Present Tense, by Debby (PG)
Rec Category: General Hammond
Pairing: none
Category: General Hammond, episode related, character study, angst, timefic
Warning: none
Author on LJ: unknown
Author's Website: unknown
Link: Present Tense
Why This Must Be Read: This short story, told entirely from Hammond's POV, leads up to the events of 1969 from the painful position of one who knows what is going to happen and is afraid to stop it. How difficult was it for George to set things in motion, knowing how dangerous it would be for SG-1 to follow the time loop back into the past?
Unlike my other 1969 rec, this short fic concentrates entirely on the "night before," when General Hammond sees the gash on Sam's hand and realizes that it's finally time for him to do his part for destiny. Most moving, to my mind, was his determination to give them a proper, quiet sendoff - not by spending those last few hours with them, aware that too many things might happen that might prevent them from coming back, but by ordering them home for a good night's rest.
As George himself puts it, it's never easy - even for those who never step through the Gate.
He’d always known the mandate he’d agreed to on an unnamed New Mexico road in ‘69 would be hard, but it grew downright painful as time progressed--as he met and grew attached to them all.
Just how difficult it would be had been driven home the day he went to dinner with his friend Jacob and met his tow-headed little girl, Sam. Captain Samantha Carter. She'd introduced herself clearly in that truck so long ago. Stunned into speechlessness, George wasn’t much of a conversationalist that evening. Looking back, it was a damn good thing Jacob hadn’t put much stock in that dinner as an indication of his friend’s social abilities. He watched the kid all evening, playing with her toys and talking a mile a minute. This would be her. The woman he would meet in the past.
Time travel sure played hell with a man’s verb tenses.
At the time, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with this new information. Should he help her along to becoming what it appeared she would be? Should he tell her? Not tell her? Should he steer clear of her, so as to avoid altering her life course?
The irony was that the one person he could ask was the one person on the planet he couldn't ask.
So, he'd tried to stay out of it as she grew up. Kept an eye on her career, occasionally wondering what it would be that would lead her to his past self.
Then, he’d been handed the Stargate assignment. From the first report he’d seen, he started to have a new suspicion. The time was getting near. He was getting near. The Gate had to be involved in this little time travel thing. An unknown and powerful alien artifact that transported people all the way across the galaxy? There was no way it was a coincidence.
It was all confirmed when Captain Samantha Carter’s name showed up on the short list. So, he'd rubber-stamped her transfer without second thought and brought her onto SG1 despite Colonel O’Neill’s misgivings. Or his rather vocal arguments.
Then, he'd stepped back to wait and see how this would all unravel itself. It turned out to be a very short wait.
O’Neill had returned from Abydos with Dr. Daniel Jackson, Ph.D. George didn't think much of Jackson at the time, partly due to his part in the lie O'Neill had perpetrated on the US government. He hated being lied to.
Then, the first mission to Chulak. A return with Teal'c in tow.
That was when George had seen it. Or, rather, them. All four of them together in action.
Teal'c had been a tough person to forget. And there, with O’Neill and Jackson and Carter, he realized this was it. Them. They'd found each other with little help from him. And they were starting out on something that would eventually lead to things no one even contemplated.