel's read (the book was only 230 pages long) he went back to his spot on the floor. He fluidly fell into a tailor's seat and turned his eyes to the profilers, "Because I mentioned the legend you might have to sign a NDA, a Non-Disclosure Agreement, but I'm not sure. I mean, I already told you Teal'c's name instead of calling him Murray. So you might want to ask as many questions as you can now." Aaron looked up from his phone where he had been discreetly texting Garcia. Reid and Rossi waited for the team leader to start.
"Dr. Jackson, why does the United States government have, not one, but two death certificates in your name?" Reid's eyes widened almost comically, it was unheard of for a death certificate to be issued twice by mistake.
"Ah!" Daniel's eyes were also wide, but his lips were grinning widely as well, "Think about this one, agents. If I answer it you'll have no choice but to sign a lot of documents or disappear without a trace for the rest of you natural lives. This answer is covered up to your eyeballs and higher in red tape." The three profiles exchanged brief looks before Hotchner nodded his assent to Daniel.
"In that case: my first mission was to a place so isolated that they still spoke a dialect of Ancient Egyptian, and I mean Ancient, as in pre-Old Kingdom. Even though I am considered fluent by modern standards there were a few," he paused looking for the right words, "misunderstandings. I was thought to be the leader of our party, not the hired help, and I was offered a woman. Not wanting to embarrass what I thought was the entertainment I told her no but told the tribe that we had had sex," His face flushed bright red. "Turns out I married her. After a long and classified week, in which I saved then Colonel Jack O'Neill and his men, it was time to go home. The mission objective was to kill any threat that we found, which included the feudal lord of these people. Jack knew that the General would include the people in that category and I knew that if I left I would go back to being the jobless laughing stalk of academia but if I stayed I had a wife and a whole culture to study and teach. Before they were wiped out my people could speak English, Ancient Egyptian and Arabic. They knew reading and writing and basic maths (which is just about all I know) and they started to trade with other people." He paused with a bittersweet smile on his face, "but that's beside the point. Jack, his men and I agreed that they should return home and call me collateral. For all our happiness. That was the first time I died."
The four paused and Daniel seemed to get lost in his memories only coming out of them a good five minutes later when the front door chimed. Three people filed in. The first two where white as snow, as if they never went outside; the leader was a no-nonsense blond woman, her hair was medium length, pulled back from her face in a low knot. Directly behind her was a man who could have been Daniels cousin their build and face were so similar. He had a grin plastered across his cheeks. The Last man was an imposingly tall black man with wide muscled shoulders and a black beany cap pulled low over his brow. On second inspection the profilers could see that the white man did have a bit of a tan, it was simply over powered by the black man's skin tone.
Daniel's eyes flicked to the shadow through the window, then to the new people, his team? "Hey guys! Is it the Trust or the NSA that followed me this time?" that peaked Reid's interest.
"Dr. Jackson does that mean that the NSA doesn't have access to your files? They are supposed to have access to all National files, no matter what." he furrowed his brow trying to think of a reason the air force (Going by Hotchner's explanation of O'Neill) would hide something from the NSA.
"Normally you would be right, Agent Doctor," started the blond woman, "But normal gets thrown out the window on a bi-weekly basis around our base. Daniel, he seems to be from CSIS of all places. You'd think the Canadians would just ask but even they have to try the sneaky way sometimes. I swear if McKay's been emailing sensitive data to his sister again I'll kill him myself! And do we need to use the NDFs Cam brought?" She turned a bit toward the agents, "What had Daniel told you about himself?"
Rossi replied when it was clear she wouldn't wait for Daniel's answer, "Let's see we covered the origin of the name Tau'ri but not the legend itself and Daniel's first death certificate, but not the second. Oh, and his wife." He tacked the last thing on to see the newcomer's reactions. No one had failed to realize they hadn't introduced themselves. The tall man and the woman seemed to deflate at the mention of the wife, something had gone wrong; the other man, however, just looked shocked.
"Goddammit Jackson! It took me three years being in the program before I found out about your DCs, Jackson, and you go telling the first civilians you meet during a potential breach situation?" The man exclaimed. He must be Colonel Mitchell, the New Guy. "Please tell me you didn't talk about the time you actually died!" The man seemed to realize where he was as Daniel slapped his forehead with his palm.
"I hadn't, but I might as well have, as you just told them. I was hoping that in the excitement of you three arriving, where's Vala by the way, they might have forgotten the second certificate." He paused long enough for the taller man, Teal'c, to tell him that Vala had been restricted to base for pranking someone called Siler, "why don't we just read them in? I mean surely the Jaffa will have need of a profiler someday, what do you say Mitchell? Or maybe we could get them to profile Ba'al. That would be fun." Daniel rolled his eyes at the man he had named as Team Leader. Hotchner wasn't sure that Dr. Jackson respected Colonel Mitchell as his leader, maybe a friend but not a leader. Perhaps it seemed that way because Aaron could only see them interact in this setting. That is to say a book store where Daniel had been hiding in for about 45 minutes and not in the field where their lives were on the line.
"Besides that, I wasn't dead," He paused, "just mostly dead." The holder of two death certificates flicked his eyes to the agents then to Teal'c. "Teal'c do you think you could go scare off the CSIS agent, maybe with the help of agent Hotchner here?"
Reid listened to the odd syntax and cadence of the 'native ally' when he replied, "If AgentHotchner is agreeable I believe we can manage the unwanted visitor without the bookshop DanielJackson." He accompanied this with a deep incline of his head. Reid would probably call it a bow in Eastern cultures. Reid concluded, with limited knowledge of Teal'c people, that the tall man had a lot of respect for the doctor; but by the same token the strange man said Hotch's name in the same way: it could just be a cultural thing. Hotch nodded and followed the man out. Reid couldn't hear what they said, if Teal'c said anything, barely two minutes later they were walking back in and the follower, CSIS if you could believe it, was walking away. While they were outside Jackson motioned Mitchell to collect the few chairs scattered around.
The Colonel took his cue from the archeologist and pulled the three chairs from their nooks around the small shop. He pulled them up to the signing table where there were already three chairs waiting. Reid and Rossi didn't miss that there was one two few. Reid glanced around there were two other chairs not including the cleric's chair behind the registrar's desk. The seventh chair wouldn't be used. The five in the store had just settled in their chair, Carter next to Daniel with Mitchell on his other side. Reid across from Sam and Rossi slid over across from Mitchell leaving the middle space for the Unit Chief. It was clear who each party considered the negotiator.
Hotch took his place between his agents and Teal'c stood behind Colonel Carter, slightly toward Jackson. Almost like a bouncer, Reid would almost call him their enforcer. If they were suspects of a crime he probably would have.
"Where do we begin, Jackson?" Mitchell asked, his eyes flicking between Daniel and Hotch.
Jackson frowned, "I don't know Mitchell. It's been nearly ten years sense I have done ear – home based negotiations outside of the Whitehouse or Pentagon." He reached for the stack of folders sitting in front of Mitchell and passed one to each agent, keeping the last one for himself. "In these folders there is an NDA for you to sign. If you would like you can all read through them at your own pace and then sign; but, for expedience, I would suggest getting Dr. Reid to read his and give you the highlights." Beside him Carter's eyes widened.
"He reads like you, Daniel?" she murmured and Daniel replied with an equally soft 'faster'. It took barley a minute to read before the young agent was telling his boss and coworkers that the form was just a formality saying that they couldn't tell anyone not read into the Stargate Program, located under NORAD. When he asked Daniel what the program was Sam Carter answered, "We develop aircrafts and study Deep Space Radar Telemetry." She answered with a small smile, almost like she was telling a joke. A cover story, the profilers surmised. An old one, probably as old as the program, which Daniel had told them was 11 years. Reid quickly translated the cover project name into common language.
"You communicate with the galaxy? Or you try to?" Reid saw the other agents' eyes widen in surprise at the same time that Mitchell's face broke out in a grin. "Wait Teal'c is a Native Ally, not an American, but is he from earth?" Rossi and Hotch kept their council, watching the range of emotions flick across the faces before them, three faces showed confusion, then surprise, then resignation. One face: that of the suspected alien, didn't change at all but for the raising of a single eyebrow. Teal'c was disciplined.
Jackson recovered first laughing as he replied, "Not another word from us until we have your signatures on there."
"Jesus Jackson, could you have picked a more troublesome hidey-hole?" Mitchell asked with his wide, almost feral, grin held tightly to his teeth.
"Indeed," was Teal'c's solemn contribution. Carter excused herself pulling out a cellphone and walking towards the windows. Reid thought that she could hear 'Walter I need you to connect me to the Jack via the Hammond…' before she walked out of hearing range. He wracked his brain for and air force person named Hammond, probably a General. He couldn't think of a single ship or plane or even satellite by that name. He absently signed his name at the end of the document and initialled where Jackson indicated.
By the time the agents had finished Sam had returned. "Teal'c's story is his own to tell but he is an alien and our first non-human ally, if you don't count Daniel's tribe of non-terrestrial humans. We were united against a race of parasitical psychopaths who would have liked nothing more than to enslave us. They had in the past but we managed to over throw them then, and just a few years ago we managed to remove them as a threat. They live in a way that is similar to a feudal lord. We brought their serfs the ideas of freedom and the proof that they could survive without these parasites." She paused before continuing.
"We didn't count on the vacuum caused by the loss of the leaders of the galaxy. They had been there for, probably, millions of years. We have been working with our allied worlds for some sort of infrastructure but it's slow. Our other teammate, Vala, is a former Host. She's been a great help when it comes to non-terrestrial human cultures." She glanced at her watch, "Sadly anything else will have to wait until you return to DC and can book an appointment with the general. You will have to request a transfer via one of these names, Hammond, Daedalus, Prometheus, or Apollo. Without those your call will be rerouted to a different O'Neil who has no sense of humor and is getting sick of the 'prank calls'." Reid too glanced at his watch.
"Aahha! We have a plane to catch in two hours Hotch." He checked his phone and frowned. "I have no signal, how did you get a call out?"
Carter grimaced and Mitchell's ever-present grin faltered. Mitchell explained, "Sorry, that's us. We take precautions to make sure that any meetings not on base cannot be recorded by a third party. A by-product of blocking recorders is that most cellphones are blocked as well. Cellphones of base personnel are altered, by Sam here," he said with a nod to his 2IC, "so that we can still make calls. 'Cause often, if we have to set up the blockers, we need to call the bosses for permission." He grinned again, "They should be back up now, and didn't you say something about a flight?" As he finished speaking all three of the agents' phones went off vibrating and ringing.
It tuned out that most of them were from Garcia. It turns out that after she and Hotch had been texting she ran into a computer block that seemed to infect her computer. It searched her files and destroyed anything that even mentioned Daniel Jackson. But that's not all; it replaced them with old journal articles by the man. Upon finding that out Jackson laughed and apologised: he told the agents that the general and Sam were a little over protective, after the umpteenth time Jackson was kidnapped the two devised the virus.
After a brief farewell the agents piled into a black SUV and drove off leaving four fifths of SG-1 standing by the curb.
"Well that was fun," Daniel started.
"You just wanted to make more work for Jack, admit it." Sam smiled at her teammate.
"Who knows? We might be able to use some profilers in the future. With the way the program is going it might be good to get a psychological work up on our neighbours in the sky." Was Cam's addendum. The three walked away, Daniel turning down a side street to his apartment, Sam and Cam toward Cam's car.