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Title: The Tell-Tale Pants
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Rating: PG
Written for:fairygnomes
Who wants: Thor, one or more of SG-1 in leather trousers, Goa'uld as bad guy (i.e not Replicators/local enemy)
And doesn't want: Character death, NID, anything political (i.e. no Kinsey/disclosure)
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sg1teamficathon
Thanks to my beta SuperFox
~*~
Jack has three weapons pointed at him by the three most trusted and loved people in his life, five minutes till his ship’s self-destruct goes off and so far as he knows, no one riding to the rescue.
All he can think is, ah hell.
~*~
Ten minutes till self-destruct.
Their Tel'tak lays dormant in space, trailing its life-blood into the inky blackness that cradles it. The smell of cloying smoke fills the corridors and the way it clings to everything gives the whole scene a surreal quality.
Jack has the presence of mind to think, just how the hell did this happen?
It was a bad idea from the start. It was a Tok’ra idea, which was practically the same thing in Jack’s mind. They all sat around the conference table and listened as two Tok’ra operatives laid out the plan.
It’ll be easy and you’ll be saving lives.
Okay, so they’d latched onto the saving lives bit and had kind of disregarded the rest. It was always their mistake. Jack had protested loudly, but they’d all disregarded him as well, per usual. Daniel and Sam had started babbling about how an operation of this magnitude would secure the Tok’ra’s alliance for the foreseeable future and also strike a blow against the Goa’uld that the snakeheads would actually feel.
Intercept a Goa’uld dead drop. Switch the intelligence the Goa’uld were going to gain and have the Goa’uld believing that the betrayal had come from within their own ranks.
Easy.
Yeah, right.
There’d been an interception, but it had happened before the dead drop could even take place, and unbeknownst to anyone but Jack. The Tok’ra they had accepted through the ‘gate into Stargate command weren’t even Tok’ra and had been setting them up.
It had been ridiculously easy.
Jack had gone in first to scout, been zatted and that’s where the others had found him. They’d figured the garish Goa’uld accoutrements; leather pants, vest and spiked hair had not been enough to fool their spy. They’d hustled him back to the Tel’tak, double-time, not realizing that they were carrying a weapon on board.
The plan had been to get back to Earth undetected, but the Goa’uld that had engineered this small sabotage had underestimated just how well Jack’s team knew him. All the enzyme suppressors in the world couldn’t stop Daniel, Sam or Teal’c from cluing in that there was something up, especially when they were stuck in a Tel’tak for a three-day trip.
Sam had started looking at Jack, watching him only a few hours into their trip, a strange light in her eyes. She knew that something was definitely up.
Jack would take to ordering Sam to do something that would be distracting, but there was only so much to do on such a small ship.
Nine minutes till self-destruct
The voice making the announcement was synthesized and had never seen the inside of a human throat, the sound a computerized approximation of the air and vibration that it takes to form the human voice.
That first day to Jack was a foggy landscape, and the night he couldn’t even remember. The line between the two periods of time blurred. He looked at himself in the reflective surface of the ship’s hull and couldn’t believe that his team was still taking orders from him.
To Jack, the eyes were completely different.
The second day, Daniel sought him out and sat opposite, pulling his legs up to his chin. He regarded Jack for a time and finally, the Goa’uld within deigned to speak to Jack.
HE KNOWS, DOESN’T HE?
Jack sighed inwardly, but then remembered that everything at the moment was inward with him.
He has an inkling, yes, Jack agreed, not really wanting to tell the Goa’uld anything, but the creature had tentacles in his mind.
A PITY. HE IS CERTAINLY PLEASING FOR A HUMAN. I HAD HOPED TO USE HIM BEFORE WE WERE DONE. HE AND THE WOMAN
Jack had images of what the Goa’uld alluded to flash-burned into his mind and screamed, wondering how Daniel could not have heard it when it was so loud in his own mind. The Goa’uld, a creature named Aerebus, reached Jack’s hand out towards Daniel's chin and knocked it gently.
“You okay?” Jack heard his own voice issue, so chillingly normal.
“Yeah, I was just going to ask you the same thing.” Daniel was still looking at him, puzzling him out. Jack threw all his strength into thinking at Daniel, but Daniel just sighed and stretched expansively. “I guess I’m just going a little stir crazy. I’m going to sleep for a bit. Wake me in an hour, okay?”
“Sure?” Jack felt the grin stretch on his face and freeze there as Daniel wandered away from him.
Eight minutes till self-destruct
The third day of the journey, close to home and the Goa’uld sensed he had been made. There was a look, a gesture, something that didn’t sit right with the others and the Goa’uld knew. It had a contingency plan and Jack was disgusted.
By my hands, by my hands, they’re going to die by my hands, Jack raged inwardly and his fingers twitched, not because of something the Goa’uld had done, but he had. The Goa’uld had not noticed and Jack thought… interesting.
Seven minutes till self-destruct
They’d ambushed him in the cargo hold and that’s when the self-destruct message had started. They’d kept their distance and held him at bay but Aerebus knew they wouldn’t shoot him.
Aerebus knew this because Jack knew this.
~*~
Six minutes till self-destruct
They were all yelling and Jack figured Aerebus was yelling right back, taunting them into shooting him because he believed they wouldn’t be able to override the self-destruct at all. The Goa’uld had understood this to be a one-way trip and if he died merely obliterating SG-1 instead of a sizeable chunk of the SGC, then so be it.
He is so distracted, that he doesn’t notice when Jack finally wrenches back control of one tiny part of himself.
One arm and one hand.
More specifically, the arm and hand that that Goa’uld is holding the zat with.
Teal’c sees the movement first. He notices the zat rising, slowly but surely. For a second he almost fires on Jack, but the zat is halfway up and not pointed at any of them yet and gut instinct tells him that Jack is up to something,.
Five minutes till self-destruct
It’s timed perfectly. The zat is rammed into Jack’s mouth mid-taunt and he savors the feeling of the Goa’uld’s horror for all of a moment before depressing the trigger. The zat blast hits the back of his throat and right then Jack doesn’t care if it kills him or just incapacitates.
He’s pretty sure a point-blank zat blast this close to his brain has got to do something permanent and serious.
Jack doesn’t care because he hears the horrendous squealing of a Goa’uld dying in a split second and he thinks, huh, found a new way to de-Goa’uld a person. Hurts a bit though…
There are arms around him and someone yelling, but this time in concern rather than anger and Jack lets go.
Just before unconsciousness takes him, he is engulfed in a flash of bright white light.
Jack’s last thought is, cool, I thought I was going to the other place…
~*~
Jack cracks open his eyes and can see he’s in the infirmary. He would call for a Doctor but his throat feels like it’s on fire. Instead, he looks about himself because there has to be one of his team standing close.
Big, black eyes stare at him from over the mattress.
“Thor?” Jack croaks.
“Greetings, O’Neill. We had feared you would suffer permanent damage from your ordeal. I am glad to see you awake.”
Jack blinks and raises a hand to his eyes, rubbing briefly. “Thor?” he repeats. He isn’t sure, given the limited range of facial expressions of the Asgard, but he thinks Thor rolls his eyes.
“Yes, O’Neill,” he confirms. “I was near Earth when Samantha Carter sent out a distress signal. I was close enough to come and pick you up.”
“Oh, cool.” Just that much is making Jack’s throat ache and he reaches over a shaky hand, retrieving a glass of water on his side table. He wants to ask where the others are and just what has happened after he shot himself in the neck, but it requires too many words.
Thor seems to sense his concern because he raises a tiny arm and splays his fingers out towards the bed opposite. Sam is asleep, curled up on a corner of the bed. Daniel is on the end and has his head on Sam’s leg and one arm stretched out so the fingers are on the back of the chair that Teal’c is sitting in, the only one actually awake.
Jack raises a hand in greeting and Teal’c nods once. He leans an arm back and prods Daniel and then Sam. They both came awake with a start and look both relieved and jubilant.
Jack has one burning question, and he is going to risk a sore throat to get it answered.
“When did you know it wasn’t me?” he asks.
Daniel and Sam look at each other, then both at Teal’c. He sighs heavily and turns back to Jack. “We knew it was not you from when you were brought back on board the Tel’tak,” he answers simply.
“What? How?” Jack croaks, grimacing.
This time Daniel is silently volunteered to break the news. He grimaces and then rubs his neck. “Ah, it was the pants,” he says, his tone sheepish.
Jack’s eyebrows draw down.
“You complained about those damn pants we had you in from the moment you put them on to the moment you stepped off the ship the first time.” Sam picks up the thread, Daniel and Teal’c nodding helpfully.
“Carter,” Jack growls.
She flushes. “When you came to you looked so damn… comfortable in them. We knew something was up.”
Jack thought of all the ways he could possibly argue against their reasoning, but he was exhausted and his throat hurt and everyone was safe.
Plus, they had been right.
“Good enough,” he sighs, letting himself drift off.
Author:
kellifer_ficRating: PG
Written for:
fairygnomesWho wants: Thor, one or more of SG-1 in leather trousers, Goa'uld as bad guy (i.e not Replicators/local enemy)
And doesn't want: Character death, NID, anything political (i.e. no Kinsey/disclosure)
Notes: Written for
sg1teamficathonThanks to my beta SuperFox
~*~
Jack has three weapons pointed at him by the three most trusted and loved people in his life, five minutes till his ship’s self-destruct goes off and so far as he knows, no one riding to the rescue.
All he can think is, ah hell.
~*~
Ten minutes till self-destruct.
Their Tel'tak lays dormant in space, trailing its life-blood into the inky blackness that cradles it. The smell of cloying smoke fills the corridors and the way it clings to everything gives the whole scene a surreal quality.
Jack has the presence of mind to think, just how the hell did this happen?
It was a bad idea from the start. It was a Tok’ra idea, which was practically the same thing in Jack’s mind. They all sat around the conference table and listened as two Tok’ra operatives laid out the plan.
It’ll be easy and you’ll be saving lives.
Okay, so they’d latched onto the saving lives bit and had kind of disregarded the rest. It was always their mistake. Jack had protested loudly, but they’d all disregarded him as well, per usual. Daniel and Sam had started babbling about how an operation of this magnitude would secure the Tok’ra’s alliance for the foreseeable future and also strike a blow against the Goa’uld that the snakeheads would actually feel.
Intercept a Goa’uld dead drop. Switch the intelligence the Goa’uld were going to gain and have the Goa’uld believing that the betrayal had come from within their own ranks.
Easy.
Yeah, right.
There’d been an interception, but it had happened before the dead drop could even take place, and unbeknownst to anyone but Jack. The Tok’ra they had accepted through the ‘gate into Stargate command weren’t even Tok’ra and had been setting them up.
It had been ridiculously easy.
Jack had gone in first to scout, been zatted and that’s where the others had found him. They’d figured the garish Goa’uld accoutrements; leather pants, vest and spiked hair had not been enough to fool their spy. They’d hustled him back to the Tel’tak, double-time, not realizing that they were carrying a weapon on board.
The plan had been to get back to Earth undetected, but the Goa’uld that had engineered this small sabotage had underestimated just how well Jack’s team knew him. All the enzyme suppressors in the world couldn’t stop Daniel, Sam or Teal’c from cluing in that there was something up, especially when they were stuck in a Tel’tak for a three-day trip.
Sam had started looking at Jack, watching him only a few hours into their trip, a strange light in her eyes. She knew that something was definitely up.
Jack would take to ordering Sam to do something that would be distracting, but there was only so much to do on such a small ship.
Nine minutes till self-destruct
The voice making the announcement was synthesized and had never seen the inside of a human throat, the sound a computerized approximation of the air and vibration that it takes to form the human voice.
That first day to Jack was a foggy landscape, and the night he couldn’t even remember. The line between the two periods of time blurred. He looked at himself in the reflective surface of the ship’s hull and couldn’t believe that his team was still taking orders from him.
To Jack, the eyes were completely different.
The second day, Daniel sought him out and sat opposite, pulling his legs up to his chin. He regarded Jack for a time and finally, the Goa’uld within deigned to speak to Jack.
HE KNOWS, DOESN’T HE?
Jack sighed inwardly, but then remembered that everything at the moment was inward with him.
He has an inkling, yes, Jack agreed, not really wanting to tell the Goa’uld anything, but the creature had tentacles in his mind.
A PITY. HE IS CERTAINLY PLEASING FOR A HUMAN. I HAD HOPED TO USE HIM BEFORE WE WERE DONE. HE AND THE WOMAN
Jack had images of what the Goa’uld alluded to flash-burned into his mind and screamed, wondering how Daniel could not have heard it when it was so loud in his own mind. The Goa’uld, a creature named Aerebus, reached Jack’s hand out towards Daniel's chin and knocked it gently.
“You okay?” Jack heard his own voice issue, so chillingly normal.
“Yeah, I was just going to ask you the same thing.” Daniel was still looking at him, puzzling him out. Jack threw all his strength into thinking at Daniel, but Daniel just sighed and stretched expansively. “I guess I’m just going a little stir crazy. I’m going to sleep for a bit. Wake me in an hour, okay?”
“Sure?” Jack felt the grin stretch on his face and freeze there as Daniel wandered away from him.
Eight minutes till self-destruct
The third day of the journey, close to home and the Goa’uld sensed he had been made. There was a look, a gesture, something that didn’t sit right with the others and the Goa’uld knew. It had a contingency plan and Jack was disgusted.
By my hands, by my hands, they’re going to die by my hands, Jack raged inwardly and his fingers twitched, not because of something the Goa’uld had done, but he had. The Goa’uld had not noticed and Jack thought… interesting.
Seven minutes till self-destruct
They’d ambushed him in the cargo hold and that’s when the self-destruct message had started. They’d kept their distance and held him at bay but Aerebus knew they wouldn’t shoot him.
Aerebus knew this because Jack knew this.
~*~
Six minutes till self-destruct
They were all yelling and Jack figured Aerebus was yelling right back, taunting them into shooting him because he believed they wouldn’t be able to override the self-destruct at all. The Goa’uld had understood this to be a one-way trip and if he died merely obliterating SG-1 instead of a sizeable chunk of the SGC, then so be it.
He is so distracted, that he doesn’t notice when Jack finally wrenches back control of one tiny part of himself.
One arm and one hand.
More specifically, the arm and hand that that Goa’uld is holding the zat with.
Teal’c sees the movement first. He notices the zat rising, slowly but surely. For a second he almost fires on Jack, but the zat is halfway up and not pointed at any of them yet and gut instinct tells him that Jack is up to something,.
Five minutes till self-destruct
It’s timed perfectly. The zat is rammed into Jack’s mouth mid-taunt and he savors the feeling of the Goa’uld’s horror for all of a moment before depressing the trigger. The zat blast hits the back of his throat and right then Jack doesn’t care if it kills him or just incapacitates.
He’s pretty sure a point-blank zat blast this close to his brain has got to do something permanent and serious.
Jack doesn’t care because he hears the horrendous squealing of a Goa’uld dying in a split second and he thinks, huh, found a new way to de-Goa’uld a person. Hurts a bit though…
There are arms around him and someone yelling, but this time in concern rather than anger and Jack lets go.
Just before unconsciousness takes him, he is engulfed in a flash of bright white light.
Jack’s last thought is, cool, I thought I was going to the other place…
~*~
Jack cracks open his eyes and can see he’s in the infirmary. He would call for a Doctor but his throat feels like it’s on fire. Instead, he looks about himself because there has to be one of his team standing close.
Big, black eyes stare at him from over the mattress.
“Thor?” Jack croaks.
“Greetings, O’Neill. We had feared you would suffer permanent damage from your ordeal. I am glad to see you awake.”
Jack blinks and raises a hand to his eyes, rubbing briefly. “Thor?” he repeats. He isn’t sure, given the limited range of facial expressions of the Asgard, but he thinks Thor rolls his eyes.
“Yes, O’Neill,” he confirms. “I was near Earth when Samantha Carter sent out a distress signal. I was close enough to come and pick you up.”
“Oh, cool.” Just that much is making Jack’s throat ache and he reaches over a shaky hand, retrieving a glass of water on his side table. He wants to ask where the others are and just what has happened after he shot himself in the neck, but it requires too many words.
Thor seems to sense his concern because he raises a tiny arm and splays his fingers out towards the bed opposite. Sam is asleep, curled up on a corner of the bed. Daniel is on the end and has his head on Sam’s leg and one arm stretched out so the fingers are on the back of the chair that Teal’c is sitting in, the only one actually awake.
Jack raises a hand in greeting and Teal’c nods once. He leans an arm back and prods Daniel and then Sam. They both came awake with a start and look both relieved and jubilant.
Jack has one burning question, and he is going to risk a sore throat to get it answered.
“When did you know it wasn’t me?” he asks.
Daniel and Sam look at each other, then both at Teal’c. He sighs heavily and turns back to Jack. “We knew it was not you from when you were brought back on board the Tel’tak,” he answers simply.
“What? How?” Jack croaks, grimacing.
This time Daniel is silently volunteered to break the news. He grimaces and then rubs his neck. “Ah, it was the pants,” he says, his tone sheepish.
Jack’s eyebrows draw down.
“You complained about those damn pants we had you in from the moment you put them on to the moment you stepped off the ship the first time.” Sam picks up the thread, Daniel and Teal’c nodding helpfully.
“Carter,” Jack growls.
She flushes. “When you came to you looked so damn… comfortable in them. We knew something was up.”
Jack thought of all the ways he could possibly argue against their reasoning, but he was exhausted and his throat hurt and everyone was safe.
Plus, they had been right.
“Good enough,” he sighs, letting himself drift off.
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