Changing the Guard
by Ælfgyfu
Season: between 8 and 9
Spoilers: “Gemini”; minor references to many episodes
Summary: Jack gets promoted (again)
“George!” Jack O’Neill said in surprise to the casually-dressed visitor on his front step.
“Hello, Jack. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by—”
Jack cut him off. “To see if you could steal some more furniture? Or an archaeologist? I might have a sergeant I’m not using lying around somewhere. . . .”
George Hammond smiled. “Can I come in?”
Jack stepped back and waved Hammond into his house. He opened two beers as his old friend settled in on one of his couches. “Just in the neighborhood? It’s a long way from the Beltway.”
Hammond took a sip of beer. “I do have business at the base tomorrow. But I wanted to talk to you first . . . in a less . . . formal setting.”
“Ah. That no beer on base thing.” Jack perched on the arm of another couch.
Hammond tipped his bottle towards Jack. “I have some news. I figured we could talk it through here, where we’re comfortable—”
“Yeah; you know, I used to have this really comfy chair in my office—”
Hammond ignored the interruption. “—and where you can’t scandalize the base by shouting at me or throwing me out of your office.”
Jack just looked at Hammond for a moment. “That good, huh?” he finally asked.
Hammond smiled. “You’re getting a promotion, Jack.”
“Again? Already? Well, I suppose we did save the earth again. And the galaxy. Not sure we’ve ever saved the whole galaxy before.” Jack drank some more beer. “And this is bad news because. . . .”
“Because it’s meant to ease the blow of your reassignment.” Hammond gave Jack a moment to glare at him. “They want you in Washington. When they announce it formally, they’ll have some very nice ways of putting it, but I won’t beat about the bush: I’m surprised they left all of SG-1 in one place as long as they did, and there’s no way around this.”
“I’m not on SG-1 anymore, George.”
“You just wish you were. Here’s the honest-to-God truth, Jack: we were this close to bombing Cheyenne Mountain to hell, and you were still in there! Now we can’t—”
“Siler got trapped, see, and I couldn’t leave Siler. He put me in his will.”
That was enough to give George pause for a moment. “What is Siler leaving you that you had to be sure he didn’t die?” He continued before Jack could answer; Jack seemed thrown by the question himself. “Anyhow, you’re our top expert on Goa’uld and other aliens’ tactics. You’ve got more experience with off-world enemies and allies than anybody else. You convinced Thor to give us technology and even Asgard advisors, and you’ve got the Ancient gene.”
“But now they have this gene therapy—”
“Which only works on some people, Jack.”
“But you only need some people. And Daniel has as much experience as I do—well, depending on how you count that year he spent glowy—”
“He’s no tactician.”
“Thank God! And Carter has as much field experience—more, now!”
“True. But we nearly lost you all in that battle. We’re never going to risk losing that much expertise at once again.”
“Oh.” Jack stood up and walked over to the chessboard. He set down his beer and picked up the black king and twirled it in his fingers as he marshalled his arguments.
Hammond pressed his advantage. “They nearly reassigned you right then, but these things take time. The wheels had already started turning before you found that ZPM, and that was the last straw. People would really like to know how you managed that. Apparently you messed around with time travel.”
Jack smirked. “Apparently I fixed it so that I didn’t have to!” He set the king back on the board decisively and took a swig of beer. Hammond cast his eyes heavenward for a moment. It had no effect on Jack, so Hammond just swallowed some more beer himself.
“So what’s the point?” Jack asked, waving his bottle. “They’re afraid I’m going to get killed and take my genes with me? Tough! I’m in the Air Force, for cryin’ out loud. If you need my genes, pull what’s-his-name out of school and put him in the Air Force—or have Thor clone me again!”
“You said it, Jack.” Hammond was serious again. “You’re in the Air Force. And you’re going to take the promotion and the transfer. The SGC will come under attack again; you know that. We need someone who knows the place inside out to be outside when that day comes.”
“Well, you were there for seven years; you know the place!”
“Not like you do, Jack.”
“And if you’re worried about losing my ‘expertise’” he waved his fingers to make quotation marks in the air—“hell, you were there all those years and you never died! Not once! I haven’t died since making general, and I don’t intend to die any time soon! But Washington—now that could kill me.” He shuddered theatrically and drank some more beer.
George smiled. “It’s not as bad as you think.” He raised a hand as Jack started to argue. “You know that leaving this team intact for seven years—seven, Jack!—was extraordinary.”
“We’re an extraordinary team!”
“You were. And you are. But we can’t risk having you all in one place.”
“Then how come you’re not rushing to take Carter away?”
“Actually, we’re sending her to Area 51.” That silenced Jack for a moment. “It’s about time we had somebody running that place we could trust. Her skills are needed here on Earth right now.”
“Fine,” Jack conceded, to Hammond’s great surprise. “She’s been spending a lot of her time in the lab lately anyway. She can pay some visits to Area 51, but she should be at the SGC, looking at gizmos and gadgets as soon as they come through the 'gate.” He sat down on the couch.
Hammond shook his head. “Most objects go to Area 51 before the SGC ever has time to study them. At Area 51, Colonel Carter can do in-depth work. She did wonders at the SGC; think what she can do there!” Jack moved to argue, but Hammond stopped him. “Colonel Carter can run Area 51 and do it right. However, her leadership in the field, and at the SGC, has been called into question because of what she let her Replicator double do.”
“That wasn’t her fault! Well, maybe a little,” Jack conceded, but before he could argue further, Hammond interrupted:
“It was her fault, and it was your fault too. The only reason we didn’t mount a full investigation was that the crisis caused by that boner took all our energy! Which brings me to the other reason you two are being transferred.” Hammond took a deep swig of beer. “You all did great, Jack. You’ve done more than anyone could ever have asked, and you certainly saved us from your mistakes and more. But we both know why that happened. You’re too close to your old team. You put your old second-in-command in charge of interrogating a replica of herself.”
“Daniel was busy!” Jack objected.
Hammond smiled halfheartedly. “And that’s the point. You only think of putting your team on the big problems. Colonel Carter is a fine officer and a great scientist, but she could not be objective with that particular enemy. You couldn’t be objective because you’re deeply loyal to your team. Teal’c couldn’t even be objective, for heaven’s sake, and when emotions start running him, we know the team has gotten too close.
“That closeness has allowed you all to pull off things that no one else could. But it has become a liability. Someone else should have led that interrogation. Colonel Carter should never have been in the same room with a potential enemy who knew how she thinks! And that Replicator knew too much about Teal’c, and about Dr. Jackson, for that matter. People who our Sam Carter never even met should have been running the show. A transfer to Area 51 will allow her to do what she does best and minimize the fall-out to her career from that Replicator disaster.”
Jack stared out the window, turning his back on Hammond. “So they’re transferring Carter because she screwed up, and they want to kick me upstairs because I screwed up? ‘He nearly lost the galaxy; send him to Washington!’?” He turned back with an accusing look.
Hammond shook his head. “No. The President wants you in Washington for the reasons I already explained. He has confidence in you, and in Colonel Carter, though he thinks you made a few mistakes. Now some other people want you both out of the SGC because of that . . . snafu. That’s why you can’t fight this. Your friends and your enemies finally agree on something.”
Jack turned to snort in Hammon’s direction. “Of course I can fight this! I can retire! Again, I might add.”
“I keep planning to retire,” Hammond observed. “See all the good it does me?”
“I like the SGC. I like this house! Ok, I could do without the snow shoveling, and mowing the lawn is a pain too. . . .”
“You could only retire,” Hammond said gently, “when you didn’t have anything to live for.” Jack didn’t ask how much he knew about that; he finished off his beer and went back for another. After his return to the room and a long silence, Hammond continued. “You’ll be doing the work of the SGC from Washington. You’ll be helping to coordinate Earth’s defenses with the Prometheus, and with the other ships we’re building—”
“More ships? Cool.”
“Could I finish a sentence without being interrupted? Yes, we’re building more ships. And your job will be homeworld defense, like mine; I’ll be more in charge of the Pegasus Galaxy. We’ll be working together—”
“Ooh! Do I get a chair like yours? In fact, can I take mine back?” Hammond sighed. “Hey, I let you get two or three sentences out there.”
“If it will get you to take the reassignment, Jack, you can have the chair.”
“And do I get Walter? What about Daniel?”
“Walter stays at the SGC, but he’s getting a promotion, too, to Chief Master Sergeant—long past due. Don’t tell anyone; it hasn’t been announced. Even he doesn’t know.”
“And Daniel?”
“I’ve approved his trip to the Pegasus Galaxy.”
“Now, see, that makes no sense!” Jack said in exasperation, waving his bottle. “You don’t want me to get killed because of my ‘expertise’, but Daniel’s got more than any of us!”
Hammond nodded. “And it’s needed on Atlantis, it seems from their reports.”
“If Daniel’s not too valuable to be risked, then I’m certainly not. I was just getting the hang of the SGC! Gettin’ into being general!”
“Two stars means you’ll still be a general, Jack,” Hammond pointed out. “There are . . . consolations. Washington isn’t as exciting, but you’ll have an office with a window. No klaxons, some days normal office hours. . . .”
“So that I can go home to an apartment that’s too expensive in a town where I don’t know anybody—”
“And, Jack,” he said earnestly, “even though I still care about my people back at the SGC, especially your team, I don’t spend my days anymore waiting to see if the next team will make it back, what condition they’ll make it back in, how long it will take them to recover. . . .” Jack’s full attention was fixed on Hammond, but Hammond could see an argument coming and played his trump card. “It’s worth it. Especially since I haven’t had to shoot any of my own people since I left the SGC.”
Jack started. “That’s not fair! How many did you shoot while you were there? That thing with Anubis—that was a fluke! Never happen again! Daniel made sure of that! And I only shot Carter and Teal’c before I became general! Besides,” he added as an afterthought, “everyone shoots Daniel. It’s practically a requirement of the job!”
“I haven’t shot many.” Hammond replied softly, “But I watched many die. I saw way too many bodies come back through. And worse: I ordered wormholes shut down. I had GDO codes locked out. I recalled search teams and didn’t send them back out. And,” Hammond spoke very slowly now, “I sent people on missions from which they didn’t come back. Do you know how many people I lost?”
Jack looked out the window again.
“I know you don’t want to leave here. Hell, I didn’t, not really. But it was time for me to go. I’d lost my objectivity too. I had my favorite team.”
Jack shifted, still not looking at the other man. “I do seem to recall you opening the iris a couple of times when you shouldn’t have.”
Hammond nodded, “As you did when your team had been lost in Baal’s fortress. The whole damned base knew who my favorite team was. Just as everyone knows now. And you do know it wasn’t exactly proper for you to take a vacation with your old team?” he asked gently.
“We’d earned it!”
“You certainly did. And once you’re reassigned, that won’t be favoritism anymore; that will just be friendship. The chain of command won’t get between you and your old team anymore.”
“Well, what good is that going to be with me on the East Coast, Carter out west, Teal’c on Dakara, and Daniel in the Pegasus Galaxy?”
Hammond chuckled. “I know your team, Jack. You can’t stay apart for good. But you’re needed in different places for now. And the others are going to those places anyway; do you really want to be in this house, on that base, when they’re not around?”
They finished their beers in silence.
“So this is a done deal?” Jack finally asked.
“Yes. Yes, it is. Teal’c’s already gone; he just checks in from time to time. Dr. Jackson would never stop asking to go to Atlantis, and you know not even you can outlast him.”
“Asking? Try demanding, whining, moaning, complaining. . . .” Jack waved the bottle around some more. “Hey, have you talked to Carter yet? Does she want to go to Area 51?”
“No, I haven’t told her yet, but you know she’ll go. She probably should have been there years ago. The President has been cleaning house, and she’ll whip them into shape. Nobody else is going to smuggle secrets out of there,” he concluded with confidence.
Jack had to agree. “Carter’ll be in hog heaven there.” Jack drank some more beer. “But if I go, who will head the SGC? I don’t want another Bauer in there!”
“Well, I think you could pretty much choose your successor. The President wants someone we can all trust.”
Hammond relaxed; he had won. O’Neill was no longer arguing about his reposting. It was all over but the shouting. But there was still some shouting left, he knew. Jack had been looking thoughtful, but then he realized Hammond was watching him and began, “If I’m running homeworld security, Daniel is not going to Pegasus. God knows what he’d get into! He’d probably bring Wraith back here, or something even worse!”
Hammond got up mid-rant to help himself to another beer. This could be a long evening.
Many thanks to my husband, who read the story with a sharp eye; Redbyrd, who gave me many good suggestions and corrections and the title; and Betsy, who has always encouraged me to write fanfic. Mistakes, infelicities, and failed jokes are, of course, my own.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters belong to Showtime, Gekko, MGM-UA, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions, Stargate SG-1 Prod. Ltd. Partnership, and probably some other person or entity whom I’ve forgotten. The dialogue and plot (such as it is) are my own. No copyright infringement is intended. In fact, this story makes no sense if you haven’t seen the show, so I encourage you to watch! And buy all the DVDs! Just like I did!
Please send feedback to Aelfgyfu at gmail dot com.