Los Angeles

When Brian O'Conner was brought in to the FBI's L.A. headquarters two weeks after he handed Dominic Toretto the keys to his Supra he figured the feds had finally decided to bring charges against him and that he was royally fucked.

But the two agents who picked him up didn't put him in cuffs so maybe this was just one more attempt to pressure him into rolling over on Dom and Vince and the rest of the team. Brian walked into the federal building with a blank face, emotions shut down, prepared to be stoic and sarcastic and resolutely ignoring the coldly irrational fear in the pit of his stomach that he would walk into the interrogation room and see Dom cuffed to a chair, caught. The thought was somehow worse than the way more realistic fear of his own ass ending up in prison which, with the love cons had for cops, was pretty much a guaranteed death sentence.

But things went weird. Instead of being taken to the cold, stark gunmetal grey interrogation room he'd been expecting, Brian was led to a nice, comfortable, airy gunmetal blue conference room where the agents left him, no cuffs, no watchdogs, no threats, not even a parting glare. Then a pleasant looking older woman came in and asked if he wanted coffee. Figuring he might be in jail by the end of the day Brian said "Uh, yeah, thanks." When she came back in she gave him standard Government issue black coffee, not too horrible, not too great, in a blue mug that said 'FBI' and left him alone. With his coffee. Very weird.

Brian figured sooner or later someone was gonna show up and let him in on just what the hell was going on and, until then, he might as well sit back and enjoy his coffee in his FBI mug. So he sat there and burned his tongue on the scalding brew as his thoughts started moving in the same unhelpful cycle they'd been going in for weeks; wondering where Dom was, how Mia was doing, if Vince was going to regain the use of his arm, if Jesse was ever going to wake up from his coma and how the fuck it all went so wrong.

When the door opened he looked up and got his next big surprise of the day. It wasn't feds who filed into the room. It was military. A woman entered first, tall, around 40, short blonde hair and hot in an all American Amazonian way. Eyeing the silver oak leaves on her uniform he frowned in consideration as she approached, trying to work out what the hell the Air Force could possibly have to do with the truck hijackings. This made no sense. Unless Dom had somehow hijacked military equipment? But, no, there hadn't been any military items listed on the stolen goods manifests.

The blonde approached and held out her hand to him with a bright and friendly smile, blue eyes clear of guile and said "Mr. O'Conner? I'm Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter of the U.S. Air Force."

Seriously puzzled by both the woman's presence and also her total lack of animosity and hard assedness Brian smiled back warily and shook her hand. "Hi. Call me Brian."

At his offer, her smile kicked up a notch and she went from 'very pretty' to 'wow' her face as bright as sunshine. "Please call me Sam."

As Sam settled into a seat at the conference table Brian's wary gaze scoped out the rest of the party. There was another air force officer, young, who hung back deferentially like he was her aide or something and there was an older man, civilian, in a tailored suit. Older guy looked like a lawyer. What the hell was going on?

"You're probably wondering why we asked you here," Samantha Carter started as she settled down, crossing a pair of very nice legs.

Well, he hadn't exactly been asked here so much as forcibly marched but the wondering part was true. "Yeah, I am" Brian admitted, curiosity growing stronger. If this wasn't related to the hijackings, what the hell could it be about?

Sam's gaze went serious. "First of all Brian, what I'm about to tell you is highly classified. Before we go any further I'm going to ask you to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Mr. Drake," she indicated the guy Brian had pinned as a lawyer "is going to go over the forms with you."

"Okay," Brian said, drawing the word out as his brows furrowed. A non-disclosure agreement? What the fucking fuck?

He barely registered the next fifteen minutes as Drake (hah, he'd pegged him right as a lawyer) led him through about fifty pages of a non-disclosure agreement that required Brian's signature seventeen times and his initials another twenty. His hand was cramping by the time he was done and his curiosity was surging as he signed his life away and nodded his understanding of the lawyer's warnings of 'very serious consequences' if he broke the agreement. Brian almost laughed in the lawyer's face at his stern attempts to intimidate but managed to bite back the urge to say 'try the threat of Lompoc penitentiary for a soon to be ex-cop, punk.'

With the disclosure agreement signed, everyone settled in silence for a moment before Sam opened her mouth and said in a determined rush "You're going to have a hard time believing this but I want to ask you to please keep an open mind and to listen to what I have to say without interrupting. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have after I'm done and you've had a moment to process. Okay?"

"Okay," Brian blinked back at her. Maybe he was about to learn who really shot JFK.

Turned out what Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter had to say was a hell of a lot stranger.

Stargates?

Aliens?

Ancients?

ATA genes?

Atlantis?

Un-fucking-believable.

"So let me get this straight," Brian said, holding up a hand to cut Sam off when it looked like she was starting to wind down. "There are aliens out there. Some are 'good' aliens and some are 'bad' aliens." His voice was mild and easygoing, the same voice he'd used to talk crazies down from ledges when he was still on the force. "We're descended from some of the 'good' aliens called the Ancients. Some of us have their gene, this 'ATA' gene, which lets us use their technology. And we know where the lost island of Atlantis is, only it's not a lost island, it's a lost city on a lost planet in a lost galaxy." He blinked. "Did I get that right?"

"Uh, yes?" Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter said hopefully.

Brian just stared at her for a moment trying to see where the con was. But the thing was; his bullshit meter, his finely tuned bullshit meter honed by both his time in juvie and his time as a cop was sitting quiet. As completely freaking insane as Sam's story about aliens and other galaxies was Brian's bullshit meter actually believed it. And, bottom line, what possible benefit could they be getting from trying to pull a con like this on him? There was no way he could see that this could lead to a trap for Dom and Mia. A trap for him, yeah, but…why?

"Okay, let's say everything you're saying's true." He saw her start to smile and hastily interjected "Not that I'm saying it is true. But let's go with it. You think I have this ATA gene? That's why you're telling me all this?"

Sam beamed at him like he was a particularly bright student who'd just said something clever. "Actually we know you have the ATA gene," she said. "You see we've been trying to expand our testing of the public population to increase our chances of finding people with the ATA gene. It's incredibly rare and even though we've developed a gene therapy that can create the gene artificially in people with a success rate of almost 50, we've found that there are still benefits to those who have the gene naturally." Sam had leaned forward and something in her face told Brian this woman spent a lot of time lecturing people.

"About a year ago we started having federal and state employees of law enforcement and scientific agencies that already undergo yearly drug screenings as part of their jobs get tested for the ATA gene marker as well. The labs didn't know what they were testing for of course," Sam said with a rueful smile. "They thought it was part of an advanced cancer screening test still in developmental stages. If a person's blood was flagged with the marker their blood sample was forwarded to the SGC labs for closer analysis. You see," she leaned in a little more, her passion for the project lighting up her big blue eyes. "We've been able to make our testing more accurate in the past two years so that not only can we detect the presence of the ATA gene but we can also detect with a less than 2 variance the likely strength of the gene."

"And my gene is pretty strong?" Brian asked, fascinated in spite of himself. Aliens and ancients and fricking Atlantis? It was right out of the comic books he used to read as a kid.

Sam smiled enthusiastically at this comment. "Brian your gene is one of the strongest we've ever seen in a human."

Brian blinked at that. "Oh. Cool."

He guessed. If you were gonna be a weird alien descended freak show you might as well be the best weird alien descended freak show you could be.

"So, what exactly do you want from me Sam?" 'Cause, guaranteed, she was buttering him up for something.

Sam straightened in her seat and took in another deep breath. Here came the sales pitch.

"We want you to do a tour on Atlantis," she said in utter seriousness.

Huh. Brian kept his expression impassive as his mind rapidly examined all the angles. The U.S. Air Force wanted him to go to another galaxy. That was…unexpected. He'd thought best case maybe they wanted him to work in a lab part time looking at alien shit or worst case Sam was just being nice to him right before he found himself strapped down on a table in some government lab to be cut open to see what the ATA gene looked like from the inside out.

Being asked to go to Atlantis? Where did that land on the scale of best case/worst case scenarios? He had no fucking clue.

"You know I'm not sure I can just up and go even if I wanted to," Brian said cautiously. If they'd had the feds bring him in then they had to know about his current mess.

"Yes we know about the, uh, difficulties encountered with your last case," Sam nodded. "We've reviewed the case files and talked to both a Sergeant Tanner and an Agent Bilkins about your role."

Brian suppressed the wince, keeping his face stoic. "And you still want me to go?"

"We've read your personnel file, your psych reviews; we know about your time in juvenile detention and we know about your latest, uh, case and yes, we want you to go. Your background and training shows you have potential and other than this last case, your record on the force is a good one. And actually, for all the current difficulties, Sergeant Tanner still thinks you have a great deal of potential."

Hearing that caused a sudden wash of shame considering how much Tanner had already put himself on the line for Brian and how Brian had repaid him. "And Bilkins?" Brian asked, shying away from thoughts of Tanner. He was pretty sure Bilkins didn't think he had a great deal of potential.

Amusement glimmered in Sam's eyes. "Bilkins is not happy about how the case went down," she admitted. "But he's actually not out to get you. That's pretty impressive actually considering the amount of blame that's being tossed around right now." She watched him digest the information in silence.

"Look Brian, we're not going to force you to go," Sam looked honest in her sincerity. "If you aren't interested we'll leave and you'll never hear from us again. But if you are interested we can help you with your current situation. Sign on for a one year tour in Atlantis as a civilian consultant and we'll wipe your slate clean. You won't face charges and when you get back you'll have a recommendation that should help you get into any law enforcement agency in the United States."

That…was tempting. Not only the thought of wiping his record clean but the sudden thought that he could get away. That he could start somewhere fresh, where there were no betrayals and accusing eyes. Brian thought about the shambles his life was currently in. Thought about the fact that Dom was long gone, probably hiding out in Mexico. That Mia was alone and betrayed and rightfully wanting nothing to do with him. Dom's chosen family was shattered and scattered; the family he had ached to be a part of. His life here was over and now he had a chance. A final chance. To start over. And to make things right.

He took a slow breath and then looked at Sam, intensity focusing out from electric blue eyes. "If you can get all charges dropped against Dominic Toretto and his crew I'll sign on."