Disclaimer: This fit of madness if from the twisted minds of Corwalch and Lady FoxFire. If you recognize something from Stargate SG-1 or from Harry Potter then you better believe we don't own it or make any money from it.
Author Notes: The writing styles of Corwalch and Lady FoxFire don't mesh very well therefore we decided that one of us would write one chapter and the other would write the next chapter. So here's Corwalch 's chapter…
You Can’t Keep An Old Dog Down
Post "The Fifth Race"
by Lady Foxfire and Corwalch
Major Carter knocked on the door that led to General Hammond’s office.
"Come," the General’s voice barked from inside.
When he saw who was there, Hammond asked, "What can I do for you Major?"
"I was just wondering if you knew where Colonel O’Neill might be. Janet said she released him last night, but he’s not on the base and he’s not answering his home phone."
"I would be surprised if he were." Hammond told her. "When Dr. Frasier released him last night, Jack came by and asked to take some time off. Said something about wanting to spend some time fishing and relaxing."
"So he’s gone to his lake cabin." Carter commented.
"If you and Dr. Jackson would like to join him, I’m sure he won’t mind, Major," Hammond told her. "I’ve put you all on downtime until he gets back. I think Teal’c mentioned something about going to see his son for a few days when I told him about the Colonel taking some time off."
"Ah, no thank you, sir," Carter told him quickly. "I have a few projects I can work on while he’s away. I’ll pass the message on to Daniel though, he may want to go."
Hammond quickly hid a smile. He had a feeling that Dr. Jackson would rather face Apophis than go fishing with Jack, if he had a choice.
~*~*~*~
A few days later;
After returning from the Land of Light and completing his necessary physical, Teal’c went down to DanielJackson’s office; fairly certain he would find the younger man there.
Looking in the open doorway, he saw that his guess was confirmed. The younger man was scratching out some text on the chalkboard and comparing it to the picture taped up there. There were open books and old tomes scattered about over every available surface. Teal’c took in all the candy wrappers scattered on the desk and a trashcan over flowing with them. A plate containing a half eaten sandwich and a half-filled cup of coffee sitting near it that the Jaffa was willing to bet was stone cold was on the table near the door. An airman had probably brought that by because Teal’c could tell that the linguist was very absorbed in his work, because he hadn’t been greeted yet
Teal’c stood there for several minutes watching Daniel Jackson as he moved around the office. He never ceased to be amazed at the younger man who preferred to settled things peacefully if possible but could fight like a Gornash if needed in defense of his friends. What amazed him the most was how DanielJackson could move around this tiny cluttered room with his attention totally focused on the book he was reading, yet not strike any of the objects or books scattered about.
"Greetings DanielJackson," Teal’c spoke up once Daniel was stationary back at the chalkboard.
The chalk screeched on the board for a moment as Daniel turned in surprise. "Teal’c, I thought you weren’t coming back until Friday."
"It is Friday, DanielJackson." Teal’c told him. "Have you not been out of this office since I left a few days ago?"
"Well, this research needed to be done, so that SG-11 had all the information they needed for that treaty negotiation they are going to next week on PX8734." Daniel told him feeling slightly defensive. "The leaders of the Sarnai are very touchy on protocol. We can’t afford to get anything wrong."
"Surely O’Neill would have seen to it that you left your office at least once in the last five days." Teal’c stated somewhat surprised.
"Well, he’s up at his cabin fishing." Daniel told him. "Once Janet released him, he requested time off, telling General Hammond he had some things he wanted to think about."
"And has no one heard from him since he left?" Teal’c wanted to know. He had known that O’Neill was up at his cabin, but had thought he would be back by now since he hadn’t been able to talk anyone into going with him.
"I haven’t, but Sam might’ve. He’s been trying to get her to go fishing for a while now." Daniel told him his mind wandering back to the contents of the chalkboard.
Before Teal’c could try and question him further, the phone in Daniel’s office rang. Seeing the other man was engrossed once more in his translation, Teal’c picked up the phone. "DanielJackson’s office."
"Teal’c?" The Jaffa recognized General Hammond’s voice. "Is Dr. Jackson there?"
"He is working on a translation for SG-11 so he told me," Teal’c advised the General.
"Bring him up to my office as soon as possible." Hammond ordered. "We seem to have a missing Colonel on our hands."
"We will be right there," Teal’c told him. Putting down the phone, he informed Daniel that General Hammond wanted them in his office as soon as possible. "It seems something may have happened to Colonel O’Neill."
That got Daniel’s attention away from the chalkboard. Putting down the book he was holding, Daniel followed Teal’c out the door.
~*~*~*~
They met up with Sam on the stairs leading to the General’s office. She looked as worried as Daniel felt.
"Come in and close the door behind you." Hammond instructed as soon as he saw Carter standing in the doorway.
"Sir, you said something about the Colonel being missing?" Carter spoke up as soon as the door was closed.
"Yes," Hammond gestured to the seats around his desk. "I received a call from the Sheriff of Stillwater, Minnesota."
"That’s where Jack’s cabin is!" Daniel announced unnecessarily.
Hammond glared at him for a moment before returning to the matter at hand when Daniel remained silent. "I had a call from Sheriff Breitmeir in Stillwater. He informed me that the Colonel’s cabin was broken into and vandalized last night before the jeep he keeps there was stolen by four teenagers for a joyride."
"And what of O’Neill? Did he make no move to stop the intruders?" Teal’c found this hard to believe. He also didn’t believe these teenagers could’ve taken O’Neill out.
"Apparently the Colonel wasn’t there when it happened." Hammond told the trio seated in front of his desk. "The Sheriff called here, because he thought Colonel O’Neill was at the base and he wanted to let him know about the break-in."
"Why would he think Jack was here?" Daniel asked puzzled. "He’s been at his cabin most of the week."
"Apparently not," Hammond told them. "I spoke with Mr. Jamison, the man Colonel O’Neill has kept an eye on his cabin when he is not there and he reported that he hasn’t seen O’Neill in several months. At first I thought maybe he just hadn’t seen the Colonel arrive, but I was informed that O’Neill always calls when he is going to the cabin, so that Mr. Jamison will know when to meet his plane. And that’s only if the Colonel hasn’t made prior arrangements for another ride, then he just lets him know when he will be arriving, so he will know not to call the police if he sees lights at the Colonel’s cabin. The man is retire military and takes his job very seriously."
"I'm assuming the sheriff has questioned the kids about Jack's whereabouts?" Daniel asked.
Hammond nods his head. "The teens claim to have found the Jeep on Jack's property, the front door was open and the keys were on a hook by the door. They deny vandalizing the house though or even seeing O’Neill. According to the kids there were no lights on in the house when they got there."
"Does he believe them?" Carter wanted to know.
"The Sheriff says they have never been in trouble before." Hammond told them. "According to him the teenagers were celebrating the fact that school was out. About the only crimes he intends to charge them with as of right now is underage drinking and trespass. The blood tests done at the hospital at the time they were admitted came back showing the teens were well over the legal limit even for an adult. I’ll leave it to your imaginations just how drunk they were by the time his deputy caught up with them. The trespass charge is because they admitted to entering O’Neill’s cabin and drinking his beer. Fortunately they didn’t make it very far in the Colonel’s jeep. He says they were lucky because they nearly flipped the jeep into a nearby river."
"Jack is going to kill them," Daniel muttered. Actually on further reflection Daniel thought that Jack wouldn’t kill them. He’d want them to suffer and from what he’d been told Jack’s cabin sometimes needed a lot of work to maintain it, especially after some of the storms that went through his area. He could see a lot of hard labor in the teenager’s immediate future.
"Did they say what they were doing out there?" Carter wanted to know. "According to the Colonel his place is kind of off the beaten track."
"According to the Sheriff, the kids were apparently looking for somewhere new to drink, since all the usual places are so well known and frequently patrolled." Hammond told her.
Teal’c asked the question that was on everyone’s mind. "Could the NID have taken O’Neill due to the knowledge downloaded into his brain by the Ancient’s repository?"
Hammond told them. "That is the most obvious possibility. I need SG-1 to go to Stillwater and see if you can figure out what happened to Colonel O’Neill. If he was taken by the NID or someone associated with them there should be traces somewhere."
~*~*~*~
As they turned into the entrance road that led to Colonel O’Neill’s cabin, the remaining members of SG-1 saw that a Sheriff’s car was parked across the road, blocking the entrance. The deputy got out of his car as they pulled to a stop.
"Sorry folks, but this road is closed," the deputy told them.
Getting out of the car, Carter gave her ID the deputy, telling him, "My name is Captain Samantha Carter, United States Air Force. I believe Sheriff Breitmeir told you to expect us."
"Yes, ma’am, he did." The deputy checked her identification and then recorded it and their arrival time on a clipboard he had in his squad car. "May I see some identification, gentlemen?"
Daniel handed over the ID that identified him as a civilian working for the Department of Defense. That one usually raised less questions with outsiders than the ID he had to wear around the SGC. Teal’c also handed over his civilian DOD identification as well.
Returning their identification the deputy requested. "Please check in with me when you leave ma’am and sirs. Also since General Hammond informed the Sheriff that Colonel O’Neill was missing, we are treating this as a crime scene. We were going to have the CSI team from Beaumont come in, until he told us he was sending you to check on things first, since the Colonel was working on a top secret project. So if you remove anything from the property I will need to make a list of it, so it can be accounted for later."
"If we find anything that needs to be removed in the interests of National Security we will let you know Deputy," Carter assured him.
As they pulled up in front of the cabin, they saw that O’Neill’s jeep had been returned. They saw that the left front bumper of the jeep was crumpled up and away from the wheel well. There were also long gouges down the left side to the rear quarter panel.
"I hope those kids parents have filed the insurance claim for this, or Jack may just take it out of those kid’s hides." Daniel commented.
"Should not the ones who caused the damage be required to atone for it?" Teal’c wondered.
"If they don’t have a driver’s license it will be up to their parents to pay for the damage and then work out a method for their kids to pay them back." Carter told him. "If they did have a driver’s license and therefore auto insurance it will pay for this rather expensive damage and then they will be required to pay the insurance company higher rates because this accident will be on their records for at least seven years."
Getting out of the car and checking the immediate area, they saw that the front door was closed and everything appeared undisturbed.
"Do you have the keys the Sheriff gave us?" Carter asked Daniel.
"Right here," Daniel held up a key ring.
"Should we check inside or outside first?" Teal’c wanted to know.
"Let’s start with the outside." Sam suggested. "Daniel, you check the carport and the area around it, while Teal’c and I check to see if there are any signs of a struggle outside. We’ll meet back at the front door in fifteen minutes."
When they met back up at the front door, Carter reported, "I found a lot of cigarette butts and beer cans and bottles near the pond."
"I found the same on the far side of the house." Teal’c reported.
"There wasn’t anything in the carport." Daniel reported. "The kids must’ve done all their drinking where they could make a quick break for it if they were found."
Daniel unlocked the front door, and they entered what might politely be described as the aftermath of a hurricane. Stuff was scattered all over the living room. Magazines were thrown about on the floor along with some file folders and seat cushions and chairs were overturned. The kitchen was worse. Things had been pulled out of the cabinets and some of the packages were open with their contents strewn over the counter.
As they started to move into what looked like an office, Teal’c heard a crash from one of the back rooms. He quickly held up his hand for silence. The other two looked at him wondering what was going on, when he motioned toward the back.
Pulling her pistol out of the holster in the small of her back and nodded indicating she would follow Teal’c’s lead. Daniel also pulled out a pistol but stayed further back to cover them in case the intruder got past Sam and Teal’c, though the chances of that were very slim.
With Carter covering him, Teal’c entered the office quietly, expecting to be attacked by whoever was involved with O’Neill’s disappearance. Instead the sight that greeted him was someone’s rear end as they tried to wriggle out of the narrow but not impassable window. The intruder was about halfway through, when Teal’c grabbed the flailing legs and dragged him back into the room.
The man twisted in mid-air trying to recover from his rather abrupt removal from the window only to land on his butt. A familiar voice started swearing. "Damnit! There’s no need to be so rough." He looked up and smiled weakly when he saw it wasn’t who he expected it to be.
"Maybourne." Teal’c growled. "Where is O’Neill?"
Maybourne looked back and forth between Carter and Teal’c and noticed neither looked pleased to see him. He also couldn’t help noticing that Carter’s gun was pointed slightly lower than his heart toward some other important equipment. Gulping noisily, Maybourne decided that the truth was the safest course for now if he wanted to keep the important pieces of his anatomy intact. "I don’t know. I thought you were Jack."
"You really expect us to believe that?" Carter commented as Teal’c pulled the NID agent off the floor.
"It’s the truth." Maybourne insisted.
Daniel had come into the room in time to hear the last comment. "Maybourne, you wouldn’t know the truth if it danced naked in front of you."
"Yes, I would," Maybourne managed to look slightly insulted.
"Why are you here?" Carter demanded, her eyes betraying her need to know.
Suspecting that something had happened to O’Neill and that they thought he had something to do with it, Maybourne knew the only way he would get out of the room if not the house intact, was to come clean. "I was sent to talk with O’Neill. My superiors wanted to see what information he retained from that Ancient database that was downloaded into his head."
"And what would you have done, if he did remember any of it?" Teal’c leaned in threateningly.
"I was told to bring him in to talk with them." Maybourne had to fight the urge to cower back from the threatening Jaffa. "I was kind of surprised to find he wasn’t here, not to mention the place looking like a hurricane had gone through it."
"So you don’t know where Jack is either?" Daniel burst out in surprise.
Maybourne shrugged one shoulder, given that the other was being held in the iron grip of Teal’c and said truthfully. "Not a clue."
Carter pulled out her cell phone and hit the speed dial for General Hammond’s office. When she got through to Hammond, she told him, "Sir, you are not going to believe who we found at Colonel O’Neill’s."
Betaed by :: SeulWolfe