Author's Notes: Hi, all. A little Missing Scene piece for you, centered on the end of Serpent's Lair. Not the reunion scene, though--instead that lovely scene with the Daniel-less team being rescued from space. I just love that one, don't you? Anyway, Danny's not in this at all, for obvious reasons, so you've been warned. He is here in spirit, though. Very much so.
Many thanks to my betas, especially my technical advisors. Any remaining errors are completely a reflection of my ignorance and certainly not their generous help.
DISCLAIMER: All characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
Note: // // denotes thoughts
The space shuttle Endeavor was just about the most welcome thing Jack had seen in a very long time. Its bay doors hung open to space, the arm extended like it was reaching out to him alone. He understood why humans had called ships 'she' for centuries. She was beautiful.
"Can we talk to them?" He poked Bra'tac on the shoulder, nodding to the shuttle even though the warrior couldn't see the gesture.
"One moment, human." //Human. I wish he'd stop doing that.// "I must reset to accommodate your primitive communications methods." The Jaffa master was fiddling with things Jack couldn't see from his vantage point.
Suddenly, the glider's cockpit filled with static and a harsh, tinny voice. ".....Please identify yourselves.....Repeat, this is the United States Space Shuttle Endeavor. We come in peace. Plea...."
“‘We come in peace?’ Great--Flash Gordon’s on the job.” Jack interrupted the speaker, "Man, are you guys a sight for sore eyes!"
Dead silence, the speaker clearly caught flatfooted. Jack could imagine the confusion running through the shuttle crew and spilling down to ground control. Finally, the speaker asked in a more uncertain voice, "Who are you?"
Jack smiled. "Colonel Jack O’Neill, US Air Force. SGC, under General George Hammond. Who are you?"
Another long silence. No doubt a fast and furious shuttle-to-ground conversation. He'd have loved to be able to see the looks on their faces right about then.
Jack could almost see the snap of communications connections across the globe above them as Space Command must've been trying to find out who they were and just what the heck they were doing floating idly around the earth. Finally, a calm and collected military tone. "Colonel O’Neill, we’re, um, verifying some things.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“In the meantime, what is your condition?"
Okay, right to business. This was why he liked the military. "Sliced, diced, and fried."
He counted to three. That was about as long as it would take Carter to chime in.
"Sir, if I may?" Even after all this, after a year, she still offered that deference. Good training. She understood that she didn't always need to wait for a response, but she continued to make the effort. "We took heavy debris damage. We've got no engine power or navigational control and life support is pretty much down to the air in the cockpits. Orbit's going to start deteriorating quickly."
They were told to hold tight. “What, like we’ve got a choice?”
The shuttle commander chose to ignore his snide remark. Finally, after a long wait, the voice crackled back to life. And the confusion had apparently gotten worse, if the voice was any indication. "Okay, sir. It, um, looks like you've got the highest of clearances. We've got Presidential orders to get you all back to terra firma in one piece, including those...craft...you've got. This may take a bit. We don't exactly do this everyday."
//To say the least.//
"We're going to maneuver over closer to your position. Then, we'll use the arm and the MMU's to effect retrieval. We're still working on that plan. In the meantime, just sit tight while we get some direction on this and make our way over there."
"Sit tight. My reputation for patience must precede me."
That earned a chuckle out of Carter as they settled in to wait for Command to decide what to do with them.
"Storm."
It was Carter, watching the Earth roll by above them. Sure enough, Jack saw a swirl of clouds churning over the Atlantic Ocean. A tropical storm, according to the news reports. Eddie, Elmo, Elvira, Enid--some stupid name the science geeks had tagged it with days ago. He watched it for a short while until it disappeared from view as they passed the terminator again. He was getting bored, waiting, left alone with his thoughts. Those weren't something he liked to spend a lot of quality one-on-one time with even in the best of times. And this was hardly the best of times.
"Daniel would've liked this. He would've had something profound to say about humanity or something." She sounded a million miles away.
"Yes, he would." Daniel wasn't the first man he'd lost on a mission. And he probably wouldn't be the last. But this wasn’t one of his men. This was Daniel.
And it wasn’t even the first time he’d lost this particular man on a mission. This was, what? Number three?
“Guess third time wasn’t the charm.”
The first time had made Jack angry. He’d barely known the man, sure as hell didn’t consider him a friend. But Daniel was on his team, one of his responsibilities whether he wanted it or not. And one of the things Jack O’Neill hated most was to lose one of his campers.
The second time had made Jack sad. Okay, sad wasn’t the right word. Angry, sure. Guilty, yes. Frustrated. Confused. All at once, no idea what to do with any of them. That had been the hard one. The one loss that had gotten through Jack’s defenses in a way that no other had before or since Charlie.
Charlie.
//Hell, Jack, we are NOT bringing him into this.//
//Problem is, he’s already part of this, isn’t he? He was there in that hallway, slipping away with your friend, wasn’t he? Like he’s always there, isn’t he?//
Like Daniel will probably always be, right there with all the other friends he’d lost along the way. It was getting to be an awfully crowded group.
“Dammit.”
“Sir?”
“This is what I get for likin’ the guy.”
A long pause from Carter. Damn, he’d made her uncomfortable. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d left her speechless. An awkward silence ensued. The kind of awkwardness he thought they’d long since left behind in a shared sleeping bag somewhere near the South Pole. When she finally spoke, it was almost inaudible. "Doesn't seem right, now that we're not gonna die. It was, I don't know...easier...before. Now, it just doesn't seem fair."
Jack looked at her through the vacuum of space and two cockpit windows. She was still looking up at the Earth, contemplating...what? "No, it doesn't. But it's what Daniel would've wanted. You know that." It came off as a bit of an order. Jack knew he retreated into that military tone when things got too damn close. Too often, it was either that or lose it completely, and he'd already gone that route.
Never again.
Never.
"Yes, sir."
"I will honor your friend, human. It is a great thing for a warrior to give his life to defend his home. A great thing, indeed."
"He wasn't a warrior, Bra'tac." He’d just about forgotten there were any others in here.
"DanielJackson was whatever he needed to be, O’Neill. And he was always our friend. I, too, will honor him for as long as I live."
"So will I." Teal’c, at least, he could deal with. The Jaffa had learned this a long time ago, the hard way. The way Jack O’Neill had learned it.
He looked out at Carter again. He could see her watching the earth intently. This was the tough one. He wasn’t quite sure what it was that she’d need. They’d danced this dance before. That time, he’d felt it out each step along the way, running the gamut from being the rock she could count on to someone she could cling to. Finally, faced with a horrified and nearly-hysterical Captain Carter, instinct had taken over and he’d held her the way he should have held Sara more often after...well, after ‘it’. Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly an option here and now. And, truth be told, he didn’t think it was what she needed right at this moment anyway. He’d been getting a bead on the good Captain in the course of a year, and he was beginning to understand her. Nope, not the moment at all. He’d have to trust his instincts again if he was going to figure out what it was he was supposed to do.
For right now, she was too quiet. He couldn’t figure anything out if he had nothing to work with. He’d need to do a little recon. "Carter, you okay?"
"I just miss him already." He heard the faintest of snuffles. Captain Samantha Carter, USAF, PhD. wasn’t going to break down in public. Maybe later, alone, but not here and now, not in front of the whole of the US Space Program. Jack was guiltily grateful. He knew that soon--too soon--there would be questions, things they would need to discuss. Things he would need to do and give. But he wasn’t ready to do it yet. He hadn’t found the words to help her through this--he didn't even know how to help himself through this yet.
"I know, Sam. So do I."
He found himself drawn to the spinning Earth again, looking for the answers. At the very least, looking for reassurance of what had been gained in all this. Silence reigned, marred only by the background chatter of the shuttle crew as they faced the simple challenge of bringing in two pieces of free-floating alien technology and four people. The three remaining members of SG1 faced a much bigger challenge--to find meaning in their loss. "But we'll be okay. Not now, but later. Trust me."
"I do, Colonel."
Endeavor had maneuvered its way over as close to the two gliders as was manageable, just under 300 feet away. Only a hairsbreadth by cosmic standards. It had taken hours, multiple OMS burns, and a lot of direction. Now would come the fun part. Retrieval. Jack had no idea how they planned to do it. He wasn’t sure if they’d even figured it out yet. He looked out at the orbiter and realized his depth perception up here was blown all to hell--at the same time that it looked impossibly far away, it also looked like they could walk from wing-to-wing. He shook his head, but the illusion continued. //How the hell do you guys do this?//
Three astronauts emerged from the cabin into the stripped-down cargo bay. They looked like playtoys as they bounced and glided across the stark white interior. He remembered playing underwater with his friends as a kid and looking a lot like these three wending their way through space.
"Colonel O’Neill?"
"Yeah?"
"We're going to use the MMU's to come over there and capture your craft. We'll bring them over by hand to the manipulator arm and secure you to the shuttle. Once we have a successful capture, we can maneuver the crafts one at a time into the bay with you inside.”
“Inside? That does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.”
A deep breath by the other. “No, me either. But it’s the only way. Unless, of course, you've got spacesuits in that thing."
Jack shrugged. "How they hell should I know what--"
"We do, indeed, have such devices."
The shuttle commander considered this. Jack could feel the other weighing his responsibilities. And they weighed a lot. He had become personally accountable for this whole thing right up to the President himself. "I think, Colonel,” he decided finally, “that I'd feel safer having your people out of those when we wiggle them into the bay. It's not like we've had any practice doing this."
"Okay, sure." An internal sigh of relief. "Tell us what you need us to do.” But, first things first, the mood needed a little lightening. It was thick and dark in the gliders now, both literally and figuratively. And it was about to get worse as they prepared for an imminent tip-toe through the unforgiving vacuum of space. Maybe something to cut the ice. “And, by the way, if we're going to be working together here, we should at least be on first name basis, dont'cha think? It's Jack. This is Bra'tac here and Sam and Teal'c next door."
"I'm Tom. Coming over to you are Sandi, Mathew, and Daryl. And Mary's working the arm control."
There followed a round of greetings and salutations. Better. "Gang's all here, then. Let's do it."
The three astronauts maneuvered toward Jack's dead glider first, their bulky MMU's against the black background reminding him of a science fiction movie. Only this wasn't a movie. This was real.
"Sweet."
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Nothing."
Bra'tac was searching for something under his seat. Jack couldn't see it until finally he came up with a flimsy suit of some kind. It was thin and of the grey material that the Jaffa wore. Bra'tac threw it back at his companion. "Put this on, human."
Jack fingered the maliable suit. "This thing? This is like wearin’ boxers outside on Christmas Day. How 'bout a real spacesuit?" He tossed it back.
The suit came back in his face immediately. "Put. It. On." Bra'tac's tone brooked no argument. “Human.”
“Oh-kay.” So Jack peeled off the outer layer of his fatigues and ungracefully manhandled the suit on in the tiny space allowed by the glider. Bra'tac was already ahead of him. Jack could see Carter and Teal'c negotiating similar outfits. "No peeking, Carter."
"Wouldn't dream of it, sir." A slight smirk in her voice.
Part 1 Part 2