In Lord Iblis's Secret Service

Part: 2

Rating: PG, maybe be PG-13 later on

paring: ensemble cast

Summary: Sometimes when everything goes bad in your life, it gets better in the weirdest way possible. Kind of a play on RDM's "everyone gets what they want in the worst possible way" comment.

Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and its characters are creations of Glen Larson and copywrited by Universal Studios. Stargate and its characters are creations of MGM. We make no money off this.

The Tau'ri

Another stray from some primitive world, Janet Frasier thought with a sigh as she looked at the shaking young man that was standing by the MRI scanner. He was probably frightened by the guard, the electricity, and all of the things he'd never seen before. She understood the tendency to pick up strays, she had a twelve year old from a destroyed world as her adopted daughter, but the older strays brought to Earth didn't adapt well.

The older ones were usually grateful at first but they had problems. With literacy, with not fighting or stealing, or solving a problem by clubbing an enemy. She hadn't gotten the back story on the new one, just a name and the whispered comment from Sam that the man had been tortured by the Goa'uld.

He looked pale and scared, but she didn't see much damage beyond the cuts on his feet. Still, it wasn't something Sam would say lightly, and she didn't want to make anything worse. "Ok… Felix… We have do a little test. And then… "

He glanced at the machine. "That's an MRI machine. You want to make sure that there isn't a Goa'uld inside me."

She blinked in surprise. "All right. Why don't you hop on the rack, and I'll slide you in. Have you had an MRI before?" That he knew what it was surprised her.

"A long time ago….I think…" He limped over and got on the sliding rack. "It's a little claustrophobic….." And his shaking didn't stop but she could see that he was trying to be still. Which helped make the scan go quicker since she didn't need the guard to help her administer a sedative.

"Everything looks clear," she said after a moment. In fact he looked remarkably well, almost too well internally considering how sickly he looked. But then that could be attributed to shock. The guard nodded and left. The protocol was to keep a guard in place until it was confirmed that a newcomer didn't have a Goa'uld inside them. She took a better look at Felix's feet as she pulled the rack out of the MRI. "The cuts are superficial but feet are sensitive so I can't imagine it feels that great. And your ankle is swelling, a sprain since I don't see any breaks on the scan but that means you're not walking back to the exam room." She hadn't liked how wheezy and out of breath he had been sounding earlier. Fear could do that, but so could underlying health issues that an MRI didn't pick up. She turned to her assistant who was hovering in the doorway. " Let's get a wheelchair."

Felix made a face but didn't protest, which only further indicated that he wasn't a typical stray from off planet. He'd also been seriously injured at some point, if she was reading his body language correctly. Injured enough to know how to get into the wheelchair without jiggling his feet much, but the shaking was putting him off balance.

"I'm going to examine you," she said as she helped him onto the exam bed. "But I think you've done this before, am I right?"

He nodded.

"Good. You were wheezing and breathing with difficulty when you came out of the gate. Is that a health issue? Or are you just not a runner?" She was thinking asthma or fear but while the scan looked clean, that didn't preclude a problem.

If anything his hands seemed to shake more and his olive skin took on a grayish caste. "There.. There was never room to exercise… and before… I had just gotten to where I could jog with the prosthetic…." He wiggled his toes. "I was shot in my right shin and… there wasn't anything that could be done. It was amputated… and then in the sarcophagus… it grew back…. I think…." He visibly shook. "I felt it grow back and it hurt so much… but… before I was captured by Iblis… I hadn't been getting much exercise and Iblis never let me out of my cell without chains and people holding me."

"All right…" Good lord what happened to this man, she wondered. "Look, Felix, you're in shock." She raised up the adjustable exam bed so he could lean back and still sit up. "I'm going to get your feet bandaged and get some ice for your ankle, and my assistant is going to get you something hot to drink… And I want to give you an IV that'll have some nutrients and glucose, and a mild sedative."

He looked at her suspiciously, and the shaking increased. "What kind of sedative?"

"You might go to sleep, but it will let you calm down, and I think you're at a point where you need some help." She didn't want to force him, although she would if it came to it. After a long moment though he nodded and let himself lie back on the bed.

"This is Linear A," Daniel said excitedly as he flipped through one of the notebooks Sam had brought with her. "He writes in Linear A, and Linear B."

Hammond looked through a sketchbook. "Uniforms… people in uniform with very modern looking weapons and he braced himself like an officer…. He's military of some sort." He looked at Sam.

"I don't know for certain," Sam said easily. "He was afraid of telling me a lot. He didn't want to help Iblis or lead Iblis to his people. Once I told him that I had outside help, he suggested we not discuss anything but necessary details."

"Makes me think military," Jack said, "Of some sort."

"I think so. He said he was from Caprica. One of the twelve colonies of Kobol. He called the Linear A Kobolian, and the Linear B Old Caprican… said he learned it in school." She had recognized the script herself but she had not pressed him.

"In Persian, Kobol means heaven." Daniel said after a moment.

"There… is a story," Teal'c said quietly, "Of an event that took place on Earth when the Goa'uld were asserting control. That some of the gods took chosen followers to Kobol to live among them. That it was allowed because the Goa'uld took…. The unacceptable hosts as their breeding stock. Considering what you witnessed with the Goa'uld, Major Carter…perhaps this man represents that population of humans?"

"If he's human," Jack said after a moment. He looked at the group of people at the briefing table. "Look, we have to consider that possibility. He has a much different reaction to the sarcophagus technology. He looked like it hurt."

"He said it was very painful," Sam said. She wanted to make sure that was clear. Because it was a very different reaction to the sarcophagus. "He told me that he could feel the healing take place. Usually when Iblis used him to… execute a fellow Goa'uld, the dying Goa'uld would try to cause as much damage as possible. He looked dead when they took him from the cell. And I don't think he has any real understanding of the time that has passed."

"Constant use of the sarcophagus effects aging," Daniel said knowingly. "But just being able to translate Linear A and B makes him useful

"I think he'll be useful to Stargate Command for other reasons." Sam flipped the notebook to the equations she had copied from the walls of the cell. "Between the pictures, and the high level physics and math equations, I think he's got a background in space travel."

"He was afraid to tell you about his background," said a new voice. Janet Fraser stepped into the room, holding a chart and looking concerned. "But he does have a background in space. That was pretty much where he lived before he came across the Goa'uld. He thinks we're in a space ship because it reminds him of where he used to live. He's also aware of medical technology that isn't defined by a System Lord doing magic. So be assured, he is not primitive."

"So he's potentially very useful," Hammond said, his tone concerned. "But… if he killed Lilith, that was ten years ago."

"He's aware that there's been a passage of time," Sam said worriedly. She glanced at Janet. She needed to know it if Felix hadn't told her. "He doesn't know how long it's been but he is aware that he hasn't been aging. Because of the sarcophagus use."

"Wait… He was locked up in a cell with the Goa'uld using his body as a form of execution for ten years?" Janet looked at her, incredulous. "And we're discussing how useful he might be? That's really premature. That man may be from a technological society but he's also in shock. And there may be some underlying trauma. I gave him a sedative so he could rest but I did talk to him. According to the MRI, he's physically fine, some superficial cuts on his feet and a sprained ankle. But while he appears to have decent muscle tone and reactions, he's got the fitness of someone who hasn't had a chance to use his body for much at all, and who periodically has his body torn to shreds and regrown by Goa'uld tech. Including his right leg, which apparently had previously been amputated due to a gunshot wound. He's going to need some therapy, physical and mental, before he's useful."

Hammond nodded. "I think this is a case where we'll get a better pay off if we move slowly. We need to debrief him, Dr. Frasier, but your point is well taken. We'll need to quarantine him here in SGC anyway, but…" Hammond looked at one of the intricate drawings that showed several sleek fighter craft in a dog fight in an asteroid field, "I have a feeling your stray might be a gold mine of information if we treat him right, Maj. Carter."

"Good," she said, meaning it. "Because I have a feeling that Felix hasn't been treated well in a long time. For what it's worth, he seems like a decent person. When I first broached the idea of escape, he suggested that I go without him because I'd have a better chance."

"So," Jack said, breaking the sudden silence, "slow and easy wins the race. Let's let him get some sleep, some food, and see that we're what we say we are. Then we'll see if he can show us how these little fighter ships work." He took the drawing from Hammond. "You have to admit, that does look cool."

Slow and easy, Jack thought as he strode through the corridors of Stargate Command. He looked down at the duffle bag. He had guessed at sizes, but he assumed that Felix Gaeta would likely be happy enough to have something other than Goa'uld rags to wear. They would need to outfit the man more thoroughly and more appropriately, but for now, some Air Force battle and pt issue would do. He had added some toiletries, the sort of things people needed. His plan was to take the man to breakfast and explain some of the realities to him.

The truth was that taking in strays from other worlds was becoming problematic. The more primitive sorts ended up dispersed to the Alpha and Beta sites. If Sam was correct, and a glance at the math she had copied told him that Sam *was* correct, then the man in their sickbay just might have the knowledge of higher technology than what Earth currently possessed. They needed the technical know how. At the same time, they had to get an idea of who they were dealing with.

Jack didn't get a bad feeling off the man. That counted for a lot. Sam liked him as well, and that also counted for a lot. So it was possible that the man would work out. But Janet had a point about the trauma issues. He wanted to get a read on Gaeta, and see just how workable or unworkable he would be.

Janet was drawing blood from Gaeta's arm when he walked into the infirmary. Gaeta looked… better. He did, Jack realized, look like a man who hadn't seen sunlight in years. Still, the shaking had left him and Janet gave Jack the look that said it was ok for him to be there.

"All right," he said cheerfully. "Has Dr. Fraser fed you yet? If not, then I'll take you for some chow." He set the duffle bag down on the bed and opened it. " I thought you might want some clothes and… " He held up a pair of sneakers. "Here at Stargate Command, you're allowed to have shoes. And socks."

Gaeta smiled slightly. "Thanks. You're… Col. O'Neill?"

"Jack O'Neill," Jack said as he held out his hand. "Sam said your name is Felix Gaeta. Are you hungry, Felix?"

Gaeta looked nervously at Janet, who nodded. "A little…I thought I was quarantined."

"You are," Janet said. "But that means you can't leave Stargate Command, not that you can't leave sickbay. Colonel O'Neill knows where you can and can't go. And there's no reason you can't go to the cafeteria." To Jack she said, " He doesn't have any of the typical issues we have with people off world."

"I don't have lice," Gaeta added helpfully. "And I know how to use a toilet."

"You'll fit right in then," Janet said, her tone amused. Jack got the sense that they had already shared jokes on the topic. He wasn't surprised. Janet was generally a good sport but she was usually the one stuck delousing and toilet training the off worlders who hadn't been exposed. "You'll want to change, so we'll let you get dressed. Try to stay off your feet, and you can wear the shoes but don't tie the right foot. Your ankle is still too swelled. And you're using a wheelchair. Your reflexes are all screwed up."

"It gets better if I walk," Gaeta protested.

"I had to stitch your feet up, and your ankle is sprained, and you're unsteady. No walking until I say." Janet eyed him, and Jack was amused to see Gaeta nod. Janet grabbed Jack by the arm and led him to the door. "We'll let you get changed."

"How is he doing?" To Jack's eyes, he seemed to be doing better but Janet's warnings concerned him.

"He should be fine physically," Janet said quickly to reassure him. "But his reflexes are off, and he needs some physical therapy to deal with coordination and strength issues. The last thing we need is for him to trip over his feet and break something. I'm being cautious. If his feet weren't covered with superficial but deep cuts, and if his ankle wasn't swelled, I'd let him walk. It's not going to hurt him to keep him quiet for a few days. I'm already working on a therapy schedule. You're taking him to the cafeteria?"

"Unless you think IHOP would be more fun," Jack said easily.

"Be careful to let him set the pace. He seems all right here, but I doubt he's been around a lot of people in a setting where he wasn't in chains in a long time. If he seems upset, try to get him isolated. I think he'll be all right, but be careful." She looked at him intently. "I get the impression that his dignity is important to him. If he has a collapse in public because he hasn't been around people in years, it would a psychological set back and he's trying very hard but I think he's fragile. Be careful, Jack."

She meant it. That made his words easier. "Don't worry. If he can handle it, I am going to talk about the Stargate but if he seems stressed… I'm just going to get him a donut. Maybe jelly filled. Don't worry."

The door to the small patient room opened. Gaeta was standing there, neatly dressed in the camouflage pants and brown t-shirt Jack had brought. With the short hair and the stiff posture, Jack found himself mentally agreeing with Hammond. Gaeta was military of some sort. Looking at the young man in Air Force battle dress, he had no doubt that Felix Gaeta had worn a uniform before.

He didn't like wheelchairs. He understood why Dr. Fraser was insisting, but he didn't like it, even though Col. O'Neill was quick to point out how he looked like a soldier on "profile". Being on profile meant one was sick and not expected to be up for a fight. He understood the concept if not the term but… He had learned from hard experience that people who wallowed in injury ended up in hard places. He had fought to stay active, and deep down he knew that part of why he had kept his job in the CIC and as the Admiral's scientific researcher was because there was no one capable with two legs to replace him.

But the truth was that his feet stung and his ankle hurt like hell and he suspected that Dr. Fraser was trying to avoid forcing him to be still. He didn't want to make her mad by insisting. She had been very kind.

And he wanted to see their ship. The Tau'ri, as they called themselves, seemed pleasant. Kind. Even General Hammond, who had seemed angry, had been kind. And O'Neill seemed to be the chatty sort.

"And here's the cafeteria," O'Neill said jovially. It seemed quiet for a cafeteria, but Felix could see the tell tale signs of early morning shift. People looked sleepy and were mostly holding cups. Cups of beverage that smelled suspiciously like….

"Is… is that coffee?" He tried not to drool. He hadn't had coffee, real coffee since the Cloud Nine had exploded with the last of the coffee.

"Kona Blend," O'Neill said. He moved the chair to the beverage rack and grabbed trays, handing one to Felix. "I'm guessing you'd like a cup. You like cream and sugar?"

"You have cream and sugar?" He said it without thinking. The Tau'ri looked well supplied if the heaped racks of food and inviting smells said anything. It had just been so long since food had tasted good. The food, such as it was, on the Galactica had been algae paste with rare vegatables. Iblis had always insisted he have food, but it was usually bland food. There was never seasoning or even real care taken, just food that had been carefully calculated to keep him healthy from a medical standpoint. And that was at best. There had been so many times, after escape attempts, where meals had been specially formulated tasteless gruel. That he had to eat or be beaten. And if the damage from the beating was severe, then he went to the sarcophagus. He shuddered.

"You sound like you want both," O'Neill said easily. He set a steaming mug on Gaeta's tray. "We have hot and cold food. I'd like some eggs. You like eggs? Chicken eggs? We have cereal and pancakes and waffles."

Again his mouth watered. "I like eggs." He hadn't had a real egg since New Caprica. And that had been some sort of turtle egg. Chicken eggs…. that had been his last leave on Caprica..

"All right then, we need the grill." O'Neill wheeled him over to the cooking area. A large, older looking black skinned woman was there, almost blue black in color, which was very rare in the colonies. She smiled at both of them.

"Y'all need breakfast, suh?" the cook asked pleasantly. Her drawl was almost incomprehensible but she smiled pleasantly at Gaeta. "I 'spect you want your regular, but what can I get your friend?"

"How do you like your eggs, Felix?" O'Neill asked.

"Over… over easy." The woman looked at O'Neill and then at him. Then she winked.

"Two eggs, over easy… on toast if I don't miss my guess. Lil bacon and homefries on the side… you're too skinny. Col. O'Neill, y'all need to feed these boys better. Is that coffee? Get that boy some orange juice. No wonder the poor boy is laid up." Her accent made it sound like 'po'. She smiled down at Felix. "Don't you worry, son. I'll make sure you get a proper breakfast." She made a shooing gesture at O'Neill, her tone and expression becoming harsher. "Now you go on and sit down and I'll bring you something….if you're lucky."

O'Neill seemed amused. There was no real malice coming from the cook, Gaeta knew it was a show. Possibly being put on intentionally, but just as likely that O'Neill was friends with the cook and that they played with each other by joking. O'Neill seemed popular as well, several of the sleepy looking people nodded and waved. He parked the wheelchair at an empty table and held up his hand. "Just a sec," he said and then he trotted back over to the serving area, returning in seconds holding two glasses of orange beverage. "Marietta will be livid if she doesn't see orange juice on the table." He set the glass down in front of Felix.

Felix sipped his coffee, savoring the rich taste. He wasn't so sure about the juice. "It's… orange…"

O'Neill looked at him quizzically. "It's made from oranges…."Suddenly his eyes lit up in amusement. "Oranges are a fruit. They're orange colored…. It's good for you." O'Neill looked him over. "You know we don't intend to harm you. The quarantine… that's more for you. Goa'uld and Jaffa can't get sick. You spent a long time with them…. Your immune system needs to ease into things."

"I don't know how long it's been… but it was a while. At least five years." And O'Neill was nodding to that, which was more confirmation than Felix had ever gotten. The talk about immunity and illness made sense too.

O'Neill looked him over. "You're not a prisoner here. Normally, with someone kidnapped by the Goa'uld, we'd get you back where you came from, but Sam didn't recognize the name of your home world…. There's a lot of places we haven't been to. It wouldn't be considered a mission priority but we could at least look."

Felix shrugged and sipped his coffee. They were fairly isolated, and it was a military ship, that was obvious, but he assumed O'Neill would prefer discretion. "It's good of you to offer, but there's no point in looking. Caprica was destroyed and anyone that survived the initial attack would be dead by now. From the radiation." Not to mention the harsh reality of the Gate, as the Tau'ri called it. He was millions of miles away from where he started and he had a suspicion that it had been more than five years.

O'Neill nodded, his expression not changing except for a certain sadness coming to his eyes. "Goa'uld? Iblis attacked your world?"

"No… we had other enemies. I… didn't have any idea that the Goa'uld existed. Not beyond stories." Very old stories at that, from the religious books that even the priests didn't take seriously.

It was then that the cook came over with heaping plates of food. "Now you just let me know if you need anything," the woman said kindly, giving his shoulder a friendly squeeze. She pointedly gestured to the glass. "And drink that, it's good for you."

"Thank you," he said gratefully, looking at the plate of food that smelled so enticing. He was careful not to just leap on the eggs. Show respect for good food, one of his foster mothers had always said, by taking your time and savoring. It was hard to resist though, everything was tasty, even the toast that was made from some sort of grain he'd never had. It went marvelously with the liquidy egg yokes though.

"You're one of them," O'Neill said with a laugh as he watched Felix eat. "Using the toast as a sponge… My son did that."

"You have a son?" Felix asked, between a mouthful of deliciously salty bacon.

"I did," O'Neill said after a moment.

He understood what that meant. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you," O'Neill said after a moment. He gestured to the plate. "It's good you're taking it slow. Dr. Fraser will kill me if you eat too fast and get sick. Once you're done, you and I and a few other people, including General Hammond, are going to talk about what was going on with Iblis. That'll probably take a few days. After that, we'll need to figure out what to do with you."

Felix wasn't sure what to make of that.

"No, that's not anything important," Felix said, trying not to sound cross. The Tau'ri were being nice, he reminded himself, and he was their guest. They weren't hitting him or torturing him, and their doctor had checked in on the debriefing periodically to make sure he wasn't tired. He was tired, but he wanted to answer their questions. He wanted to trust them, and deep down, he suspected that he didn't have a choice. Most of their questions had been about Iblis, and they had been very free about discussing their own plans in front of him. He got the impression just from their comments that their own forces weren't abundant. And that they had a lot of problems with the Goa'uld. But Dr. Jackson was holding up one of his journals that Sam had brought and he didn't understand why Dr. Jackson found it important. " That's just…" He looked at it more closely. "I got bored and wrote down what I remembered of the Holocaust and Exodus…. The destruction of my homeworld and how we ran… I was just…" Bored and depressed and consumed with the idea that he was the only one left alive, or worse that he was dead and being punished in Tartarus. " I just needed something to do, so I wrote down our history and I used Kobolian because I wanted to see if I could still do it."

He had always been good at languages. Kobolian and Old Caprican were temple languages mostly and he had, as a teenager, liked being able to argue religion by citing obscure texts that weren't always translated.

Jackson seemed both awed and bemused. "Let me show you something." He opened a book and pointed to one of the pictures. "What does that say?"

Felix looked at the picture. It was clearly a clay tablet, primitive and old, the sort of thing scholars liked for the art of it all. "It's a list. One hundred sheep from the province of Nir Aton…. Three hundred…. Something of wheat from Nir Betal… A tax list…"

It was hard to understand why Jackson looked so elated.

"Will you stop?" O'Neill said, making a point of taking the book away from Felix and sliding it back to Jackson.

"It's interesting," Hammond conceded gruffly. Felix realized suddenly that Hammond and O'Neill, and Sam for that matter, were all very interested in how he had read the list off the picture of the clay tablet, but were more interested in other topics. Hammond in particular seemed mostly interested in the pictures he had drawn of the Galactica. The older man showed him a picture he had drawn of a Raptor being worked on. "Frankly, Mr. Gaeta, I'd liked to know what you used to do for a living. Before Iblis captured you."

Felix decided to go for broke. It wasn't as though there was anything left to lose. "I didn't tell Major Carter, because what I knew of the Goa'uld…. Their technology is different from my people's and I was afraid Iblis would try to get it from me. I was a fleet military officer of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. I was the fleet tactical officer and navigator and I was the head of research." Mostly because he had been crippled, but that stung too much to mention, particularly considering how it had been that role that ultimately had led to his capture by Iblis.

Hammond eyed him shrewdly. "You're pretty easy about telling us that. For a military man."

A test. "It's been at least five years, probably longer, since I was with the colonial fleet. I have no idea where they are or where this ship is in relation to the fleet of my people and the gate you have means the distance involved may be even greater. If you decided to torture me, there's nothing I could tell you that isn't basic knowledge for my people, hopelessly out of date intelligence about my people, or knowledge of Lord Iblis that I see no reason not to tell you. I've actually had Goa'uld parasites inside of me, trying to find out where my people where, just so they could beg Iblis to spare them and they never discovered that I was anything but some poor native shepherd." He shrugged. "I'm not telling you anything that would harm my people." And Hammond looked like a hard man, as hard as Bill Adama in in the right setting, but he didn't think Hammond was harder than a desperate Goa'uld seeking a bargaining chip to trade for it's life.

After a moment, Hammond smiled slightly. "You might be underestimating me, son."

"Possibly, sir." He didn't think so, but he wasn't going to say it. It was rude, and argumentative, and he didn't really want to test the man. He knew how hard he could be pushed. Hammond wasn't likely to push hard enough. Not after the Cylons, and the Goa'uld. Not after his leg. "But I also have to look at the reality that you did rescue me, and you're asking me things, you're not demanding, and you don't like the Goa'uld. I don't like the Goa'uld and if you're against them… The least I can do is help you." He hesitated. He didn't want to sound ungrateful. "I don't have anywhere to go. My people were running… and it's been years and…." He hadn't really thought about it until just then. "They probably would be very suspicious of me. Because I haven't aged… "

And because he had regrown a leg. An icy chill went down his spine as he considered it. He could see on the faces of the Tau'ri that it had been more than five years, he had suspected it as well, and his two legs on top of that would mark him as a Cylon. And that was if the fleet could be found.

Hammond was quiet for just a moment. "Your people were running. From what?"

"The Cylons… intelligent robots… We created them about twenty years before I was born. They evolved into a sentient race. Some of the pictures I drew… those are Cylon ships. They got into our defense network and dropped our defenses. The ship I was on was being retired that day so we never installed the tainted software. We were lucky we were able to jump away."

O'Neill's eyes brightened. "Jump?"

"You know… FTL jump." Felix waited until it was obvious that he needed to explain. "Faster than light jumps… You know… Moving a ship through space by creating a fold in space?"

O'Neill shrugged nonchalantly. "Of course we've *heard* of it…. But we're using Goa'uld designs."

"Do you know how faster than light travel works?" Sam asked excitedly. She opened another one of his notebooks. He hadn't even realized that she had packed them, that was the truth, and she was gesturing to the mathematical route calculations he had made on the walls of his cell. She pointed to the calculations. "Does this have anything to do with it? I can tell you were working with interstellar astrogation but I couldn't make sense of it."

Which meant they were really deficient in higher level physics because he knew that Sam was very bright. "It sort of does… I was just playing. After everything was destroyed, my people went a little crazy with religion, and signs and looking for places from the scripture. Mythic places…This is the route to Earth."

Sam looked at him and then at O'Neill. "Felix…" she said gently. "This is Earth. We're from Earth."

Another icy chill went down his spine and he felt suddenly lightheaded. "But this is a ship… you said you were from Tau'ri…."

At first she seemed amused, they all seemed amused. Then they all seemed to sober up, especially with Hammond eying them darkly. His expression softened as he turned his gaze to Felix. "Son… this isn't a ship. This is a base deep underground on our home world. And our home world is Earth."

"Tau'ri is what most Goa'ld visited worlds know Earth as," Jackson added.

"But… Earth is…" A myth, a story, the fleet's destination only because there was no place else to go. "It's where the 13th colony went… a myth." And if he was on Earth, then his people were incredibly far away.

"I don't believe you. I don't believe any of you."

"Felix, I know it's hard to accept--"

"What, that I'm on Earth?" he asked with sarcasm. "Why should I believe you? It's been at least five frakking long years!" he emphasized the last word. Suddenly it was if the dam broke and he let out a sob while burying his face in his hands.

Janet looked at him in pity. She really wanted Cassie to be here, she understood what this lonely individual was going through. After pondering her thoughts for a moment she pulled his hands away from his face. "If you don't believe me, then I want you to come with me."

"Where?" Felix looked around quickly, not quite sure what she was doing.

"First you need to put this on." She handed him what looked like a uniform jacket he used to have back on the Galactica. It was the one that they would normally wear while working out, or not on duty. At least it was the same color. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

Felix didn't even bother to watch her leave, he just kept his attention on the material clenched in his hands. He jumped at the sound of the door closing. A stark reminder that told him he wasn't on a ship anymore and that Sam and the others were telling him what they thought was the truth. He slowly pulled on the light-weight jacket and reached down to tie his shoes. Just as he was finishing, the door opened once again. Felix was surprised to see Dr. Frazier in a dark blue uniform that was completely different from what he used to wear while on duty. He stared at it for a moment, wondering if he did die when he went through that ring. If so, this wasn't what he was expecting.

He slid off the table and asked as he followed her out of. . .sickbay, he reminded himself, "Are you sure you can do this? What about the quarantine?"

"I'm the CMO," she answered as if that was all that was needed. When they turned a corner, she pulled out a card and did something which let the door open up. She stepped inside then beckoned him to come. "It's an elevator. Don't worry. See, we're at least 20 stories underground."

"Underground?" It was hard to comprehend the thought. He remembered the bases he had been stationed at before the Holocaust. This was completely different. Maybe this is normal? "Why… why are we underground?"

"It's the only way we could keep the Ring safe," she answered as she watched the numbers quickly crawl down to zero. When the door opened she ushered him around the corner while nodding to the soldier behind the desk and into another elevator. The base was huge, Felix realized, and Stargate Command seemed to be a small part of a much larger complex. When that one finally stopped she lead him through a set of solid steel doors and into an area that held lots of odd looking vehicles, at least he thought they were vehicles. "I'm taking you out to the outside car park. This is my car. Get in."

She unrolled the windows as soon as they exited the long massive cavern and went out into the sunlight. Felix blinked nervously. From all the years he had spent in space, he forgot what air smelled like, or how rich the colors were. Even when he was imprisoned by Iblis, he never went outside. Nothing prepared him for what he saw when they exited the tunnel. It was like a rainbow had been splashed in and around him as he looked at the small parking lot.

"It's not much," Janet said softly "but it is Earth. We're in an area called Colorado."

Off in the distance he could see gray silhouetted mountains and felt guilt. Guilt that he was the only one that would ever see this wondrous sight. Everyone in the fleet could be dead and they would never know that Earth was real. I'm the only one, he thought. Without a warning panic flared up. All he knew was that he had to get out of there and he started stiffening up, his mind swirling with fear.

"Felix?" Janet said, concern lacing her voice. Dammit, she thought, I should have known. It's too much, too fast. Before it could grow worse, she drove him back and quickly took him down towards sickbay. "It's all right," she murmured softly while making sure she kept her hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, everything's going to be all right."

Once the doors opened again, she almost had to drag him around the corner and back into sickbay. He collapsed onto one of the stretchers as she went over to the medical cabinet and pulled out a syringe. Making quick work she had it prepared and gave it to Felix before he got any worse.

"Damn," she muttered as she shook her head. If only they had held off and went with him thinking he was on a ship, then she wouldn't have had to show him the truth. Or if at least they had tried to soften the blow when it was presented. No, she decided as she looked at him, it was probably for the best. He was going to need to deal with it eventually and it was best to be honest now instead of having him resent their perceived kindness later.

TBC…