magibrain

...when you have to rip out the head and spinal cord of a story because you thought it would work in Jack's POV, but the story refuses to move forward unless the entire beginning is in Daniel's. And you liked that beginning. It was snarky.

Jack doesn't want to be back on P2X-338.  He doesn't want to be anywhere near the place, in preoccupation, policy, or physical reality. But the Pentagon is none too happy about the loss of one potentially very interesting piece of alien technology, and the Russians are none too happy about the loss of one potentially very interesting piece of alien technology and three quarters of the team they sent out to secretly obtain it, and sending SG-1 back in – to see if they can at least pick up some energy readings, which might warrant sending an engineering team out to excavate the Eye – is the least the Air Force can do.

Really.  It's the least.  It's a token gesture and the Russians know it, the Pentagon knows it, Hammond knows it, Jack knows it, and even Carter, who's been staring at her scanner since they stepped through the wormhole, knows it.  Token.  Pointless political posturing.  There was only one thing on this planet of any interest or value, and they managed to blow it up the last time they were here.

Jack just wishes someone'd made Daniel read the memo.

He's poking through the ruins as though if he videos them hard enough, they'll spring back up in mint condition and let him finish all the research he never got to do. Daniel is bad enough with ruins – all So much has been lost over time this, so Wish I could have seen it in its heyday that – without having had a hand in creating them, and Jack's been waiting with a prickle up his spine, counting the seconds before Daniel starts in on something or he can call this mission quits, and pretty sure he knows which will come first.

But instead it's Teal'c who breaks the silence, almost ten minutes in.

He's standing at the edge of the ruins when he says "O'Neill," with that particular brand of quietness that says he's not making any sudden moves.