AWanderersHaven: Aw...hopefully spring will come soon for you! Until then, thanks for the reviews...and here's some more Gwaine for ya hehe
Imalady: *giggles and blushes* thank you so much!
CarolynneRuth: (I know you're not quite caught up,but...) Yippee! Welcome back!
Nance: Oh you just HAD to go there...and the punniness has begun! LOL
Anyhoo...Thanks to Nance for proofing, and IcarusLSU for prereading! Hope you all enjoy this chapter!
Heavy footsteps, in a solid cadence, echoed throughout the corridors of the ship. It was a strange sound after the muted din of the forest they had passed through to reach it.
"Just like old times!" Gwaine had joked, and then glanced down at the P-90 in his hand. "Well...almost."
From the scans of the planet's surface, Leon had been able to determine the location of the Goa'uld ship. It was smaller than the standard Ha'tak, the Goa'uld Mothership, but still kept the same tetrahedronal design; surrounded by the outer superstructure that housed the weapons. Unlike many of the Goa'uld vessels, that were thousands of years old, this one was different.
"Still has that 'new car' smell." Gwaine had commented when they entered.
Merlin took a deep breath and nodded his agreement. "I always thought there was something weird with the Ancient Egyptians." Merlin chuckled, "Before all this, though, I would have never guessed they were aliens."
"Before all this...I always thought you were some weird type of alien...especially with those ears. They are decidedly not human." Arthur grinned at his joke.
"Well, before this, you didn't even know what an alien was!...If you want to get technical."
Leon sniggered, "I actually thought it was Gwaine..."
"Oy! Why me?"
It was Percival who answered, "One time when you were drunk..."
The others mumbled varying sentiments about the words 'one time' and 'drunk' when it concerned their friend.
"Alright," he laughed, "...On a few occasions when you were drunk, you would say the weirdest things. We all thought you were rather odd."
"What did I say? I kept my cover as being a man from the future quite well, thank you very much."
"There was that one instance..." Arthur started, but was suddenly silenced when Gwaine held his hand up, signaling for the party to halt.
The five men put their backs flush to the wall, and held their breath, while the patrol passed them by. Once out of sight, around a turn far ahead, Gwaine motioned that it was clear to continue. He motioned to himself and Percival first, indicating the direction they would go, before sweeping a finger at the other three and pointing in the opposite direction. It was a decision they had previously agreed upon. Gwaine and Leon were the only two who could navigate the layout of Goa'uld ships and bases. He knew Arthur trusted Leon more than any of the others, save Merlin, and where Arthur went, Merlin followed.
The corridors were nearly silent, as they crept from room to room, searching for any sign of the elusive System Lord clone. After a while, Gwaine's radio clicked once, a signal from the others that they had found something, but didn't want to accidentally give away their positions if Percival and Gwaine were close to enemy troops. Checking their surroundings, and finding them devoid of Jaffa, Gwaine keyed his radio. "Whatcha got?" He asked quietly.
"We think we found him." Leon's hushed voice explained their position.
A few minutes later, Percival and Gwaine came upon the other three, sitting around a corner from the main bridge. The door to the bridge slid open and a contingent of Jaffa soldiers came marching out. The five men held their weapons up, ready just in case the Jaffa came toward them. A momentary sigh of relief, when it appeared as if their luck would hold, was cut short when the door opened again, and four more soldiers stomped out, followed by the man himself.
They waited for only a moment before tailing after him, looking for the best opportunity to ambush the Goa'uld.
It didn't take long...Ba'al exited the ship, and ordered all but two of his guards off.
The five men glanced at each other. Leon raised his weapon at Ba'al, while Gwaine and Arthur aimed at the guards. Merlin kept his eyes open, ready to assist where needed in providing cover fire. It was Percival's job to grab the Goa'uld and secure him.
Shots were fired, and the Jaffa guards fell to the stun blasts. Ba'al laid unconscious on the ground. They could hear the other guards shouting. Percival ducked under a badly aimed blast from a staff weapon, as he headed toward the Goa'uld. Merlin instinctively turned and fired a few shots high above the Jaffa's heads, causing the returning Jaffa guards to dash for cover.
Scooping up their quarry in his arms, the large man kept his head low, as he raced back to the others. Merlin held out his hand and with a flash of his eyes, he brought down a tree behind his friend, blocking the path for the Jaffa.
He shrugged off Arthur's glare. It had taken energy to cast the spell, but in a way, it had still felt good to let his magic play just a bit. Merlin figured he could sleep it off on the way home.
They raced back to the waiting ship with an unconscious Ba'al slung over Percival's shoulder. Although, they had noticed they weren't being followed. Merlin's mention of it seeming 'too easy,' went mostly ignored.
"...Just like old times." He muttered with a smirk.
His fingertips kneaded against the soft flesh behind her hips, grasping for purchase against the silky skin. His eyes, barely slits, watched the rise and fall of her body above him. It took so much self-restraint to simply lay underneath the gorgeous woman, and let her have her way. His lips quirked into odd smiles with each rocking motion. He felt like he was going to lose his mind. Her name was on his tongue in a husky undertone, as he finally reached out, and threaded his fingers through the satiny, black strands of her hair. Gwaine pulled her down to him and drank of her lips, like a man dying of thirst.
After almost three weeks away from Carolyn, he realized how much he had already begun to miss her. They had decided to treat his new move from the SGC as most military couples did. It was a deployment…although, without as many of the rules regarding time off and phone calls. However, calling her from Leon's ship wasn't exactly easy outside of Earth's atmosphere. So, he'd recorded short messages that were saved, and sent the moment they got close enough.
She had obviously loved the messages, Gwaine smirked...if their lovemaking was any indication.
He had just flipped her over, and was now on top. Kissing her continuously, when his phone spoke to him…again. It was a new device Merlin had convinced him to get, and one feature announced who was calling or texting. Gwaine had yet to find a way to turn the annoying, computerized voice off. The sound was muffled and lost in the pile of clothing on the floor, but still clear enough to be a distraction.
Carolyn groaned her frustration at the persistent interruptions.
"I'm going to kill him," growled Gwaine. For the ump-teenth time since they had fallen into the bed, Gwaine's phone told him his nephew had sent another message. Ever since Toby had been brought in on the newest version of the 'Round Table', the boy had overreacted time and time again. His youthful imagination was creating all sorts of headaches for Gwaine and the others. The moment the device went silent, Gwaine turned his attention back to the woman underneath him. "…Later."
"Uncle Gwaine! No one will believe me! Something's wrong with Mom. I can't get a hold of her. They think I'm just paranoid. Merlin and Martha are in London, otherwise I know he'd believe me. I don't know where the other guys of your team are. Arthur and Gwen are busy with the little kids. He said I'm overreacting, but I don't think I am. Are you in Colorado? Because that's where Mom went and she was supposed to call yesterday, but never did. Something happened, I just know it…"
"Whoa! Slow down. What the frack are you talking about?" Gwaine asked, walking into the kitchen. "Your mom's in Colorado? What's she doing here?"
After apprehending the Ba'al clone, they had attempted to get any information they could out of the alien, only to become increasingly frustrated to the point where they simply wanted him off the ship. The Goa'uld had recognized Leon, and the evil gleam in his eyes, as they glowed gold while he threatened them in a deep, metallic voice, had put them all on edge.
At first, the others had thought it was magic, until Leon and Gwaine had pulled them aside and explained the nature of the Goa'uld symbiote. The Goa'ulds were snake-like creatures that inhabited their host's body, and controlled them completely.
The similarities to a creature called the Formorrah...something Morgana had used on Merlin at one time, in a failed attempt to kill Arthur...didn't sit well with Merlin. There wasn't a single magical sense that came from the unified creature and man, as far as he could discern, and that put the warlock on edge.
They could see that Ba'al had recognized the sword, too. After the initial capture, Leon had convinced Arthur to lock it away for the time being, in the hidden compartment designed specifically for the blade. It was the safest move possible, until they were able to unload the alien on the SGC. The others had gone back to the UK to see if Dr. Jackson and Mickey had found anything, while Gwaine had wanted to spend at least a few hours with Carolyn.
Holding out a fresh cup of coffee, Carolyn silently asked if everything was alright. Gwaine shrugged and waited for his nephew to continue.
"She was selling the house and had to fly there to sign some papers, but that was two days ago!"
He took a sip of the strong, dark liquid. "…And you haven't heard from her since?"
"Just the first day, when she got there. She said she was going to be busy, but that she'd call…and…Greg and Randy are worried." Toby explained, trying to make it sound like he was only calling on behalf of the younger boys.
Gwaine pursed his lips. It wasn't like his sister to leave her kids hanging for that long. "Alright. I'll try and track her down," he promised. He sighed, as he hung up the phone and wondered how he was supposed to drive around in search. Carolyn had to be back at work in a couple of hours, and he'd sold the Beast to Mitchell for a few hundred dollars.
While he didn't think his friend would mind him borrowing it back, the problem was simple logistics. Gwaine decided to ride with his girlfriend to the Base, and see if he could snag the keys from Mitchell. Then, somehow, find a ride to Mitchell's house to get the Scout.
The SGC was in lockdown when they arrived. The Ba'al clones, had used the combined power of their individual tracking devices that the real Ba'al had implanted in them, to boost the signal and get beamed out of the SGC to a waiting transport ship. Carolyn shoved her keys into Gwaine's hand, and told him to take her car, as it didn't appear that Mitchell, or anyone else for that matter, would be allowed off of the Base for a while. She was only allowed in because of her position.
Laney's phone went directly to voicemail again, and Gwaine could feel a nagging sensation in the back of his mind. He pulled up to the house and saw her rental car sitting in the driveway. There was no sign of life, as he cocked the slide on his sidearm and moved toward the front door. Trying the latch, he found it unlocked, and cautiously made his way inside. Gwaine hoped he wasn't going to find his sister in another compromising position, like he had the previous time he'd entered with his gun. As far as he was aware, however, Leon was back in the UK with the others, and Laney still hadn't sat down to speak with him.
The floorboards creaked under his feet, making him wince and curse the old house. Other than that, there wasn't a sound; no obnoxious groans of passion coming from any of the, now, empty rooms. Each corner he turned, he held up his weapon and swept the area with his eyes, before lowering the barrel and moving on. His chest tightened as one-by-one, he mentally declared each room 'clear', until he arrived at the kitchen.
Across the floor, the contents of his sister's purse were strewn. His toe knocked into a small cylinder, and he looked down to see it was the spray can of mace she always carried for self-protection. Crouching down, Gwaine picked it up, his eyes still scanning the room. He could smell the peppery odor, and he knew instinctively that it had been used recently. Her phone beeped from under the refrigerator, signaling unacknowledged messages. Keys; nail file; wallet…scattered over the floor, and in the midst was a business card for the realtor. Gwaine picked it up and read the name. 'Deacon Marshall'… Something about it struck him as odd.
He tried calling the number, but it had been disconnected. He then remembered his sister saying that the new realtor was a creep, but she had sworn to him that she could handle it. Heck, she had dealt with worse than him while working in retail. Gwaine's jaw clenched. The whole situation reeked of something foul.
He threw the card on the counter and called General Landry. Once connected, he filled Landry in on the details he had gathered, and was ordered to wait at the house until a team arrived. The SGC was still cleaning up from all the mess created by Ba'al. So, it was going to take a bit of time. He thanked his lucky stars that he was still a part of the military, and more than that, for his connections to it. While a call to the local sheriff's office may have sufficed, his gut told him to go with the big guns.
Gwaine hoped he was wrong, and went to search the barn and other sheds around the property, while he waited, to see if his sister was simply hiding out somewhere. That only killed fifteen minutes of the hour, or more, that it would take the team from the SGC to get out to the house. Pacing on the porch, he started to light a smoke, snagged from the spilled contents of his sisters purse, but after three unsuccessful attempts with his own lighter, he threw it across the yard.
Back in the house, he sifted through the purse to try and locate some matches, or another lighter. He found another business card from the first realtor; the one he had met when his sister had begun the process of listing the property. He read the name aloud. "Michael Farrow, FM Realty. Deacon Marshall and Michael Farrow…Farrow-Marshall…FRACKING HELL!" He exclaimed as the epiphany hit him, and he realized where he knew the name from.
His first mission back from the sixth century, once he had been cleared for Active Duty, had been to help clear a building in Seattle that had been built out of Naquadah. Ba'al had been hiding on Earth at that time, secretly pulling the strings behind not only a group called The Trust, but also an aeronautics firm that had contracts with the Department of Defense. The company's name was Farrow-Marshall.
He reached under the refrigerator and retrieved his sister's phone. It beeped again, this time alerting him to an extremely low battery. There was just enough power to see that there was an alert from a voice-recorded note, demanding attention. He played it, and felt his blood boil at the demanding voice he had already learned to despise from the past week of travel. Afterwards, the phone went dead.
Determinedly, he called Leon, and steeled himself for whatever happened next. "Hey. Get the ship ready."
"…Why?" Leon drawled out. The ancient knight had no problem with taking off at a moment's notice. It had been a standard in his life for so long, but he wanted to know why the order was coming from Gwaine, and not Arthur or Merlin. Although, he knew both men were trying to enjoy all the downtime they could with their wives, before rushing back off into space.
What Gwaine said next, had him moving, without concern for any of the other men. He left Percival staring after him, as he immediately transported to his ship and began to prepare it with just four words from Gwaine: "Ba'al kidnapped my sister."
Music played softly from the car stereo, barely a whisper of melody, over the sound of the engine and the tires on the road. Martha pressed her face to the glass of the window, and watched the darkened world outside pass by.
They were on their way home early, after having initially planned to stay in London with the Jones family for a few days. A family argument had erupted when Francine had begun questioning Merlin and Martha if having a child was the best choice, especially since they refused to elaborate on Merlin's current health issues.
Theo, Martha's brother, had stepped in to point out that there would always be some concerns as to when to have kids. He had a daughter of his own, and was never afraid to challenge his own mother on issues of parenting. Martha's sister, Tish, was extremely career-oriented, as Martha had been until recently. Tish was still in denial upon finding out that her sister had simply quit UNIT, without the prospect of another job in her sights.
Merlin had stayed out of it, and sat with Clive in the kitchen. Francine and Clive had been married, divorced, and recently remarried to each other again. The bickering coming from the front room was nothing new to the father of three.
When Martha had come banging through the door of the kitchen in a huff, Merlin knew it was time to go.
Reaching across the front seat, Merlin took his wife's hand. His thumb absently drew circles inside her palm. "It'll be alright."
"What if she's right?" Martha whispered to the window, allowing her mind, exhausted from the argument, to play on some of her own self-doubts.
"What do you mean?"
"Not about us, but about the baby. I mean, how are we going to explain our lives? What if something does happen to you, out there in the stars? I..."
"Shhhh..." He soothed her. "I don't know. I've never been in a position like this Martha. I guess, we just do like your brother suggested. We do the best we can."
Anything else he was going to say was interrupted by the announcement from his car that he had an incoming call from Percival. Pursing his lips, Merlin mentally grumbled, before telling the system to 'answer.'
"Hey Percival. What's up?"
"Have you heard from Gwaine or Leon?" The knight's voice asked.
"No..." Merlin scrunched his face, wondering why his friend would have thought he would have. "Did something happen?"
"I don't know. Leon received a call from Gwaine a couple of hours ago, and then, he just took off. Neither Mickey, nor myself, have been able to get a hold of them since. Arthur hasn't heard anything either, but he did say Laney's oldest boy has been acting out, and he was ready to find some makeshift stocks...or lock him in what's left of the dungeons for the night."
"Oh, for crying out loud." Merlin rolled his eyes, not doubting Arthur's threat. It didn't matter how many times he had tried to explain that corporal punishment was no longer acceptable. The former king continued to threaten it. Merlin wouldn't be surprised in the least, if he made it home to find that the threat had been carried through. "Martha and I will be home in about an hour. Try to keep Toby away from Arthur until then, at least."
Percival chuckled, "I think the boy is pretty well hidden, at the moment. But, I will do what I can."
Once the phone call disconnected, Martha turned to her husband. "One thing I do know for certain...Arthur is never going to be allowed to babysit. Aside from having very little clue about children...even with one of his own...that man needs his own nanny to follow him around. I'm surprised he can even wipe his own arse."
Merlin burst out laughing. "In all honesty...he couldn't...until I had met him." He saw the disbelief in her eyes. "I'm serious! There was actually a servant in the castle, whose only duty was to clean the royal backsides. Arthur tried to get me to do it for him, when I was first appointed as his manservant." Merlin grimaced at the memory.
"I bet that went over well! He probably learned really quick!"
"Yeah." Merlin agreed, "I don't think he's figured it out yet...I'll just let him keep thinking I was actually stupid enough to accidentally use some type of poisonous plant leaves."
"Oh, dear god! Maybe I should be more worried about you than him, eh? Looks like I'll be the one in charge of the toilet training."