The One That Got Away by DebC
Summary: Jack goes fishing and hooks more than he planned on. A Stargate SG-1/Bones crossover.
Spoilers: Through Season Nine of SG-1 and Season 1 of Bones.
Notes: Written for azarsuerte for her birthday. Also, she suggested the opening sentence. :-) Special thanks to angelsgracie for suggestimg the use of flashbacks to tell the back story and thus saving this from being a 100-word drabble. :-) More thanks to featherjean for the beta job. Thank you so much!
"Please don't tell me this is going to degenerate into
some sort of 'my archaeologist can beat up your anthropologist' pissing
contest."
The words were classic Hodgins, but no sooner were they spoken than two pairs of
cold, clearly pissed off eyes trained on him. "You guys need to
lighten up," he told Booth and the other guy... the retired Air Force
General who'd discovered the body.
"I will once someone explains why the Air Force had to send someone in to
take over our case," Booth said.
"Your case? I found the damn body, for cryin' out loud!"
*****
It wasn't everyday that Jack O'Neill got to relax
and just be himself -- or as close to 'himself' and 'relaxing' as it got for the
recently appointed head of Homeworld Security. So it was a rare occasion
when some of his Air Force buddies -- people he'd palled around with ages ago --
contacted him about an impromptu reunion of sorts. He hadn't been planning
on going, but it was a fishing trip, and Jack liked to fish. Besides, as
Daniel'd pointed out over the phone, Jack needed a break.
Actually, what Daniel had really said was
"You're looking a little... old... General" in his best teasing voice
with that smile Jack hated because it meant Daniel knew he'd pushed a button.
So Jack went fishing, and he had to admit that
kicking back on a boat with five of his old buds wasn't the worst thing in the
world. There was beer, barbecuing, and plenty of fish. By noon, Jack
had already caught two whoppers. When he hooked a third, everyone groaned.
"You have all the luck, O'Neill," one of
the guys commented. He hadn't caught anything so far.
"I don't know about luck. This
sonofabitch is huge," was Jack's reply and seconds later, he was asking for
help pulling it on board the boat.
*****
From the examination table where the decomposed remains of a dead male of
indeterminate age lay, the archaeologist and anthropologist both looked up.
"Yeah, Jack... about that," Daniel Jackson asked. "How
exactly does one go on a fishing trip and hook a -- " he waved his hands at
the body. He knew what they had here -- a clone of Ba'al -- but explaining
it to the team from the Jeffersonian wouldn't exactly be easy.
Jack glared at his long-time friend and former teammate.
"Talent," he answered.
"What exactly do we have here?" Booth asked, looking not at the
General or at the geeky scientist said general had called in shortly after he
and Bones had gone to interview the man. He didn't like being left in the
dark and that's exactly what this whole situation felt like. More
importantly, he did not like being told by his boss that his only suspect in
this whole investigation was some sort of military expert and they had to work
with him and whomever he brought with him.
"I don't know," Brennan admitted, finally straightening up and walking
away from the table. "I thought we had a man..."
"... just not the man Angela's computer came up with." Booth
finished for her. That man was still alive. They'd both met him in
person, when they went to investigate his death.
"Which isn't possible," Brennan continued. "Given the DNA
evidence, that man should have been dead."
That's what had brought them back to Jack in the first place -- the fact that
the murder victim wasn't dead.
*****
"We just need to ask you a few more
questions, General," Booth began, sitting down in a chair and motioning for
Jack to join him.
"Yeahsure, why not?" Jack
complied, but his expression was sour enough. "After all, you did
just invite yourselves into my hotel room."
"General --" Brennan began.
"about the body you pulled out of the water..."
"Yeahhhhh?"
"We've identified him, or at least we thought
we had." She paused and Booth took over, sliding a photograph across
the hotel coffee table to Jack.
"Do you recognize this man?" the FBI
agent asked.
"Should I?" but Jack's eyes bored into
the picture as if he might set it on fire. Oh, he knew that no good piece
of snaky pond scum alright. Containing his emotions, he looked up and
asked them the one question that came to his mind. "He's dead?"
*****
Shortly after their visit, Booth had been informed that the military -- or
rather, a branch of it Booth had never heard of before -- was taking over the
investigation and that -- and he quoted -- his people needed to cooperate fully
with their efforts.
That was when Booth started to feel like he was being kept in the dark... out of
the loop. He'd expected Brennan to feel the same way, too, but seemed to
have instantly bonded with the 'expert scientist' the general had brought in.
*****
Jack entered office with Daniel just a step behind
him. "You'll see what I mean when we --" he'd been saying, but
stopped short when he say both Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan in Brennan's office.
Booth looked like he'd choked on a lemon. Jack thought it was a good look
on him.
"Dr. Brennan, this my associate, Dr. --
"
"Dr. Daniel Jackson," Temperance
supplied, cutting Jack off almost immediately.
"You know this guy?" Booth
exclaimed.
"Know of him," she answered.
"He was laughed out academia almost a decade ago for making some rather
fantastical claims about Ancient Egyptian civilization. No one's heard
much out of him since."
Booth glared at Jack and the new-comer.
"Your expert is a crack-pot?" he asked, incredulous.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
Jack shot back.
"Jack--" Daniel hissed.
"What?!?"
Ignoring the testosterone in the room, Brennan
extended her hand to Daniel and said amicably. "I've read some of
your publications. They were interesting."
"Interesting, huh?" Daniel
couldn't help but smile. Most people had called his theories insane.
Brennan smiled back and then offered to show
him around her labs. Daniel readily accepted, and they left a
flabbergasted Jack and Booth standing in the office.
But only for a second, as Jack's voice followed
them down the hallway. "Hey, wait up, will ya!"
*****
Daniel moved away from the body and Brennan's side -- where'd he'd been almost
constantly since they'd arrived at the Jeffersonian -- and insinuated himself at
Jack's side. He knew what he was about to suggest would go over with Jack
like a lead balloon.
"Jack, I think we should tell them the truth."
"What?!?" Jack stared at Daniel as if he were suddenly convinced
that Daniel had taken one too many trips through the Stargate. Yeah, that
was it. The gate travel had fried Daniel's brain ... finally.
"Why in the name of all that's holy would we do a thing like that,
Daniel?"
Daniel hesitated and his eyes strayed to Temperance Brennan. He couldn't
but admire her. She'd dedicated her life to using her science -- to a
large extent their science -- to helping identify faceless bones. Victims
of crimes or circumstance. She and her co-workers gave them faces and
names and told their stories. Even though the body Jack had fished out of
the Chesapeake Bay wasn't a victim of heinous crime, she'd poured her heart into
discovered who it had been and what had happened to it. If they took the
body back to the SGC --as they'd been ordered to do -- she would probably
continue to wonder about it. The one that got away. The mystery that
remained unsolved.
"Because it's the right thing to do, Jack. We're taking their body
away as soon as the transport arrives. A body they've all put tremendous
effort into --"
"Okay, fine! Have it your own way," Jack snorted.
Technically, since he was the newly appointed head of Homeworld Security, Jack
didn't have to get permission to tell anyone about the Stargate, aliens or the
SGC. He was the guy who generally gave it nowadays. And no, he
didn't really want to, but he knew Daniel. He knew that look in his
friend's eyes and the tone of his voice. If he didn't say yes now, Daniel
would not let it go.
A few minutes later, Daniel and Jack had assembled everyone who'd worked on the
clone's body in Brennan's office. When the door closed behind Agent Booth,
all eyes turned to him.
"So, we're all here now," Booth demanded. "What's the big
secret already? Who is that guy?"
"Not who..." Daniel answered. "What. The body you've
been examining all week is a clone, an exact genetic replica of the man you
thought it was."
"Is human cloning even possible?" Zack asked, almost innocently,
looking to Brennan for the answers. The rest of them just looked stunned.
"I didn't say it was human," Daniel said, continuing.
"What a minute! If it's not human -- you're saying it's an
alien?" Hodgins' expression was animated, as he'd secretly suspected
a conspiracy as soon as Booth had announced that the military would be joining
the investigation. "You guys are here to cover this up, aren’t
you?"
"Now you see, Daniel, this is exactly why this was a bad idea!"
Jack interrupted Hodgins' exclaimed 'I knew it!' Daniel glared at his
friend and pinched the bridge of his nose just below his glasses.
"I don't understand." This came from Brennan. She was
looking at Daniel for all the world like she'd been betrayed. And maybe
she had been; Daniel had hated the idea of lying to her the moment they'd met.
She brilliant, intelligent and beautiful... and it felt wrong to keep her in the
dark.
"Well, for starters," Daniel said, looking more at her than anyone
else, "what would you say if I told you that I was right all those years
ago?"
"About Ancient Egypt?" Temperance asked. "You were right
about there having been aliens on ancient earth who influenced our
culture?"
"Yeah, he was," Jack butted in, finally taking over the conversation.
He hated seeing people doubt his friend and assumed that's what was happening.
"And that's just for starters..."
*****
After the transport came -- taking Jack, Daniel and the dead clone back to
Cheyenne Mountain -- everyone else gathering in Brennan's office. For the
most part, they were all still stunned by what they'd been told only moments
ago.
"Do you actually believe all that crap?" Angela asked a
thoughtful Temperance.
It was Booth who answered instead. "Someone in high places must
believe it. They sure got rid of the evidence in a hurry." All
of it -- all the research and notes Brennan, Angela, Zack and Hodgins had
done and everything in his own files as well. Nothing remained of the case
at all.
"That's just like the government for you, too," Hodgins accused.
They'd been sworn to secrecy and he hated the idea almost as much as he was
thrilled to have finally been right about a government cover-up.
"Brennan?" Angela queried one more time.
"I don't know what I think," Temperance answered at last, still
sounding thoughtful. She didn't know why, but she got the impression that
Daniel Jackson was the last person in the world who would lie to her. Or
anyone for that matter. "But wouldn't it be amazing if it were
true?"
End