***************In Orbit above Earth***************
Upon arriving onboard the Asgard ship, the four members of SG1 moved toward the control panel with Thor while the three members of the Sanctuary team and Dr. Frasier moved to the viewing screen to get their first look at Earth from orbit.
"Wow!" Ashley commented to no one in particular.
"No kidding." Dr. Fraiser replied. She was just as awestruck as the others.
"Dr Fraiser, have you not been off Earth before now?" Will inquired.
"Well, of course I go through the Stargate whenever a medical team is needed, but this is the first time that I have actually been onboard a ship in Earth's orbit." She glanced over her shoulder at SG1 and Thor who were talking quietly together. "It's old hat for them though."
Helen was gazing down at the planet in quiet contemplation. She rarely reacted as others did given her history and everything that she had seen, but this was twice now that she was completely caught off guard and it had not even been 24 hours since she was contacted by the President.
"Mom?" Ashley said quietly to her as she touched her hand. "Are you okay?"
"I am Ashley, thank you. It is just not something that I thought that I would ever see, even in my lifetime." She said softly. "Puts things in a whole new perspective though." She glanced around at the people standing with her; they all looked like they were at a loss for what to do next. Except Will who apparently was fascinated not with the planet below them, but with the ship they were standing on.
He began slowly working his way around the outside of the room, running his hand over the walls as he went. Helen smiled slightly as he moved knowing that he was processing everything much quicker than the rest of them. He really did remind her of James at times like this. Okay, well not quite at times like this, since this was a whole new situation, but it was why she brought him into the Sanctuary in the first place.
While following Will's progress, she noticed the members of SG1 give Major Carter a look and nudged her in their direction. She watched as the Major glared at them all for a second before straightening her posture and proceeding to walk over to the second group.
"Bit of a shock being up here, isn't it? I mean it's one thing to be beamed to the SGC and meeting an alien from another planet." She hesitated for a second, unsure how to continue. "But to be transported up here…really brings it home, doesn't it?" She smiled at her own joke regarding being home while aboard the ship. "It is a great reminder though." Sam stopped talking and looked down at the Earth. It had been awhile since she had been in orbit long enough to really get a good look.
"A reminder of what?" Asley inquired.
Sam did not respond to Asley's question. She was so far in her own thoughts in that moment that not much would have brought her out of it. Jack had walked over a few seconds after Sam and placed his hand on her shoulder. He looked at Ashley while he did it and answered her question.
"A reminder of why we do what we do day after day. We put our lives on the line to protect the billions of people down there that really have no idea just how close we have come to complete destruction at the hands of a very bad race of people. They want nothing more than to wipe us out of existence."
"Yes sir, that is exactly what I meant. And why we can't let them break us up as a team." She looked at him sadly. She knew that he would follow her line of thinking to their previous conversation. And while she was not saying they needed to leave it in the room indefinitely, they had to for now.
Helen was once again impressed with the Major. It seemed like she was able to process things quickly and compartmentalize them to keep things moving. She would have to ask Will about it later as she was positive there was something else going on behind the scenes, so to speak between her and Colonel O'Neill. Will would have picked up on it as well, analyzed it and formed a conclusion if he had not done so already. She glanced at him across the room where he was watching everything unfold. He gave a small almost undetectable nod of his head as if he already knew what she was going to ask…she smiled at him…he probably did.
"So Helen," Sam addressed her drawing her attention from Will. "Thor would like to put us in the Bio pods to start the scans. I can explain some of the technology as we make our way to the med bay." She turned to split her focus between both Helen and Ashley. "Ashley, Thor also requests that you undergo the same testing as your mother and I."
"Why?" "Whatever for?" Both women questioned at the same time.
Thor had apparently anticipated the question and therefore decided to answer before Sam could say anything.
"I know that you have no real reason to trust me." Thor replied "However, you indicated during the briefing that you were unsure how your ability would potentially manifest in your daughter, if at all. I am hopeful that the tests would be able to answer that question for you and possibly give you both some options."
"Thor why would you do that? Are we not here to find out how this can help you and Major Carter?" Helen was slightly taken aback by the offer to help her and Ashley. She knew that Ashley carried the same marker, as both she and John had already taken the serum and their physiology altered before Ashley was conceived. So far nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but she had been banging her head against a wall for years trying to further her understanding of how the blood affected them all.
"Sorry to interrupt you folks, but Thor can we not talk about this on the way?" Jack knew from past experiences that once all the science "geeks" started talking, it was hard to get them all moving in the right direction.
"Your right sir, sorry." Sam said.
"I usually am Carter!" Jack smirked at her. "Alright let's all head out." Jack took point and walked to the door on the other side of the room with the group following behind. He placed his hand on the crystal and the panel slid open. He took a right turn to head to the medical bay assuming that everyone was right behind him.
"Ah, Sir?" Jack heard Carter say behind him. He stopped walking and turned to her.
"What now Carter?" He quipped.
"Med bay is this way Sir." She was smirking at him as she pointed in the opposite direction. Part of her was fairly sure that he knew exactly where he was going and had intentionally went the wrong way.
"Now Carter…" He started
"Major Carter is indeed correct O'Neill, you are going the wrong way." Teal'c was quick to jump to Sam's defense as always.
"Doh!" He began following the group as he was now behind everyone and not at the front.
Will looked at Daniel and hesitantly asked "Are they always like that?"
"From the day they met, or so I have been told. I was on a different planet at the time, so I only know from the stories." He wanted to say more, but he was sure that Thor was going to start his explanation and he did not want to interrupt.
The groups progress to the med bay was slow going as they moved down the corridor. They were having to move at Thor's pace as he just didn't have the ability to move as fast as the rest of the group.
"Dr Magnus, to answer your question, the Asgard are a dying race. We have spent thousands of years cloning ourselves and the clones are degrading. It is an issue that up until now, we had no hope of fixing."
"Yes, you said that before. So, your basically suggesting that if we help you with your problem, you can help me find out more about what could happen with my daughter. But how do you think that the anomaly in our DNA will help?" Helen could understand that, kind of a I scratch your back…etc..
"I am unsure of exactly what made Loki think that this could be the key, I am hoping with these tests our scientist will be able to determine if this could at some point help and if further testing may be required." Thor stopped walking for a second and looked up at Helen. "But even if that is not the case, I am still willing to help you and Major Carter find the answers that you both need."
"Why?" Will asked
"It is what friends do." Thor blinked at Will as if that was obvious. He then began walking once again leading the way.
"We really do appreciate your help Thor, you have no idea how much." Sam stated.
"Major Carter without Asgard interference, you would not be in the position you are currently in. I do not understand how you are not angry with us and that you are still willing to help us with our problem." Thor turned the corner into the med lad and headed to the console in the middle of the room.
"Well Thor, when you think about it, without 'Asgard interference' as you put it, I would not be here having this conversation with you would I? Without Loki wanting to know the evolution of the marker in Dr. Magnus's DNA and not realizing what it meant, he would not have created me. So in essence, I owe my entire existence to Loki and his unsanctioned experiments" Sam was looking at Thor the whole time, not really fully understanding everything until that moment.
"Wow Sam when you put it like that the Earth would most likely fallen back under Goa'uld control by now, if it had not been wiped out completely." Daniel said as he walked up next to her. .
"What makes you say that, Daniel?" Sam was curious to know.
"Well think about it. I got the gate working enough to go to Abydos and found the cartouche, but you figured out everything else. The math behind the stellar drift calculations, the dialing computer…all of it! If you had not been part of the program because you were never created, so to speak, what is to say that when Apophis came to Earth in retaliation for Ra that we would have ever seen it coming?" There was silence in the room at the revelation. The Sanctuary team not fully understanding the whole thing, but SG1, Dr. Fraiser and Thor did.
"So Daniel what your saying is…" Jack was first to broach the topic further.
"Jack, what I'm saying is that the Asgard inadvertently gave us the means to fight the Goa'uld. It would explain so much if you think about it." Daniel stopped talking allowing the group to fully comprehend what he was saying.
"Like what Daniel?" Sam demanded.
"Like how you survived Jolinar. From everything she told us and what we know now, the Ashrak should have killed you both." Daniel was getting more excited as he talked. "Or how two shots from the zat during the whole thing with the Entity didn't kill you, and the incident onboard the Prometheus. Those are just the major ones that stand out Sam." She was stunned by the time Daniel got done. She knew that she was nothing special, so she had a high IQ and things regarding physics and astrophysics came naturally to her. But she was just a good soldier that had gotten lucky way to many times.
"If we were to follow that logic Dr. Jackson, than we created the means for our own salvation as well." Thor stated. Having walked up to the group without them realizing he was standing there. "Without the help of SG1 a few times and Major Carters stupid idea a few years ago, the Asgard would have fallen to the Replicators by now, as would your galaxy. If the Goa'uld had not wiped you all out, they would have."
"Way to go Sam!" Jack stated happily, breaking some of the tension in the room. "All right you three, into the pods for some authorized Asgard experiments." He chuckled at his own joke but causing Sam to look at him sideways with a smirk. "Plus, Sam we can see what other cool superpowers you have."
"Colonel, I do not have super powers not even latent ones. I'm pretty much a genetic experiment." Sam said over her shoulder as she was walking to the pod.
"Don't you read comics or watch superhero movies? All the best heroes start out as genetic experiments Sam. Don't knock it." Jack was doing his best to lighten the mood as much as he could. He knew how he would be feeling right about now, and it didn't even scratch the surface of were Carter's mind could go. The Conclusions that she could jump to, would never in a million years would occur to anyone else in the room. Okay, well maybe a few people at the rate they were going.
"Not just superheroes Sir…supervillains usually start out in much the same way." Sam quipped as she climbed into the pod fully clothed.
"Not a chance Carter, you have saved too many galaxies to start wanting to be an intergalactic bad guy now."
Ashley and Helen were still standing in the middle of the room making no effort to get into one of the aliens medical contraptions. It was not like anything they had ever seen before, and they were taking a huge leap of faith that this was exactly what they all said it was with no hidden surprises.
"So…is this going to hurt?" Ashley wanted to know. She was just as skeptical as her mother, but then her mother was the only doctor that had ever worked on her. Patched her up from broken bones, gunshot wounds, monster bits and scratches, among other things. This was really going to be a first for her.
"Nope, it's really easy." Sam said as she got comfortable. "No hospital gowns or sharp instruments…no offense Janet." Sam grinned over at her best friend who was standing next to Thor so that she could see what he was doing. "Really it is a very non-invasive procedure. Essentially you will get in and get comfortable. The glass here will close over you and before you know it you will be asleep. Well…not asleep, but the pod introduces a light sedative into your system to help you relax. I'm assuming that it is only to ensure that we don't move around during the procedure." Sam had meant to explain all of this on the walk down, but they had gotten distracted.
"You are correct Major Carter, if you will allow I will start your test now so that they can see they have nothing to worry about." Thor offered while pointing things out to Dr. Fraiser and attempting to answer her questions.
"Absolutely Thor, I didn't get much sleep last night and can use a good nap." Sam grinned up at the Colonel who was standing by her med pod.
"And who's…" Jack started to say to her as the top of the pod closed over her and she closed her eyes. "Fault is that." He finished is sentence knowing that she could not hear him. He tapped the glass a couple of times. "Right." He turned to Thor. "So Thor, any way that I can contact Hammond and let him know what's going on? I'm sure that the President will have to be getting back to the White House at some point."
"Of course O'Neill you know the way to the control room and how to use the crystals." Thor never turned his attention from the panel as he moved control around. "The tests should not take more than an hour and then we can beam down to talk to General Hammond about our next steps."
"Teal'c your with me." Jack said as he started to move out of the room. He stopped and turned back to Thor before he could make it more than a few steps. "What do you mean "next steps" Thor? I thought this was the next step. Do the tests, we all go home, and you get to see if your scientists can use the information." Jack really hated surprises and it was just one after the other today.
"These are just preliminary tests O'Neil, depending on the results additional testing or experiments may be necessary. This problem will not be solved 'overnight' as you would say." Thor had over the years began using more and more earth terms the more that he was around SG1, but it still made the team hesitate every time that he did so never really expecting it.
"It's never as simple as it starts out is it Teal'c?" Jack commented as he and Teal'c walked out of the room.
"Indeed O'Neill it is not!"
Daniel approached to Sanctuary team who had crept closer to the pod that Sam was currently lying in. "It really is nothing to worry about. I have been in them a few times myself after some of our misadventures. Whole lot better than the Goa'uld sarcophagus I can tell you. Both can heal you of anything, even death to an extent, but this at least does not cause you to become addicted or make you evil." Daniel became lost in his memories for a second.
"Sarcophagus?" Will questioned with slight doubt in his voice.
"Yep. Although they have saved our lives several times over now, so can't complain about them too much I suppose."
Helen was looking at the display on the glass outside of the pod that the Major was in. There were lots of flashing lights, what she assumed were her vital signs and several other things that she had no way of understanding. It was so far outside what she knew about medical science, and she had been studying it for a long time. Not nearly as long as the little grey guy that was currently walking toward her with what appeared a tablet type of device in his hand. Henry would be fascinated she thought to herself.
"As you can see, Major Carter shows no signs of distress or discomfort. Are you two willing to start the tests now or would you prefer to wait until I am done with Major Carter so you can see that no harm will come to you?" Thor was attempting to be considerate as he knew if this really did turn out to be the solution to their problem then he was going to need their corporation for a long time going forward. As they had found it was hard to get humans to willing be experimented on…it was why Loki had stopped asking permission and the Vanier removed themselves to a new galaxy.
"I'm good with hopping in one Mom. Like Sam said didn't get a lot of sleep last night and a nap would be nice." Ashley started walking over to the other pods. "Does it matter which one Thor?" She inquired.
"No they are all designed the same." Thor said as he started walking back toward Dr. Fraiser.
Will had stepped up to Helen with concern. "Are you absolutely sure about this Magnus? It is a lot to take on faith in just a short time."
"Always the sceptic Will. We will be fine, they are asking permission and not forcing it on us after all. Why don't you collect the weapons from Ashley, I'm sure that she would be more comfortable without all of them on. As a matter of fact, here hold this for me, will you?" Helen pulled the 9mm from under her jacket. She was still amazed that they had not taken any of their weapons away from then when they first arrived. Although with most of Ashley's on display, they most likely would not have thought to search her.
Daniel watched in amazement as not only did Asley remove the weapons that were visible, but she also had several knives and a gun that was so well hidden he didn't see where she had retrieved them from.
"Wow and I thought my team was armed to the teeth every time we went off world. I'm quite sure even Teal'c would have been impressed." Daniel was standing in front of the massive pile of weapons sitting on the chair next to Ashley's pod. She just smirked at him as she climbed into 'bed'. "Are you ready?" Daniel asked her.
"As I will ever be. Let's do this." She was trying to relax as much as possible. Up until this point they had all been genuinely nice and straight forward about their expectations. But she was worried that if they found something in her mother that would help them, then the aliens may not take no for an answer. If it came down to it she knew there was not a damn thing she could do about it. She was glad that Will was with her mom because he was really good at seeing right through her. The lid started to close over the pod and she had a moment of fear before it was closed completely and she was knocked out.
"Daniel walked over to the terminal with Janet and Thor attempting to give Helen and Will some privacy.
"Will, if anything happens, please don't do anything stupid. Agree to whatever you have to so that you and Ashley can get back home." Helen implored of him. If she had known what she was getting herself into she would never in a million years have insisted that he and Ashley join her. But it was too late to do anything about it now and Ashley was already in one of the pods.
"Helen I don't like both you and Ashley out at the same time. There are so many things that we don't know about these people/aliens." Will looked over his shoulder. No one seemed to be paying them any attention however as both Daniel and Janet were busy asking questions from Thor. It appeared that this was not an opportunity that presented itself often and they were going to take full advantage of the situation.
"Well there is always one way to find out what would happen if I said no. See if they would force the issue or not. It would be very telling for how this will proceed. Either they will accept my decision, or this could go very badly. What are your thoughts?" While Will had only been with them for a little under a year, she had relied on his opinion a lot more than she ever thought she would. They had fallen into a rhythm that suited them and had worked out far better than she could have ever imagined all those years ago.
"I think that I would rather find out now then after both you and Ashley are under. I have no idea how any of this works, so if I needed to wake you up for help I wouldn't know how. Lets call Daniel over and see what his reaction is."
"Okay." She agreed. "Dr. Jackson, do you have a minute?" Daniel looked up from his conversation and started to head over to the pod.
"Absolutely. How can I help?" What made Daniel such a valuable member of SG1 was his ability to put just about everyone they met off world at ease. He was hoping that this was not going to be the exception. So far they had cooperated a hell of a lot more than SG1 would have under any circumstances. Everything would have been a fight with his team, and they were use to this stuff. So it was not really a surprise that the leader of the group was wanting to see how this could potentially play out.
"What were to happen if I said that I was not comfortable with undergoing this procedure?" Helen was sitting on the edge of the pod and even though she knew that she would put up a hell of a fight if it came down to it, she had no idea of what the technology on the ship was capable of. For all she knew, it would render them both unconscious and she would end up in the pod regardless and she had no idea what would happen to Will given that they had no real use for him.
Daniel pulled up the chair that was by the pod and sat down. He knew that putting himself in that position made him vulnerable as it put both Will and Helen in a better fighting position if it were to come down to it. But since he had no doubt that it would not go there, he was not worried.
"Well, I would tell you that the choice is entirely up to you. As a matter of fact…" Daniel turned to Thor as he figured this would go better if they were not essentially holding Helen's daughter hostage. "Thor, can you please wake Ashley up for me?"
Thor looked up for the first time in about 20 min and slowly blinked his big black eyes as if he was having to adjust to the lower light in the room.
"Of course, Dr. Jackson. I believe that I have the information the Dr. Magnus was looking for, so really I have no need to continue." Thor glanced down at the console and moved one of the crystals down. The pod that Ashley was in started making a slight humming noise and the top slid back into its original position. It only took a few seconds for Ashley to start to stir.
Daniel stayed sitting in the chair while Helen and Will moved to the stasis pod that Ashley was currently laying in. She had begun to 'wake up' for lack of a better term, but as Daniel knew from experience it was not really what it felt like.
"Wow, that is so cool. It feels like I just laid down." Ashley glanced around. "Mom if your done already what's taking so long with Major Carter?" She sat up and swung her feet down over the side. "What's going on?
"I asked them what would happen if I refused." She looked from her daughter to Daniel. I" believe that Daniel was going to reassure me that everything would be fine and that I didn't have to do anything I didn't want." Helen glanced around the room again. Thor was still busy with Janet and didn't seem bothered by the fact that she rescinded consent. She realized that while this was so far outside of her comfort zone, the other people in the room found this to all be in a normal days work. It actually helped her to relax a bit.
"I believe that he asked Thor to wake you up so that it would not be seen as a hostage situation." Helen was very impressed with Daniels thinking.
"All right campers, General Hammond…" Jack paused at the threshold of the room "Shouldn't you ladies be asleep by now?" Jack and Teal'c walked fully back into the room. Jack looked confused considering he had expected to be halfway done, but if Dr. Magnus had not even started the procedure yet he had been a bit off with the timeline for the President.
Thor began walking toward the group with his tablet once again in his hand and gestured for the group to follow him to the side of the room. He moved a small crystal and a table and chairs materialized in the room with seats for all of them. "Please everyone, have a seat."
Jack noticed the larger of the chairs that was clearly for the little alien otherwise it would look like a child attempting to sit at the grown-up's table. Jack snickered at the imagery knowing that no one else in the room would even find it remotely amusing and decided to keep the observation to himself.
The group got comfortable around the table settling down to chat. The SG group and Thor were completely at ease. Helen, Will and Ashley were waiting to see if the other shoe would drop from Helen refusing to undergo the tests.
Thor moved the crystal that was on the table and food appeared in the middle. It looked like an assortment of food that they had seen in the SGC mess hall. Will was surprised when Daniel started laughing and Jack just hung his head for a second.
"Thor…Buddy, how many times have I told you that you can not just go beaming things out of the SGC?" Jack was picturing the chaos and the panic only made worse because of the President being on base.
"O'Neill, they know that we are here, clearly anything that goes missing would be because we were in need of it." Thor looked at Jack. "Besides, after Major Carter's reaction to eating Asgard food I decided that you all would likely have similar reactions."
"Thor your beaming technology still sets off the base alarms, even if they know that we are up here. Is the food the only thing that you took this time?" Jack needed to know if he would have to smooth things over of if Hammond would be able to take care of it.
"It was only the food O'Neill. May we continue while you eat?" Thor moved the crystal again but this time a holographic display appeared in front of everyone. Thor began explaining what they were seeing.
"This first scan is yours Dr. Magnus from when Loki originally conducted his experiments. When you enlarge the image, you can see the anomaly that has attached itself to your DNA. It appears on every strand that we have record of. We have found no tissue samples to accompany the scan, but it could be that Loki had a lab somewhere that we have not discovered yet." He waited a few minutes while Magnus and Janet really looked at the scans. He knew that others were looking more at the technology than what was actually displayed.
After a few minutes, a second strand of DNA appeared next to the first for comparison.
"This second strand of DNA belongs to your daughter." At this Ashley took a bit more interest in what she was seeing. "If you will notice, the anomaly has not been attached to her DNA, it is in fact incorporated into the DNA itself. Because of this there is no way to remove it without altering her on a molecule level. It does appear however to be dormant as you suspected." Thor stopped again to give them a chance to make sense of what he said.
Helen continued to look at the differences between the two while trying not to think about the fact that he had essentially told that she would eventually lose her daughter. It was something that she would not really stop to think about until she was away from this place and had time to herself.
"Thor, why do you think that there is a difference between the two? Is it because Ashley was born with it while Dr. Magnus injected the source blood?" Janet was in full doctor mode. She could not think about what this would mean for Sam.
"That is my conclusion as well Dr. Fraiser." Thor said "Without more extensive scans from you Dr. Magnus, I can not tell you what other benefits you may have from this. However, I told you that there may be options regarding your daughter. If you like I can present you with those so that you have time to consider what to do."
Helen looked from the scans to the little grey alien. She had assumed that with her refusal those 'options" he referred to had gone away regardless of his earlier statement about friends. As far as she knew, he could have only been referring to Major Carter.
"Even though I refused to agree to the procedure, you are still willing to help?" Helen asked shocked.
"As I said earlier, even if this is not what the Asgard are looking for regarding our cloning problem, I will still assist any way I can." Thor told her. "There are several options to consider, but you must know that once done, they can not be undone." Thor wanted them to know that whatever decision they made, that he could not come back later if they changed their minds. The only reason that he was considering it now was because he knew the effect the change would have due to Dr. Magnus living with it for so long.
Jack looked at his team sitting around the table. They had eaten not that long ago, so they were mostly done, except for Teal'c.
"Hey guys, how about we take a walk huh? This part really does not pertain to us, it's a family conversation." Daniel looked like he was going to object but it was only because of his curiosity. Teal'c picked up his plate of food and moved to the door with Jack on his heals. "Daniel, Doc…lets go and give them some space. We can give the Dr. a tour of the ship and check in with Hammond again."
"Colonel O'Neill!" Thor addressed him. "Please do not break anything and no taking it out for a…" here he hesitated. He had only heard O'Neill say once and Major Carter had explained what he meant at the time "Test drive. I do not need you crashing another Asgard ship into the earth."
"Hey, it was one time, and you told us to do it. Are you sure I can't take it for a trip around the moon and back?" Jack knew that there was not a chance in hell that Thor would ever authorize him to fly the ship unless it was literally life and death, and even then, he would most likely entrust that to Carter.
"No O'Neill." Thor stated.
Jack and the SG team started to move out of the room when Will stopped them.
"Helen, did you want me to know with them? This really is a family decision." Will knew that Helen was a very private person, and he was grateful to Jack for suggesting that their team leave.
"You are very much a part of this family Will, besides, you never know when you will need a good psychologist. Please stay." Will was slightly surprised that she made the offer to him. He knew that there were things that she was keeping from him but given how long she had been alive he had barley scratched the surface.
"Okay." Will said as he repositioned himself at the table knowing that he would do anything she asked of him.
"Alright Thor, give us a shout on the intercom when your ready for us to return or Sam wakes up which ever happens first." The SG personnel moved out of the room with light banter between them.