3. The Cohesive Properties of Inertia
With Jennifer and Paul in Colorado Springs for two weeks on some excuse involving budgets and scientists, the progress on the new 'gate has gone a lot faster. It also helps that every day they both get to go right into the SGC and look at the real thing.
Still, the push to finish it before time runs out has taken a lot out of both Jack and Amy.
Amy goes home every day, exhausted down to the bone. She's letting her grades slide, Jack's completely quit doing homework all together and skips every other day.
Jennifer and Paul don't even stay at the hotel. They sleep at Jack's place on sleeping bags. Sometimes they work until late in the night. Mostly he and Paul do, in the wee morning hours. They go out in the woods and work with just flashlights do the grunt work of putting the gate together where Jennifer and Amy have laid out plans and given them instructions.
Three days before the new 'gate is finished, they're working on putting together the inner ring. It's a tedious process, keeping the symbols in order, fitting them together and making sure they fit with the outer track.
Jennifer looks up from where she's connecting two pieces of the outer track together and asks, "Is Amy coming with us?"
Jack blinks. "Whuh?"
"I asked, is she coming with us, sir?"
"You mean through the Stargate?"
"Yes! Are you seriously contemplating taking a mute teenager through the Stargate to go looking for the Furlings and fight the Wraith, whatever they are?"
Jack sits back on his heels. "If it wasn't for Amy none of us would be doing this. She's the reason we're even going to have a 'gate."
"She's got a point, Jack," Paul says, carefully laying down the symbol for taurus. "It's a dangerous universe out there. You really think she's ready?"
"If I can teach a bunch of Abydonian kids to fight a god, I can teach her. Maybe she's mute, but she's also telekinetic. And she's got a bunch of Ancient knowledge floatin' around in her head. If we don't take her, there's no point in doing this. Because last I checked, none of the rest of us know where the hell the Furlings are hanging out."
"I'm not insulting her, sir, but you shouldn't put her in danger just because you feel sorry for her."
Jack stands up quickly. He's breathing kind of hard, from the work, the cold, and just his own emotions.
"I don't feel sorry for her," he answers. "Look, if we go into this doubting each other and questioning whether we should be here, then we're takin' the short bus through the 'gate. You knew what you were getting into here, Hailey. And if you've got doubts about whether Amy can hack it, then you tell Amy that. Me? I wouldn't have picked her or you two unless I thought it was going to work. Got that?"
"Yes, sir."
It's a late Thursday afternoon – two days before Paul and Jennifer are due back in Washington - when the new 'gate gets completed, when Paul - and god Jack's had such a hard time not calling him Major or Davis or Major Davis - and Jack drag the final pieces into the clearing and use Jack's truck to set it upright.
The thing is huge, and Jack still thinks that Jennifer - again, trying not to call her Hailey or Lieutenant (even though she's a captain) - and her plans to use something like a force shield – using Amy's knowledge – to dampen the seismic tremors are going to fail. That SG-1 and his Otherself are going to show up any minute and completely ruin it all.
"We did it," Jennifer declares, staring at the gate in the setting sunlight. "We actually did it."
She smiles like she never once questioned it. Sure, Jack could remind her that she's bitched, moaned, and doubted everything the entire way, but why spoil the moment?
"So what now?" asks Jack, staring at it.
"We need supplies, equipment - a MALP!" Paul says, sitting down on the lowered tailgate of the truck.
"Well, we can't exactly ask the SGC for a spare MALP," Jack answers, sitting next to him.
"No, but we can ask the Kelownans," Paul replies. "Jonas."
Jack cringes at the idea, of looking at Jonas's baby face with even younger eyes. That Jonas, who once did everything he could to get Jack's approval, might laugh and suddenly realize how silly it had been.
Shame, maybe. To admit that he's sunk this far, that he's giving the NID a run for every dollar they're worth, and that he hasn't even thought about turning back. That he really can't live his life twice.
Shame that he can't turn back when he promised he would.
"No. We can go somewhere else. The Asgard owe me one."
"Sir," Jennifer says, crossing her arms, "I can't speak to why you're being hesitant, but we've all broken quite a few laws already. We just built a stargate and now we need Jonas to make it all worth something. So whatever it is that's holding you back, get over it. I didn't just throw away a career for you to get gun shy."
"A career in Carter's shadow," he shoots back. He used to try to tell himself the hormones really didn't affect him, but there are moments when for all his reason, he gives in. It's not that his self control is weaker, it's that his ability to use self control is faulty. Like sometimes the signals don't get to the right places to tell himself to tell his mouth not to make the sounds.
"At least I'm not going back for my second high school diploma," Jennifer retorts.
"Enough!" Paul shouts. "both of you. tomorrow we get what we need and head to Kelowna. if Jonas helps us, we find a planet suitable to build a base. If not, we come back here and destroy the stargate and never speak of it again. But neither of those two plans entails you two sniping at each other. I realize you're both very young, but neither of you are stupid. So if you can't say something nice or useful, please for the love of god don't open your mouths."
Amy snaps her fingers and holds up a piece of paper with the words Me too? scrawled in permanent blue ink.
Jack snorts, and even Paul and Jennifer can't resist a smile. Amy folds the paper and covers up her wide smile.
Nobody sleeps the night before. They all stay awake, eating ice cream to celebrate and trashing the apartment as quietly as possible. When the apartment is thoroughly trashed and everyone's packed up for the next day, they rest against their rolled up sleeping bags and bask and talk the way Jack used to talk with SG-1, on those quiet missions in the night when none of them felt all that tired.
The lights are out, only the streetlights interrupt the darkness.
"Jonas is a good guy, you'll like working with him," Jack says.
"A little headstrong as I remember," Paul reminds him.
"Eh, he grew out of it. He really was a decent guy."
"But he wasn't Dr. Jackson," Hailey challenges him just by the tone of her voice and the implication of her words. Jack wonders if two weeks from now, they'll be fighting over command. If, in this sixteen year old body, that Hailey might be able to really threaten him.
"Obviously," Jack replies. One of the advantages of being sixteen is the frequent excuses for being rudely sarcastic.
"You two," Paul groans. "This is what I get for disobeying the air force."
"So what did he say to get you here anyway, Hailey?" Jack asks her, turning his head to stare in her direction even though he can only see a one tiny sliver of an outline of her face because of the darkness.
"Just the truth," Hailey answers him sounding very thoughtful and quieter than he's ever heard her.
"Which one, there's a lot of versions runnin' around out there," Jack asks.
"Permission to speak freely."
Paul snorts and rubs his face. He's laughing. "We're about to commit treason and you're asking permission to speak freely? Wow. And they say I'm wound up."
"It's one of the things that I like about the military. It's not like politics. You know when you can speak and when you can't. You can ask permission, you can clarify things."
Jack thinks about it. It's not a bad reason. "Okay. Well then, I, Jack O'Neil. One 'l', being sixteen and maybe commander of this very illegal mission grant you permission to talk shit about anyone you like."
"I'm not going to lie. I'm a damn good scientist. I'm a hell of a lot better than Dr. McKay, and I know that I can stand toe to toe with Colonel Carter. But she got there first, sirs. There's nothing left to do, nothing important. Maybe I revise a few of her theories or prove that she reversed a fraction or two in one of her equations. But really, there's nothing left. From here on out, physics is all about who's second best compared to her. I didn't bust my ass to be second to anybody. Not even her."
"Umm, Hailey. Maybe we didn't explain the illegal part of this whole thing. We're not going to be heroes."
"But we could be the best. That's all that matters. If we find the Furlings, if we find a new way to defend Earth, if we do something the SGC can't, then that proves it. We were the best."
Jack whistles into the darkness. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to prove something."
"Hell yes. Sir."
Paul and Jack laugh again.
"Permission to speak freely." Jack raises his hand even though nobody can see it. One and a half semesters of school has truly rewired his brain.
"Granted," Hailey drolls.
"Are we going to keep calling each other sir?"
"If we want, I guess."
"We'll grow out of it," Paul says. "Think Jonas will go along with it?"
"Sure. Why not. He can't be any happier on Kelowna, dicking around with politicians all day."
"Is he cute?" Hailey inquires. Jack and Paul turns their heads towards her. Hailey smiles. "What?"
Jack says very, very seriously, "Yes, Hailey. He's a total babe."
They all laugh hysterically.
Then Paul asks, "Do you miss them?"
Jack stops laughing and stares up. "Does it matter?"
"I think it does," Hailey says.
"Yes, I miss them. Satisfied? But they're not my team anymore. This is my team now."
"We're a team," Paul contemplates.
"I see you're getting all your memos there, Davis."
"We should have a name," Hailey says.
"What? Like 'the Gaters' or something?" Davis asks.
They start laughing again.
"Worst. Name. Ever, sir."
Jack picks Amy up in the morning and they wait down the street until her mother leaves. Then they go back, pack her things, and take her back to the apartment.
Paul and Jennifer have donuts and coffee for everyone. Orange juice for Amy, because Paul wasn't sure if she was old enough to appreciate coffee.
Amy smiles at him and drinks her coffee black. He boggles for a moment, but the moment doesn't last long.
"I guess that's your way of saying 'don't underestimate me'," Paul says to her, sitting beside her on the futon. Jack and Jennifer are making a last sweep of the apartment. "Funny, we've spent the last two weeks building a Stargate together and I don't know that much about you."
Amy takes out a pen from her pocket and writes on her notebook: You will learn soon.
They turn out the lights in the apartment and walk silently out to the Stargate.
They have to wait ten minutes to make sure that the Stargate in the SGC isn't running, because SG-12 was due back twenty minutes ago, but they agreed to give it a half-hour just in case some post-mission hinkiness went down and the SGC needed to keep the gate open or re-dial.
Amy gets to do the honors of pressing the remote and getting the spinners going. The gate is preset to redial Kelowna.
The gate lights up as a bright event horizon shimmers in front of them.
Jack stands in front of the gate. "This is your ex-colonel speaking. We're gonna have a great wormhole today folks. Find your wormhole buddy. Does everyone have your wormhole buddy?" Paul smiles and elbows Amy. She smiles back and crosses her arms. "All right. Exhale your last breath, keep walking, and hold on to your natchoes, 'cause we're goin' to Kelowna."
With a triumphant crow, Jack stands aside. Jennifer and Paul walk through.
Amy stands in front of the wormhole and touches it.
"This is it. This what you wanted," Jack whispers to her. He puts a hand around her arm. "This is the easy part. Piece of cake."
Jack presses the timer for the small charges that are in the trees and steps through. He still has Amy by the arm.
Once the gate shuts down, the trap goes into place. Small, timed charges blow and the gate falls over flat and is covered by leaves and tree branches. It's small enough so that it gets disguised by the debris.
To the outside viewer, it looks and sounds like a tree fell and nothing more. Only, nobody's there to hear it.
Jonas doesn't really get what the technician means when he says the signal is coming from Earth but not the SGC.
Because the only 'gate on Earth is at the SGC.
So he chocks it all up to Teranian incompetence and goes running.
By the time he gets there, the only person he recognizes standing by the Stargate is Major Davis.
"Major Davis?" he asks, taking only a few steps closer. he steps slowly.
"We need to speak with you, Jonas, in private," Davis says. "We're unarmed."
"General Hammond didn't send any messages through telling us you were coming."
"That's because we don't work for the SGC, not anymore," Davis says.
"Has there been a civil war on Earth? Have the Goa'uld attacked?"
"No, Earth is safe and sound. For the time being," says Jack.
"Who are these people?" asks Jonas
"That's Captain Jennifer Hailey, this is Amy Siler, and I'm mini-me," says Jack. "Can we go somewhere private?"
Jonas shakes his head as though trying to clear something out. "Yeah. Sure. This way."
They sit in his office. Captain Hailey leans on a table and the two teenagers stand next to each other.
Major Davis starts talking. By the time he quits, Hailey is sitting. One of the teenagers is quietly standing by his desk and the other is apparently the botched clone of Jack O'Neill.
Jonas doesn't speak. He sputters. He coughs. He walks around.
It isn't disbelief. In fact, the opposite. Jonas needs, more than anything, to believe that Major Davis, Captain Hailey, this girl - Amy Siler - and the strange smaller version of Colonel O'Neill have come to him in earnest.
Kelowna is his desert, and Jonas can't decide if this is his oasis, or his cruel mirage.
"Jonas," says smaller-Jack, "I can understand why you wouldn't want to do this. In fact, I can think of a hundred reasons why you probably won't help us."
"Then why did you come to me?"
"Because of I can think of a thousand reason why you will. Not least of all being that you're a good man. And you know that we need you on this, and you know how important it is."
"Then why not tell the SGC what you know? They're the ones best equipped to handle this. Why do this?" Jonas asks, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. he scrubs through his newly shorn hair.
Softly, Amy touches Jack's arm. He leans back.
Amy takes the notepad from around her neck and writes:
Mr. Jonas, the SGC can't do this. They are not free. We are. You are. Only us.
She takes the notebook from around her neck and gives it to him. He contemplates the words on the page.
"You really can't speak, can you?" Jonas asks, narrowing his eyes at Amy. Amy nods her head. Jonas hands her back the notebook and she puts the long dogtag chain around her neck again.
Jonas looks around the room and the door is closed behind him. He faces the four people in front of him, and the door behind them is open.
He does not believe in gods or signs, but he likes to think of this as some strange mental cue.
"I'll go," he says. "I've got access to the armory. I can probably create an excuse to get most of what we need. But if I do this, we can't come back, ever. I'll be a traitor and you'll be enemies of the state."
"Works for me." Jack nods and smiles.
The first time that Jack doesn't answer the phone, Siler doesn't worry. After all, they're probably playing music really loud or maybe they're even not in the apartment. Every once and a while, he's gone to pick Amy up and found them in the laundry room, Amy sitting on one of the driers, quizzing Jack with flash cards or poking him with a broom.
So, he waits. He calls Jack's cellphone. Leaves two messages. Waits twenty minutes.
Then he calls the school, just to make sure that Amy isn't there for some school thing that he forgot about. Because he's forgotten about quite a few in the past.
The school says Amy never showed up.
Then Siler decides to skip worrying and go straight to panic. SG-1 and Siler are in Jack's apartment thirty minutes later.
The place looks barren. All the furniture is gone, save an obviously second-hand futon and a microwave. There isn't a coffee table, only a ragged fold out table with odd wires and half-empty coffee cups and an empty box of donuts on it. The kitchen table is covered by papers, coffee mugs, plastic bottles of high-caffeine soda, and there are three rolled up sleeping bags near the wall.
Otherwise, the house is barren. The guest bedroom is empty. The pictures have been taken off the wall. No clothes are left in the drawers.
There are few items to testify to the fact that a human being was even there. There aren't even dishes, just rewashed plastic cups and styrofoam plates.
They fan out through out the apartment. Teal'c and Sam check the kitchen. Siler and Jack stand in the living room. Daniel goes to the back bedroom, which was Jack's. It's is the same as the rest of the house. The bed is there, with only the mattress. The dressers are left with only a few clothes. An odd sweater here or a ragged tee-shirt there.
Daniel opens the nightstand drawer and there's a softcore porn magazine, condoms, lube, a gun, and on top of that an envelope addressed to him.
Only, his name is spelled out in phonetic Ancient.
"Guys!" he calls.
Siler, Teal'c, Sam, and Jack come to the back bedroom.
"It's addressed to me," he says, holding up the envelope. "In Ancient. Found it next to the condoms and the gun."
Jack blinks. "Okay, the condoms I get. But how the hell did I - he - whoever - how the hell did a sixteen-year-old get a gun?" Jack demands to know. "And what's with the envelope."
"I don't know, why don't I try reading it?" Daniel suggests, not quite smiling at Jack. He carefully opens the letter and scans the page. "It's not from duplicate O'Neill."
"I though we were gonna give him a better name," Jack says with a frown on his face. "Who's it from?"
"Amy," Daniel says, staring at the first page.
"How do you know?" Sam asks him.
"She signed her name, in English," Daniel says, holding up the page so they can see Amy's giant signature in blue ink at the bottom.
"What's it say?" Siler asks, stepping forward.
Daniel sits on the bed. "Umm, okay, it says: Dear Dr. Jackson, General O'Neill, and dad. I wrote this in Ancient so only the right people could read it. I'm sorry if some of it is wrong, but sometimes the words in my head don't make sense.
"Jack says that you can read Ancient, Dr. Jackson, because you used to be one. So I'm trusting you to tell them what I've said, truthfully. You have to make my family understand this. Jack told me about your Ascension. So you can make him understand that I have to do this, and why. Jack said you could make him believe, he said you could make anyone believe.
"Don't get mad at Jack, because this was all my idea. I knew most things, but he told me the rest because I made him. I know what I know because of the sickness that I had. The sickness did something to me. I'm different now, and because I'm different I can't stay. I know things now, I can do things. One day, I'll tell you what I know, but not until it's time.
"I love you daddy so much and I'm very sorry. Tell mom and Matt and Ryan that I love them too. You were the best family anyone could ever have and I'll miss you every day. But I have to do this, because you taught me right from wrong. This is the only thing that will ever be right.
Tell General O'Neill that we haven't put anyone at risk doing this, that Jack made sure everything was taken care of, and that Paul and Jennifer's resignations are in the mail. We will return, although we're not sure when. When we do, we'll make sure that you know everything.
I can't tell you where we're going or what our plans are, because I know that you'd all try to stop us. You're good people that way. But this is the only thing that's right. I believe that in my heart and in my mind and when it comes down to it, I think that's all anyone has to go by. Thank You and All My Love To My Family, Amy Anne Siler."
For all that it's worth, they file a missing persons report on both duplicate O'Neill and Amy.
Siler goes home to tell his wife and sons what's happened, and without mentioning the Stargate, tries to explain to them how they lost Amy. When he trudges to bed, holding his crying wife, he isn't sure he even believes it.
But it doesn't matter. Broken bones, broken family. It's just a matter of getting up again.
Siler knows better than anyone that pain fades.
He leaves his wife lying awake in the bed, too depressed to get up. He makes breakfast, brushes his teeth, goes through the routines and clocks into work the next morning. Injuries always heal faster if you keep moving.
SG-1 tries to track down the frazzled ends of duplicate O'Neill and Amy's trail, for what it's worth. They find duplicate O'Neill's truck in the parking lot. The rental car that Captain Hailey and Major Davis were using is found at the airport. Their hotel room is in pristine condition, the maid says she never had to clean it.
The next day the respective resignations of Major Paul Davis and Captain Jennifer Hailey arrive on General O'Neill's desk. And a few hours after the mail arrives, a transmission comes in from the Langarans. A good portion of the goods acquired in trade with Earth are gone. This includes eight handguns, four zat'nik'atels, a staff weapon, and four P-90's, not to mention a large load of ordinance. Also, a large container of naquadria and two naquadah reactors are missing. Not to mention food, medical supplies, and assorted gear. They also cannot find Jonas Quinn.
The deception was ingenious. Trading old supplies back to Earth in exchange for new ones. Signatures had been forged. Transmissions doctored using Jonas's laptop.
The Langarans have been had, even if they realize it almost a day and a half too late.
They demand to know if Earth had anything to do with it. Jack, Daniel, and Carter all take their turns reassuring the Langarans that they're just as surprised. That such a trade would never have been approved.
After all the diplomatic feathers are calmed down, Jack sits at his desk and stares at the typed out translation of Amy Siler's note.
"It can't be coincidence," Sam remarks to him, standing in the doorway to Jack's office.
"Maybe. Jonas did steal naquadria for us. It's not like he's not capable of it."
"What else could it be, sir?"
"How could they coordinate with Jonas? The only Stargate on this planet is here, in this base, and we've checked everything. Nothing. No ships in orbit. Nothing. If there were, god forbid, another Stargate, we'd know. Because you can't run to concurrent Stargate programs. We've been over this with the Russians."
"Somehow, there's a link. Amy said in the note that she knew things we didn't. And we know that Jonas wouldn't steal naquadria and take off without a good reason. I think we can assume the two events are connected. Are you going to tell Sergeant Siler?"
"Why?" Jack asks her, turning in his spinning chair. "What good is it going to do to tell him we think his only daughter is on another planet with my clone, two ex-USAF officers and a hyperobservant Kelownan who's packin' naquadria? There's no way to prove anything. I think at this point, it's more trouble than it's worth. When we know something, we'll tell him."
Sam shrugs. "I can't believe you'd do this, sir."
"You think giving him another reason to panic is going to help?"
"No, I meant duplicate O'Neill. He may be sixteen, but he's still essentially you. I can't believe he'd do this."
Jack shrugs. "Hey, you didn't know me when I was sixteen."
"Obviously nobody did."
They arrive to find a cloudy sky and a flat green meadow that stretches out so far it's like the sea. A sea of green.
"So, PX6-771," Davis says, looking around.
"Think the SGC'll be able to find us here?" Jonas asks.
"We 'gated to three different planets before coming here," Hailey answers him. "They don't even have it listed in the dialing computer. 771 wasn't on the Abydos cartouche or any of the addresses from when General O'Neill had the Ancient repository in his brain. If they find us here, they deserve to."
"I thought we were gonna give it a better name," Jack says, putting his pack onto their stolen MALP. "We can't just call it 771."
Amy taps his shoulder. Her notebook is open.
"Home" maybe?
THE END
Author's Note: Continued in the sequel "Perfect Storms"