WORLD ENOUGH, AND TIME: AN ALTERNATE REALITY NOVEL BY BIBLIO
CHAPTER 5: STOP ALL THE CLOCKS

CHAPTER  5: STOP ALL THE CLOCKS

The sound of sawing echoed in the still morning air. Rather than hover by the front door, wondering if Jack had heard her, Sara decided to go straight around to the back of the house. She was so nervous her palms were slick with sweat, her dress creased at her hips where she kept wiping them. Even with the noise of the saw, she knew from long experience Jack would hear her coming. Turning up uninvited was as much of a surprise and as much chance of provoking an honest reaction from her husband as she would get.

Pausing by a neat deck to look around, Sara could see the appeal of the place; it reminded her of Jack's grandparent's cabin in Minnesota. The yard was natural and a little overgrown, fitting the rustic feel of the house with its huge windows.

The sawing abruptly stopped as she was walking slowly around the side of the house.

"For cryin' out loud, Daniel!"

Jack's familiar roar of paternal panic made her smile involuntarily, she'd heard it so many times around the house. The smile faded after a moment. Not this house, though, and the name was wrong.

Sara hesitated at the corner, scared now, but snatching the only opportunity she'd have to observe Jack unseen. She wanted to see the guy, too. The one Jack had staying with him, the one Marcia had broken the speed record to tell her about as soon as she and Dad got home. The way Marcia had talked up the gorgeous young guy Jack was 'all over' made Sara want to slap the sick, avid look right off of her neighbour and ex-friend's face.

She'd called Jack on his cell phone as soon as she got Marcia out of her house. This was Sunday afternoon, not Wednesday evening as agreed, but Sara was past caring. She had the divorce papers drawn up and she needed to see Jack, to tell him. It was time.

Sara boldly stepped out, standing in clear view as Jack pounced on a tall, beautiful boy, snatching up his long-fingered hand, turning it this way and that.

"It's fine," the boy - Daniel - insisted, trying to shake Jack off.

Jack lifted a finger accusingly. "There's blood."

"It's not gushing," Daniel protested.

"Does it have magical anti-tetanus powers?" Jack demanded sarcastically.

"I'm an archaeologist, Jack, my shots are up to date," Daniel retorted with pantomime patience.

"This wound still needs to be cleaned, so excuse the hell out of me, Doctor Jackson," Jack drawled, bitingly sarcastic, tugging the boy determinedly towards the house.

Daniel tugged back, visibly alarmed. "I've seen your version of first aid, Jack. Get off me!"

He didn't look old enough to be a doctor of anything and Sara's gut was unclenching. This Daniel was innocently, indignantly cute and ruffled. She could understand his appeal to Jack, who couldn't breathe unless he had someone to take care of. She understood about surrogates, and so did her dad, or he'd still be in Wyoming.

Jack saw her standing quietly, hugging the side of his house, waiting and watching. He pulled away from Daniel as if he'd been burned. Sara saw the flash of hurt confusion on Daniel's face, then he followed Jack's gaze, turning towards her. His intense blue eyes widened in sudden comprehension.

Sara barely heard his murmured excuse as he tactfully left Jack alone with her. She was suddenly furious at the cosy domesticity, the normality of Jack getting pissy over nothing so he could make a fuss over them and not get called on it.

But it wasn't over them. Not any more. Never again.

She was crying, blinded and shaking like a leaf when Jack's arms came around her, her cheek resting over his heart; steady, agonisingly familiar. She missed him filling her house wall-to-wall, under her feet, in her way, an itch she couldn't scratch, the thorn in her side, a burr in her ass. Her Jack.

"You bastard," she sobbed. "You told him, you told him. You talked. Talked! To him. Why not me! Why!"

"I don't know," Jack answered at last, pulling her closer, trying to calm her rising hysteria.

It was the weary helplessness in his voice that made Sara look up at last, flinching when his thumb smoothed away her tears. He'd touched her in love so many times in so many ways, his hands constantly expressing what he wouldn't find words for. It was as real as the sex. Sometimes, with Jack, it meant more.

Losing Charlie, though. He'd never not touched her before. He'd never walked out of a room when she walked in.

She'd held it together, she'd coped, she'd carried him. She'd got herself through the first fury of grief. She wasn't leaving Jack. He left her when Charlie did. Sometimes, her dark times, she thought he'd left her a long time before that. They had lived for Charlie, not each other, and it had felt only right to her. Natural. Charlie's loss had laid open more wounds than she could ever have been prepared for, exposing only distance between her and Jack. They hadn't turned to each other, they'd turned away, loving but not entirely trusting the near-stranger they'd been left alone with. To Sara, it was as if Charlie was their common language, their only frame of reference, and with him gone they had no way to know each other.

It wasn't so easy as blame or forgiveness, it was more – or less – than anger and grief. Jack was gone from her. As far gone as Charlie could be, but he'd been going a long time if only she'd had the eyes to see. If she could have faced it sooner, if she could have fought all the limits, the rules he'd imposed on their lives, stood up to the stranger he became when he walked out her door...

Looking up at him now, Sara could see he knew he'd done this to them, that he shouldered most of the blame for their losses. The failure was all over him, all through him.

"It's over!" she gasped.

Dad had held her hand through the drawing up of the divorce papers, had held her while she cried, was there with her the whole time. He'd sat up the first night in Wyoming, watching over her as she slept fitfully in the rocker on the old kitchen porch. She had no doubt her dad loved her, that he shared her grief. Her anger.

Jack's guilt was stronger than her blame of him. Sara could forgive him, she knew that. Jack would never, could never forgive himself.

She'd heard of animals, wounded and trapped, chewing off their own limbs to escape. That was what Jack had done. He loved her, but he needed to survive more. He cut her off and moved on. Moved here to be with a man he could talk to, who he allowed to understand.

That hurt her as much as anything. More. She'd fought with everything she had to get him to talk, to open up, to let her through his armour.

He'd never given her the chance. Never.

Sara understood finally Jack didn't know why he could trust her with anything and everything but himself, that he would never change. She also understood he was as hurt by this as she was and there was no way back from this for them. She could put aside her anger, forgive him for killing her son but not for this. Not for giving himself to a stranger when he'd killed her inside.

"I brought the papers. You need to sign by every red cross," she said woodenly, digging into her shoulder bag for the envelope. Jack stepped awkwardly back out of her space, following her as she walked back around the house to the deck.

Sara knew Jack would sign, and tell her he loved her, he was so sorry. She knew he was. They both were.

There was still love but it didn't make any difference.

"Dinner's ready," Daniel said quietly from behind him.

Jack glanced back, nodded curtly, then turned back to tighten the last screw on the last shelf. The laundry room was now next to the library. Daniel tactfully didn't hover, much as he'd left Jack alone to take out his feelings on the timber for the damned shelves the whole afternoon. He'd sawed and drilled with savage satisfaction and an ache that made his jaw clench.

He ran up the stairs, heard Daniel moving about in the kitchen and took a time-out to pee and wash up, splashing icy water onto his face. He felt despondent, dull. Divorced.

He would be, in about six months time.

Dinner, when he slunk up to the dining table, turned out to be chicken and French, with a complicated rich wine gravy, herby dumplings, mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. There were warm rolls and soft butter. Dry white wine, also French. Drinking too much, Jack ate steadily, aware of Daniel watching him in concern. He didn't feel like talking. He didn't feel there was anything to say. Wondered vaguely what Daniel would do this time to make him spill. The silence was crowded and heavy, but it held until Jack was in the kitchen finishing his fourth dumpling right out of the dish he was supposed to be emptying for the dishwasher.

"There's no chance?" Daniel asked gently, sidling up to lean against the sink.

"None," Jack said thickly, swallowing his last mouthful. "I signed the papers. The divorce is in motion."

Daniel's distress for him was so strong he could almost feel it.

"Sara can't forgive you?"

"I can't."

"Therapy might help," Daniel suggested hesitantly. "If you could open up, talk?"

It was exactly the wrong thing to say at exactly the wrong time, cutting through Jack blade-sharp after Sara's pain and accusations. He spun around, grabbing Daniel's jaw between his hands, lashing out the only way he knew, kissing him hard, hungry and furious. A few seconds of crushing contact, barely enough to process Daniel's mobile, generous mouth was warm, firm and unyielding, a perfect fit for him, then Daniel was violently shoving him away. Then he punched him. The blow snapped Jack's head around, made him stagger.

"Talk to who?" he snarled, glaring bleakly as Daniel stumbled away from him, speechless and shaken. There was only Daniel.

He'd fucked before. He'd got hot in those long days in Minnesota and fucked plenty. This, this…the first time he'd ever kissed a man and the sting of his cheek was more real than the feel of Daniel's lips against his.

He wanted to know - wanted to feel. He needed it.

When he got to Daniel's bedroom, the door was closed. He knocked.

"Fuck off, O'Neill!"

Jack barged in, slamming the door against the wall. Daniel came bounding up from his bed, pale and angry. Jack slid his arms beneath Daniel's, hooking him firmly round his shoulders, yanking him close. "I can't go back to my wife!" he roared. "I want you! You!"

"Sublimation," Daniel said in a rush, wriggling against Jack, struggling to break his grip. "You're projecting, Jack. You can't deal with your feelings for Sara!"

Jack's verdict on the sublimation thing was immediate and fairly pronounced.

"Oh!" Daniel went absolutely still in his arms, blinking desperately, his mouth falling open as Jack got hard. Harder.

"Fuck," Jack grated through clenched teeth. He couldn't even remember the last time he was this turned on, his body throbbing and shivery. Desperate. "I want you, Daniel," he said urgently, close to pleading.

"No! No! Not like this!" Daniel blurted out stupidly, trying to push Jack away from him.

Jack let go of him so quickly he overbalanced, landing on his bed with a thump, stunned at how fast this was happening.

"Can I kiss you?" Jack asked, already moving, already learning.

"No!" Daniel gulped.

"You're not attracted to me?" Jack growled, rocked back on his heels. "I don't believe you!" he argued furiously.

"That's not..." Daniel blurted, going red, he could feel his cheeks heating. "Not the point," he stammered. He was alarmed when Jack got on the bed with him and plucked off his glasses. Daniel fumbled for them instinctively and they wound up holding hands. Jack kept hold of him with one hand and tossed his glasses onto the writing desk with the other.

Then Jack got closer. A lot closer.

Daniel was distracted by the way Jack's fingers twined with his, allowing Jack to slip the other arm around his waist.

"I want you," Jack insisted. "I want to have sex with you."

"No!" Daniel yelped, panic roaring. He tried again to push Jack away.

"Have you ever had sex with a man?" Jack asked him, voice gentling insensibly as the arms around him tightened.

"Have you?" Daniel whispered. He realised how hard he was shaking at the same time he saw how intent Jack's eyes were. He froze up completely, defenceless against Jack's dawning comprehension.

"I gave it up for the Air Force," Jack stunned him with stark honesty. He pulled Daniel to him, freeing his hand to reach up and stroke his face. "Have you?" he quietly turned the question back on Daniel. "Have you ever had sex?"

Daniel could say nothing. He felt numb and cold, wished he could close his eyes, shut Jack out, just for a little while. Until he could think.

"I'm sorry," Jack promised, stroking Daniel's face again. "I would never…" Meaningfully, he touched Daniel's chest and then his own. "Never have pushed you if I'd known you were a virgin, Daniel."

"I can't believe this is happening," Daniel breathed, barely hearing him. His heart was slamming against his ribs; surely Jack could feel it? "This is so emb-"

"Don't!" Jack urged him, even more gentle than before. "I'm glad."

"Glad?" Daniel echoed, not understanding.

"I'll be your first."

Daniel couldn't do this. He couldn't deal with it at all. He felt horribly exposed and vulnerable and couldn't even hide that from Jack. He didn't have anything left to fight or even panic with when Jack pushed him down to the bed and gathered him into a comforting embrace.

Shivering against him, Daniel could think of nothing for a very long time, almost glad of Jack's heat and the strong hand rubbing his back.

"Haven't you had relationships?" Jack's murmuring tone was inviting.

"One."

Jack began to stroke Daniel's face again. It felt good.

"You shouldn't," Daniel objected, obscurely distressed.

"I want to." Taking care of Daniel, Jack was in control again. Comfortable. "Tell me. How long…"

"Two months," Daniel interrupted jerkily.

"It never reached the point you were ready to have sex?"

"It never reached the point I could put Sarah before my work."

"Sara?" Jack frowned heavily over the coincidence and then he closed the small distance between the two of them to move his lips softly over the skin at Daniel's jaw. "You had a Sara too? What are the odds? We're two of a kind, Dr. Jackson. Kiss me," he went on in the same hypnotic, laden tone. "I want to kiss you."

"Think about what you're doing," Daniel pleaded, breathless all over again. "You're married." To a beautiful woman Jack had to be out of his mind to lose. "Grieving." Jack nuzzled the hot skin of Daniel's throat. "C-c-confused."

"Not about this."

"We can't."

"Can't?" Jack parroted him slowly. "What about 'want'? Do you want to kiss?" Jack lifted his head and stared down at Daniel, cupping his cheek.

Daniel wanted to kiss. He wanted to - to touch, to be with Jack. He couldn't. It didn't change anything. Jack still loved his wife and his son.

Jack moved over him and kissed him, stifling the bubbling alarm in his throat. The feel of Jack's mouth on his was terrible and wonderful. With a sob of need, he flung up his arms, held Jack tightly to him, all resistance gone. He rubbed his mouth against Jack's, felt him smile. The pressure didn't deepen, didn't demand. Jack was only learning the taste of him. Touching his limits. The smile stayed with Jack when he lifted his head to look down at Daniel.

"Please." Begging, Daniel pushed at him. "I can't think," he said fitfully, surprised when Jack moved off him.

"I want you to trust me," Jack said simply, in response to Daniel's look. "We can't make love if there's no trust."

"Make…"

"You want me."

"You're married, Jack," Daniel said painfully. "Married."

"I'm getting divorced."

"Being here with me, you don't feel you're being unfaithful to Sara?"

"Of course I do!" Even when he wanted something, there were limits to Jack's patience. "We were married for twelve years." He rolled away from Daniel, onto his back, his forearm shading his eyes.

"You should have more respect for both of us," Daniel reproached him, pushing himself up to hug his knees for warmth. He felt wrung out. "For yourself."

"We can't be together, Daniel," Jack sighed. "Sara and me - it's over. We both know that."

"If you could deal with your feelings for Charlie, there could still be a chance."

"No. There isn't."

"How can you be so sure?" Daniel asked hesitatingly.

It was an honest question, Jack recognised, staring up at Daniel's ashen, conflicted face. Daniel couldn't speak from experience when he'd lived all his life alone. He plainly wanted to understand. Even now, with everything Jack had just dumped on him, Daniel could only think of him. He wasn't able to stop reaching out, to quit trying to help. How could he, when he loved Jack? The truth was all over him.

"It's not about Charlie, Daniel," Jack told him as gently as he was able. "It's about me. And Sara knows it."

Losing Charlie had forced them to face a truth they'd always been able to hide. This was about Jack. It always had been.

"I'm the one."

After a moment, Daniel's uncertain fingers inched across the bedcovers to touch Jack's hair.

Jack didn't know why he could give Daniel what he'd always denied Sara but he had to face the truth here. He was married. He was being unfaithful to his wife. He couldn't go back to her because he'd killed his son and he was falling in love with Daniel Jackson. It was maybe the last thing on Earth he wanted, but it was what it was and he had to deal.

"Could this be any more complicated?" Jack wearily asked of the universe.

"I don't know," Daniel responded with uncertain gravity.

Among the many things Jack didn't know, the one that made least sense was Daniel's virginity. How he could have reached the age of almost thirty not just untouched but unloved was utterly beyond Jack. He couldn't leave Daniel alone, this much was now crystal clear to the both of them, so he was going to have to take responsibility for his inexperience.

"I don't want you to be scared of the sex," he told Daniel, meaning it. "You can ask me anything, you know." His sincerity seemed to deprive Daniel of speech, which wasn't what he'd hoped for, even if it was pretty much what he'd expected. Daniel couldn't hide his mute distress at Jack knowing the full extent of his inexperience. He was deeply private and had never learned defences against this kind of intrusion. Before they could make love, they had to be able to communicate. Jack wanted to prepare Daniel as well as he could to express and to share his physical needs.

Somehow, knowing they were once again at odds, opposites in their experience, was calming to Jack. With all their contradictions, they balanced up. When Daniel had had some time to absorb what was happening between them, he was going to start thinking. The revelation of his virginity had to be balanced against Jack's long-suppressed homosexuality. There would be questions.

Jack had no answers. He'd lost all control, all sense of who he was. He didn't want to frame himself in terms of homosexuality but all he could remember was choosing against. Giving up a part of himself because it didn't fit. He'd loved fucking. He'd loved it as much flying. He couldn't have both. If the Air Force accepted gays, what would his choices have been? Looking at Daniel, how they were, how he was, he was afraid he was beginning to know. He couldn't stop spilling his guts, he couldn't deny himself, he couldn't deny Daniel.

He was falling in love and the only thing keeping him sane was Daniel falling with him.

He had to take care. Not of himself, but of Daniel, who was stronger and also more fragile than he'd ever want Jack to know. He slipped from the bed and walked around it, trying to find the right words to let them both down easy, find some space to react.

"I want you and I'm not going anywhere," he said at last, hoping it was enough. "I'll be right here with you." Daniel tried to speak. Jack reached out to cup his cheek caressingly. "I promise you."

"How was your day off?" Sam asked brightly.

Daniel carefully considered his answer. He'd hurt his finger, met Jack's wife, Jack had ended his marriage and made a horrendous pass at him, resulting in a number of devastating realisations and admissions about himself and about Jack.

It was open-season on his sexuality, with Jack hell-bent on getting him into bed and out of a closet he'd never exactly imagined he was in. He'd never even thought about sex all that much and Jack knew this too. His attraction, his feelings, identity, commitment, body and soul…Jack wanted everything of Daniel and he was working to get it.

He'd made reference to this somewhat smugly during breakfast. Twice. He'd also made full use of his very long, powerfully muscled legs, which had been tangled with Daniel's throughout.

Daniel was in such a state he was amazed he could even put one foot in front of the other. He was scared to death.

Becoming aware of an expectant silence, he glanced uneasily around the control room. Everyone seemed to be interested in how his day off was, including Colonel O'Neill, who was standing so close behind him, he was practically breathing down the back of Daniel's neck.

"Quiet," Daniel said lamely, conscious of the falling faces.

He thought petulantly Ferretti and Kawalsky would just have to get their kicks some place else today. He could only fall apart over one crisis at a time.

"Siler has a pool on how many seconds it takes to get you guys all worked up before it fails to dial this time," Ferretti observed meanly. He was utterly unmoved when everyone actually here for the latest test of the cold dialling program turned round and glared at him, including Sgt. Siler.

"He put me down for fifty and ten," Jack said complacently, folding his arms across his chest as he gazed benignly out at the Stargate. He was making Daniel extremely nervous, which wasn't exactly what he intended but couldn't be helped in these first difficult days of sexual exploration.

"Fifty seconds?" Carter demanded indignantly, forgetting her 'Sir'.

"Fifty bucks," Jack answered blandly, watching Carter go red as she did the math. She and Daniel frowned darkly at one another in the latest of their intense, indignant, eye-rolling 'Philistines!' moments. In their opinion, the barbarians were at the gate. This one.

"I have every confidence in Captain Carter." General Hammond entered the fray unexpectedly, walking with great dignity down the stairs to join them for the test.

Even Captain Carter figured he was alone in this.

Sam shot Daniel an anxious, apologetic look, wished her large and inconveniently interested audience elsewhere and hit the enter key.

"Here goes nothing," O'Neill called cheerfully.

"Colonel," Hammond said warningly.

The programme performed impeccably just as it always did for the first six symbols. Then, when the room was shaking and it was agonisingly obvious how close they were, it failed on the seventh symbol and aborted. It seemed to make a point of sitting there flashing 'ABORTED' in big imposing red letters just so everyone in the large and inconveniently interested audience got that it had aborted. In case they hadn't already got that from the way she and Daniel deflated visibly.

Sam sagged in her seat, beyond frustrated. "I've done everything," she muttered. Every goddamn thing. She'd checked and re-checked the re-checks of the checks of her checked calculations. The planet was right there in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The symbols were right there on the Stargate. Why the hell couldn't she get a lock!

"Woo," Colonel O'Neill commented conversationally after a while.

Sam was beginning to hate the man. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Daniel swung round and glared up at the colonel, his lips tight. O'Neill stared back at him. Sam couldn't quite read his expression, challenging at first, then he made a 'sorry' face, his normally wintry brown eyes ruefully warming. She was slightly taken aback, not sure what to make of suddenly seeing the colonel's human side. Until this point, the colonel having a human side had been only a theory, not a proof.

"Are we chalking this one up to experience too?" Kawalsky asked after a brief, disrespectful silence.

Sam hated Kawalsky too.

"Are you sure the planet isn't parked one galaxy over?" Ferretti asked patronisingly. He patted Sam's shoulder in commiseration then treacherously high-fived Kawalsky.

Sam really hated Ferretti. Siler was off her Christmas card list, possibly permanently. Even if he was good with a wrench.

"Hmmm," Daniel murmured interrogatively, straightening slowly to peer out over the top of his monitor at the Stargate. He bit his lip.

Sam noticed Colonel O'Neill bit his too, but she highly doubted it was a sign of brilliantly intuitive lateral thinking on his part. Wind, possibly. The man porked away whatever the Commissary tossed at him and went back for thirds.

"Is it possible the planets have shifted?" Daniel asked tentatively, trying for her sake to be discreet.

"Not in ten thousand years," Sam answered promptly. "Hubble's law isn't a precise measure, but it does demonstrate the universe is expanding in a systematic way."

She paused thoughtfully, turning in her chair to face Daniel.

"Recession velocity is not motion through space, Daniel. It's effectively the expansion of space-time and galaxies are carried along with it. The distances between galaxies increase but the galaxies remain constant in size. That's because galaxies are gravitationally bound locally and don't share in the global expansion. Most galaxies are receding from us and recession velocity is often described as redshift, a directly observable quantity, measured accurately from spectral line shifts."

She looked at him slightly reproachfully.

"I ruled out stellar drift as a variable. The time period since the Stargate was constructed is insignificant in cosmological terms."

"Sam," Daniel began gently, very conscious of their fascinated audience. He leaned in confidentially. Sam leaned in too. "Are you basing your determination of the age of the Stargate on the sonic and radiocarbon tests of the cartouche?"

Sam looked startled.

"That's a huge assumption. The cartouche was the cover-stone of the Stargate, put in place when humanity rebelled against Ra. The tests only established how old the cover-stone was, not the gate itself. The Stargate technology, like the language, could be that of an entirely different species."

Daniel looked at Sam, who was weighing his words carefully.

"The development of writing systems on Earth was far earlier than we had ever considered possible, Sam," he went on. "It took thousands of years for human society to evolve to the point where domestication of crops and animals made settlements possible, which in turn lead to the need to provide structure to society through laws, governments, nation states. Communication like all else in our history was a necessity. Humanity learned to communicate ideas through symbology - a writing system."

Sam was - encouragingly - still with him.

"Isn't it possible Ra's species learned how to operate the Stargate from the race that built it?"

Daniel hoped it was clear this was a rhetorical question. He didn't want to argue with a roomful of armchair archaeologists, especially the ones who were Ferretti.

 "The fact Ra had found a planet on which he could mine the mineral the Stargate is constructed from suggests to me his species spent a great deal of time studying the Stargate if they had reached the stage of conducting planetary surveys over ten thousand years ago."

He smiled gently at Sam, who was listening to him intently, preparing to make her own judgement. She never took anything on faith. "

It's circumstantial, I know, but it does support my theory there is a network of Stargates."

"There is?" Ferretti blurted.

"If the gate goes to more than one place that means there's more than one gate," Kawalsky said pityingly. "They don't pick it up and take it with them. More than one means?

"A network." Ferretti nodded, letting this one go.

"Can you keep it down, Sir? Some of us are trying to listen," Siler complained.

"You could sell tickets," Ferretti retorted snidely. "It's quality entertainment. Laugh-a-minute."

Daniel's head dropped self-consciously.

Ferretti became the cynosure of a lot of pissed-off, protective gazes.

"Ferretti!" Jack snapped, turning on him furiously, Dr. Langford's description still fresh in his mind of the way Daniel had been laughed right off the dais at his swansong lecture.

"Shit!" Ferretti took a hasty step forward. "I'm sorry, Daniel! I know - jeez, it must be frustrating as hell to be proved right and not be able to tell anyone."

"Except us," Sam said loyally, reaching out to pat Daniel's hand consolingly. Everyone made 'what she said' noises, except the colonel, who was fixated on her hand on Daniel's and frankly pissed about it. Sam was bewildered as to what she could have done to cause offence.

"Starting to feel like you've been adopted, Daniel?" Ferretti joked tactlessly.

"That's enough, Airman!" Hammond snapped, getting in a beat ahead of Jack. "I think we can dispense with your invaluable advice and assistance," he insisted with heavy sarcasm, stepping closer to Daniel as Ferretti subsided. "Go on, son," he advised warmly.

"I think I know where Daniel is going with this," Sam said excitedly. "We can adjust the dialling program to factor stellar drift into the calculations. What we really need to know is how old the Stargate is. Were we able to test the gate itself?"

"I haven't found any references in the project documentation," Daniel admitted.

"It's important we get as accurate a date of construction for the gate as possible," Sam urged Daniel. "Recession speeds are easy to measure from the Doppler shift. It's far more difficult to calculate distances accurately."

"Doppler shift?" Hammond asked Carter for clarification.

"The wavelength of light emitted by a moving object is shifted. This effect is called the Doppler shift. If the object is coming toward you, the light is shifted toward shorter wavelengths; blue shifted. If the object is going away from you, the light is shifted toward longer wavelengths; red shifted. The amount of shift is bigger if the emitting object is moving faster," Sam explained patiently.

She wasn't sure how much good it ever did to explain, but she couldn't rap out a complex mathematical formula in ten words or less.

"There are difficulties with calculations based on Doppler Shift, Sir," she went on. "The formula is an approximation that only works for relative velocities up to about one-tenth of the speed of light. At a red shift of 0.2 an error of 12% in the calculated velocity is introduced. We also have to consider relativity."

Looking at the General's polite, slightly glazed expression, Sam decided not to go into relativity unless she absolutely had to.

"Why does the Stargate still work between Earth and Ra's planet?" Jack asked, hoping against hope he wasn't biting off more than he could chew. Carter was almost as enthusiastic as Daniel.

"It's probably the closest planet in the network to Earth," Sam speculated. "I mean, the closer they are, the less the difference in relative position due to expansion. The further away, the greater the difference. In a few thousand more years, the gate wouldn't work between Earth and Ra's world either."

"Unless you can adjust for the displacement," Daniel added.

"Yes." Sam glanced at him. "Ideally what we need is a map of the Stargate network. It would be comparatively easy to adjust for displacement from the original co-ordinates using Doppler Shift if we knew where the gates were. Lacking that, this is the best I can do."

Daniel turned to look up at Jack. "What Sam means is that if we know 'when' the gates think they are, we can come at the measure of displacement from another angle - effectively mapping each address from where they were and where the Stargates think they are to where the co-ordinates are now in actuality."

"That's correct," Sam agreed approvingly. "We can run permutations of symbols through the dialling computer, adjusting for various measures of displacement."

"Dr. Jackson?" Hammond prompted as Daniel frowned over the needle-in-a-haystack quality of this.

"It could save a lot of time if I ask Catherine what she knows," Daniel suggested to the general. "The Stargate has been part of her life since she was a child. If she remembers anything at all from the original excavation - evidence of an artefact that may have been removed before Langford found the Stargate, texts or tablets overlooked in the cataloguing, conclusions that may have been drawn but not reported. Or she could be aware of any dating analyses carried out on the Stargate itself."

"I think Dr. Langford's father did some research on the Stargate in the forties," Sam offered, frowning. "I'm sorry, Sirs," she apologised inclusively to Hammond and O'Neill. "I can't recall any details. It was something Dr. Langford mentioned to me in passing when she made her pitch to the Pentagon for full autonomy on Project Blue Book."

"Under the circumstances I'm inclined to allow it," Hammond decided. "Colonel? I'd like you to accompany Dr. Jackson on his visit to Dr. Langford. All information pertaining to the mission to the alien planet and the Stargate is to remain classified. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Jack agreed at once.

Daniel nodded, looking sulky. "Doesn't leave us much to talk about," he muttered.

Hammond exchanged a quick grin with Jack. "Nevertheless," he warned Daniel sternly. "Make the appointment when your schedule allows it," he ordered Jack. He turned again to pat Daniel's shoulder and smile at Carter. "You're doing excellent work. I have confidence in you both."

"Thank you, Sir," Sam responded gratefully.

She was embarrassed she'd ruled out something as obvious as stellar drift without making any attempt to verify her assumption the age of the gate was correct. Would it have killed her to take a few minutes to check it out with Daniel? If she had, if she'd been a little more team oriented and a little less - okay, arrogant, they could have been a lot closer to a solution by now. She'd got used to having Daniel around as a sounding board to clarify her own ideas and theories, but it hadn't occurred to her to just ask him what he thought.

Sam was a little depressed. Maybe she'd been at the Pentagon too damn long. She'd blithely believed she was above all the back-stabbing, look-out-for-number-one internal politics, but now she wasn't so sure. She had always been - she was a much better team player than this. It bothered her she could forget that, even a little. Hammond and the others were placing a great deal of faith in her, taking everything she said at face value. It gave her the potential to do a lot of good, or equally, a lot of harm.

The need to supply instant, informed answers to senior officers was possibly undermining her belief in scientific methodology. Sam had cut a corner unnecessarily and in this case, it was a mistake. Easily rectified, no real harm done. Still, definitely something she would be wary of doing in future. Talking her ideas through with Daniel would be no hardship. Listening a tad more, she could work on.

"They're cute together," Kawalsky murmured sotto voce to Jack, watching Daniel and Carter getting all cosy and sympatico together with this look on his face, all smug and paternal, like he was Daniel's dad or something.

Cute? There was nothing cute about Carter. Jack frowned at Kawalsky.

"Don't you think they make a cute couple?" Kawalsky persisted.

A couple? Jack's frown deepened.

Ignoring the by-play behind them, Sam leaned in a little closer and smiled at Daniel. "Want to grab lunch? Talk some more?" she coaxed.

"Thank you," Colonel O'Neill responded crisply before Daniel could get a word in.

"If you'll excuse me," Kawalsky said politely. He grinned at the colonel. "One of us had better go resuscitate Ferretti."

"Only if you insist, Sir," Sam muttered.

Chapters:  | WEAT novel home | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |

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