Rogue and Remy had decided that they were too easy to find if they stayed at the X-Men Mansion. They debated long into the night about where they should go, and in the end chose to go the X-Men's school in Boston. It was a good place to hide and the perfect opportunity to warn Banshee about the possible threat the school faced. They left New York that morning, and arrived later that day in Boston. Much to their discomfort, they found the school listless when they arrived on the doorstep.
"De ja vu?" Remy remarked, shifting his wait from foot to foot.
Rogue grimaced. "Bite yer tongue."
The two of them waited a good three minutes. Finally Remy broke the silence with a shiver. "Ah don' know 'bout you, chere, but Remy ain't all dat fond o' de cold. How 'bout we stare at each ot'r morosely from inside de school, si vous svp?"
Rogue thought about it; then sighed in agreement. "Yeah, Ah guess there ain't no sense in us freezin' our butts off."
She reached out to open the door.
Remy's instincts went wild and he grabbed her hand. "Let's fly in," he suggested, "t'ru de upstairs window."
Rogue blinked for a moment, but then she got. "Darn," she breathed, "Yeah, Remy, you're right. Ah certainly don' want a repeat of what happened at the mansion."
She grabbed him and flew them both to an upstairs window. Jubilee's room, she decided.
"Did ya ever doubt it?" Remy asked impishly, oblivious to her thoughts.
Rogue looked down at him, a playful smile tugging at her lips. "Ah should drop ya," she threatened.
Remy grinned. "Okay, Ah'll shut up."
"Here we go," Rogue warned him as they came up level with their entrance. Remy covered his face and braced for contact as she flew towards the window. They crashed through, Rogue taking the brunt of the sharp contact. As they scrambled off the glass-covered floor, Rogue saw that in spite of her attempt to protect him, Remy had still gotten cut up a little. It didn't look like anything serious, he didn't look like he was about to fall over, but…
Remy caught her worried look and waved nonchalant hand at her. "Ah'm fahn. Jus' a little scratched, dat's all."
He looked around the room; it was Jubilee's alright, but it looked even messier than it was wont to, in spite of overlooking the broken glass on her carpet. "Don' look like she's home, chere." He sounded concerned.
"Yeah, looks lahk a real pig-sty, too," Rogue agreed, her voice tight. "This don't look good, Remy."
Remy looked just as grim as she felt. "Yeah," he said, avoiding the glass on the floor as much as he could while heading out the door. He had some cards out, Rogue noticed, her stomach hardening as her mind replayed the scene back in New York. She hurried to catch up with him in the hallway.
"Hang on, Remy," she hissed, grabbing his arm, "Ah think Ah should go first. That Luthro guy can hurt ya a lot easier than he can me."
The minute she said that, she knew he didn't like it. Not. One. Bit.
"He nearly killed ya last tahm, petit," he replied unhappily.
Rogue bristled. "He caught me by surprise. Mah power didn' work on 'im. Now Ah know better."
"'E's a fast crotte, too," Remy protested, still not pleased, "he caught ya by surprise once, who says he can't do it again?"
"Better me than you," Rogue insisted, "Ah'm stronger an' his bite don' affect me. If he gets th' drop on you, sugah, you're out fer the fight. You jus' won' be able t' match 'im if he gets close to ya. Sorry, Remy, it's gotta be mah way if we're both gonna get outta this alive."
Remy resigned himself to giving in. He was as pigheaded as it got, but even he saw the stupidity of arguing with Rogue about this right now. "Fahn. Jus' don' go rushin' ahead lahk ya did bag daer. Remy barely got dere soon enough t' stop him from breakin' ya neck."
Rogue grimaced at the memory of her throat constricting, and rubbed it self-consciously. "Deal."
SG-1, accompanied by Bra'tac and Jacob, arrived in Boston in record time. Jack parked the van they had rented for the mission, in the designated parking lot, and the little group headed stealthily towards the building. O'Neill nodded at the others, signaling them to split up as they discussed in the car.
Sam and Daniel walked casually to the front door, ready to pose as a couple checking out a school for their child. Teal'c and Bra'tac circled around to the back of the building. Jack and Jacob sat back in some bushes by the truck, watching the front of the school.
"Daniel, Carter, you've got a go," Jack whispered into his radio, "Jacob and I have your six."
"Roger that, sir." Sam and Daniel moved closer to the door, Daniel's hand reaching for the doorbell.
Jack's radio crackled. "Bra'tac and I are in position, O'Neill."
"Great, Teal'c," Jack replied, allowing his eyes to dart around the area while Jacob kept an eye on the door, "Keep it sharp. And keep radio silence unless you see something."
"Indeed, O'Neill." Teal'c signed off.
At the door, Daniel pressed the doorbell once more.
Jack's radio activated once more. "Jack, I don't think the doorbell's working. I leaned on it several times, and I couldn't hear it echoing."
"Is there a knocker?" Jack asked.
"No."
Jack looked at the older man next to him. "Jacob?"
Jacob turned his binoculars in a different direction. "No cars in the parking lot, Jack," he finally said, "I don't think anyone's home."
Jack bit the side of his mouth. He sighed. "Okay, Carter, do it."
"Breaking in, sir," Sam verified over the radio.
At the door, she fumbled with something in her jacket than knelt down next to the door. All the sudden she jerked. "Holy Hannah!" she snapped into the radio, "sir, we've got a trap."
Jack and Jacob watched in horror as Daniel grabbed Sam's arm and the two of them started running. Then Daniel yanked his teammate off to the side, rolling them down a little hill that headed toward the parking lot. Just as they picked up speed, the whole front of the school exploded, forcing Jack and Jacob to duck behind the van to avoid being hit by debris.
"Daniel?! Sam?!" Jack radioed frantically.
Silence, then: "We're okay, sir; Daniel reacted quickly enough so that the explosion mostly missed us. We're in the parking lot now; we're coming up to join you."
Jacob breathed a lot easier, and he wiped his brow in relief.
Another incoming call caused Jack's radio to crackle. "O'Neill, what was that explosion?"
"It's okay, T, the front of the building exploded. Some kind of booby trap. Zero casualties. We're gonna move in. You and Bra'tac watch you're step."
"We shall indeed tread most carefully," Teal'c said solemnly.
He signed out before Jack could think of something sufficiently sarcastic to say.
"We are to move into the building," Teal'c told Bra'tac as he put his radio on stand-by.
"What was the explosion?" Bra'tac inquired.
"A trap," Teal'c explained, purposely leaving out the booby part. He did not understand of the use of the word in this instance himself, and thought it unnecessary to confuse Bra'tac with the odd sayings of the Tau'ri.
Bra'tac pulled his zat loose, wordlessly taking the lead through the mangled halls. Teal'c followed, eyes taking in every shadow and corner. Seemingly from nowhere, an attack suddenly knocked his mentor aside and out of Teal'c's sight.
"Master Bra'tac!" he yelled, activating his zat with one hand and pulling a Tau'ri pistol out of his coat with another.
His mentor didn't answer, but Teal'c's call did attract another attacker. Two bombs exploded at his feet knocking him to his knees. Dizzy, Teal'c could still hear Bra'tac battling. He wished he could help him, but he had his own problems. His hands scrambled for his radio. They needed some backup…
"Oh, Ah don' t'ink so, mon ami." A metal stick came out of the darkness and smacked the radio loose from his hand, sending it flying across the room.
"O'Neill!" Teal'c bellowed, in the vague hope that the Colonel could hear him. He needed to know that there were people in here…
"Hey, none o' dat!" The voice warned, sounding closer now.
Teal'c's hands looked for his weapons, but they had gone the same way as his radio and could do him no good now. He grimaced fiercely in what Jack called his I'm-as-friendly-as-a-lion look. He stumbled as if he were having a hard time standing up, and then lunged swiftly toward where the voice had last been.
He had surprised his attacker, since the big Jaffa tended to look clunky, but even so, Teal'c only just managed to grab a hold of the man's arm. He gripped it with ferocity, and he could hear the other gasp with pain. Teal'c smiled grimly. Jaffa strength startled many adversaries unpleasantly when they first came upon it.
Then, to Teal'c's surprise, his opponent twisted his imprisoned arm so that it would be holding the arm that gripped it. The Jaffa did not have much time to wonder at the other's tactics before his winter coat began to glow red.
That cannot be a good thing… Teal'c realized. He dropped his enemy's arm, prompting the release of his own. He only just barely managed to get the jacket off before it exploded.
Angry, Teal'c whirled around, looking for attacker among the shadows. Mindless of the winter cold, he also stripped the shirt he was wearing, determined to give his foe as little ammo as possible. He did not have to wait long for the attack; soon he was slammed into from behind.
Teal'c did not give the other a chance to melt back into the shadows, and instead reached behind himself swiftly to once more catch hold of his adversary. He sent the man flying over his head, but felt himself fall as his opponent managed to trip him with his metal stick. Both of them hit the ground hard; unfortunately his enemy recovered first and hurled himself on his downed opponent. He came down hard on Teal'c's abdomen, the easiest area for him to reach at the moment.
Either dumb luck or clever design caused one of the man's hands to slip into Teal'c's symbiote sack. Teal'c could feel his Gao'uld symbiote wrap itself around the other's hand, determined to make its way to Teal'c's opponent's neck. The enemy pulled his hand out of the warm sack, surprise visible on his face in the dim light. He looked at the climbing symbiote with wary astonishment.
"What de hey…?" he muttered.
Teal'c gasped in pain, and tried to wrench his symbiote free from his adversary before the other was made a host. He couldn't reach high enough, but thankfully he didn't have to.
Blue electricity hit his enemy from behind, and he fell against Teal'c, stunned. Teal'c took this chance to snatch back his symbiote and stuff it back in his sack. To his satisfaction, he could feel his symbiote's frustrated anger at being deprived of the blending.
"Teal'c?" Jack called from the shadows, concern in his voice.
"I am fine," Teal'c managed, "See to Master Bra'tac." He rolled his enemy off of him – in the light provided by Jacob's flashlight, he could see it was the mutant the TV had called Gambit – and stiffly tried to stand up.
"Jacob, you stay with Teal'c," Jack ordered, "I'm going to help Carter and Daniel take care of whoever is bothering Bra'tac."
"It should be the one called Rogue," Teal'c said, taking his zat from the floor and pointing it at Gambit, "This one is Gambit."
"Alright," said Jack, "I'll let the others know who they're dealing with. You two keep this guy down."
"We shall, O'Neill," Teal'c agreed determinedly.
As Jack disappeared once again in the shadows, Jacob turned his flashlight on Teal'c. He blinked in surprise.
"Teal'c, why do you have your shirt and coat off?"
Teal'c looked down at his bared chest, located his shirt, and pulled it back on. "It is a long tale."
Jacob waved his light toward Gambit, who wasn't stirring yet. "Well, it's not like we're short on time."
Teal'c began to explain.