Billions of years ago...
Somehow Max had managed to snatch SG1 from the very moment Delos split apart and deposited them safely on board one of the primitive fleeing spacecraft. Even years later, Clementine Jones was never quite sure whether she should be grateful or angry.
SG1 were soon fully accepted into the community that had renamed themselves something that roughly translated as the Ancients. She never really figured out if that was another of Max's little tricks or whether it was the beginning of a new age of understanding among these people.
She couldn't be a soldier any more. Deciding on a complete career change, she approached the ruling council that had formed in the wake of Delos's destruction, and soon she was put to work on the construction of the very ship that was the precursor of Atlantis.
She became a scientist.
The Ancients had begun to tentatively reach out into the galaxy for allies, and upon noticing Clementine's efficiency when dealing with foreign dignitaries, the scientist was dully assigned to oversee all ambassadorial activities. She was given the authority to choose a team of explorers and scientists to approach other races in hope of forming alliances.
That, at least, she knew how to do.
Clementine remembered meeting the Asgard. The race was the first to recognise the Ancients' potential, and the normally reclusive people joined them in what would one day be the Alliance of Five Races. She and her team encountered the ancestors of the Nox, and she suggested that the Council keep their eye on the developing race.
She lived her life. Then she saw him.
He was one of the lesser members of the hierarchy among the visiting ambassadors. She kept an eye on him. He seemed incredibly young. Almost too young. He seemed as curious about her adopted race as she was about him. As her team went about drawing up the alliance, she followed him.
He had accessed one of the computer terminals and was rifling through their archives, trying to gain some insight into these people who had made the transition from savages into a cultured and civilised people. He was clumsy, back then.
"Hello."
He spun around to stare at the old woman standing behind him, guilt and embarrassment written across his alien features. Clementine smiled. He was so young. She wondered whether she was about to lead him down the road to damnation.
"I was – I know I'm not supposed to be here, but I – I got lost-" His voice got as squeaky as he spoke, rather like a boy going through puberty. He looked at her anxiously, his spurs tucked to the sides sheepishly. "Please don't tell my father."
She looked at him. "I need you to do something for me."
"And you won't tell my father?"
Clementine grinned. "I won't tell your father." She said. "I've heard that your race live quite a long time."
He stared at her. Finally he nodded slowly.
"Will you be able to give a friend of mine a message?"
"Of course. But our ship won't be departing for some time yet."
"That's not what I mean." She paused. "My friend... he won't exist for a long time yet."
He looked confused. Then understanding dawned on his face. "You want me to carry a message to him." There was an undeniable look of curiosity on his face, and she shook her head.
"I can't explain. Please understand that."
"You should speak to one of the others. I am only young, and-"
"Believe me, it has to be you."
He blinked at her. "What is this message you wish me to carry?"
"There is a man." Clementine said. "He's – well, you'll know him when you see him. He will be born an Ancient. He'll be the most inquisitive Ancient that ever existed, and one day by accident you're going to meet him and you're going to show him my face, what I looked like when I was young." She touched her fading red hair. "Tell him that no matter how bad things are, he's got important things to do."
He reached out a claw to touch her face softly. Clementine was enveloped in a soft, safe feeling as she felt him reach backwards in her memory to find the image of the young woman who journeyed across the stars.
"I will."
The alien, one day to be the Commander of the Furlings said solemnly.
It was hard to wrap her head around, the fact that what she did here made her life happen the way it did.
And Clementine wondered whether this would doom or save her future self.
August, 2009
There was a knock on the door.
"I can't believe you people, I'm supposed to be taking it easy and here I am answering my own damn-"
Her words evaporated in her throat as she opened the door. "What are you doing here?" She demanded of the person standing on the doorstep.
"Nice to see you, too." Major Lorne grinned. "Word has it that there's a party going on here."
Blue glared into the lounge-room at her roommate, Laura Cadman. "Well, I'm going to have to talk to Word later."
Lorne awkwardly jammed his hands in his jacket pockets. "So, the big 40, huh?"
Cadman must die.
"Don't worry, kid. This cougar doesn't need another notch in her bedpost quite yet. What are you doing here?"
"Well, I'm on my own time here and I was in the area, so I thought I'd drop this off."
From under the jacket he produced an unwieldy card. Good luck! it proclaimed. She tentatively took it from him and cracked it open. A surprising number of people had signed. "Did you make these people sign?"
Pretty much every military man and woman Blue had served with over the years had scribbled on the card. Colonel Sheppard had even scrawled his name across the top, complete with a little cartoon spaceship beaming up a rather surprised-looking cow.
"I think your major is already petitioning the IOA to keep you on his team."
"Yeah." She grinned, scanning the names. "I won't be going anywhere, yet."
Truth be told, Blue had actually tried to quit the program, but she was soon to find out that Stargate Command wasn't very keen on letting their people go, especially when they knew matters of homeworld security.
So she'd been shunted sideways into an advisory position with the IOA, and would be back at the SGC within the week until her posting came through. Yay?
"I'll be the one reporting your asses when we get back to work. Hey, your name isn't here."
He looked over her shoulder, avoiding eye contact. "I kind of thought I'd say goodbye in person."
"Oh, yes?"
Meeting her gaze, he cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her.
Over the course of her life, Blue didn't have very many happy surprises. Most of hers tended to be oh-dear-I-can't-believe-none-of-us-anticipated-the-evil-aliens-would-ambush-us surprises. So this, this was rather a new experience for her.
It took a moment before she remembered where she was. Her hands were in his hair and his were more or less cupping her butt. Evan's face was only inches away from hers, and as much as something primal inside her demanded that she drag the major inside and have her way with him, it wasn't the most practical idea at the moment.
"...aaand I'm guessing that's not the pizza guy."
The woman who spoke was a tall redhead with curly hair. She held a bottle of beer and grinned brightly at them. "Hi."
Blue blushed brilliantly. "This is my sister," she mumbled. "This is Major Evan Lorne. We work together."
"Uh huh." She raised an eyebrow.
"Really."
"Uh huh."
"Is that another one of Clementine's yankees?" A gruff voice hollered out the door. Major Lorne grinned as Blue wearily held a hand to her forehead.
His hand brushed hers. "Well, you're having some sort of family thing, so I'll-"
"Stay for a bit, Major." Blue's sister invited. "Dad's about to give a speech about sis's early years of alcohol-fuelled sexual promiscuity." With a little wave she turned around and flounced back inside.
"She's joking."
"Oh?"
Just as Lorne was about to say something more, two dark coloured cars came up the street. One pulled into the driveway behind Cadman's neat little red convertible and the other came to a stop on the curb directly in front of Blue and Evan.
"Major, we could have given you a lift from the SGC if we'd known you were coming too." A voice shouted across to them.
"Major Ashgrove?" Lorne said in surprise.
"Sis and Laura sort of hijacked the party. So I thought I'd hijack it back." Blue grinned and waved as her team crossed the lawn. There was her Major, Victor Ashgrove, and fellow marines Lieutenant Katherine Peters and Captain Marcus Wrainwright, along with their scientific advisor, Doctor Radek Zelenka.
"What a charmink garden," Doctor Zelenka straightened his glasses on the bridge of his nose as he carefully exited the captain's precious vehicle.
"If you mean 'overgrown and neglected', yeah." Blue nodded and shook his offered hand. "How are you, Doc?"
"Spent the whole trip complaining about my driving, that's how he is." Wainwright grumbled as he threw open the boot of the car and began to search around for something.
"Vell, if you didn't drive like a nachmelený opice, I'd have nothing to say, yes?" Zelenka retorted sharply. "Bůh, ta hosté JÁ am dohnat až k mˇt trvale…"
"No kidding." Peters said. "I've noticed that pilots drive the same way they fly. Fast and mean and expecting a collision at any second."
"Yeah, thanks, Kathy." Wainwright thrust a case of beer into Blue's arms. "Happy birthday, Australia. So, when are you applying for the old age pension?"
Blue let her breath out in a whoosh and lowered the case to the ground. "Marc, you shouldn't have." She said sarcastically.
"I didn't. Courtesy of the boys and girls at work."
"You know, I would have accepted a cheque."
"I hope you aren't planning on driving home after," Zelenka sounded shocked.
"Me? Drink drive? Nah, I'll just curl up in a corner somewhere among the remains. Jones'll put us up, right, luv?"
Blue made a swatting motion. "Get in there. And don't make a move on my sister!"
"Now all, Marcus has to be in bed by midnight." Peters said.
"And whose bed is entirely optional." Wainwright joked good-naturedly, and was followed inside by Peters and the doctor. Major Lorne gallantly bent down to retrieve the case of liquor and was ushered inside as well, leaving her outside with her Major.
"Coming, Ashgrove?"
"In a minute." Ashgrove said.
Blue stood beside him as Ashgrove looked up at the barely visible stars. "Amazing, isn't it?" He said softly. "Even though I've probably been to each of them, I always make time to look up at them."
"When they're not smog-obscured, I'm assuming. Is this the part where you say something deep and awe-inspiring, sir?" Blue asked wryly. "Look, I'll miss you guys, I really will, but I'm IOA now. I just can't keep doing these... kamikaze runs around the galaxy."
Ashgrove glanced at her, brows raised. "From what I've been hearing, your decision seems... final. Right?"
"Right." Blue looped her arm through the Major's and the two of them joined the Joneses guests.
...
Five years ago people appreciated his genius, until, of course, the organisation he had been enlisted into happened to be toppled by a man that was apparently a triple agent, a renegade SAS trooper, and a solitary alien with a suicidal streak. It was all quite an embarrassing affair, and ex-employees either had the choice to join ASIO or vanish into the crowd, after signing non-disclosure agreements, of course.
After seeing the stars firsthand through Plithss's Stargate, DJ couldn't imagine anything worse than moonlighting for the Australian secret service. He was forced to sign a waiver under threat of ASIO informing his parents of his highly illegal activities, and graduated high school and commenced university like any other person his age, though he found it all incredibly trite and boring.
How could he forget what had achieved?
He kept up to date with the more important global government activities. DJ could reel off all the governments that had or were experimenting with nuclear power, and where exactly the warheads were pointed. He had done it so smoothly that he was doubly certain that he would not be able to be traced. Just another ghost in the machine.
But apparently he wasn't as smooth as he first thought.
It was a sweltering day in summer when they turned up on his doorstep.
"Darren John Cooper?"
"Can I help you?" DJ peered at them around the door. Both men looked entirely too smug for their own good.
"We have been monitoring you for some time." One of the men lent his weight against the door, so DJ couldn't slam it in their faces.
"I have no idea what you guys are talking about."
The two men exchanged smirks. "You're very lucky the Feds aren't here instead of us. They aren't quite as friendly when it comes to matters of homeworld security."
Momentarily lost for words, DJ stepped aside and let them enter the house.
"Who are you, then?" He meant for it to b e a haughty demand, but he choked on the last word when he spotted gun bulges underneath their jackets.
"We are employed under the sole directive to attain alien technology to defend Earth territories at whatever cost." The first man said. "Mr Cooper, we know about the alien corruption in the RAI. We know about the Stargate. We know about Lieutenant Jones, Agent Evans, the Ancient and the Furling. Please don't act dumb."
This time DJ's expression hardly flickered. "What do you want?"
"We've noticed that in the work you submitted to the director of the RAI that you were rather against human-alien alliances. You seemed concerned that some might use Earth as a foothold."
"It still concerns me." DJ said flatly.
"How so?"
There was no more point in lying. "If the Stargate should fall into hostile enemy hands, if the resources in the SGC, Area 51, and contacts from the Atlantis expedition became compromised..."
"Armageddon." The second man said. "But we are in a time of peace, after all."
"Alliances crumble in peace."
The two men seemed please with DJ's answers. The first man held out his hand, and after a moment of hesitation DJ shook it.
"Welcome to the Trust, Mr Cooper."
Across the street sitting in front of the cafe was a tall man with brown hair. Later, no one would be able to recall exactly what he looked like or even who he said he was.
Max glared at the men from the Trust, his lips thinning. Then he was gone.
...
..
.
..
...
"Huh."
"What?"
"That's another non-ending right there. They save the whole of everything and don't remember any of it? The heroine gets the guy only until she's transferred? The hero died? The secondary character suddenly becomes evil?"
"It sounds like an average Stargate episode, actually."
"Yeah, but-"
"If Blue starts working in an advisory position for the IOA, there's always the possibility that she could turn up in Stargate: Universe the next time I feel inspired. And until then there's always what little DJ's getting up to with the Trust."
"Oh, yeah."
...
AN: Here's hoping I've got the translations for Zelenka correct.
Nachmelený opice - Drunken monkey.
Bůh, ta hosté JÁ am dohnat až k mˇt trvale - God, the company I am forced to keep.
Yes, DJ's back because I'd been neglecting him for too long. BTW, if anyone's interested, I've planned a sort-of sequel, tentatively titled Don't Be In the Opening Credits. DJ and the Trust, the organisation that just won't die...
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own Stargate or any associated characters and don't pretend I do. However, DJ, Harry, Blue & Max are mine, along with other OCs there to fill in the gaps.