A/N Good evening campers, I'm currently facing the looming chapter of the battle of Pelennor in my LotR fic and I won't be able to get to that until this weekend so have some Stargate while I try to find my space legs again after so long lol.
"Alright. Everybody back in the car, let's go." Jack said, waving them towards the front door, looking even more tired than he was confused.
"I'm not going anywhere until you promise not to tell anybody." Bonnie said firmly, going back at the beer she'd been handed and crossing her legs.
Jack blinked slowly and looked at her like she was crazy. "I'm failing to see where you got the authority to give orders around here, Grayson. You're going back to the base right now."
"Well I don't want to be some Air Force guinea pig in area 51 which yes, is actually full of alien shit, by the way. If you don't let me decide who does and does not know what do you think is gonna happen when the higher ups hear about this? Even if they don't believe me they're gonna put me in some petri dish cause this is all weird as fuck!" There went the rest of the beer, straight down her throat.
Beside her Daniel sighed and pushed himself off of the couch. "She's right. You know the Air Force is going to try to study her at best or imprison and exploit her at worst."
Rubbing his hands down his face, Jack groaned. "So what was the plan here, Grayson? Show up back on Earth and watch it all go down, watch us all flounder around and lose people we care about in some sick rerun?"
"Right. Cause I'm a sociopath." Bonnie set the bottle down on his side table with a thunk and tossed her hands in the air as she got off the couch too, sick of being stared down. "You think I spent half my life rewatching this series because I don't give a shit? Newsflash, Jack, turns out meeting you all in real life makes me care even more than before! But I was just thrown into a TV show knowing what'll happen for the next decade and being put in the position to play god and I'm not really sure what to do about that right now!" She took a deep breath to pause in her diatribe and then finally answered the pressing matter at hand. "So I would rather not be sold into military slavery if it's all the same to you."
"Jack." Daniel sighed, putting his hands on his hips.
Bonnie was surprised to see Daniel advocating for her as much as he was after what happened, but she supposed he was the heart of the team. She may have known what was going to happen to Sha're but he wasn't going to completely crucify her for it, at least not to the military.
Jack wasn't happy about it, but it was obvious he didn't really wanna walk her into that situation either. "Okay fine." He snapped. "But this is way above my pay grade so you'd better come up with somebody we can trust with this that isn't just me and Daniel."
So much for slipping away into anonymity and pretending the SGC wasn't a thing for the rest of her life. That option was seeming further and further off the table as time went on and she'd been back on Earth for less than twenty-four hours. "Fine, we can tell General Hammond. And like…two more people eventually but that's it!" He opened his mouth to say something else and she interrupted in a very…O'Neill sort of way. "Ah! That's it!"
The slight similarity threw him off but not for long. "Car. Now. You too Daniel, let's go."
General Hammond wasn't an unjust man, but he was intimidating and no amount of knowledge changed that when Bonnie was sitting across from him in his office with a wild story. She'd spent the entire car ride back digging personal facts about the General out of the recesses of her mind so she could try and convince him. To what end, she didn't know quite for sure, but it would be a lot worse to try and lie to him with Daniel and Jack believing her than it would be to tell the truth. Maybe. Hopefully. At that point she'd already said she'd tell him so she wasn't too keen to go back on that.
Jack and Daniel were kicked out of the office at her request and she fidgeted with her nails as she took a deep breath to begin. There was one thing she knew that he knew nobody else did that might just work in her favor.
"You met Jack, Sam, and Daniel along with another person named Teal'c for the first time in 1969, not here on the base. You found a note in Carter's vest pocket written in your handwriting on yellow paper that said help them and had dates and times on them. Don't ask me those specifics. I really didn't retain that information if it was even shown. After you arranged for the van they were being transported in to have a flat, you went to talk to them and Jack convinced you by telling you you watched the moon landing from your father's hospital bedside right after his first heart attack. Jack also borrowed cash off of you."
Hammond's jaw went slack and he stared at her for several long seconds before speaking again. "How did you…I never told anyone about that."
"The episode 1969 was one of my favorites, a series classic even. You knew it was time to send the note with Sam when you saw the cut on her hand. You hit it when you took her cuffs off back in the day and it stuck with you."
He cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. "Well, Miss Grayson, I see why Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson believe you."
"But do you? Believe me I mean. I could tell you more. Your grandchildren are number one on your speed dial and-"
"Relax, Miss Grayson. I believe you. Which is why I'm going to need you to tell me everything you know about what happened back on Abydos and what's going to happen if we get those Gate coordinates."
This was what she was afraid of, the Air Force getting involved and demanding what she knew. "If I tell you, and you cancel the mission, people are gonna die. I mean…If I don't tell you anything, and things play out exactly how I've seen them, people will die too because there'll be a lot of conflict and war. And I can't…there's no way for me to quantify which one is better. But I do know, if things go as planned, Earth's part in what's coming will liberate at least three galaxies from slavery."
"But you have knowledge that will help us now?"
"Potentially. Honestly I could give you a full briefing on galactic politics out there but the president will probably just decide to bury the gate and then Earth's a prime target for invasion now that they know we're here."
"They? You mean Ra?"
"I mean dozens of others just like Ra, and some of them are arguably way more dangerous. There's more than just them out there too." If the Asgard didn't get help from Earth, if the replicators won the war which they would eventually, then how long would it be before they made it to the Milky Way? "There's enemies out there that might not reach Earth in our lifetime, but they're a whole helluva lot closer to this galaxy than I wanna think about."
"Then I'm going to need some specifics, Miss Grayson."
Would it hurt to give some cryptic and very eerie hints? Probably not, so long as she didn't give too many timeframes. "Artificial lifeforms that consume entire societies and replicate off the resources like bugs. Benevolent higher life forms that gain power off of people's worship of them. And space vampires, no, I'm not kidding, it's just the best way to describe them. At the very least, I'd say the bug ones are the most pressing threat after the Ra guys."
"So if you let us continue on like you've seen, we'll be able to defeat those threats?"
"General Hammond, I owned every season and movie of this series for more of my life than I was without it. I don't know what the best decision is for sure, I don't know if there is a right or wrong decision here. But my gut says I'll do way more harm trying to change things than I will if I just walk away and let it happen."
"Does it now?"
"There were ten seasons and three movies for this base alone. More for others. The likelihood that I forget necessary details is almost certain and quite frankly, I don't trust the Air Force to handle the information properly."
He went silent and watched her carefully and it made her uncomfortable. Bonnie trusted General Hammond, but she was also putting him in a very difficult position and she wasn't positive he wouldn't refer the issue up. The wait for him to speak again was almost painful to sit through so by the time he finally did her heart was pounding.
"You will remain on base, under guard and speak to no one else on this matter except for Colonel O'Neill, Dr. Jackson, and myself. When I've made a decision on what to do about your situation we will move forward."
Well, it wasn't a not guilty verdict, but it wasn't a sentence either. Bonnie supposed she'd take what she could get. "Thank you, General."