The group hadn't taken more than a few paces before Colonel O'Neill placed a hand on Major Carter and his other on General Hammond, stopping their forward progress. Both of them cast him a curious glance as he cleared his throat. Once Xander, Daniel, and Teal'c glanced back in his direction, he began to speak.
'Teal'c, Daniel, why don't you two bring Xander down to see The Doc? There are some things that I want to discuss with General Hammond before we get down there."
Both Teal'c and Daniel nodded their acceptance, but Xander stayed where he was. Xander was just staring at the Colonel for a moment. Internally he was fighting a battle of wills, knowing that he needed to trust these people, as hopefully, they would trust him. As nervous as he was, giving that sort of trust to anyone but the Scooby Gang, he finally nodded his assent, and followed Daniel and Teal'c to see Dr. Frazier.
Jack turned to his CO, trying to figure how to start this pre-debrief. He glanced at Carter, who was also looking at him expectantly. With a sigh he waved his hand in the direction the rest of his team had gone, and the three military personal began to walk in that direction at a very slow pace.
"Sir, as you've no doubt figured out by now, this is going to be a very long debrief." He looked towards General Hammond, who was simply nodding along. "What you need to know now, is that something happened to Xander." Jack stopped walking, as did his two companions. "Sir, we have some theories on what happened, but nothing concrete. We actually have some video footage of what transpired, but nothing we've been able to review." Letting out a sigh he continued. "And while I'd love to go into greater detail right now, I don't think we have the time." When he looked at his CO, Jack got the feeling that not being more forthcoming with information would be unacceptable. "Sir, I think the most important thing we need to focus on now, besides learning what happened to Xander, is keeping what we find under wraps."
"What do you mean, Colonel?"
"Sir, I have no doubts that the NID have moles in here. And if what happened to Xander is what we expect it is, then I don't even want to think what will happen when they try to get their hands on the kid."
General Hammond looked thoughtful; he knew a lot had happened when his team never reported back on schedule. Then, when they had dialed the planet, the MALP only showed video footage of a large number of Jaffa, not to mention no radio contact could be established, The General had been worried. Hell, they had even contacted the Tok'ra, who said they would assist as much as was possible, but Hammond hadn't been holding his breath on their account. And then SG-1 returns home in an alien craft, he could already feel the migraine starting, and from what Colonel O'Neill was saying, it wasn't about to go away any time soon. Though, that did bring up a question.
"Colonel, is that ship in any way part of what we don't want the NID to know about?"
Jack and Sam passed each other a worried glance. General Hammond shook his head, oh yea his migraine was definitely starting to flair up. He just shook his head and resumed their pace towards the medical wing.
"Colonel, why don't you inform me of the most likely scenario that we'll be dealing with, on the topic of what happened to Alexander?"
Jack gave a quick glance and a nod to Carter, who sighed and began to regale The General with what happened.
"Basically sir, we were trapped in some sort of room, probably a lab, built by The Ancients. Xander triggered a device in the room, and to make a long story short, it manipulated his DNA, at least I believe it did." She glanced over at a wide-eyed General Hammond. "It seemed to heal his physical wounds at first, and then it went deeper. Just what it did, and the side effects involved are unknown." She then noticed that they had stopped their forward progress. She quickly turned towards General Hammond. "Sir, this is all speculation. I only hypothesized what was happening based on some holographic projections and what we could see the machine physically doing to his body. I'm not certain that it really did do anything to his DNA, I only hypothesized that based on the display."
General Hammond looked concerned. "If it did harm him in any way, is there anything we can do?"
Carter shook her head. "I don't think so, Sir. Our own medical technology is far too primitive to be able to help him. Perhaps one of our more technologically advanced allies can be of assistance."
Colonel O'Neill spoke up. "Not to mention that the planet this happened on is now under Ba'al's rule. And even if we could get beyond his Jaffa, it appears as though the power for the machine died shortly after it finished doing its thing on Xander, very shortly after."
They resumed their walk, and were standing outside the medical facility a few moments later. Colonel O'Neill placed his hand in front of General Hammond. Hammond glanced over at him.
"Sir, we really do need to keep this from reaching the wrong people. I don't want Xander to become some sort of lab rat."
General Hammond let out a small breath before nodding his head. "Agreed, though I'm afraid we won't be able to keep this part of the mission under wraps for too long. The high tech space craft you brought with you is going to have everyone looking at this mission very closely." He looked between the two members of SG-1 before nodding his head again. "But we take care of our own here. I'll do what I can for as long as I am able to."
Jack removed his arm and gave the General a quick nod of appreciation. The three of them went through the doors to find Dr. Frazier and two nurses working. Daniel and Teal'c were lying on their medical beds; each casting quick glances at Xander. Xander, on the other hand, seemed to be staring at the new occupants of the room, with an extremely worried look on his face.
Jack felt bad for the kid. No matter what the outcome was going to be, after today, the kid's life was never going to be the same again. He gave out a tired sigh as he noticed Xander's worried expression; nothing was ever easy. That was when Dr. Frazier seemed to take notice of his arrival and made her way over to them. 'Oh great, here come the needles.'
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
It was a few hours, and a couple needles, later. Jack had quickly pulled Xander aside and talked about his discussion with the General. Though he left out their theory on just what happened, the part about keeping everything under wraps was what was important for now.
SG-1 was all gathered in Sam's large laboratory. She had set up some equipment so they could both watch and record what Daniel's video showed them, but before they were to watch it, they had wanted to discuss what they thought had transpired in that room.
Xander had been floored by their theories. 'My freaking DNA has been altered?' He shook his head as his mind attempted to process what he had been told. 'It even made alterations on a level beyond what Carter could figure. That's just perfect.' He couldn't help but feel somewhat bitter. This was his first real day on the job, could anyone else claim to have gone through so much crap?
Xander watched as the video seemed to show the display that Daniel had been looking at, and he could hear the conversation happening in the background. This had been his fourth time watching it. Jack was sitting right beside him, moral support more than anything else. Teal'c was silently standing out of the way as only the large man could do. Daniel had gone to his office, already starting on photographing each frame of the movie. He wanted to try and translate what the inner wall of the laboratory had written on it, not to mention the walls of the ruins, and the words that were displayed on the hologram. Xander had to snort at what Jack had said earlier. Dr. Jackson truly wasn't going to be getting much sleep for a while. Sam was busy typing her thoughts on what happened into her laptop. She really wanted to get everything down, before any of the information became vague, as if that could happen.
They would normally be in a debriefing right now, but Dr. Frazier was having extra tests run on Xander's blood and DNA. And since she was ordered to do it below the NID's radar, it was going slower than usual.
It was a few hours later, and another 10 viewings of the video, that SG-1, along with Dr. Frazier, and General Hammond found themselves in the debriefing room. Dr. Jackson seemed to be preoccupied with his work, as though he was still going through it, and amazingly, Dr. Frazier was acting in the same fashion. So it was no real surprise when she spoke up.
"General Hammond, Sir, I would like permission to postpone this meeting and have a second batch of tests run on Xander, to make sure that my information is accurate. To be perfectly blunt, Sir, this information is just too unbelievable." Xander straightened in his chair as he frantically looked between Dr. Frazier and General Hammond. Janet quickly noticed this and placated the young man. "Not to worry, Xander. It's unbelievable in a good way." He seemed to relax slightly but continued to glance back and forth.
General Hammond looked around the table, Dr. Jackson looked to be in favor of the idea, though he was shooting quick glances at Xander, not wanting to put undue pressure on the young man. Sam looked like she could go either way, while Jack seemed to be trying to calm Xander down.
"Colonel, what do you think?"
Jack looked to his CO, before placing a hand on Xander's shoulder. "You're the one who's most affected by this. Do you think you can take it easy for a night, I'm sure we can reschedule this for tomorrow morning."
Xander seemed unsure. Not knowing what was happening was killing him inside. Though, he would bet good money that everyone in that room did have his best intentions in mind. Taking a deep breath, he reluctantly nodded his assent. It was late, he'd let Dr. Frazier run the new batch of tests, and then he'd try and get some rest. Yea, like actually getting some rest was really going to happen.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Next Morning 0800
Xander was already in the briefing room. He hadn't slept one iota last night. And, as he saw the other members of this debrief, apparently no one else had either. The only one who seemed even vaguely rested was Teal'c. Though, with that particular bald man, one could never tell.
Dr. Frazier looked tired, and worn out. He wouldn't have been surprised if she hadn't left her medical labs all night. And, if he wasn't mistaken, Xander could have sworn that Dr. Jackson was wearing the same clothing as he had been wearing to the previous debriefing. Somehow, the man looked more awake than Jack did. 'Must be all the coffee the man drinks.'
Whether or not Jack had slept much last night wasn't an issue. It appeared that if he wasn't sleeping in his own bed, or waking up to go fishing, Jack was not a morning person. Enough said on that account. Sam looked like she hadn't gotten much sleep, but she seemed to be holding herself up well in spite of that, apparently, not a first for her. And last but not least, General Hammond. Amazingly enough, the man's eyes were the only part of him that displayed any sign of his exhaustion.
Once everyone had taken their seats, the debriefing was started in short order. The appearance of the enemy Jaffa was glossed over, as was finding The Ancient's laboratory. However, once they got to the part of the device's activation, things became a lot more detailed, and, a lot more interesting.
