A/N: What would you do if you didn't hear from me? Just mentioning. I've seen a lot more Stargate since I started writing this story, so I know things now that I didn't before. Simple enough. But the timeframe is going to get a little more confused, now that Carter's a major and Sha're's dead and stuff that I had no idea about. I haven't decided just when this is happening, basically. On another note, I think Mimir is officially the first alien to use contractions that the series has seen.
"My neck is still bruised there, you know." Mimir swung his legs out of bed, wincing visibly. "So, where am I? All Ma told me about the necklace is that it showed the way home. Which tells you something about why I never listen to my mother. Been in the family for generations. I could never get anyone to try it… Freaking spacophobia… Obviously I can understand it. My own culture shouldn't be that incomprehensible. But, really, people. The scary Goa'uld are gonna get us if we leave? They got us pretty damn well when we stayed put. Not that that proves my point or anything. I think I'm the first one to use it since we chased the snakes out. But where's home? Or was Mommy talking crazy again? She kind of did that a lot."
Hammond and O'Neill exchanged a quick glance, and the General nodded, accepting the burden of seniority. "You're in the SGC, on Earth. This is the planet where humans originated."
"Aw, cool!" He started to spring to his feet, but Fraiser pushed him back onto the bed.
"You stay where you are for a while longer." Her voice was sweet and cajoling, making its usual stark contrast to her Dr. From Hell style.
"You know what? I'm a doctor too. And I say I'm pretty unlikely to faint again for a while. Professional second opinion."
"And what's your opinion about that broken leg?"
"…Not that broken."
"Lie back down. I'll find you some crutches." She began to shuffle through the big mysterious infirmary cabinets. "How tall are you?"
Mimir shrugged. "Uh… Last I checked, two cubits, twelve digits. I don't check a lot. It's depressing to be short."
"That's…" Daniel gave it a moment's thought. "A little over five feet."
Jack smirked slightly. "You are short."
"That doesn't make sense." Daniel paced back and forth a bit to get the linguist juices flowing. "Your name is completely Nordic, you're invoking a Japanese god, using ancient Egyptian Measurements, and tattooed like a Druidic high priest…"
Mimir cocked his head. "I'm sorry, is he talking about something?"
"We're never quite sure…"
Aloof from the madcap merriment of the lower ranks, Hammond turned to Fraiser, who had produced a very small pair of crutches. "Doctor, when can he be released for briefing? I want to know exactly what's going on here."
"Doesn't everyone?"
"I can send him up as soon as I set the leg, sir." She turned to Mimir. "I'm afraid there's nothing to fit you on base. You don't make Airforce physical specifications. You'll have to keep wearing your own clothes."
"Eh, they're not that bad. I managed to steal some new ones just a couple days ago."
"I suggest you all go wait in the briefing room while I sort out my patient." She raised an eyebrow at Mimir in a significant manner.
"You're gonna shine that light in my eye again, aren't you?"
Stifling snickers (except for Teal'c, who was still looking self-righteously perplexed), SG-1 wended their way to the briefing room.
"Ow! Jack, I can see you doing that." Daniel glared across the table.
O'Neill rolled another paper ball. "I know. I hit your glasses."
"Uh, sir? If you could leave your flashback to sixth grade for a moment, I think he's coming." Carter gestured toward the hall. Sure enough—
"But if there's significant naquadah in the specimen, it just won't decay. It's so weird. Useful, for my research, but you keep expecting them to come back to life and eat you, they look so alive. Well, I mean, you know, not eat you, they don't do that. Jump in through your collarbone and steal your brain. Which I'm using, so you can understand how that'd really just annoy me. Irritating! Of course, that pretty much describes them as a species. Scary, evil, brain eating… But mostly irritating, if you strip the snakeheads of all their trappings."
Fraiser stepped into view, head slumped in defeat. "Take him. Now. …Sir."
Mimir tipped forward. "They're still too tall for me… Ah, well. Do I sit here? Thanks, Janet. I would've been so lost. No sense of direction. Wow, these chairs are great. Springy. Springy and spinny." He braced himself against a table leg and spun around three times in the conference chair.
"Jack, do you have a brother we don't know about?"
"That's irony, right? Just checking."
"Ow!" Mimir blushed slightly as everyone looked around. "I hit my leg on the table. Okay, so, checking. You're Samantha Carter, you're Daniel Jackson, you're Jack O'Neill, you're Hammond, and you're Teal'c."
"We really like introductions today." Jack rolled his eyes, feeling too sarcastic even for himself.
Teal'c cocked his head. "You seem to have forsaken your hostility towards me, Mimir Jotun."
"Yeah, Janet explained about you." Mimir sat back in the chair, hands behind his head. The puffy back of the chair almost swallowed him. "You're a traitor to the good side. That's, like, the coolest thing I've heard all day. And you have that stoic warrior thing going that just says 'A movie about me would be awesome.' I may be an action movie nerd, but who do we really like in these things? The token girl who's smart, tough, invariably blond, and tersely attracted to the leading man? The wisecracking jerky guy who's in charge despite apparent incompetence? The little nerdy guy who either gets blown up or captured all the time unless something sciency has to be done? No, we love the guy who shuts up and kicks bad guy ass. Come on, you know I'm right."
"Yeah, I think he's right about that."
"Daniel, tell me you don't know what he's talking about."
"What I've asked you here for, Jotun, is to find out what brought you here, and whether there's any threat to the SGC."
"Well, of course there's a freaking threat. You've got a Stargate in a galaxy full of Goa'uld. But I'm guessing you knew that." He started to spin, caught Carter's eye, and stilled. "Well, it's like this. We kicked out the Goa'uld about a thousand years ago, when we figured out they weren't gods, just arrogant and obnoxious. There're lots of legends about it. Whatever. So, no one really expected they'd come back. We gave Aji-Suki-Taka-Hi-Kone a serious ass kicking. You think they'd know when to quit. But then a bunch of Jaffa spilled through the stargate one day, and two motherships popped up in the sky in case we were thinking of flying away, which we couldn't actually do because the space program bites, but I guess Nirrti overestimated us. It's a real ego feed, being overestimated. So they pretty much took over in a matter of weeks. So Scary Evil Lady with No Fashion Sense got all the leaders together, and asked for names of useful people. Phoebe and I came up. Funny thing, not for either of our jobs. She likes to play with naquadah and came up with a way to break it down really explosively with just some kind of radiation. Don't ask me what, because physics make my brain hurt. And since I've been experimenting on those preserved Goa'uld larvae the university has from when we took over, I learned a whole bunch of stuff they don't want people to know, and I think some stuff they don't know. But by the time the list came up, Phoebe and I had already taken Pallas and Urania to the next continent over, where there was nothing but a bunch of research stations and a growing rebellion. Nirrti didn't like that much, so she sent like a bazillion Jaffa to come find us. She put Pallie and Urie in a jail cell and used Phoebe as a host. They didn't want to use me, because I knew so much about the parasites and might have been able to fight it. Or so she thought. I have no idea what I would've done. So she threw me in prison too, until I'd tell her where my notes were so she could kill me. Except the guards got so tired of me they started skimping on their shifts, figuring I was too much of a loser to get out. Only I did. And they chased me to the gate, and the only address I knew was the one on my Mom's stupid necklace. And… that's all. I don't think they saw what I dialed."
"I got the basic outline…" Carter frowned. "But who are Phoebe, Pallas, and Urania?"
"My wife and my little girls." He reached into his tattered coat and draw out what looked like a piece of cardboard. He swiped the corner with his finger and what could have been a commercial for single-use cameras appeared. Mimir stood next to a woman infinitesimally shorter than he was, dark complexioned and skinny with a torrent of black hair against an immaculate white lab coat. Two young girls, both dressed in school uniforms, posed next to their mother, one holding something that looked close to a small dog and the other staring very intently at a flower. Mimir was there also, apparently talking to the kids. "This was three months ago. Urania's first day of school ever…"
"Where did that come from?" Hammond looked indignant. "Dr. Jackson, you told me you removed everything from his supplies."
"Not his fault. It's really thin and everything. It was in the 'secret pocket.' I just didn't want to loose it." Mimir sniffed audibly. "Sorry. I—I'll be fine in a minute…" He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "They're in a damn cell! My little girls… And the love of my life has a snake in her head. Just give a guy a minute."
"Take two," said Jack, subdued. "Can I… Take a look at this?"
"Yeah, go ahead." Mimir screwed up his face for a moment, then slumped like a sulking middle schooler. "Goa'uld suck."
Teal'c looked over Jack's shoulder. "Your wife is very beautiful."
"Hey, don't ask me, man." Mimir shrugged, looking less teary. "I don't know how that happened either."
"And I believe my son is about the age of your older daughter."
"Neato. Do you ground him? Because Phoebe always says we should, but I say grounding sucks. I was grounded about half my childhood. That's what I blame for being so twisted. Come on, kids are kids. If they're smart enough to evade capture, then they're smarter than me and I don't wanna deal with it, you know?"
Teal'c looked around the table for help, but no one could think of anything to actually say.
Carter suddenly looked up from her garbled notes. "So, wait, you ran…"
"And left the girls. I was hoping I could reach the rebellion. I know it sounds like some kind of dumb sub-lot in a bad movie, but if I could reach anybody… I think they're still alive. Pallas has already had her IQ tested and she's as smart as her Mom and me, and Uranaia probably is too. So the Goa'uld would want them as future hosts. I don't know whether to hope or not…"