Chapter 16 - The Aftermath of the Snake Hunt

Level 20
SGC

Mitchell exited the elevator and strolled down the corridor that led him to the office of the SGC's psychologist. He had made a detour to have a coffee at the mess hall and kill some time before heading towards the office, figuring Sheppard would be done with his half-hour session by then.

He wanted to catch the man when he exited the office so they could have dinner together, and Mitchell could, possibly, hopefully, find out how he really was feeling after the crazy they all had. He had a feeling Sheppard's time with good old Goldstone was going to be a waste anyway. The man was determined to hate the guy and his intentions for some reason.

Mitchell hoped the distrust Sheppard was feeling about Goldstone was due to his inherent inability to talk about his emotions, and not due to his ability to feel things out of thin air. Sheppard's strange and unique gut feelings have already proven themselves alarmingly accurate, bordering on premonition, even.

That thought made him walk a little faster.

The floor beneath his footsteps suddenly vibrated when Mitchell was only about five yards away from the Psychologist's office. Before he could even register the meaning of that wholly unnatural incident, the entire door frame lit up as if a million flashlights had suddenly gone on behind it.

He instinctively turned and covered his eyes against the too-bright light. His body froze with his face covered by his arms, and his eyes squeezed shut, bracing against whatever had just made the world around him shake in its foundation for a few long and terrifying seconds.

When the shakes died down and the brightness of the light faded, it occurred to Mitchell that something really, awfully bad had just taken place inside the closed office.

With Sheppard inside.

The thought had him moving before it even fully registered. The ingrained training took over and he made it to the emergency phone on the wall next to the office before he went barrelling inside the office.

"Medics and bomb disposal to level 20, Goldstone's office. Now!" He barked into the phone the moment it connected. Then he left it hanging, not waiting to see if his order was acknowledged.

He was far too worried to hang around a second longer than that.

John was inside the damned office and Mitchell had to get to him. Right the fuck, Now.

He didn't bother knocking. He kicked the door with a burst of strength that rattled it in its already weakened frame. Two more swift kicks took it down completely, finally allowing him a glimpse inside.

Alarms started to blare all over the entire level when he took in the aftermath of the room in a few seconds.

It looked…well… It looked like a bomb had gone off.

The comfy couches that were in the middle looked like an angry giant had ripped into them and torn the stuffing out to throw them everywhere like confetti. Then ended up throwing the couches upside down and all over the place for good measure.

The rest of the furniture was no better. The large bookcase that was to the left was in pieces, the books and trinkets scattered all over the floor. Goldstone's work desk hadn't survived the destruction either, it was toppled on its side, with all his stuff all over the place.

Those were the unimportant stuff.

The two bodies on the floor and the impossible sight of the shielded compartment underneath the lowest shelf of the bookcase were the important, yet, admittedly unbelievable bits.

Mitchell moved, zig-zagging across the aftermath of the destruction to get to the most important thing; Sheppard. He was lying on the floor unmoving, way too close to where Mitchell was sure the freaking Goa'uld bomb just went off.

The shattered pieces of crystals and Naquadah frames were unmistakable behind what looked like a faint shimmer of a rapidly waning force field.

Mitchell dropped to his knees beside Sheppard and gently turned him over, placing a shaking finger on his pulse. He had to take a few deep fortifying breaths to enjoy the relief when he found a pulse. It was faint, a little irregular, but it was there.

A quick visual scan of the unconscious man revealed purpling bruising on the side of his face, over the jaw and blood dripping out of his nose and left ear. Mitchell's gentle calling or soft tapping on the shoulder did nothing to make Sheppard even move.

It was clear that the shock wave of the blast had knocked him out cold.

Mitchell couldn't even comprehend the fucking miracle that Sheppard survived the blast, or at least, the goddamn pressure wave of one that could have easily taken out the entire mountain, at a distance of about five feet from the fucking detonation.

Satisfied that he was still breathing - for which Mitchell kept checking every passing second because he just couldn't let go - he turned his gaze towards the other body on the floor that was only about three feet from Sheppard.

Zane-fucking-Goldstone. Staring at Mitchell with a wide-eyed, blank stare that was only realistically possible on dead bodies.

Mitchell didn't even bother leaving Sheppard to check on the bastard.

It was all too clear what just took place. Goldstone got exactly what he deserved. Sheppard obviously did not plant a Goa'uld bomb the size of a mini fridge inside Goldstone's bookcase.

He stayed there with Sheppard until the squad of Marines burst into the room, freezing in their steps to take the rather incredible aftermath just as he had. Then they moved like the trained unit they were, scattering around to secure the crime scene.

Lam and her team arrived next. Two veered off to check on Goldstone while Lam and two surrounded Sheppard. Mitchell got politely yet firmly pushed to the side so they could hook Sheppard up to Lam's medical equipment and load him on the gurney to take him to the infirmary. The other two medics shook their heads, confirming what Mitchell already knew.

He didn't hang around there after they took Sheppard away. He had time to visit and find out what had happened later. He followed the group to the infirmary instead. Information on Sheppard's condition was much more important to him than anything right then.

Briefing Room
Level 27

Sometime Later

It was late.

Well past midnight according to his wristwatch. Mitchell was sitting at the conference table in the darkened briefing room with his laptop before him.

In it, the security footage from earlier was playing on a non-stop loop. He had no idea how many times he had seen it, over and over again. But, it had been long enough that the loop was playing in his mind as well as the screen with perfect clarity and all the details.

He didn't even have to keep his eyes on the actual footage anymore.

He knew he was looking for something in the footage, something about Sheppard, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was a nagging feeling in the corner of his mind, urging him to find it, whatever it was.

The snippets from the earlier briefing tumbled inside his mind as he watched for the umptieth time the exact moment Sheppard realised something was wrong. The moment he got off the chair he was sitting on and almost fell to the ground.

"There was a shield, sir," Major Reynolds from the Marine rapid response team said. "An Alteran Personal Shield. Entirely depleted. It kinda fell off before we could try to pry it off the cover–"

"Cover of the bomb?" Landry frowned.

"Yes sir," Reynolds nodded, looking a little awestruck. "Colonel Sheppard managed to attach it to the bomb, and deploy the shield to contain the blast."

"The Goa'uld bomb of that size contains closer to ten pounds of pure Naqhadah," Teal'c said. "An amount that could have easily obliterated the Cheyenne Mountain in its entirety."

"Christ," Landry rubbed a hand across his face tiredly before turning to face Dr Lee. "I was under the impression Alteran personal shields can only be used for personal protection, as in, attached to a person–"

"That's what we knew about them too, sir," Lee agreed. "But as the Major said, that's exactly what the Colonel did. He reconfigured the entire thing in a few seconds to do what he wanted it to do. Just like he did in the Outpost, or during his visits to Area 51…"

"Guess I'm not writing the good Colonel up for swiping the piece off of Zelenka's desk then–"

"Seeing as we are here to talk about it only thanks to that bit of grand larceny…" Mitchell reminded the General, shrugging.

Mitchell's hands curled into fists when Goldstone started to kick Sheppard while he was down, his movement sluggish as if he had been drugged. His fury washed over him for the hundredth time as he watched Sheppard curling into a miserable ball against the raining blows…utterly helpless to defend himself.

"...a certain potent drug that is used to sedate prisoners, to make them more amenable to suggestions and make them pliant…"

Teal'c had said after taking one whiff of the burned-out incense sticks they had found, buried underneath a mound of sand they had found on the floor near the shattered table.

The traces of the drug had shown up in Sheppard's blood work, causing some wonky wave patterns in his brain. Teal'c had advised Lam not to introduce any more meds to his already contaminated system. According to him, the sedative would flush itself out in a few hours.

Thankfully, Sheppard's injuries from Goldstone's fury hadn't been that bad; a few nasty bruises, a cracked rib and a jaw that was going to need some ice. The Alteran shield had managed to perform the miracle Sheppard had cajoled out of it and kept the worst of the explosion and the shock wave contained within, sparing him the internal injuries he would have suffered otherwise. Sheppard was basically looking at painkillers and overall rest for a couple of weeks when he finally decided to surface.

Mitchell had hung around in the infirmary for a while until Lam chased him off. She had told him that Sheppard was not going to wake up anytime soon, not tonight. So Mitchell had left, making up his mind to show up early the next morning to see him again.

Now, here he was, watching what had transpired over and over again, wishing Goldstone was alive so that he could kill the fucking bastard himself.

Thirteen goddamn fucking seconds.

That's what Dr Lee said when he viewed the footage. The interface of the bomb was caught clearly on the security camera in the room. Sheppard had managed to slap the shield onto the bomb in the thirteenth second before toppling onto the ground like a puppet with its strings cut off.

"Mitchell."

Lost in his thoughts, he never heard the General entering the room. Another bad habit Mitchell really needed to break.

"Sir," he said, starting to stand.

"Relax," Landry waved him off as he came to take the seat next to him. "I was just passing by and saw the light. What are you watching?" He peered at the screen over Mitchell's shoulder and nodded as if it was exactly what he had been expecting to see. "Ah."

"You said Sheppard had a bad feeling about the late Dr Goldstone?" Landry raised an inquiring brow.

"He did, sir," Mitchell said. "He was about to come to you to talk about getting another therapist." He didn't want to divulge exactly how the bastard had threatened Sheppard with his career. He figured that would have to come from Sheppard himself with his statement.

"Did he now?"

"Yeah," Mitchell sighed, wincing when he saw for the millionth time Sheppard entering the den of the viper. "That's why he kept dragging his sessions with the guy and the doc kept him from the field."

"With good reason." Landry nodded at the footage. "NID has the body now. They are running his prints against their databases. They are not very hopeful it'll turn up anything. This guy was too good."

Almost as good as Sheppard had been while he was deep undercover among the Trust.

Almost.

Goldstone was dead. Sheppard wasn't. That said something right there.

"We are going to need a new therapist, aren't we?" Mitchell asked. "And a whole lot of reevaluations?"

They could not trust a single evaluation the Trust operative had submitted during the few months he had been with the programme.

Landy grimaced at the reminder. "Yeah, nobody's looking forward to that."

"Sheppard can finally get back on the horse then," Mitchell said, watching Sheppard squeezing the life out of the Trust bastard with satisfaction. "If he wants to–"

"Yes, he can," Landry said, leaning over again to watch the footage on the screen. "Because, Mitchell, after all, the only person who can really decide if he's ready to fully commit back to the field is nobody but him." He pressed a button to pause the footage.

Mitchell turned his attention to the frozen frame. The camera had caught Sheppard's expression the moment he rolled off the body of Goldstone, his face staring up at the ceiling. His twisted features were a tangle of confusion, pain, horror and exhaustion.

Landry's words and the intense expression on Sheppard's pale face finally cleared up his own confusion, the thing he had been looking for in the endless loops of the same footage.

Sheppard and his own willingness to get back to the field. His mental state. His decision.

Mitchell pressed the button to let the rest of it play. The next few frames showed him exactly what he needed to know. What he had been looking for all along.

Despite the tangle of painful emotions, he was clearly fighting. Mitchell saw the way Sheppard's stubborn will emerged to take over. He saw how Sheppard refused to give up even when all the goddamned odds were stacked against him…and all of them.

Sheppard was never going to let anything hold him back from what he took an oath to do. Not by a long shot. That's what Sheppard's desperate crawl towards the ticking bomb told him.

That realisation helped something calmly settle in the deepest recess of his mind.

"Sir," he said, when he realised Landry was waiting with a certain look on his face.

"Anyway, I just wanted to say, good work on putting the SG-1 back together," Landry said when he had Mitchell's full attention. He was referring to Mitchell hastily slapping SG-1 patches on everyone's uniform sleeves earlier, including handing one to Teal'c who actually accepted with a grave incline of his head. To everyone's surprise.

"In the meantime, keep an eye on the Colonel and his gut feelings," Landry went on, jerking his head at Sheppard on the screen. "Those have already proven themselves a great source of intel."

"Yes, sir," Mitchell said with a sharp nod, standing up when the General took his leave.

Keeping an eye on the Colonel was not going to be that big of an issue, Mitchell thought to himself as he sat back down. He was already invested in the man and his well-being for a lot of reasons. Besides, Mitchell already had a plan to keep the guy as close to him as possible. He had two extra SG-1 patches in his pocket after all.

One, of course, couldn't yet be handed out, since the recipient wasn't even in the galaxy as far as they knew. All they could hope was that she was somewhere in the Ori galaxy, stirring as much trouble as she could.

The other one, well, Mitchell was nothing if not stubborn. He would just keep nagging Sheppard until he said, yes. To a lot of things. Hopefully in the near future.

But, Mitchell would start with the simple request to get him to join the band of wonderful lunatics who declared themselves the SG-1.

They had an equally insane mission, most of the time bordering on impossible. Something Mitchell was sure Sheppard would definitely enjoy fulfilling, which was to keep saving the biggest damned damsel in distress under the sun, the Earth.

The End.

AN:
Well, that is the conclusion of Dismantling Destiny: Reminiscence - The Old, New and Unexpected. I hope you all enjoyed reading the story as well as I did writing it. Also, a big, special thank you to amyers, for sharing your wonderful reviews, speculations and thoughts throughout. It is always such a pleasure to find out how you, as a reader, find the story.

The next part of the series is already in the works. It will include the rewrite of the episodes, Babylon, The Fourth Horseman Part I & II and Collateral Damage. I will start posting in the next month or so, once it's finished and edited. Hopefully, it'll be as fun and enjoyable as this one, with a lot more changes to canon and some serious headway in the romance side of things...:)