Prompt 155.1

[a_blackpanther]

Five times General Hammond considered retiring before he actually did.

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Six Times General Hammond Almost Retired Before He Did, Part 1

[thothmes]

Author's Note: There were six times, that's what George told me, and I'm sticking to it!1.George Hammond looked down at the body of the alien being on the slab of the SGC's morgue. He could not see the face, because Doctor Warner had taken care to shroud all of the body but the strange inhuman pouch that was the thing that Hammond had been brought down to see. Aliens in the morgue. A young woman under his command seized, now a P.O.W. on an alien world. He understood that there were many women these days who strove for equality within the Air Force, and who were agitating for women to be allowed to serve in combat positions, and that day was coming, but with the Stargate project being mothballed, this particular young airman had been assigned on the assumption that she was in a non-combat posting. Hammond thought about the letters he would have to write. He thought about the secret war that was to come, a battle where Earth's very survival could hang in the balance. George Hammond had been in the Air Force all his adult life, and

Six Times General Hammond Almost Retired Before He Did, Part 2

[thothmes]

3. It had been 3 weeks, and still no SG-1. Teams came, and teams left, but there was no unscheduled incoming wormhole with SG-1's code. George Hammond knew where they had gone, and he'd given Sam Carter the data she'd need to get them home, but the fact remained that although he had certain knowledge of where they had gone, he had no certainty that his note would successfully lead them home. SG-1 were no longer the strangers they had been back at the start of Hammond's career. They had told him the truth, back in that transport van. They knew him. They were friends. They were the flagship team, and the soul of this command, and an incalculable loss. The Pentagon had given him one more week, and then he would be ordered to change their status to K.I.A. George knew if he turned a corner and ran into a 70 year old Samantha Carter, he would never be able to look her in the eye if he had to tell her that he had done that. He'd retire before he declared SG-1 dead this way

Six Times General Hammond Almost Retired Before He Did, Part 3

[thothmes]

5. A gloom hung over the entire SGC as Daniel Jackson lay dying of radiation. Such a filthy way to go. Such a terrible reward for his heroism. SG-1 had survived every challenge, had won every battle, had saved the Earth again and again, and it had come to this. George had had enough. Time to retire.

He would have, too, if Jack O'Neill hadn't talked him out of it. He insisted that Dr. Jackson was not gone, that he was continuing his quest for knowledge in a different form, and Daniel had chosen his own path. He only had Jack's word on this, but Daniel had left no body, and Jack's word was a rock-solid thing. There were apparently more things on Heaven and Earth than were in George Hammond's original philosophy.

6. Janet Fraiser had spread the Tok'ra tunic out on his desk and pointed to all the various different rips, tears, and holes, and explained how many of them represented individually fatal wounds. Dr. Fraiser couldn't definitively say how many times Jack had been tortured to death, and Jack O'Neill, suffering the

[sidlj]

These are wonderful. I especially loved the surprise ending to the first one. I always forget that George had to recognize the team from the moment he met them, because he wasn't meeting them for the first time!

[thothmes]

Oh, how delightful that somebody actually has read these over here. I was beginning to wonder...

I'm glad you enjoyed them. Yeah, we do forget that George had met them before, although the fact always rears its inconvenient head in my mind everytime I rewatch The Enemy Within, and Hammond has such a deliberate and measured reaction to Colonel Kennedy. There's really no full court press, no wholehearted backing of Teal'c until he proves his worth. It makes perfect sense from a production standpoint why there wouldn't be [Well of course not, 1969 hadn't been written or even conceived of at that point. Duh!], but knowing how Hammond is a bulldog in defense of his people, and knowing that he's seen them all together as a team, it's all just jarring. I just want to yell at the screen "Writers, you got it wrong! It didn't really go down like that!"

I guess that's why God created fanfic writers, to fix all those details that were filmed wrong (or inelegantly) in canon.

[sidlj]

Yes, it's up to us to set it all right. We accept the challenge!

Oh, how delightful that somebody actually has read these over here. I was beginning to wonder...

It's not you, it's us. I just peeked at my oldest Five Things bookmark, and it goes back to 2010! Yikes!