CHAPTER 44 – A TIME AND PLACE FOR EVERYTHING

John's radio remained ominously silent for the next 24 hours. No Elizabeth, No Ronon – no security teams needing his input on anything. No Rodney...

They spent most of that time in bed. He had gone to the mess and filled up a tray with food – any type of food, and simply brought it back to his quarters. His shoulder ached. It had barely had time to heal and he had taken off the strapping long ago, before they had returned to the planet that had claimed Rodney through it's portal and now he was paying the price. No doubt Carson would have something sarcastic and somewhat profound to say about his decision, but he would deal with that later. It looked as though he had chosen to deal with many things later. He knew that his friend was hurting, and Ronon and himself needed to sit down and talk things out. Later. He needed to give this time to the woman who still lay in his bed, watching him with sleepy blue eyes as he got up now to have a shower.

"We can't put everything on hold John." Dammit, those eyes were not as sleepy as they looked. He turned to her.

"No Gina, we can't, but I feel like my whole life has been on some sort of hold switch since I woke up on that beach. I forgot which way was up and which way was down. I need to get my equilabrium back before I deal with the big picture. That's why we've been left alone until now. My radio has never been this silent, believe me. But you're right... I was hoping to hang on to ignorance for just a little while longer yet, but that's not fair on the others."

He turned to head into the shower and he had barely gotten into the door when he felt her press up hard against him and smiled. Multi tasking... they do say women are particularly skilled at it... I'll concur with that...

An hour later and the gang was all assembled in the conference room. John had called a general meeting. Most of the base had had some time now to deal with Rodney's disappearance, and while they had not glossed over the truth with the base personnel, most had no idea what the real implications were of what he had done. John was not really sure that he did either, but someone needed to attempt an explanation, and someone needed to give these people some clear plan to follow.

He noted that Elizabeth looked especially tired and knew that she had probably been up half the night trying to write the report that he should have really done. He didn't know that the words would have come any easier from his hand, and chose to let her do it. She was more diplomatic and would slant things in such a light that they did not come off as bumbling inept idiots. Mission reports were rarely ever written in the clear concise language that one would expect from such a report.

John was about to begin when a final group of people walked in. Ah crap... too good to be true I guess. World war three has a damn fine chance of beginning. The general's declared war by the look of it, and the way those brown eyes are staring me down, I'm right in his sights...

And indeed he was. General Jack O'Neill had arrived, along with Samantha Carter, Colonel Cameron Mitchell and two IOA members. John slunk down in his seat, seeing the curious gaze that Gina flicked over the late arriving group. She had no idea who they were and she was about to get the surprise of her life...

"Aaah – Colonel John Sheppard. It seems things have escalated since we last spoke. I was under the impression, and I assumed you were in full agreement, that you were going to sort this out and get things back on track. Instead I receive communication from your base commander, oh, something along the lines of a lost scientist. Make that lead scientist? Hmmmm?"

John stole a glance at Cameron to see where he sat amongst all this, but the man's face remained impassive and looked back at John with no sympathy. Ok, so no help from that quarter. This battle's going down with me on the firing line. So be it. I've fought on my own before, and I'll damn well do it again. Then he felt a small hand take his own and squeeze it under the table, just as he had done for her when they had gone to see Terrence O'Neill in jail. Amend that... not on my own anymore... she's got my back. And that's all I'll ever ask for.

Ok, thought John. Attack and go for the jugular – stay on the offensive, don't give them time to push you on the defensive. It's your play Sheppard. Make the pass.

"General O'Neill – with all due respect, I'm not going to be your whipping boy on this one. I was chosen yes, and I know in the past you have also been chosen by the ancients to perform tasks that have not gone as much to plan as you would have perhaps... preferred. I've read the SG1 mission reports... sir." The general nodded his head slightly in acknowledgement. No secrets there.

"I bet in 1969 you were glued to some sort of screen somewhere, watching Neil Armstrong take those first steps on the moon... and I bet also sir, that in your teenage mind, you looked on with wonder, both at that screen and at the stars and knew that this was where you wanted to be." Again that simple nod, a look of curiousity in the man's eyes.

"If I hadn't done what I did, if Rodney hadn't done what he did...those things would never have happened. We wouldn't be here. A mission with more holes than swiss cheese that needed to be plugged up. Dumb it down? That's just what I did. We plugged up the holes, ok, so we created a few small new ones, but necessary ones – at least that's how I see it. So if you're gonna jump down my throat on this one and clip my wings, look first at this woman beside me."

He shifted his glance to Gina, giving her hand a squeeze. "Gina? Meet General Jack O'Neill – Terry's brother... this is what you did, when you went to visit him in jail and gave him a chance to do something with his life – something good. The good stands before you now. A great man, our General, brought more than his share of memorable moments to the stargate programme. General – my stunt, Rodney's stunt. You wouldn't be in this point in time, if we hadn't succeeded."

"Gina. Meet Samantha Carter. No longer airforce, but one of the best fighter pilots around. Also one of the most brilliant minds around. Your mentor. Jacob's daughter. Callandra's legacy." He paused, watching as Sam eyes' gazed assessingly back into the matching blue eyes of Gina. Both eyeing one another up and saw Samantha smile as she recognised something in the younger woman.

"Gina. Meet Colonel Cameron Mitchell..." and waited while she turned to look at him upon hearing the surname. "Your brother's son..." Cameron had paled a little and his face no longer kept the impassive look he had struggled to maintain. He had gotten up from his seat and moved around the table, behind John and Gina and had rested a hand gently on her shoulder.

"Dad talked about you a lot when I was growing up, your death and how close you had been when you were younger. He missed you so much. I wish he could see you now. I wish Grandpop could have lived to see you now. I never knew him – he died before I was born. Died helping somebody to do something, at least that's what my dad told me..." His keen eyes looked down into hers and he squeezed her shoulders. "But you know something Gina... I saw Grandpop a few times. Watching over me. I knew who he was – sometimes he would just turn up, be there and once he sat at the end of my bed and told me all about you, about what you had done. I was only young then, and thought it was a dream, but when John here came to the SGC and told us his story, I realised that it had happened."

Elizabeth was watching the players carefully. "Did your father ascend Gina? Is that how he managed to get you through the rift?"

"I couldn't do it alone, and Callandra was unable to help. The ancients had clipped her wings so to speak, for meddling too much already." She smiled at the sight of Jack O'Neill rolling his eyes. "He ascended so that he could guide me through the rift. Even with him there, it was the most horrible journey I could imagine. There's things trapped in there... horrible things. Things that don't want you to make it to the other side." She fingered her bandage now as the memory of that journey came crashing back and a look of pain crossed her face. "I didn't think I would make it, even with Dad pushing me through from one side. Then I saw a man waiting on the other side. Rodney. Waiting not so patiently. He was smiling, but waving his hands around impatiently."

This brought a bark of laughter from John. He could imagine Rodney doing just that. Never the most patient man.

"He kept telling me things, then getting annoyed when I didn't seem to listen. I did listen – I just didn't know how to respond. He told me about things that were going to happen in my near future – my old future and how those things would go wrong. If I had survived the accident, then I would have been the one to fix them, not Rodney. I was orginally the one handpicked for the job. But something changed. Not in my future. In the present. I was needed here. So they needed someone back there, to take my place. Consider the implications – it had been beautifully orchestrated. If this had been a giant chess board, consider just how intricate all the moves have been to get to this point."

The General spoke up again. The story had fascinated him and he had known that it would be an incredibly complex one. The IOA members had remained ominously silent and he sensed that they had no idea how they were going to go back and report his one.

"This point... Gina. What is this point? I think that's where my confusion lies now. I'll gloss over most of what has happened to date, including Rodney taking his impatient self back to another time line just to get some sort of recognition." Sam grinned at this and gave Jack's arm a squeeze. She really was quite fond of Rodney in her own way, and had loved to wind him up, arguing against his theories just to get a reaction.

"But what I really need to get a grasp on is this. What crap storm is still to come...?"

Aaah O'Neill...therein lies the conundrum... for until it does, even we have not been made privy to that information. From here on in, we fly blind. No clues, no ancients guiding us. They got us to this point. From here? It is our future.. pre destined maybe, but they are not allowed to show us beyond this point. So... that crapstorm General... when it hits, I hope to god that we get time to batten down the hatches...