Standard Disclaimer Applies
As a response to fear anger was an emotion he experienced frequently. Off world his anger was used as a way of channelling his energy into fighting an enemy or leading an escape plan. On world it had helped him to the position in the Air Force that he held now. Jack O'Neil never backed down from a fight, he never ran away. His legendary bravery wasn't because he didn't feel fear. No his bravery came from the simple fact that being scared made him really, really angry. And a lot of people had learnt the hard way that if there is one thing you didn't want to do, it was to make Jack O'Neil Angry.
Jack storms the room and glares across a table in it at his Son. Who is back safely sitting in a holding room on a well fortified sub level. His ex-wife and ex-father in law enjoying a rest in some base accommodation on a level considerably closer to the surface. Jack sighs as he thinks of the last thing Sara had said to him before he went to have a word with Xander.
" Don't you be too hard on him Jack. He's just like his father and neither of you can help that."
Jack had been sitting with his team trying to break the impossibly high security clearance on an FBI file about his son when the call from the gate had come in. A call that explained that they had just recaptured the prisoner that had escaped earlier that evening. And that he was accompanied by two people who had demanded to see the General. Needless to say Jack had been more then a little surprised. More then a little irked by the news.
" What the hell were you thinking!" Jack yells not waiting until he is through the doorway to start yelling. of the interrogation room with his team hot on his heels.
Xander who is leaning back in his chair, with only two of the legs resting on the ground, rocks the chair forward and it hits the ground with a thump.
" Excuse me?" Xander asks putting up a protest.
" You nearly killed two of my guards!" Jack continues not even able to control his anger for one moment and focus on the most important line of questioning. That of course being how his carpenter Son managed to find and bring to safety his imprisoned Mother and Grandad.
" Hardly Jack. I just gave them a little love tap is all." Xander shoots sarcastically back on the defensive now. It's not like he didn't expect this, but he isn't keen at being yelled at by anyone. Not after the long night he's just had.
" And going after Sara and Mike by yourself. Have you lost your mind?" Xander shrugs dismissively, only infuriating Jack more.
" That worked out all right. Not a scratch on them. Not a scratch on me." He replies and Jack feels like ripping his Son's head clean from his smug little shoulders.
" That's hardly the point!" Jack yells back and Xander pushes the chair back and stands.
" Excuse me but if you weren't going to go and get them then I was!" Xander fires back and Jack's eyebrows shoot skywards.
" How could I have gotten them? You didn't tell me where they were!"
" I didn't know where they were!" Xander hollers back.
" Then how the hell did you know where to find them?" Jack bellows and Xander quirks a smile at him.
" Sometimes all you got to do is ask the right person."
" Why not tell me who this person was?" Jack demands
" What with the whole holding me prisoner thing, I was generally inclined to believe that you wouldn't include me in the follow up." Xander tells Jack, who quietens.
" You pulled a gun on my team. What am I supposed to do just give you a time out and pretend it never happened?"
" Yeah, very sorry about that." Xander says insincerely.
Xander falls silent and for the first time notices that the team is standing in the room with him. The big guy with the golden tattoo is just off to Jack's right and staring at him intently. Xander's lips curl up in an involuntary snarl and the guy cocks his head curiously. and A brunette with a short top and sides up the back snorts. Xander and Jack both send him a synchronised glare which only gets in response another smothered snort.
" Sorry." Mitchell apologises and he moves forward and extends a hand towards Xander. " I'm Cameron Mitchell." He says introducing himself, and Xander shakes the offered hand briefly as Mitchell turns to the rest of the group. " That's Sam, Daniel and the big guy is Teal'c." Xander looks at each member in the room and shakes the offered hands from Sam and Daniel. Jack shakes his head.
" Sorry don't let us interrupts." Daniel offers waving a hand, " Go on fighting."
Jack shoots him a look that is somewhere between angry and thankful and he drops his head.
" Follow me. We have a couple of questions." He explains the fight leaving him for the moment and stalks out the door. Xander waits for the other team members to follow but it soon becomes clear that they intend to follow him. With a sigh, Xander walks out after his Father and is lead on a twisting journey through the bowels of the base.
Once again Xander is struck by the enormity of the structure he is walking through. To think that the whole facility was set actually inside of the mountain was mind boggling. But then again not unusual for the military. The Initiative had their secret base under an entire college in Sunnydale. Spanning several blocks, complete with evil demonic creations and the 21st centuries own version of the Nazi experiments.
" How far does this place go down?" Xander asks conversationally to Sam who has popped up besides him.
" It's pretty big." Sam replies obviously with an answer she routinely gives. To visiting whoevers or other previous prisoners.
Xander watches her for a second. And even though he is aware that she is aware he's looking, he scans the short blonde hair and glances over her comfortably worn BDUs all the way down to her well worn boots. It is the boots that he finds the most intriguing and his gaze lingers on them a moment. Then he shrugs and turns back to watch the back of Jack as he strides ahead of them.
Finally after winding past a heavy set of steel doors, through an empty control room and up a set of winding metal stairs, they came to a stop in a conference room. The main feature of the room being a huge set of internal windows which were being curtained by more massive steel doors. Xander wonders what the hell the windows could be looking over, seeing as they were several hundred feet below the surface of the earth. He ponders them for a moment, then turns away.
" What is this place?" Xander asks as he obediently sits in the proffered chair Jack points to.
" Originally Cheyenne Mountain was a Nuclear Silo in the cold war." Sam offers as she too takes a seat.
" I meant now." Xander asks noticing again how Sam had easily deflected his question, with an answer similar to what he had asked, but hardly relevant.
" It's an Air Force base for Deep Space Telemetry." Jack states and sits down himself. Soon all the members of the team are sitting around the table. All looking at Xander.
" Deep space telemetry?" Xander asks with a smile surveying all around him. His eyes coming to rest on Teal'c. He sniffs the air experimentally and frowns. No way was the big guy human. No way. " What does the big one do? Hold the telescope up?" Xander continues staring at Teal'c watching for a reaction.
Teal'c once again tilts his head slightly and replies speaking for the first time and the deep baritone causes the hairs on the back of Xander's neck to stand on end.
" I am Daniel Jackson's research assistant."
Xander looks at him, thinking through a number of possibilities. Not vampire, that was clear. No smell of decay pretty much ruled out any of the undead possibilities. No scent of blood cleared a whole range of nasties. If he were a werewolf there would be a slight musty odour. But Xander sniffs again, no musty odour. There was no hesitation to use English, he wasn't hiding any tentacles and he wasn't an abnormal colour or shape.
" What is it exactly that Daniel Jackson researches?" Xander enquires with seeming less politeness.
" This base was built on some historically and culturally significant grounds." Daniel chimes in and Xander fixes him with a stare. He had been having fun with the big guy, trying to decipher his secret.
" The military is cooperating with you?" Xander asks unconvinced abandoning Teal'c and asking in a disbelieving tone, and Daniel nods.
" Interesting." Xander says simply and he looks across at Sam and Mitchell.
" You look kinda geeky Sam, you playing scientist?" He asks and Sam shoots him a cold glare for the geeky comment but nods.
" I'm actually the senior astrophysics advisor on the program." She says with enough pride in her voice to actually convince Xander that she was really a scientist.
" What about you Mitch? You a scientist?"
" No, I'm a pilot. I'd tell you why the program needs a pilot but I'm afraid that would be classified." Mitchell states and Xander breaks into a grin.
" My clearance level not high enough? Or if you tell me will you have to kill me?" He jokes and Jack looks him over with a cool stare.
" Speaking of clearance levels. We were trying to access the file that landed you in all this trouble, and we don't have the clearance level to open it. You know why that would be?" Xander looks away from the grinning Mitchell and shakes his head bemused.
" Nope, could be scientists don't have exceptionally high clearance levels." He deadpans and waits for his assumption to be challenged but no one at the table takes the bait.
" Something hinky's going on." Mitchell agrees with Jack, " Something you're not telling us perhaps?" He asks and Xander shakes his head thoughtfully.
" Nope. Can't think of anything." He shoots a pointed stare at Teal'c " Anything you're not telling me?" He asks after a beat.
" No." Jack states then continues " So Alex, while you were out playing one man HRT, we've been trying to work out what the hell is going on." Jack explains and Xander gives him a confused glance.
" Sorry HRT?" He asks, knowing full well what the letters stood for.
" Hostage Rescue Team." States Jack.
" It was hardly that, more like a little sneak and entering I think." Xander said coyly and sent Jack a comforting smile, that did everything else but comfort the older man.
On the walk through the woods and to the base. Xander had managed to convince Sara and Mike that it was hardly in the best interests for anyone to tell Jack that Xander had rescued them under a blaze of gunfire. He'd also managed to get them to agree to not mention anything about, exploding SUVs, and playing chicken with his Grandad's life. Man that had been an awkward conversation with Mike.
" So did you find anything out about anything?" Xander asks turning the conversation away from himself and towards himself, wait that wasn't going to work, he thought, sitting forward in his chair.
" Yeah. We found out some rather interesting things." Jack nods and Xander feels his stomach flip flop nervously. What the hell does Jack mean by that?
" For starters," began Sam, " We know that the NSA doesn't have a team in Colorado at the moment. That they aren't even investigating the bombing of Sunnydale High." Xander frowns in confusion but allows Sam to continue before he interrupts.
" In fact, no one is investigating the bombing. According to the official investigation there was no bombing. The explosion that destroyed Sunnydale High was ruled accidental by the Sunnydale Coroners office, a result that was agreed upon by an investigative team from the FBI. This leaves us with a number of really intriguing questions. " Sam explains and then pauses, Xander's convinced it's for dramatic effect.
" Like who's in town pretending to be the NSA." Jack interrupts.
" And why you would confess to a bombing that wasn't a bombing?" He demands and Xander turns to look at him, cutting out the attitude for the moment.
" I told you already, there was a build up of natural methane gas beneath the school that exploded." Xander starts softly, " But the explosion was made significantly more devastating by the manure that we had stashed in the library." He pauses thinks of that day, the horror, the screams.
" People died Jack. Kids I knew. Kids I went to school with. Friends of mine. " Xander says quietly he looks away from the people at the table. " That's my fault. " He finishes and there is silence in the room for a heart wrenching second.
" Ok." Mitchell says suddenly breaking the still that has descended on the room. " So if no one is investigating the bombing, who's in town investigating the bombing?" He asks directing the question towards Sam.
" Honestly no idea. But the only file we've been able to find on Xander was that FBI file that we can't access."
" The FBI's behind this?" Xander asks and Jack shakes his head.
" I don't think so." Jack says calmly. " The FBI don't have an active investigation involving you either. In fact there is not one single law enforcement agency in the world that have you listed as a suspect for anything." He adds and Xander stares at him a quirk of a smile on his face.
" Don't say it like that, it makes you seem too proud." He deadpans and Jack shoots him a glare. Xander sighs, what a wonderful Father Son report he's developing.
" So I guess the question remains," Daniel interrupts the tension between Parent and offspring by interjecting, " Who's in town running around kidnapping people and pretending to be the NSA?"
" The Trust." Xander answers remembering what Peter told him, he looks around the room but the room has gone quiet.
" What?" Jack asks in a strangled voice.
" I'm guessing this is an organisation that you lot are somewhat familiar with?" Xander asks rhetorically based on the response of all people in the room.
" Who told you about the Trust?" Sam asks intensely.
" Dad did. " All eyes look to Jack as Xander realises his mistake. " no my Dad, Not my Dad, cause that would be Jack who's never mentioned the trust. I mean Anthony Harris. Or Tom. Ok the man I used to call Dad." Xander babbles off , shooting a glance at Jack, who is now quietly fuming at the end of the table.
" What did he tell you?" Mitchell asks as Jack sits in stony silence.
" Nothing. He just gave me a name, their name. Why? What do you know about them?" He demands and the team glance at each other.
" Not much." Jack replies tersely and Xander shakes his head.
" Bullshit." He spits but the team stays silent. " Oh come on!" Xander cries indignantly " Don't I have a right to know who shot me in the head?" He demands looking at Jack who shakes his head.
" I can't its classified." Jack offers lamely as an excuse and Xander stares at him.
" Unclassify it." He instructs sternly and Jack stares him down and shakes his head.
" Can't do it." Jack states.
Xander pushes angrily away from the table and moves over to the window leaning his forehead against the glass and forcing himself to take deep breaths.
" I get your patriarchal notion of protection Jack." He starts, his back turned to Jack. " But I'm a big boy now, and this can work one of two ways. Either you stop trying to wrap me up in cotton wool and work with me and tell me what you know."
" Or?" Jack demands
" Or I find out by myself." Xander challenges and Jack shoots his son a smile.
" Oh yeah, how are you going to do that?"
Xander closes his eyes and turns around, when he opens his eyes again, the look he shoots Jack is not the normal gaze of a twenty two year old. But the stone cold, flat calculated stare of the hyena. An unpleasant feeling settles itself in the pit of Jacks stomach.
" I'll go ask them." His lips quirk in thought and he looks away as he says, " I'm very good at asking questions."
To Be Continued….
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