Family History (SGA/Traders xo Hawaii 5-0) part five

[jimandblair]

Dusk pretty much came at the same time, give or take an hour or two, at Hawai’i’s latitude. The advent of low light at early evening, compared to the higher latitude position of Atlantis on New Lantea was a little strange, since at this time of year the Suns didn’t set until after twenty three hundred hours.

John shook himself for being stupid enough be distracted during an op as he ducked and ran across the flawless lawn toward the mansion’s double doors. Flanked by Ronon and Lorne, they were the vanguard, protecting Toby and McKay, while Cody and McGarrett brought up the rear. The presence of Toby and McGarrett were a heavy weight in the back of his mind. One civilian telepath and one trained SEAL were a pretty disparate, unknown and known quantity. Responsible for upwards of two hundred military personnel; he could read a service jacket in ten seconds flat. McGarrett was dedicated and loyal but obsessive to a fault. If he had known him a little better, he would have assigned him to protect Toby.

But he didn’t know him.

Yet, an inner voice said.

Team four peeled off to deal with the guards on the grounds. Team three were positioned by the window that looked into the security room, ready to break the glass and stun the inhabitants. As team one, John’s team, went in the front door, team two, Major Harjo’s, went in the back.

Lorne set the charge on the door, pumped his fist, and contained blasts blew in the doors and windows, simultaneously.

Ronon stunned a guard right inside the foyer. The man jerked once, impressively, almost shrugging off the zat blast, before crashing on the polished floor. More stun blasts followed. John took the stairs, two steps at a time. Ronon and McGarrett kept pace. Coded updates whispered in John’s ear. Most of the security personnel had been taken out by teams four and three. The ground floor was clear. Team three was heading down to the basement and the shielded room. Major Harjo and his team were heading up the back stairs.

Ronon reacted and another guard hit the floor. Ronon jumped over her prone form. John gestured, two outstretched fingers, and Lorne, McKay and Toby arrowed off. McKay ran scrunched over his datapad, processing data as he moved.

Time to face Wo Fat and this Dragon and get all the answers, he -- they -- needed.

~*~

Rodney was ninety nine percent certain that Grant was in the room. Lorne kicked open the door and it looked empty. The operative word was looked - Grant popped out from behind the dresser.

“Rodney!” Grant darted over.

Rodney rocked against the impact as Grant burrowed in. “Hey. Hey, you’re all right. We’re here.” He tried to push him off, to get a better look. There were a couple of specks of blood on his top lip and his nose was a little swollen. Someone, somewhere had given Grant a bloody nose. That someone was going to pay.

Grant sniffed loudly and swallowed.

“We need to get out of here,” Lorne said.

“Hang on.” Toby held a pressure syringe.

Grant eeled around Rodney, putting him between Toby and the syringe. “No. No. No.”

“We don’t have time for this, Grant. You need a subcutaneous transmitter. It will take a second.” Rodney ignored Grant’s betrayed expression as he manhandled him around and yanked his shirt sleeve up.

Toby was quick, but gentle, setting the pressure syringe against Grant’s meaty bicep. He winced at the hissing sound of the gas.

“Right, we’re out of here,” Lorne gestured at the door with his zat. “Do you know where Jenna Kaye is?”

Grant ducked his chin down and stared at Rodney, perplexed.

“What?” Rodney demanded.

“She’s a bad person. She’s working with Wo Fat. Haven’t you figured that out?”

~*~

Several hours earlier.

Grant had a picture in his head of the SEAL based on what he knew of Flyboy and the many hundreds of files, documents, and images he had flown through in the past few hours. The office did not match the picture. It was an old man’s office, with knick knacks and models. Grant picked up the decorative short paddle beside the writing pad. It was heavy. He tested the texture of the wood with his tongue: smooth. And as he mouthed it: hard.

This whole place was a study in contrasts and inconsistencies. It was sunny, but humid. He thought that he could cut the air with a knife. Jenna glanced at him, curious, taking a break from flicking aimlessly through files on her laptop.

She was inconsistent, Grant thought. Quiet and mouse-like one moment and then straightforward, pointing out her superiority the second that everyone had left the office. It was her eyebrows that really bothered him - they were finely and carefully shaped. Far too much time and professional effort had been put into their appearance. But Jenna cultivated a mien of geeky intellectual. As a true freak, Grant was very familiar with the oeuvre.

Duplicitous.

The files that she had given the H5-0 task force told an interesting story, and like most really interesting stories, they held more than a modicum of truth. But the files were mixed and muddled and meddled with so that they told only part of the real story.

She had a hack on her CIA file so that she could monitor who accessed her file. That was interesting all in its very self. But Grant hacked his own files all the time -- it was fun.

Cloning the link to her laptop, Grant watched her activity from his own computer. He could see that she was scrolling through the ongoing video observation of the palace.

Grant stood and drifted through to the giant data table following the dancing thought coalescing in his mind. The stream was there, the patterns all coming together. He dabbled his fingers over the glossy table surface. Pictures emerged from the depths of the computer. Dancing men on postcards. A car twisted into a burnt knot. A locket, old and tarnished. The real memories had been stolen away; only these ephemeral images remained.

“Oh, I’ve been very silly.”

Jenna Kaye had introduced herself to Lieutenant Commander McGarrett with a piece of the stolen evidence which the recently deceased Governor’s assistant, Laura Hills, had also been sending to McGarrett. Wo Fat and the Governor had stolen the evidence from the SEAL’s home. Jenna Kaye had never properly explained how she had gotten that single piece of evidence.

Actually, they had all been very silly.

Still it was a little circumstantial, Grant pondered. The tape could have been taken in a random raid, but Jenna Kaye had been on sabbatical for months. Why would an active CIA operative give evidence from an investigation to a mere researcher who was on a prolonged vacation?

Coupled with embedded, buried timestamp inconsistencies….

The question was: why?

“Dr. Jansky?” Dusty said softly and carefully. “Grant?”

She pushed off from the window sill, but stayed well back respecting Grant’s minimum space requirements.

“What’s up?” Dusty asked, while Grant looked for his own voice.

Warring between sidling closer to the armed woman and trying to find a closet, Grant froze.

Solution!

Grant flicked the giant screen on the table activating the keyboard and typed:

Jenna Kaye is a lying liar who lies.

Dusty rose on her toes so she could read the font 128 text from across the room.

She froze and darted a glance at the CIA operative sitting so innocently at the head of McGarrett’s desk.

Smoothly, the Marine flicked the retaining strap on her holster and drew her weapon. Grant held his breath. Dusty skirted along the side of the windowed office and ghosted into McGarrett’s domain.

The aborted huff of something sharp and constrained perplexed Grant, but he was astonished when Dusty clutched at her side, low on her abdomen and then slumped to the floor - without even a gasp of pain.

Jenna rose, and as she stood, the gun that she held at waist height was revealed.

Grant squeaked.

The hole at the end of the barrel was black as a singularity within the boundary of the Schwarzschild radius. Grant tried to remember everything that Flyboy had taught him. His mind was spinning around the impenetrable considerations of the mysteries of the distribution of prime numbers. But it couldn’t make him focus. This was unprecedented. All he could see was the long line of a barrel pointed directly at him and the deadly black hole in the centre.

~*~

John clocked Cody flanking McGarrett. Their objective lay before them. John nodded at Ronon and he kicked in the door into the main suite.

“That took long enough,” a supercilious voice drawled.

“Wo Fat!” McGarrett darted forward raising his zat - John stretched out his arm, futilely trying to stop him.

Blue lightning arced across the stretch of the sumptuous suite, unerringly aimed at the lounging man draped over a leather sofa. The lightning abruptly twisted and slammed into the wool pile, grounding harmlessly apart from a singed circle the size of a dollar.

Wo Fat did not bat an eyelid.

“Jenna?” McGarrett demanded. The CIA agent stood by the bay windows, arms crossed protectively over her chest. She turned her head, finding something interesting out through the balcony windows.

“That Jenna woman is working with Wo Fat!” McKay bellowed over everyone’s comm.

“Enough.” A tiny Japanese woman, elderly, with snow white hair, raised her hand.

John’s zat was wrenched out of his hand, simultaneously with all the other zats. A twist of her wrist and she flung them telekinetically against the far wall. Carefully, the woman pushed herself out of her high backed Queen Anne armchair. The straight lines of her traditional looking robes settled flawlessly around her, aided by a deft, mental hand.

“Ancient?” John muttered, borderline sub-vocal, into his comm hoping that Rodney would pick it up.

“I am very disappointed in you, Wo Fat,” she said, resting her hand at her throat over a grandiose necklace of filigree gold and opals. “That you allowed this affair to come to this degree of chaos is unconscionable.”

“New players entered the arena, no Kimi. I apologise, whole heartedly.” He slid off the chaise lounge and made obeisance, kneeling and setting his forehead on the floor.

“Still, it allowed me to meet McGarrett-chan.” She canted her head fractionally to the side and McGarrett made a jerking step forward.

“I--” McGarrett gritted his teeth and managed to stop his halting progress.

“Hmmm. And you.” She turned her considerable attention to John.

John braced himself. He didn’t know what it was deep inside his head that allowed him to feel Ancient tech, or now just think what he wanted to think at Toby and not let anything else pass, but he unfurled it now. His mind was his own.

“We thought that you were dead. Pointless. A mistake.”

“I get that a lot,” John said. “And then people die around me. I try to not let it bother me - so it doesn’t.”

“Who.” McGarrett took a deep breath. “Are. You?”

“Be quiet, child. I am talking with your elder brother.”

“No. I want to know!” Rivulets of sweat streamed down his face. The vein at his temple throbbed.

“YOU will do yourself an injury.” She twisted her hand and McGarrett was fired across the room. His head met the wall with a crack and he dropped, stunned, to the floor.

“No Kimi, I thought…” Wo Fat rose to his knees. “I thought that you didn’t want him hurt.”

“He looks on me with disrespect. And I have his brother.”

John curled his finger. “Bring it on.”

“So disrespectful. You know nothing of your heritage. You are a squalling, misbehaving child. Americans. Westerners. No sense of history. So short sighted.”

“Yadda yadda ya,” John said channelling McKay at his very best.

“This is remarkably serendipitous.” Her eyes narrowed. “We were dismayed when you disappeared into the grabbing maw of the American War Machine.”

“Do you have to talk like that?”

“Are you trying to anger me?”

“Is it working?”

She sniffed involuntarily. “Charming.”

John inclined his head. Her focus was totally on him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ronon straining against the invisible force field. But then again John doubted that it was a force field. This definitely was more of the psychic shit -- as O’Neill would say. It was looking more likely that this lady was an Ancient. Why was an Ancient living on Earth? Another prisoner like Chaya?

“Restrain the big one,” she ordered.

A flunkie bodyguard pushed off from the wall where he leaned. Ronon bared his teeth at the massive man. Placidly, the bodyguard zip tied Ronon’s hands behind his back and kicked him in the back of his knees, forcing him to the floor, and secured his feet.

“Shall I restrain the others, no Kimi?” he asked respectfully.

“The one with the hair the colour of dawn.”

“Yes, no Kimi.” He treated Cody in the same way as he had restrained Ronon.

“Ori?” McKay whispered in his ear piece. “But they’re all dead.”

“Do you have children, Colonel Sheppard?” the Dragon asked.

That came totally out of left field, but practically a millisecond later, John realised that it did not. They had speculated from the beginning that this was about the Ancient genes. John wondered how this creepy lady would handle Atlantis? On the heels of that random little imagining, he tried locking his thoughts down dead. He didn’t want her to know the tiniest little fact about Atlantis.

But her expression didn’t shift an iota. Was telepathy one of her skills? Outside, there was the sound of suppressed gunfire in the distance and the high pitched whine of zats. Reinforcements? SGC or more of the Yakuza?

Toby? he thought. Where are you?

::Outside the room:: There was a snapshot image of Lorne poised at the door jamb, head cocked as he listened. Rodney crouched at Lorne’s feet consulting life signs detector and laptop. There was the unmistakable feel of Grant’s solid presence at Toby’s back.

“What are you doing?” The Dragon stood before him, a finely manicured fingernail a hairsbreadth from touching the knot between his eyebrows.

Yep, definitely no sparkly Goa’uld force shield scintillating as it came in close proximity to something or someone else. If he could distract her they would be able to wrest free.

“No Kimi!” Wo Fat protested.

“He will not harm me. He wants answers. An answer for an answer, Colonel John Sheppard. I compel you to be honest.”

That kind of weirdly had an air of formality and truth.

“Okay, since you’re offering. I get to go first,” John said brightly. “Do I have your word of honour you’ll tell the truth?”

A small smile curled her top lip. She nodded, barely moving her carefully coiffured head.

“Say it,” John said uncompromisingly.

“I will tell you the truth, Sheppard-chan.”

“How did I come by my abilities?” John asked.

Eyes widening in frank surprise, she stepped back. Her reaction was an answer all in itself.

“And what are your abilities?” There was a weight behind her words, and a pressure slid off him like water off a surf board. Was she trying to make him tell the truth? Whatever it was, it wasn’t working. And curiously, she didn’t seem to know.

“Hey, you didn’t answer my question. Answer a question with a question? That’s just rude.”

“As you have no doubt surmised, through your mother’s lineage.” She pursed her lips until they were hemmed by a fine white line.

“Okay,” John said quickly. “In answer to your question. Any abilities I have are really nebulous, but very occasionally - as in hardly ever throughout my entire life - I hear thoughts. My question: what’s your connection to my birth mother?”

“She was a member of my household. I trained her. I nurtured her. I ensured that she received the best education.”

“And then you pimped her out to my dad?”

The Dragon turned away. “So coarse, uncouth. Your mother fulfilled her responsibilities to my household. That was two questions. John Sheppard, where have you been these last eight years? And what have you been doing to become so knowledgeable?”

Wo Fat slid across the room, to crouch smoothly at McGarrett’s side. He rolled the unconscious man onto his back. Steve flopped, head lolling to the left, revealing the vulnerable line of his neck. Wo Fat stroked a fingertip along the length of the jugular.

McGarrett! McGarrett. Wake the fuck up! John yelled mentally.

“Answer the questions, Sheppard-chan,” the Dragon ordered.

Wo Fat set the width of his hand across Steve’s neck -- index finger and thumb over the defenceless pulse points. The flesh around his fingers dinted white.

“I thought that you didn’t want to kill him?” John swallowed.

“Apparently,” Wo Fat said, “the honourable one has decided that that is no longer an issue. And brain dead, he will still be valuable to us. He will be easier to control. Easier for us to use him. Harvest.”

John gritted his teeth and managed one heavy step. Wo Fat laughed in his face.

Steve!

::Lieutenant Commander McGarrett:: Toby bellowed. John folded at his knees and thudded to the floor in the wake of his intensity. ::WAKE UP!::

The Dragon screamed, reeling backwards.

::Huh?:: Steve woke, and promptly punched Wo Fat in the throat.

John launched himself at the Dragon. Startled, she raised her clenched fist and stopped him dead in mid-air. Suspended, feet hanging a fraction off the floor, John couldn’t get any leverage. Struggling to free his hands, Ronon roared.

“Tell me where you’ve been, John Sheppard,” the Dragon ordered.

“Put my brother down,” Toby yelled. He fired a zat. The Dragon flung out her hand struggling to earth the energy and contain John. Lorne backed up Toby, firing at the beefy bodyguard before he could lift his weapon.

“What!” the Dragon gaped at Toby. “William.”

“Yes! You know my name.” Toby’s eyes gleamed. Oblivious to any danger, he simply grabbed the elderly woman, spinning her to face him dead on. “Tell me who I really am!”

She went rigid. John dropped to the floor. Toby gripped the woman’s frail shoulders, holding her still. Her eyes were wide.

Steve was trading vicious kick after defensive block with Wo Fat. Blood sheeted down the side of Steve’s face, rivulets spider webbing over his cheek and jaw. Wo Fat weaved and ducked under Steve’s ham-handed, concussed punch and straight armed his chin, cracking his head back. Somehow, suddenly, John was in their space, punching Wo Fat in the side of the head before Steve could hit the floor. But the man moved with the flow of the punch, dropping and spinning to take John out at the knees.

“Shit.” Lorne fired. Wo Fat slid under the zat blast, moving with preternatural speed. He bypassed Lorne, rabbit punching him with almost casual ease, intent on reaching the Dragon.

And Toby.

John had just managed to get up when McKay entered the fray.

Rodney fired his zat, but the woman -- Jenna Kaye -- intercepted the stunning blast with her own body, reeling backwards into Wo Fat. He dominoed into Toby and the Dragon, all of them piling together on the carpet, residual zat lightning flickering over them.

John stumbled to his feet intent on kicking Wo Fat in his smug face.

“Hang on!” McKay warned.

Clumsily, Wo Fat hauled Toby up and off the Dragon. Clasping her to his chest, Wo Fat splayed his hand over the jewelled necklace adorning her chest.

The unmistakable coruscating energy of an activating Ancient transporter device engulfed the pair. It flared once and snapped out of existence, whisking them away. John’s kick cut through empty air.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” John swore. He triggered his comm. “Daedalus?” Empty static filled his ear. Evidently, Team Two had not disabled the jammer affecting long range communication.

“Hang on. Hang on,” McKay continued to echo, intent on his life signs detector.

“What?” John demanded, because he knew that tone. That was the ‘oh, shit, we’re doomed’ pitch.

“That shielded room in the basement? That was a generator. It was to power the transporter. One emergency use. And it’s overloading. We’ve got to move now!”

John freed his k-bar from the sheath at his waist. Ronon rolled over pulling his hands as far apart as possible against the biting plastic band. John cut the plastic at his wrists and ankles with two strokes before turning to Cody.

“Get Lorne out of here, Ronon,” he ordered.

The major had managed to sit upright, but he was only staying up by planting both hands on the floor.

“Cody, the woman.”

“Sir.” Cody scooped Jenna Kaye up easily.

“We have to move,” Rodney chivvied, finger jabbing urgently at the door.

“All teams evacuate,” John hollered over all channels.

“It’s going to be big,” Rodney warned. “Very big.”

John pulled a dazed Toby to his feet. “You okay?”

Toby blinked owlishly at him, open mouthed, shivering in the lingering wake of the zat blast.

“Get him out of here.” John propelled his baby brother into McKay’s arms. “Go.”

McKay went, dragging the slighter man along.

Steve still lay unconscious on the floor where Wo Fat had dumped him. Dropping to his knees, John slapped his face, hard.

“Come on, McGarrett.” He was fucking out for the count. John had to move him; he didn’t know how long they had before McKay’s predicted explosion blew. McGarrett’s sprawling long limbs were impossible to control as John tried to lift him into a sitting position before hauling him into a fireman’s carry. John had no leverage. McGarrett was a long line of disconnected joints, limp and rubbery. He was going to have to drag McGarrett out by this hair.

“Here let me help.” Grant heaved McGarrett up and over John’s shoulders and provided solidly stalwart muscle to get John to his feet.

“Get out of here, Grant.”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.” Grant nodded but headed over to the desk by the Queen Anne chair.

“Grant!”

Fingers in his mouth, Grant scanned the desk top, pocketing a paper notepad and a small usb stick. McGarrett moaned in John’s ear. Consciousness was coming not a moment too soon.

“Steve?” he weighed a ton.

Grant was pulling open drawers and dumping the contents on the floor.

“Oh,” Grant spotted a standard black laptop bag propped up against the chaise longue. Abandoning the desk, he grabbed it.

“Put me down,” McGarrett groaned.

John gladly bent his knees, letting McGarrett roll off his shoulders. He would have got McGarrett out but he doubted his back would have ever been the same.

Steve wobbled as if on an inflatable raft in a force ten storm. John corralled him, hauling Steve’s arm over his shoulder. Steve slumped against him, chin momentarily resting on John’s shoulder.

“Where the fuck are you?” McKay demanded tinnily over the comm.

“Grant, now! That’s an order.”

“The tool chest.” McGarrett pointed blearily at the mahogany bookcase on the far wall. “Get it.”

Wide eyed, Grant glanced at John checking if that was okay.

“Just get it, Grant. We’ve got to get the Hell out of here.”

Lithely, Grant hooked the laptop strap securely across his chest, setting the bag at his back and grabbed the tool chest. That tool chest better be important, John thought.

“It is,” McGarrett said blearily.

John jerked his head at the door directing Grant to go first. But he didn’t obey, taking McGarrett’s weight on the other side.

Together they fumbled along banging bruisingly off walls, half stumbling - half slithering down the ornate staircase.

“It’s amping up,” Rodney screamed over the transmitter from somewhere, hopefully on the far side of the high brick wall that surrounded the mansion.

They trod on the unconscious body of one of Wo Fat’s goons, but they could not stop. Rodney was shrieking insults at them. McGarrett moved his long legs trying to help but it was easier to drag him along.

They emerged into a dark Hawaiian night.

“Faster, faster, faster!” McKay popped out from behind the gate pillars. He waved his arm.

Faster really wasn’t an option. Steve was a long weighty noodle, still trying his best to coordinate his legs but, frankly, he was hindering rather than helping.

“Bah!” McKay hollered and was suddenly running towards them.

A blond-headed blur bypassed Rodney, running like a whippet. Galvanised, Rodney ran faster. But Williams was there first.

“Idiot. You idiot. Told you, you shouldn’t go anywhere on your own.” He ducked down and grabbed McGarrett’s legs, scooping them up. He turned, already dragging them towards the nebulous safety of an eight foot high wall. John and Grant struggled to reposition their holds - luckily tac vests came with a multitude of straps to grab as McGarrett hung between them. Rodney caught up, yanking one of McGarrett’s legs from Williams’ grasp, hooking his knee over his arm.

“Ten,” he said flatly. “Nine.”

They ran.

“Eight.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Somehow Williams had enough air to bitch and run.

“Seven.” McKay was doing pretty well also. “Six.”

Practically everyone on his team and Chin Ho Kelly were waiting at the gate rather than hiding behind the wall. John was going to lecture them until their ears bled.

“Five.”

“You’re not helping,” Williams snarked at McKay.

“Four,” McKay bitched right back as they reached the open gates.

They were grabbed by multiple hands and bodily hauled en masse across the road, away from the walls and behind the biggest black SUV that John had ever seen.

“Three.” McKay crouched down behind the engine block and wrapped his hands around his head and looked at the ground. “Don’t look at it. Two.”

Shit, John collared Grant and wrested him to the floor and covered him with his body. The laptop on his back stuck in John’s gut. Williams was wrapped around a semi-conscious McGarrett, Chin Ho Kelly at their back.

“One.”

John exhaled harshly. Knowing, just knowing, that McKay had calculated the blast for zero and not one.

Zero.

The explosion was stunning. Tarmac beneath him rippled as the concussive wave pummelled down like a Hand of God. In its wake, the silence was deafening -- the world held in abeyance.

Then a hundred car alarms and house alarms blared.

John rolled off Grant.

Ronon was crouched beside them, teeth grinning whitely in his grimy face. “That was awesome.”

“McKay told you not to look at it.”

Ronon wiped unrepentantly at his tearing eyes. “Worth it.”

“I never want to leave Atlantis again,” Grant said. “I don’t like going off world.”

John laughed. He couldn’t help but agree. Standing up to survey the devastation, he could see that the mansion didn’t exist anymore. It was just a crater. The encircling wall that he would have crouched behind was flattened; bricks and mortar smashed against the sidewalk and carefully maintained lawns.

“Huh.” Rodney bounced up beside him. “Really quite contained when you think about it.”

“Yeah, could have been much worse,” John said.

“Well, the house atomised, which is better than debris being fired through the air at two hundred miles an hour. That wall kind of looks like a skirt dropped on the floor. Huh.” Rodney pulled out his life signs detector.

“Any radiation?” John asked.

“Yes, but not the type that will hurt us. Interesting.”

SGC teams would be scouring the site, but that would come later. Now it was SITREP time.

“Will the radiation interfere with beam outs?”

Rodney pulled a face, pondering. “No,” he said, definitely.

“Check in,” John ordered over all channels. Team Three reported in, followed by Team Two. John counted to three before Major De Salvo reported that her team were all present and correct. “Get out of here.”

He caught a flash out of the corner of his eye; the Daedalus transporter beaming up a team on the far side of the crater.

“I can’t get a cell phone signal. I can’t call for the EMTs.” Kono Kalakaua angrily slapped the side of her BlackberryTM. “Chin, can you get a signal?”

Chin Ho Kelly shook his head. He was sitting on the woman, Jenna Kaye, who he had zip-tied from neck to ankle. She wasn’t getting up or moving any time soon. Face turned away from them, she was lying still and forlorn on the sidewalk. John didn’t know if she was conscious or not.

“Steven. Commander McGarrett? Can you tell me where you are?” Toby was crouched in front of Steve, his medical kit open at his knee.

John crossed over in three strides. Williams had Steve propped up against him, half lying on his lap, bloodied and bruised head supported in the crook of his arm. Toby handed Williams a large dressing and directed him to hold the pad against the laceration that was freely bleeding and staining the whole left side of Steve’s face, neck and tac vest.

“Your hands are cold,” Steven said, distracted.

“I’m just checking your pulse,” Toby explained softly, long fingers encircling his wrist.

“Toby?” John asked.

Toby gave him the barest of glances and he released Steve’s wrist and began rifling though the medical kit. ::He’s got a serious concussion. I’m guessing a skull fracture. Pupils are equal, but sluggish. And he’s confused. We need to get him to a hospital, asap. Lorne needs an x-ray of his neck::

Lorne was propped against the SUV. He already had a neck brace in place. Toby had been busy.

This was going to get him into so much shit. “Cody, Ronon, stay with 5-0 until we can debrief them. Detective Williams, put Steve down, we gotta transport him.”

Narrowed eyed, Williams glared at him. “There’s no rig here.”

“What are you guys doing?” Kono stopped trying to find a signal and focussed on them. John could tell that she was close to pulling her weapon.

“Look, I don’t have time to explain. Detective Williams, put your partner down.”

“No. I’m not putting my partner down. Because as you rightly say, he’s my partner. And I don’t trust you one inch.” Even as he cradled Steve, his finger and thumb twitched a mere fraction of an inch apart against Steve’s shoulder. “Emergency services will be coming here; this explosion lit up the whole of Oahu. They’ll help.”

“Dann--” Steve went boneless.

“Shit!” Danny curled further into Steve. Mercurially, he snapped, “Help him.”

“Commander McGarrett. Commander McGarrett?” Toby flipped up Steve’s eyelid. John could hear him mentally cajoling him to wake up. There was no flicker of a response.

“Dadaelus, this is Colonel Sheppard. Lock in on Commander McGarrett’s subcutaneous transmitter, there’s a non-identified person next to him, grab him too.” He corralled Grant by the scruff of his neck. “Expand the beam to pick up myself, Major Lorne, Dr. Jansky and Mr. Logan. Beam us direct to the SGC infirmary. We have a medical emergency: two team members.”

“What?” Kono demanded.

McKay tapped his own chest. “What about me?” he asked even as the coruscating field began to snatch them away.

“Clear the site,” John mouthed, finishing the sentence in the SGC infirmary.

~*~

The SGC infirmary had been the best choice; they had most of the Ancient shit outside of Atlantis squirreled around the base. Medical personnel had been poised to assess them the millisecond that they had reintegrated on the dedicated landing platform adjacent to the infirmary.

Williams was opened mouthed; stunned into silence. Matter transporters were impressively useful in calming highly-strung detectives, John noted.

Toby was reporting GSC, blood pressure and pulse rate in terse sentences. Carson scanned Steve with his Ancient medical body scanner. Then Steve was snatched from Williams’ unresisting arms and loaded onto a gurney.

“What are you doing?” Williams demanded immediately.

The medical team moved with practiced, smooth coordination, securing their patient, raising the wheeled gurney to hip height and racing through swinging doors into the infirmary proper.

“We’re treating him, son,” Carson hollered, his brogue making it sound more brusque.

Another team were carefully rolling Lorne onto a stretcher, keeping his neck and spine straight and then he was whisked away after Steve.

“How did you find us?” John asked, hoping to derail what he figured was an inevitable explosion.

Williams honed in on him like a shark tracking bait in the water.

“Well, it kinda went something like this. Chin basically hacked your data tablet. But really, that was kind of redundant because you’d shown us a picture of the house on the headland and Chin and Kono have lived here their entire lives. And a rich bastard was going to own the biggest, most ostentatious bauble on the block. So, hey, we knew exactly where you were going. And I can drive a car. How’s that for our skill set?”

John winced. But, honestly, he got the impression that Williams always went straight for the jugular.

“So who are you really? And where the Hell are we?” Williams snapped.

“You’re going to have to sign a fuckload of confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements before I answer those questions.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Solitary confinement until you agree.” General O’Neill sauntered into the infirmary beaming platform room, hands in his pockets.

“That’s unconstitutional,” Williams protested.

“True, outside in the real world. But this is the front line and a military operation.” O’Neill reached behind and pulled out a sheaf of rumpled papers from his back pocket. “You might as well, son. It isn’t like anyone would believe you if you did tell them about Star Trek transporters and underground bunkers like something out of the 1940s.”

Williams snatched the papers out of O’Neill’s hand. Unbothered, the general followed through with a pen.

Bitching under his breath, Williams crouched over, resting the papers on his thigh, and began to sign by the multiple crosses on the multiple pages.

“There.” He flung them back at O’Neill, who let them bounce off his chest and fall to the floor.

“Nice one you’ve got here, Sheppard. I’d go for the solitary confinement or perhaps P3X 166.”

“Yes, sir.” Sheppard saluted. He didn’t respect a lot of people, but he respected General O’Neill.

“Come on, Grant.” O’Neill held out his arm and allowed Grant, who had been cowering in the corner, to scuttle forward and huddle under like a chick seeking protection. “Let’s get your nose seen to and then we’ll go to the commissary and get some ice cream. I checked, and they’ve got chocolate sauce and glacé cherries.”

Williams blew out a hard breath. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s been a long couple of days. And Steve--”

“Apology accepted.” O’Neill nodded at the paperwork on the floor as he conducted Grant out the door. “Make sure that gets to the lawyers.”

Begrudgingly, Williams ducked down and picked up the papers. He clutched them a second before he handed them over to John.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he reiterated.

John accepted the non-disclosure agreement and smoothed out the papers. “I understand.”

Williams raked his fingers through his hair, messing it up beyond any semblance of order. “My wife’s left me, took my kid, my partner was arrested for murder, my favourite colleague’s suspended. I thought that I’d been betrayed. You guys pop up out of nowhere and take over. You’re McGarrett’s big brother. And now I’m in an episode of Star Trek. I’m only hoping that you’ve got the probe thing that the Doctor -- Bones? -- used to use to heal people.”

“Oh, you’re old school,” John noted.

Williams glared balefully.

John held up his hands in surrender. “We do have equipment that can heal major injuries, which is why I had Commander McGarrett brought directly here.”

Williams’ hands were back in his hair. “So tell me everything.”

~*~

Williams was sitting, hands cupping a mug of black coffee with sugar (John didn’t have a clue if he drank coffee, but thought that he needed the sugar), processing the last couple of hours. It had been a whirlwind, censored tour of the SGC world. John had left out Atlantis, Replicators, the machinations of the Ori and the ongoing politics of the Jaffa, preferring to explain the background of the SGC: finding the Stargate and Apophis. It all boiled down to a manifesto to explore strange new worlds and bring back technology.

Williams finally took a drag of the cold coffee. He didn’t even wince. Shifting on the plastic chair outside of the infirmary, he glared at the closed doors. Evidently, he had some kind of ability because the doors opened and Carson walked out.

“Gentlemen.”

John and Williams were already standing.

“Is he okay?” Williams spoke fastest.

“Aye,” Carson said. “He had a hairline skull fracture and a nasty concussion which we’ve healed.”

“Can I see him?”

“Of course.” Carson was already conducting Williams into the ward, a gentle guiding hand on his elbow. John tagged along, because, hey, Steve McGarrett was his brother.

Half asleep, Steve was propped up on a mound of pillows and warmly covered with the obligatory infirmary red blanket. He had been cleaned up and wore the standard white smock top.

“Why’s he still got an IV thingy?” Williams whispered harshly, finger jabbing at the needle in the back of Steve’s hand. “I thought you healed him?”

“Son, it was a pretty traumatic head injury,” Carson said. “It’s bloody good kit, but it’s not miraculous. Okay, by definition it’s miraculous, but it’s not perfect. Okay, that’s not helping. I healed gross physical damage. It’s a speeding up process. We focus on the serious injuries and it’s a strain on the body. He’s tired and there’s some residual bruising and a little swelling that needs to heal itself or the body forgets how.”

“So he’s going to be okay?” Williams got down to the nitty gritty.

“Yes, son, he’s going to be fine.”

“How are Lorne and Mehra?” John asked, wanting to know and trying to defuse any potential Williams’ explosion. In the far corner of the ward there was a curtained off bed and a lump of blankets on another bed which might be Lorne.

“That person who punched him--”

“Wo Fat,” Williams supplied darkly.

“Thank you. Interesting name, but no more unusual than my first girlfriend Aoife ó Súilleabháin, when you think about it. Mr. Wo Fat cracked a vertebrae in Major Lorne’s neck. Luckily just cracked it, and we’ve used the bone knitter. He’s sleeping now.” Carson nodded at the curtained far corner. “Sergeant Mehra has been transported off site. I expect her to make a full recovery.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

Carson smiled benevolently. “So you visit with your friend, Mr. Williams. I’ll likely be discharging him tomorrow afternoon or first thing the day after.”

Williams dropped down on the chair conveniently placed beside Steve’s bed. “Hey,” he said softly.

Steve smiled dopily. “Danno.”

“You’re such a pain in the ass,” Danny said affectionately.

“Everyone okay?” Steve said around a massive yawn.

“Yes, you’re the only idiot that got seriously hurt. Go to sleep, you big goof, you’ll feel better.”

“Oh, okay.” Steve closed his eyes and pushed his head into the pillows relaxing into sleep, leaving Williams with the reassuring company of the array of monitors around him, steadily reporting blood pressure and heart rate, and the screen with the really disturbing brain scan by the top left hand corner of the bed.

John left Williams playing Rottweiler or, probably a better analogy, terrier protector. The guy wasn’t moving anytime soon. He had to find Toby and figure out what he had downloaded from the pseudo-Ancient bitch’s brain. He also had to grab Grant and the equipment that he had filched from the Dragon’s den. Plus there was ice cream in the commissary and chocolate sauce. Maybe if he was lucky he’d be able to get some. If he was really lucky they might have caramel sauce.

~*~

Mopping up after missions was really the worst part of missions, John thought. There had been so much crap to wade through. Checking in with the teams and ensuring that they handed in their field reports. Major Harjo had noticed that some of the bodyguards had been quite resistant to the zat blasts. Calming McKay’s ruffled feathers; he’d seriously objected to being left at the crater until he had discovered something interesting, which he wasn’t talking about just yet. In the early hours of the morning, John had checked on McGarrett, finding him comfortable, and Williams curled up on top of the blankets on the other bed. Williams had cracked one eye and registered his approach. John had mentally upgraded him from a terrier to a vicious, brindle tomcat.

John yawned into his coffee cup.

The crater down in Honolulu was cordoned off and SGC scientists were going over the site with a fine tooth comb. The SGC command staff and higher echelons were up in arms about the potential Ancient or surviving Ori in charge of the Japanese Yakuza. The link with the McGarrett family and the Sheppards and Toby Logan was still to be elucidated, but John had donated yet another vial of blood in a long line of blood letting to Carson. But back down at the 5-0 headquarters, Jenna Kaye was reluctantly shedding intel about the Yakuza and her role as a spy in the CIA and in H5-0. Her involvement in setting up McGarrett and identifying the woman who could be groomed to ‘finger’ Kono Kalakaua as part of the asset forfeiture locker fiasco were just the tip of the iceberg. The SGC and HPD lawyers were fighting a losing battle with the CIA to keep her. Four CIA operatives were en route to extract her from Chin Ho Kelly’s clutches. Luckily, the CIA had to use public transport. John figured by the time that they made it to Oahu, Jenna Kaye would have disappeared into the depths of SGC secret operations. That would make presenting her official statement as evidence a little difficult, so Kelly had already arranged a presentation before the acting governor, chief of police and three senior judges. The man was efficient as Hell; John kind of wanted him on Atlantis to sort through bureaucratic bullshit on a daily basis.

John set his mug down on the long table that dominated the SGC ops room. General O’Neill sat at the head of the table, hands clasped over his slight pudge of a belly. Half lidded, he appeared to be about to doze off. But John knew that it was all an act. The rest of the informed and those with information were arrayed around the table: Carson, who kept glancing at the computer screen at the far end of the room; Toby, looking a bit peaky; Grant, wide eyed with his laptop set protectively before him; McKay, drumming his fingers against the table top; Williams, scowling at McKay and his annoying fingers, and Steve, wearing a borrowed Navy Officer khaki uniform and black windbreaker, looking as if he was sitting to attention. Teal’c had begged off, but Colonel Sam Carter and Dr. Daniel Jackson had invited themselves to the meeting. John hoped that they weren’t going to get a lecture on the history of the Yakuza.

“Well?” McKay demanded, beating Williams to the punch. John figured that those two had been separated at birth.

O’Neill opened his eyes. “Dr. Jansky. Grant? Do you want to tell us what you’ve found out?”

“Oh, I get to go first. Good. Good. I hate waiting.” Grant perched on the edge of his chair. “I didn’t find my tricorder but I did grab a usb stick, a note pad, a laptop and a tool box. I don’t know what the tool box was for.”

“It belonged to my dad. It had evidence of his investigations into the Yakuza and Wo Fat in it,” McGarrett said softly. “Wo Fat stole it from me.”

“Oh, I’m glad I got it then.” Grant smiled brightly. “A lot of the information I found is in Japanese, understandably. So I got Dr. Jackson to help. He’s got the notepad. Most of it is just about criminal operations. Boring. I figure we just give that to the police. There’s a couple of files written in English, perhaps Ms. Kaye wrote them?”

McGarrett shook his head. “I can’t believe that she was a plant.”

“Babe,” Williams said. “You were the perfect patsy. She set up everything to make you respond and empathise with her. Dead fiancé, vulnerable and alone, pursuing a personal vendetta against the man you were after. Contrived doesn’t even begin to describe it. But we all fell for it.”

“Any rate.” Grant shifted uncomfortably. “The usb stick actually had some illegally downloaded movies on it. I haven’t seen Captain America. I didn’t even think that it was out? Anyway, really, it’s just about the criminal operations. There are some personal files on the laptop and what looks like a diary. But it has to be translated.” Grant looked hopefully at Jackson, happy to have finished speaking.

“Grant grabbed a note pad.” Jackson pushed it across the table with a finger. “What’s interesting is that it’s written partly in Man'yōgana and a few additions which I’m unfamiliar with - but working on. Man'yōgana is a kana script ancestral to the current modern form of cursive hiragana and angular katakana.”

“And?” O’Neill rolled his eyes.

“Colonel Sheppard reported that Wo Fat identified the Ancient as ‘No Kimi.’ This is an honorific suffix which dates from the Heian period in Japan from 794 to 1185. The first use of Man'yōgana dates from about the mid-seventh century.”

“So she is an Ancient?” O’Neill summarised, looking directly at Carson.

“I dunno.” He shrugged. “But if she had been Ancient she probably would have had more skills than telekinesis and she could have teleported herself. So I doubt it. I am guessing she’s a human with an active ATA gene complex. Some genetic material would have helped.”

“We were a little busy,” John pointed out.

“Well, you’re all familiar with Mendelian genetics. Yes?” Carson double checked. “Okay, I’m simplifying this massively, but the Ancient genes are recessive and sex-linked to the X chromosome. There’s a reason why all of the Ancient gene carriers identified so far, apart from Miko Kusanagi, are male. We’re more likely to see phenotypic expression in the male, because of the presence of the Y chromosome. To see phenotypic expression in a female, we need to have the Ancient genes on both parents’ X chromosomes. I can postulate that the female of the species with two active sets of genes may have considerable abilities. But given the actual nature of the sex-linked Ancient genes, independent assortment, varying dominance of different genes and mutations, getting two X’ chromosomes is going to be pretty rare.”

“Anyone understanding this?” O’Neill asked.

Carter looked at him exasperated, as Toby and McKay confirmed that, yes, they did understand.

“My sister?” Steve interrupted. “She’s affected by all this?”

“You have a sister?” Carson perked up.

“Yeah, she lives on the Mainland. I sent her there to keep her out of Wo Fat’s clutches. I’ve got a couple of ex-Navy SEAL buddies keeping an eye on her.”

“Does she have any skills?” McKay waggled his fingers nebulously beside his head.

McGarrett looked mutely at Williams, as if beseeching him to answer.

“How should I know? She’s pretty squirrelly,” Williams said. “But I haven’t seen her levitate anything.”

“We need to bring her in for gene testing,” Carson said simply.

“I was swapped with Mary,” Toby announced. “I don’t think that she’s related by blood to us. She was swapped to protect me and us all really.”

All eyes turned on Toby.

“How do you know that?” John asked.

Toby tapped his temple. “I read Den No Kimi. It was very convoluted, and there was some supposition on the Dragon’s part. Mrs. McGarrett had presented Mary to the Dragon as a newborn, but she was human so the Dragon thought that she had been mistaken about our mother’s abilities. All the Dragon wanted was a girl. Girls are uncommon, boys are born more often. But it niggled her. She kept an eye on John through Sun Kaige. Steven through Wo Fat. Kept a weather eye out on our mom. She knew that my given name was William. She must have figured it out. That’s why Mrs. McGarrett died.”

“It’s a breeding programme?” Carson half-asked, half-proposed.

“Yeah. There was a whole host of memories. Some were imaginary. The pictures were fantastical.” Toby laughed but it was without humour. “Our mother’s family have been serfs - pampered pets -- since the 17th Century, since they were stolen from, I think, Ireland and sold into slavery. Their gifts were used by one feudal class after another, in secret, never being seen, using telepathy and other skills to ensure success of their masters. Dominated by the more skilled and gifted Japanese adepts… The Dragon thinks of it in blood lines. I could picture a sheaf of papyrus rolled out. There’s a historical house line in Japan that goes back to the sixth century. Another Tibetan line that is so ancient and convoluted and widespread that it gives me a headache just thinking about it. Then there’s the Celtic lines, we’re part of that. And I guess General O’Neill and Dr. Beckett and Mr. McGarrett and John.”

“Any interbreeding?” Carson asked clinically.

“Carson!” Rodney berated, which was hysterical given his normal degree of crassness.

“No.” Toby shook his head. “Not deliberately. I’m not too sure, but I got a sense of wanting to keep the blood lines -- I hate using this word it has so many connotations -- pure.”

“Did my mother die in that car crash?” Steve asked abruptly. “She’d already engineered her supposed death when she left Colonel Shep -- John as a baby.”

John was scribbling time lines on a scrap of paper. Analytically, he said, “I don’t see how Toby’s mom and Mrs. McGarrett-Sheppard could have been one and the same person. Toby told me that he was five or six when his mom gave birth to his baby brother. Steve would have been ten and his mom was still around.”

Toby scrubbed at his face. “I don’t know. My mom, Maya, maybe she wasn’t my biological mother? But she was a telepath. Maybe she was related to my biological mother, your mom, our mom.” Toby winced. “There could be a whole network out there. My Mom was definitely running from someone who was after her. Clooney took my brother and Mom sent me to safety.”

“Clooney?” O’Neill scribbled down a note.

“Yeah, Victor Clooney,” Toby said. “I’ve never been able to find out anything about him.”

“Is there any chance of finding--” Carson paused delicately, his compassionate gaze encompassing all three, “--any genetic material from your mom? A hairbrush or her old clothes.”

“I don’t have anything,” Toby said simply.

John shrugged. Perhaps if his dad had still been around? There might be something in the attic at The Gables.

“Yeah.” Steve nodded. “Dad was a packrat. There’s boxes of stuff in the attic. I’ve never been through them, but everything’s boxed up.”

“McKay, your turn,” O’Neill deflected.

Rodney rubbed his hands together. “It was definitely Ancient tech at the mansion. I’ve been tracking the specific radiation and--” the screen on the far wall lit up, glowing points in Oahu, two in northern Japan, three in Tibet, “there’s a network of six sites, through Asia and the Pacific Islands. Potentially, these are just the active sites and there’s a whole network over Earth. One of the Tibetan sites is in the heart of Lhasa. I’ve got satellite telemetry and it’s in the Potala Palace.”

A photograph popped up on the screen of a white, sprawling edifice perched on top of a mountain.

“Oh,” Jackson breathed. “Construction of the Potala Palace began in 1645. Another link to the 17th Century. Are the other sites of religious significance?”

“I don’t think that the mansion on Hawai’i was,” McKay said.

“Doesn’t mean that it wasn’t historically,” Steve spoke up.

“So.” O’Neill held up his hand. “A hundred thousand --”

“About 600 - 700 AD,” Daniel Jackson corrected.

“A bunch of Ancients descended, like Merlin, bringing their tech and had nookie with all our ancestors,” O’Neill said pithily. “A bunch in Celtic Ireland and Scotland. A few in Tibet and China and probably other places. And with that pernickety ancient DNA came a bunch of witchy gifts. Which people have been taking advantage of since. And we have a criminal underworld of telepaths and telekinetics. Probably a bunch of Tibetan lamas and, I dunno, pagan druids. That sounds about right. Yes?”

He actually stunned the entire table into silence with his summary.

John was trying to figure out if he had been insulted.

“Why 600-700 years ago?” McKay asked. “I think 10, 000 is more likely.”

“Oh, Merlin was an Ancient,” O’Neill said offhandedly. “Myrddin. He was involved in all that sangral stuff.”

“Sangral?” Williams asked.

“Commonly know as the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. It was actually an Ancient artefact,” Jackson answered.

“Mary is my sister,” McGarrett said obliquely, and dared anyone to disagree.

“Ohana,” Williams blurted.

“Yes!” McGarrett smiled widely at him.

“So what’s the next step?” Rodney asked.

“I figure I talk to the IOA. There’s a number of representatives on the International Oversight Committee that might have some insight, such as the members from China and Japan. That’s going to be a fun conversation.” O’Neill pushed back from the table and stood up. “ Kids, it’s time for the grown ups to deal with the politics and shit. Lieutenant Commander McGarrett?”

“Sir?” Steve rocketed to his feet.

“The charges against you have been dropped. It appears that Wo Fat orchestrated the whole affair with a mole in your department. We know that the reasons for this are linked to your genetic inheritance. However, the US judiciary system believes that the reason for Wo Fat’s machinations was to ensure that the H5-0 taskforce did not interfere with a Yakuza operation.”

“Thank you, sir.” McGarrett saluted.

O’Neill returned a sloppy salute. “Convey my congratulations to Ms. Kono Kalallaala that all the charges against her have been dropped.”

“Yes, sir,” McGarrett said, eyebrow failing not to bob, underscoring his astonishment at General O’Neill’s mispronunciation.

“Okay, you lot,” O’Neill said. “You’re all dismissed. Go have fun somewhere warm and sunny.”

“I’ll come with.” Jackson chased after O’Neill who was already out the door. “You’re going to need my help. Don’t go insulting the Chinese representative!”

Toby started to put up his hand and then dropped it underneath the table. “If they need me, they’ll come get me.”

“Party on my lanai,” Steve announced, a wide, wide smile on his face. “Barbeque and beer on the beach starting at five o’clock.”

“Before that happens, Commander.” Carson stood, grabbing his laptop and files, cocking one finger. “You’re coming to the infirmary for a check up. You didn’t have permission to come to this little meeting and you should still be on the ward.”

“I’m fine, Dr. Beckett.” Steve trailed after him, Williams immediately on his heels.

“I’ll be the judge of that, son.”

“You want to come and see if we can find more of the Ancient transporter network?” McKay almost leered at Carter.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m more interested in the method that the Dragon and Wo Fat used to power that emergency transporter.”

“I have a few ideas about that,” McKay said as he allowed Carter to exit the room ahead of him.

There was still a shit load of answers that needed to be uncovered, but sitting in the almost empty conference room, John found himself a little content. Two new brothers to go with David. Wow. Weird, creepy telepathic communications. He was going to have to get Toby to Atlantis; he wasn’t leaving him on Earth to be studied or end up in the hands of the Yakuza or the NID. And it would be fun to see him react to Atlantis. McGarrett would probably enjoy Atlantis too. A Navy SEAL would fit in like a lock and a key. He seemed pretty close to his team, though. He seemed to have a network in place, unlike Toby.

Grant smiled at him over the top of his laptop.

“Hey, Grant?”

“I got the commissary staff to save you some vanilla ice cream. You want to go now? There’s cherries.”

John glanced at his watch. That sounded fine, they had a few hours before the barbeque at McGarrett’s place.

“Is there any chocolate sauce left?”

Grant nodded, energetically. “I got them to hide the caramel too.”

What could be better?

End Part Five

epilogue