The Immortal Spacemonkey
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate or Highlander. If I did, I wouldn't work in the public school system. Any characters from either show what you many recognize belong to their respective owners. Any characters that you don't recognize belong to me. I promise to return the borrowed character once I am done with them, though they will be a bit scuffed.
Warning: Potty language and violence
Chapter 26
The next day they stopped off at the Crazy Horse Monument. They had to pay the entrance fee again, even though they were not there to look around like the other tourists. Daniel quickly took care of the fee and was then allowed to enter the park.
"Daniel, you didn't have to pay for us," Sam protested when Daniel told her to put her money away. "Come on! You're not made out of money."
Daniel smiled and shook his head. "No, Daniel Jackson is not, but Danil the Immortal has more than a few bank accounts available to him. Plus, the government pays me a very decent salary these days. It's really not a big deal."
"You mean to say that when Catherine Langford found you, you were living that way on purpose?" Jack asked, incredulously.
"What do you mean, Sir?" Sam asked.
Jack glared at her for the use of a more formal title. "Daniel, when he first joined the Stargate program had just been kicked out of his apartment and was living out of his suitcase. He couldn't even afford a decent meal."
"At the time, it fit the personae of Daniel Jackson," Daniel said, shrugging. "If Catherine hadn't found me and brought me into the program, Daniel Jackson would have probably died and I would have established a new life. Being able to blend in and not attract attention is one of the many things that help an Immortal to survive, especially in this modern era. Hell, I probably would have gone back to Egypt. If Adam had been in my situation, he would have gone down to the Caribbean or somewhere and hid out there for a decade or two. You learn to disappear. I'm glad I didn't have to," Daniel quietly said, a faint smile on his lips. He would have missed out on an opportunity of a lifetime if he had gone with his back up plan. Not only would he have missed the chance at falling in complete and absolute love with Shar'ae, but he would not have had the opportunity to become friends with the other members of SG-1.
They pulled into the parking lot of the museum and found that a police car was parked outside. The members of SG-1 looked at each other, silently communicating their surprise at the coincidence of such an occurrence.
Jack shrugged and exited the vehicle as soon as Daniel put it into park. The rest of SG-1 soon followed, unconsciously falling into their pattern of behavior when they were off world, exploring a new, and potentially hostile, land: Jack had point, while Sam and Daniel took the right and left, respectively, flanks, and Teal'c watched their six.
They entered the building to find Amy, the doctoral student Daniel had met the other day, talking to a cop. She spied them from out of the corner of her eye, surprise on her face, and said something to the cop, who turned to look at the group. Amy stood there and glared at them.
The cop ambled over to them, stopping in front of Jack. He was of average height, middle age (mid-forties was Daniel's guess), balding, in pretty decent shape for someone his age, and a sharp eye for noticing details. He did not entirely fit the stereotype for a small-town cop.
"Hi there folks," he said, friendly enough, smiling. "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions." It was not a question, but a politely phrased demand.
Jack, however was not about to be intimidated or ordered around by anyone, other than Hammond or the President himself. "It depends. What's going on?"
"There was a break-in here last night and it some stuff was taken," Officer Richards (according to his name tag) said.
"What would give you the idea that we would have anything to do with that? We're here on vacation," Jack said, glaring at the cop.
The cop went on, ignoring the icy tone in Jack's voice. "It seems that among the items taken, a tablet was taken that Miss Price said that your friend here mightily interested in. Pretty suspicious, if you ask me."
Jack bit back a retort that would have not been overly helpful at the moment. Luckily, Daniel chose that moment to step in, least Jack piss off the cop and get them in a whole lot of trouble that they did not need.
"You wouldn't happen to be talking about a tablet, made out of sandstone with odd carvings on it, about the size of a piece of paper?" Daniel asked.
"Actually yes. Someone broke into the museum last night as stole it along with a few other odds and ends. And now here you are. Would you care to tell me where you were last night and your name?" Richards asked a hard look in his eyes.
"My name is Dr. Daniel Jackson and my friends and I went to the Mount Rushmore show last night and afterwards we went back to our campsite at Custer State Park," Daniel said calmly.
"Medical?"
"No. I have PhDs in Archeology, Anthropology, and Philology. That would explain my interest in some of the artifacts displayed here in the museum, wouldn't it," he explained with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
"So why are you back today? You've been here once. Why come back?" the cop persisted.
Daniel smiled, internally debating whether or not it would be a good idea to ask Jack and Teal'c to throttle the man, thus ending the questioning. "I came back to ask the staff here if I could get a closer look at the stolen item. I took a picture of it and emailed it to a colleague at work. My friend asked me if I could see if I could fully photograph the entire object," Daniel said, feeling that honesty would not be harmful, though he was fighting an urge to tell the cop to fuck off and mind his own damn business.
The pressure was still present and it getting harder for him to ignore it.
"And who would that colleague be Dr. Jackson?" the cop asked.
At that point Jack stepped in, not wanting the situation to get out of hand. They hadn't stolen anything and the less the locals knew about them the better. "That would be classified Officer."
"And who would you be?"
"My name is Colonel Jack O'Neill, USAF, and I am Dr. Jackson's immediate supervisor. We did not steal anything. Now, since the reason for us coming here is no longer here, we'll be going," Jack said coldly, the tone in his voice letting all know that he was not one to be messed with. If that hadn't been enough, Teal'c stood there with his arms crossed, doing his Jaffa best at being intimidating.
It did work and they were 'told' that they could go now. Daniel thanked the officer. He glanced over at Amy, his expression neutral and appraising. Amy, who had been unabashedly eavesdropping, appeared to be suspicious but quickly looked away.
Sam also turned away, silently, and followed Jack and Daniel out of the building. Teal'c gave a slight bow and also followed his friends out the door.
Once they were back in the car, they all turned to each other.
"What the hell?" Jack and Daniel said together. While Sam shook her head and Teal'c's eyebrow raised, posing a silent question of its own.
"Someone must have intercepted the email you sent to the SGC," Sam said, pulling out her cell phone. "Our email system must have somehow been compromised. We have to tell Hammond about this." She quickly punched 4 to speed dial the SGC (Jack, Teal'c, and Daniel were all on speed dial 1, 2, and 3 respectively).
It turned out that Hammond was unavailable at the moment, but Walter took her message and promised her that the general would call her as soon as he could.
"So kids, where to now? Do we keep with our original plans?" Jack asked as Daniel started the vehicle.
The others shrugged and agreed that it would be pointless to waste anymore of their vacation time on the missing tablet. They had planned on going to the mammoth fossil site, then on to the wild mustang sanctuary later that day and saw no reason to alter their plans.
A/N: Well? What do you think? It's a bit shorter than some chapters but please don't hold it against me. Be a pal though and hit the shiny review button and let me know.
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