It's approximately 11 PM in the story, still the first day after Alfred fell through the Stargate.

Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia Axis Powers or Stargate SG-1. They belong to their respective owners. I am making no money off of this fanfiction. It is for entertainment purposes only.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Part the Fourteenth

Stargate Command

General Hammond's fist slammed on his office desk with a bang. "Do y'all have any idea of the trouble that y'all have caused? The President called me a little over three hours ago to say that he received a call from the national personification of Canada, who just happened to know that something was wrong with America. Now how the hell could Canada know that something happened to America unless y'all told him?"

SG-1 looked guiltily to the floor.

"Maybe he has a sixth sense, General Hammond? They are twins," Daniel attempted.

General Hammond snorted. "A twin psychic connection? Now that's a convenient deus ex machina if I've ever heard one. And how would y'all know that they're twins?"

"Alfred said that he had a twin named Mattie who was the personification of Canada when we talked in the debriefing room," Jack answered immediately.

"And how does that prove that he found out without y'all telling him?"

Jack inhaled deeply. Remember, it didn't happen. "With all due respect, General Hammond, how could you think that we told him? Someone else might've told him and blamed it on us. Or who knows, maybe he figured it out himself, since they're brothers. Because remember, sir, we didn't go to Canada. We went to Texas."

"I know that y'all went to Texas, Colonel O'Neill. I sent y'all there myself," General Hammond huffed. "And we don't think that y'all told him, we know that y'all told him. Y'all are the only ones who could've told him. The FBI traced Canada's call to Alfred's property in Texas—and it was made at a time when y'all were still there."

Guess it happened after all. Jack cursed silently. He hadn't considered that someone would trace Matthew's phone call. He usually considered potentialities like that. Maybe that was what Daniel had thought would happen but decided not to voice out loud just so he could say 'I told you so.' And given that Daniel was now looking at him pointedly, that would be the case. Jack sent him a withered look, but Daniel just looked away. Well, then.

Jack took a deep breath. Time for a different angle. "What time was this call made, sir? Maybe he arrived and made the call after we left. That property's huge, General Hammond. It took us two hours to sweep the property while it took us about half an hour for the house. Maybe we missed him?" he asked, and then kicked himself for making it a question.

"I highly doubt that, Colonel O'Neill," General Hammond ground out. "Now I want a complete and true debriefing of what happened on that property, and I want it now!"

Jack exhaled slowly. "All right, sir. But for the record… if you're going to court-martial anyone, court-martial me. Matthew went to Texas because he was worried about his twin, and, so, I sort of told him to call the President if he wanted an answer."

General Hammond leaned backward, inhaling deeply. "You didn't tell him yourself that Alfred was missing?"

"I…" Jack paused. "Not exactly. I told him that he wouldn't find his brother if he looked."

"And that's not the exact same thing?" General Hammond exclaimed.

Jack shook his head. "Look, sir, I know that this is splitting hairs, and I'm sorry, but it needed to be done."

"And just why is that?"

"Because when Matthew arrived, he was already worried about Alfred," Jack said. "He didn't tell us why he was worried. He just said that he knew. So he risked going to Texas a day early to meet Alfred because Alfred wasn't answering his phone. And according to the rules that we were given and he reminded us of, that could have gotten him in a boatload of trouble if he was caught. He told us that he had called Alfred, like, ten times that day, or something, and the lack of response apparently freaked him out. What would have happened if we had lied and said that Alfred was coming later but there was no one there to meet him the following day?"

General Hammond took a deep breath. "And you didn't consider saying that Alfred was pulled away for governmental duty in which he couldn't answer phone calls?"

Jack praised any higher being that existed. "Actually, sir, I did try that. I presented a similar possibility to him, but Matthew just repeated that he knew that something was wrong. If anything, the chance for doubt gave him greater certainty." He paused, and then said, "Now, sir, if that's a worried national personification when he's working on his own, what would have happened after he received no answers from Washington? Regardless of the suggestion, he was bound to call them next, and they wouldn't have told him squat because, like I told him, it's classified. And after Washington told him that nothing had happened but he still felt that something was wrong? He's a national personification, sir. He would have started making phone calls to other national personifications to see if they had heard anything, and when some of those personifications became concerned because they hadn't heard anything and couldn't learn anything and Alfred still didn't answer his phone, then the news really would have reached the world." For good measure, he threw in, "And then the buck would have eventually stopped here. It's Murphy's Law, sir."

General Hammond inhaled and exhaled deeply. He said slowly, "All right, Colonel O'Neill. That is a fair assessment." He nodded to himself, and then he said, "I'm still unhappy with this situation, but believe it or not, the President agrees with you."

O'Neill stared at General Hammond. "If he agrees, then why were you just yelling at us?" Yelling at me?

"Why?" General Hammond snorted. "Because we needed the truth. Because there's currently a national personification on his way to one of the most top-secret American security facilities guarding one of the most top-secret classified pieces of technology that America has access to, and that national personification is not our own. Because the leader of that national personification, to my knowledge, does not know that his national personification is coming here, and will in all probability raise hell when he finds out, because, I can assure you, said national personification is not somehow on the Air Force payroll like McKay somehow is and therefore has no reason to be here. And let us not forget that you still defied your orders, Colonel O'Neill. Be happy that you're not being court-martialed. For now." He left hanging, Since you'll probably do something later in which I will wish that I could court martial you if we all had the time for it.

Colonel O'Neill exhaled deeply. All right, fine. I did deserve something for all of that, but wow, that was long. "So what's happening to Matthew?" he asked.

"The President has given him permission to come here," General Hammond said. "Apparently, the his permission carries the same weight as Alfred's, but given that the President knows about the existence of national personifications, that shouldn't be surprising. And as per the President's orders, I have given Mr. Williams the clearance codes. He'll be arriving in a little more than an hour."

"That's fast."

"It is." General Hammond nodded. "Now, is there anything else that I should know about?"

"Well, we didn't find Tony," Daniel said.

"I gathered as much when he neither arrived with you nor appeared on base."

"We think that he either fixed his ship or got beamed up by Thor," Jack added. "Other than that, we don't know where he could be."

General Hammond sat down and straightened some papers on his desk. "Actually, I have news on that. Thor picked him up as promised."

"So Thor did pick him up?" Sam asked.

The general nodded. "Yes. Sergeant Harriman reached Thor, and he said that they're currently taking care of him and his ship. Supposedly, his language receptors were damaged in the crash and his consciousness needed to be downloaded into a new body before they could allow him to return as a liaison."

"His language receptors?" Daniel echoed.

General Hammond shrugged. "That's what they told us. I don't know what that means."

"But he's returning as an Asgard liaison?" Sam asked excitedly.

"So we were told."

Jack asked, "When did you all get through to the Asgard?"

"Right before y'all returned. In fact, most of our breakthroughs happened about four hours ago," General Hammond said.

"What else have we missed, sir?" Sam asked.

"Well, in addition to reaching the Asgard, we finally got messages through to the Tok'ra, and they promised to send down someone so that we could share information on this new System Lord. They promised that your father and Selmak would be among them."

Carter grinned.

General Hammond nodded, and then he pulled out a sheet of paper and passed it over to SG-1. "Now, I have more news. For starters, the results of the lab are finally in. The DNA samples were compared with the samples that Washington sent over, and they match up. Alfred was in that clearing, so now we know with the greatest likelihood that, if SG-21 was indeed captured by one of the System Lords from that battle, he's with them."

Jack exhaled deeply. There went his last hope. "Have they confirmed anything else, sir?"

"The shreds of fabric were from our uniforms, and the weapons did belong to SG-21. There is no doubt now that SG-21 was in that clearing. It's everything that we had already figured but now is official," General Hammond said.

Carter picked up a separate paper from the general's desk. "What's this, sir?"

General Hammond glanced at it, then sighed heavily. "Those are the preliminary results for Captain Hartwood's autopsy, but it's nothing that we didn't already know, either. They've promised that they will have the full results as soon as they possibly can so that his body can be released to his family for burial."

"Yes, sir." Carter put the paper down on the general's desk.

General Hammond looked back up from his papers. Lacing his fingers together, he asked, "Was there anything else about the property that we should know about?"

Jack shook his head. "We didn't look thoroughly through the house, but we didn't notice anything suspicious. Other than an abnormal amount of cacti, and spiders the size of dinner plates, there was only the landing strip."

General Hammond chuckled. "Cacti's everywhere in Texas, Colonel."

"And the spiders?" Jack drawled out.

"They're everywhere, too."

"But dinner plates, sir?"

"Shall I recite to you the adage that everything is bigger in Texas, Colonel O'Neill?"

Jack sighed. "No, thank you, sir. I guess I should have naturally presumed that that extended to the wildlife. And spiders, apparently." But still…

General Hammond rolled his eyes. "Just be happy that you didn't stay long enough to meet the mosquitoes after a storm that's left a lot of standing water. Now, is there anything else?"

"Valor," Daniel said.

"Valor?"

"Alfred's cat, sir," Carter said.

"Alfred left a cat on the property?" General Hammond asked incredulously. "Besides the landing strip?"

Carter nodded. "Yes, sir. At first, he just appeared incredibly intelligent. I mean, cats are already very intelligent, but this one…" She shook her head. "As improbable as this sounds, this one seemed to understand exactly what we were saying. When we announced our presence, he led us to the house. When we asked him for a spare key, he gave us a spare key. When we asked him for where Tony was, he kept looking to where Tony's ship used to be, although we didn't understand at the time because, well, it was gone. But…"

"But what, Major?"

"Sir, this defies the laws of physics, but…" Carter shook her head again.

"It appears that this cat bears a physical connection to Alfred," Teal'c said.

"A physical connection to Alfred?" General Hammond echoed. "We have another one claiming physic powers?"

Daniel nodded. "We don't know at what point this occurred, but Valor started to act fatigued and then appeared to be either afraid or in pain at some point after we and then Matthew arrived."

"And there's no reason to believe that this was caused by either of your arrivals?" General Hammond asked.

Daniel shook his head. "I don't think so. Matthew seemed to be really concerned by it. In fact, it was Valor's condition that seemed to erase any remaining doubt that something was wrong with Alfred."

General Hammond inhaled deeply. "And where is this cat now?"

"We left him with Matthew," Jack said. "There would have been no way to get him onto Lackland secretly, and Valor appeared to trust Matthew with himself. The kid should be bringing the cat with him. At least, I asked him to."

The general shook his head. "There was no mentioning of a connection with a cat in the dossier."

"Maybe the President doesn't know or chose not to share it," Daniel posited. "They gave us minimal information, after all."

General Hammond sighed. "That's possible, but I believe that that is something else that I'll be asking the President about later. Anything else?"

A beat of silence passed, and then Daniel said slowly, "Well, um, there was the earthquake."

"A what?"

"An earthquake, sir," Carter repeated. "We experienced a small earthquake in San Antonio before flying back to base. One of the captains who was from California said that it was about 3.0."

The general shook his head. "That's impossible. San Antonio doesn't get earthquakes—"

A brisk knock sounded. A second later, McKay peeked around the doorframe. "I have the results."

"Good, come in," General Hammond said, waving him inside.

McKay spotted SG-1 immediately. "Oh, hello."

Jack noted with pleasure that McKay attempted and failed to hide a weak grimace. "Hello, McKay. When did you get back, pray tell?"

"This afternoon," McKay replied. "I'm happy to be back from Siberia. I won't miss it or the food, and I won't miss the snow. My snow tolerance decreased during my time in Area 51, and it didn't return in Russia. Or maybe I spent too much time in a desert away from winter wonderlands before being sent to one." He sent a pointed glace at General Hammond, but with the stern look on the general's face, McKay cleared his throat quickly and said, "Anyway, I have the results from my diagnostic."

"Diagnostic?" Carter asked.

"Yeah. Sergeant Harriman naturally couldn't pinpoint the problem with the Stargate, so when I got back, General Hammond asked me to utilize my expertise, so I reviewed it." He dropped a folder on Hammond's desk. "It was outside interference."

General Hammond looked up sharply. "What kind of outside interference?" He picked up the folder and opened it, studying a roughly-drawn diagram.

"Was this Gate Feedback Protocol?" Carter asked.

McKay shook his head. "This was affecting the Stargate, but it wasn't Gate Feedback Protocol. This was affecting the dialing and connection capabilities in addition to the Stargate's programming. It was obviously an external device."

"And it wasn't simply some sort of virus?" Carter persisted.

"No, it was an external device."

General Hammond held up a hand to withhold further argument from Major Carter, asking instead, "Why do you say that, McKay?"

"There's no evidence that there was tampering from our end or any permanent damage within the system that would need to be cleaned up. In fact, there was nothing different with the program or the Stargate immediately following the Stargate's connection to P9X-534. I checked and double-checked your still deficient program for that," McKay said. Carter bristled but restrained her tongue. McKay gave her a surprised glance, and he continued, "This was a remote device of a previously unidentified signature in the database."

"Is that possible?" General Hammond asked. "This was affecting our gate's ability to connect with other Stargates."

McKay shook his head, reaffirming, "No, there were only connection difficulties with P9X-534. This device was very selective, hindering only specific functions between specific Stargates and leaving them unaffected once the program, if you will, has been turned off."

General Hammond turned to Carter. "Is this possible?"

"Well, sir, we have run into devices that affect multiple Stargates before. The best example is probably when Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c experienced the same day for several weeks due to a device that placed several worlds under a time loop by their Stargate connection," Carter explained.

O'Neill groaned. "May I never go through that again."

"I concur," Teal'c said.

"So you believe that this was outside interference by an unknown technology that has the ability to selectively overpower specific Stargates of an indeterminate number," General Hammond rephrased.

McKay shook his head emphatically. "This device didn't overpower the Stargate—it prevented it from utilizing specific functions. The energy signatures left behind show that it was just enough power to affect the current commands without erasing them, leaving the Stargate unable to call out or call in for a set time, even holding the Stargate open for longer than it normally can. It's a lock on our dialing capability. It has the ability to affect a Stargate's outgoing and incoming capabilities or whichever Stargates attempt to reach a certain Stargate. Possibly both. As I said, it didn't affect the current dialing program nor were there problems connecting with other worlds, once the original connection from the device was broken. It's either that our Stargate is selectively dysfunctional, or there's an outside device that can temporarily control a Stargate remotely."

"So, basically, our phone just got hacked," Sam summarized tightly.

McKay nodded. "You could say that." He looked distantly and grinned. "I'd love to get a look at the device that did it…"

General Hammond nodded, dropping the folder back down on his desk with a heavy sigh. "All right. Thank you, McKay. That'll be all."

McKay nodded and quickly left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Sir, would you like me to look over the findings?" Carter asked.

General Hammond passed her the folder. "I would like a third opinion, if you are able. Interference through an external device is both a relief but troubling. Who knows what could be done with such a device if that theory is true."

Carter nodded.

General Hammond took a deep breath, and then he said, "Well, there's nothing more that can be done for that matter in the meantime, so let's continue." He rubbed his temples wearily, and then, looking up, he said, "I'm putting our Canadian guest under McKay's care when he arrives. He'll probably feel the most comfortable with one of his own citizens. I'd have liked to put him under yours, but I don't want to draw too much attention to him in case the NID catches whiff of something. Honestly, there's been too much activity for them to not know that something has happened, but the least amount of eyes we have here, the better."

"I don't know, sir. You know good ol' McKay. He might scar the kid," O'Neill jibed.

The general snorted. "Actually, what you just saw was a rather subdued McKay, or at least one that was when he arrived."

"It that possible?"

Hammond nodded. "Believe it or not," he drawled. "Personally, I think that he stepped on the wrong person's toes while he was in Russia, and they decided to ensure that it didn't happen again."

"May I get the chance to thank him." Pausing, Jack mused, "I hope that it was Colonel Chekov. I'd shake his hand for that."

General Hammond chuckled. "We may yet find out. But perhaps we'll find out first whether or not their training was successful." He pulled out a set of folders from on top of his desk. "In the further meantime, I have tasks for y'all. This is the information that we have gathered so far. It's not much, but it's a starting point. If nothing else, it might provide some ideas for research, Dr. Jackson."

Daniel nodded, taking the folder with his name on the tab and then passing the stack to Sam, who took hers and passed it down to O'Neill, who passed the last to Teal'c. Daniel said, "I'll get on it right away, sir."

"Good," General Hammond said. "I would like this joint meeting to be as organized as possible, even though it likely won't be."

"I'll pull up extra chairs for the table?" O'Neill offered.

General Hammond snorted. "Thank you, Colonel, but we might need an alternate meeting room instead."

"So? We'll probably need extra chairs anyway."

Daniel raised his hand. "About that, I have a question. Why are we having one large meeting instead of simply communicating with each ally one at a time?"

General Hammond sighed. "Well, there's going to be a lot of information sharing among all of our guests, and we felt that sharing it all in one go was the better option."

"I'm sorry, sir—guests?" Carter interjected.

Jack paused midway through opening his folder. "Who else is coming?"