Chapter 7

2002

The Sergeant next to her didn't even look at her. Weren't they allowed to talk? She had to admit, she'd never been inside a military facility like this before, but this stiffness seemed weird.

"Level eighteen, ma'am."

"Thanks." She pulled the bag back over her shoulder and stepped out of the elevator. This level looked pretty much like the first level had, she thought, as she turned to look around. Dr Jackson was supposed to meet her up by the entrance, but he'd called in just as she arrived, letting her know that he'd forgotten about her. And so, here she was, standing in a concrete corridor, her book bag over her shoulder and nowhere to go from here.

"Dr Woolston!"

She turned to find Dr Jackson heading towards her at a quick pace. He was a bit out of breath and the glasses he was wearing were askew. "Dr Jackson."

"There you are, sorry I'm late. I had a meeting with the General and then I sort of lost track of time and before I knew it… well…" he shrugged. He was clutching a notebook and waved her to follow him. "Come on, let me show you around."

Alex nodded. "Has that artefact I sent you been of any value?" She'd found it on a dig near Babylon and the carbon dating had her thrown. It was older than it should have been and seemed to confirm Dr Jackson's theories and she'd contacted him as soon she could. And here she was, a few months later. Being offered a job for the Air Force had been the last thing she'd ever imagined to get out of this. Not that it had come at an inappropriate time. Her research grant at the university in New York had just ended and she'd been grateful for another opportunity. Grateful to be offered the chance to live in a place with a little more green outside. Not that she'd see much of that in here, she thought.

"Yes! Yes, and that's exactly why I asked you to come here." He turned sharp right and practically disappeared in a room. Was he always this hectic? Probably… she remembered some of it from that talk she'd been to with her boss.

She followed him into a workspace that must be his office. There were several shelves stacked with books, books on the counter, books on the desk, on the computer keyboard, on artefacts. Everything was a bit chaotic and she took in a deep breath. This was the stuff she'd been hoping to find the moment she decided to study ancient cultures. And now she'd get the chance to discover even more. At least, if the information she'd gotten out of Jackson after signing that non-disclosure agreement weren't a complete hoax.

He waved her over to the counter and there it was: ´the small cylindrical object she'd found buried in an unsealed jar. It had practically fallen out of there the moment she touched it and the writing alone had startled her, let alone the lab results. She'd never even seen writing like this anywhere. Her colleague had merely shrugged them off as a sort of decoration, but the way certain patterns appeared, in no symmetrical order whatsoever had made her question that. "Have you figured out what it is?

"Yes! That is… well, let me show you." Without much ado, he twisted the top of the cylinder in a way she never would've dared. It came off with a pop. "It's a data storage device of sorts. See?" He shook it slightly and out fell two narrow, transparent slides. "No, of course you don't see." Shaking his head, he raised the piece of crystal up to the light.

"The Ancients, that's the race of beings who built the Stargates, they started using crystals as storage devices thousands of years ago, way before the Goa'uld ever entered the picture. Colonel Carter has been able to interface these with our computers aaaand, there." He took another, regular disk, from somewhere among the dozens of books, walked over to his computer and popped it in.

This was all going a bit too fast, even for her liking, but she couldn't help but stare at the writing turning up in front of her. More of the same. "This is incredible," she breathed.

"I know, right?"

"Is that Ancient? I mean, the language you told me about?"

"The very same… And a whole lot of languages evolved around it."

"What does it say?"

Daniel shrugged. "There's a whole lot of poetry in there, but also… this." He pulled up another file. God only knew how they'd managed to get those files in the right format, but there it was. "What is it?" It looked an awful lot like schematics of some sort.

"Blueprints. To some sort of… I don't know for a weapon of sorts. Short range weapons. We believe the Goa'uld may have developed their staff weapons from schematics just like these."

Alex nodded. This was all still new to her, but she realized what this discovery might be worth to the military. "Okay… Dr Jackson, what exactly will I be doing here? You mentioned research? Do you mean… research like…"

"Off world, here on Earth. You still up for it? We need all the qualified personnel we can get."

"You know I'm not qualified."

"Well, no. You're not. Not yet, anyway. But neither was I." He turned around to face her, looked her up and down as though assessing her. "You got allergies?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "No."

"Good, then you're when step ahead of where I was five years ago. I don't go anywhere without a bag full of antihistamines." He winked at her, put his glasses on straight. "Let me show you around. First you'll get tried out on several teams and the commander of that team will decide whether you're a good match. When you're back home, you'll be working with me and the other archaeologists or on your own projects. Right now we're compiling an Ancient dictionary. I've been told my notes on the Ancient language are a bit gibberish." He slipped right back out of the door, clearly intending her to follow him. "Okay, let me show you the gateroom first. It's the most impressive thing around here. Oh, and you'll meet General Hammond of course later on. Colonel Reynolds has requested an addition to his team. Well, not exactly requested, as asked to take on someone with a more anthropological viewpoint. Helps sometimes. While you're being assessed, you will also receive some basic military training."

Right… she should've expected that. They were walking down the corridor, heading back to the elevator. "What if I fail that training."

"I doubt you will." He smiled at her now. "Seriously, you have to stay fit and all that, get some basic training with weapons, but you'll love it." He hit the button with the number 28 on it. "Believe me, it can get really terrifying, but it's worth every second."

She smiled briefly. "I believe you…" She took a deep breath. "Where are we going, Dr Jackson."

"Daniel. Please. We're heading towards the gateroom. And, to answer your question, should you fail at training, we always need people back here. Alright, here we are."

Without waiting a single second as soon as the doors opened, he started heading down yet another corridor, which ended in a small staircase and seemed to be leading into a sort of control room. So this was it. The place she couldn't stop thinking about for days now. Who'd have thought that Daniel Jackson had actually been correct? And that she'd joked about him.

And there it was. She couldn't even focus on the people sitting at desks, working at the computers. All she could focus on was the massive ring of grey metal right behind the window. Her heartbeat picked up, as she saw the inner ring begin to turn.

Out of nowhere the alarm began to sound. The grey-haired man in front of her said something she couldn't quite understand.

"Does this happen a lot?" she asked Daniel. If it did, then this reaction seemed a bit out of place. Through the glass she spotted soldiers running into the gate room, taking up position and aiming their weapons at the gate.

And then a massive metal kind of door seemed to close over the ring.

"Sometimes," Daniel sounded calmer than she would've thought. "Sometimes teams run into trouble off world."

"Do we have any idea who this is?" Someone was coming down the set of stairs behind them, but Alex couldn't bring herself to watch the gate as, all of a sudden, a whooshing sound echoed through the entire room and the concrete wall behind the gate was alight in a white-blue light. Like light reflected on rippled water.

"It's Colonel Edward's IDC, Sir. Opening the iris."

And then the metal thing parted the same way it had closed. The luminescent surface of the event horizon almost made her gasp. This was truly incredible. Like a pool a purest blue and light.

Next second, a group of five stepped through. As soon as they'd walked down the metal ramp a few steps, the pool of light vanished again. The man who'd come down the stairs pushed past Alex to get into the gate room to meet them.

"That's SG-11. Mostly engineers," Daniel said. "They look alright, though."

Alex nodded, absentmindedly, her eyes focused on the men. Her heart was beating so fast, she could barely breathe. One of the men, the oldest one approached the General… of course, General Hammond. She'd read that he was in command here. But she couldn't focus on him, or the man he was talking to. The way the man right behind this Edwards was standing, struck her. But it couldn't be. Not here. She turned to face Daniel instead.

"Okay, so where next?" There was no way Evan was here. Only because she was in an Air Force facility, didn't mean she'd run right into him. That was ridiculous.

"You weren't supposed to get back here for another five hours. Did anything happen?"

"No, Sir," Edwards said. "Just nothing to see there. Just grassland as far as the eye could see. No trace of civilization anywhere."

Evan wiped his brow. "Could be a good spot for another Beta- or Gamma site, though, Sir."

"Alright. We'll talk about this later, meeting in one hour."

Edwards nodded as General Hammond started to turn away. But something was wrong. Evan could've sworn someone was watching him. He looked up into the control room and just saw Dr Jackson heading out of the room.

The meeting was over quickly enough, luckily. Ritter, Menard and Woeste were already on their way out, but Evan wanted to stay at the SGC for a while longer and finish his last mission report. He was already late.

He just went to the mess, got a coffee and then started heading towards his private quarters, as Colonel Edwards stepped up to him. "Major, General Hammond was just talking to me. Apparently we got someone new here today. Another archaeologist." He almost rolled his eyes. "We just have to see which team she'll fit into best."

"Doesn't sound like the worst plan, Sir," he said. "And we might even get lucky. She might get picked up by another team."

"Maybe… She has to receive some basic training, though. As quickly as possible."

"I'm on it, Sir. I'll schedule an appointment with her straight away. Where do I find her?" It was a job he shared with a couple of other officers. Training the scientists enough so they could survive in the field. It wasn't the worst job in the world. Usually. Of course, the hopeless cases weren't a lot of fun, but at least seventy percent of these guys made it through alright.

"Dr Jackson's office."

"Right. What's her name?"

"I forgot, Major. Just get this over with. We're going to have to take her along for at least two trips if no one else picks her up."

"Yes, Sir." Evan raised his mug in greeting and started heading towards the elevator. So, just one more appointment to make. That wasn't too bad. And the mission couldn't even be called that. He'd be done with his report in about an hour, then he'd just get to his dog-walker, pick up the mutt and head home. He just should remember to call his mother, now that he was home on her birthday.

Dr Jackson's office was the one closest to the elevator. Evan could hear him talking excitedly about one verb or something, and then he turned into the office. Jackson was standing by the counter in the centre of the room, bent over a notebook. The woman he was talking to, or rather at, had her back turned to him. Blonde, slim, but not too thin. Should be good enough for basic training, Evan thought and knocked on the doorframe to get their attention.

When she turned around to face him, he almost dropped his coffee. It was as though he'd slammed right into a wall and she looked pretty much the same. Her eyes were just as he remembered them, and it was as though these last four years had never happened. She was there, alright. And made absolutely no sense at all.

"Major. Hi, this is-"

"You made Major?" she breathed. He couldn't tell if she was surprised, pleased or appalled. There was no way of saying what she felt. The last time they'd seen each other was still vivid in his memory. The sadness. The tears… the unwillingness to let go. But there it was.

Evan shrugged. "You're here?" He couldn't help it. He smiled at her and was really tempted to turn around and run away. He'd read her last e-mail mere minutes before he started getting ready for the mission.

"Hang on, you know each other?" Jackson seemed stunned. But Evan didn't even look at him. All he could focus on was her. The way she set down her glass of water and stood up straight.

"Yeah… a bit." Evan had kept the ring, but had never brought up the courage to pop the question. Their chances had run out years ago. Maybe they'd never had a real chance at all.

"Uhm…" Jackson frowned. "I'm gonna go get some more coffee…"

And just like that he was gone. Slipped out through the door. But it was no use. The wall they'd built up over these past years was still intact. Probably even more so.

Tentatively, Evan set his mug down, before he smashed it to bits. "So… uhm… hey."

"Hey." She was smiling now, but the tension was still there. In her face. In each and every muscle of her body. "I… I thought you were-"

"I know. I read your e-mail this morning."

And then she was moving. Not as smoothly, as she once had, but she moved towards him. Hugged him. Pulled him close to her. But that hug didn't help him relax.

But he hugged her back. Awkwardly. Wishing, he could pull her closer to himself, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Who could say if she wasn't already seeing someone else… already. It had been years! She must be.

He let go of her before it could get even worse.

"I'm glad you're okay."

Evan nodded. "You too." He cleared his throat. What she meant was something completely different. She was glad he wasn't lying dead in the middle of the desert. He was glad she looked healthy and beautiful and as stunning as ever. "So… you're the new scientific addition."

"Looks like it." She put her hands into her pockets and shrugged. "Did you just get through the gate?"

"Yep… and I'm to start introducing you to some things you're going to need off world." Dear Lord, how am I supposed to do that? "Is that okay?" Please say no.

Alex hesitated for a moment. "Sure. When?"

He took a deep breath. Time to get going. "Eight. Do you know where the gym is?"

"Yes, Daniel just showed me around."

"Okay." Hell, why did we break up? "Well then… see you tomorrow." Do you want to meet for dinner later? But of course she wouldn't want that. He wasn't even sure he wanted that. And so, instead of saying anything else, he practically took flight.