[Fic: SG-1] W is for Wait What
Title: W is for Wait What
Author: magistrate
Rating: T.
Genre: Echidnafic. (By which I mean, crack written with a serious tone.)
Beta: Fig Newton.
Continuity: What do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhino? S10. Post-200, sometime in in the undefined chronology of Memento Mori.
Prerequisities: 200. 1969. A Hundred Days. Fragile Balance. Brief Candle. Uhh, Revelations. Memento Mori. Maybe some other stuff. Iono.
Summary: All starting to make sense now, isn't it? (You have to remember. It was the sixties.)
Disclaimer: This is all Fig's fault. Blame Fig. Blaaaame Fig. The opinions expressed herein are the properties of the characters and not of the AABB. Every attempt is made to avoid favoritism, the appearance of favoritism, and conflicts of interest in employment decisions. Questions, comments and chromosomes can be left in replies or directed to magistrata(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you for reading!
-
They gathered in the briefing room with no idea what to expect, hoping it would be news about Vala. Landry strolled in with a stack of folders as they were getting situated, looking like he knew something the rest of them didn't. As per usual.
"General," Daniel greeted. "What's this about?"
Landry took his seat, and tapped the edges of the folders against the table. "While the SGC is continuing to look into the whereabouts of Ms. Mal Doran, SG-1 has something somewhat more immediate to take care of," he said.
"More immediate," Daniel said. Landry looked at him.
"Much as I wish I could give you something constructive to do regarding Vala's disappearance, all our leads have gone cold," he said. "So, yes. More immediate. I need you to patch up a rather large potential embarrassment for the SGC."
Sam raised her eyebrows. "An 'embarrassment', sir?"
"Potential. Probably just a misunderstanding. It has to do with Colonel Mitchell," Landry said, and looked across at him. He didn't seem overly concerned, though. More... quietly amused.
Cam, who had been idly toying with a wooden pencil, looked up. "Me? Why? What did I do?"
"There have been certain aspersions cast on your appointment to lead SG-1," Landry said, with an expression that said Someday, we'll look back on this and laugh. Well, you'll look back on this and laugh. I'm already laughing. "You know, the usual. Nepotism. That sort of thing."
"Nepotism?" Daniel asked, before Cam could say anything. Landry held up a hand.
"Hear me out," he said. "A couple of the lab boys have been spending their time mapping out the genomes of everyone in the SGC." He flipped the folders onto the table. "And apparently, they started with all the members of SG-1." He gave a quiet, curtailed chuckle. "I think the rationale was, 'they're all freaks and mutants anyway.'"
"Charmed," Cam said, and took one of the folders. "What's that have to do with me?"
"Well, take a look," Landry said.
They did.
Daniel paged through a couple of sheets, then paused. "Wait a minute, why is Jack's information in here?"
"Members of SG-1, past and present," Landry said. "Apparently General O'Neill left a few vials of blood in Infirmary storage when he left for Washington."
"Uh-oh," Sam said. Cam glanced at her.
"'Uh-oh'?"
"And, she gets it," Landry said, and raised his eyebrows at Cameron. "Colonel Mitchell, you may want to compare your own record with General O'Neill's."
"Okay," Cam said, and pulled out the relevant pages. "And what am I looking for?"
Then he trailed off.
Teal'c, beside him, arched an eyebrow.
"For those of you who skipped out on your highschool biology," Landry said, "what you're looking at there is two distinctly related individuals. Colonel Mitchell? If our lab was certified by the AABB, that right there would be admissible in a court of law as evidence that Jack O'Neill was your father."
No one knew what to say about that for a moment.
Then Cam flipped his folder closed. "General." He pressed his fingertips into the briefing table. "My team already pulled this joke on me once. I'm not going to fall for it a second time."
"Unfortunately, this stuff is a little higher-grade than the wool they might have pulled over your eyes," Landry said. "It's also rather concerning to the IOA, and could be quite a juicy little bit of data to certain enemies of this program who would like nothing more than to uncover a hint of corruption."
Cam watched him for a moment. Then, flatly, said "You can't be serious."
"Oh, I can be," Landry said. "And at this moment, I choose to be."
"Colonel O'Neill did not approve of any of us exploring the nineteen-sixties unaccompanied," Teal'c said. "I do not believe he would have had time to father a child in that era without any of us noticing. Nor do I believe he could have returned to the nineteen sixties at any point following."
"Well, that's reassuring," Cam said. His tone, on the other hand, said I'd like to stop having this conversation right about now.
"Well, that's good to know," Landry said. "Unfortunately, DNA testing doesn't lie. Which is why I would like you, SG-1, to get to the bottom of this."
They looked at each other.
"Okay," Daniel said. "I'm... fairly sure we can do that. Does Jack know about this?"
"Oh, he's being contacted," Landry said. "If you listen very closely, you might be able to hear the awkward silence coming from the direction of Washington."
In was Teal'c who interjected, with remarkable aplomb, "This will be a refreshing change from the usual 'spin'."
Everyone stared at him for a moment.
"Anyway," Landry said, "you have your work cut out for you." He pushed himself away from the table. "Best of luck."
He walked away.
Sam, Daniel and Cam stood, more following on the General's example than actually raring to go, and paused around the table. "Okay, wait, did we just have the conversation I thought we just had?" Daniel asked.
"I believe we discussed the possibility that Cameron Mitchell is General O'Neill's illegitimate son," Teal'c said.
"I am not," Cameron started, and Daniel cleared his throat and spoke right over him.
"Right. So assuming this isn't all some sort of wacky dream..."
"What's going on?" Sam finished.
"I'd like to know," Cam said. He crossed his arms. "Speaking of things I'd like to know, weren't you supposed to back me up, there?"
Daniel looked at Sam.
Sam looked between the two of them, and drew back. "I'm not a geneticist!" she protested.
Cam turned to her. "Sam. Come on. You know this is ridiculous."
Sam shifted uneasily. "I don't buy it either," she said, "but you have to admit - well, there have been times when-"
"That was once and he was drugged," Daniel said.
Sam shifted a bit more uneasily. "...and Edora," she added.
"Stuck on a planet for three months. I think you're officially allowed to become antsy after the fifth week of 'no hope of returning home'."
"Okay, I know that isn't a regulation," Cam said. Daniel shrugged.
"Well, there seem to be a lot of things you don't know."
Cam glared.
Daniel took a breath, and turned to Sam. "Wouldn't that have serious repercussions on our timeline ?" he asked. "I mean, wouldn't there be a paradox, or something we would notice?"
"What, like we'd all be speaking German?" Cam asked.
"Well, paradoxes don't really work that way," Sam said, and then everyone was looking at her.
"Really," Cam said. His voice could have been flatter, but not without an industrial press.
Sam looked at him. Then at Daniel.
"...I'm going to go do some calculations. In my lab," she said.
-
Saturday brought with it light drizzle, a working weekend, an SGC CMO who was doing an admirable job at not looking bewildered or amused, and one very annoyed Brigadier General, fresh-picked from Washington.
"All right," he said, as they settled in around the briefing room table. "Now that I've come all the way back here, I would like one of you to explain what's going on. Preferably in a way that makes a little sense. Carter?"
Sam, who'd just sat down herself, gave an incredulous look to the group at large. "Why is everyone looking at me to solve this? I don't have any idea what's going on!"
"Well, come up with something, could you?" General O'Neill asked.
At the head of the table, Landry cleared his throat. "We have gone back through the original mission reports from the P2X-555 mishap," he said. "So far as we can reconstruct, Teal'c is right - no member of SG-1 was ever unaccounted-for for any significant period of time." He tapped the sheet of paper in front of him. "Except for one hour in which Dr. Jackson and Captain Carter were speaking with Ms. Langford, and Teal'c had apparently decided to catch up on his kel'no'reem."
"For crying out loud," General O'Neill growled. "You cannot possibly think I went out, found a woman, seduced her, and had a - a dalliance all in the space of - what? What was it? One hour?" He looked at Landry.
"Of course not," Landry said. "That would be ridiculous. But it is the picture we're pretty sure the IOA is going to draw."
"Because none of them have any conception of how this world works," Daniel muttered, beneath his breath.
Cam made a small, amused noise, but it really wasn't as amused as it was annoyed.
"So we need to present a plausible alternate explanation," Sam said.
Landry nodded. "You've got it. Anyone have an idea?"
A beat of silence passed around the table.
Cam looked to Carolyn. "Okay, I know it doesn't work this way, but could this be some sort of weird case of convergent evolution?"
"Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way," Carolyn said.
"Of course it doesn't," Cam said. "Anyone else have any ideas?"
Carolyn looked to Landry. Landry looked around the table. Daniel headdesked. So did General O'Neill, and at almost the exact same time.
Sam frowned at the files. "Hang on a second."
General O'Neill picked up his head and said, in a low sing-song, "This is why we pay you."
Sam cast him an annoyed look, and said "It's only a theory."
"Which is?" Cam prompted.
"Well, sir," she said, looking to General O'Neill and clearly not wanting to broach said theory. "There have been people... interested in your genetic structure before."
It took a moment.
Then Daniel raised his head, looked at her, and said "Loki?" in the tone he used about Vala, half the time.
"Wait," Cameron said. "The Asgard who-"
"Yes, that one," General O'Neill growled. "Carter..."
She shrugged helplessly. "It does make a certain amount of sense, sir."
Cameron suspected, and suspected strongly, that buried behind the acute discomfort of explaining to a one-star General how his genetic code might have been spread across the United States, Sam was a lot less helpless and a lot more laughing at him than she was letting on.
"So, you think that Loki broke out his chemistry set, stole some of General O'Neill's DNA, and made a little baby boy who just happened to go into the exact same profession and wound up taking over the exact same command?"
The discomfort, though, was probably not feigned. Sam sidled. "That's... not exactly what I think."
Daniel headdesked again.
"Loki tends to do things in sets," he said, words muffled by the briefing room table. "Where there's one, there's probably more."
Sam made a What he said gesture at him.
"All right. I've heard enough. More than enough," General O'Neill said, standing. "Excuse me. I'm going to make a very annoyed phone call to a little grey man."
-
"Phone call", in this case, was more like "Trip to Cimmeria, where Thor didn't pick up, followed by a trip to K'tau, where Freyr took an extremely annoyed message and promised, with strained goodwill, to see if the Supreme Commander had 'time to address the extremely peripheral concerns of the Earth administration'". Which only meant, fortunately, six or seven hours where General O'Neill stewed and Cam beat up an unsuspecting punching bag and Sam retreated to the MALP bay before Landry came onto the base intercom and said, "Colonel Mitchell, General O'Neill, you're needed in the briefing room."
Where, when they assembled, they found a hologram of Thor sitting at the head of the table.
"Thor. Old buddy," General O'Neill said, though his voice was not as buddy-friendly as his words might lead one to believe.
"O'Neill," Thor said. "General Landry has informed me of your situation. I have taken the liberty of having Loki's files searched."
"And?" Cam said.
Thor looked at him for a moment, then back to O'Neill. "There is some indication that he was performing experiments with recombinant human DNA in the time period you indicated," he said. "His notes referred to a promising specimen whom he was unable to locate after his first extraction."
"Because you were no longer in 1969 by the second time he looked," Cameron guessed.
General O'Neill shot a look at him, then at the hologram. "Thor," he said, with the light edge to his voice that said If we weren't old buddies, this conversation would be taking place on significantly less friendly terms. "I thought you put a marker in my DNA to prevent this sort of thing from happening."
Thor's eyes half-closed. "Yes," he confirmed. "Unfortunately it was not until after your assistance extracting Heimdall from his genetics lab that I was able to persuade the Asgard High Council that your genetic code required safeguards. Loki was not forthcoming with details of his prior indiscretions, or I would have alerted you."
"Can we not call those 'indiscretions'?" Cam said.
"You have my apologies," Thor said. "If you prefer, we can scan your world for further evidence of Loki's genetic recombination program. Any additional chimeras could be located and dealt with."
Cam stepped forward. "And by 'chimeras' you mean people like me, don't you?" It wasn't exactly a question. More like a subtle reminder that he was standing right there.
Thor didn't seem to care. "We could likely restore their original DNA without alerting or damaging the human subjects."
"That might be nice," General O'Neill said.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Cam said. "You're talking about altering my DNA. The DNA I've grown up with. I mean." He glanced over at the General. "I know it's his DNA, but shouldn't I get a say in this?"
Thor's eyes widened.
General O'Neill turned away from the hologram. "Colonel," he said.
"No, I know," Cam said, holding up a hand. "And - believe me, sir, I find this just as weird as you do. But I'd also find-" he turned to Thor. "-restructuring my DNA just a little bit weird."
"Colonel," the General said again. "This is the easiest way to get rid of a liability."
"Yes, sir, I know that," Cam said. "And you can say that because it's not your DNA being altered."
"We have already altered O'Neill's DNA," Thor said.
The General shrugged. "Yeah. See?"
Cam pointed at Thor. "You're not helping."
Landry, who'd seemed content to let Thor take on the burden of explaining, looked up from his seat at the table. "Colonel, obviously I'm a little fuzzy on exactly how authorized I am to order you to alter your own DNA, but..."
"But, you'd appreciate it if I took one for the team," Cam said.
"Yeah," General O'Neill said, and shrugged. "For the team."
Cam groaned.
He closed his eyes for a moment, tried to summon up the serenity of mind to say a Hail Mary or a Lord's Prayer or even just count to ten a couple times, exhaled, and did what any self-respecting member of SG-1 usually wound up doing: choose to damn the consequences and take the leap.
"Fine. Fine." He opened his eyes, and looked at Thor. "Just so I know, I'm still going to be - well, me, right? After you do this thing?"
"Your physical characteristics, specialized skills and knowledge, and personality will remain as they are," Thor said.
"All right." Cam exhaled. "Now, seeing as you're already messing with my DNA, I don't suppose you could throw in the ATA gene? You know. As compensation."
Thor considered.
-
The meeting concluded with promises of an Asgard science vessel coming "as soon as one became available." Which apparently didn't mean anytime that night, and Cam grumped his way into the commissary the next morning before just about anyone else was awake. He hadn't slept much, anyway.
He found General O'Neill there, sitting alone by a corner, and decided to get his breakfast and join him. Couldn't have said why. It seemed like the thing to do.
"Mind if I join you?"
The General glanced up, and motioned to an empty seat.
Cam sat.
And they sat in silence for a minute or so.
The General was glaring down at his blueberry pancakes, and Cam was toying with a cinnamon roll and glaring at everything indiscriminately. "Work here long enough," the General said, flicking a blueberry at his coffee mug, "and you begin to get the feeling that we're like very complicated fish to the Asgard."
"I am not a fish," Cameron said.
O'Neill stared at him for a moment. "You're missing the point."
"The point," Cam said. "The point where we're free-range guinea pigs?"
"Yes. Or that," the General said.
There was silence for a moment longer. At least it was a companionable, if grumpy, sort of silence.
"Sir?" Cam asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I am really glad we're not related."
"Could have been awkward," the General agreed.
"And - no offense - but I like my parents just fine, the way they are. Who they are."
The General took a drink from his coffee. "No offense taken."
Cam spun his roll on his plate.
"So," he said. "We just have to wait until the Asgard think it's convenient to pick me up for this little operation?"
"Yeah, the Asgard prefer it when we don't call them, they call us," the General said, and checked his watch. "I wouldn't worry too much. They may be small, too smart for their own good, and annoying from time to time, but if nothing else, they tend to have a great sense of-"
Cam disappeared in a flash of white light.
"-timing."
Jack watched his empty seat for a moment, then reached over and took the roll.
"Godspeed," he muttered, and bit in.
- END -
{{Feel free to comment here, but the cool version of this post was posted to Dreamwidth. You can join the party over there.}}
Author: magistrate
Rating: T.
Genre: Echidnafic. (By which I mean, crack written with a serious tone.)
Beta: Fig Newton.
Continuity: What do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhino? S10. Post-200, sometime in in the undefined chronology of Memento Mori.
Prerequisities: 200. 1969. A Hundred Days. Fragile Balance. Brief Candle. Uhh, Revelations. Memento Mori. Maybe some other stuff. Iono.
Summary: All starting to make sense now, isn't it? (You have to remember. It was the sixties.)
Disclaimer: This is all Fig's fault. Blame Fig. Blaaaame Fig. The opinions expressed herein are the properties of the characters and not of the AABB. Every attempt is made to avoid favoritism, the appearance of favoritism, and conflicts of interest in employment decisions. Questions, comments and chromosomes can be left in replies or directed to magistrata(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you for reading!
-
They gathered in the briefing room with no idea what to expect, hoping it would be news about Vala. Landry strolled in with a stack of folders as they were getting situated, looking like he knew something the rest of them didn't. As per usual.
"General," Daniel greeted. "What's this about?"
Landry took his seat, and tapped the edges of the folders against the table. "While the SGC is continuing to look into the whereabouts of Ms. Mal Doran, SG-1 has something somewhat more immediate to take care of," he said.
"More immediate," Daniel said. Landry looked at him.
"Much as I wish I could give you something constructive to do regarding Vala's disappearance, all our leads have gone cold," he said. "So, yes. More immediate. I need you to patch up a rather large potential embarrassment for the SGC."
Sam raised her eyebrows. "An 'embarrassment', sir?"
"Potential. Probably just a misunderstanding. It has to do with Colonel Mitchell," Landry said, and looked across at him. He didn't seem overly concerned, though. More... quietly amused.
Cam, who had been idly toying with a wooden pencil, looked up. "Me? Why? What did I do?"
"There have been certain aspersions cast on your appointment to lead SG-1," Landry said, with an expression that said Someday, we'll look back on this and laugh. Well, you'll look back on this and laugh. I'm already laughing. "You know, the usual. Nepotism. That sort of thing."
"Nepotism?" Daniel asked, before Cam could say anything. Landry held up a hand.
"Hear me out," he said. "A couple of the lab boys have been spending their time mapping out the genomes of everyone in the SGC." He flipped the folders onto the table. "And apparently, they started with all the members of SG-1." He gave a quiet, curtailed chuckle. "I think the rationale was, 'they're all freaks and mutants anyway.'"
"Charmed," Cam said, and took one of the folders. "What's that have to do with me?"
"Well, take a look," Landry said.
They did.
Daniel paged through a couple of sheets, then paused. "Wait a minute, why is Jack's information in here?"
"Members of SG-1, past and present," Landry said. "Apparently General O'Neill left a few vials of blood in Infirmary storage when he left for Washington."
"Uh-oh," Sam said. Cam glanced at her.
"'Uh-oh'?"
"And, she gets it," Landry said, and raised his eyebrows at Cameron. "Colonel Mitchell, you may want to compare your own record with General O'Neill's."
"Okay," Cam said, and pulled out the relevant pages. "And what am I looking for?"
Then he trailed off.
Teal'c, beside him, arched an eyebrow.
"For those of you who skipped out on your highschool biology," Landry said, "what you're looking at there is two distinctly related individuals. Colonel Mitchell? If our lab was certified by the AABB, that right there would be admissible in a court of law as evidence that Jack O'Neill was your father."
No one knew what to say about that for a moment.
Then Cam flipped his folder closed. "General." He pressed his fingertips into the briefing table. "My team already pulled this joke on me once. I'm not going to fall for it a second time."
"Unfortunately, this stuff is a little higher-grade than the wool they might have pulled over your eyes," Landry said. "It's also rather concerning to the IOA, and could be quite a juicy little bit of data to certain enemies of this program who would like nothing more than to uncover a hint of corruption."
Cam watched him for a moment. Then, flatly, said "You can't be serious."
"Oh, I can be," Landry said. "And at this moment, I choose to be."
"Colonel O'Neill did not approve of any of us exploring the nineteen-sixties unaccompanied," Teal'c said. "I do not believe he would have had time to father a child in that era without any of us noticing. Nor do I believe he could have returned to the nineteen sixties at any point following."
"Well, that's reassuring," Cam said. His tone, on the other hand, said I'd like to stop having this conversation right about now.
"Well, that's good to know," Landry said. "Unfortunately, DNA testing doesn't lie. Which is why I would like you, SG-1, to get to the bottom of this."
They looked at each other.
"Okay," Daniel said. "I'm... fairly sure we can do that. Does Jack know about this?"
"Oh, he's being contacted," Landry said. "If you listen very closely, you might be able to hear the awkward silence coming from the direction of Washington."
In was Teal'c who interjected, with remarkable aplomb, "This will be a refreshing change from the usual 'spin'."
Everyone stared at him for a moment.
"Anyway," Landry said, "you have your work cut out for you." He pushed himself away from the table. "Best of luck."
He walked away.
Sam, Daniel and Cam stood, more following on the General's example than actually raring to go, and paused around the table. "Okay, wait, did we just have the conversation I thought we just had?" Daniel asked.
"I believe we discussed the possibility that Cameron Mitchell is General O'Neill's illegitimate son," Teal'c said.
"I am not," Cameron started, and Daniel cleared his throat and spoke right over him.
"Right. So assuming this isn't all some sort of wacky dream..."
"What's going on?" Sam finished.
"I'd like to know," Cam said. He crossed his arms. "Speaking of things I'd like to know, weren't you supposed to back me up, there?"
Daniel looked at Sam.
Sam looked between the two of them, and drew back. "I'm not a geneticist!" she protested.
Cam turned to her. "Sam. Come on. You know this is ridiculous."
Sam shifted uneasily. "I don't buy it either," she said, "but you have to admit - well, there have been times when-"
"That was once and he was drugged," Daniel said.
Sam shifted a bit more uneasily. "...and Edora," she added.
"Stuck on a planet for three months. I think you're officially allowed to become antsy after the fifth week of 'no hope of returning home'."
"Okay, I know that isn't a regulation," Cam said. Daniel shrugged.
"Well, there seem to be a lot of things you don't know."
Cam glared.
Daniel took a breath, and turned to Sam. "Wouldn't that have serious repercussions on our timeline ?" he asked. "I mean, wouldn't there be a paradox, or something we would notice?"
"What, like we'd all be speaking German?" Cam asked.
"Well, paradoxes don't really work that way," Sam said, and then everyone was looking at her.
"Really," Cam said. His voice could have been flatter, but not without an industrial press.
Sam looked at him. Then at Daniel.
"...I'm going to go do some calculations. In my lab," she said.
-
Saturday brought with it light drizzle, a working weekend, an SGC CMO who was doing an admirable job at not looking bewildered or amused, and one very annoyed Brigadier General, fresh-picked from Washington.
"All right," he said, as they settled in around the briefing room table. "Now that I've come all the way back here, I would like one of you to explain what's going on. Preferably in a way that makes a little sense. Carter?"
Sam, who'd just sat down herself, gave an incredulous look to the group at large. "Why is everyone looking at me to solve this? I don't have any idea what's going on!"
"Well, come up with something, could you?" General O'Neill asked.
At the head of the table, Landry cleared his throat. "We have gone back through the original mission reports from the P2X-555 mishap," he said. "So far as we can reconstruct, Teal'c is right - no member of SG-1 was ever unaccounted-for for any significant period of time." He tapped the sheet of paper in front of him. "Except for one hour in which Dr. Jackson and Captain Carter were speaking with Ms. Langford, and Teal'c had apparently decided to catch up on his kel'no'reem."
"For crying out loud," General O'Neill growled. "You cannot possibly think I went out, found a woman, seduced her, and had a - a dalliance all in the space of - what? What was it? One hour?" He looked at Landry.
"Of course not," Landry said. "That would be ridiculous. But it is the picture we're pretty sure the IOA is going to draw."
"Because none of them have any conception of how this world works," Daniel muttered, beneath his breath.
Cam made a small, amused noise, but it really wasn't as amused as it was annoyed.
"So we need to present a plausible alternate explanation," Sam said.
Landry nodded. "You've got it. Anyone have an idea?"
A beat of silence passed around the table.
Cam looked to Carolyn. "Okay, I know it doesn't work this way, but could this be some sort of weird case of convergent evolution?"
"Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way," Carolyn said.
"Of course it doesn't," Cam said. "Anyone else have any ideas?"
Carolyn looked to Landry. Landry looked around the table. Daniel headdesked. So did General O'Neill, and at almost the exact same time.
Sam frowned at the files. "Hang on a second."
General O'Neill picked up his head and said, in a low sing-song, "This is why we pay you."
Sam cast him an annoyed look, and said "It's only a theory."
"Which is?" Cam prompted.
"Well, sir," she said, looking to General O'Neill and clearly not wanting to broach said theory. "There have been people... interested in your genetic structure before."
It took a moment.
Then Daniel raised his head, looked at her, and said "Loki?" in the tone he used about Vala, half the time.
"Wait," Cameron said. "The Asgard who-"
"Yes, that one," General O'Neill growled. "Carter..."
She shrugged helplessly. "It does make a certain amount of sense, sir."
Cameron suspected, and suspected strongly, that buried behind the acute discomfort of explaining to a one-star General how his genetic code might have been spread across the United States, Sam was a lot less helpless and a lot more laughing at him than she was letting on.
"So, you think that Loki broke out his chemistry set, stole some of General O'Neill's DNA, and made a little baby boy who just happened to go into the exact same profession and wound up taking over the exact same command?"
The discomfort, though, was probably not feigned. Sam sidled. "That's... not exactly what I think."
Daniel headdesked again.
"Loki tends to do things in sets," he said, words muffled by the briefing room table. "Where there's one, there's probably more."
Sam made a What he said gesture at him.
"All right. I've heard enough. More than enough," General O'Neill said, standing. "Excuse me. I'm going to make a very annoyed phone call to a little grey man."
-
"Phone call", in this case, was more like "Trip to Cimmeria, where Thor didn't pick up, followed by a trip to K'tau, where Freyr took an extremely annoyed message and promised, with strained goodwill, to see if the Supreme Commander had 'time to address the extremely peripheral concerns of the Earth administration'". Which only meant, fortunately, six or seven hours where General O'Neill stewed and Cam beat up an unsuspecting punching bag and Sam retreated to the MALP bay before Landry came onto the base intercom and said, "Colonel Mitchell, General O'Neill, you're needed in the briefing room."
Where, when they assembled, they found a hologram of Thor sitting at the head of the table.
"Thor. Old buddy," General O'Neill said, though his voice was not as buddy-friendly as his words might lead one to believe.
"O'Neill," Thor said. "General Landry has informed me of your situation. I have taken the liberty of having Loki's files searched."
"And?" Cam said.
Thor looked at him for a moment, then back to O'Neill. "There is some indication that he was performing experiments with recombinant human DNA in the time period you indicated," he said. "His notes referred to a promising specimen whom he was unable to locate after his first extraction."
"Because you were no longer in 1969 by the second time he looked," Cameron guessed.
General O'Neill shot a look at him, then at the hologram. "Thor," he said, with the light edge to his voice that said If we weren't old buddies, this conversation would be taking place on significantly less friendly terms. "I thought you put a marker in my DNA to prevent this sort of thing from happening."
Thor's eyes half-closed. "Yes," he confirmed. "Unfortunately it was not until after your assistance extracting Heimdall from his genetics lab that I was able to persuade the Asgard High Council that your genetic code required safeguards. Loki was not forthcoming with details of his prior indiscretions, or I would have alerted you."
"Can we not call those 'indiscretions'?" Cam said.
"You have my apologies," Thor said. "If you prefer, we can scan your world for further evidence of Loki's genetic recombination program. Any additional chimeras could be located and dealt with."
Cam stepped forward. "And by 'chimeras' you mean people like me, don't you?" It wasn't exactly a question. More like a subtle reminder that he was standing right there.
Thor didn't seem to care. "We could likely restore their original DNA without alerting or damaging the human subjects."
"That might be nice," General O'Neill said.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Cam said. "You're talking about altering my DNA. The DNA I've grown up with. I mean." He glanced over at the General. "I know it's his DNA, but shouldn't I get a say in this?"
Thor's eyes widened.
General O'Neill turned away from the hologram. "Colonel," he said.
"No, I know," Cam said, holding up a hand. "And - believe me, sir, I find this just as weird as you do. But I'd also find-" he turned to Thor. "-restructuring my DNA just a little bit weird."
"Colonel," the General said again. "This is the easiest way to get rid of a liability."
"Yes, sir, I know that," Cam said. "And you can say that because it's not your DNA being altered."
"We have already altered O'Neill's DNA," Thor said.
The General shrugged. "Yeah. See?"
Cam pointed at Thor. "You're not helping."
Landry, who'd seemed content to let Thor take on the burden of explaining, looked up from his seat at the table. "Colonel, obviously I'm a little fuzzy on exactly how authorized I am to order you to alter your own DNA, but..."
"But, you'd appreciate it if I took one for the team," Cam said.
"Yeah," General O'Neill said, and shrugged. "For the team."
Cam groaned.
He closed his eyes for a moment, tried to summon up the serenity of mind to say a Hail Mary or a Lord's Prayer or even just count to ten a couple times, exhaled, and did what any self-respecting member of SG-1 usually wound up doing: choose to damn the consequences and take the leap.
"Fine. Fine." He opened his eyes, and looked at Thor. "Just so I know, I'm still going to be - well, me, right? After you do this thing?"
"Your physical characteristics, specialized skills and knowledge, and personality will remain as they are," Thor said.
"All right." Cam exhaled. "Now, seeing as you're already messing with my DNA, I don't suppose you could throw in the ATA gene? You know. As compensation."
Thor considered.
-
The meeting concluded with promises of an Asgard science vessel coming "as soon as one became available." Which apparently didn't mean anytime that night, and Cam grumped his way into the commissary the next morning before just about anyone else was awake. He hadn't slept much, anyway.
He found General O'Neill there, sitting alone by a corner, and decided to get his breakfast and join him. Couldn't have said why. It seemed like the thing to do.
"Mind if I join you?"
The General glanced up, and motioned to an empty seat.
Cam sat.
And they sat in silence for a minute or so.
The General was glaring down at his blueberry pancakes, and Cam was toying with a cinnamon roll and glaring at everything indiscriminately. "Work here long enough," the General said, flicking a blueberry at his coffee mug, "and you begin to get the feeling that we're like very complicated fish to the Asgard."
"I am not a fish," Cameron said.
O'Neill stared at him for a moment. "You're missing the point."
"The point," Cam said. "The point where we're free-range guinea pigs?"
"Yes. Or that," the General said.
There was silence for a moment longer. At least it was a companionable, if grumpy, sort of silence.
"Sir?" Cam asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I am really glad we're not related."
"Could have been awkward," the General agreed.
"And - no offense - but I like my parents just fine, the way they are. Who they are."
The General took a drink from his coffee. "No offense taken."
Cam spun his roll on his plate.
"So," he said. "We just have to wait until the Asgard think it's convenient to pick me up for this little operation?"
"Yeah, the Asgard prefer it when we don't call them, they call us," the General said, and checked his watch. "I wouldn't worry too much. They may be small, too smart for their own good, and annoying from time to time, but if nothing else, they tend to have a great sense of-"
Cam disappeared in a flash of white light.
"-timing."
Jack watched his empty seat for a moment, then reached over and took the roll.
"Godspeed," he muttered, and bit in.
- END -
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