Author's note: Sorry if the Stargate lingo is miss spelled. Reviews are appreciated, especially if they point out typos.

Crumpets Aren't My Style

By Marz

Sweet Dreams are Made of Something Else Entirely

The cab was stuffy and the windows kept fogging up. Airman Edey had the defrost on full blast and the windshield wipers going top speed but even then he could barely see. He supposed it might have something to do with all the ash in the air from the forest fires, which were as of that morning, 90 contained. He sighed and radioed ahead to base, informing them of an unscheduled stop to keep himself from driving off the edge of the mountain. He'd have to file an extra report. Airman Luza, who was riding in the back climbed out to stretch her legs. Edey pulled himself up onto the hood of the transport truck and poured the last of his canteen over the windshield then scrubbed it with his sleeve. Whatever the strange film was it didn't come off.

He was just turning to tell Luza to get him the maintenance kit from the back when he saw the flash of red light. He blinked and found himself halted in mid wipe. The film was starting to clear.

"Luza? Did you see that?" he called, climbing down.

"See what?"

"That flash of light."

"No, I didn't see anything."

Edey shrugged and got back in the cab. When Luza knocked on the rear window he started up the engine and continued on up the mountain with his ever-so-important cargo of fresh produce and vacuum sealed coffee. If he'd looked in his rearview mirror he would have noticed the dark figure standing in the road behind him. He would have seen the figure disappear in a flutter of dark cloth.

"So do we have any idea how many members of the Trust have infiltrated the alpha site?" O'Neill asked.

"No sir," Carter said.

It had been a week since the incident and they were no closer to hunting down the higher ups that must have helped the Trust get its spies into place, nor were they any closer to finding the spies that had yet to show themselves. Not only was the medical staff and all of SG8 compromised through either black mail or bribes, but a strike force had made its way to the supposedly secret base in the Trust's Alkesh. The ship had a cloaking device, so even after the alpha site regained power they had been unable to detect them. They'd likely been monitoring radio communications from orbit, and as soon as Teal'c called in his position the Trust had them, or at least thought they did. The Jaffa managed to take out a group of eight soldiers they sent after the kid, with a minimal mess. Still, nobody thought it would be an isolated incident.

O'Neill was rather surprised by the suggestion Teal'c had made about what to do with the kid in his report. It was a good idea though, so O'Neill signed off on it. The Trust would never be able to infiltrate the group now responsible for Harry Potter's safety. With the kid safely out of the way maybe they could back to their normal routine of fighting aliens and saving the world. Or at least he could get back to sending people off to fight aliens and save the world. He was starting to hate his desk.

"Do you think I could skip the paper work? If the Trust is reading our files it might throw them off."

"I don't think that's a very good idea sir," Carter said with the hint of a smile.

"Alright. Dismissed. Go about your business. Leave me to suffer."

Carter nodded and walked out. O'Neill signed. Then he sighed again. It wasn't making him feel any less depressed. He wondered if he was doing it right.

The pile of unfinished paperwork was well over three feet tall. Most of it stemmed from the U.K. mission. The reports coming in from the new taskforce the Pentagon had assigned indicated that the situation in England was back to normal. The reports of unusual goings on at the embassy had stopped completely and the mysterious murders Carter had noted had all been miraculously solved, and no the SGC could not send someone to double check that. He paged through a few more forms that demanded explanations for the money needed to fix the electrical systems at the alpha site. Carter had explained to him that something had halted the flow of electrons in every copper wire in the base. They'd gotten things up and running again with a jump start from a portable Naquada generator.

Colonel Pierce was certain the kid was somehow responsible for knocking out the power in the first place, and from what Teal'c had told him, O'Neill was starting to agree. It wasn't the first time the SGC had run into human with inexplicable abilities. Cassandra had been able to generate and manipulate electromagnetic fields after being experimented on by Nerti, a rather unpleasant Go'auld, who later went on to engineer telepathic and telekinetic humans, after much trail and horrifying error. She wanted a Hok'tar (the Go'auld slang for a genetically advanced human being) for her next host body. Her own creations had killed her with a little encouragement from SG1 but the London group could be evidence that another Go'auld had succeeded as well. They probably got killed by their guinea pigs too, O'Neill thought. But the kid's blood had tested normal in every way, and Cassandra showed all sorts of viruses and creepy things. It's not something I can deal with tonight. O'Neill signed off on the alpha site budget and went on.

The next was approval for him to contact the Tok'ra and borrow a Zaytarg detector, which was basically a very fancy and very foul able truth detector. Theoretically once they got one they could just ask every single person in the SGC if they were a member of the Trust or not. O'Neill had quite a few doubts about what seemed like a relatively simple plan, but he approved a mission allowing SG4 to go looking.

There was a report form Dr. Brightman, expressing concern for the night shift personal. She thought they needed more leave to lessen stress. Five different soldiers had come to her complaining of trouble sleeping and nightmares. O'Neill took another sip of his coffee, and was tempted to spit it back into his cup.

"This is enough to give anybody nightmares," he muttered to no one in particular.

He took another four inches off the pile. It was all request forms. Permission to change the processor from an I80T model to an I94T model in the MALPs? He put it in the ask Carter pile. Permission to put a new screen saver on the non emergency computers in the staff room on level 14. Permission to reevaluate the effect of gate travel on chronometers in the computer systems sent off world. Permission to convert the uniform storage rooms on level 19 to office supply storage rooms. How did Hammond not go crazy? Permission to change supply companies for coffee and other vacuum sealed products for the mess. Finally! A chance to use my powers for good! He approved the form. He looked through his desk for gold stars but couldn't find any.

By three in the morning the pile of papers was six inches high, and O'Neill thoroughly believed he had earned his sleep. He was on his way to his bunk when he saw an airman standing in the hall half dressed. He had no shoes and his uniform jacket was on the floor a few feet away. His eyes were red rimed and he seemed very disoriented, but he did give a clumsy salute when he noticed O'Neill watching him.

"Is something wrong?" O'Neill asked carefully. The guy didn't smell as if he'd been drinking.

"No sir I was just going to get some air, but then I remembered I'm not allowed up without leave," the young man broke off in nervous almost hysterical laughter.

"Why don't we go see if Dr. Brightman has anything for you?"

"Yes sir," the nervous laughter came again.

By the time Brightman had given the airman the once over it was five in the morning. She came out into the hall to speak with him. From where they stood they could both see the young man sitting on his bed. He'd start to nod off then jerk upright again in a pattern so regular something strange had to be going on.

"He's showing signs of sever sleep deprivation, but claims to have slept for at least six hours last night. His MRI is a little strange, but I can't find a cause for it. His drug tests are coming back clean."

O'Neill nodded.

"I'll keep him for another twelve hours and give him a sedative. It may be the early signs of some more serious mental illness, but we'll have to wait for more of the test results to comeback."

O'Neill nodded again.

"I'll send them to your desk as soon as they come in."

With a final nod O'Neill went in search of his bunk, to get the hour and fifteen minutes of sleep he could still fit into his schedule. He got to a bunk, kicked off his shoes, and was asleep before they hit the floor.

The Death Gliders passed over again. O'Neill grabbed Carter by the vest and dragged her behind an out cropping of rock. Hot dirt and bits of rock rained down on them, but the boiling hot plasma fired by the aircraft had missed them, this time. Carter let out a gagging chough. Her whole body shuddered. He wasn't surprised. She'd been hit in the side with a blast from a staff weapon. Usually such wounds were cauterized by the heat, but for some unknown reason there was blood everywhere. He picked up his radio.

"Daniel! Come in!"

"Jack," answered a faint voice.

"Daniel! What's your position?"

"Can't…can't move my legs…"

"Daniel? Daniel where are you?"

"Over…there's a sort pillar…uh…"

"Daniel! Where are you?"

"I'm not going to…they're coming this way. Go without me."

"God damn it Daniel! Where are you? What pillar?"

Only static answered. He changed frequencies.

"Teal'c?"

"What is it O'Neill?"

"Can you reach Daniel? He's hurt, under fire, and I've got no idea where he is."

As the radio buzzed with Teal'c's response he could hear staff weapons firing in the background. "I can not move from my current position O'Neill. I am surrounded."

"Where are you?"

"Approximately two kilometers north of the Stargate."

Carter gave another bubbling cough. He might be able to drag her to the gate, but he wouldn't be able to get to Teal'c in time and he was just as likely to get cut down by the Death Gliders trying. Would Carter survive if he went to help Teal'c and then came back for her? He remembered something about ruins to the west of the Stargate. Daniel was probably there. How did they get so spread out? he wondered. Which one do I save?

As he struggled to decided he felt a prickling on the back of his neck and turned. Someone was standing a few feet away watching him. O'Neill stared back at him, but couldn't see his face. His observer was somehow indistinct. The shadowy outline of where a man would be, rather then an actual man, but it seemed somehow familiar. O'Neill raised his gun.

"Who are you?"

"Sir!"

O'Neill sat up with a start. He was still in his bunk, and Sergeant Walter was standing over him.

"What?" O'Neill asked checking his watch.

He'd slept for a whole forty minutes.

"There's an incoming call from the Tok'ra, Sir, in the control room."

"Right, right."

O'Neill rolled to his feet, feeling more tired then when he first lay down.

O'Neill was slightly relieved to see he wasn't the worst looking person on base as he got in line for breakfast. Carter was just a head of him, and after getting a plate full of eggs and something pretending to be French toast he joined her at a table. She had dark circles under her eyes.

"Didn't sleep well Sir?"

"Didn't sleep enough. How about you?"

"I don't want to sound strange sir," she said picking at her fruit salad and cottage cheese, "But I kept having this weird dream over and over again."

"What kind of dream?"

"A nightmare I'd guess you'd call it. For some reason I'm taking my fiancé on a tour of the base and there's this weird shadow following us. I open the door to my lab and it's full of replicators and….they swarm him. And it just repeats over and over again whenever I close my eyes. Maybe I'm getting cold feet."

While struggling to bring up some good advice O'Neill went and got them both coffee. The pot was almost empty. He looked around the mess hall and saw that nearly everyone in the room had a cup, and they all looked about as bad as he did, except for Major Cardoza who was busy swilling down a super protein Odwalla. O'Neill took a sip of his coffee and scowled a bit. Maybe there was something to that whole organic food, health nut thing. He was mentally preparing to think of advice for Carter when Daniel slumped down at their table.

"Spare some coffee?" he asked Carter. "They just ran out."

She handed over her cup, and he dumped half of it into his empty mug. He took a long gulp then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Something wrong?" asked O'Neill.

"Weird dream," Daniel said.

"About what?" O'Neill and Carter said together.

"We were all standing in an airlock on some alien ship, and there were instructions written on the wall, but I couldn't translate them. You kept asking which button to hit and I…uh…told you the wrong one."

"Ouch," said O'Neill.

"Yeah."

O'Neill took another sip of coffee.

As the day progressed O'Neill overheard dozens of disturbing dreams recounted. Fortunately they were not all mentioned directly too him. He couldn't seem to walk into a room without hearing about Lieutenant Kemper falling out of a plane or Colonel Linn stepping through the gate and realizing he was naked in front of a battalion of serpent guards. On the plus side he did manage to finish his paper work, and the Tok'ra were coming by in a week to drop off a Zaytarg-whats-a-ma-jig. This day, despite the odd dreams, was going much better then the last, and by midnight O'Neill was kicking off his shoes, ready to sleep again.

They sat on the porch, calm and happy. He was on leave, and the weather was nice and everything was perfect. Except everything wasn't. He felt as if a shadow was hanging over him, and when he heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot ring through the house, he was almost expecting it. He and Sarah were on their feet and running. It was familiar. It was too familiar, but something was wrong. This time Sarah passed him, and he froze at the base of the steps. The shadow was right behind him and he turned. It was still indistinct, but now it was standing much closer. O'Neill looked back at the house. His wife was screaming. He saw his reflection in the window and for just an instant he thought he saw the reflection of a man standing behind him, with a pale face and oily black hair.

Teal'c sat on the floor of his quarters. His legs were crossed and his eyes were closed. Candles burned in a circle around him. He no longer needed to do this. Without a symbiote kel'nor'eim was not all that different from normal human meditation. Still it made him feel more clear headed and focused then sleep alone could. Not much surprised Teal'c, but as he sank deeper and deeper into his self induced trance, he felt watched. In his minds eye he pictured the room in which he sat, the four gray walls, the floor, the ceiling, the bed in the corner and the circle of candles. As he brought up the images in his mind a strange shadowy figure seemed to be adding itself into the view. He concentrated on the figure and slowly it resolved itself into a man, with a sallow face and dark greasy hair.

"Explain your presence here," Teal'c said coolly.

The prisoner who had escaped from Daniel Jackson and Colonel Carter in London stood before him glaring, but did not respond to his questions.

"Why are you here?" Teal'c repeated.

When the man spoke his voice echoed strangely as if he were shouting from a long distance away.

"Where is Harry Potter?" he demanded.

Teal'c looked at him without responding.

The prisoner bared his yellowed teeth in a silent snarl and faded away. Teal'c opened his eyes. There was no indication anyone had actually been in his room, but he decided to mention the incident to General O'Neill in the morning.

Snape blinked. He wasn't certain how long his eyes had been open, staring at nothing, but now they stung mercilessly. He came out of the spell's trance, suddenly aware of how stuffy and smoky the air was. He got to his feet shaking slightly, and pushed open the window. He'd taken apart the strange beeping disk in the ceiling shortly after he began his preparations. It lay on the cheep bedside table a few feet away. Apparently the candles set it off. He went to the bathroom and drank from the sink. He washed his face. Every part of him ached. He walked slowly to the desk he'd transfigured from his suitcase, picked up a quill and parchment, and began to write.

He had details of almost every floor of the base by now, but it still wasn't enough. He didn't know if he could last another night. Hag's Wine was a powerful potion. It was originally designed to allow an interrogator access to the mind of his victim. The potion could not be blocked, but unfortunately for his purposes it could not be controlled either. It gave the victim nightmares, and Snape could observe them in great detail, but the mundane horrors spring from the minds of most of the muggles who'd unknowingly ingested the potion were of very little use. He wondered if it was telling, that so many men in the United States Air Force dreamed of falling. The potion wasn't meant to be given to so many different people at once, but He'd been unable to find a way for someone to get inside the base to deliver it to useful targets only.

He went through his notes until he found the sketch he had made of the ring. He had seen it in the minds of ten different soldiers on the base. Some times it was just a large metal ring sitting in a field or in the lowest floors of the military base. Other times it was filled with a strange glowing light. The muggles dreamt of walking into the light, or of terrible things walking out. As far as Snape could tell it was some sort of teleportation system, sending muggles every which way across the globe. He knew of no muggle science that could produce such a thing. It had to be an ancient forgotten form of sorcery, but Snape could not understand how the muggles could have gotten it working if that was true. The North American Wizards Counsel must have some idea what was going on in that base.

The Counsel had blocked all of Dumbledore's efforts to return to the United States. They claimed they did not know what became of Potter, but they refused to go to the base themselves or let anyone else look. But perhaps there were a few wizards on the base. The dark skinned man with the symbol on his forehead had noticed Snape intruding on his subconscious. Snape pushed the thought away. Even if there was a wizard on the base, he still had his orders.

Dumbledore had told Snape that his skills in espionage made him the perfect person to under take this mission for the Order. Go to Colorado, without being detected by the muggles or the N.A.W.C. and find out how Potter died. The mission was not impossible per say, but it seemed a waste of time. He knew Dumbledore was not above giving him busy work, but this was excessive. Snape flipped through his notes, growing more and more aggravated. He was fairly certain the old man thought he was protecting Snape by sending him away. Voldemort had put a several million galleon bounty on his head. So now he sat in a low rent motel trying to find out where Potter was buried. The door opened and he resisted the urge to stab something with his quill.

Lupin stomped in, carrying several sacks of groceries and a large cardboard box. He was dressed as a muggle in jeans and a plaid shirt. The weather outside was starting to turn cold, so of course he left the door hanging open as he went back out to fetch more bags. Snape had spelled the doorway to keep nosey muggles from peering in, so he was not worried about observation as he watched Lupin meander over to the rusty smoke billowing automobile he'd acquired. Lupin stopped to chat with a muggle woman on her way out of the parking lot. Snape was fairly certain she was a prostitute. Lupin eventually wandered back with another arm full of supplies.

"Good morning Severus. Any luck?" he asked.

Snape scowled. "This has little to do with luck."

Lupin shrugged. "Very well, did your universally acknowledged skill and intensive labor result in any new information?" the werewolf rephrased in a most patronizing manner.

"I have the base almost entirely mapped. Besides splurging our dwindling funds did you accomplish anything?"

"I found all the ingredients you requested for the next batch of potion, but I think we are going about this the wrong way-"

"When you somehow convinced Dumbledore to send you along you agreed to defer to my judgment. My methods gain the most information with a minimum of risk."

"But the side effects of Hag's Wine…"

"The muggles would have to drink more then ten cups of that awful brew in one day to get a harmful does of the potion."

"Not just to them. The potions you've been taking to get into their nightmares are some of the darkest I've ever dealt with-"

"Which doesn't say much for your experience with the subject."

"Are you so determined to destroy yourself?"

"Enough! I must put up with your presence, but I am not required to put up with your rambling."

Snape dug a sketch of the ring from his notes and thrust it into Lupin's hands.

"Make your self useful and research this. Be back by nine this evening. I'll have another batch of potions ready for distribution."

Lupin it seemed was not yet out of pointless arguments.

"If we could just speak to them-"

"You'd like to captured and locked up? Is that it? Does bondage appeal to you? Perhaps you have some bizarre desire to be dissected? After they catch you they will want to see just how a werewolf works. Go and find out what that artifact is, and keep your fool mouth shut."

Lupin rolled his eyes and left again.

Another Author's note: Don't panic people! Harry will be in the next chapter.