new fic (By Invitation Only (SG-1/Bones #3) #42 circle
Title: By Invitation Only
Author: karrenia
Fandoms: Stargate SG-1/Bones
Claim: Stargate, general series
Rating: PG, teen
Words: 3,841
Characaters: Daniel Jackson, Temperance "Bones" Brennan
and other from both shows.
Prompt #44 circle
17/100
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 belongs to Gekko Film Corp, MGM, Glasner/Wright and Double Secret Productions; as do the characters; they are not mine. Bones is the creation of Hart Hanson, and takes place around the most recently aired season 2 episode “Stargazer in a Puddle”.
The story picks up shortly after where ‘Dry as Dust’ left off.
“By Invitation Only” by Karen
The crates containing the artifacts hauled away from the caves in Southern France were finally neatly labeled, sorted and classified. Despite the objections of the FBI officers, and the French authorities at the Charles De Gaulle airport.
Colonel Jack O’Neill still couldn’t quite figure out what the FBI would want with a bunch of rocks, despite the fact that carbon dating work that Dr. Temperance Brown had done on them and the weird energy surge that he felt run through his torso just in the few seconds of contact that he had with the spear, cauldron, among the pile.
Daniel Jackson had insisted on personally escorting the crates from Paris, and if Jack had not pulled rank and pointed out the illogic of traveling in the cargo hold along with the rest of the passenger baggage during the trip from France back to Colorado Daniel would have done that just to be certain nothing happened to the artifacts.
There was something to be said for commitment, and then there was just sheer craziness, Jack thought as he sat down in front of the computer terminal in his room and stared at the screen where he had just finished putting the finishing touches on his post mission report.
Elsewhere, Daniel was faced with a unique dilemma: To all appearances that artifacts that had at one time been the handiwork of the long vanished race of nomadic Celts were nothing more than rocks, valuable rocks in the market of antiques, and in his previous employ as an anthropologist and archaeologist, would be quite valuable.
The Celts, like previously and even more ancient civilizations, had apparently had had contact with the alien Gou’ald; the mystery of what had transpired during the contact remained just that; a mystery.
Daniel reached up and stretched to relieve the strain on his back and legs for having stood in one place for so long.
He sighed and glanced around, Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian mythology and artifacts he understood, hell, he even had a decent working knowledge of Gou’ald and Ancient technology; Celtic, not so much.
In the back of his mind Daniel briefly toyed with the idea of contacting his old friend and colleague Dr. Temperance Brown.
Daniel wondered, considering how the SG-1 team’s previous encounter with Dr. Brown and her colleague in the FBI had gone, if she would be willing to discuss in more detail her knowledge of Celtic mythology and culture.
“I just might be able to convince General Hammond to allow me to contact here, and if he does agree to it, all we’ll need to do is go through the security checks. The only problem being, how do I do that without giving away too much information about the Stargate?”
Or why I need the information about the Celts in the first place?”
Interlude
Washington DC. The Forensics Lab
“I still don’t understand why you let those Air Force jerks walk away with the haul from the French caves,” Agent Seeley Booth remarked as he paced up and down the narrow hallway, fuming.
Only half-listening to her partner and colleague the majority of Dr. Temperance Brennan’s attention focused on the digitized illuminated manuscript copy. There simply hadn’t been time to secure a paper copy. Instead she had resigned to using a restored copy using a painstaking process.
“It was not as if they gave much choice in the matter,” she replied without looking up to face him, knowing that if she did so it would add fuel to the proverbial fire.
She leant over the machine and traced the words on the pace that dealt with the three most valuable treasures of the Tuatha de Dannan; the Spear of Destiny, the Stone of Fal, the Sword of Nuada, and the Cauldron of the Dagda.
The others were just as fascinating of course, but she could not afford to become distracted by traveling down side paths.
The artifacts found in that cave in southern France had attracted the attention of the United States Air Force, albeit an obscure branch, and one whose representatives who had come in search of these old stones, had been most insistent about coming, using her and Booth’s assistance in obtaining them, and getting back with them, with very little to no explanation given for why they needed them or what would happen to them afterwards.
To Temperance’s way of thinking all of that added up to one thing,: wheels within wheels, and given her own profession and her own natural bent for curiosity and getting down to how, and more importantly why something worked; hell, it almost came as second nature. She would solve this puzzle or she would know the reason why.
Meanwhile back at the Cheyenne Mountain Base
Daniel entered General Hammond’s office. “Sir, do you have a moment?“ he asked.
General Hammond looked up and smiled, “Of course, Dr. Jackson, I was just about finished reading your mission reports and then preparing for the debriefing,” he paused and added. “I’m still not certain that the site itself was a previous Gul activity site, but…” he trailed off. “I’m sorry, what did you want to talk about?”:
“Well, that more or less does lead in what I wanted to ask you about. It’s just that, well it’s like this…”
“Out with that, son,” Hammond gently coaxed the younger man. Dr. Jackson’s long-winded manner of getting to the point was well-known and it seemed best to prod him along a little bit.
“You see, if you recall, when we worked with the Jeffersonian Institute in recovering the Celtic artifacts, one of their people was a young man whom I knew back in the day, and I think that if I’m going to be able to glean any more information about the artifacts, I might need to contact her again.” Daniel shrugged with a sheepish grin on his face.
“I figured I should ask you before I made any attempt to contact her, not wanting to let slip too much about what we’re all up to around here, if you know what I mean?”
“I understand both your concern and commend you for the concern about the security of our operation here,” Hammond nodded.
Encounter
One would think that after nearly a year of working side by side with Agent Booth she would have become more at ease or least tolerable of his manner of taking charge. It had annoyed at first, and to be fair, he had been equally annoyed with her. She had resented the intrusion into her life and work, but a job was a job, and she would be damned if she would allow an irritant to side track from a job completed well and in the time required.
In that past year and a half she and her team of foreseeing anthropology experts had been a part of some very weird cases, bones she understood; however, real live people were much more complex.
Take this Chelsea Cole: Given the documents and paper work that she had left behind, there had been several Xeroxed copies of pages from an old Celtic manuscript, the Book of Leinster, complied in circa 1160 and now kept inn the Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
As odd a coincidence as that might have been under other circumstances, given her own Irish heritage, she had work to do and time was running short in which to accomplish it.
The book also made reference to the Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Dannan, as well as to something that the late amateur astronomer and full time anthropology graduate student had called only the “Ancients. There were odd anomalies among the woman’s notes as well.
There were markings and symbols that given the evidence and formation of the brush strokes dated back much farther than the time span when the Celts and their various spin-off tribes. She straightened up for a few seconds to take a breather and give the muscles in her back a break, and then reached up to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen down over her eyes. “Unless I am very much mistaken and my eye for detail has gone the way of 8-tracks and bell bottoms, I think some of these symbols are Ancient Egyptian.”
“You have gotta be kidding me!” Booth exclaimed startled out of his loose-limbed stance by the wall, strolling over with an easy grace. “Again, every clue, and trail we travel down in trying to solve this case, just leads to a bigger mystery. Whatever happened to the good old days when someone was murdered, we find the killer,, than get a trial, and sent to jail; end of story.”
“Too bad, that only works in an ideal world,” she replied with a sigh.
“I’m lead to believe that our Air Force visitors knew much more about this situation than they even led me to believe.
“Do you think they were the ones responsibly for Cole’s death, maybe she was close to discovering whatever secret project they working on and killed her in order to silence her.” Booth paused and cocked his head to one side thinking the matter through. “I mean, it’s possible. Bones, come on, think about it.”
“You‘re nuts. “I don’t believe that for a minute. “ She walked over to him and placed one hand on his shoulder, a task made even more difficult that she lacked nearly a foot in height. “I knew Dr. Jackson, remember, the man may be driven, a work-aholic and a bit of a social geek, but he has a good head on his shoulders. If he vouched for them, that’s all I need.”
At that moment her boss, Dr. Jack Hodgins entered the room, “Bones, you’ve got a phone call on line 101, and I think you might want to take it in your office.”
“Thanks,” she replied and nodded to both men as she stepped out of the lab.
***
She walked down the hallway greeting her friend, Angela, on the way to her office. Then stepped inside to take the call. She down behind her desk and picked up the receiver. “Dr. Brown here, may I ask who’s calling?”
“Temperance, it’s Daniel Jackson, and I know it’s been a quite a while, and we never really got a chance to catch up while I was there. How have you been?”
“As well as can be expected.” she replied. “Daniel, if you must know I was just discussing that very thing with my partner, Agent Booth. And this matter of the Celtic artifacts has got me very intrigued if not confused.”
“Tell me about it,” Daniel sighed and she could hear both the mingled frustration and excitement about unraveling yet another mystery in his voice even through the phone line and the distance.”
“Where are you calling from?” she asked
“From an internet café just outside of Colorado Springs, Denver.”
“Look, it’s gotten to the point were I’m just going to come right out and say it,” Daniel sighed. “I need your help. “As you know by now I’m working with the Air Force, albeit a special branch, and I can’t really go into too much detail about why we needed those artifacts; but if you’re interested and can come out here, I, I mean, we, could really use your help in this matter.”
“Dr. Jackson, you always were such a sweet-talker. It brings back such fond memories of our days together in graduate school.”
Temperance paused and thought over things, it might be difficult to clear a leave with her boss and Agent Booth, while he was her friend and partner as the FBI liaison, he didn’t dictate where she went or who with, and despite her better judgment, she really did want to unravel this mystery, and if it might traveling half way across the country, so be it. “I think I might able to swing that,” she said aloud.
“Great, wonderful in fact,” Daniel said. “How soon do you think you could make it out here, just give me a time and a date, and I’ll book the reservations under your name.
“Oh, you really don’t have to do that.
“Look on the bright side, Temperance,” Daniel laughed, “It beats having to fly military air, trust me on that.”
“I guess you have a point after all.” How about next Thursday at 8am sharp. I prefer a window aisle.”
“Hell, I’d give you first class if I could my boss to approve it,” Daniel said. “I’ll get write on that and have the tickets and reservation confirmation emailed to you straightaway.”
“Sure, you big softie, go ahead and try to swing that.” she replied.
“And Temperance, thank you,” Daniel added.
“You’re welcome. Just don’t let the hype fail to live up to the real thing, okay.”
“Sure, I think I’ll be able to swing that. Oh, by the way, just to give you a heads up, you’ll need to pass a security clearance check, but don’t worry it’s just part of the routine.
Thanks again. And she heard the phone line go click as he hung up.
“Security clearance, well he is with the Air Force none, although what they would do with an anthropologist and linguist is beyond me, but I want another stab at those artifacts, really I do. Now, I’ll just need to clear it with my boss.”
Encounter
Friday morning at the SGC base, Daniel had been a little bit impatient for Temperance to arrive at the Colorado Springs airport and he still wasn’t certain how much he should tell her about what he did as a civilian expert at what she would no doubt rightly assume was a military operation.
His concerns were only mildly alleviated by the fact that she arrived without her FBI escort, and quite eager to get another crack at deciphering the mystery that surrounded the artifacts.
During the short drive from the airport to the ground level entrance to the Cheyenne Base, they had had a chance to catch up, and he had been surprised that she had not only been through her own share of strange experiences during the brief tenure as the forensic anthropologist with Agent Booth’s FBI office; but one she wanted to discuss in more detail with him. Anecdotes and references to memories of the time they had spent together in graduate school, however, also occasionally crept into the conversation.
Interlude
Temperance entered the room designated as the evidence room, pretending not to notice the armed air force enlisted men who stood at either side of the room’s entrance. She heaved a sigh and decided that it was just a matter of the nature of the place in which she found herself.
In the back of her mind she decided, “Deal with it, girl, after it all, it’s just a precaution, and if I can put up with Booth, I can deal with it like they were there like the table, the closet, and other sundry items; just two additional pieces of furniture.
The only difference these pieces move, talk and are armed. Best to watch my step.” She thought about it a little longer, darting a quick searching glance at Dr. Daniel Jackson, and decided that he friend and former classmate appeared remarkably at ease among all the military surroundings.
“Well, what have we got here?” Daniel asked, breaking her wandering thoughts.
Temperance started and then recovering her composure she replied. “If my research is correct, we might be looking at the recovered and long thought to be nothing more than legend, Four Treasures of the Tuatha de Dannan, from Irish mythology.”
“What were the four treasures,” Major Carter asked.
“The Stone of Destiny, the Spear of Light, the Cauldron of the Dagda, and the Sword of Nuada.”
“What did they do, and do you have any idea what might be causing the energy surge we felt earlier?”
“According to legend, the first, also known as the Stone of Fal, predicted each new king of Ireland.” She frowned and paused to reach up and brush a loose strand of brown hair out of her eyes. “The Spear of Lugh is supposedly infallible; it never missed its target once it was accurately aimed and thrown.”
“Now that would be a trick,” Colonel O’Neill remarked.
“Less is known about the final two treasures, although the Cauldron of the Dagda is featured in a lot, and I do mean, a lot of artwork dating from the Celtic Period and even into the modern era. It is said to be able to feed an army and never go dry.”
“From Findias the ancient Celts brought the Sword of the Nuada, or Claimh Solias. No one ever escaped from it once it was drawn from its sheath, and no one could resist it.”
“Dr. Brown, how much of this is drawn from legends, and how much is actual fact?”
She turned to Colonel O’Neill, “ You’re kidding me, right? Now, that would be a trick.”
“Temperance, “ Daniel added. “We’ve learned that it’s best to humor him, whenever he gets like this.”
“Great, just great,” she added. “You were there in the cave when our recording devices first detected the initial energy surge, and up until now I’ve not been able to determined exactly how and why it occurred. I take it, you’ve felt that energy again.”
“Not as strong as the first time,” O’Neill reluctantly admitted, ‘but it’s definitely there.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Only one way to find out for certain,” Daniel said, shrugged and stepped forward to grasp the sword by its worn hilt. At first he could barely move it, and Dr. Brown stepped forward to help him, wondering as she did so, if this was one of growing list of bone-headed things she had down in recent days when it came to solving the mystery of the artifacts. “Why the hell not, “ she muttered under her breath.
The sword was surprisingly not as heavy and awkward to handle as she had anticipated, although it did require both she and her friend, Dr. Daniel Jackson to lift it and mount on the stone pedestal designed to accommodate it.
The tingling sensation that Colonel Jack O’Neill had first stated he had felt upon making contact with the spear, they felt it as well.
At first it was quite mild, almost a tickle then it gradually became more intense, beginning at the base of the skull and traveling down through the roots of their hair, to the spine, and then through their stomach and terminating at the soles of their feet. It did not actually hurt, but it was rather uncomfortable.
As the sensation continued neither she or any of the others that held on to the spear, the cauldron, and the stone could feel their limbs as being attached to their body. In her perpherial vision she noted the concerned looks on the faces of Daniel’s friends and colleagues, and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell have I gotten myself into?’
As the energy continued to surge through both of their bodies, spurting and darting from the point of contact with the sword’s hilt and their two hands meeting point, gradually all awareness of their physical surroundings ebbed away.
Her vision first went white hot, then cold and black and when she was able to see again, she found herself standing in the midst of a wide open plain, covered with wildflowers. In the sky above her a new moon floated along like a ship on an open sea. Daniel Jackson stood beside her, apparently as equally dazed and confused as she was in what had happened to them.
Approaching like a growing thunderstorm they both could hear the tell-tale drumbeat of horse hoofs, and the growing cloud of riders coming closer to where they stood on the plain. Daniel walked over to her and placed his hand over hers. Nervous and uncertain what to do, she allowed the point of the sword to dip and almost made contact with the ground.
Daniel offered a brave but tremulous little smile, meant to be reassuring.
Coming down the slop the riders came into view, they were not all alike in appearance, most were heavy-set, blond, muscle-bond, everything she had expected to see in a Celtic warrior; the one thing that did not fit her carefully constructed image was a golden sigil carved into the center of their foreheads.
Turning to Daniel she almost want to shove his calm face into the dirt, ‘what the hell is wrong with him?
“Jaffa.” muttered Daniel under his breath. “Figures.”
By this time Temperance had more or less managed to recover his considerable poise and her frustration with not being unable to understand why and how this was happening had almost prompted her into dropping the sword and slapping that smug look off Daniel Jackson’s face. “Well, do you mind clueing in the rest of the class?” she griped.
“It’s a vision, a vision of the past, and it if you’re going to slug, please try and do so before the vision peters out, otherwise, we might be stuck here,” he mildly replied.
“The sword’s uh energy field allowed us to share this vision of the past, and I suspect it’s also our connection point to our, uh, real selves.”
“I think I got that part, thank you.”
The riders by this time had come within half of a football field’s length of their position and begun to set up camp.
“Can they see us?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe, not unless we initiate the contact first,” Daniel replied.
At the particular instant an irritable tug on their beings caused the a mist to form to before their eyes and with almost audible sucking and popping both Daniel and Temperance reached down to grab onto the sword’s hilt and hung on as they were pulled out of the vision and back into where their bodies stood ramrod frozen straight in the evidence room at the SGC.
Conclusion
“Welcome back,” Colonel O’Neill greeted them.
“That was weird,” Daniel shrugged. “Well, weirder than usual for us, around here.”
“I got into my chosen field to explore history, not become a part of it,” she replied shaking her head to clear it of the inevitable cobwebs.”
“How long were we gone?” Daniel asked.
“Almost three hours,” Carter replied. “It’s unknown right now just what kind of effect, that energy surge has had on both of you. I think it might be a good idea if you were both were checked out by Dr. Fraiser.”
“Do I have to,” Daniel griped.
“Is he always like this?” Dr. Brown asked.
“Pretty much,” Carter smiled. “Go, and don’t make me turn that suggestion into an order.”
“All right, all right, I’ll go.”
“I will too,” Dr. Brennan added. “Call them what you will, what we just experienced, either vision or hallucination; it should definitely be checked out by a medical professional. Lead the way, Daniel.”
“I am so outflanked on this.”
“Yes, yes, you are.”
Continued in chapter 4: First, Do No Harm prompt #58 dinner
Author: karrenia
Fandoms: Stargate SG-1/Bones
Claim: Stargate, general series
Rating: PG, teen
Words: 3,841
Characaters: Daniel Jackson, Temperance "Bones" Brennan
and other from both shows.
Prompt #44 circle
17/100
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 belongs to Gekko Film Corp, MGM, Glasner/Wright and Double Secret Productions; as do the characters; they are not mine. Bones is the creation of Hart Hanson, and takes place around the most recently aired season 2 episode “Stargazer in a Puddle”.
The story picks up shortly after where ‘Dry as Dust’ left off.
“By Invitation Only” by Karen
The crates containing the artifacts hauled away from the caves in Southern France were finally neatly labeled, sorted and classified. Despite the objections of the FBI officers, and the French authorities at the Charles De Gaulle airport.
Colonel Jack O’Neill still couldn’t quite figure out what the FBI would want with a bunch of rocks, despite the fact that carbon dating work that Dr. Temperance Brown had done on them and the weird energy surge that he felt run through his torso just in the few seconds of contact that he had with the spear, cauldron, among the pile.
Daniel Jackson had insisted on personally escorting the crates from Paris, and if Jack had not pulled rank and pointed out the illogic of traveling in the cargo hold along with the rest of the passenger baggage during the trip from France back to Colorado Daniel would have done that just to be certain nothing happened to the artifacts.
There was something to be said for commitment, and then there was just sheer craziness, Jack thought as he sat down in front of the computer terminal in his room and stared at the screen where he had just finished putting the finishing touches on his post mission report.
Elsewhere, Daniel was faced with a unique dilemma: To all appearances that artifacts that had at one time been the handiwork of the long vanished race of nomadic Celts were nothing more than rocks, valuable rocks in the market of antiques, and in his previous employ as an anthropologist and archaeologist, would be quite valuable.
The Celts, like previously and even more ancient civilizations, had apparently had had contact with the alien Gou’ald; the mystery of what had transpired during the contact remained just that; a mystery.
Daniel reached up and stretched to relieve the strain on his back and legs for having stood in one place for so long.
He sighed and glanced around, Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian mythology and artifacts he understood, hell, he even had a decent working knowledge of Gou’ald and Ancient technology; Celtic, not so much.
In the back of his mind Daniel briefly toyed with the idea of contacting his old friend and colleague Dr. Temperance Brown.
Daniel wondered, considering how the SG-1 team’s previous encounter with Dr. Brown and her colleague in the FBI had gone, if she would be willing to discuss in more detail her knowledge of Celtic mythology and culture.
“I just might be able to convince General Hammond to allow me to contact here, and if he does agree to it, all we’ll need to do is go through the security checks. The only problem being, how do I do that without giving away too much information about the Stargate?”
Or why I need the information about the Celts in the first place?”
Interlude
Washington DC. The Forensics Lab
“I still don’t understand why you let those Air Force jerks walk away with the haul from the French caves,” Agent Seeley Booth remarked as he paced up and down the narrow hallway, fuming.
Only half-listening to her partner and colleague the majority of Dr. Temperance Brennan’s attention focused on the digitized illuminated manuscript copy. There simply hadn’t been time to secure a paper copy. Instead she had resigned to using a restored copy using a painstaking process.
“It was not as if they gave much choice in the matter,” she replied without looking up to face him, knowing that if she did so it would add fuel to the proverbial fire.
She leant over the machine and traced the words on the pace that dealt with the three most valuable treasures of the Tuatha de Dannan; the Spear of Destiny, the Stone of Fal, the Sword of Nuada, and the Cauldron of the Dagda.
The others were just as fascinating of course, but she could not afford to become distracted by traveling down side paths.
The artifacts found in that cave in southern France had attracted the attention of the United States Air Force, albeit an obscure branch, and one whose representatives who had come in search of these old stones, had been most insistent about coming, using her and Booth’s assistance in obtaining them, and getting back with them, with very little to no explanation given for why they needed them or what would happen to them afterwards.
To Temperance’s way of thinking all of that added up to one thing,: wheels within wheels, and given her own profession and her own natural bent for curiosity and getting down to how, and more importantly why something worked; hell, it almost came as second nature. She would solve this puzzle or she would know the reason why.
Meanwhile back at the Cheyenne Mountain Base
Daniel entered General Hammond’s office. “Sir, do you have a moment?“ he asked.
General Hammond looked up and smiled, “Of course, Dr. Jackson, I was just about finished reading your mission reports and then preparing for the debriefing,” he paused and added. “I’m still not certain that the site itself was a previous Gul activity site, but…” he trailed off. “I’m sorry, what did you want to talk about?”:
“Well, that more or less does lead in what I wanted to ask you about. It’s just that, well it’s like this…”
“Out with that, son,” Hammond gently coaxed the younger man. Dr. Jackson’s long-winded manner of getting to the point was well-known and it seemed best to prod him along a little bit.
“You see, if you recall, when we worked with the Jeffersonian Institute in recovering the Celtic artifacts, one of their people was a young man whom I knew back in the day, and I think that if I’m going to be able to glean any more information about the artifacts, I might need to contact her again.” Daniel shrugged with a sheepish grin on his face.
“I figured I should ask you before I made any attempt to contact her, not wanting to let slip too much about what we’re all up to around here, if you know what I mean?”
“I understand both your concern and commend you for the concern about the security of our operation here,” Hammond nodded.
Encounter
One would think that after nearly a year of working side by side with Agent Booth she would have become more at ease or least tolerable of his manner of taking charge. It had annoyed at first, and to be fair, he had been equally annoyed with her. She had resented the intrusion into her life and work, but a job was a job, and she would be damned if she would allow an irritant to side track from a job completed well and in the time required.
In that past year and a half she and her team of foreseeing anthropology experts had been a part of some very weird cases, bones she understood; however, real live people were much more complex.
Take this Chelsea Cole: Given the documents and paper work that she had left behind, there had been several Xeroxed copies of pages from an old Celtic manuscript, the Book of Leinster, complied in circa 1160 and now kept inn the Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
As odd a coincidence as that might have been under other circumstances, given her own Irish heritage, she had work to do and time was running short in which to accomplish it.
The book also made reference to the Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Dannan, as well as to something that the late amateur astronomer and full time anthropology graduate student had called only the “Ancients. There were odd anomalies among the woman’s notes as well.
There were markings and symbols that given the evidence and formation of the brush strokes dated back much farther than the time span when the Celts and their various spin-off tribes. She straightened up for a few seconds to take a breather and give the muscles in her back a break, and then reached up to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen down over her eyes. “Unless I am very much mistaken and my eye for detail has gone the way of 8-tracks and bell bottoms, I think some of these symbols are Ancient Egyptian.”
“You have gotta be kidding me!” Booth exclaimed startled out of his loose-limbed stance by the wall, strolling over with an easy grace. “Again, every clue, and trail we travel down in trying to solve this case, just leads to a bigger mystery. Whatever happened to the good old days when someone was murdered, we find the killer,, than get a trial, and sent to jail; end of story.”
“Too bad, that only works in an ideal world,” she replied with a sigh.
“I’m lead to believe that our Air Force visitors knew much more about this situation than they even led me to believe.
“Do you think they were the ones responsibly for Cole’s death, maybe she was close to discovering whatever secret project they working on and killed her in order to silence her.” Booth paused and cocked his head to one side thinking the matter through. “I mean, it’s possible. Bones, come on, think about it.”
“You‘re nuts. “I don’t believe that for a minute. “ She walked over to him and placed one hand on his shoulder, a task made even more difficult that she lacked nearly a foot in height. “I knew Dr. Jackson, remember, the man may be driven, a work-aholic and a bit of a social geek, but he has a good head on his shoulders. If he vouched for them, that’s all I need.”
At that moment her boss, Dr. Jack Hodgins entered the room, “Bones, you’ve got a phone call on line 101, and I think you might want to take it in your office.”
“Thanks,” she replied and nodded to both men as she stepped out of the lab.
***
She walked down the hallway greeting her friend, Angela, on the way to her office. Then stepped inside to take the call. She down behind her desk and picked up the receiver. “Dr. Brown here, may I ask who’s calling?”
“Temperance, it’s Daniel Jackson, and I know it’s been a quite a while, and we never really got a chance to catch up while I was there. How have you been?”
“As well as can be expected.” she replied. “Daniel, if you must know I was just discussing that very thing with my partner, Agent Booth. And this matter of the Celtic artifacts has got me very intrigued if not confused.”
“Tell me about it,” Daniel sighed and she could hear both the mingled frustration and excitement about unraveling yet another mystery in his voice even through the phone line and the distance.”
“Where are you calling from?” she asked
“From an internet café just outside of Colorado Springs, Denver.”
“Look, it’s gotten to the point were I’m just going to come right out and say it,” Daniel sighed. “I need your help. “As you know by now I’m working with the Air Force, albeit a special branch, and I can’t really go into too much detail about why we needed those artifacts; but if you’re interested and can come out here, I, I mean, we, could really use your help in this matter.”
“Dr. Jackson, you always were such a sweet-talker. It brings back such fond memories of our days together in graduate school.”
Temperance paused and thought over things, it might be difficult to clear a leave with her boss and Agent Booth, while he was her friend and partner as the FBI liaison, he didn’t dictate where she went or who with, and despite her better judgment, she really did want to unravel this mystery, and if it might traveling half way across the country, so be it. “I think I might able to swing that,” she said aloud.
“Great, wonderful in fact,” Daniel said. “How soon do you think you could make it out here, just give me a time and a date, and I’ll book the reservations under your name.
“Oh, you really don’t have to do that.
“Look on the bright side, Temperance,” Daniel laughed, “It beats having to fly military air, trust me on that.”
“I guess you have a point after all.” How about next Thursday at 8am sharp. I prefer a window aisle.”
“Hell, I’d give you first class if I could my boss to approve it,” Daniel said. “I’ll get write on that and have the tickets and reservation confirmation emailed to you straightaway.”
“Sure, you big softie, go ahead and try to swing that.” she replied.
“And Temperance, thank you,” Daniel added.
“You’re welcome. Just don’t let the hype fail to live up to the real thing, okay.”
“Sure, I think I’ll be able to swing that. Oh, by the way, just to give you a heads up, you’ll need to pass a security clearance check, but don’t worry it’s just part of the routine.
Thanks again. And she heard the phone line go click as he hung up.
“Security clearance, well he is with the Air Force none, although what they would do with an anthropologist and linguist is beyond me, but I want another stab at those artifacts, really I do. Now, I’ll just need to clear it with my boss.”
Encounter
Friday morning at the SGC base, Daniel had been a little bit impatient for Temperance to arrive at the Colorado Springs airport and he still wasn’t certain how much he should tell her about what he did as a civilian expert at what she would no doubt rightly assume was a military operation.
His concerns were only mildly alleviated by the fact that she arrived without her FBI escort, and quite eager to get another crack at deciphering the mystery that surrounded the artifacts.
During the short drive from the airport to the ground level entrance to the Cheyenne Base, they had had a chance to catch up, and he had been surprised that she had not only been through her own share of strange experiences during the brief tenure as the forensic anthropologist with Agent Booth’s FBI office; but one she wanted to discuss in more detail with him. Anecdotes and references to memories of the time they had spent together in graduate school, however, also occasionally crept into the conversation.
Interlude
Temperance entered the room designated as the evidence room, pretending not to notice the armed air force enlisted men who stood at either side of the room’s entrance. She heaved a sigh and decided that it was just a matter of the nature of the place in which she found herself.
In the back of her mind she decided, “Deal with it, girl, after it all, it’s just a precaution, and if I can put up with Booth, I can deal with it like they were there like the table, the closet, and other sundry items; just two additional pieces of furniture.
The only difference these pieces move, talk and are armed. Best to watch my step.” She thought about it a little longer, darting a quick searching glance at Dr. Daniel Jackson, and decided that he friend and former classmate appeared remarkably at ease among all the military surroundings.
“Well, what have we got here?” Daniel asked, breaking her wandering thoughts.
Temperance started and then recovering her composure she replied. “If my research is correct, we might be looking at the recovered and long thought to be nothing more than legend, Four Treasures of the Tuatha de Dannan, from Irish mythology.”
“What were the four treasures,” Major Carter asked.
“The Stone of Destiny, the Spear of Light, the Cauldron of the Dagda, and the Sword of Nuada.”
“What did they do, and do you have any idea what might be causing the energy surge we felt earlier?”
“According to legend, the first, also known as the Stone of Fal, predicted each new king of Ireland.” She frowned and paused to reach up and brush a loose strand of brown hair out of her eyes. “The Spear of Lugh is supposedly infallible; it never missed its target once it was accurately aimed and thrown.”
“Now that would be a trick,” Colonel O’Neill remarked.
“Less is known about the final two treasures, although the Cauldron of the Dagda is featured in a lot, and I do mean, a lot of artwork dating from the Celtic Period and even into the modern era. It is said to be able to feed an army and never go dry.”
“From Findias the ancient Celts brought the Sword of the Nuada, or Claimh Solias. No one ever escaped from it once it was drawn from its sheath, and no one could resist it.”
“Dr. Brown, how much of this is drawn from legends, and how much is actual fact?”
She turned to Colonel O’Neill, “ You’re kidding me, right? Now, that would be a trick.”
“Temperance, “ Daniel added. “We’ve learned that it’s best to humor him, whenever he gets like this.”
“Great, just great,” she added. “You were there in the cave when our recording devices first detected the initial energy surge, and up until now I’ve not been able to determined exactly how and why it occurred. I take it, you’ve felt that energy again.”
“Not as strong as the first time,” O’Neill reluctantly admitted, ‘but it’s definitely there.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Only one way to find out for certain,” Daniel said, shrugged and stepped forward to grasp the sword by its worn hilt. At first he could barely move it, and Dr. Brown stepped forward to help him, wondering as she did so, if this was one of growing list of bone-headed things she had down in recent days when it came to solving the mystery of the artifacts. “Why the hell not, “ she muttered under her breath.
The sword was surprisingly not as heavy and awkward to handle as she had anticipated, although it did require both she and her friend, Dr. Daniel Jackson to lift it and mount on the stone pedestal designed to accommodate it.
The tingling sensation that Colonel Jack O’Neill had first stated he had felt upon making contact with the spear, they felt it as well.
At first it was quite mild, almost a tickle then it gradually became more intense, beginning at the base of the skull and traveling down through the roots of their hair, to the spine, and then through their stomach and terminating at the soles of their feet. It did not actually hurt, but it was rather uncomfortable.
As the sensation continued neither she or any of the others that held on to the spear, the cauldron, and the stone could feel their limbs as being attached to their body. In her perpherial vision she noted the concerned looks on the faces of Daniel’s friends and colleagues, and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell have I gotten myself into?’
As the energy continued to surge through both of their bodies, spurting and darting from the point of contact with the sword’s hilt and their two hands meeting point, gradually all awareness of their physical surroundings ebbed away.
Her vision first went white hot, then cold and black and when she was able to see again, she found herself standing in the midst of a wide open plain, covered with wildflowers. In the sky above her a new moon floated along like a ship on an open sea. Daniel Jackson stood beside her, apparently as equally dazed and confused as she was in what had happened to them.
Approaching like a growing thunderstorm they both could hear the tell-tale drumbeat of horse hoofs, and the growing cloud of riders coming closer to where they stood on the plain. Daniel walked over to her and placed his hand over hers. Nervous and uncertain what to do, she allowed the point of the sword to dip and almost made contact with the ground.
Daniel offered a brave but tremulous little smile, meant to be reassuring.
Coming down the slop the riders came into view, they were not all alike in appearance, most were heavy-set, blond, muscle-bond, everything she had expected to see in a Celtic warrior; the one thing that did not fit her carefully constructed image was a golden sigil carved into the center of their foreheads.
Turning to Daniel she almost want to shove his calm face into the dirt, ‘what the hell is wrong with him?
“Jaffa.” muttered Daniel under his breath. “Figures.”
By this time Temperance had more or less managed to recover his considerable poise and her frustration with not being unable to understand why and how this was happening had almost prompted her into dropping the sword and slapping that smug look off Daniel Jackson’s face. “Well, do you mind clueing in the rest of the class?” she griped.
“It’s a vision, a vision of the past, and it if you’re going to slug, please try and do so before the vision peters out, otherwise, we might be stuck here,” he mildly replied.
“The sword’s uh energy field allowed us to share this vision of the past, and I suspect it’s also our connection point to our, uh, real selves.”
“I think I got that part, thank you.”
The riders by this time had come within half of a football field’s length of their position and begun to set up camp.
“Can they see us?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe, not unless we initiate the contact first,” Daniel replied.
At the particular instant an irritable tug on their beings caused the a mist to form to before their eyes and with almost audible sucking and popping both Daniel and Temperance reached down to grab onto the sword’s hilt and hung on as they were pulled out of the vision and back into where their bodies stood ramrod frozen straight in the evidence room at the SGC.
Conclusion
“Welcome back,” Colonel O’Neill greeted them.
“That was weird,” Daniel shrugged. “Well, weirder than usual for us, around here.”
“I got into my chosen field to explore history, not become a part of it,” she replied shaking her head to clear it of the inevitable cobwebs.”
“How long were we gone?” Daniel asked.
“Almost three hours,” Carter replied. “It’s unknown right now just what kind of effect, that energy surge has had on both of you. I think it might be a good idea if you were both were checked out by Dr. Fraiser.”
“Do I have to,” Daniel griped.
“Is he always like this?” Dr. Brown asked.
“Pretty much,” Carter smiled. “Go, and don’t make me turn that suggestion into an order.”
“All right, all right, I’ll go.”
“I will too,” Dr. Brennan added. “Call them what you will, what we just experienced, either vision or hallucination; it should definitely be checked out by a medical professional. Lead the way, Daniel.”
“I am so outflanked on this.”
“Yes, yes, you are.”
Continued in chapter 4: First, Do No Harm prompt #58 dinner