Shadows and Siege 10
Yep, blame Sparrow2000 and her Taming prompt. I still haven't gotten to where I can fit chimera into the plot, but I'm getting closer. Oi.
Two years ago, a secret covert ops organization (Section One) showed up in Jim's loft to force Jim and Blair to help rescue an agent named Nikita. (~Shadows of the Past~). Now, Section's new head, that same Nikita, tells him that he's supposed to work with traitors from Stargate Command to get rid of a group of invading aliens called goa'uld. Jim really, *really* wishes he could just pretend none of this ever happened.
Shadows and Siege part one
Shadows and Siege part two
Shadows and Siege part three
Shadows and Siege part four
Shadows and Siege part five
Shadows and Siege part six
Shadows and Siege part seven
Shadows and Siege part eight
Shadows and Siege part nine (Saturday morning chapter)
The street was quiet. The low clouds had chased most of the tourists inside, and the natives hurried along the sidewalks hoping to get home before the rain started.
"So, how did an anthropologist end up working with a sentinel?" Daniel asked as he walked next to Blair. Blair fought the urge to turn around and check to see where Jack and Jim were. Yeah, they were somewhere behind them, but he hated having Jim so far out of his sight. Weird. In Cascade, Jim did his thing and Blair was off somewhere else about as often as not. But right now, every inch of space between them made his skin itch as though he were the sentinel.
"Blair?" Daniel asked, frowning in concern.
"Not really the time," Blair pointed out with a wave toward the street in general.
Daniel blushed. Blair had to remind himself that most of Daniel's missions were off-planet where the chances of being overheard by the wrong people weren't actually that high. When Blair had a really uncharitable urge to say something unkind about Daniel's inadequate common sense, he clamped down on it.
"So, how did you end up working with Jim?" Daniel edited his question.
"How did you end up working with Jack?" Blair shot right back, not really in the mood to play nice. He hated this whole situation, and a little part of him knew that Daniel was just the most convenient target, but that didn't change the fact that Blair was enjoying taking a few shots at the man. Blair didn't know what aggravated him more, O'Neill's shitty attitude or the fact that Daniel obviously disagreed and still stood silent and let Jack get away with being an asshole. And the fact that he had actually liked Daniel all the way up to the point when Daniel let Jack go ripping into them... that just made him all the crankier.
"I got hired to do some translating work," Daniel answered in a surprisingly friendly tone. "Jack was really just about ready to kill me the first time we worked together." Daniel chuckled. "But after he saved me from my own curiosity a few times, he got used to having me around. Besides, life is never boring with me." Blair glanced over, and Daniel had a self-deprecating grin on his face as he shrugged.
"And the fact that he's an asshole doesn't bother you at all?"
Daniel pursed his lips and paused for a second. "We all have our faults. Jack likes to point out that my overdeveloped curiosity and underdeveloped sense of self-preservation are both dangerous. But then again, Jack's no saint. Not only is he an asshole, but he's terrible with names, he has no patience for the fact that archeology and diplomacy both take time and patience, and he's obsessed with fishing and the Simpsons." Daniel gave a small laugh. "He does seem to have more faults than most people, doesn't he?"
"Like being a rude, arrogant prick?" Blair suggested as they reached the main square and settled in on the same bench where Makepeace had been sitting hours ago. Blair firmly kept his eyes focused on the trailing edge of a gray cloud. If the others were here, he didn't want to see them. Blair totally sucked at pretending to not know people and he knew it. The thought of the rest of the team back at the hotel with a potentially deadly alien right in the middle of the team made him a little queasy, but he couldn't do anything about that, not without telling SG-1 everything, and that was dangerous on so many levels that Blair didn't even want to think about it.
"Oh, I don't know. He's not arrogant enough to break into someone's room and set up camp," Daniel pointed out. That distracted Blair from cloud watching.
"No way. We were just trying to cut through the bullshit."
"By invading our space?"
"By not playing these alpha chest-thumping games and laying all our cards on the table."
"Not playing alpha?" Daniel choked a bit before the expression turned to laughter. "Right. Invading someone else's territory and then facing them down… that's your definition of not playing alpha?"
Blair narrowed his eyes. "I liked you a lot more when you were doing research for some crackpot theory on Egypt."
Daniel crossed his arms, and Blair wasn't sure if that was an aggressive or a self-protecting gesture because the man's face lost all emotion.
When Daniel didn't say anything, Blair sighed and yanked the hair tie out of his hair, tangling a couple of curls in it so he ripped out a few hairs. "Oh man, I am approaching Jack O'Neill levels of asshole here. I'm sorry. I'm just really about ready to explode over this whole…" Blair gestured toward the whole world. "I'm not normally this defensive."
"Or aggressive?" Daniel asked.
"Or aggressive," Blair sighed as he realized he really had been out of line. He was totally out of line, and Daniel was actually being a pretty good sport about it. "No way do you deserve it because I know you do good stuff, which we will not be discussing here, but man, I am totally in awe of what you do. It's just… it's been a hard week, you know?" Blair pushed his hair back into a new ponytail and wrapped the tie around it again.
"Oh, I know," Daniel agreed with an expression that made it very clear he'd had more than his share of shitty weeks. "No hard feelings."
"Been there, bought the t-shirt?" Blair guessed.
Daniel gave a fleeting frown before an impish grin appeared. "More like the wardrobe."
"Oh yeah. Man, we're academics. How'd we get in with serial killers and wack jobs and alpha dogs, oh my?" Blair jokingly sing-songed the words to the tune of Wizard of Oz. A woman with a paper shopping bag hurried past, barely sparing the two of them a glance even if they were pretty suspicious sitting out in the open waiting for the rain to drench them. Blair fingered his umbrella and gave the sky another look.
"What? Your university didn't have wack jobs and alpha dogs?" Daniel asked incredulously. "I've watched teaching fellows chew their own arms off to escape the grip of some tenured professor from hell."
"Oh hell, yeah. Totally. My friend got stuck teaching for Dr. Wizeman over in engineering at Rainier. The man does not believe in awarding more than one A per semester, and that's not even per class. He won't have more than one A in all of his classes combined. Anyway, my friend filed the grades he believed students had earned, and Wizeman shows up at his office, confiscates the students' final exams, and then overrides Rick's grades. He drops everyone at least a letter. He was taking off points if the students fucking bent the corner of their test, and the students assumed that Rick just turned into an asshole at the last minute. Fucking alpha-dog one-upmanship bullshit."
Daniel nodded enthusiastically. "At the Oriental Institute, there was this one professor who gave a test by handing out a blank piece of paper and seeing how we'd all react to it," Daniel shared with a shiver of dread. "Then, when people were confused, he started lecturing about how we're all sheep and don't know how to think and no matter how smart we'd been told we were, we weren't. It came down to a simple equation: we were all idiots, and he was brilliant. All hail Professor Appleton." Daniel shook his head. "Alpha posturing is not relegated to physical confrontation."
"That's true," Blair snorted, "and then there's the whole system of have and have not. I mean, when I was a teaching fellow, I taught three classes, took two or three classes every semester, and was working on my dissertation, but they wouldn't give me one inch of office space to myself. But Dr. Paulson, who'd had a stroke and hadn't been on campus for over a year, still had his office with his nameplate. Man, it made no sense. Five years of that, I put up with five years of that. Putting up with Jim's anal-retentive house rules is nothing compared to that."
"I'm glad I skipped that part of the experience. I did my one required teaching semester at UCLA, and then I ran from the teaching fellowships." Daniel stretched his legs out in front of him.
"I wish I could've afforded to run," Blair said as he thought about how much easier life would have been without teaching. Some of those semesters, he'd sleep in the truck while Jim drove to the station just because that hour was the only sleep he'd get in a day. "How'd you get so lucky?"
"Dead parents."
Blair froze and then cringed. Oh yeah, there were shitload of scholarships available for orphans, but that was so not a good trade-off. Shit, and here he'd been giving the guy a hard time. Yep, schmuck, thy name is Sandburg.
"Oh man, I'm sorry," Blair said softly, and now he felt like an even bigger jerk for giving Daniel shit. A little part of his brain whispered words like argumentum ad misercordium and objected that Daniel had backed up Asshole O'Neill, orphan or not. Blair quickly shoved that entirely too logical part into the tightest box he could and slammed the lid. The guy deserved some slack, especially considering that he had saved the world, which trumped the times he and Jim had saved some woman or even saved entire parts of Cascade. "I didn't know. I didn't read any files on you guys."
Daniel shrugged. "It was a long time ago. Jack can be an asshole, but he's the closest thing I have to family. I've pulled some pretty dumb moves, and Jack is always there, even when he'd be better off cutting ties and running for the hills."
"Yeah, same for me and Jim," Blair agreed.
"You don't have your folks, either?" Daniel pulled up a leg and tucked it under him, and Blair caught a glimpse of Jim walking near the same tourist stall where Jurgen had been shopping earlier.
"I have my mom," Blair shrugged. "She's sort of the wild child type. You know, never tied down, not even by a kid. I don't know who my father was."
Daniel nodded.
"You're good at your job," Blair offered with admiration.
"What?"
"Your job... getting people to talk, to start dialogue and negotiation. Man, you're good. I was all ready to hold this against you, and now… not so much. I still think Jack's an asshole, though," Blair added after a pause.
Daniel smiled, and he looked far too young to have saved the world. "Some days, I would agree. But he's still my friend and the leader of our team."
"An asshole leader."
"You don't let things go easily, do you?" Daniel asked, his smile widening.
"Not so much, no."
"So, do you need help to get away from whoever is pulling your strings? We could help you, give you a new life or just help you escape." Daniel asked so casually that it took a second for Blair to really register what the man was offering. And then, the first feeling Blair had was fear… no, terror. Terror that someone would overhear and then Section would come sweeping in and take Jim away. For a half-second, Blair was back in that white room, watching Jim's stoic expression as the Section operatives cuffed him and took him away. He remembered the pained and helpless expression on Jim's face in that moment, and the way Blair had firmly believed in his heart that he would never see Jim again. When the guard had come for him, he'd gone every step expecting a bullet in the back of his head. And then he'd seen the operating table, and he'd fought, he'd fought with every ounce of strength, and he'd been helpless as they'd stripped his shirt and tied him down on that cold table.
"Breathe, Chief, just breathe." Jim's voice floated in on the waves of dizziness that had left Blair seeing spots and holding onto the bench with a death's grip. "Slow down there, Speedy. In… hold… out," Jim coached him. Blair struggled to get control of his breathing, and slowly the feeling of pressure choking him subsided. "Shhh," Jim hushed him, and Blair realized he was clinging to Jim with one hand and the bench with the other and he had pressed nearly his entire body up against Jim so that he could smell the faint traces of soap on Jim's skin and feel the soft cotton of his shirt under his cheek. A hand rubbed soothing circles on his back.
"Is he okay?"
"He's fine," Jim said sharply.
"Yeah, sure, you betcha, he looks fine," the voice answered sarcastically, and Blair pushed himself away from Jim. He wasn't a wuss. Okay, he was, but he could pull himself together after wussing out. Jim was sitting next to him on the bench, watching with a frown.
"Hey, no problem," Blair said weakly.
Jack O'Neill snorted, and Blair opened his eyes enough to glare at the man.
"Your man started this," Jim snapped as he glared at Daniel.
"I was just… I wanted to help."
"Oh man, you can put your Blessed Protector badge away, Ellison." Blair reached over and squeezed Jim's arm so the man would know he meant it. "He really was trying to help."
"By sending you into a panic attack?"
"Panic attack my ass," Jack said as he crossed his arms. "Ellison, you and I have both seen enough PTSD to recognize the signs. If Sandburg isn't steady in the field…"
"He is," Jim almost snarled.
"Look," Blair said as he stood up. He ended up having to grab for Jim's shoulder to stabilize himself, but at least that looked like one friend seeking normal and natural physical contact with another. . . hopefully. "There are just certain topics that are not good for the mental health. I know you were trying to help," Blair said to Daniel, "Totally. And I appreciate it. But short of leaving the planet, I'm not so sure you can help."
"Danny, what were you two talking about?" Jack asked as he looked over.
"Jack, there's no way that Blair would willingly be part of some secret agency."
"Daniel." That was not a friendly tone Jack was aiming at Daniel, and the look was even less friendly.
"He works with victims. His mother's a vegan pacifist."
"Daniel."
"He's a genius. He started college at 16 and by the time he was 18, he had a juvenile record for protesting *against* violence."
"For cryin' out loud," Jack snapped.
"Jack." Daniel's voice had a pleading tone to it.
"Daniel, what did you say?" Jack demanded as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Jim stood up, his arm sliding around Blair's waist. "He offered to help Blair start a new life, to escape."
Jack stared at Jim for a second before studying Blair. With a sigh, Jack looked up and muttered to the sky above. "No problem, simple mission, pop in-kill a snake-pop out. Danny, you never make things easy."
"Me!?" Daniel demanded, clearly ready to fight over that statement, but Jack held up his hand.
"Yes, you," Jack said firmly. "You just have to go and poke people with a stick until you find out the truth, don't you?"
Blair glanced over, and Daniel looked as confused as he felt.
"Actually, yes," Daniel answered.
Jack sighed and rolled his eyes again before he focused on Jim. "Sandburg panicked when Daniel talked about escaping, so I'm guessing you've tried that before. And if you've tried escaping, that means you aren't willingly working for your handlers. And you and I have both worked this field long enough that there's really only one non-governmental agency with that much control inside US borders."
"That's not something I will discuss," Jim said slowly and carefully, and Blair could feel the man's body stiffen.
Jack nodded. "Right, so we're going with denial. I can do that. I think that's stupid because you're talking to someone who has the ear of the President-the actual President, mind you, not the president of the Hair Club For Men-which means we could help, but if we're going for denial, I can do that, too."
Jim had gone stone-faced, and Blair could only lean into his partner and study a tiny weed struggling up through the cracks. He wondered if someone would have to get down there and pull it up by the roots or if the city just sprayed massive amounts of poison on everything.
"We have a job to do, and I can feel the goa'uld, that way," Jim said as he tilted his head toward the east. Immediately, Jack's expression cleared, and he ducked his head and whispered into his lapel.
"Murray, we've got company coming from the east, stay sharp." Blair couldn't hear the response, but Jim must have approved because he started moving, the hand at Blair's waist urging him in the direction of the goa'uld.
"Whoa there, bucko," Jack said as he reached out and caught Jim's arm. "Let's leave the doc at home for this one. Carter can come in and escort him back to the hotel."
"No fucking way," Blair snapped as he stepped away from Jim and got so close to Jack that he had to look up at the man. "I'm Jim's partner, and no way is he going in there without me."
"Hey, I understand about sentinels and companions, and I'm an open-minded kinda guy, ask Daniel," Jack said with a nod toward Daniel, who remained silent until Jack gave him a dirty look and started talking again, "but I’m not taking someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder into a stressful situation. Stressful situation, stress disorder. Are you connecting the dots there, doc?"
"I'm fine. And I'm going with Jim," Blair said mulishly.
"Then you and Ellison will both go back to the hotel while we identify the snakes from your description. I won't take you in the field." Jack stared down coldly, and Blair got the feeling that no amount of cajoling or harassing was going to make the man budge. That didn't mean he was going to give up easily, though. There was more than one way to skin a stubborn colonel.
"Oh man, don't you get it? Jim's your best chance of identifying them from a distance. Who's to say that this is going to be the same goa'uld? For all we know, there are dozens here. And without Jim, you have zero chance of spotting any of them. Think about that," Blair said, playing on the man's need to accomplish his mission. For a second, he could feel Jack's indecision, and then the man shook his head.
"Not a chance, tough guy. You can go back with Carter or you and Ellison can go back with Carter, your choice." Jack looked back across the plaza, and Blair glanced over to where Carter was walking, a huge purse on her shoulder and a very touristy camera dangling from her neck. Blair glanced up at Jim, but the man was still doing his statue impression.
"I will protect Sandburg. He won't be in any danger, sir," Jim offered.
"No, he won't because he'll be back at the hotel with Carter watching Radio-teve-zeeza."
" Radiotelevizija Slovenija," Daniel corrected him.
Carter saved Daniel from any verbal retaliation. "Sir," Carter asked, "who's heading back for the hotel?"
"Well, kids?" Jack asked as he focused first on Jim and then on Blair. "Clock's ticking, here."
"Chief, do you want me to come back with you?" Jim asked.
Yeah, the only thing wimpier than getting kicked off a mission was dragging other people down too. "Hey, I'm fine. Seriously," Blair added when Jim looked at him suspiciously. "Man, just go identify some bad guys and hurry back. I'm not exactly thrilled with the backup here."
"For cryin' out loud, Sandburg, we do know what we're doing. If we didn't, you'd be worshipping some snakehead right now," Jack complained.
"Yeah, and you're completely clueless about sentinels. Less than clueless. You called him obsolete," Blair pointed out, still angry about that one.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine, I misspoke. I do that a lot with big words. Maybe I meant obscene or obscure or even obstreperous. Look, I'm not going to let anything happen to Ellison... or to you."
Blair snorted. "I might believe that if I thought you knew what you were doing. Look, the goa'uld are getting closer."
Jack glanced toward Jim, and the sentinel nodded.
"And if you knew what you were doing, you already would have known from his reactions," Blair pointed out, and that made Jack raise his eyebrows. "So, here's the deal. I'll go quietly with Carter, but we get to stay close enough to come running when you completely fuck up."
"Fuck up?" Jack demanded.
"Clock's ticking, here," Blair said sweetly, throwing Jack's words back at him. Jack glared even while Daniel had to turn around to hide the smirk Blair had glimpsed. "The café a block down?" Blair offered as a compromise. The hotel was just too far away.
"Fine," Jack snapped. "Carter, don't let the kid talk too much, he's worse than Daniel. And if he tries to start sweet talking you into something, shoot him with your zat."
"Yes, sir," Carter said with a smile as she slipped her arm around Blair's as though they were lovers walking arm in arm.
"Be careful," Blair said as he was pulled away from Jim.
"I'll be fine. You just watch out because you do not have a good record with armed women," Jim returned with a small smile, and Blair felt some of the ice around his heart soften. If Jim felt confident enough to joke, maybe things weren't completely screwed up.
"I haven't shot a date yet... at least not recently," Carter said with a smile as she tugged Blair into motion, and then Blair had to turn away from the other three because they were walking too fast for him to keep watching Jim. For several minutes, they walked in silence, Carter's boots clacking against the stones as they hurried. A few drops of rain splattered against Blair's face, but not enough to pull out his umbrella.
"They'll be fine," Carter said softly.
"O'Neill has no idea how sentinels work," Blair said softly.
"The colonel plays down his intelligence, but he knows what he's doing," Carter said as they stopped in front of the café and stopped to look at the outdoor menu. Blair moved closer and whispered.
"Lady, the people we worked for thought they had a clue until they met Jim. The colonel is so far out of his depth he doesn't even-" Blair broke off mid-word when Carter shoved him back so hard that he stumbled, caught his heel on a loose stone and ended up windmilling his arms and practically running backwards in a futile attempt to catch his balance. When his back hit a solid and warm chest, Blair finally looked up to see Carter hit with zat energy right before her body collapsed to the ground. The zat from her hand clattered uselessly to the ground.
"Aw, fuck," Blair cursed as he looked up at whoever he had fallen against. Sure enough, it was goa'uld number two from earlier. An inhumanly strong hand shoved him away, and then Blair's world erupted into pain as the zat blast ripped through every cell in his body. Well, fuck.
Two years ago, a secret covert ops organization (Section One) showed up in Jim's loft to force Jim and Blair to help rescue an agent named Nikita. (~Shadows of the Past~). Now, Section's new head, that same Nikita, tells him that he's supposed to work with traitors from Stargate Command to get rid of a group of invading aliens called goa'uld. Jim really, *really* wishes he could just pretend none of this ever happened.
Shadows and Siege part one
Shadows and Siege part two
Shadows and Siege part three
Shadows and Siege part four
Shadows and Siege part five
Shadows and Siege part six
Shadows and Siege part seven
Shadows and Siege part eight
Shadows and Siege part nine (Saturday morning chapter)
The street was quiet. The low clouds had chased most of the tourists inside, and the natives hurried along the sidewalks hoping to get home before the rain started.
"So, how did an anthropologist end up working with a sentinel?" Daniel asked as he walked next to Blair. Blair fought the urge to turn around and check to see where Jack and Jim were. Yeah, they were somewhere behind them, but he hated having Jim so far out of his sight. Weird. In Cascade, Jim did his thing and Blair was off somewhere else about as often as not. But right now, every inch of space between them made his skin itch as though he were the sentinel.
"Blair?" Daniel asked, frowning in concern.
"Not really the time," Blair pointed out with a wave toward the street in general.
Daniel blushed. Blair had to remind himself that most of Daniel's missions were off-planet where the chances of being overheard by the wrong people weren't actually that high. When Blair had a really uncharitable urge to say something unkind about Daniel's inadequate common sense, he clamped down on it.
"So, how did you end up working with Jim?" Daniel edited his question.
"How did you end up working with Jack?" Blair shot right back, not really in the mood to play nice. He hated this whole situation, and a little part of him knew that Daniel was just the most convenient target, but that didn't change the fact that Blair was enjoying taking a few shots at the man. Blair didn't know what aggravated him more, O'Neill's shitty attitude or the fact that Daniel obviously disagreed and still stood silent and let Jack get away with being an asshole. And the fact that he had actually liked Daniel all the way up to the point when Daniel let Jack go ripping into them... that just made him all the crankier.
"I got hired to do some translating work," Daniel answered in a surprisingly friendly tone. "Jack was really just about ready to kill me the first time we worked together." Daniel chuckled. "But after he saved me from my own curiosity a few times, he got used to having me around. Besides, life is never boring with me." Blair glanced over, and Daniel had a self-deprecating grin on his face as he shrugged.
"And the fact that he's an asshole doesn't bother you at all?"
Daniel pursed his lips and paused for a second. "We all have our faults. Jack likes to point out that my overdeveloped curiosity and underdeveloped sense of self-preservation are both dangerous. But then again, Jack's no saint. Not only is he an asshole, but he's terrible with names, he has no patience for the fact that archeology and diplomacy both take time and patience, and he's obsessed with fishing and the Simpsons." Daniel gave a small laugh. "He does seem to have more faults than most people, doesn't he?"
"Like being a rude, arrogant prick?" Blair suggested as they reached the main square and settled in on the same bench where Makepeace had been sitting hours ago. Blair firmly kept his eyes focused on the trailing edge of a gray cloud. If the others were here, he didn't want to see them. Blair totally sucked at pretending to not know people and he knew it. The thought of the rest of the team back at the hotel with a potentially deadly alien right in the middle of the team made him a little queasy, but he couldn't do anything about that, not without telling SG-1 everything, and that was dangerous on so many levels that Blair didn't even want to think about it.
"Oh, I don't know. He's not arrogant enough to break into someone's room and set up camp," Daniel pointed out. That distracted Blair from cloud watching.
"No way. We were just trying to cut through the bullshit."
"By invading our space?"
"By not playing these alpha chest-thumping games and laying all our cards on the table."
"Not playing alpha?" Daniel choked a bit before the expression turned to laughter. "Right. Invading someone else's territory and then facing them down… that's your definition of not playing alpha?"
Blair narrowed his eyes. "I liked you a lot more when you were doing research for some crackpot theory on Egypt."
Daniel crossed his arms, and Blair wasn't sure if that was an aggressive or a self-protecting gesture because the man's face lost all emotion.
When Daniel didn't say anything, Blair sighed and yanked the hair tie out of his hair, tangling a couple of curls in it so he ripped out a few hairs. "Oh man, I am approaching Jack O'Neill levels of asshole here. I'm sorry. I'm just really about ready to explode over this whole…" Blair gestured toward the whole world. "I'm not normally this defensive."
"Or aggressive?" Daniel asked.
"Or aggressive," Blair sighed as he realized he really had been out of line. He was totally out of line, and Daniel was actually being a pretty good sport about it. "No way do you deserve it because I know you do good stuff, which we will not be discussing here, but man, I am totally in awe of what you do. It's just… it's been a hard week, you know?" Blair pushed his hair back into a new ponytail and wrapped the tie around it again.
"Oh, I know," Daniel agreed with an expression that made it very clear he'd had more than his share of shitty weeks. "No hard feelings."
"Been there, bought the t-shirt?" Blair guessed.
Daniel gave a fleeting frown before an impish grin appeared. "More like the wardrobe."
"Oh yeah. Man, we're academics. How'd we get in with serial killers and wack jobs and alpha dogs, oh my?" Blair jokingly sing-songed the words to the tune of Wizard of Oz. A woman with a paper shopping bag hurried past, barely sparing the two of them a glance even if they were pretty suspicious sitting out in the open waiting for the rain to drench them. Blair fingered his umbrella and gave the sky another look.
"What? Your university didn't have wack jobs and alpha dogs?" Daniel asked incredulously. "I've watched teaching fellows chew their own arms off to escape the grip of some tenured professor from hell."
"Oh hell, yeah. Totally. My friend got stuck teaching for Dr. Wizeman over in engineering at Rainier. The man does not believe in awarding more than one A per semester, and that's not even per class. He won't have more than one A in all of his classes combined. Anyway, my friend filed the grades he believed students had earned, and Wizeman shows up at his office, confiscates the students' final exams, and then overrides Rick's grades. He drops everyone at least a letter. He was taking off points if the students fucking bent the corner of their test, and the students assumed that Rick just turned into an asshole at the last minute. Fucking alpha-dog one-upmanship bullshit."
Daniel nodded enthusiastically. "At the Oriental Institute, there was this one professor who gave a test by handing out a blank piece of paper and seeing how we'd all react to it," Daniel shared with a shiver of dread. "Then, when people were confused, he started lecturing about how we're all sheep and don't know how to think and no matter how smart we'd been told we were, we weren't. It came down to a simple equation: we were all idiots, and he was brilliant. All hail Professor Appleton." Daniel shook his head. "Alpha posturing is not relegated to physical confrontation."
"That's true," Blair snorted, "and then there's the whole system of have and have not. I mean, when I was a teaching fellow, I taught three classes, took two or three classes every semester, and was working on my dissertation, but they wouldn't give me one inch of office space to myself. But Dr. Paulson, who'd had a stroke and hadn't been on campus for over a year, still had his office with his nameplate. Man, it made no sense. Five years of that, I put up with five years of that. Putting up with Jim's anal-retentive house rules is nothing compared to that."
"I'm glad I skipped that part of the experience. I did my one required teaching semester at UCLA, and then I ran from the teaching fellowships." Daniel stretched his legs out in front of him.
"I wish I could've afforded to run," Blair said as he thought about how much easier life would have been without teaching. Some of those semesters, he'd sleep in the truck while Jim drove to the station just because that hour was the only sleep he'd get in a day. "How'd you get so lucky?"
"Dead parents."
Blair froze and then cringed. Oh yeah, there were shitload of scholarships available for orphans, but that was so not a good trade-off. Shit, and here he'd been giving the guy a hard time. Yep, schmuck, thy name is Sandburg.
"Oh man, I'm sorry," Blair said softly, and now he felt like an even bigger jerk for giving Daniel shit. A little part of his brain whispered words like argumentum ad misercordium and objected that Daniel had backed up Asshole O'Neill, orphan or not. Blair quickly shoved that entirely too logical part into the tightest box he could and slammed the lid. The guy deserved some slack, especially considering that he had saved the world, which trumped the times he and Jim had saved some woman or even saved entire parts of Cascade. "I didn't know. I didn't read any files on you guys."
Daniel shrugged. "It was a long time ago. Jack can be an asshole, but he's the closest thing I have to family. I've pulled some pretty dumb moves, and Jack is always there, even when he'd be better off cutting ties and running for the hills."
"Yeah, same for me and Jim," Blair agreed.
"You don't have your folks, either?" Daniel pulled up a leg and tucked it under him, and Blair caught a glimpse of Jim walking near the same tourist stall where Jurgen had been shopping earlier.
"I have my mom," Blair shrugged. "She's sort of the wild child type. You know, never tied down, not even by a kid. I don't know who my father was."
Daniel nodded.
"You're good at your job," Blair offered with admiration.
"What?"
"Your job... getting people to talk, to start dialogue and negotiation. Man, you're good. I was all ready to hold this against you, and now… not so much. I still think Jack's an asshole, though," Blair added after a pause.
Daniel smiled, and he looked far too young to have saved the world. "Some days, I would agree. But he's still my friend and the leader of our team."
"An asshole leader."
"You don't let things go easily, do you?" Daniel asked, his smile widening.
"Not so much, no."
"So, do you need help to get away from whoever is pulling your strings? We could help you, give you a new life or just help you escape." Daniel asked so casually that it took a second for Blair to really register what the man was offering. And then, the first feeling Blair had was fear… no, terror. Terror that someone would overhear and then Section would come sweeping in and take Jim away. For a half-second, Blair was back in that white room, watching Jim's stoic expression as the Section operatives cuffed him and took him away. He remembered the pained and helpless expression on Jim's face in that moment, and the way Blair had firmly believed in his heart that he would never see Jim again. When the guard had come for him, he'd gone every step expecting a bullet in the back of his head. And then he'd seen the operating table, and he'd fought, he'd fought with every ounce of strength, and he'd been helpless as they'd stripped his shirt and tied him down on that cold table.
"Breathe, Chief, just breathe." Jim's voice floated in on the waves of dizziness that had left Blair seeing spots and holding onto the bench with a death's grip. "Slow down there, Speedy. In… hold… out," Jim coached him. Blair struggled to get control of his breathing, and slowly the feeling of pressure choking him subsided. "Shhh," Jim hushed him, and Blair realized he was clinging to Jim with one hand and the bench with the other and he had pressed nearly his entire body up against Jim so that he could smell the faint traces of soap on Jim's skin and feel the soft cotton of his shirt under his cheek. A hand rubbed soothing circles on his back.
"Is he okay?"
"He's fine," Jim said sharply.
"Yeah, sure, you betcha, he looks fine," the voice answered sarcastically, and Blair pushed himself away from Jim. He wasn't a wuss. Okay, he was, but he could pull himself together after wussing out. Jim was sitting next to him on the bench, watching with a frown.
"Hey, no problem," Blair said weakly.
Jack O'Neill snorted, and Blair opened his eyes enough to glare at the man.
"Your man started this," Jim snapped as he glared at Daniel.
"I was just… I wanted to help."
"Oh man, you can put your Blessed Protector badge away, Ellison." Blair reached over and squeezed Jim's arm so the man would know he meant it. "He really was trying to help."
"By sending you into a panic attack?"
"Panic attack my ass," Jack said as he crossed his arms. "Ellison, you and I have both seen enough PTSD to recognize the signs. If Sandburg isn't steady in the field…"
"He is," Jim almost snarled.
"Look," Blair said as he stood up. He ended up having to grab for Jim's shoulder to stabilize himself, but at least that looked like one friend seeking normal and natural physical contact with another. . . hopefully. "There are just certain topics that are not good for the mental health. I know you were trying to help," Blair said to Daniel, "Totally. And I appreciate it. But short of leaving the planet, I'm not so sure you can help."
"Danny, what were you two talking about?" Jack asked as he looked over.
"Jack, there's no way that Blair would willingly be part of some secret agency."
"Daniel." That was not a friendly tone Jack was aiming at Daniel, and the look was even less friendly.
"He works with victims. His mother's a vegan pacifist."
"Daniel."
"He's a genius. He started college at 16 and by the time he was 18, he had a juvenile record for protesting *against* violence."
"For cryin' out loud," Jack snapped.
"Jack." Daniel's voice had a pleading tone to it.
"Daniel, what did you say?" Jack demanded as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Jim stood up, his arm sliding around Blair's waist. "He offered to help Blair start a new life, to escape."
Jack stared at Jim for a second before studying Blair. With a sigh, Jack looked up and muttered to the sky above. "No problem, simple mission, pop in-kill a snake-pop out. Danny, you never make things easy."
"Me!?" Daniel demanded, clearly ready to fight over that statement, but Jack held up his hand.
"Yes, you," Jack said firmly. "You just have to go and poke people with a stick until you find out the truth, don't you?"
Blair glanced over, and Daniel looked as confused as he felt.
"Actually, yes," Daniel answered.
Jack sighed and rolled his eyes again before he focused on Jim. "Sandburg panicked when Daniel talked about escaping, so I'm guessing you've tried that before. And if you've tried escaping, that means you aren't willingly working for your handlers. And you and I have both worked this field long enough that there's really only one non-governmental agency with that much control inside US borders."
"That's not something I will discuss," Jim said slowly and carefully, and Blair could feel the man's body stiffen.
Jack nodded. "Right, so we're going with denial. I can do that. I think that's stupid because you're talking to someone who has the ear of the President-the actual President, mind you, not the president of the Hair Club For Men-which means we could help, but if we're going for denial, I can do that, too."
Jim had gone stone-faced, and Blair could only lean into his partner and study a tiny weed struggling up through the cracks. He wondered if someone would have to get down there and pull it up by the roots or if the city just sprayed massive amounts of poison on everything.
"We have a job to do, and I can feel the goa'uld, that way," Jim said as he tilted his head toward the east. Immediately, Jack's expression cleared, and he ducked his head and whispered into his lapel.
"Murray, we've got company coming from the east, stay sharp." Blair couldn't hear the response, but Jim must have approved because he started moving, the hand at Blair's waist urging him in the direction of the goa'uld.
"Whoa there, bucko," Jack said as he reached out and caught Jim's arm. "Let's leave the doc at home for this one. Carter can come in and escort him back to the hotel."
"No fucking way," Blair snapped as he stepped away from Jim and got so close to Jack that he had to look up at the man. "I'm Jim's partner, and no way is he going in there without me."
"Hey, I understand about sentinels and companions, and I'm an open-minded kinda guy, ask Daniel," Jack said with a nod toward Daniel, who remained silent until Jack gave him a dirty look and started talking again, "but I’m not taking someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder into a stressful situation. Stressful situation, stress disorder. Are you connecting the dots there, doc?"
"I'm fine. And I'm going with Jim," Blair said mulishly.
"Then you and Ellison will both go back to the hotel while we identify the snakes from your description. I won't take you in the field." Jack stared down coldly, and Blair got the feeling that no amount of cajoling or harassing was going to make the man budge. That didn't mean he was going to give up easily, though. There was more than one way to skin a stubborn colonel.
"Oh man, don't you get it? Jim's your best chance of identifying them from a distance. Who's to say that this is going to be the same goa'uld? For all we know, there are dozens here. And without Jim, you have zero chance of spotting any of them. Think about that," Blair said, playing on the man's need to accomplish his mission. For a second, he could feel Jack's indecision, and then the man shook his head.
"Not a chance, tough guy. You can go back with Carter or you and Ellison can go back with Carter, your choice." Jack looked back across the plaza, and Blair glanced over to where Carter was walking, a huge purse on her shoulder and a very touristy camera dangling from her neck. Blair glanced up at Jim, but the man was still doing his statue impression.
"I will protect Sandburg. He won't be in any danger, sir," Jim offered.
"No, he won't because he'll be back at the hotel with Carter watching Radio-teve-zeeza."
" Radiotelevizija Slovenija," Daniel corrected him.
Carter saved Daniel from any verbal retaliation. "Sir," Carter asked, "who's heading back for the hotel?"
"Well, kids?" Jack asked as he focused first on Jim and then on Blair. "Clock's ticking, here."
"Chief, do you want me to come back with you?" Jim asked.
Yeah, the only thing wimpier than getting kicked off a mission was dragging other people down too. "Hey, I'm fine. Seriously," Blair added when Jim looked at him suspiciously. "Man, just go identify some bad guys and hurry back. I'm not exactly thrilled with the backup here."
"For cryin' out loud, Sandburg, we do know what we're doing. If we didn't, you'd be worshipping some snakehead right now," Jack complained.
"Yeah, and you're completely clueless about sentinels. Less than clueless. You called him obsolete," Blair pointed out, still angry about that one.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine, I misspoke. I do that a lot with big words. Maybe I meant obscene or obscure or even obstreperous. Look, I'm not going to let anything happen to Ellison... or to you."
Blair snorted. "I might believe that if I thought you knew what you were doing. Look, the goa'uld are getting closer."
Jack glanced toward Jim, and the sentinel nodded.
"And if you knew what you were doing, you already would have known from his reactions," Blair pointed out, and that made Jack raise his eyebrows. "So, here's the deal. I'll go quietly with Carter, but we get to stay close enough to come running when you completely fuck up."
"Fuck up?" Jack demanded.
"Clock's ticking, here," Blair said sweetly, throwing Jack's words back at him. Jack glared even while Daniel had to turn around to hide the smirk Blair had glimpsed. "The café a block down?" Blair offered as a compromise. The hotel was just too far away.
"Fine," Jack snapped. "Carter, don't let the kid talk too much, he's worse than Daniel. And if he tries to start sweet talking you into something, shoot him with your zat."
"Yes, sir," Carter said with a smile as she slipped her arm around Blair's as though they were lovers walking arm in arm.
"Be careful," Blair said as he was pulled away from Jim.
"I'll be fine. You just watch out because you do not have a good record with armed women," Jim returned with a small smile, and Blair felt some of the ice around his heart soften. If Jim felt confident enough to joke, maybe things weren't completely screwed up.
"I haven't shot a date yet... at least not recently," Carter said with a smile as she tugged Blair into motion, and then Blair had to turn away from the other three because they were walking too fast for him to keep watching Jim. For several minutes, they walked in silence, Carter's boots clacking against the stones as they hurried. A few drops of rain splattered against Blair's face, but not enough to pull out his umbrella.
"They'll be fine," Carter said softly.
"O'Neill has no idea how sentinels work," Blair said softly.
"The colonel plays down his intelligence, but he knows what he's doing," Carter said as they stopped in front of the café and stopped to look at the outdoor menu. Blair moved closer and whispered.
"Lady, the people we worked for thought they had a clue until they met Jim. The colonel is so far out of his depth he doesn't even-" Blair broke off mid-word when Carter shoved him back so hard that he stumbled, caught his heel on a loose stone and ended up windmilling his arms and practically running backwards in a futile attempt to catch his balance. When his back hit a solid and warm chest, Blair finally looked up to see Carter hit with zat energy right before her body collapsed to the ground. The zat from her hand clattered uselessly to the ground.
"Aw, fuck," Blair cursed as he looked up at whoever he had fallen against. Sure enough, it was goa'uld number two from earlier. An inhumanly strong hand shoved him away, and then Blair's world erupted into pain as the zat blast ripped through every cell in his body. Well, fuck.