TITLE: T-Minus Two Weeks and Counting
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
RATING: Pissy archeologist (PG-13)
POSTED: July 25, 2005
SUMMARY: Five ways Daniel tries to persuade Jack to let him go to Atlantis.
NOTES: I offered myself up for that Top Five [Whatevers] meme. Destina, tricky lady, asked me for the top five ways Daniel tries to persuade Jack to let him go to Atlantis. That didn't want to confine itself to a short list, mostly because Jack kept wanting his chance to rebut. Anyway, this is not the top five ways, because I'm pretty sure Daniel is smarter than this. Usually. Thanks to Brighid for the beta service, especially that last kick. This is very beginning of S8 for Stargate and S1 for Atlantis. Takes place pretty much in the first half hour of SGA's Rising Pt 1. Now with a cover special-made by Salieri.
DISCLAIMER: Read
1.
Overheard by Lt. Robert Grace, USMC, twelve days prior to departure, while rapidly escorting yet another scientist out of an area clearly marked (now in five languages) AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY:
"--is ridiculous. It's another galaxy, not another plane of existence. Do I need to promise to call every day?"
"Sure, that'll work. Just make sure to bring along that other fully charged ZPM."
"The one in my pocket?"
"If that's what that--"
2.
Sam didn't want to say anything -- in fact, she kind of loathed the idea of being the one to state the obvious this time -- but Teal'c wasn't budging. Damn it.
"It is not my place."
"It's not mine, either!"
Head cocking, Teal'c observed, "As leader of the team that will be affected by such a change, it is indeed your place to offer an evaluation of the situation."
Sam narrowed her eyes across the table at Teal'c's smile. No one else in the mess might have called it that, but she knew what the little twitch of his lips was about.
"So what exactly do I say? And," she continued when Teal'c opened his mouth, "which one do I say it to?"
Teal'c paused, his eyes almost closing. Sam waited without drumming her fingers on the table only by hanging on painfully hard to her spoon.
"Perhaps it is best to allow them to...work it out on their own," Teal'c finally said. "Daniel Jackson has lessened the frequency of his requests."
Sam snorted softly and didn't try to hide a grimace. "'Lessened.' Right. It only took the general threatening to shoot him if he whined again in public about getting on the expedition."
"An empty threat."
"I dunno. I wouldn't be surprised if he zatted Daniel and stuck him in a storage closet for the next week," Sam muttered.
3.
Walter discovered the notes in a small pile under an unsigned requisition for freeze-dried coffee on the top left corner of General O'Neill's desk.
Why are you being so damn stubborn? read the one on top, a fast scrawl that Walter could decipher without touching anything else on the desk.
In a mountain currently stuffed full of overqualified people, I am THE most qualified person to be on that expedition and you KNOW it, so stop being a JACKASS, Jack, read the one just beneath, darkly emphasized words jumping off the paper that happened to be revealed by the movement of the air when Walter bent down to pick up the pen he'd dropped.
I am NOT 'a little full of myself'! read the third, and Walter had to admit that he only saw that one because his huff of laughter blew the entire pile into the trashcan.
When the general walked in, scowling, Walter was already back at his own desk straightening the pens and pencils in his top drawer.
That was the day that the SGC's paperwork started backing up, just a little.
4.
It wasn't the most pressing matter to address -- there were only days remaining before they left for the potential wonders of the Pegasus galaxy, after all -- but, "I was under the impression that you had denied Daniel's request to join the Atlantis expedition," Elizabeth said a full and silent minute after she'd entered the office that had briefly been hers.
Those brown eyes, which could sparkle or go flat in less than a second, narrowed dangerously. Elizabeth didn't blink, though, not even when O'Neill growled, "I did."
"So I should ignore the form that appeared on my desk this morning," she said as smoothly as if she were offering to overlook a deputy's rude comment in a language she wasn't supposed to understand.
O'Neill gave her a smile. She recognized it, even though she had last seen it on the face of a Soviet general. She had been glad then, too, that the hard edge to the smile was not directed her way.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it," O'Neill said. "Dead men don't have forms."
5.
Jack closed his front door carefully, making sure to lock it before he turned, crossed his arms, and looked at Daniel.
"You are an idiot."
"What?" Daniel asked, radiating ignorance and doing it badly, since the next thing he said was, "I haven't said a thing about it to you in the last few days."
"Noooo," Jack agreed. "But guess who has to sign every official piece of paper that passes through the SGC."
Daniel's eyebrows went way up. "That's a lot of paper."
"Yeah. But that's what Walter's for, apparently."
There was a long moment of silence as they stood there: Jack still up by the door, Daniel a full foot lower by the softest chair. It wasn't a standoff, but it wasn't comfortable, either.
Finally, "So..." Lips pursed, Daniel asked, "Every piece?"
Jack bared his teeth. "Every."
"Hm."
He'd thought he might explode once they were in his house -- that he might just start shouting all of the things he hadn't been able to shout with a star on each shoulder and nearly a thousand people looking on -- but at that soft sound, Jack folded.
"What are you doing, Daniel?" he asked on a sigh.
Daniel blinked slowly at him, like he couldn't quite parse what those five small words meant. "I'm trying to go to Atlantis. The city of the Ancients." His hands came up to cup a large chunk of air. "The really...big...flying...city," he said, emphasizing each word without cracking a smile.
Jack shook his head. "That still sounds stupid. They've got the gates, what do they need with a..." He fluttered a hand, sneering instead of saying those words again.
"I don't know," Daniel huffed. "That's why I want to go. I want to find out what they were thinking, why they were thinking..." He let out a rough and frustrated sound, his hands clenching on the concepts he couldn't reach, and quickly closed the distance between them to look up at Jack way too earnestly from the bottom step. "There is so much that we could learn just by being there, being in their city, where they stood and lived and--"
"Thought?"
"Yes!"
"Are you the only one who can do that learning?"
Daniel's mouth opened. It stayed open, then his eyes narrowed and he admitted, "No..."
Holding that look, Jack quietly said, "I've said this before: it's probably a one-way trip."
"Jack." That was impatient, but then excitement took over again. "There have to be more ZPMs. There was one here, where the Ancients haven't been for millennia, so who's to say that there aren't hundreds or thousands out there."
That enthusiastic arm might have been flung in the general direction of Pegasus, and Jack ached to look into the determination on Daniel's face, but realistically... "If there are ZPMs littering the floor over there, why haven't they ever been back?"
Daniel's lips twisted, but he didn't say anything.
"It makes sense to send a team," Jack said, "an expedition of experts, and some good people who will keep those experts from shooting their own feet off. Because there is the chance that they'll come back."
He got a confused frown. "Then why--"
"Chance. I--"
The frown grew when Jack paused and grimaced, but Daniel didn't say anything. No help at all.
"I've got other archeologists and linguists and geniuses. I'm a little short on Daniel Jacksons."
Sharp. Not as mild, Jack knew, as he'd managed for Weir the other week. It was a challenge, and Daniel blinked and tilted his head, examining him from that new angle while Jack fought to keep his jaw loose. Then finally, finally, Daniel nodded.
"You could've said that before," he said.
Jack drew in a nice deep breath, and let it out with a pfft. "I could've. But you're the one who thought that annoying me into sending you would be the successful strategy," he sneered.
A bland look. "It had possibility."
"It also had risk."
Daniel's eyes opened wide. "Of actually getting sent? Gee, what--"
"Of getting zatted," Jack corrected, patting him on the shoulder.
##
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