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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. Stargate Atlantis belongs to MGM and its creators, Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper, again, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.
Star Born
Chapter 11
Keeping Them Safe
In the darkest part of night, when all was quiet and peaceful the Angel Castiel once again abandoned his post and appeared beside the bed holding the small body of Doathan, the Athosian child. He stared at the little boy and watched him breathe then stroked his cheek. Finally Cas murmured "Dean?"
The child awoke with a smile on his lips. "Never did grasp the concept of personal space, did you Cas?" Dean laughed. "And, oh yeah, watching people sleep is still creepy."
Cas rejoiced to hear his friend's long lost voice. If he wasn't an Angel he would have cried with joy. Finally he gathered his rioting emotions and got them under control.
"What of the child, Dean? Do you possess him? Is he safe?" the Angel murmured.
"Don't worry, Cas." The child replied in Dean's voice. "I promised you I would explain." De took a deep breath. "I am the child and the child is me. I can't possess myself." Dean replied cryptically.
"The same applies to me" came a voice from the other bed.
Castiel turned and looked at the child Sandow. The boy was so young to have that man's deep voice.
"Yes, Cas, we are both here." Dean went on. "One of us cannot exist without the other. Let me try to explain."
"Long ago at the beginning of creation there was Death and there was God. There were also several other basic components of the reality. One was the soul. The original soul was broken into two parts, the light and the dark. Men have also named those parts the Ying and the Yang. The soul provides a choice for humans. They must choose between good and evil, between Hell or Heaven, between darkness and light.
"We are the broken pieces of that original soul. Each new beginning again provides a choice to those who meet us. The choice is now yours, Castiel the Angel. "Your Heaven has been corrupted. The Angels were an attempt to create perfection; an attempt that fail miserably."
"As it is above, so is it below." Dean laughed "an old chestnut but still useful. Look at Anna, Uriel, Alistair, Azazael, Zachariah and Lucifer. They made their choice and now they must spend eternity with that choice."
"What of these children?" Cas asked. "What are they?"
"They are only another aspect of us. The bodies and minds are usually allowed to grow until they can support their own burden. Unfortunately they were needed in their world before they were truly ready to pick up the burden and now their young lives are beginning to spiral out of control."
Behind Cas young San slid out of his bed and came to sit beside his brother.
"Hi, Cas." Sam Winchester spoke. "Perhaps I can explain this to you. Remember how Zachariah had four faces in Heaven and how each face represented a different power?"
"Yes, Zachariah was greatly feared in Heaven." Cas replied. "Dean killed him. How that came to be is still a matter of wonder."
Sam nodded his little boy head. "For each of our new lives we gain another facet…."
There was a noise and the door of their room opened. Marie stuck her head in. "De, San! What are you doing up? You both need to go to sleep now. San, get back in your bed."
Marie came over and settled in a chair right next to the Angel. Dean and Sam disappeared like turning out a light and Cas returned to his post in the Gate Room, turning over in his mind the pieces of the puzzle he had just been given. The only sound in SG-1 was the movement of Sgt. Harriman's night time replacement rustling around in the control room, monitoring the gate.
Cas stood watch.
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Teyla stood before General O'Neill with Ronon at her back. "We came voluntarily and now we want to leave." The Athosian ground out tensely. "You cannot hold us here against our will. We are a free people"
Jack O'Neill was acutely uncomfortable. His strengths lay in making friends and easing conflicts. Issuing ultimatums to foreign governments was really not his style. However, he was under a directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see to it that these children were made available to the Tok'ra council. His hands were tied. Nobody was running off to some planet in the Pegasus Galaxy even if the decision made difficulties for their Atlantis outpost.
On Earth the Tok'ra swung a lot more weight than the Athosians. If the Tok'ra leaned on Earth's government there was little to stop them from finally seizing De and San. All the boys had were Teyla and Ronon. No one except Dean and Sam knew about their hidden Angel. Without their avatars the boys were only children again, small packages of possibility only.
Now Jack was faced with a very angry woman who happened to be the head of a foreign government. Backing her up was a seven foot tall angry alien with a real big gun. Jack spread his hands.
"Perhaps if we could talk about this…." He started.
"You want to talk?" Teyla snapped. "Come to Athos and talk." She beckoned to Marie to come closer with the children. Armed Marines stepped in to line the entrance to the ramp and prevented Marie, De and San from getting closer to the gate.
The Tok'ra Selmac came in from the corridor to stand behind the children. His partner, Jacob Carter spoke. "Please Teyla, may I call you Teyla? Please, we mean you no harm. No one is going to hurt the children. We simply want them to come to our base and do what they have been doing anyway, pulling Goa'uld out of unwilling hosts."
Teyla fumed. "No, that is not what these children have been doing. They have been growing up and going to school and living their lives. Along the way occasionally they demonstrated this ability you value so highly. There is more to their lives than that."
Ronon moved further down the ramp. "Remove these soldiers and allow the children to come to me." He growled. "I will not allow my adopted brothers to spend another birthday trapped in locked rooms away from the sun."
Now Colonel Carter spoke up as Jack O'Neill turned away from the window. "We are very sorry about that. If we had known it was San's birthday we would have arranged something more for him"
"That is not the point," Teyla lashed out. "The point is they spent his birthday in captivity. These are children, not pets, not animals to be caged. I insist you allow us to return them home."
A klaxon blared and all the involved parties splintered to defensive positions as the Stargate roared and spun. In a very few minutes the wormhole formed and Teyla and Ronon just missed getting sucked into the vortex. Marie screamed and fell on top of the children as Tok'ra fighters spilled out of the Stargate. Orange energy blasts flashed into the room.
"Crap!" Jack spit. "Sargent Harriman, get that gate shut down now."
"Yes sir," the Gate Keeper responded but too late. The Marines on the ramp blocked the Tok'ra from rolling directly into the Sign of Protection but Jaffa now spilled also from the gate in hot pursuit, as the military men say.
The Marines dived over the ramp's side and pushed the Tok'ra away as the Jaffa continued to fire but became very confused as all six of them found themselves trapped inside a circle painted on the floor. Finally the last of the invaders appeared; a Goa'uld dressed in to the usual overdone Egyptian finery.
He immediately ran to join his Jaffa guard. Jack pegged him as one of the stupid classes of Goa'uld as the creature may have regained his guard but now was as trapped as they were.
Several thoughts crashed into each other in the General's mind. First of all, the Tok'ra was going to have to move their base yet again. It looked like the Goa'uld knew exactly where they were. Secondly there was a spy embedded somewhere in the Tok'ra rebels, how else would the Goa'uld had heard of the children? Next, how the hell were they going to disarm the Jaffa who were currently blasting the hell out the gate room? The walls were blossoming with black blast scars.
More Marines arrived and surrounded the Jaffa. They shot a couple and the Jaffa raised their hands, completely immobilized. The Marine in charge motioned for them to throw their weapons out of the circle.
Finally, Sargent Harriman shut down the gate and for a few minutes the area was quiet.
Jack made a decision. "Harriman, open the Gate to Atlantis." It was better to hide the children on Atlantis then run the danger of further attacks. In addition, if the Gate was open to Atlantis no incoming wormhole could be accepted. Harriman began to program the sequence.
The mountain shook. "What the hell?' General O'Neill was shocked. He didn't know of anything short of a nuclear strike that could actually shake the Cheyanne Mountain installation. Once again klaxon blared but they were blaring throughout the shaken base.
Jack looked at Colonel Carter and she shrugged. "Earthquake?" she suggested. The mountain shook again.
The speaker over their heads blared. "General O'Neill?" the communications room officer's voice was coldly controlled. "Call from upstairs, Major Clinton." Clinton was in charge of the Army base which filled the first 18 floors of the installation. The base was Stargate's camouflage. The elevators didn't even have buttons for any lower floors than 18. To get to the elevators that serviced the eight floors of Stargate Command a person had to pass through a heavily armed security station.
"What's going on up there Major?" Jack barked.
"We are under attack." The Major answered. "But I can't tell you by what. There are these bright flashes of light, too bright to look at. We lost a couple of guys that way. They're dead and their eyes are burned out of their heads. The flashes only come for a few seconds and then they move to another… oops."
The Major's report was cut short as Cheyanne Mountain shook twice, hard, and in succession.
"Are you still with us Tom?" Jack cried out.
"Yes, I'm here. The flashes, whatever they are, are moving downwards through the installation. Those two jolts were from floor 3. They seem to be looking for something." The Major's voice was cut off again and the communications system blurred. They only thing they could hear next was the words "….coming your way."
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There was someone in the Gate Room who knew exactly what was coming. Castiel knew it was his uncontrolled emotions that had alerted Heaven. From what Castiel regarded as the mildness of the attack this raid was not likely to be sanctioned by the higher choirs. These were rogue Angels, fanatics, looking to return to the path of the apocalypse. He immediately moved to stand guard over the children.
Marie felt something settled over her. It calmed her and made her feel protected and safe. A man's low pitched voice said "Take the children to the front of the gate when it opens." She stood in the midst of confusion and gathered up the children. She held San in one arm and took De's hand with the other. The Stargate burst into life and she started forward. Ignoring the yelling behind her she walked steadily as if she knew there was a shield protecting her.
The floor began to shake and all the various creatures gathered there crouched down or held on to anything firm. The Jaffa in the circle held on to each other and left the Goa'uld to stand alone. Teyla and Ronon struggled up the now unguarded ramp with their eyes on Marie. Just as the original five travelers gathered in front of the wormhole, blinding bright flashes of pure light pierced the room. Castiel manifested in a naked human form and spread his wings in front of the group, protecting them from the other Angels.
He spoke in a voice that rolled like thunder through the room. "You must all close your eyes if you want to live. Close your eyes and do not look upon them. Your eyes will burn and you will die. Close your eyes, close your eyes."
In the control room the assembled group saw the winged man standing in front of the Gate. He glowed with a pure white light which danced and moved, mixed with delicate slashes of opalescent blues, greens and palest pinks. He was undoubtedly beautiful and his wings spread across the face of the Gate. They were glory in reality, a reflection of grace from worlds beyond.
He spoke to the achingly bright columns moving over the floor of the gate room. If the humans had been able to hear his words they would have heard, "Why are you here, brothers?"
One of the three columns coalesced down into another Angel. Pure white common feathers made his wings plain in the face of Castiel's display. "Ah, yes, Castiel. We should have expected you, the rebellious one. Have you learned nothing from your years of exile? Give us the vessels so that our Father's plan may proceed."
"That plan was rejected decades ago." Castiel responded. "Now you are the one going against God's word." Castiel turned his head to the side and whispered. "Go now. Go, all of you." Behind him he heard the sound of bodies entering the wormhole and the Angels before him became agitated. Castiel drew his sword.
As his brothers advanced Castiel drew in his wings and fell backwards through the Star Gate. In the control room Sargent Harriman moved swiftly to shut the Gate down.
"Good job, Walter," Jack said. "I hope they all are safe." The three columns of light disappeared. Stunned groups of Marines, Tok'ra and Jaffa all stood and wondered exactly what they had just witnessed. Selmac, the Tok'ra Ambassador partnered with Jacob Carter turned to Jack O'Neill.
Jacob spoke. "Jack, what do you think just happened?"
Jack turned to the shocked Daniel Jackson. "Daniel," he said "You want to handle this one?"
Dr. Jackson removed and started to clean his glasses, a nervous habit he fell into during times of stress or doubt. "I believe that we have all been trumped by a power most of us didn't believe existed. If I am not completely mistaken, that was a classic Angel standing in front of the Gate. I think Heaven has taken a hand. I have no other explanation."