Juggling a six pack in one hand and a pizza box in the other, Jack O'Neill bent down and used his elbow to ring the doorbell, once, then again. He paused, listening to the silence before, faintly, he could hear the sound of distant footsteps, drawing closer.
Finally, the door opened, a familiar round face peering out at him, looking surprised. "Colonel O'Neill?"
"Hello, Sir. Hope I'm not interrupting your evening." Jack hefted the box and then the beer. "I brought dinner and refreshments. You haven't eaten, General?"
"No. I haven't. I'm surprised to see you here tonight, Jack."
The younger man nodded. "If you have other plans, I can always go see if Teal'c-"
"No, no, come in, come in." George opened the door wide, and waved O'Neill inside and toward the spacious kitchen.
Jack stepped around the corner into the neat house and set the beer and the box on the kitchen table before slouching into one of the chairs.
"So what's the special occasion?" George asked suspiciously, taking a seat across from his quirky second in command.
"I can't just stop by and share a beer and a gourmet meal with my CO without a reason?" Jack pulled a beer out of the carton, handing it to the general before taking out another for himself, twisting off the cap, and taking a long swallow.
George chuckled. "No. Not without an explanation."
"I was thinking maybe I missed your birthday." Jack set down the beer bottle, opened the pizza box, extracted a slice, and took a hefty bite.
"That was months ago."
"Sorry, Sir." Jack shrugged. "All those off-world trips, ya know, sometimes I lose track of the days. Last year, I completely missed Halloween."
George suppressed a smile as he bit into a slice of pizza. Only Jack O'Neill would consider this gourmet food, though it was damn good pizza. And it was certainly tastier than his usual on-base fare, he could admit that, though Doctor Fraiser would chew him out for ignoring his diet. Again.
The general took another bite of the pepperoni and cheese delight, chewing thoughtfully, wondering why O'Neill had appeared on his doorstep. Looking across the table at the Colonel who was busily consuming a second slice and saying nothing gave the General no clues as to the man's intent. George, however, was a patient man. Sooner or later, though later was much more likely, the enigmatic Colonel would reveal the real reason why he was sitting in his CO's kitchen. The general could wait. And he'd enjoy the beer and pizza first.
It didn't take long for the pizza to be reduced to little more than crumbs and greasy red stains on the bottom of the box. George was nearly done with his second beer but noticing that O'Neill was doing nothing more than picking at the label on his still-full second.
Without looking up, the Colonel finally spoke. "I wanted to thank you for trusting us. You took some huge risks."
"You're welcome, Jack, but really, no thanks are necessary. I should be thanking you."
The Colonel looked up in surprise. "Sir?"
George thought back to that long ago day and the intense inner battle he'd waged over the strange visitors and the even stranger story they'd told. "You know, Captain Carter explained how you weren't supposed to change history, but you did. I think."
"Sir?" Now it was O'Neill who was clearly puzzled.
George stared out the French doors into the green expanse of his spacious backyard. "I've never told anyone this, but at the time of our first meeting, back in 1969, I was thinking of quitting the Air Force. "
"You? Quit?" O'Neill looked thoroughly surprised.
"Yes. My father's heart attack that summer had started me thinking about my future, about how short life was. My wife was expecting our second child, and the Vietnam War was already giving military service a bad name. I wasn't sure that the Air Force offered what I wanted out of life, that it could provide me and my family with a secure future." George sipped his beer thoughtfully. "I' d just gotten a job offer. Selling insurance. I was mulling it over, hadn't even told Betty about it yet."
"I can't picture you selling insurance."
"It would have doubled my salary."
"There's more to life than money."
"Tell that to a young man wondering how he'll feed a wife and two kids on a lieutenant's pay."
"I understand." Jack had never been in that same situation, not quite, though he'd been close. He and Sara had never gotten past the first kid, never been blessed with a second. Quashing the thought of possibilities best left unconsidered, he prompted, "So you didn't take the job offer because--"
"Because I believed you."
Jack was studying the tattered remainder of the label on the beer bottle. " That couldn't have been easy, Sir."
George sat back in his chair and sighed. "No, it wasn't. I wasn't sure if you were crazy, or I was. I mean, when I found that note in Captain Carter's vest - I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where it had come from, who might be playing some twisted practical joke on me. Or was it some bizarre loyalty test? I wouldn't have been surprised by Major Thornbird being suspicious enough to test us, but he was just not imaginative enough to come up with something like that." George paused, shaking his head. "Even more convincing was your equipment - the guns, the radios, the tac vests, Teal'c's zat, the GDO. There was nothing like that in 1969, and the Russians, paranoid as we were about them, certainly weren't capable of creating anything that far ahead of our own technology of the time. Which left me with believing you as the only viable conclusion, incredible as it was."
"Still, I appreciate what you did, Sir. Without your help, without the risk you took, I don't know what would have happened to us. Not that 1969 was all that bad of a year, but--" Jack paused, letting the sentence hang as he took another sip of his beer. Silence prevailed until, after a pause, he asked what he really wanted to know. "So, Sir, what happened, after we left?"
"Oh, I had a lot of explaining to do about how four prisoners could have gotten the drop on me so easily. I said you must have used one of your advanced weapons. Of course, the others having been zatted, they believed me. And since no one ever did figure out how the four of you got inside that missile silo, they were pretty much prepared to believe you could do anything, including walk through walls. Still, the major was apoplectic. He had us all doing base security sweeps 24-7 for months."
Jack smiled. "He did seem a little high-strung."
"Oh, you pissed him off to no end." George chuckled.
"That is one of my better talents, Sir."
"So I've noticed, Jack." The general answered lightly, pausing, then added, nonchalantly, "By the way, you could have warned me you were going to zat me, there on the road by the truck."
"Sorry General, but believe me, it hurts just as much, warned or not. And it had to be done."
"I know. But you left me with a lot of unanswered questions."
"Carter insisted we weren't supposed to say anything more than we absolutely had to. The dangers of that whole paradox thing," Jack waved a hand through the air.
"I understand. However, thirty years is a long time to wait, wondering when you'd appear. I had recognized Sam Carter years before, of course, when I got to know Jacob. But then, nothing more happened. I was so near retirement, and frankly, beginning to believe the whole thing had just been some weird dream when I was assigned to the Stargate Program. I have to admit, it was a bit of a shock, finally coming face to face with you, and then Doctor Jackson, and finally Teal'c."
"You concealed it well."
"I have my secrets, Jack."
O'Neill nodded. "And then you had to wait for it to happen."
"Not knowing what it was."
Jack nodded again. "Good thing you're a patient man."
"Yes, it is."
Jack set his beer down on the kitchen table. "Well, sir, I think I'll head for home then." He dug around in his jeans' pocket and produced a wadded up roll of bills and two coins, setting them on the table. "Five hundred thirty-nine dollars and fifty cents. Count it if you want."
"Oh, I trust you. And you really didn't need to, Jack. It was a good investment, in both our futures." George pushed the money back across the table toward the Colonel.
O'Neill shook his head. "Really, sir, take it. Put it in your granddaughters' college fund." He stood, turning to walk back to the hallway and the exit.
George got up and escorted him to the door.
"Goodnight, General." Jack stepped out onto the patio and turned to go.
"Jack?"
The tall soldier paused, "Sir?"
"Thank you. My granddaughters are well provided for. I'll donate it to charity, if that's okay with you, Jack."
"That's fine, Sir."
"Yes, it is," George muttered as he watched O'Neill walk out to his truck. His life was fine, and he wasn't going to think about the conundrum of time travel and a note written to himself by himself that had brought him here, to this time and this place and the SGC. Whether it was fate, or chance or design or some brain-twisting paradox that only Captain Carter could understand, it had brought him to the most amazing and rewarding thing he'd done in his long career.
It had been worth the investment.
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A Stargate: SG-1 Fanfiction Site
Five Hundred Thirty-nine Fifty
by BadgergaterStory Bemerkung:
Thanks to Cokie for the beta.
Dedication: In memory of Don S. Davis
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