(no subject)
Why the hell not? I tried to resist, just, er, not very hard.
When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
9 Doctor Who, 6 Final Fantasy VIII, 2 House M.D., 6ish Life on Mars, 10ish Stargate: SG-1
Doctor Who
Storm Tide - In which 9th Doctor and Rose wind up in Atlantis
[Rose shrugged. "It's bigger on the inside."
"Not exactly," Rodney said. "This entire ship exists in a subdimension. The blue box you see out there is just a kind of overlap. Like a spigot. It provides an entrance to this structure that's accessible from our spacetime."
"Blimey, you know how to take the romance out of things," Rose said.]
Tempus Edax - In which 9th Doctor is adopted by the Reapers and 10th has a very odd day
[The Doctor In Brown grinned so hard his head moved. "Oh, that's fantastic. Life just keeps going on, doesn't it?"
The Doctor In Black's expression shifted through surprise to intense, abstract discomfort at the end of the first sentence. The other Doctor didn't seem to notice.
"So how are you?" he asked, looking him up and down. "Aside from the obvious spaciotemporal paradoxes. Nice replication on the jacket, by the way. And you have got to get a new jumper."
"There is nothing," the Doctor said darkly, "wrong with my jumper."]
For Now We See - In which Rose meets an alternate-universe Doctor and incidentally becomes a Time Lord
["Who are you?"
She'd heard that edge to his voice lots of times before, but almost never directed at her. It shook her. She should have known that any Doctor belonging to this universe wouldn't exactly be hers, but she had her father back and Mickey had his grandmother and--well, after that, she'd grown into hoping for miracles. "Rose," she said. "Rose Tyler."
"That's a human name," he said.
She almost had to laugh, at that. Only his eyes kept her from. "Of course it's a human name! Why wouldn't it be a human name? I'm human!"]
Through A Mirror Darkly - In which the aforementioned AU!Doctor seeks help from, er, himself
["Get down!" the Doctor yelled, hefting the blaster.
The woman ducked. The other Doctor and the paradox stared. "What?" the other Doctor said.
"Down! Get down!" Having a blaster half the size of a Dalek pointed at you generally tended to focus one's attention. The Doctor's alternate-universe successor, however, opted for the lesser-lauded "staring until his friend pulled him to the ground" option.]
Shroud - In which 9th Doctor finds himself in Silent Hill
["What happened?" Rose asked.
A small, remote part of his mind thought Amazing. I've ripped her universe out from under her, and she's still trying to reach out to me. Most of him, however, was coiling in around itself, trying to keep its secret cold and untouched and safe. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it matters! It always matters! Now, it matters!" She stepped forward, coming as close as she could while keeping the console between them. "What's wrong with you? Because you can either say I need to know or keep me in the dark, not both!"
Damn logic. It didn't help that he wanted both.]
Dispatches from Relative Space - In which the Master is a bloody hard man to kill
["What happened to you?--I've been calling and calling!"
"Bit of an adventure with the Titanic," the Doctor said. "And--well, stuff. Long story. Martha, Martha, Martha," he broke off, staring around. "What's been going on here?"
"America went insane and conquered the world," Martha said bitterly. "I guess we all knew it was bound to happen sometime, just a matter of when."]
The Janus Effect - In which the Doctor, the Master, and the Dalek Emperor are all hunting each other down
["What makes you so sure I have an answer?" the Doctor demanded. "I'm many things, but I'm no soldier."
"No, Doctor." The Master's voice was harsh and cold. "You're a genius. A visionary. You're smart enough to know that there is no saving Gallifrey. But there must be a hundred ways to destroy the Daleks, and I believe that you know at least one."
The Doctor's hand trembled on the console. "You believe."
"If you must, Doctor, call it faith."]
The Moving Finger Writes - In which Rose will not allow herself to be saved
["A TARDIS," Jack says.
The doctor continues grinning, and punctuates it with a nod. "Yep."
"Another phonebox thing."
"This one probably won't look like a phonebox, but yes."
Jack hurries up, falling into step. "What's wrong with the one you have?"
The Doctor turns, midstride, to give him a shocked look. "The one I have is stalking me. Besides," he says, "it's obsolete. I need a newer model. Something that can overpower it."
"You want to overpower something with the power of all creation," Jack says.
"You got a problem with that?"]
Voodoo Child - In which the TARDIS pauses for angst
[Because this is wrong, wrong, wrong, every facet of her existence has become wrong, and when he walks in, a fixed point against the Master's laughter, he's wrong in the only tenable way. A way that can end it.]
Final Fantasy VIII
A Wonderful Day In The Neighborhood - In which Squall is possessed by Diablos, and Seifer and Nida aren't nearly as clever as they think they are
["Oh, no, nothing," Nida burst. "No, great idea. We'll give him Alexander. And when Alexander decides to take over we'll send in Bahamut, and when Bahamut decides to take over I guess we'll send in Eden, and when Eden decides to take over I guess we'll die!"
"Well what do you want to do?!" Seifer nearly yowled.
Nida caught his breath. "...move to Esthar," he said.
"What?"
"We change our names and move to Esthar," Nida said. "And we never speak of this again."]
Crossheart - In which Squall finds out that sometimes the only people one can rely on are one's enemies
[Quistis glanced down, her careful mask slipping. "...Cid's made the decision that you'll stay on the Garden payroll in recognition of outstanding service.' If you want, you can remain here as an Instructor--"
Squall glowered.
"--or not, as you prefer. Cid's arranged to buy you a small house in Balamb, if that's what you want."
(I want to stay in SeeD, not become some useless--) "Are you suggesting I go into an early retirement?" He sneered.
Quistis didn't back down--she watched him, with a strong vein of pity conveyed by her tone. "I'm suggesting that you have no choice."]
Hourglass - In which Nida gets to use the word "retconning" in casual conversation, and there's some crazy time paradox going on
[He hit the ground in a running stumble that lasted three seconds before he faceplanted into the gravel.
The view was no better from down there. He inhaled a lungful of dust and dirt before he could roll over, choking and coughing into the chill night air, where--
(There!) he regained control through a concerted effort of will. Balamb Garden loomed above him, stark and sharp against the black heaven. For a moment he lay on his back, gasping for air, before he remembered that even in the middle of the night the road to Balamb was occasionally used. He had, in the last six days, come perilously close to being ripped apart by magic, squashed by twisted automatons, locked forever in a dungeon, drowning in an internal moat, being eaten alive by not one but three feral GFs, and simply ceasing to exist. He'd be damned if, after all that, he was run over by a truck because he lay dazed on the road.]
Killers - In which the world goes to hell a dozen ways to Sunday
["I think I may know a way to attack Ultimecia, but I need an army to do it."
Nida laughed. "Is this a plan or a scheme?"
"What's the difference?"
"A plan has a logical chance of working. A scheme is what you cook up when you're given a loaf of bread and a link of sausage and told to bake a birthday cake."
The absurdity of the analogy caught Squall off-guard, and he nearly laughed, himself. "A scheme," he admitted. (But we've got half a loaf and we haven't killed the pig yet.)]
To Begin Again - In which Squall knows what it does: it's a time loop machine
[The Admiral stood, brushing off his uniform. "This is some kind of Hyne's Grail for you, isn't it? Find Almasy, and you have another piece of the puzzle. Complete the puzzle, and the legendary Squall Leonhart will finally be able to go home."]
Scorpion - In which Quistis almost needs more psychiatric aid than Seifer does
["It's a Status cocktail," Quistis said, voice sharp and sickly-greeen against the delirious miasma. "Bio. Confuse. Touch of Zombie. A Blue Magic skill. I can help you, Seifer, but you're going to have to ask me."
His mouth opened--and closed again. He gasped for air that wouldn't come.
"Seifer, ask me for help."
The world slid through dozens of hues, swaying and reeling above him.
The pistol clicked again, materializing in his consciousness as a cold dark pressure against his forehead. "Ask me."]
House
Between the Bars - In which Chase and Cameron try to have a normal, casual relationship for two seasons and fail at every turn
["Hey!"
Chase turned. "What?"
Cameron closed the distance before answering, and when she did her voice was low, almost covert. "You want to get something to drink?"
"What?" Chase choked out. "Why are you asking?"
"Because this friend of mine asked me that when I was having a bad day," Cameron said.]
(unnamed) - In which House and his ducklings find themselves in the Wayang Kulit version of Silent Hill
["You got us out of it."
He wasn't enjoying this. He could cope with her being hesitant, awkward, belligerent, defensive, humiliated, furious, smug, high--she had an impressive emotional arsenal, but this would be the first time she'd broken out "meek" on him. Emotional damage just follows this woman, he thought. Like a puppy on a leash. "And your point is?"
For a second her eyes hardened. Now they were almost challenging, almost desperate. "I want to know how."]
Life on Mars
Iron Curtain - In which Sam creates his own Silent Hill
[Inside Sam, a dark rush of schadenfreude wrestles with a stabbing annoyance. "PTSD," he says again. "He was victim of trauma. I'm surprised he's managing as well as he is, given that nothing here remotely resembles a support structure."
Gene looks around the room as if expecting to find one leaning in a corner.
"You need to listen to me," Sam says. "I can help."
"I don't need help from you," Gene says, unconvincingly. "And, quite frankly, I think Ray'd rather die." ]
Star of Ares - In which Sam Tyler is a 1973 double-agent involved in something called Operation MARS
[1.07 - "You were the only one I could trust!" Gene said, and instead of it being a compliment, it took the ground right out from under him.
"The only one who was expendable."
"Well, isn't that how you've always fancied yourself?" Gene demanded. "A moral compass in a dodgy department?"
Sam was listing toward a desk, and sank onto its edge. Either he knows more than he realizes, or he knows more than he's telling. I can't afford to assume it's the former. This wasn't right. He wasn't supposed to be the one feeling betrayed.]
[2.01 - "--with you lot waiting to hang me up from the nearest tree!"
The instant he finished, he blanched--he hadn't meant to say that, hadn't meant to say any of it, and now Gene was staring at him as if one or both of them had been shot in the gut. Sam gaped, looking for something to say or some way to excuse himself, and Gene's expression wound down to a guarded, neutral frown. "You don't trust us," he said.
Sam swallowed back bile. "Do you trust me?"
Gene looked at him, jaw clenched, as if he was trying not to say something. "Well, that's hardly the point now, is it?"]
[2.02 - Morgan paused. Sam could practically hear the surprise. "Sam, is that you?"
"It's a hard job," he said. "It's harder than you think. I will not let you compromise this operation."
When Morgan spoke again, he sounded distinctly unsettled. "Is this an emergency?"
"Keep your people away from me," Sam said, and hung up before he had a chance to wonder why they weren't our people in his mind.]
[2.07 - "You had to believe Gene was innocent, didn't you?" Annie asked. "Couldn't bear to think he might betray you."
He shouldn't have drunk. It was a struggle to keep his face even, and Annie saw that. You have no idea what it means for us to betray each other.]
[2.08 - "You should be in jail," Morgan said, voice impossibly smooth.
"Yeah, not yet, y'smug arse-faced--" Gene ran out of insults, or the will to spout them. "Bastard," he finished lamely.]
Stargate: SG-1
Beneath A Beating Sun - In which an alien base may or may not be more trauma than it's worth
["Now," Jack suggested. "McKay, we're going to need that shield up, really fast."
"I understand that," McKay said. "But you can't just ignore the laws of computational mechanics whenever it's convenient for you!"]
Bullet - In which time is like a bullet from behind
[Sam thinks of time with religious technicality. A second is defined as the amount of time it takes a cesium atom at ground state to transition between its two hyperfine levels 9,192,631,770 times. She's known the number since she was fifteen, had it memorized since 19.]
Grinding Effeta Flour - In which Daniel finds his place on Abydos
[Three weeks in he's still having trouble mentally re-writing Sha'uri (maiden) to Sha're (wed).]
Rubicon - In which the SGC is disbanded and everything goes to shit
["I'm going to kill him," Sam said, with a steely cool Daniel had never heard from her. He knew she was serious before he'd registered what she'd said.
He swallowed. "Ba'al?"
"Kinsey," Sam said. "But you're right. Ba'al first."]
(unnamed) - In which SG1 is improperly equipped to deal with Silent Hill
[(And he wanted to think that Carter was right, because Carter was always right, but he was finding it hard to breathe in the smoke and the fog and she had told him "It's not toxic, sir. In fact, it's technically not here at all.")]
Dark Matter - In which the SGC should have been more careful what it wished for
["Honestly," Ba'al muttered. "You cry more than any host I've ever had."
I find that hard to believe, the Colonel shot back.
"Contrary to popular Tau'ri belief," Ba'al said, leaning back and examining one wrist, "joining oneself to one's god is not altogether an unpleasant experience. What have you done to this body?"
You, the response came, swift and sharp, are not my god. And my body is none of your business.]
Fathers of Song - In which the ancients are not good people
[Leonidas - Echeon unravelled. He turned to energy, spooling out from a central point and reaching long tendrils toward Jack's face. Jack stepped back, but not far or fast enough to preventing Echeon from grabbing him, light in his eyes and warmth in his ears.
It came attached with a twisted, funhouse-mirror sense of self, an intimate familiarity with this complete stranger. If he was a stranger. Jack couldn't pin down thew specifics and didn't want to try, but it reminded him of his Special Ops days--people who lived on the edge of themselves. Echeon had been trapped in his mind for centuries on end and had never gone madder than he was. Jack respected that, and it alarmed him.]
[Ikaros - Jack exhaled, exasperated. "Look, you toured Europe, right? You saw Dachau and Auschwitz?"
Daniel nodded. With all his mind had been put through in the last few years, he was honestly surprised he remembered any of it. Most of what he remembered was blank non-comprehension, looking at the bunks and the baths and trying to match the images with numbers, with people, with experience. He could hold one or two of them concepts in his mind at once, but couldn't reconcile them into a whole. On occasion he wondered what he would think if he went back now.
"Don't go," Jack said.
He was already checking through his standard kit, testing the spare batteries for his video camera, sliding a new journal in along the seam of the bag. "Orbieus said that if I wanted to understand the Ancients I had to see this," he said.
"Why?"
"Because," he said, and ran out of words. "I have to."]
[Eurydike - Daniel left for Nekroseion again. The Prometheus approached its target. She waited, because everything she could do had been done on both fronts.
When Operation Tibbets hit zero hour, she sat at her laptop to read the reports. When they came they would be dry and scientific, representing none of the lives lost. Maybe that was why Daniel had gone--searching for a way to make it real.
She never saw the reports. Encoded transmission would take a good seventeen minutes from where the Prometheus was, and twelve minutes into the wait Sergeant Harriman appeared at her door and announced that she was needed in the General's office, that the General was dead.]
[Askepios - Orbieus started forward, thrown past shock at Echeon's words. "These people are dying. We are killing them!"
Echeon surged up. "Finish the job!"
Orbieus stood firm. "I will not."
"Then tell them," Echeon's voice was dark and breathy, "that we have destroyed nine tenths of the city, that they must scavenge among the stores for the rest of their lives because we have not enough people to work the industries. Tell them that their friends and families and the ones they passed on the street are dead and gone, and that it is time to wait for plague to come."
Orbieus faltered.
Echeon nodded. "Finish the job."]
When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
9 Doctor Who, 6 Final Fantasy VIII, 2 House M.D., 6ish Life on Mars, 10ish Stargate: SG-1
Doctor Who
Storm Tide - In which 9th Doctor and Rose wind up in Atlantis
[Rose shrugged. "It's bigger on the inside."
"Not exactly," Rodney said. "This entire ship exists in a subdimension. The blue box you see out there is just a kind of overlap. Like a spigot. It provides an entrance to this structure that's accessible from our spacetime."
"Blimey, you know how to take the romance out of things," Rose said.]
Tempus Edax - In which 9th Doctor is adopted by the Reapers and 10th has a very odd day
[The Doctor In Brown grinned so hard his head moved. "Oh, that's fantastic. Life just keeps going on, doesn't it?"
The Doctor In Black's expression shifted through surprise to intense, abstract discomfort at the end of the first sentence. The other Doctor didn't seem to notice.
"So how are you?" he asked, looking him up and down. "Aside from the obvious spaciotemporal paradoxes. Nice replication on the jacket, by the way. And you have got to get a new jumper."
"There is nothing," the Doctor said darkly, "wrong with my jumper."]
For Now We See - In which Rose meets an alternate-universe Doctor and incidentally becomes a Time Lord
["Who are you?"
She'd heard that edge to his voice lots of times before, but almost never directed at her. It shook her. She should have known that any Doctor belonging to this universe wouldn't exactly be hers, but she had her father back and Mickey had his grandmother and--well, after that, she'd grown into hoping for miracles. "Rose," she said. "Rose Tyler."
"That's a human name," he said.
She almost had to laugh, at that. Only his eyes kept her from. "Of course it's a human name! Why wouldn't it be a human name? I'm human!"]
Through A Mirror Darkly - In which the aforementioned AU!Doctor seeks help from, er, himself
["Get down!" the Doctor yelled, hefting the blaster.
The woman ducked. The other Doctor and the paradox stared. "What?" the other Doctor said.
"Down! Get down!" Having a blaster half the size of a Dalek pointed at you generally tended to focus one's attention. The Doctor's alternate-universe successor, however, opted for the lesser-lauded "staring until his friend pulled him to the ground" option.]
Shroud - In which 9th Doctor finds himself in Silent Hill
["What happened?" Rose asked.
A small, remote part of his mind thought Amazing. I've ripped her universe out from under her, and she's still trying to reach out to me. Most of him, however, was coiling in around itself, trying to keep its secret cold and untouched and safe. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it matters! It always matters! Now, it matters!" She stepped forward, coming as close as she could while keeping the console between them. "What's wrong with you? Because you can either say I need to know or keep me in the dark, not both!"
Damn logic. It didn't help that he wanted both.]
Dispatches from Relative Space - In which the Master is a bloody hard man to kill
["What happened to you?--I've been calling and calling!"
"Bit of an adventure with the Titanic," the Doctor said. "And--well, stuff. Long story. Martha, Martha, Martha," he broke off, staring around. "What's been going on here?"
"America went insane and conquered the world," Martha said bitterly. "I guess we all knew it was bound to happen sometime, just a matter of when."]
The Janus Effect - In which the Doctor, the Master, and the Dalek Emperor are all hunting each other down
["What makes you so sure I have an answer?" the Doctor demanded. "I'm many things, but I'm no soldier."
"No, Doctor." The Master's voice was harsh and cold. "You're a genius. A visionary. You're smart enough to know that there is no saving Gallifrey. But there must be a hundred ways to destroy the Daleks, and I believe that you know at least one."
The Doctor's hand trembled on the console. "You believe."
"If you must, Doctor, call it faith."]
The Moving Finger Writes - In which Rose will not allow herself to be saved
["A TARDIS," Jack says.
The doctor continues grinning, and punctuates it with a nod. "Yep."
"Another phonebox thing."
"This one probably won't look like a phonebox, but yes."
Jack hurries up, falling into step. "What's wrong with the one you have?"
The Doctor turns, midstride, to give him a shocked look. "The one I have is stalking me. Besides," he says, "it's obsolete. I need a newer model. Something that can overpower it."
"You want to overpower something with the power of all creation," Jack says.
"You got a problem with that?"]
Voodoo Child - In which the TARDIS pauses for angst
[Because this is wrong, wrong, wrong, every facet of her existence has become wrong, and when he walks in, a fixed point against the Master's laughter, he's wrong in the only tenable way. A way that can end it.]
Final Fantasy VIII
A Wonderful Day In The Neighborhood - In which Squall is possessed by Diablos, and Seifer and Nida aren't nearly as clever as they think they are
["Oh, no, nothing," Nida burst. "No, great idea. We'll give him Alexander. And when Alexander decides to take over we'll send in Bahamut, and when Bahamut decides to take over I guess we'll send in Eden, and when Eden decides to take over I guess we'll die!"
"Well what do you want to do?!" Seifer nearly yowled.
Nida caught his breath. "...move to Esthar," he said.
"What?"
"We change our names and move to Esthar," Nida said. "And we never speak of this again."]
Crossheart - In which Squall finds out that sometimes the only people one can rely on are one's enemies
[Quistis glanced down, her careful mask slipping. "...Cid's made the decision that you'll stay on the Garden payroll in recognition of outstanding service.' If you want, you can remain here as an Instructor--"
Squall glowered.
"--or not, as you prefer. Cid's arranged to buy you a small house in Balamb, if that's what you want."
(I want to stay in SeeD, not become some useless--) "Are you suggesting I go into an early retirement?" He sneered.
Quistis didn't back down--she watched him, with a strong vein of pity conveyed by her tone. "I'm suggesting that you have no choice."]
Hourglass - In which Nida gets to use the word "retconning" in casual conversation, and there's some crazy time paradox going on
[He hit the ground in a running stumble that lasted three seconds before he faceplanted into the gravel.
The view was no better from down there. He inhaled a lungful of dust and dirt before he could roll over, choking and coughing into the chill night air, where--
(There!) he regained control through a concerted effort of will. Balamb Garden loomed above him, stark and sharp against the black heaven. For a moment he lay on his back, gasping for air, before he remembered that even in the middle of the night the road to Balamb was occasionally used. He had, in the last six days, come perilously close to being ripped apart by magic, squashed by twisted automatons, locked forever in a dungeon, drowning in an internal moat, being eaten alive by not one but three feral GFs, and simply ceasing to exist. He'd be damned if, after all that, he was run over by a truck because he lay dazed on the road.]
Killers - In which the world goes to hell a dozen ways to Sunday
["I think I may know a way to attack Ultimecia, but I need an army to do it."
Nida laughed. "Is this a plan or a scheme?"
"What's the difference?"
"A plan has a logical chance of working. A scheme is what you cook up when you're given a loaf of bread and a link of sausage and told to bake a birthday cake."
The absurdity of the analogy caught Squall off-guard, and he nearly laughed, himself. "A scheme," he admitted. (But we've got half a loaf and we haven't killed the pig yet.)]
To Begin Again - In which Squall knows what it does: it's a time loop machine
[The Admiral stood, brushing off his uniform. "This is some kind of Hyne's Grail for you, isn't it? Find Almasy, and you have another piece of the puzzle. Complete the puzzle, and the legendary Squall Leonhart will finally be able to go home."]
Scorpion - In which Quistis almost needs more psychiatric aid than Seifer does
["It's a Status cocktail," Quistis said, voice sharp and sickly-greeen against the delirious miasma. "Bio. Confuse. Touch of Zombie. A Blue Magic skill. I can help you, Seifer, but you're going to have to ask me."
His mouth opened--and closed again. He gasped for air that wouldn't come.
"Seifer, ask me for help."
The world slid through dozens of hues, swaying and reeling above him.
The pistol clicked again, materializing in his consciousness as a cold dark pressure against his forehead. "Ask me."]
House
Between the Bars - In which Chase and Cameron try to have a normal, casual relationship for two seasons and fail at every turn
["Hey!"
Chase turned. "What?"
Cameron closed the distance before answering, and when she did her voice was low, almost covert. "You want to get something to drink?"
"What?" Chase choked out. "Why are you asking?"
"Because this friend of mine asked me that when I was having a bad day," Cameron said.]
(unnamed) - In which House and his ducklings find themselves in the Wayang Kulit version of Silent Hill
["You got us out of it."
He wasn't enjoying this. He could cope with her being hesitant, awkward, belligerent, defensive, humiliated, furious, smug, high--she had an impressive emotional arsenal, but this would be the first time she'd broken out "meek" on him. Emotional damage just follows this woman, he thought. Like a puppy on a leash. "And your point is?"
For a second her eyes hardened. Now they were almost challenging, almost desperate. "I want to know how."]
Life on Mars
Iron Curtain - In which Sam creates his own Silent Hill
[Inside Sam, a dark rush of schadenfreude wrestles with a stabbing annoyance. "PTSD," he says again. "He was victim of trauma. I'm surprised he's managing as well as he is, given that nothing here remotely resembles a support structure."
Gene looks around the room as if expecting to find one leaning in a corner.
"You need to listen to me," Sam says. "I can help."
"I don't need help from you," Gene says, unconvincingly. "And, quite frankly, I think Ray'd rather die." ]
Star of Ares - In which Sam Tyler is a 1973 double-agent involved in something called Operation MARS
[1.07 - "You were the only one I could trust!" Gene said, and instead of it being a compliment, it took the ground right out from under him.
"The only one who was expendable."
"Well, isn't that how you've always fancied yourself?" Gene demanded. "A moral compass in a dodgy department?"
Sam was listing toward a desk, and sank onto its edge. Either he knows more than he realizes, or he knows more than he's telling. I can't afford to assume it's the former. This wasn't right. He wasn't supposed to be the one feeling betrayed.]
[2.01 - "--with you lot waiting to hang me up from the nearest tree!"
The instant he finished, he blanched--he hadn't meant to say that, hadn't meant to say any of it, and now Gene was staring at him as if one or both of them had been shot in the gut. Sam gaped, looking for something to say or some way to excuse himself, and Gene's expression wound down to a guarded, neutral frown. "You don't trust us," he said.
Sam swallowed back bile. "Do you trust me?"
Gene looked at him, jaw clenched, as if he was trying not to say something. "Well, that's hardly the point now, is it?"]
[2.02 - Morgan paused. Sam could practically hear the surprise. "Sam, is that you?"
"It's a hard job," he said. "It's harder than you think. I will not let you compromise this operation."
When Morgan spoke again, he sounded distinctly unsettled. "Is this an emergency?"
"Keep your people away from me," Sam said, and hung up before he had a chance to wonder why they weren't our people in his mind.]
[2.07 - "You had to believe Gene was innocent, didn't you?" Annie asked. "Couldn't bear to think he might betray you."
He shouldn't have drunk. It was a struggle to keep his face even, and Annie saw that. You have no idea what it means for us to betray each other.]
[2.08 - "You should be in jail," Morgan said, voice impossibly smooth.
"Yeah, not yet, y'smug arse-faced--" Gene ran out of insults, or the will to spout them. "Bastard," he finished lamely.]
Stargate: SG-1
Beneath A Beating Sun - In which an alien base may or may not be more trauma than it's worth
["Now," Jack suggested. "McKay, we're going to need that shield up, really fast."
"I understand that," McKay said. "But you can't just ignore the laws of computational mechanics whenever it's convenient for you!"]
Bullet - In which time is like a bullet from behind
[Sam thinks of time with religious technicality. A second is defined as the amount of time it takes a cesium atom at ground state to transition between its two hyperfine levels 9,192,631,770 times. She's known the number since she was fifteen, had it memorized since 19.]
Grinding Effeta Flour - In which Daniel finds his place on Abydos
[Three weeks in he's still having trouble mentally re-writing Sha'uri (maiden) to Sha're (wed).]
Rubicon - In which the SGC is disbanded and everything goes to shit
["I'm going to kill him," Sam said, with a steely cool Daniel had never heard from her. He knew she was serious before he'd registered what she'd said.
He swallowed. "Ba'al?"
"Kinsey," Sam said. "But you're right. Ba'al first."]
(unnamed) - In which SG1 is improperly equipped to deal with Silent Hill
[(And he wanted to think that Carter was right, because Carter was always right, but he was finding it hard to breathe in the smoke and the fog and she had told him "It's not toxic, sir. In fact, it's technically not here at all.")]
Dark Matter - In which the SGC should have been more careful what it wished for
["Honestly," Ba'al muttered. "You cry more than any host I've ever had."
I find that hard to believe, the Colonel shot back.
"Contrary to popular Tau'ri belief," Ba'al said, leaning back and examining one wrist, "joining oneself to one's god is not altogether an unpleasant experience. What have you done to this body?"
You, the response came, swift and sharp, are not my god. And my body is none of your business.]
Fathers of Song - In which the ancients are not good people
[Leonidas - Echeon unravelled. He turned to energy, spooling out from a central point and reaching long tendrils toward Jack's face. Jack stepped back, but not far or fast enough to preventing Echeon from grabbing him, light in his eyes and warmth in his ears.
It came attached with a twisted, funhouse-mirror sense of self, an intimate familiarity with this complete stranger. If he was a stranger. Jack couldn't pin down thew specifics and didn't want to try, but it reminded him of his Special Ops days--people who lived on the edge of themselves. Echeon had been trapped in his mind for centuries on end and had never gone madder than he was. Jack respected that, and it alarmed him.]
[Ikaros - Jack exhaled, exasperated. "Look, you toured Europe, right? You saw Dachau and Auschwitz?"
Daniel nodded. With all his mind had been put through in the last few years, he was honestly surprised he remembered any of it. Most of what he remembered was blank non-comprehension, looking at the bunks and the baths and trying to match the images with numbers, with people, with experience. He could hold one or two of them concepts in his mind at once, but couldn't reconcile them into a whole. On occasion he wondered what he would think if he went back now.
"Don't go," Jack said.
He was already checking through his standard kit, testing the spare batteries for his video camera, sliding a new journal in along the seam of the bag. "Orbieus said that if I wanted to understand the Ancients I had to see this," he said.
"Why?"
"Because," he said, and ran out of words. "I have to."]
[Eurydike - Daniel left for Nekroseion again. The Prometheus approached its target. She waited, because everything she could do had been done on both fronts.
When Operation Tibbets hit zero hour, she sat at her laptop to read the reports. When they came they would be dry and scientific, representing none of the lives lost. Maybe that was why Daniel had gone--searching for a way to make it real.
She never saw the reports. Encoded transmission would take a good seventeen minutes from where the Prometheus was, and twelve minutes into the wait Sergeant Harriman appeared at her door and announced that she was needed in the General's office, that the General was dead.]
[Askepios - Orbieus started forward, thrown past shock at Echeon's words. "These people are dying. We are killing them!"
Echeon surged up. "Finish the job!"
Orbieus stood firm. "I will not."
"Then tell them," Echeon's voice was dark and breathy, "that we have destroyed nine tenths of the city, that they must scavenge among the stores for the rest of their lives because we have not enough people to work the industries. Tell them that their friends and families and the ones they passed on the street are dead and gone, and that it is time to wait for plague to come."
Orbieus faltered.
Echeon nodded. "Finish the job."]