Title: BrigaDOH! The wormhole closed behind SG-1 with its characteristic chunk. An idyllic landscape stretched before them: Impossibly green, rolling hills dusted with the white of the soft morning light reflecting off the dew-drenched blades of grass.
Email: [email protected], You give me feedback, I don't sing the South Side Irish to you in its entireity. Simple.
Status: Complete
Category: SJR, Action/Adventure, Team, Friendship, Challenge
Spoilers: Mention of Grace, Window of Opportunity, General Sam and Jack Shippiness
Season/Sequel Info: S7 After Grace, before Chimera
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex near the end and some naughty language throughout (not excessive, I hope)
Content warnings: Sex, language, but of a happy, silly sort
Disclaimer: Ah, I really don't think any of the very talented owners of these characters and this universe would use the word jello-esqe. That's how you can tell
this pitiful tale is mine.
Author's Notes: Inspired by Apophis Queen's St. Patrick's Day Challenge (Green beer, clovers, off-world, S/J Kiss), I got an image of Jack sculpted in Jell-o and then the muse tied me to a runaway train car. This very nearly also qualifies for Sam
Petersen's "Keep it Clean" challenge, but I'm not sure how she feels about one word that I do use. If it makes you feel better, I use it fondly.
Acknowledgements: To the fic writers and readers who continually inspire me with their intelligent comments and insight, To Great Big Sea whose lyrics inspired
the idea of "Consequence Free," As always, to my Hun Beta who offers more encouragement than I probably deserve. Oh, and sorry for my bad Gaeilge and the
unequal sizes of the parts. I tried to use real breaks in the story.
Part 1/6
Given the opportunity, O'Neill might have wondered in retrospect why they hadn't turned around and gone back through the gate (one-way wormholes, be damned) the minute they spied the three-story sculpture of him. Then again, it was too weird to pass up, and the members of SG-1 were, to a (wo)man, suckers for weird.
"Whoa!" O'Neill slipped his sunglasses off and took in the statue, "That's . . ."
"You!" Sam looked from the original to the rendering in disbelief.
" . . . that's . . . Jell-o," Daniel added, fascination and horror vying for control of his expression.
Sam reached up and prodded O'Neill's giant boot. "It's not actually jell-o. It's some kind of elastic, translucent resin."
"So it's . . . jell-o-esque." O'Neill stepped back to consider the statue, holding the tips of his thumbs together as if framing a shot. "Do I look fat?"
"Although green, it is a most faithful likeness," Teal'c offered noncommittally.
"Hey!" Jack hunkered down to peer more closely at something on the pedestal. "That's my name! Two Ls and everything!"
"There's writing?" Daniel scurried around to the other side of the statue, shoving Jack out of the way as he practically pressed his nose to the plaque. "seachd deug Maàrt . . ."
"What's it say?" Jack asked impatiently.
"It's . . . a kind of Celtic language. But it's . . . wow, this is fascinating. It has elements of both the Gaelic and Brythonic variants, which means it must date to before the two groups split. See, here, these characters . . ."
"Daniel!" Jack rapped sharply on the back of his head. "What. Does. It. Say?"
"OW! All right, all right. It's got your name in English . . . that's odd," Daniel batted away Jack's hand without looking back at him, "and a date. Seachd deug Maàrt is the seventeenth of March."
"That's today," Sam said, crouching beside O'Neill.
"It is?" O'Neill shot to his feet. "Goddamn it! How did we get saddled with a mission on St. Patrick's Day? Didn't Hammond promise us downtime today?"
"He did. SG-3 wished to exchange mission schedules, O'Neill, and you agreed." Teal'c reminded him.
"Why'd I do that? I don't think I'd do that. It's like . . . dishonoring my ancestors." Jack turned away from the statue in a sulk, joining Teal'c in keeping a lookout.
"Hockey," Sam said absently as she studied the area next to the plaque. The sculpture's pedestal was covered with a series of carvings, each enclosed within a frame of Celtic knot work. She inched around the base of tracing the outline of a carving with her fingers.
"Hockey? Oh, hockey. Damn you, ESPN Classic!" Jack shook his fist at the sky.
"Daniel, is this what I think it is?" She pointed to the top of the figure she'd been tracing.
"It's a symbiote!"
"What?" O'Neill whirled around. "Why's there a snake on my statue?"
"Hang on," Daniel snapped impatiently, fumbling an artist's pad and a piece of charcoal from his pack. "This plaque is in pretty bad shape. I need to make a rubbing of the inscription."
Sam continued to scuttle around perimeter of the statue, following the string of carvings. "Oh for . . . " she sputtered. A moment later she stomped into view from around the far side of the statue.
"What is it, MajorCarter?" Teal'c asked taking a firmer grip on his staff weapon as he caught her expression.
"It's the carvings. Sir, It's some kind of story. I think it's about us." She folded her arms over her weapon and turned away with a sour look.
"Hey, neat!" O'Neill bent double, squinting at the carvings. "Like my own comic book!"
Having finished his rubbing of the plaque's inscription, Daniel began making his way around the statue. Completely engrossed in his analysis of the drawings, he plowed into Jack's legs, tumbling on to his ass.
"Ow! Jack! Watch where you're . . . " his sentence hung in mid-air as he looked up to see an uncharacteristically still Jack O'Neill with a very strange look on his face.
"Daniel," Jack said, his voice cracking slightly, "is that . . ."
Daniel turned to follow Jack's gaze and burst out laughing. "Sam! Sam you've gotta . . ."
"I've seen. Fuck you both." Sam snapped from the other side of the statue. "Assholes," she muttered.
At this, O'Neill lost his tenuous hold on his composure. "Ow!" he howled as he fell to his knees beside Daniel, weak with helpless laughter. "She's got . . . she's . . ." he collapsed on to his side, pounding the ground with his fist, putting Daniel, who was rolling about on the ground nearby, in considerable danger.
"O'Neil. DanielJackson. Are you well?" Teal'c asked as he appeared around the side of the statue, one eyebrow, predictably, cocked.
Daniel composed himself long enough to point to the source of their amusement: What seemed to be the final panel showed four figures clustered in front of the Stargate. Daniel, recognizable from the blocky glasses etched on his face, was hunched over the DHD, in the act of pressing the center circle with one hand, the other clutching his side arm to return enemy fire. Teal'c (one assumed more from sheer size than any real resemblance) was crouched next to him, his staff weapon aimed heavenward.
As in the main statue, the artist had clearly taken the most care rendering Jack's form in careful detail, down to the fingerless gloves he favored. He stood atop a huge boulder to one side of the gate, just in the foreground of the backsplash of the recently established wormhole. A massive, stylized weapon bearing more resemblance to a Goa'uld canon than a P-90 was tucked jauntily under his right arm as he nonchalantly blew away the serpent guard flying through the air toward him.
His left arm was looped manfully about Sam's waist, pulling her to him. The conclusion that this figure represented Sam was reached primarily by process of elimination: The three others were represented and the fourth image was clearly a woman. Very clearly a woman. Any further parallels one might draw were likely to get one smacked. Or possibly court-martialed in Jack's case.
She was naked, save for the GDO strapped to one wrist. One hand was pressed to her mouth, which gaped open in terror. The other clung to Jack's hand on her waist. Jack's arm was barely visible below the curve of gigantic, yet comically firm breasts. No comic book artist had ever over-endowed a heroine in that department quite so shamelessly. Unlike your average animated heroine, however, the artist had given Sam a lower body to match: One knee was pulled up slightly in the act of pressing closer Jack, turning one ample hip toward the viewer, the arc of a well-rounded belly just visible in profile.
"These images depict a great victory on this planet. Yet SG-1 has never been here," Teal'c said finally, realizing that a convenient break in hysterical laughter would not be forthcoming anytime soon.
Daniel pulled himself to a half-reclining position as he wiped his eyes. "Maybe they've just heard about us?"
"The level of detail and the accuracy of the depiction . . ."
"Accuracy? ACCURACY?!" Sam's fury was almost palpable, even with the statue between them. Jack, who had been panting into the grass and showing signs of recovery, was off again at this.
" . . . the depiction of O'Neill." Teal'c finished hurriedly. "I believe that whoever created this statue and pedestal knew us well."
Daniel's professional curiosity began to get the better of him. Pulling a trowel from his pack, he crawled to the base on hands and knees and began digging the vegetation away.
Out of a partner in hilarity, Jack began to calm himself. He rolled on to his back, slipping his glasses back on against the intensity of the sun. As the pounding in his head from lack of oxygen faded, he became aware that Carter was making quite a racket.
"Carter? Whatcha doin'?" He called tentatively.
"My job, sir." She snapped.
"What part of your job?" He winced in anticipation.
There was a long pause followed by the clatter of equipment being hurled from pack to ground at great force. He thought he made out the words "Soil samples" somewhere, but he wasn't going to risk questioning her any further, figuring she was pretty pissed if she was abusing her precious instruments,
"Carry on, then, Major," he gestured to Teal'c to join her on the other side and keep an eye out.
He turned back to the panel, pointedly avoiding the portion of it that depicted him and Sam. "Daniel, why does Teal'c have a . . . that is Teal'c, isn't it?"
Daniel glanced up, "Yeah, I'd say so."
"Why does he have a fishbowl on his head?"
"I think . . ." Daniel shifted back on to his heels as he pointed with the tip of the trowel. "I think it's actually a halo."
"A halo? Like an angel?"
"More like a saint in this artistic tradition . . . or at least the artistic tradition of this part of the panel." Daniel said. "Now over here . . ." Jack grabbed his elbow and shook his head furiously as Daniel's trowel moved to circle the figures representing him and Sam.
Mercifully, Daniel picked up on the cue. For once.
"The iconography is fascinating . . ." he continued, moving back toward the figure of Teal'c. "See, these markings around the eyes and abdomen are a shorthand for a Goa'uld or a Jaffa. Teal'c has them here, but the halo seems to indicate that the artist recognized him as a friend . . . a warrior for good."
"Secret's out, Teal'c!" O'Neill called. "That badass Jaffa routine's gonna get you nowhere with these people. If there are . . . people. Are there people?"
"There must have been at one point. The statue was definitely constructed here, not moved," Daniel was about to launch into an explanation of how, exactly, he knew this.
"What about now?" Jack interrupted hastily. "Carter? You got anything?"
"Fire," she said shortly.
"What?" Jack was on his feet and hurrying to the far side of the statue in half a second, relieved to see her holding a vial filled with soil up to the light, some of her anger, at least, dissipated as she became absorbed in her work.
"Fire pits. Several. Some relatively recent."
"So, that means people."
"I don't know, sir. The UAV didn't show any architecture or other signs of human habitation . . ."
"Carter, the UAV didn't show a 30-foot statue of me made of green . . ." he stopped short. "Carter, why didn't the UAV show that?"
She was clearly at a loss. Jack hated that. He took a firmer hold on his weapon, "Daniel! Gather ‘round, kids!"
Daniel joined them, rolling his rubbing of the plaque into a tube.
"So," O'Neill clapped his hands. "What do we know? We've never been here, am I right?"
The other three nodded in agreement. "And that," he gestured to the statue, "was either not here yesterday when we sent the MALP and the UAV through or someone's pulling an Urgo on us."
"Not likely, sir. The rest of the MALP and UAV data fit with what we're seeing. Topography, soil content, everything."
"But the statue was originally constructed here," Daniel insisted. "The pedestal's foundation is set well into the ground and there's no evidence that the below-ground portions are a secondary burial."
"Then how do you explain both the MALP and the UAV showing us nothing?" Sam demanded.
"Perhaps the inscription will provide further information, DanielJackson.." Teal'c suggested.
"Right!" Daniel unrolled the sheet. "So we know it says something about Jack, and there's lots about snakes. Transporting them?"
"Transporting snakes? Goa'uld? Jaffa?" Jack scanned the horizon nervously.
"No, transporting isn't quite right. This is freedom or liberation. The diacritics are hard to make out . . . driving! That's it. Driving out! ‘On this the seventeenth of March'," Daniel unclipped the dark lenses from his glasses and peered more closely. "There's more on the date, but I can't make it out. Something something . . . ‘and his loyal warriors liberated us by driving the snakes out of . . . Ireland'?"
"The legend of St. Patrick!" Sam exclaimed. "But that doesn't explain anything! We've never been here."
"Perhaps the carvings are merely a representation of our victories against the system lords elsewhere. Such epic tales are often used to instruct Jaffa children in the history of their people."
"A teaching device . . . some kind of ritual storytelling?" Sam scowled wondering what lesson her mammoth breasts might be used to teach.
"I don't think so," Daniel shook his head. "Yes, the figures are . . . stylized . . ." he unconsciously flinched away from Sam as he groped for the word, "But the events seem specific.
"Which brings us back to the fact that we've never been here, Daniel." Jack's head was beginning to throb again.
"Yes . . . we've never been here . . ." Daniel glanced at Sam who shrugged. "But we know that we're not always the only we out there . . ."
"Harlan?" Sam suggested.
"Harlan?" Jack shouted, "You mean our robots have been running around playing St. Patrick with the locals?"
"No," Daniel said, "He was devastated when they died. Besides . . . he'd need new copies of our consciousness, right?"
"He could have stored them, I suppose." She shook her head, "No, Daniel's right . . . he wouldn't put himself through that again."
"So, one more time. What do we know?" Jack looked around expectantly.
"Well," Daniel began. " Someone bearing a striking resemblance to . . . most of us has some big fans here. And they're probably not robots."
"Could we not have entered an alternate reality in which we have liberated this world?" Teal'c asked.
"No," Sam said, chewing on her lip thoughtfully, "The gate itself can't transport to parallel realities. The quantum mirror works on entirely different principles."
"Could they have made it to our reality?" Daniel suggested.
"There'd have to be a quantum mirror on this planet, then. The UAV should've picked up the energy signature." Her hand snapped up to stave off O'Neill's inevitable question, "Yes, sir, I know the UAV didn't pick up the statue."
"Well. I had a follow-up question, as it happens, Carter," Jack replied testily. "What's with the name? Aren't we not on Earth."
"Oh . . . no," Daniel said, exchanging a tense look with Sam. He dropped to his knees, scooting rapidly toward the plaque.
"Daniel?" Sam peered nervously over his shoulder.
"What?" O'Neill looked from one to the other.
"When's the last time we ended up back on Earth when we went through the Stargate?" Daniel brushed hurriedly at the plaque, trying to feel the characters out with his fingers.
"1969," Teal'c replied grimly.
"But we're not on Earth. There's naquidah in the soil, vegetation unlike anything found on Earth. We're on P3X-1708."
"Then how is it that this statue is dated 2010." Daniel tapped a well-worn spot on the plaque.
"No no no no no no," Jack shook his finger. "This is not happening."
"Oh, but it is! The UAV didn't show the statue yesterday because the statue wasn't here in 2004." Daniel said excitedly, still caught up in archaeologist mode.
"And what happens if we just dial home and . . . whoa!" O'Neill whipped around, the rest of the team half a beat behind him, as the sound of human voices suddenly rang out in the distance.
They instinctively drew together in a tight circle, back to back, scanning the horizon for the source of the chorus twining around them from all directions. Their defensive posture began to seem silly as the indistinct voices resolved into words of greeting.
The morning sun had grown steadily warmer since their arrival, the last stubborn wisps of morning fog long since burned away. Now, the hilltops were, once again, suddenly wreathed in gently rolling mist, lending an even more ethereal quality to the call and response of joyful laughter surrounding them. A lone figure suddenly broke through the mist and began running full tilt toward the group.
"Jack! Jack! Jack!" The little girl tumbled to the ground in her excitement, a jumble of red hair, black boots, and blue skirts somersaulting carelessly down the hill. She righted herself without missing a beat and launched herself at O'Neill's legs. "Did you miss me? I missed you?"
O'Neill froze for an instant. In the next moment, he unclipped his weapon, wordlessly handing it to Teal'c as he stooped to pick her up.
"How could I not have missed you, eh?" He laughed, holding her high above his head as she shrieked and drummed her fists on his head.
"Put me down!" She insisted, trying her best to look cross, "I'm too big to be picked up! Where is Grace? Is she bigger than me? Where is the new baby? I wanted a boy! When will you have a boy for me to marry? Colin says he'll marry Grace someday. I don't think she'll want to marry him, though."
"Danann! Danann!" A woman's voice rose above the bright chatter.
"Sir?" Sam asked under her breath as O'Neill bent to place the girl on the ground. She paused only to stick her tongue out at Daniel, turning immediately to run back the in the direction of the voice.
"Not a clue, Carter," he said just as softly. He straightened, nervously taking in the crowd appearing out of the mist, "Anyone? Bells ringing?"
"No . . .," Daniel said through a tense smile, lowering but not holstering his gun. "But they seem friendly."
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed, his grip on his staff weapon relaxing a bit.
The little girl skipped to the front of the approaching group again, urging the adults onward. Finally, she and a dozen or so friends could no longer contain themselves, breaking off from their parents and older siblings and descending the hill at a rapid clip, shouting and laughing.
Daniel found himself on the ground wrestling with twin boys for the contents of his pack, while Teal'c was informed by a solemn-looking boy near Rya'c's age that he had promised to teach him to use his staff weapon when he was old enough. Sam and Jack were pulled away from the statue into the circle of a large hearth, a group of children joining hands as they pranced in a ring around them. Finally, the adults reached SG-1, disentangling them from their children with fond smiles and words of welcome.
As if a fanfare had sounded, the riotous group suddenly quieted. Adults and older children whisked the youngsters to them, stepping aside to open a path. As the last child was shooed to the sidelines, a woman began making her way slowly through the crowd. She supported herself with a gnarled staff in her left hand, waving off a handsome young man who hovered by her right elbow.
The stiff, deliberate pace of her movements bespoke great age, but her eyes were lively and bright in a freckled face that had only just begun to show a network of fine lines around her mouth and across her forehead. The sun glinted off her coppery hair, disguising the slender threads of white threaded throughout until she was quite close.
Leaning on her staff, she held out her hand to them. "My friends! What is this? Have you no greeting for me?"
Jack shot a glance at Daniel who raised his eyebrows urgently, indicating that Jack should be the one to make the first move. With a roll of his eyes, Jack stepped forward and took her hand.
"My, Jack! How is it that I creak with every step and yet you look a dozen years younger than when we last met?"
"Ahhh . . . well, that's a funny story. See . . ." he had the uncomfortable feeling of being teenager stuck at a family reunion comprised entirely of great aunts he didn't know.
She beckoned to him, running her fingertips over the furrows in his forehead as he leaned closer to her, "Younger, yes, but weary. What cares burden you, my friend?"
"Oh, fate of the Earth, Goa'uld threatening to take over the Universe. You know, the usual." Jack laughed uncomfortably as he involuntarily backed away a step.
"The Goa'uld!" The young man behind her suddenly exclaimed, "But they . . ."
"Collin!" The old woman rounded on him, dropping Jack's hand. "Not another word."
"But, seanmháthair! The Goa'uld are . . ." he began to protest, breaking off as he caught the expression on her face. "Can it be time? Do they not know us?" He studied each of the team members in turn, disbelief clear on his face.
"No, we don't know you," Daniel stepped forward, adding with a wry smile at the statue, "Yet, apparently."
"I am Cara. You once called me seanmháthair, as my people do." She took his hand.
"Grandmother," Daniel translated. "You're the leader of these people?"
"Yes," she laughed. "Though we have little need of a leader in this happy times. It is strange that you would not know that, Daniel, and stranger still," She smiled a little sadly, as she took his hand, "to see such confusion in the eyes of a dear friend. But we have expected this. Come. We must take you to the village. The draoi will be waiting."
"Draoi? That's . . . magician? Wizard?" Daniel asked.
"Yes," the woman nodded, looking over his shoulder to Jack, "We can say no more at present, but know that our people have only love for you. You are all most welcome guests."
"That timeline thing again?" Jack's eyes shifted to Sam.
"Yes, sir. I get the feeling she knows what to do."
"Well, then. We're off to see the drood, I guess," he said grabbing his gun back from Teal'c.
"Draoi, Jack," Daniel said testily over his shoulder.
"Whatever." Jack sighed falling into step beside Carter as they headed westward into the hills.
Continue on to Part 2