Statistics

A lot of the time when new personnel (especially scientists) transfers in to Atlantis, their first instinct upon hearing about what's happened in the few short years the expedition has been in the Pegasus Galaxy is to conduct statistical analysis on it, or hang humorous posters on the walls: 23 days since the last Wraith attack, 16 days since a team was last imprisoned. But most of the time, they drop it quickly: the statistics aren't comforting. All too often the posters read 0 days since the last catastrophic event. All they do is drive home the fact that anybody could be next.

NaNo 2007: Chapters 31-35

Chapter 31: Being Talked Into It

"Oh, Mr. Crichton, I was wondering when you were going to show up," the bald man says, standing up and extending his hand to shake. "I'm General Hammond."

John shakes his hand. "Daniel got a bit distracted by Crichton's sword while he was relaying the message, sir," O'Neill says.

"Am I to take it you were using this time to evaluate Mr. Crichton's combat readiness?" General Hammond asks. "You were supposed to be giving him a tour."

"It's not a problem, really," John interjects. "Kinda fun, actually, and Teal'c's pretty good."

"He lasted two minutes against Teal'c when they were doing knives," O'Neill says, still impressed. "And he actually beat Teal'c with a sword." He pulls John's used target out of his pocket and hands it to the General. "Personally, I'd say he's qualified with all three of his weapons."

"Thank you, Colonel," General Hammond says. "You're dismissed, unless you'd like to show Mr. Crichton the labs later?"

"Not the labs, they're always doing all that science…stuff, there, you know I'd fall asleep as soon as I walked in. But I figure I at least owe the guy a meal from the commissary for actually beating Teal'c. Or, hey, I could get you a real meal after we get off," O'Neill says, turning to John. "Just let me know when you're going. We can probably talk Carter and Daniel into coming, too, since you're new here."

"Yeah, sure, no problem," John says. "I hope you know someplace, though, because like you said I'm new in town."

"Yeah, I've got it covered." General Hammond clears his throat and looks at Colonel O'Neill meaningfully. "Well, will you look at the time! I've got to go…do…stuff." He disappears, the door closing behind him.

"You seem to have made quite an impression on Colonel O'Neill," General Hammond says.

"I don't think he's recovered from seeing Teal'c with a bokken to his throat," John says. "It's a wooden practice sword," he clarifies, seeing the confusion on General Hammond's face. "But that isn't why you called me in here."

"No, it isn't," the General says. "But there's one more person who I'd like to be here for this." Just then, the door opens and a woman in a lab coat walks in. "John Crichton, meet Dr. Janet Frasier."

"This is about the medical exams, isn't it?" John asks. He'd been expecting this from when the SGC had agreed to his conditions in the first place - after all, the Stargate has to be an extremely efficient disease vector, not to mention all of the injuries that doubtless happen on a daily basis here and whatever strange things happen because of dealing with alien cultures; no doctor with even half a brain would just let him waltz around the SGC without regular checkups, even if he looks fine and doesn't ever mention anything being wrong with him.

"It is indeed," Dr. Frasier says. "I understand that you worked out a deal with General Hammond to not have to have medical exams without your permission except in the event of a possible Threshold situation, but I need to at least get a baseline for you so that we have something to compare to, if it comes down to it. And you should be having regular checkups anyway, why don't you just have them with us? I promise I don't bite…much."

"Look, Dr. Frasier, I know you mean well, but just drop it. I haven't had regular checkups in a really long time, and I'm not dead yet. And my last doctor gave me some medicine that she said wasn't addictive, but I got hooked on. So you'll forgive me if I don't have a real positive outlook about doctors any more."

"You're going to get yourself killed if you keep that attitude around here," Dr. Frasier says.

"It's a possibility," even if not permanently.

She skewers him with her glare. "What's your real reason?" she asks.

It's like he doesn't have any choice about telling her. "I know I have some odd things that might show up in a medical exam," he says reluctantly. "Nothing dangerous or anything, just…odd." Odd like not healing. Odd like having translator microbes in his brain.

"Well if you think they're odd but not dangerous we should at least examine you once to get a baseline. Otherwise when you're examined during a Threshold situation they'll show up and we might think they're part of the situation."

Okay, that makes sense, but… "You're not going to take any actions based on anything you might find out, are you?" he asks.

"If you say it's harmless, then I'll take your word for it, although I'd probably feel better if you'd actually talked to a doctor about it."

"Fine, fine," John says. "But no needles."

"You're missing the best part," Dr. Frasier says.

"No needles."

Chapter 32: Fitting In

As it turns out, John fits in pretty well at the SGC, even if he's the only one who isn't really excited by actual aliens - for the most part, they're just people, after all, although the Goa'uld seem to be particularly nasty people. It isn't his first time dealing with that, either, and at least this time he isn't a valuable commodity or being tortured.

The galactic war is a bit new, not because it's a galactic war or because he's taking part in it, but because he's part of an army. During the Peacekeeper - Scarran war, he'd fought - he'd used a wormhole weapon, even - but it had always just been him and a handful of other people. But the SGC is bustling - soldiers everywhere, scientists everywhere, allies dropping by for visits…enemies dropping by for visits, which isn't as new as it should be, but at least for the most part the SGC tends not to make their enemies into allies like the Moyans had had a tendency to do. It keeps the lines clear - well, except for the NID and then the Trust - which is a relief; there isn't any worrying about whose side people are really on, just a quick scan to make sure nobody's unexpectedly become a Goa'uld.

SG - 1 is the most pleasant surprise - he gets along with all of them even though he hadn't expected to when they'd recruited him, but Teal'c the most. With Teal'c he doesn't have to worry about giving away one of his secrets, even though his other one is still a secret. He's gotten so used to keeping Moya and Aeryn a secret that, even though he knows that people who know about the SGC are unlikely to disbelieve him, he doesn't. It's easier to keep everybody at a certain amount of distance since he plans to leave as soon as he can; why make stronger ties to people he knows he's going to leave behind than he has to? This is probably an unhealthy attitude for an Immortal to have, but really it's only his policy for this reality, or probably any reality other than his own. Plus, Teal'c is a good sparring partner. Since his life depends upon knowing how to fight more than it ever had before he'd come to this reality, he appreciates the value of a good sparring partner, especially one who can teach him as much as Teal'c had. He hadn't expected to find anybody good enough to teach him in Colorado Springs, because he's been learning unarmed combat and shooting for twenty two years now, and although he isn't the best at them by the standards of the people who teach him, he's at least decent, which translates to being good at them to the population at large - most people are hitting middle age by the time they have 22 years of experience at unarmed combat, but his body's stuck at the age it had been when he'd died the first time, coming through the wormhole to this reality, so he has both the experience and is still more or less in the prime of his life.

Overall, he fits in, even if Dr. Frasier never stops giving him the evil eye for not agreeing to more medical tests.

Chapter 33: Talking to Ghosts

It's depressing how often people die at the SGC - it seems like every month there's at least one funeral for SGC personnel (there isn't, actually, but it feels that way), several times for entire teams, and all too often the funerals don't have a body to bury. John doesn't go to most of the funerals, but he finds himself burying himself in work for a few days around when he knows they're happening. Funerals, even ones that he doesn't attend, always bring up bad memories and fears about what might be happening back on Moya in his reality - will he ever make it back? Has everybody died already? He's been separated from Aeryn for longer than he'd been with her, now, even if you count before they'd really gotten together - what if she's moved on? What if she doesn't love him any more? D'Argo has probably forgotten him by now, and the baby - he doesn't even know its name, doesn't even know if it’s a boy or a girl - will only know who he is through what others tell him or her. Around the dates of funerals, his sleep is plagued with nightmares, to say nothing of his doubts during the day.

This is all compounded when it's Daniel who dies. Of all the ways to die, he'd died of radiation poisoning, eerily reminiscent of the other John Crichton's death. John can't stand the thought of seeing him dying by inches, like his twin had, so he's probably the only person in the whole of the SGC who doesn't at least stop in briefly. He knows that Daniel will probably notice his absence, even though he's made efforts not to get to close to Daniel over the years - as a linguist, Daniel's the most likely to notice that he understands everything, no matter what language it's in, and sometimes John forgets that sometimes people don't speak English even if he understands what they're saying. Worse, sometimes he forgets that the papers and blackboards in Daniel's office are in languages he can't even pretend he knows how to read, because they're all old and/or alien, not the kinds of languages he could have picked up alongside the Spanish and Klingon he knows.

So he really isn't in a good place, mentally, what with the dying and the radiation poisoning and Harvey bothering him like he does way too often, and he decides to leave, take a few days of vacation time. It'll be good for him to get away from the SGC, and maybe he can even manage to skip the funeral. He does that, and it's all good, except then it turns out not to be much of a vacation after all because there's an Immortal who decides he wants his head and isn't willing to just attack him; no, he has to play with John, which means that John spends about a week avoiding people and trying to get the other Immortal to close with him. He's confident that once they start to actually fight he and Tomoe will be able to triumph without difficulty; the only difficulty is getting the other Immortal to either agree to it or go away and stop hunting him.

Finally - finally! - the other immortal thinks he's worn John down enough to actually have a chance at fighting him. And he's pretty good, for someone as young as he is (he's clearly only been an immortal for a few years, but he'd had a good teacher; he'd be better if he had been taking on opponents who challenged him, but he'd felt the need to weaken them like he'd tried to weaken John, so he could have been better), but John's better, so eventually he disarms the other Immortal and removes his head from his neck.

When the quickening dies down and he becomes aware of his surroundings again, John notices Daniel standing there in a tan robe sort of thing, looking at him. "Um, how much of that did you see?" he asks.

Daniel looks kind of startled. "You're acknowledging that I'm here?" he asks. "Nobody else has…wait, have you heard from the SGC in the past few days?"

"No," John says. "I've been on vacation."

"That explains it," Daniel says. "I'm dead. Well, technically, ascended to a higher plane of existence, but still, dead."

"You're a ghost?" John asks.

"Well, technically - " Daniel starts.

John cuts him off. "I'm not just hallucinating this, am I?" he asks. "Because I have enough of those, and I'd really prefer not to have any more. And considering some of the things I know are real, I'm willing to believe in ghosts. Or…whatever."

"You're not hallucinating," Daniel says. "Although everybody else seems to think they are, despite everything. It's curious that you're so willing to accept the existence of ascension when they don't."

"I've learned not to be too attached to my world view," John says, wiping Tomoe off. "It's been upset too often in the past." He slides Tomoe home and puts the cloth back in his pocket. "But enough about that. How much did you see?"

"Everything, I think," Daniel says. "What was that? Why was he attacking you? Why aren't you calling the police?"

"And say what, that he was attacking me with a sword so I defended myself with one? In case you hadn't noticed, it isn't exactly normal to have sword fights in alleys, or to carry a sword around for that matter."

"Okay, so why did both of you have swords?" Daniel asks. "Nobody's pressed it before because you do your job, but you can tell me now. I mean, I'm dead. Who would I tell? Who would believe me? They don't even believe that I'm not a hallucination."

"Whereas I, who hallucinate on occasion, am perfectly willing to believe you," John adds. "Though I've got to admit it might be different if Harvey lied to me on a regular basis."

"Trusting your hallucinations is probably a bad thing," Daniel says.

"Oh, I'm well aware of that," John replies. "But in a manner of speaking, Harvey's real - don't ask, I won't tell you - and on occasion he's helpful, albeit annoying." Daniel raises his eyebrows as if John's made his point for him. "I do know the difference between a hallucination and reality. Or do you want me to stop talking to you?"

"No, ah, that's all right," Daniel says. "Just an explanation of what just happened will be fine."

"Well, you see, this gentleman was formerly an Immortal - "

"If he was immortal, shouldn't he still be alive?" Daniel asks.

"The term is somewhat inaccurate," John says, "as we can die if we're decapitated. But if we aren't we can theoretically live forever."

"We?" Daniel pounces on the word like it's a slip on John's part. "You're one of these Immortals?"

"Yeah, I am," John says. "Thus why he attacked me - when one Immortal takes another Immortal's head he gets their power, their knowledge, all that. So he was one of the hunters, Immortals who go around picking fights with other Immortals."

"And the lightning?"

"It's called the quickening; it's what contains the power and knowledge and so forth."

"This is fascinating," Daniel says. "It certainly explains some of the myths and legends that didn't seem to fit in with the Goa'uld mythology." He stares into space for a few seconds, muttering to himself about myths or something, and then snaps out of it. "Hey, is this why you didn't want any medical exams? Obviously it's why you're so good with a sword…"

"Yeah, this is why. I don't want to be studied like a lab rat or something."

"Janet would never do that to you!"

"I know Dr. Frasier wouldn't do it, but what about when she's gone? What about whoever might look at her notes or inherits her diary? If she's ever replaced, I don't want to have to tell more people what I am in order to stay safe."

"That makes sense," Daniel says. "But once you had the agreement, you could have told us."

"It's easier not to," John replies. "Especially since I've been keeping it for a while."

"A while?" Daniel asks. "What does that mean to an Immortal? Four, five hundred years?"

"Fifteen, actually," John says. "I'm still young for an Immortal."

"So did you just…appear, fully grown, or what?" Daniel asks.

"I had a perfectly normal life cycle until I died for the first time."

"You died."

"Temporarily."

"But you're immortal."

"Like I said, the term's misleading."

"So it would seem."

"So is that all you wanted to know?" John asks. "Because I kind of want to get out of here, but I don't want people to see me talking to thin air. It never turns out well when that happens."

"You know this from personal experience?"

"Unfortunately."

"I'll let you get back to your life, then, but I'll see you later. Just don't expect me to do more than talk, because interference is really frowned upon by the others."

"I didn't know any members of SG - 1 were good at following the rules," John says. "And I don't know what you think I'd expect you to do, anyway; I leave the world saving to the SG teams."

"I don't really understand that. I mean, I understand wanting to do more work, as opposed to walking around on random worlds that aren't very interesting to you - trust me, they all start to look the same after a while - but the SG teams are saving the world, saving people, in a very literal sense, which is very exciting, at least to me. And you certainly have the abilities to be a huge asset to any team you join."

John shrugs. "I guess I just don't understand how people can be so altruistic even when they've been betrayed in the past," he says. "Defending Earth is fine, but very few other people out there actually want our help. I guess I just have smaller goals, though."

"Smaller?"

"Oh, you know, fly a spaceship, reunite with my wife and kids, the usual."

"I don't think wanting to fly a spaceship is usually counted as a smaller goal."

"That's because most people don't have a chance in hell of getting to fly one. I do, and it's on my list of goals like it's on a lot of people's lists of goals. I'm just the only one who mentions it, and I'm really only mentioning it because you're dead."

"I see. Well, I guess I'll see you later."

"Let me guess, you'll just stop by at random and probably inconvenient times," John says. "Like my life isn't crazy enough. Yeah, see you later."

He doesn't hear Daniel say anything in reply, so he turns and checks just to be sure. Yep, Daniel's pulled a vanishing act. Like he didn't call that one. He turns again and walks out of the alley, doing his practiced best to look like he'd never even heard of a headless body or ghosts. Honestly, he gets too much practice at that look.

Chapter 34: To Tell or Not To Tell

Daniel's dead - sorry, ascended - for a year, a year in which he seems to take John's acceptance of his reality to mean that he should feel free to pop up at any time of the day or night to chat. John's willing to spend time with the guy - he's obviously lonely or bored or something, judging by how often he appears - but he sometimes has to use all of the skill he's acquired at pretending he doesn't see Harvey, to keep from giving it all away. Not that he'd ever be so careless as to talk to Daniel in front of somebody else, but people notice things like body language and where others are looking, even if they don't think they do.

Then one day he's gone, and SG - 1 returns from their latest mission saying that he'd been punished by Oma Desala, and John finds that he misses Daniel's company, at least more than he'd ever missed the other annoying "hallucination" in his life, Harvey, even if Daniel had never offered him Jell - O shooters. Harvey, of course, takes great offense to his preference for Daniel as opposed to Harvey, and they spend weeks arguing about it in his head. Harvey argues that it's merely a case of absence making the heart grow fonder, like he'd liked Harvey better when he had been dying. John, of course, knows that it's a case of Daniel never having done anything bad to him or the people he loves, other than that entire day he'd spent trying to make John laugh while they were in public, which although cruel hadn't actually affected anybody; John has too much control over himself to laugh at jokes if he doesn't want to. At least, not those jokes.

Daniel's missing for months before SG - 1 (of course it's SG - 1, it's always SG - 1 doing the important things) finds him, completely without a memory of his life before waking up naked on the planet he was found on. Which, of course, means that he doesn't remember that John's a Immortal. John debates whether to tell him or not - on the one hand, he hadn't known about it before he'd ascended, but on the other, he had learned about it while he was ascended and John knows he can accept it without a problem. Besides, he misses their conversations. But when it comes down to it, John would honestly prefer to have as few people know about it as possible. He trusts Daniel, but it's always possible for people to force information out of others through torture. Daniel's tough, but John knows what torture is like. If Daniel remembers on his own, that's fine, but otherwise he isn't going to tell him.

Chapter 35: A Conversation

John finishes his work on his theories at about the same time that Earth acquires enough spaceships to make it somewhat reasonable for John to ask for one. He knows that he probably won't get one for years, at the least. If he ever gets one. But he's friends with Jack, and Jack's in Washington now, in a position to great is request if he feels like it and he can think of half a reason that might possibly convince other people that John should have a one or two person spaceship of his own. He isn't asking for a ship like the Daedalus, just something that flies into space, and Jack understands the desire to fly a spaceship.

"You want a spaceship?" Jack demands on the phone immediately after John picks it up. "Are you out of your mind? Do you know how much those things cost?"

"Nice to hear you too, Jack," John says. "I'm doing great, thanks."

"Yeah, yeah," Jack says. "Cut the chit chat, this isn't a social call."

"I don't expect to get one right away," John says. "But the SGC's always been flexible and I was hoping to work out something to earn one."

"Why don't you just build one?" Jack asks. "It'd probably be easier, with your abilities, tan talking the SGC into letting go of one of theirs."

"Easier, yes," John says. "Faster, probably not, especially considering that I'd probably need permits for at least some of the materials, if it's even possible to buy them."

"And even if you got one, what would you do with it? You don't have a pilot's license and we couldn't let you fly it any higher than a normal plane even if you did."

"Just because I don't have a pilot's license doesn't mean I don't know how to fly," John objects. "I've known how to fly for most of my adult life. But if you want me to have one, I can requalify."

"Flying in space isn't the same as flying in atmosphere," Jack says.

"I know that," John says, barely reminding himself that there's no way he could have flown in space in this reality. "But I think I can figure it out."

"Even if you could, we couldn't give you the opportunity to," Jack says. "Officially, none of the spaceships developed as a result of the Stargate program exist."

"I understand that," John says. "It wouldn't be a problem."

"So if you don't want to actually use it, then why do you want it?" Jack asks.

"I just want to be able to say - to myself, of course, because it's classified and I couldn't say it to anybody outside of the SGC - that I own a space ship," John says, lying through his teeth. Space ships stopped being anything special at about the same time that everything else strange in his life had become normal - the first time, anyway. By the second wave of weirdness becoming normal, space ships had already been normalized in his mind.

"For crying out loud, you can't do anything the easy way, can you?" Jack asks rhetorically, and continues. "I'll see what I can do, but don't expect it any time soon, if at all."

"I've got nothing but time," John says. "I'm willing to wait years, even, as long as I get it eventually."

"That's probably how long it's going to take," Jack warns. "But I'll see what I can do for you. Maybe - maybe - I'll be able to even get you the rights to fly it, but I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you."

"Trust me, I'm not," John says. "but thanks for trying, even if you don't succeed."

"No problem," Jack says. "Trying to convince people to go along with this will at least be more interesting than most of the other budget conversations."

"Most of the other budget conversations?" John asks. "I wasn't aware that any of them were even a little bit interesting."

"Well, you know, there are some strange things being done that the SGC pays for," Jack says. "And I get to hear about everything that goes on there, even some of the things I never heard about when I was the head of the SGC because it was elsewhere."

"Are you referring to the syrup?" John asks.

"You have to admit, it is kind of strange for a military facility to order quite that much syrup," Jack says. "But I guess if that's what our allies want to trade us naquadah for, it's a good thing I can talk the stuffed shirts around to our point of view of things."

"I'm just glad you didn't tell them it was for their prank wars," John replies. "I don't think that would go over very well."

"Well, they did ask, but I told them that it doesn't really matter to us what they do with the syrup - after all, it's not like they can attack us with it."

"Actually, I hear they're really determined pranksters, especially since their whole culture is based around it. If they thought that attacking us with syrup would make a good prank, they'd find a way to attack s with it."

"They're a pre - spaceflight, preindustrial society," Jack says. "And they know that we have a shield over the gate. I don't think they'd be able to even if they tried, which they wouldn't."

"Where there's a will, there's a way," John replies. "And you clearly didn't listen when you were told about their pranks, or you'd know that there most definitely is a will where they're concerned."

"Really?" Jack asks, interested. "I'll have to check that out."

"It's interesting reading," John says. "The report on it was doing the rounds at the SGC for a few weeks. Although I suspect that they only told us about their biggest accomplishments."

"Still, that they even told us about their largest accomplishments in this prank war - literally - is pretty amazing."

"As I understand it, the syrup prank is supposed to be the coup de grace which will win the war for them for once and for all - or at least until the other side comes up with a bigger prank."

"If you say so…there certainly are a lot of strange cultures on other planets."

"There are a lot of strange cultures here on Earth, if you think about it," John says, with the full weight of somebody who's experienced culture shock upon returning to his own planet, his own country, his own house.

"I guess you're right," Jack admits. "Hey listen, I've got to go, but I'll work on your request."

"Thanks, Jack," John says, and hangs up.