Author's Note: Okay kids, things are about to get interesting. Here comes that new character I was telling ya'll about last chapter. This chapter ended up being kind long, so I split it up into two parts, FYI. Ok, here's the evolution of this character: I created (STORY SPOILER AHEAD) her, a long time ago, as part of another series, but I only published one part of it. The rest are all sitting on my computer waiting to be rewritten. But as I was working on the earlier parts of this story, Daniel kept popping into my head, saying "Hey! What about me! It can't ALL be about Jack and Sam! I want to be more than a tertiary character here!" And he wouldn't shut up. Then my girl jumped in and said, "Hey, this story looks kinda neat, can I be in it?" And Daniel went, "Come on, she's cute, let her in." So I did. And the result is....the rest of this story. Thanks for your patience. Thanks to Macisgate for being such a great beta and suffering through my misgivings and rewrites.
Spoilers/Disclaimers: Rochelle is the only one I own. Everything else belongs to SciFi and MGM and RDA, et al. There could be spoilers up through episodes of Season 8 that haven't even aired in the US yet. You've been sufficiently warned. Enjoy!
Jack paced the briefing room like a restless animal. If he were able, Sam was certain he'd be growling with displeasure.
"Be nice," she warned, leisurely sipping her coffee. SG-1 was gathered around the briefing room table, waiting to meet their newest member. Teal'c, still surprising to see with hair, sat beside Sam, stoic as ever, waiting patiently, watching Jack pace. If he found any amusement in it, he didn't show it. Across from Sam sat Daniel, who was also nursing a cup of coffee. Daniel was flying down to Antarctica tomorrow with Jack to prepare the new teams down there. He was pouring over his notes like a schoolboy cramming for an exam. He seemed too enthralled in his work to notice Jack's nervous behavior.
Jack arched a brow, stopping in his tracks. "I am always nice," he replied, his words slow and deliberate, feigning offense, and yet his voice was tinged with annoyance.
She smiled, but it was Daniel who replied. Without looking up from his work, he remarked, "To us, sure in your own way. But you're about to meet your replacement, a replacement you had no hand in choosing."
Sam bit back a laugh.
"Actually," Jack replied, pouring himself a glass of water. "Carter is my replacement. I'm meeting her replacement, who I had no hand in choosing." He frowned, grumbling. "She'd better measure up to her predecessor."
"You seem agitated O'Neill," Teal'c observed. "Do you not have confidence in President Hayes and his decision to add this person to SG-1. As leader of this country, does he not posses the knowledge and intelligence to know a good decision from a bad one?"
Jack had no answer for him. He merely paced some more, scowling.
"Sir..." Sam said warningly, pleading. "Give her a chance." She couldn't help but notice how easily they had fallen back into their roles of 'Carter' and 'Sir.' Even after their discussion the other night, she had wondered if there would be any weirdness between them. To the best of her knowledge, neither one of them had been in the situation before where they made love with someone by night (and morning and in the shower) and then had to go be their CO/2IC.
"For crying out loud, Carter, she's not even military!" The secrecy under which this person was being brought to his SGC was infuriating.
"But she's not NID either, sir; of that the President assured us," Carter said reasonably, still seated at the briefing room table.
"'Interagency cooperation in the spirit of diplomatic good faith with our European allies,'" he grumbled. "She's not even American."
"Don't be so paranoid and ethnocentric," Daniel chided, closing his file, apparently having decided Jack was more amusing than his research.
Jack scowled some more, "I am not being ethnocentric."
"You are too," Daniel replied antagonistically.
"Anyway," Sam cut in, before they launched into a school yard shouting match. "If she wasn't qualified, the President wouldn't have agreed to her transfer."
Her logic was indisputable, and yet Jack remained skeptical and uneasy. There was something extremely off about this entire situation, and he was going to get to the bottom of it. It wasn't that he necessarily objected to being superseded in the matter of the new fourth member of SG-1. It wasn't even that he necessarily minded the new member wasn't US Military--after all, the Atlantis Team he was to meet tomorrow was an international one, what with half the world's major political powers claiming rights to the Outpost. What bothered him was the secrecy. The silence. The lack of knowledge. He had no idea who was about to walk into his briefing room, who he was about to, whether he liked it or not, send out with his team, to work with and fight alongside of. He didn't know this person's record, morals, loyalties, abilities. And though he trusted the President, more or less, he had never much been one for surprises.
Just then, the briefing room phone rang. "O'Neill," he barked, picking up the receiver. Sam raised her brows, as did Teal'c and he sighed. For his part, Daniel merely folded his arms and looked up at Jack innocently, expectantly. Jack knew when he was outnumbered. Softening his tone, he replied to the SF on the other end of the line, "Send them up." He hung up and frowned. "They're here."
"Be nice," Sam said again.
Daniel chuckled, and Jack shot him a look. "Sorry," Daniel said with a wince under Jack's withering glare even though they all knew he really wasn't that sorry at all.
As usual, Teal'c remained.... Teal'c.
Jack scowled. A knock came swiftly to the door, and he plastered on his largest shit-eating grin. "Come in!" he sing-songed, shooting Carter and Daniel a 'See how nice I am?' look.
She sighed and shook her head, exchanging knowing glances with her friends, pitying the person about to walk through the door. Undoubtedly, they had never met someone like General Jack O'Neill before.
The door to the briefing room opened and Mark Gilmor, Jack's personal aide stepped in. In his hand, he carried four, half inch thick dossiers. he set them in front of the General and SG-1, then simply stood at parade rest, waiting. In the very short time he'd been the personal aid to Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, he had learned to enter a room, do what he was supposed to, and await further instructions. Anything else only provoked the General and his somewhat.... eccentric personality.
With little fanfare, a tall woman entered the briefing room. She was wearing a remarkably well tailed black single breasted pant suit, underneath which she wore a cream colored silk top. Her long dark red hair hung loosely down her back, and her high heels echoed as she walked. Her strides were purposeful, determined, efficient. She carried herself strong and high. If she was in anyway trepidatious about her new assignment, she did not show it. Her shoes were maybe two or three inches high, and Sam guessed that she maybe stood five foot nine inches when barefoot. She was long and lean and even in the pantsuit, Sam could tell she was strong and able-bodied. Her eyes were such a strikingly clear shade of blue, Sam wondered if she wore contact lenses.
The woman had a youthful appearance--too youthful, in Jack's opinion. At most, she could have been twenty-five. She indeed looked to be of European decent. Her red hair and pale, freckled skin made her look Irish, which earned her more than a few points in Jack's book, but really she could have been from anywhere in Western Europe. She looked very self-assured, very comfortable and at ease in her lean but obviously powerful body. "Be nice," Sam had said. Maybe he'd give her the benefit of the doubt. Or at the very least, hold off on being the son of a bitch he knew he could be, at least for a while.
"General Jack O'Neill, may I present Special Agent Rochelle MacLeod," Gilmor said formally.
At her name, Jack's eyes widened, but he tried to cover his reaction quickly, hoping that Sam hadn't caught it. Rochelle apparently did though, as she caught his gaze, the skin around her eyes crinkling every so slightly in a knowing grin.
"Special Agent MacLeod, this is Colonel Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c. They comprise SG-1," Gilmor informed their new arrival.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Rochelle said in perfectly unaccented American English, extending her hand to Sam first. "I've read so much about you."
"It's nice to meet you as well," Sam replied. "I'm sorry we can't say the same." She cast a quick sidelong glance at Jack and noticed he was looking at Rochelle curiously. It was as though he knew her from somewhere, recognized her face, but as one recognizes the face of a memorable stranger, one met lifetimes ago.
Rochelle smiled, nodding at Daniel and Teal'c by way of greeting. "I'm sorry about all the secrecy. Allow me to explain."
Jack turned to Mark. "Thank you, Gilmor, that will be all." He shot Sam a glance, clearly reveling in his newfound power. She rolled her eyes discreetly.
Gilmor nodded his head and left the room, closing the door silently behind him. "Good boy," Jack murmured smugly, then recanted under the glare Sam shot him.
"General," the newcomer said amiably, extending her hand to him. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well. And congratulations on your promotion."
He shook her hand, "Likewise. And thank you." He motioned to the chair beside Daniel. "Please have a seat."
Rochelle smiled gratefully and sat. As she did so, she exchanged a friendly glance with Daniel, who, by Sam's estimation, seemed a little smitten with the attractive newcomer. She made a mental note to tease him mercilessly about it later.
Rochelle motioned to the dossiers. "That is my file. Feel free to browse it, read it, familiarize yourself with it as I explain. All I ask is that you all realize that as leader of this facility and members of it's flagship team, this is classified information that, for the time being, only you can be privy to."
They had begun flipping through the first few pages of Rochelle's dossier, which included date of birth--8/12/75; height--5'8 1/2", weight--135, family background--Father: Unknown, Mother: Deceased 1991; and educational background--University of Alaska, BFA Theatre; American University, Paris, BA Psychology. At Rochelle's announcement that there was even more secrecy surrounding all this, Sam's mouth dropped slightly in shock. What the hell was going on? Maybe Jack had been right to be wary after all. This was way beyond highly unusual and not at all procedure, even for the SGC. Looking around the table, she noticed Daniel was bewildered as well. Typically, Teal'c sat expectantly, awaiting further explanation.
For his part, Jack seemed strangely unfazed. Calmly, he flipped open Rochelle's dossier, raking his eyes down the page before thumbing through the next few pages. Sam searched his face for the barest hint as to what was going on, but he was unreadable. She frowned. "Tell me, Ms. MacLeod," he said slowly, casually. "How's you're uncle?" He leveled his gaze at Rochelle. "I'm assuming he's your--uncle."
Rochelle grinned, "He's doing well, General, thank you. He sends his regards."
"Tell him he still owes me a weekend at that cabin of his," Jack said jovially. His stern face broke out into a grin.
"He told me to tell you that you have an open invitation," the woman replied.
Sam watched the exchange with confused curiosity. She looked at Daniel for an explanation, but he merely shrugged. Teal'c cast her a sidelong glance and added an arched eyebrow for good measure, to communicate that he was equally perplexed. "Pardon me, sir, but do you two know each other?"
Jack nodded. "Kinda. I met Rochelle's uncle, Duncan, back when I was still running Black Ops in the Middle East." Duncan MacLeod, an antique dealer by trade who called the Pacific Northwest home, was a pacifist with a warrior's soul. Wherever he went, trouble seemed to follow, but he was good to have by your side in a fight, as Jack found out the night they randomly met and found themselves at the wrong end of a gun held by a man who supplied weapons and explosives to foreign terrorists. They had been friends ever since. The supplier ended up in US custody, Jack received a commendation, and gained himself a new, and very intriguing, friend.
"He only ever spoke very highly of you, General," Rochelle said.
"He's a good man," Jack replied. "I'm glad to hear he's still around and kicking."
Rochelle smiled slyly, further confusing Sam. "Kicking, punching, reading, traveling. The usual."
Jack turned to his friends, finding the befuddled look on Sam's face endearing. Daniel just looked confused, which was a rarity Jack was going to enjoy. "Mac owns a dojo up north and lives in Paris for months at a time. It's a pretty sweet deal he's got generally." He chuckled at that. Generally was a bit of an understatement. To Sam, he then said, "You should meet him sometime."
Sam nodded, clearly trying to process everything. "You've both intrigued me now." She paused thoughtfully. "But if you'll forgive my ignorance, I don't understand how the two of you having a mutual acquaintance qualifies as classified information."
Jack exchanged glances with Rochelle and motioned for her to continue.
"My uncle and I are Immortal," Rochelle stated simply. Jack simply nodded.
"How did come by this knowledge, O'Neill?" Teal'c wondered.
Daniel, ever the archaeologist, turned to Jack in astonishment. "You knew about this, and you never mentioned anything in all the time we were encountering different races?"
"On other planets, Daniel," he reminded him impartially. "What lives among us here isn't our forte. Also? It's hard not to notice this stuff when you see a guy get shot point blank in front of you, then watch him wake up five minutes later."
While Teal'c accepted the information, and Daniel gaped like a fish out of water, all Sam could do was listen and assimilate. She looked at Rochelle as though to ask her to continue.
"We are an ancient people," the other woman went on. "As old as oral history, fighting through time, living among mortals. The only way we can die is if we are beheaded. We have been living in secret for millennia. Legend had it that we would fight and kill one another through the ages until only one of us remained. However, that climatic battle to be the last has come and gone, and yet a handful of us still exist. We believe it is because the original plan laid out for us was modified by actions unforeseen by our creators."
"Your creators?" Jack asked. "I thought you guys had no clue where you came from."
Rochelle nodded. "Four years ago, I joined a multi-governmental, completely autonomous, secret organization; my section was anti-terrorism, special ops. A year after my initiation, the agency was restructured, and I began working as a free agent throughout all sections. When your government revealed the existence of the Stargate to your European and Asian allies, I was assigned to monitor the program and its activities, for our own records."
"That information became public two years ago," Teal'c observed.
"Why are you coming to us now?" Daniel added, seemingly for the moment okay with the implications the existence of Immortals brought. Not only that, but the fact that Jack knew something about an ancient race he did not. He thought momentarily if they should call hell and see if it had frozen over.
Rochelle spoke up. "Despite the ups and downs the program has experienced, it was my recommendation that we remained merely observers, and not interfere. On more than one occasion my superiors wanted to put pressure on foreign governments to put pressure on yours in regards to multi-governmental control, but I kept insisting we leave it alone; that remains my opinion still." She motioned for them to turn a page in her dossier. "However, during that time I became aware that I had been flagged by my agency for another purpose."
"Which was...?" Jack prodded.
"During the agency's restructuring, I 'died' on a mission--shot in the back. Before I revived, as order by the agency's transitional governing council, a pint of my blood was removed for analysis. My superiors believed that much could be gained if the source of my Immortality was discovered."
Reading the medical report, Sam gasped, "You have naquada in your blood?"
Rochelle nodded, "My blood is, in fact, eighty-five percent naquada. I have done some research on my own and discovered similar concentrations in other Immortals."
"So your agency assigned you to watch us so they could monitor you without your knowledge," Daniel guessed.
"In essence. They wanted to use me, use everyone like me, to create the perfect weapon. Deadly. Efficient. And nearly impervious. They wanted a super soldier."
"So what happened?" Jack asked, knowing that the visions of Anubis's drones weren't filling only his head.
"When the new, permanent leaders were put into place, this information came to light. After I learned of it, all members of the research team, along with those who sanctioned it, and all samples, were eliminated."
Her tone was blank, devoid of feeling, robotic. The coldness of it shocked the assembled, who had known her for a total of five minutes. It was hard to get a lock on what kind of addition to the team she'd be when she kept dropping bombs left and right.
Jack was surprised. "Eliminated?" He remembered, without fondness, his black ops days. The missions were long, hazardous, and damned near impossible. Intel almost always came from questionable sources, and the mission hardly ever went according to plan. That kind of life, fueled by secrecy, violence, and lies, did something to a person. It changed you. Made you hard. Blurred the lines between right and not exactly totally wrong. It was strange how you were able to justify things, given enough time and enough outside crap.
Rochelle nodded, a look akin to regret crossing her face. "My new superiors are allies and agreed such information was not necessary and the research unproductive. The researchers could not synthesize a way for a regular human to sustain a high concentration of naquada. Everyone they tested it on, died. They tried synthesizing the protein marker the Goa'uld leave behind to see if that would work, but all test subjects died."
"How did they get their hands on your blood in the first place?" Sam asked. This just kept getting stranger and stranger.
"Basically they blackmailed your government into giving us some of your stockpile from Area 51. They threatened to withhold their vast and frighteningly effective resources if the US did not comply. Your last President was more than too happy to oblige rather than leave the US's most volatile enemies an opening to attack."
Sam was getting a headache. "So you killed everyone who worked on the project?" She was astonished and horrified that any agency could sanction the murder of their own people. And as a scientist, Sam was horrified that other scientists had been killed because of their work. They were only doing their job. She suddenly felt ill.
"I didn't kill them personally," Rochelle said. "Most were simply arrested for other crimes or canceled for inadequate service to the agency. But Colonel, make no mistake--the agency I come from does not recruit good people most of the time. Scientists to operatives, our people are the most ruthless, cunning, dangerous, and deadly people on this planet, many of whom would kill without second thought, without remorse." She was getting increasingly angrier with the subject. "They were using me as a lab rat against my knowledge! After losing too many human test subjects, they were going to round up as many Immortals as they could find, which I had already virtually given them direct access to, and experiment on us 24/7 until they figured out a way to synthesize the gene or genes we carry to sustain that much naquada. But they hadn't figured out if it was one gene or several, which meant they had to do tests on us for that too." Her eyes burned like fire. "I was protecting myself and the people I love." Her voice suddenly took on an almost bitter irony. "I simply could not allow that kind of information to be exploited."
Jack sighed, the tension in the room palpable. He took a deep breath, trying to calm a riled up Rochelle and a stunned SG-1. Well, ok, a stunned Daniel and a horrified Sam. "I suppose, given the circumstances, I might have done the same."
"Sir?" Sam asked, confused.
"Jack," Daniel protested, "You know killing anyone, no matter how evil they are, is the last resort, not the first.
Jack leveled his gaze at them. "We do crazy and inexplicable things to protect the people we love, Carter."
Sam blushed and lowered her head.
To Daniel, Jack said, "I as much as killed Niirti for experimenting on Carter while you were off making nice with the Ancients, Daniel. She was experimenting and torturing an entire race of people. How is our eliminating her operation different than what Rochelle and her people did? Just because Niirti was Goa'uld, it shouldn't matter." Although Daniel was his friend, he felt some inexplicable need to defend Rochelle. "That's quite a double standard, Daniel, if that's what you're saying."
"That's not..." Daniel began, but was too far knocked off his moral high horse to make any decent argument. Jack had a point, a valid one, and everyone knew it. Daniel huffed.
"O'Neill is correct, DanielJackson," Teal'c replied sagely. "In my time among your people, I have learned that evil comes in many forms, not all of them in the shape of a Goa'uld."
Sam cleared her throat. "I...I'm sorry for my reaction," she said to Rochelle.
"No you're not," the other woman said, without malice… "And I don't fault you for it. Either of you." She turned to Daniel beside her and caught his gaze, briefly. She knew he knew he was wrong. And in that moment, they all knew once the discussion was over, they need never speak of it again.
Rochelle continued, "I fully admit I've used ruthless means that didn't always justify my ends, no matter how noble my intention. But rest assured Colonel, Dr. Jackson, I am not a cold-blooded killer. I was doing my job and protecting my family. The General empathizes."
Sam looked at him and saw a million emotions flit across his features at once. Understanding, pain, regret. He rarely, if ever, spoke of his life before the Stargate. She knew most of it was painful for him, and that he'd grown beyond it, which was why she had never pressed, never pried, and had no intention of starting. Whatever her own personal morals, Sam knew she could not fault Rochelle her actions unless she passed the same judgment on Jack.
There was a brief but uncomfortable silence before Rochelle spoke, "Unfortunately, my actions had unforeseen consequences. The people we eliminated had powerful friends who retaliated against me." Her voice was gravely sad. "A year ago, my husband was killed in a car bomb meant to teach me a lesson." Unwanted tears bit at her eyes.
Sam's eyes snapped up and met hers. She was stunned by the grief and regret she found in them, and any contempt she held for the woman began to melt away. For his part, Daniel felt like an ass. Although the sting of the argument remained, and while he did not condone mass murder on any scale, he knew there were two sides to the issue, and his heart went out to the woman who had lost her spouse because of who she was and what she did for a living.
Rochelle sighed, as though trying to clear the gloom that had fallen over the room. "After that, I walked away. I just left."
"And they allowed that?" This came from Jack.
"In four years, I had amassed enough Intel on my agency to bring them down nine times over. During the restructuring I was given top level clearance. After all was said and done, I was the only one who didn't ascend into higher echelons of leadership. My superiors are allies, but they knew I had them and had no choice but to let me go."
"What brings you back into the game?" Jack asked. He felt oddly kinned to this girl. Perhaps it was their shared understanding of personal loss. Maybe it was the old soldier in him finding a kindred spirit in someone worn down by a life in black ops.
"After a year in seclusion, I received a phone call. With the mounting pressure on the US about the Stargate, one of my former superiors thought adding me to the list of Europeans joining the program would be beneficial for all parties. She pulled the necessary strings, called in enough favors, and got me a slot."
"She's trying to make up for your husband getting killed," Sam observed.
Rochelle shrugged, but said nothing of it. "I owe it to my fellow Immortals--my family--to discover the nature of our true origin." She turned to Jack. "After I learned what you went through with Anubis and the Ancient repository, I began hypothesizing: the Ancients created the stargates, which contain high concentrations of naquada. One of Earth's stargates was found in the Middle East where the first Immortals are recorded to have lived. What if the Ancients created Immortals as well?"
And the surprises kept on coming. While Teal'c arched another brow, Daniel's brain began spinning rapid fire as he took into consideration Rochelle's hypothesis. It wasn't one hundred percent sound, but what hypothesis was? He began wracking his brain for any archaeological indication the Ancients had created Immortals.
"For what purpose?" Sam suddenly wanted a drink. This was all so much to take in. Secret agencies that killed without remorse, people who could never die; it was insane. Even after all she had seen, it was still difficulty to handle. But then again, she guessed a twenty-two foot high ring that took you to other planets was pretty preposterous as well.
"I don't know," Rochelle confessed. "But I think the answer lies in the General's head."
Spoilers/Disclaimers: Rochelle is the only one I own. Everything else belongs to SciFi and MGM and RDA, et al. There could be spoilers up through episodes of Season 8 that haven't even aired in the US yet. You've been sufficiently warned. Enjoy!
Jack paced the briefing room like a restless animal. If he were able, Sam was certain he'd be growling with displeasure.
"Be nice," she warned, leisurely sipping her coffee. SG-1 was gathered around the briefing room table, waiting to meet their newest member. Teal'c, still surprising to see with hair, sat beside Sam, stoic as ever, waiting patiently, watching Jack pace. If he found any amusement in it, he didn't show it. Across from Sam sat Daniel, who was also nursing a cup of coffee. Daniel was flying down to Antarctica tomorrow with Jack to prepare the new teams down there. He was pouring over his notes like a schoolboy cramming for an exam. He seemed too enthralled in his work to notice Jack's nervous behavior.
Jack arched a brow, stopping in his tracks. "I am always nice," he replied, his words slow and deliberate, feigning offense, and yet his voice was tinged with annoyance.
She smiled, but it was Daniel who replied. Without looking up from his work, he remarked, "To us, sure in your own way. But you're about to meet your replacement, a replacement you had no hand in choosing."
Sam bit back a laugh.
"Actually," Jack replied, pouring himself a glass of water. "Carter is my replacement. I'm meeting her replacement, who I had no hand in choosing." He frowned, grumbling. "She'd better measure up to her predecessor."
"You seem agitated O'Neill," Teal'c observed. "Do you not have confidence in President Hayes and his decision to add this person to SG-1. As leader of this country, does he not posses the knowledge and intelligence to know a good decision from a bad one?"
Jack had no answer for him. He merely paced some more, scowling.
"Sir..." Sam said warningly, pleading. "Give her a chance." She couldn't help but notice how easily they had fallen back into their roles of 'Carter' and 'Sir.' Even after their discussion the other night, she had wondered if there would be any weirdness between them. To the best of her knowledge, neither one of them had been in the situation before where they made love with someone by night (and morning and in the shower) and then had to go be their CO/2IC.
"For crying out loud, Carter, she's not even military!" The secrecy under which this person was being brought to his SGC was infuriating.
"But she's not NID either, sir; of that the President assured us," Carter said reasonably, still seated at the briefing room table.
"'Interagency cooperation in the spirit of diplomatic good faith with our European allies,'" he grumbled. "She's not even American."
"Don't be so paranoid and ethnocentric," Daniel chided, closing his file, apparently having decided Jack was more amusing than his research.
Jack scowled some more, "I am not being ethnocentric."
"You are too," Daniel replied antagonistically.
"Anyway," Sam cut in, before they launched into a school yard shouting match. "If she wasn't qualified, the President wouldn't have agreed to her transfer."
Her logic was indisputable, and yet Jack remained skeptical and uneasy. There was something extremely off about this entire situation, and he was going to get to the bottom of it. It wasn't that he necessarily objected to being superseded in the matter of the new fourth member of SG-1. It wasn't even that he necessarily minded the new member wasn't US Military--after all, the Atlantis Team he was to meet tomorrow was an international one, what with half the world's major political powers claiming rights to the Outpost. What bothered him was the secrecy. The silence. The lack of knowledge. He had no idea who was about to walk into his briefing room, who he was about to, whether he liked it or not, send out with his team, to work with and fight alongside of. He didn't know this person's record, morals, loyalties, abilities. And though he trusted the President, more or less, he had never much been one for surprises.
Just then, the briefing room phone rang. "O'Neill," he barked, picking up the receiver. Sam raised her brows, as did Teal'c and he sighed. For his part, Daniel merely folded his arms and looked up at Jack innocently, expectantly. Jack knew when he was outnumbered. Softening his tone, he replied to the SF on the other end of the line, "Send them up." He hung up and frowned. "They're here."
"Be nice," Sam said again.
Daniel chuckled, and Jack shot him a look. "Sorry," Daniel said with a wince under Jack's withering glare even though they all knew he really wasn't that sorry at all.
As usual, Teal'c remained.... Teal'c.
Jack scowled. A knock came swiftly to the door, and he plastered on his largest shit-eating grin. "Come in!" he sing-songed, shooting Carter and Daniel a 'See how nice I am?' look.
She sighed and shook her head, exchanging knowing glances with her friends, pitying the person about to walk through the door. Undoubtedly, they had never met someone like General Jack O'Neill before.
The door to the briefing room opened and Mark Gilmor, Jack's personal aide stepped in. In his hand, he carried four, half inch thick dossiers. he set them in front of the General and SG-1, then simply stood at parade rest, waiting. In the very short time he'd been the personal aid to Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, he had learned to enter a room, do what he was supposed to, and await further instructions. Anything else only provoked the General and his somewhat.... eccentric personality.
With little fanfare, a tall woman entered the briefing room. She was wearing a remarkably well tailed black single breasted pant suit, underneath which she wore a cream colored silk top. Her long dark red hair hung loosely down her back, and her high heels echoed as she walked. Her strides were purposeful, determined, efficient. She carried herself strong and high. If she was in anyway trepidatious about her new assignment, she did not show it. Her shoes were maybe two or three inches high, and Sam guessed that she maybe stood five foot nine inches when barefoot. She was long and lean and even in the pantsuit, Sam could tell she was strong and able-bodied. Her eyes were such a strikingly clear shade of blue, Sam wondered if she wore contact lenses.
The woman had a youthful appearance--too youthful, in Jack's opinion. At most, she could have been twenty-five. She indeed looked to be of European decent. Her red hair and pale, freckled skin made her look Irish, which earned her more than a few points in Jack's book, but really she could have been from anywhere in Western Europe. She looked very self-assured, very comfortable and at ease in her lean but obviously powerful body. "Be nice," Sam had said. Maybe he'd give her the benefit of the doubt. Or at the very least, hold off on being the son of a bitch he knew he could be, at least for a while.
"General Jack O'Neill, may I present Special Agent Rochelle MacLeod," Gilmor said formally.
At her name, Jack's eyes widened, but he tried to cover his reaction quickly, hoping that Sam hadn't caught it. Rochelle apparently did though, as she caught his gaze, the skin around her eyes crinkling every so slightly in a knowing grin.
"Special Agent MacLeod, this is Colonel Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c. They comprise SG-1," Gilmor informed their new arrival.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Rochelle said in perfectly unaccented American English, extending her hand to Sam first. "I've read so much about you."
"It's nice to meet you as well," Sam replied. "I'm sorry we can't say the same." She cast a quick sidelong glance at Jack and noticed he was looking at Rochelle curiously. It was as though he knew her from somewhere, recognized her face, but as one recognizes the face of a memorable stranger, one met lifetimes ago.
Rochelle smiled, nodding at Daniel and Teal'c by way of greeting. "I'm sorry about all the secrecy. Allow me to explain."
Jack turned to Mark. "Thank you, Gilmor, that will be all." He shot Sam a glance, clearly reveling in his newfound power. She rolled her eyes discreetly.
Gilmor nodded his head and left the room, closing the door silently behind him. "Good boy," Jack murmured smugly, then recanted under the glare Sam shot him.
"General," the newcomer said amiably, extending her hand to him. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well. And congratulations on your promotion."
He shook her hand, "Likewise. And thank you." He motioned to the chair beside Daniel. "Please have a seat."
Rochelle smiled gratefully and sat. As she did so, she exchanged a friendly glance with Daniel, who, by Sam's estimation, seemed a little smitten with the attractive newcomer. She made a mental note to tease him mercilessly about it later.
Rochelle motioned to the dossiers. "That is my file. Feel free to browse it, read it, familiarize yourself with it as I explain. All I ask is that you all realize that as leader of this facility and members of it's flagship team, this is classified information that, for the time being, only you can be privy to."
They had begun flipping through the first few pages of Rochelle's dossier, which included date of birth--8/12/75; height--5'8 1/2", weight--135, family background--Father: Unknown, Mother: Deceased 1991; and educational background--University of Alaska, BFA Theatre; American University, Paris, BA Psychology. At Rochelle's announcement that there was even more secrecy surrounding all this, Sam's mouth dropped slightly in shock. What the hell was going on? Maybe Jack had been right to be wary after all. This was way beyond highly unusual and not at all procedure, even for the SGC. Looking around the table, she noticed Daniel was bewildered as well. Typically, Teal'c sat expectantly, awaiting further explanation.
For his part, Jack seemed strangely unfazed. Calmly, he flipped open Rochelle's dossier, raking his eyes down the page before thumbing through the next few pages. Sam searched his face for the barest hint as to what was going on, but he was unreadable. She frowned. "Tell me, Ms. MacLeod," he said slowly, casually. "How's you're uncle?" He leveled his gaze at Rochelle. "I'm assuming he's your--uncle."
Rochelle grinned, "He's doing well, General, thank you. He sends his regards."
"Tell him he still owes me a weekend at that cabin of his," Jack said jovially. His stern face broke out into a grin.
"He told me to tell you that you have an open invitation," the woman replied.
Sam watched the exchange with confused curiosity. She looked at Daniel for an explanation, but he merely shrugged. Teal'c cast her a sidelong glance and added an arched eyebrow for good measure, to communicate that he was equally perplexed. "Pardon me, sir, but do you two know each other?"
Jack nodded. "Kinda. I met Rochelle's uncle, Duncan, back when I was still running Black Ops in the Middle East." Duncan MacLeod, an antique dealer by trade who called the Pacific Northwest home, was a pacifist with a warrior's soul. Wherever he went, trouble seemed to follow, but he was good to have by your side in a fight, as Jack found out the night they randomly met and found themselves at the wrong end of a gun held by a man who supplied weapons and explosives to foreign terrorists. They had been friends ever since. The supplier ended up in US custody, Jack received a commendation, and gained himself a new, and very intriguing, friend.
"He only ever spoke very highly of you, General," Rochelle said.
"He's a good man," Jack replied. "I'm glad to hear he's still around and kicking."
Rochelle smiled slyly, further confusing Sam. "Kicking, punching, reading, traveling. The usual."
Jack turned to his friends, finding the befuddled look on Sam's face endearing. Daniel just looked confused, which was a rarity Jack was going to enjoy. "Mac owns a dojo up north and lives in Paris for months at a time. It's a pretty sweet deal he's got generally." He chuckled at that. Generally was a bit of an understatement. To Sam, he then said, "You should meet him sometime."
Sam nodded, clearly trying to process everything. "You've both intrigued me now." She paused thoughtfully. "But if you'll forgive my ignorance, I don't understand how the two of you having a mutual acquaintance qualifies as classified information."
Jack exchanged glances with Rochelle and motioned for her to continue.
"My uncle and I are Immortal," Rochelle stated simply. Jack simply nodded.
"How did come by this knowledge, O'Neill?" Teal'c wondered.
Daniel, ever the archaeologist, turned to Jack in astonishment. "You knew about this, and you never mentioned anything in all the time we were encountering different races?"
"On other planets, Daniel," he reminded him impartially. "What lives among us here isn't our forte. Also? It's hard not to notice this stuff when you see a guy get shot point blank in front of you, then watch him wake up five minutes later."
While Teal'c accepted the information, and Daniel gaped like a fish out of water, all Sam could do was listen and assimilate. She looked at Rochelle as though to ask her to continue.
"We are an ancient people," the other woman went on. "As old as oral history, fighting through time, living among mortals. The only way we can die is if we are beheaded. We have been living in secret for millennia. Legend had it that we would fight and kill one another through the ages until only one of us remained. However, that climatic battle to be the last has come and gone, and yet a handful of us still exist. We believe it is because the original plan laid out for us was modified by actions unforeseen by our creators."
"Your creators?" Jack asked. "I thought you guys had no clue where you came from."
Rochelle nodded. "Four years ago, I joined a multi-governmental, completely autonomous, secret organization; my section was anti-terrorism, special ops. A year after my initiation, the agency was restructured, and I began working as a free agent throughout all sections. When your government revealed the existence of the Stargate to your European and Asian allies, I was assigned to monitor the program and its activities, for our own records."
"That information became public two years ago," Teal'c observed.
"Why are you coming to us now?" Daniel added, seemingly for the moment okay with the implications the existence of Immortals brought. Not only that, but the fact that Jack knew something about an ancient race he did not. He thought momentarily if they should call hell and see if it had frozen over.
Rochelle spoke up. "Despite the ups and downs the program has experienced, it was my recommendation that we remained merely observers, and not interfere. On more than one occasion my superiors wanted to put pressure on foreign governments to put pressure on yours in regards to multi-governmental control, but I kept insisting we leave it alone; that remains my opinion still." She motioned for them to turn a page in her dossier. "However, during that time I became aware that I had been flagged by my agency for another purpose."
"Which was...?" Jack prodded.
"During the agency's restructuring, I 'died' on a mission--shot in the back. Before I revived, as order by the agency's transitional governing council, a pint of my blood was removed for analysis. My superiors believed that much could be gained if the source of my Immortality was discovered."
Reading the medical report, Sam gasped, "You have naquada in your blood?"
Rochelle nodded, "My blood is, in fact, eighty-five percent naquada. I have done some research on my own and discovered similar concentrations in other Immortals."
"So your agency assigned you to watch us so they could monitor you without your knowledge," Daniel guessed.
"In essence. They wanted to use me, use everyone like me, to create the perfect weapon. Deadly. Efficient. And nearly impervious. They wanted a super soldier."
"So what happened?" Jack asked, knowing that the visions of Anubis's drones weren't filling only his head.
"When the new, permanent leaders were put into place, this information came to light. After I learned of it, all members of the research team, along with those who sanctioned it, and all samples, were eliminated."
Her tone was blank, devoid of feeling, robotic. The coldness of it shocked the assembled, who had known her for a total of five minutes. It was hard to get a lock on what kind of addition to the team she'd be when she kept dropping bombs left and right.
Jack was surprised. "Eliminated?" He remembered, without fondness, his black ops days. The missions were long, hazardous, and damned near impossible. Intel almost always came from questionable sources, and the mission hardly ever went according to plan. That kind of life, fueled by secrecy, violence, and lies, did something to a person. It changed you. Made you hard. Blurred the lines between right and not exactly totally wrong. It was strange how you were able to justify things, given enough time and enough outside crap.
Rochelle nodded, a look akin to regret crossing her face. "My new superiors are allies and agreed such information was not necessary and the research unproductive. The researchers could not synthesize a way for a regular human to sustain a high concentration of naquada. Everyone they tested it on, died. They tried synthesizing the protein marker the Goa'uld leave behind to see if that would work, but all test subjects died."
"How did they get their hands on your blood in the first place?" Sam asked. This just kept getting stranger and stranger.
"Basically they blackmailed your government into giving us some of your stockpile from Area 51. They threatened to withhold their vast and frighteningly effective resources if the US did not comply. Your last President was more than too happy to oblige rather than leave the US's most volatile enemies an opening to attack."
Sam was getting a headache. "So you killed everyone who worked on the project?" She was astonished and horrified that any agency could sanction the murder of their own people. And as a scientist, Sam was horrified that other scientists had been killed because of their work. They were only doing their job. She suddenly felt ill.
"I didn't kill them personally," Rochelle said. "Most were simply arrested for other crimes or canceled for inadequate service to the agency. But Colonel, make no mistake--the agency I come from does not recruit good people most of the time. Scientists to operatives, our people are the most ruthless, cunning, dangerous, and deadly people on this planet, many of whom would kill without second thought, without remorse." She was getting increasingly angrier with the subject. "They were using me as a lab rat against my knowledge! After losing too many human test subjects, they were going to round up as many Immortals as they could find, which I had already virtually given them direct access to, and experiment on us 24/7 until they figured out a way to synthesize the gene or genes we carry to sustain that much naquada. But they hadn't figured out if it was one gene or several, which meant they had to do tests on us for that too." Her eyes burned like fire. "I was protecting myself and the people I love." Her voice suddenly took on an almost bitter irony. "I simply could not allow that kind of information to be exploited."
Jack sighed, the tension in the room palpable. He took a deep breath, trying to calm a riled up Rochelle and a stunned SG-1. Well, ok, a stunned Daniel and a horrified Sam. "I suppose, given the circumstances, I might have done the same."
"Sir?" Sam asked, confused.
"Jack," Daniel protested, "You know killing anyone, no matter how evil they are, is the last resort, not the first.
Jack leveled his gaze at them. "We do crazy and inexplicable things to protect the people we love, Carter."
Sam blushed and lowered her head.
To Daniel, Jack said, "I as much as killed Niirti for experimenting on Carter while you were off making nice with the Ancients, Daniel. She was experimenting and torturing an entire race of people. How is our eliminating her operation different than what Rochelle and her people did? Just because Niirti was Goa'uld, it shouldn't matter." Although Daniel was his friend, he felt some inexplicable need to defend Rochelle. "That's quite a double standard, Daniel, if that's what you're saying."
"That's not..." Daniel began, but was too far knocked off his moral high horse to make any decent argument. Jack had a point, a valid one, and everyone knew it. Daniel huffed.
"O'Neill is correct, DanielJackson," Teal'c replied sagely. "In my time among your people, I have learned that evil comes in many forms, not all of them in the shape of a Goa'uld."
Sam cleared her throat. "I...I'm sorry for my reaction," she said to Rochelle.
"No you're not," the other woman said, without malice… "And I don't fault you for it. Either of you." She turned to Daniel beside her and caught his gaze, briefly. She knew he knew he was wrong. And in that moment, they all knew once the discussion was over, they need never speak of it again.
Rochelle continued, "I fully admit I've used ruthless means that didn't always justify my ends, no matter how noble my intention. But rest assured Colonel, Dr. Jackson, I am not a cold-blooded killer. I was doing my job and protecting my family. The General empathizes."
Sam looked at him and saw a million emotions flit across his features at once. Understanding, pain, regret. He rarely, if ever, spoke of his life before the Stargate. She knew most of it was painful for him, and that he'd grown beyond it, which was why she had never pressed, never pried, and had no intention of starting. Whatever her own personal morals, Sam knew she could not fault Rochelle her actions unless she passed the same judgment on Jack.
There was a brief but uncomfortable silence before Rochelle spoke, "Unfortunately, my actions had unforeseen consequences. The people we eliminated had powerful friends who retaliated against me." Her voice was gravely sad. "A year ago, my husband was killed in a car bomb meant to teach me a lesson." Unwanted tears bit at her eyes.
Sam's eyes snapped up and met hers. She was stunned by the grief and regret she found in them, and any contempt she held for the woman began to melt away. For his part, Daniel felt like an ass. Although the sting of the argument remained, and while he did not condone mass murder on any scale, he knew there were two sides to the issue, and his heart went out to the woman who had lost her spouse because of who she was and what she did for a living.
Rochelle sighed, as though trying to clear the gloom that had fallen over the room. "After that, I walked away. I just left."
"And they allowed that?" This came from Jack.
"In four years, I had amassed enough Intel on my agency to bring them down nine times over. During the restructuring I was given top level clearance. After all was said and done, I was the only one who didn't ascend into higher echelons of leadership. My superiors are allies, but they knew I had them and had no choice but to let me go."
"What brings you back into the game?" Jack asked. He felt oddly kinned to this girl. Perhaps it was their shared understanding of personal loss. Maybe it was the old soldier in him finding a kindred spirit in someone worn down by a life in black ops.
"After a year in seclusion, I received a phone call. With the mounting pressure on the US about the Stargate, one of my former superiors thought adding me to the list of Europeans joining the program would be beneficial for all parties. She pulled the necessary strings, called in enough favors, and got me a slot."
"She's trying to make up for your husband getting killed," Sam observed.
Rochelle shrugged, but said nothing of it. "I owe it to my fellow Immortals--my family--to discover the nature of our true origin." She turned to Jack. "After I learned what you went through with Anubis and the Ancient repository, I began hypothesizing: the Ancients created the stargates, which contain high concentrations of naquada. One of Earth's stargates was found in the Middle East where the first Immortals are recorded to have lived. What if the Ancients created Immortals as well?"
And the surprises kept on coming. While Teal'c arched another brow, Daniel's brain began spinning rapid fire as he took into consideration Rochelle's hypothesis. It wasn't one hundred percent sound, but what hypothesis was? He began wracking his brain for any archaeological indication the Ancients had created Immortals.
"For what purpose?" Sam suddenly wanted a drink. This was all so much to take in. Secret agencies that killed without remorse, people who could never die; it was insane. Even after all she had seen, it was still difficulty to handle. But then again, she guessed a twenty-two foot high ring that took you to other planets was pretty preposterous as well.
"I don't know," Rochelle confessed. "But I think the answer lies in the General's head."