A/N: I do not own these characters or the shows they come from. I'm just borrowing them for a bit.
"Honey, how do you feel?" Martha asked her son.
Clark blinked again, and then said slowly, "I feel okay, I guess." He slowly sat up, looking around. His parents and Lex sat to either side and in front of him on surprisingly comfortable seats in a large plane. Towards the front, he could see some military people. The pretty doctor that wanted to treat him kept glancing his way, and as soon as she saw he was awake, she headed over.
Dr. Frasier smiled gently as she arrived at Clark's side. "Hi, how are you feeling? May I?" she asked Clark and his mother, she held a small penlight in her hands and gestured at Clark, asking if she could take a look. Martha looked at her son, and then nodded. Clark allowed the doctor to check him over.
"I feel okay" Clark answered her question, then repeated his own. "What happened?"
Dr. Frasier finished her scan and smiled, satisfied.
"You do seem okay. And your wounds are already healed. Amazing." She shook her head.
"To answer your question, you were hit by a blast from an energy weapon that knocked you out. Teal'c was trying to hit the creature, but got you when it turned. The first blast from this weapon causes pain and unconsciousness-think of it as like being hit by lightning. You didn't have a good reaction. But you do seem better now. I think you should just rest for a while, though."
Clark had looked at his parents when the doctor mentioned lightning. Lightning and he didn't get along very well. But if he was already healed, then he hadn't lost his powers. He shifted his vision to x-ray, just to check it, and was rewarded with a view of Dr. Frasier's normal skeleton. That reminded him, in all the excitement, he'd forgotten about the weird creature that seemed to live in the person named Teal'c's stomach. Snapping back to normal vision, he opened his mouth.
"Um," he began, but then Col. O'Neill wandered over.
"Ah, you're up." He said. "Doc?" he turned to Dr. Frasier.
"He seems okay, sir." She replied.
"Good. Then strap yourselves in, we're landing. We'll do the whole question and answer and form signing thing when we get to where we're going. We'll be there soon, just-try to stay out of trouble, okay?"
He grinned at Clark, and Clark felt himself smiling back.
"Okay."
The plane landed without incident and the Smallville quartet soon found themselves hustled into a van and taken into a facility with gates and guards at the bottom of a mountain. O'Neill escorted them to an elevator which took them below ground. Clark was sandwiched protectively between his parents, and took a quick look with his x-ray vision. He switched back to normal, sighing. The elevator was lined with lead. They emerged from the elevator and O'Neill led them to a door with a guard outside.
"Well here we are, the VIP suite. You have 3 rooms and a shared bath. There's a connecting door to another room and bath for you." He added, nodding at Lex. "Not all the comforts of home, but it should do. Your bags should already be here, and the General said he wanted you folks to rest and eat something before we get down to business. So food should be here shortly, and we'll see you in a couple hours. Any questions?"
O'Neill hoped there wouldn't be; he was tired and knew his own briefing was minutes away. He couldn't help feeling sorry for the shell-shocked civilians, though.
Martha looked at Jonathan and Clark, and then into the plain but comfortable-looking room the door opened into. Her mind had simply gone blank. So much had happened in such a short space of time that she needed time to cope. "I guess that will be fine. Thank you." She said, literally at a loss for words.
"Good then, I'll leave you alone for now." O'Neill strode away quickly before she could change her mind or anyone else speak up.
He joined the rest of his team in the briefing room after a quick visit to the Infirmary for the basic post-op check. General Hammond nodded at him. "Okay people, what do we have?" They'd covered the basics by phone on the way there, but Hammond always liked to see his teams for a face-to-face talk to cover salient points that might have been missed.
"Well, sir" Maj. Carter started, "We have an alien creature much like an Unas including regenerative ability but with extra limbs and a tail. No Goa'uld inside, Janet and I checked, and it came in a spacecraft of unknown origin. We also have a second spacecraft, also of unknown origin, but different from the first, found some distance away from it. Some of the local people to the area these craft landed in were apparently adversely affected by a meteor strike in the late 80's that caused mutations and special abilities to emerge in those affected. We believe one such affected individual is the young man that battled the creature and saved our lives. Per orders he and his parents and a friend are in guest quarters and he'll be kept under observation to make sure he doesn't develop any adverse contagions from being harmed by the creature. I suggested to Col. O'Neill that the Tok'ra be contacted for help in identifying the ships and creature. At the moment we have very little actual information." Sam stopped, pausing for breath.
General Hammond sat deep in thought. "Thank you, Major. That at least puts some things in perspective. Dr. Frasier," he said, turning to her, "I understand that you gave this creature a sedative. Will it cause no further trouble for the time being?"
Dr. Frasier nodded. "Based on the regenerative biology and the reaction time to waking from the shots of the Zat gun, I administered a time-released drug into the creature's bloodstream. It should stay sedated for as long as necessary. It's also strapped down with high-test wire, as per Col. O'Neill's order, and placed in a maximum-security cell that is monitored constantly. I'll also be checking on it periodically." She finished.
Gen. Hammond nodded. "Good. Dr. Jackson, any impressions of the creature or the 2 ships? And why didn't we know about the second one?"
Daniel cleared his throat. "Like Major Carter said, we have very little actual information. But from a quick look at both ships I think I can state that they are indeed different, and most probably made by 2 different races. Also, there are no recent scorch marks on the second ship that was found. If I had to guess, I'd say that that ship has already been on Earth a while."
He had everyone's immediate attention. Gen. Hammond frowned, "By awhile, you mean..." he trailed off, waiting for Daniel to finish.
"Well, I didn't have that long to study it, and it didn't have the weathering that would be typical of being in an outside environment for years, but it definitely didn't just drop from the sky last week. I can't give you an exact or even approximate date without further testing. I'm sorry." Daniel looked around, knowing he'd just added to their problems. O'Neill sighed.
"So we probably have another little rascal running around somewhere in the Kansas countryside. Great, just great."
"Actually Jack, that's just it. It would be little, I mean the second ship is much smaller than the one the creature landed in, and whatever was inside is smaller than it. If there was anything inside to begin with, that is, it's possible that this second ship was just an unmanned probe. So far all attempts to open it have failed, and no aliens like the creature have been reported in the Smallville area, just mutations from the meteor rocks from the meteor strike."
Gen. Hammond looked at Daniel with new hope. "I think we should definitely keep an eye on this town, just in case there was something in the second ship. But now we need to get ready for our guests. Major Carter, we'll contact the Tok'ra and hopefully be able to identify the creature and the 2 ships. Doctor, if there is no contagion from the creature, you believe this boy should go back home?"
"Yes sir" Dr. Frasier replied promptly.
"Although I would love to be able to study the effects of this meteor rock on people and try to find some way to counter it, the fact is he saved Sam's life and helped to stop the creature from harming anyone else, along with stopping an animal mutation that would have killed us. He's a good person sir, and deserves to live a normal life like Cassandra."
She finished, referring to her adopted daughter, a refugee from another planet with her own special biochemistry.
Sam smiled at the mention of her favorite little girl, and the rest of SG-1 including Teal'c agreed with Dr. Frasier's assessment.
"All right then," Gen. Hammond said. "Take some downtime, and report back here at 1800 hours for the briefing with the civilians. Teal'c, I'm going to leave it up to you to decide if or how much you want to disclose about yourself. Col. O'Neill, I hope you're right about them being good people. They might end up knowing more than they even wanted to."
To be continued.
Thanks again for your comments! I got a little stuck, but I hope to post better next time. Have a good week!