From Here to Alternity I: Canon minus A Major: Storytime, Boys and Girl!
See all the pretty, shiny, famous people in this story? They don't belong to me. Gekko, Double Secret, MGM/Sony, SciFiChannel, etc. have rights to them. I have spirited them away from the above and promise to forward all cookies, cyber and otherwise, I make from this to them. Of course I make no money from this! Heck, I don't even make money from my real job! It's all for love, baybee. All for love.
As usual, I've made up names and characters and personal history with impunity and will explain myself (if ever) in the author's notes placed after the nasty cliffhanger unless I respond to a specific request from a reviewer.Don't sue!
Italicized words within parentheses are the symbiote's and plain old parentheses denote the host's mental voice.
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Previously in From Here to Alternity:
Grand Canyon Nat'l Park
Downtime Day 12
Christina spoke before Jacob Carter could respond. "Colonel Jake, I'm sorry. I know this is upsetting. I'm working as hard as I can to find Sam and I promise I won't give up until she's safe."
Jonas looked sharply back at his commanding officer and mouthed, 'Colonel Jake'? O'Neill gave a bewildered shrug.
"Please don't take this the wrong way, George, Colonel Jake" she continued, "but what the hell were the two of you thinking?"
And a loaded silence fell.
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Security Chief's Office, Administration Building
Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
Downtime Day 12, afternoon
Tiny, red-haired Christina Anderson glared directly at the phone on the desk as if Generals George Hammond and Jacob Carter could see her expression. She didn't bother to look at her two companions, because she had heard Colonel Jack O'Neill and Jonas Quinn's jaws hitting the floor. This was not how she had anticipated telling her co-investigators just how she got this case and why she'd be so obstinate about keeping it. Her jaw set in a picture of stubbornness as she waited for the men on the other end of the speakerphone to respond.
"Tina?" Jacob Carter gasped in confused recognition. "Wait, what are you…? How did you…? George?"
Hammond's gusty sigh came over the line and FBI Agent Christina Anderson, who hadn't gone by her childhood nickname for years, could picture his closed eyes and pursed mouth as if they were video conferenced. "Christina," George drawled with his soft Texan accent, "I need you to let me talk to my officers in private."
Normally a two star general's request was law, but Anderson wasn't military (anymore) so she folded her arms across her chest and began tapping her toe. "Not until you tell me what the hell's going on!"
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From a high backed chair in an office deep in the heart of Cheyenne Mountain, a foot-long reptilian symbiote wrapped around the brain stem of a retired general sent a question to the human half of herself.
(Jacob?)
(Yeah, Sel.) The agitation of Jacob Carter's body and mind echoed through his mental voice. Selmak tried not to recall the reason she'd taken over for her host almost from the moment George had told them about… the circumstance that pained her host. Recollection would spur reaction in a vicious circle of avoidable pain.
(Who is this 'Tina' and why does she speak to you and General Hammond in this manner?)
(Tina's an old – wait, you can remember my life before you, right?) Jacob had experienced a great many things in the last four years, but it seemed that he was continually finding more aspects to blending with Selmak. He had thought his previous life an open book, but…
(Access, more precisely, but yes.)
(Then you should know that 'Tina' is Christina Anderson, an old friend of the family. I've known her about thirty years or so. Actually, with her family it's more like forty.)
(The small red-haired child with the mischievous smile? I see her from infancy with several gaps – ah, that is when you were stationed apart from her father, Lucas…who went through basic training with you. And I see his death. She had the body type of a teenager then. Why have I not seen this before?) Selmak's tone had vague irritation crossed with wonder. They had shared much, this latest host and the symbiote, but it seemed that Jacob was a well of surprises. Every dip into their shared memory could hold some new fact or practice of the Tau'ri.
(Well, it's not like I've seen every memory of every moment you've been alive for the last 2400 years.) Even the heartsick father in Jacob yielded to the routine of gentle ribbing that was so much a part of his life with Selmak. He'd lost that for a terrifying hour yesterday and was glad to have the equanimity of mind to engage in the gentle internal sarcasm they both enjoyed.
(You make it sound like an eternity.) Selmak sent a wave of amusement at the part of them that was Jacob. An ingrained gallantry kept the late middle-aged man from voicing the true age of one of Egeria's first children. It was futile, of course, since they both knew exactly how old Selmak was, but it was another part of their familiar game.
(Two millennia? Pffft.)
(Brat.) Selmak's wave of disgruntled affection collided with a similar emotion from Jacob. The interaction between the waves swelled the emotion into an enormous upsurge of shared relief. The world felt topsy-turvy with Sam in danger, especially in danger they could neither identify nor fight, but these little snippets of familiarity balanced them both.
(Seriously, Jacob, there must be more to it than that.) Selmak felt Jacob squirm in negation. That meant there was something worth finding here.
(What's to say? I haven't been in touch with her or her family in five or six years. I had no reason to think of her.) Jacob felt his consciousness wrap protectively around a series of interlinked memories with a jolt of surprise. Apparently there were some things he had avoided sharing with his symbiote. Selmak had similar pockets of privacy that both had silently agreed to ignore until they became relevant. He slowly released his grip on this complex, allowing them to experience it for the first time as a blended pair.
Selmak was very gentle and quiet as her consciousness sifted these tangled threads. (This was the beginning of your estrangement from your son. Mark and Tina were terribly close and he adopted her hurt as his own. Tina became very close to your wife after her father died…and she did not smile for several years after the accident. Mark blamed you for Tina's agitation and her inability to comfort him as well as his mother's death. You felt doubly guilty in that Lucas died protecting you on a mission and then when Maggie… Jacob, did we not agree that the accident was not your fault?) Selmak sent a wave of inquiry tinged with the absolute faintest traces of reproach. 2300-mumble years of harsh and varied experience had left a keen appreciation of survivor's guilt in the symbiote's memory.
(Yeah, well, apparently only most of me agrees with you. Can we not talk about that right now?) No wonder he'd subconsciously tucked these memories away and wrapped them in forgetfulness.
(As you wish.) Selmak sent back a wave of love and acceptance that let Jacob release his grip on the next few guarded memories.
Jacob smiled gratefully at Selmak's reaction as he thought of his odd family of old Air Force friends. Major Lucas Anderson, a fellow Air Force officer who was often stationed with him, had been his 2IC on several missions which included Captain George Hammond. The Andersons had been a bridge between the younger Hammond girls and older Carter siblings; Lucas' oldest daughter, formerly called Tina, was Mark's age, while her sister Cheryl was in the same grade as his Sammy and a younger Anderson sister was the best friend of Maxine Hammond. They'd been scattered by postings over the years, but their wives had kept in touch. Even more significantly, the men had served together in several 'special assignments' that their families had learned not to ask about. He felt Selmak sampling his regret at the amazing father Lucas had been and his own feeling of never being able to measure up to his lost friend. He mourned for the father he hadn't been able to be even with Lucas and George's examples. Selmak gently disengaged from the painful memories, sending Jacob a wave of love, reassurance and distraction.
(So you knew this agent early in her life. Why is this problematic? I do not understand.) Selmak's curious mental voice ignored their shared memories as if they were still hidden.
(Besides the fact that she's just as stubborn as my children can be? Once she latches on to this investigation, nothing – and I do mean nothing short of death or dismemberment – will get her to let go. That's great while we're still assuming it's an Earth-based attack, but if we find there are offworld connections she'll have to be talked out of continuing her search. And I'm not sure that's humanly possible.) Jacob paused in his projection of gratitude to send an evil image back to his symbiote, who was 'innocently' replaying scenes of Jacob's own stubbornness. He ignored the nudge to amend his 'my children' to 'I' and tuned back in to the phone conversation.
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Christina Anderson was in a full volume piss-me-off-and-duck rant. It may not have been entirely justified, but she was beyond petty concerns like fairness and manners. "– didn't come to you, you came to me! First, you call me in the middle of the night and tell me to get this case started no matter what favors I have to call in. Then, I go to my boss oh-butt-early the next morning to convince him to send me and my partner all the way across the country on the trail of a disappearance that is just barely coming over the wire as a MisPers case, which I don't generally work anyway, and has no apparent connection to the place you've sent us!" Her hands jumped into the air, throwing annoyance off like water. Then one drifted to her hip while the other kept count of her complaints.
"And then I get here to find I'm playing den mother for a bunch of overgrown boychicks who'd rather stage pissing contests than actually investigate. Now that I've finally got something that might actually let me help Sammy you're gonna whip out the old 'classified' excuse!" Her hands both gripped her hips as she stood akimbo. Jonas and Jack shuffled back an involuntary step; she looked more like Doctor Fraiser in this moment than any civilian had a right to.
"No," she continued firmly. "Don't even try it. You pulled me into this; you can damn well explain why you're pulling me out!" Her own soft Southern accent slipped out as she got more and more upset.
Hammond was feeling the stress of this situation himself. "Christina Lucille Anderson, you need to watch your tone!"
Jack and Jonas' eyes widened as their boss pulled out an older and more personal weapon than any they had heard him use before – the dreaded middle name. It didn't matter how old you were or what planet you were from, when someone older and more powerful than you called you by all your names in that universal parental discipline tone… you knew you'd crossed a line.
Hammond took a breath as a very stubborn look formed on the agent's face. "Tina, it's very important that I talk to my officers alone. There are aspects to this case you aren't familiar with and as much as you hate to hear it, they really are a matter of national security," he explained firmly.
Jack and Jonas watched her shake her head emphatically, but her tone was gentler as she continued. "I don't care about national security, George. I care about Sam. You have to see that classifying all the evidence is the worst possible approach."
"We're all in this to find Sam, Tina," Hammond continued in a softer tone. He recognized the same frustrated determination in his surrogate niece that he depended on in Jack, Jonas and Teal'c. "Trust me on this – we're better equipped to deal with this material than the FBI is. And this doesn't mean we don't still need your help. You have access to sources that we don't. We need you and your partner to do some of the legwork that's just as important to finding Sam as the classified material."
"Fine, then classify only the stuff that is directly related to whatever part of Sam is national-security-esque!" Anderson consciously cooled her temper and tried logic. No matter who had gotten her onto this case, logic would get her further than emotion. She leaned onto Chief Ludlow's chair back on her locked arms as if doing a reverse push-up. "If her blood has some weird, secret chemical in it, leave us the hairs and fibers. We only have one avenue of investigation in the van registration. Give us another point of reference to include or exclude suspects and you'll cut our search time in half! And what can photos tell you that we're not allowed to see, anyway? It's not like we weren't all out there when they were taken." She shoved herself upright and dragged one hand through shoulder length red hair.
"How did you know about the chemical in Major Carter's blood?" General Hammond barked. Whichever of his subordinates had given that away would be scrubbing the 'gate room with his toothbrush when this search was over.
"You can relax, sir," O'Neill offered. "She doesn't know what it is, what it's called, how it works, or what it means. She basically knows that the blood is the part we most want to classify."
"Colonel O'Neill, need I remind you of the level of clearance necessary to know even that?" Hammond's frown traveled in tandem with his stern voice. "We need all the evidence because we don't want documents floating around the Federal government that specify which part of the evidence is of public record and which part must be concealed. Once Major Carter is home she'll have enough to deal with without opening herself up to another kidnap attempt specifically to get the parts of her body that are most valuable on the open market! Classifying the evidence is for the major's own good!"
"Dammit, George…" Anderson muttered. "You're playing dirty and you know it." She paused for some silent mental gymnastics then concluded, "I don't like this." With her arms crossed firmly over her chest and a scowl plastered over her face, she looked very young.
"None of us do, Tina." Jacob popped in. Hearing the unexpected gentleness in her other surrogate uncle's voice seemed to undo her last sinew of resistance. "If you'll just let us get the classified information settled between us, we'll tell you everything we can when you come back in."
"Promise me," she demanded as she turned to leave the room.
"I promise," the generals said in unintentional unison.
Christina Anderson smiled reluctantly as she closed the door behind her.
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Chris' smile lingered a moment as she stepped into the hall. Leaving that office went against all her investigative instincts, but she really hadn't had a jurisdictional leg to stand on. It was one thing to protest when there was a vague mention of official secrets in an order that hadn't been given to her. It was another thing entirely to defy authority when confronted with inevitable surrender, even if logic and reason were on your side.
And it didn't mean the end of helping an old friend, either. She had been promised information by two men she (mostly) trusted, and even being shut out of the physical evidence didn't eject her from the case. Washington really was a small town in some ways, and everybody owed everybody else favors. If the information wasn't supersensitive, all it might take would be a phone call to get her answers, classified or not.
She jerked a little nod at Tio Murray (or whatever his real name was) and the techs who were watching over the evidence and settled against the wall herself. Just as she closed her eyes for a second's peace, she heard something that made her heart sink.
"So, Tina," Tapping sneered from his lounging spot against the opposite wall. "Got anything you need to tell your trusted partner?"
Her tired brain raced back over the interview she'd just left. Security Chief Ludlow had left the door ajar on his way out of the office. Yes, the door had been open the entire time. Crap.
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Author's Note: First off, another enormous thank you to my beta, technetium, for inspired help and extraordinary constructive critiques! And again to my editrix and sister - that's one less you owe me, junior! ;-) And a sincere thank you to everyone who reviewed - I truly appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you thought and why.
A couple of things brought up in reviews and beta reading: "Colonel Jake" is a child's nickname for Jacob Carter established and retained from when he actually was a colonel. Yes, he's a general and yes, she knows it. It's an affectionate thing to differentiate him from an "Uncle Jake" already in the picture. There's a whole backstory with Agent Anderson's father and the generals, but this is the last of it we see except for a teeny bit in the next chapter. I understand people thinking the story is moving slowly, because it is - from a certain point of view. We'll actually only be with these characters until Downtime Day 18 in this much detail. I haven't decided yet whether or not we'll learn everything else that happened to SG-1 from 2003 to 2007 (and I'm actually not sure what happened to them yet - Moo hasn't told me everything), but it won't be in nearly this much detail. The next chapter has our first new lead! So the search heats up from this point on - stay tuned! And Review!