Author's Note: Sorry the update took so long. My computer was rather crashed. Thanks everybody who reviewed, but please cut down on the profanity. Also there are a few spoilers for season eight. Be warned.
Crumpets Aren't My Style
By Marz
Changing the Venue
The situation had not improved in the three minutes it took O'Neill to run from the security office to the medical center on the fourth floor. If the screaming was any indication, things had gotten worse. The kid was thrashing and kicking despite two rather burley Marines doing their best to hold him down. Dr. Gaster growled in frustration, trying to hold the kid's arm with one hand and give him an injection with the other. O'Neill rushed in to add weight to the dog pile. It seemed to take hours for Gaster to find a vein and stick the needle in. Whatever the clear liquid in the syringe was, it didn't seem to be helping.
Though most of his attention was focused on keeping the kid's left arm and shoulder pinned, O'Neill couldn't help but notice the damage the kid had done to himself in the few minutes since he'd noticed him screaming on the security monitors. The boy had ripped open the front of his hospital gown and torn off the bandages that cover the strange not-quite tattoo imprinted on his chest. There were long deep fingernail gouges in his skin, as if he'd tried to claw out the mark. His bloody hands attested to that.
"Can you give him another shot?" O'Neill grunted as the kid twisted so hard he nearly lost his grip.
"That's enough sedative to put down a damn gorilla. Anymore could stop him breathing."
Since the kid's breathing consisted of short gurgling gasps between screams, and seemed barely able to get past his clenched teeth, O'Neill didn't argue for more drugs.
"Do you have any idea what's causing this?" he asked, flinching as another agonizing scream echoed through the room.
"There could have been some kind of time release poison in the pigment that was used to make that skull and snake pattern. The mark seems to be getting darker as the pain intensifies," the doctor said.
"Well can't you take the poison out? Liposuction or something?"
"I don't really have that kind of equipment here…"
"Go check on Greasy…I mean Smith. Carter's bringing him up here. The same thing is happening to him, but not as bad."
The doctor nodded and left, after calling in another guy in scrubs to stand by the defibrillator. O'Neill glanced at the heart and blood pressure monitors. He didn't know much about cardiovascular health but the hundreds of little spikes crammed onto the tiny green hued screen were probably not a good sign.
The screaming died away for a moment. The kid's eyes had been squeezed shut, but now they suddenly sprang open. He looked around the room as he continued to twist and spasm, his wild-eyed gaze sliding over the Marines and Scrubs and finally settling on O'Neill. His lips twitched and spittle foamed as he tried to form words. O'Neill leaned in closer
"Just….kill…me…"
O'Neill and the Marine holding down the kid's right side exchanged glances.
"You'll be alright in a minute," O'Neill tried to assure him, though he didn't believe that even slightly.
The thrashing grew weaker, but O'Neill thought that was probably because the kid was exhausting himself. The screams faded away to whimpers. The kid's eyes rolled back into his head and the thrashing ebbed away to faint muscle tremors. O'Neill thought perhaps they'd gotten lucky and the boy had finally passed out. The Marines and O'Neill stepped back from the bed, and sighed in relief. Scrubs came over and started dabbing disinfectant onto the scratches the kid had clawed in his chest.
"Where's the cat?" O'Neill asked the Marines who had been guarding the door.
"We tossed it in the bathroom sir. It was going insane," answered the taller Marine.
O'Neill's eyes drifted to the closed door. He didn't hear any mewling or scratching. He hoped they hadn't tossed it too hard. Carter seemed to want to write a paper on it.
He was about to go check on Greasy and Carter in the other room when the kid started shaking. Instead of kicking and thrashing he just trembled. Scrubs stepped back from the bed, stumbling over the visitor's chair in his haste to get away. The four men all looked on in confused horror. Even O'Neill couldn't recall anything quite that disturbing.
"Where the hell is that smoke coming from?" Scrubs finally asked in a shaking voice.
O'Neill stepped up to the bed, not sure how to answer. The skull and snake on the kid's chest had turned entirely black, and a thin trail of smoke rose from the ungodly symbol. He snatched up pitcher from the bedside table and tossed its contents over the mark. The water bubbled and boiled away, steam replaced by smoke again only a few seconds later.
"Ice-packs!" O'Neill shouted, pointing the empty pitcher at Scrubs who rushed off to find some.
O'Neill tentatively reached out. He was praying silently that the kid wasn't about to spontaneously combust. He rested his hand on the boy's forehead. It was clammy and cold. O'Neill moved his hand over the black lines of the mark. It was like passing his palm through a candle flame.
Scrubs returned and he and O'Neill covered the mark in ice-packs. Scrubs muttered about sending the kid into shock, but O'Neill was much more worried about the strange, almost bacon like smell. It filled the room as the sickly smoke rose. One of the Marines gagged.
It took half an hour and forty pounds of ice to finally stop the smoke from rising. O'Neill could no longer feel his hands as he stepped back so the returning Dr. Gaster could take over. The kid's teeth were no longer chattering, and he was a little blue around the mouth, but at least the smoke had stopped. O'Neill wanted nothing more then to slump in a chair and put his numb hands in his armpits, but he saw Teal'c standing in the doorway and knew it wasn't going to happen. He followed the massive man into the hall, feeling short and old.
"Mr. Smith has indicated he is willing to disclose something to you, though he insisted that all recording devices be shut off while he speaks," Teal'c said.
They went down the hall to the room that now housed Greasy. His arm had not smoked, and after his initial cry of pain he had managed to mostly ignore his skull and snake mark. As they entered Greasy looked up at them. O'Neill couldn't see his face very well, as it was obscured by a helmet and heavy goggles, but the prisoner's lips were a colorless line above a clenched jaw, indicating he was not exactly on cloud nine.
"I told you I would speak unobserved," Greasy said sharply, as Teal'c began to enter after the General.
The Jaffa raised a questioning eyebrow, and O'Neill nodded, indicating he'd be alright on his own. Teal'c closed the door as he walked back out. O'Neill crossed the room and unplugged the security camera. He turned to face the prisoner, who picked up a blue gel cold-pack and held it to his left forearm.
"You can't help him," Greasy said, leaning back in his chair and trying to look as if he weren't in excruciating pain with a bucket on his head.
"We can't?" O'Neill responded.
"His only chance is with his own kind."
"His own kind?" asked O'Neill, trying to draw out an answer.
"I think you have some idea."
"And we would contact 'his kind' how? I suppose it involves letting you walk out of here?"
"Hardly. Your facility is already under observation. Bring the boy outside and he'll be gone the moment you turn your back."
"How do I know you're not arranging for 'Voldemort' to pick him up?" O'Neill asked pointedly.
For once Greasy didn't wince as he said the 'V' word. "If the Dark Lord wished to recapture the boy, he would have done so. I believe it was his intention to allow the boy to return to his people so he could die, very painfully and loudly among them. It would be a message of sorts."
O'Neill stared into the opaque goggles, trying to sense some deception in the other's expression, but the visible portions of the prisoner's face were as blank as any wall could be. At least now he wasn't giving him brain worms.
"Can his people save him?" O'Neill asked finally.
"It isn't likely, but they have a greater chance of it then you."
"So why haven't 'his people' come to get him if they know where he is?"
"They do not want to be exposed."
"And their secret is worth more to them then the kid's life?"
"Some of them would think so, though I doubt they understand the severity of his situation."
"But you do?"
Greasy nodded. He nearly overbalanced in his chair as the helmet shifted.
"Then what can we do to help him?" O'Neill asked.
"Nothing," said Greasy flatly.
"What do you mean nothing? What's wrong with him? Microbes? Nanotech? Poison?"
Greasy stood up from his chair. O'Neill could see tiny beads of sweat forming on his upper lip. As he put all his weight on his shaking legs, the cold pack slipped from his pale hand and landed on the floor with a little splat sound that might have been crudely funny under other circumstances. The small skull imprinted on his left forearm seemed to watch its bearer and the General, with a consciousness all its own.
"It's a curse."
"There is nothing I can do for him," Dr. Gaster announced, setting down the boy's medical chart with a bit too much force.
No one at the table seemed surprised. They brought all they had to the meeting, to review the situation. O'Neill straightened the pile of mission reports. Carter was looking down at a large stack of computer printouts. Daniel had a thick old book, and O'Neill could smell the moldering mouse-chewed pages from across the room. Teal'c had his hands folded neatly before him, but seemed the most prepared of all.
"There's nothing we can do here," corrected Carter, after a moment's pause.
O'Neill nodded in acknowledgement, but they couldn't mention it in the doctor's presences. Gaster took the hint though and excused himself. He seemed too tired to be offended.
"So what else have we got?" O'Neill asked.
Daniel opened the book and whipped up a cloud of dust and mold that sent him into a sneezing fit. When he finally regained control of his nasal passages he turned to a page with an old wood cut stamped on it. A stylized tree stood in the center of what might have been smoke or flames. The picture was surrounded by tiny print. O'Neill thought the letters looked familiar, but didn't recognize any of the words.
"It's old English," Daniel explained.
"Like Shakespeare?" O'Neill asked.
"More like Beowulf. And don't worry; I won't try to quote things directly to you. This book was in the Archives at the British Museum. It's never been put on the catalogues, but the head of the acquisitions department was an old friend of mine from my internship at Oxford-"
"The Point Daniel?" O'Neill interrupted. He wasn't usually this short with SG1's Archaeologist, but he still had the kid's screams echoing in his ears.
"Right. The book is actually a composite of several other even older books, and some of it appears to be bad translations of ancient Egyptian, which is almost unheard of considering this text was produced in the 9th century-" he glanced at O'Neill again and, sensing another interruption, sped up. "The point is that the book appears to be a sort of medieval medical desk-reference, a large portion of which addresses supernatural illness. I only got hold of it this morning, but it talks about curse breaking in great detail. It claims a curse can be broken by burning Fumitory, Fumaria officinalis, and making a poultice of Rue, Ruta graveolens and Oak leaves and applying it to the 'evil mark.' There are some magic words too, in a sort of bastardized Latin that I haven't seen before."
"Magic words?" O'Neill asked, clearly not impressed.
"They're part of the ritual. I've checked out the plants, none of them are toxic. It couldn't hurt to try, could it?"
"Does the book mention anything about the 'wizards' we've run into?" O'Neill asked.
"It talks a lot about healing spells and occasionally magic wands are mentioned, but other then that there isn't much about the group itself. The book refers to witches and wizards as if they are a normal part of life, which is a little unusual. They don't address them as disciples of Satan or as religious figures. They just are."
With a sigh that caused Daniel to scowl faintly, O'Neill turned to Carter.
"Any ideas?"
"I haven't been able to detect any kind of technological influences. There's nothing on the electromagnetic spectrum. There aren't any unusual electrical signals. There aren't any unusual chemicals or microbes in his system. There's nothing to explain the spontaneous burning around the mark. Frankly sir, I have no idea what's happening."
"Any random guesses?" O'Neill asked.
"If it's triggered by a broadcast signal of some kind, rather then a chemical timer, we might be able to use shielding and distance," said Carter.
"Distance we can definitely provide."
"MI5 isn't just going to let us walk him out of here. The paperwork alone could take years," Daniel pointed out.
"I can start faxing them the paperwork as soon as I get back to the mountain," O'Neill said.
Daniel frowned. "It's been more then a hundred years since we had a war with England. Do you really want to start something?"
"So we should let the kid go up like a flambé piñata while we fill out forms?"
Teal'c raised an eyebrow at O'Neill's bizarre simile, but didn't comment.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't do it," Daniel said holding up his hands, "We still don't know much about the culture he's part of. They might take it as an act of aggression if we run off with him. I just thought we should bring up all the consequences."
"Gee thanks Daniel, I'd forgotten."
Their contest of glares was interrupted by Teal'c.
"I believe there is a Tauri expression which very aptly suits this situation," he said.
The other three turned to look at him.
"'It is better to ask forgiveness then permission.'"
At nine fourteen P.M. local time, a Little Sicily pizza delivery van was admitted to the U.S. Embassy in London, after a brief search. It rolled into the underground parking garage, and stopped in front of the elevators. The driver climbed out, and walked to the rear of the vehicle to open the doors. There were several insulated boxes strapped to one wall. The boxes contained yet-to-be-delivered pizza. On the opposite side was a heavy steel shelf. Under the shelf was a collection of medical supplies and surveillance equipment. The driver, identified as "John" by his single slice nametag, pressed the speaker button on the elevator's call box.
"Your order's 'ere. One extra large wif anchovies." John said, with a thick cockney accent.
"Be down in one second," a static clouded male voice answered.
John stepped back and scanned the garage again as he waited. Nothing stood out as unusual, but he still felt uneasy. There was a sharp "ping" and a moment later the elevator doors slid open. Out of them stepped one of the largest men John had ever seen. He wore black fatigues and knit cap low on his forehead. His dark skinned face was free of strain, despite the fact that he was carrying the front end of a massive clear plastic coffin. The intimidating man nodded to John and walked past him, carefully guiding the coffin onto the shelf in the back of the van. The two men carrying the back half of the coffin sighed as their burden was relieved. One wore black fatigues and carried a duffle bag as well, the other was unassuming, with glasses, brown slacks, and a tie.
John was usually very good at not noticing the things he delivered, but the occupant of the coffin held his attention more then it should have. If it wasn't for the little monitor on the end showing heart rate and blood pressure, he would have thought the boy was dead. Maybe he would have felt better if the boy had been dead. He looked over the coffin again. It was one of those things he only expected to see on movies about Ebola outbreaks in some far away jungle, not in the middle of London. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the boy's hand slapped against the side of his container. The huge dark skinned man who had been strapping the coffin in leaned closer, and pressed his ear to the plastic. He climbed out of the van and muttered something to the other man in fatigues, then jogged back into the elevator. The three of them stood in silence until the large man returned, with a tabby cat in tan carry-crate.
The man in the brown slacks looked pensive. "Jack I don't think-"
Jack made a "mouth shut" gesture with his left hand and pointed him back to the elevator. He nodded sullenly and went. John made one last search of the parking garage. He'd been assured anonymity in this little caper but he was certain something was off. He felt watched. With cat and coffin secured, the two men in fatigues settled themselves into the little remaining floor space in the van. They pulled the doors closed after themselves. John climbed into the driver's seat and drove back out of the garage.
A guard stopped him at the gate, and shined a flashlight in the window. The yellow circle passed over the two black clad men, the equipment, and the coffin. The guard smiled politely at John.
"Everything looks alright. Have a nice evenin'," the guard said with a slightly southern accent.
"And you mate," John responded.
The gates opened and they rolled out into the moderately busy avenue. John worked his way through the streets with calm deliberation, despite the strange prickly feeling on the back of his neck telling him to stomp on the accelerator. He made a few more stops, dropping off three other pizzas, and collected a few very lousy tips. He made one last search up and down the block, but nothing suspicious materialized.
As expected, traffic was down to a crawl on every approach to Heathrow airport. Without looking at his passengers, John spoke.
"If you lads are feeling peckish, there's another three-meat special and some cokes back there somewhere."
"I see them. Thanks," said Jack. There was some shuffling, followed by a pop and the loud hiss of escaping carbonation. The dark skinned man and the boy in the coffin didn't seem to take much interest in the meal, but Jack dug in hungrily. When John looked in the rearview he saw him stuffing greasy bits of sausage through the bars of the cat's carry crate. The animal gobbled them up. He hoped he could get his passengers on their plane before the poor beast got ill.
John went by the main entrance to the terminal, where rows of cabs waited for passengers and on to the gate his orders indicated. As they rolled into the security checkpoint, Jack crawled into the passenger seat. He had a thin brief case in his lap. He'd removed his black jacket and replaced it with a slightly wrinkled white shirt and tie. As an airport guard came to the passenger's window, he presented him with a small stack of papers and a passport.
"I'll have to call this in Sir," the guard said.
"That's fine," Jack said calmly.
Twenty minutes later the guard returned. He handed John a map with a highlighted route.
"Do not deviate from this route. Do not make any other stops. Understood?" the guard asked.
John nodded. The guard stepped back. The gates rolled open and a row of rusty tire spikes sank into the concrete. John slowly and cautiously drove out onto the tarmac. He stuck to the highlighted path, and the only close call was with some escaped mental patient driving a baggage cart. They rolled to a stop under the belly of a Leer jet.
It was hard to feel covert as he helped unload the plastic coffin under the glaring lights of the plane. The boy didn't react much to being moved. His eyes were squeezed shut and he was crushing handfuls of blanket in both fists. They struggled up the narrow steps but finally settled the coffin on the floor of the jet. Jack went up to speak with the pilot. The dark skinned man, still in his fatigues, followed John back down the steps and retrieved the cat-crate and the duffle bag from the van. He gave John a strangely formal half bow, and returned to the plane.
John returned to the gate, following the highlighted route precisely. The guards checked him out more quickly then they checked him in. As he waited a white blur caught the corner of his eye. He leaned out his window and looked up. A large white owl was circling a dozen meters up. It watched him with unnatural attention. The guard returned, and the gate opened again. He noticed John staring and followed his gaze.
"Weird isn't it?" the guard said.
John could only nod.
The plane took off just after three in the morning. There was some mild turbulence as they passed over Ireland, but everything settled out as they reached the Atlantic. O'Neill peered out the window at the cloudless night sky. He knew the embassy would be catching flack by now. News of his departure had no doubt filtered up to MI5. There was going to be a real mess when he landed in Colorado. He knew he should rest up for it, but he couldn't keep his eyes closed. Feeling more then a little jealous, he looked across the cabin. Teal'c had reclined his seat and was sleeping calmly.
O'Neill sighed and got up. He went to check on the kid, who was secured in his biohazard box at the front of the cabin. He hadn't heard any moaning or screaming for several minutes and he was starting to get concerned. They'd been giving the kid pain killers, but those had not seemed to work.
The heart and blood pressure monitors built into the end of the box showed a slow steady pulse. He looked down at the kid and saw he was unconscious. O'Neill kept watch for a few minutes before realizing the kid was asleep. Not passed out from pain and drugs, but truly asleep. Carter's random guess had proved right again. They must be out of range of whatever was setting off the mark.
A strange urge struck him then, and he walked back up the cabin. Teal'c had put the cat-in-crate on the seat next to him. As quietly as he could O'Neill leaned past him and picked it up. He carried the cat over to the plastic biohazard coffin and held the crate so the animal could see its owner.
"See, he's alright," O'Neill said.
"Mew," said the cat.
O'Neill had just managed to find a comfortable position in his semi-reclinable chair when there was a loud rap of fists against plastic. He hurried over to the kid who was trying to get out of his box.
"Calm down!" O'Neill said.
The kid twisted around a bit so he could see the General more clearly.
"Let me out!"
"I can't do that right now. Listen for a second alright?"
The kid nodded.
"That weird skull thing was burning you, and we couldn't do anything about it, but one of my people suggested that if the mark was activated by a broadcast signal, we might be able to get you out of range. Does it still hurt?"
The kid looked surprised, then thoughtful. "It aches a little bit, but it's not nearly as bad as it was."
"Since we don't know exactly what caused it to stop, you're just going to have to stay put until we do. Fair enough?"
"I guess so."
There were several minutes of slightly awkward silence. O'Neill guessed the kid would need time to think things over, and was about to turn around when the boy spoke again.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"Right now we're halfway across the Atlantic Ocean."
"Really?"
O'Neill nodded.
"I've never been out of Britain before." The kid paused for another moment. "Where are you taking me?"
"Colorado."
"Aren't we going to the States?"
"Colorado is a State."
"Oh. Is it one of the small ones? I only learned the first thirteen. And California, where they make movies, right? And Arnold Schwarzenegger is governor."
"Your knowledge of my country astounds me," O'Neill said in a flat voice with a smirk.
"Well, can you name all the provinces in England?"
They chatted for another fifteen minutes before the kid drifted off to sleep again. O'Neill was rather surprised the kid had taken in his situation so calmly. He hadn't asked to contact his aunt and uncle, or anyone else for that matter. He seemed to be taking his not quite kidnapping extremely well. Of course he was getting farther and farther away from the crazy cult who tortured him.
The kid slept through the refueling in Atlanta, and didn't notice the Air Force Medic they picked up there, to keep an eye on him for the rest of the journey. He didn't wake up again until they hit turbulence over the Rockies. He sat up so fast his slammed his head on the top of the box. It took O'Neill several minutes to get him calmed down. The kid slept again.
The kid didn't wake when they landed or when they were loading his biohazard coffin into a truck for transport to the Mountain. A security detail was loaded into the truck as well. O'Neill was still concerned about the resent leaks to former N.I.D. agents and their new organization, The Trust. O'Neill rode in the back with the kid and soldiers. Teal'c rode in the cab with the driver and the cat. It was nearly sunset again when they finally got to the base, which didn't really matter since a few minutes latter they were in an elevator, sinking down under a million tons of rock.
A team of doctors met them as they wheeled the coffin into the hall. O'Neill still found himself unconsciously searching the crowd in white coats for Dr. Frasier. For a second he thought he saw her, but as he did a double-take he disappointedly understood that it was just a nurse with a similar haircut. People don't come back from the dead, he told himself again as the kid was wheeled away. It was, after all, usually true.
He was brought out of his reverie by an aid with a clipboard and an anxious expression.
"Sir, the President is on line two."
It was a whole week before things went to hell again. Most of that week, O'Neill spent in his office filling reports and placating officials from the U.K. A lot of the top dogs in England seemed almost desperate to get the kid back. It was starting to look more and more like the Prime Minister was getting his strings pulled. Harry Potter was apparently very important to somebody over there.
The U.S. government on the other hand seemed rather upset that O'Neill had spent several hundred thousand of the taxpayer's dollars to move the kid. They wanted multiple justifications of expenditures and constant progress reports on the kid's abilities and how those abilities might be used to combat the Go'auld or add to the Earth's defense forces. All the while the kid seemed perfectly happy to sit in the medical center, watch American TV, and deny that he had any interesting abilities at all. O'Neill found the kid's feigned cluelessness very annoying and had a corporal hunt up some high school textbooks. He assigned the kid some trigonometry and chemistry problems. Misery loves company after all.
Between calls and emails to politicians, O'Neill tried to keep up with the reports Carter and Daniel were sending him, though they seemed to be making even less progress. Daniel had gone to talk to his contact at the British Museum about the book he had been loaned, but the man could not remember loaning it to him, and deigned ever seeing him before. Daniel was trying to find common threads in local myths and legend, but was having little luck. He was planning to take a field trip to Surrey the following Monday, to see if he couldn't pry a few more answers out the Dursleys.
Carter had sent a few of the stick weapons back to the U.S. for testing, but the results on this side of the Atlantic were the same. The sticks were just wood with bits of hair or feathers in the center. While the physics end of her investigation was falling short she was having some success looking over police reports for mentions of the cult members. Apparently groups of maniacs in Grim Reaper costumes were not new to England. Reports of them were very common, though most of the reports were dismissed as hoaxes or hallucinations. The strange thing was that up until fifteen years ago the sightings were in the hundreds, and then suddenly after Halloween they stopped completely. Three months ago they started up again with even greater intensity. And no one in the U.K. seemed to care.
Greasy was still being uncooperative. No surprise there.
O'Neill had just finished another request to NORAD to adjust a spy satellite over London. As he watched the little bar on his computer inch along the bottom of the screen, indicating the message was still in transit, he sank back in his chair. It was a really nice chair, he found himself thinking. Weir had ordered it when she had taken command of the base from General Hammond. It was probably a very expensive chair. O'Neill checked the clock. It was almost one in the morning. As soon as the message went through he could get a few hours of sleep. He leaned further back into the padding.
It could be worse, he though.
Later he would think back, and find it unusual that he could remember the exact minute when he jinxed himself.