WIP Amnesty: SG-1/Amazing Race story

[corilannam]

Okay, so WIP Amnesty was technically over the weekend, I believe, but I forgot about it until last night. Whatever! But considering that this year WIP Amnesty fell on the same weekend as the premiere of The Amazing Race All Stars, it seemed appropriate to go ahead and post this old nanowrimo project.

I still have fond hopes of finishing this, but I have fond hopes for all my old SG-1 stories that have never come to fruition. SG-1 does The Amazing Race -- or TARgate, which became my working title. Alas, I got through the first chapter of set-up, and then got bogged down in the research and planning for the rest of it. And chelseafrew made me such a cute icon for it.



"Sir? Major Davis is here from the Pentagon."

Major General George Hammond looked up from the requisition forms in front of him. "Thank you, Sergeant. Send him in."

Major Paul Davis walked in a moment later, briefcase in hand. He stopped in front of Hammond's desk and offered a crisp salute. "General, it's good to see you again."

"Always a pleasure, Major." Hammond stood and offered his hand in return. "Despite the unusual circumstances."

"It's always a crisis with SG-1, sir." Davis rested his briefcase on the edge of Hammond's desk and unsnapped it, then hesitated. "Though this one is unusual, even for them."

Hammond sighed. "Yes. Yes, it is, Major. You brought the tapes?"

"Yes, sir. You'll have final clearance authority over what airs." Davis lifted the lid of the briefcase, revealing an alarming number of video cassettes, and Hammond sighed again.

"Sergeant Siler will be in with the video equipment momentarily, and then we can get started."

Davis did not sigh, but he exuded a definite air of longsuffering resignation. "Well, sir, while we're waiting, I have to admit I'm curious to hear how all this happened in the first place."

Hammond rubbed a hand over his bare scalp, still staring at the briefcase of tapes. "To be honest, Major, I'm not entirely certain myself. It seemed harmless enough at first, and then everything just snowballed."

Davis nodded. "That's why SG-1 has become both a verb and an adjective at the Pentagon."

"I can't say that surprises me." A large television on a cart banged against the door jamb. Siler's head appeared around it, and Hammond waved him in. "As for how it started, all I know is what I've pieced together from SG-1's reports, though they are… well, somewhat chaotic. Particularly Colonel's O'Neill's, although he was surprisingly the most verbose, and illuminating in his own erratic way…."

***
"I really just don't see the appeal, Sam." Daniel's voice drifted out the open doorway as Jack approached Carter's lab. "Especially for someone like you."

"Come on, Daniel," Carter was saying as Jack paused in the doorway. Both his teammates were hunched over Carter's laptop, watching the screen as she scrolled through something that looked like a website message board. It definitely looked non-military and probably non-work related in any sense. "You watched with me two seasons ago. And don't you dare play the amnesia card again."

"Honestly, Sam, I've had more urgent gaps to fill from my life than your reality TV obsessions."

"Daniel—"

"Reality TV, Carter? Seriously?" He leaned against the doorjamb, enjoying Carter's guilty pirouette and the way her back stiffened as though trying to come to attention without the rest of her. It was the surest tell she had when she was caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. Of course, doing something she wasn't supposed to usually involved explosions that rocked the entire Cheyenne Mountain complex; slacking off on the internet would be refreshingly normal for her.

Daniel merely glanced over his shoulder and gave Jack a little wave. "Sam's got this show that she says is really good."

"It is really good." Carter's eyes darted back and forth between Jack and Daniel, not sure where her allies were.

"She talks to all these people she doesn't know on the internet about it."

"On my own time," Carter interjected. "Mostly, anyway."

"Relax, Major. It's not like anyone's going to say you don't earn your paycheck." Jack strolled up to the computer and bent to peer at the monitor. "The Amazing Race? What's that?"

"It's a race," Daniel said.

"And is it amazing?"

"One would presume."

He felt Carter's sigh more than he heard it, and inside, he smiled. "Sir," she said, in a tone that warned that the 'sirs' were going to cease if he pushed his luck today. "It's a television show where two-person teams race around the world, stopping in different countries to complete challenges. After almost every leg of the race, the team in last place is eliminated."

"Huh." Jack punched the up key a few times, scanning the webpage. "Roadblocks. Detours. Sounds kind of fun."

"Sam certainly thinks so," Daniel said, leaning back against the lab bench and crossing his arms. "I don't really see it, myself."

"And I still don't get that, Daniel," Sam shot back. "Traveling to other countries, interacting with other cultures... I thought I'd get a little more enthusiasm from you, of all people."

Daniel held up a finger. "First of all, these people are interacting with the native culture only on the most superficial and... well, downright touristy level. Second—"

Jack reached over, grabbed Daniel's hand, and unfolded a second finger to keep score.

"—these people don't appreciate what little time they do get to spend anywhere," Daniel went on without missing a beat, "and that's really annoying to watch. Third—"

Jack reached out again, but Daniel pulled his hand back and raised the third finger himself.

"—every few days we walk through that big round Stargate thing downstairs to explore planets millions of light-years away, where no one from Earth has ever gone. That's our day job."

"Earth just not doing it for you anymore?" Jack said, poking at the touchpad of Carter's computer until he got to the next page of the message board, where people with weird call signs were talking about challenges involving skydiving, and possibly a yak.

"I just think that after you've seen four moons in the sky, Tokyo doesn't seem quite as exotic."

"You'd change your mind if you were actually doing it," Carter said.

"I doubt it. I've already been most of these places."

"That's exactly why you have to do this with me." Carter leaned toward Daniel, almost knocking Jack into the table. "With both of our travel experiences and your language skills, we'd be unbeatable. We have to do this."

Jack looked up from a vehement argument over the merits of trains versus taxis. "Hang on a minute. Who's doing what to whom?"

Carter turned to him, eyes aglow with an enthusiasm usually reserved for all things radioactive. "I'm going to apply to go on this race, and I want Daniel to do it with me."

"He'll do no such thing," Jack said firmly.

"Thank you," Daniel said.

"He's going to do it with me," Jack went on, already absorbed back into a discussion about people in matching hats.

"What?" Carter exclaimed.

"Excuse me?" Daniel said at the same second.

Jack stood up and faced Carter, jabbing a finger at her. "All the experience you have, I've got twice as much. This race takes street smarts, Carter, not astrophysics."

She opened and closed her mouth, then sputtered. "Sir! You've never even seen the show."

"Maybe not, but I think I like it." Jack turned to Daniel, enjoying the sight of both his scientists gaping and speechless with confusion. Usually that was Jack's schtick. "You and me, Daniel. They'll never know what hit 'em."

"No, they won't," Daniel said. "Because I'm not doing it. You're both insane."

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. "We have plenty of leave coming to us."

"I have artifacts to catalog. Lots of them."

"I bet Carter already has the application downloaded. Don't you, Carter?"

Carter was still doing a credible impression of a fish stuck in the bottom of a rowboat. "Sir. Colonel, you can't do this."

Jack drew himself up and looked down at her with the full glare of his superior rank. "You giving the orders now, Major?"

Her jaw twitched; he thought he could hear her teeth grinding, but she only gave a single shake of her head. "No, sir."

"As long as we understand each other, Carter."

"Oh, we do, sir," she said, jaw still clenching.

"Good, good." He waved a hand in the air, ignoring Daniel, who he could see out of the corner of his eye pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Of course, you should still feel free to apply with another, lesser partner."

"Thank you, sir. That's very generous." She lifted her chin with that look that said she was still smarter than him and she would not stay outsmarted for long. "I may just do that."

He smiled and waggled his fingers in a little wave. "Best of luck to you, Carter."

"For what does Major Carter require luck?"

They all turned around at Teal'c's voice to find the last member of their team standing in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back with as much of an air of nonchalance as a large Jaffa ever managed. Then again, Jack reflected, not for the first time, the First Prime of Apophis probably didn't have much demand for a jaunty casual demeanor, whereas for Air Force colonels it was at least useful at parties.

"Sam is obsessed with this reality show on TV, and she wanted me to go on it with her," Daniel began. "But then Jack got obsessed with it, too, even though he's never seen it, and now he wants me to go on it with him. But I'm not going on it with anybody, because it's a really, really stupid idea."

"You watched it with me, too, Teal'c," Carter said.

Teal'c tilted his head, looking much more interested than he had a moment ago. "The Amazing Race."

"That's the one," Daniel sighed.

"I found that program most stimulating," Teal'c said.

Jack started to turn back to the computer to hunt through Carter's hard drive for the application, but he caught something in Carter's face that made him freeze.

"Did you, Teal'c?" she said, her tone light and way too casual.

Teal'c nodded. "Indeed. I have seen many worlds, but very little of this one. It was very educational."

"Teal'c," Carter said slowly. "Think of how much more educational it would be if you were actually in the race."

Jack stared at her. She pointedly did not look at him at all. "You can't do that," he said.

"Actually, I think I can," she replied, then finally looked him, no butter melting in her mouth. "Sir."

"They'd never allow it."

"I know people." She turned back to Teal'c, and Jack closed his mouth, unable to find an argument to that. Carter really did know everybody she could ever need to know. "Teal'c, would you like to apply with me?"

One of his rare smiles lightened Teal'c's face as he offered Carter a shallow bow. "I would be honored, Major Carter."

"Oh, this is going to be interesting," Daniel said.

***

"Okay, here's the application form." Jack dropped a short stack of papers on the commissary table in front of Daniel, then plunked down the video camera he had borrowed from Cassandra Fraiser. Cassie's mother and the base CMO, Dr. Janet Fraiser, dropped down into the chair next to him, keeping a nervous eye on the loaner equipment.

Daniel looked up from his lunch and cast a dubious look over all of it. "What's the camera for?"

"We have to send in a video with our application." Jack reached over and stole a fry from Daniel's plate.

"Right," Daniel said, in his inflection that meant "I don't think so." He pulled his plate a little closer to himself.

"We just have to show that we're interesting. "But don't worry about that right now." He moved the video camera to the side and nudged the application toward Daniel. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Janet's hand snake out and retrieve the camera; then she scooted down to the end of the table with it cradled protectively in front of her. "I couldn't find Carter's copy, but I managed to download it myself from the internet."

Daniel raised his eyebrows, but made no move toward the papers. "So who did it for you? Sergeant Siler or Sergeant Davis?"

Jack drew himself up and projected all the offended dignity he could muster. "Neither, thank you."

"Ah." Daniel nodded and took another bite of his sandwich. "Lieutenant Dexler, then," he mumbled around it.

"I don't think that matters," Jack said. "I printed it myself. Two copies."

"Yes, I can see how your skills rival Sam's in all areas of technology."

"I already filled mine out," Jack went on, not prepared to dignify any comparison of himself and Carter with a retort. "So we'll do yours, and then think of something witty for our video."

"Something witty?" Daniel mocked. He put down his sandwich finally and picked up the application.

"Hey, watch the greasy fingers," Jack chided, then sighed when Daniel ignored him and continued thumbing through the pages. "Never mind. We can make copies later."

"Most of my research grants were shorter than this," Daniel complained, flipping each page face down onto the table after he scanned it.

"Yes, but this is a TV show, Daniel," Jack said patiently.

"What is the most irritating thing your partner has ever done?" Daniel read. "You sure you want me answering this, Jack?"

"I have nothing to fear." He reached for another fry; with reflexes he rarely bothered to show on the firing range, Daniel smacked Jack's hand with the application.

"I might feel compelled to bring up the incident with General Hammond and the frozen yogurt machine."

Jack eyed him warily. "You would not."

"I might. Probably would, in fact."

"Wouldn't."

"Would."

"Wouldn't."

"At the other end of the table, Janet cleared her throat, and they both looked away with instinctively assumed innocence.

"Okay," Daniel said, holding up a hand. "If I agreed to do this with you – and that's still a very big if – what's in it for me?"

"Other than fame and half of a million dollars?"

"I'm pretty well paid already," Daniel said. "And most of the fame seems to be confined to internet message boards. I've already been famous on the internet, and frankly, those people are pretty fickle."

"This will be different," Jack said, folding his hands on the table in front of him to emphasize how reasonable he was being. "You won't be talking about aliens building the pyramids this time. Trust me, it's a whole different crowd."

"Still not buying it."

"Okay," Jack said slowly. "Let me put this another way."

He paused, aware that Janet was still very much within earshot.

"What?" Daniel prompted.

Jack crooked his finger at Daniel and leaned forward. Daniel leaned to meet him, and when his mouth was about in inch from Daniel's ear, he whispered, "You'll get to wipe that smug look off Sam Carter's face once and for all when we beat the pants off everybody and she doesn't even get to go."

Then he sat back and waited.

Daniel sat very, very still for a moment, eyes owl-wide and unblinking behind his glasses. Then, ever so slowly, he stretched out his hand, palm up, toward Jack. With equal solemnity, Jack unclipped the pen in the breast pocket of his uniform, the pen he was carrying today for just this purpose, and put it in Daniel's fingers. "Glad to have you on board," he said.

"So what's this about a video?" Daniel looked at the first page of the application and scribbled his name on the top line.

"We have to be funny and interesting for three minutes. Show we'd make for good TV."

Daniel paused in his scribbling and frowned. "I'm not really all that funny."

"Sure you are. I laugh at you all the time."

"No, I'm sarcastic. There's a difference. And so are you."

Jack shrugged.

"And the only interesting things about us are classified. We'd make a lousy TV show."

"I disagree, actually," Janet said, and they both swiveled to look down the table. She sat in the same position, hunched over the video camera in front of her, but this time Jack noticed the red light.

"You were taping us all this time?" Daniel's voice jumped half an octave.

"I think this little interlude shows your personalities better than anything you could script." She pressed a button with her thumb, and the red light blinked twice before going out. "At least, anything you could script without breaking my camera."

"Anyone ever mention that you have some control issues, Doc?"

"Yes, Colonel. My daughter. Every day." Janet stood up and slid the camera into the pocket of her lab coat. "I'll get Cassie to edit the file down to three minutes and put it on a tape for you."

"We got her a nice birthday present this year, didn't we?" Jack looked at Daniel, who shrugged like he still half hoped the entire enterprise would come to a speedy and ignominious end.

Fat chance.

He nudged the application toward Daniel again. "Keep writing. We have a deadline to meet."

***

Several weeks later, somewhere in Los Angeles...

"...most interesting things about us are classified."

The man at the head of the conference table clicked the tape off and dropped the remote on the pile of folders in front of him. "So, what do we think?"

The woman to his left tapped her pen against her teeth. "I like them. I like them a lot. Smart, snarky, intriguing backgrounds."

"And they're hot," laughed another woman two chairs away. "One for each age demographic, too."

The man sitting between them picked up a folder and waved it in the air. "Can we get back to my demographic for a minute, please? My demographic would like to discuss this team again."

"Well, I think they're fascinating," the first woman said. "What a story."

"Forget the story. What a –" The man with the folder pulled out a glossy photo of a blonde woman in a tank top and cleared his throat significantly.

The two women exchanged eye rolls, but the first one picked up the photo. "How old did you say she was?"

The man pushed over the folder and pointed to the date of birth. "But with those eyes and that cleavage, she looks ten years younger than she is."

"That's because that cleavage is probably only ten years old, if that," the second woman said with a sharp laugh.

"Is that age discrimination I hear?" he shot back. "Or just insecurity?"

"All right, that's enough of that," the man at the head of the table said. He pulled the file to him and started flipping through the application and the pages of casting notes attached. "I'm not so worried about her cleavage as I am about her partner running the challenges."

"You never can tell with that," offered the woman to his right. "And she looks pretty tough herself. They'd at least be contenders."

"And I like his hat," the other woman said.

"Both good points. And really, I don't think we can afford to pass up this kind of international human interest story." He closed the folder and tossed it onto the heap. "Okay, folks, we're almost there. Grandparents, get me grandparents. And where the hell are my dating models?"

***
"...and then the alien—"

"Beast-dog," Jack supplied.

Daniel winced. "—beast-dog fell into the pit. We were then able to break cover and dial home."

"And that, General," Jack declared, "is how SG-1 escaped from P3X-851."

Hammond looked at them all for a moment, then sighed and nodded. "Well done, SG-1," he said and started to push himself back from the briefing room table. "Well done."

"Excuse me, sir, but well done?" Carter interjected. Jack made brief strangling hand motions at her before smiling as Hammond turned back to them. "We accomplished none of our mission objectives, we destroyed any possibility of diplomatic relations with the native populace, and now we have to lock one of most naquada-rich planets we've ever found out of the dialing computer."

"We don't know for sure that all that naquada was even accessible," Jack argued. "And we only lost one MALP this time. Half a MALP, really."

"And the only injury was to Daniel Jackson," Teal'c added.

At the sound of his name, Daniel looked up from under the minor but bloody scratch over his brow that made him look like a refugee extra from a Van Damme flick. "You should see the other guy."

Jack had seen the other guy; he had taken care of the other guy personally with a few well-placed hits from the butt of his P-90. "Anyway, sir – no harm, no foul?"

Hammond just shook his head. "You've had a rough few months, SG-1, so I'm inclined to leave this one at the less said, the better."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Jack stood as Hammond did and rocked back on his heels, stuffing his hands in his pockets to look casual and not like he had been waiting for this moment the entire mission, ever since he had found the good news on his voice mail two hours before gate time. "And speaking of the last several months, sir...?"

"Yes, Colonel?"

"I think you'll find that SG-1 has quite a bit of leave time accumulated." He paused, carefully not looking at Carter or Teal'c, savoring the sweet, sweet moment. "Daniel and I are going to need to take about a month of that leave starting in a couple of weeks."

Manfully, he refrained from pumping his fist and crowing out loud.

"As will I and Major Carter," Teal'c said.

Jack's head jerked around. "You what?"

"Yes, I've already heard about it from the Pentagon," Hammond said. "At length, in fact."

"You got cleared by the Pentagon? How—no, wait—" Jack shook his head. "How did you even fill out the application?"

"Major Carter and I completed our applications together," Teal'c said, unruffled. "It took a great deal of creativity."

Carter was trying to hide it, and finally had to duck her head down almost under the table, but her grin broke through. It was a mile – no, two miles – wide and absolutely insufferable.

"You lied," Jack breathed, looking from one to the other like a slackjawed marionette, undone by the raw power of their deviousness.

"As do canines," Teal'c confirmed.

"Like dogs, Teal'c," Daniel said, grinning at Carter and Teal'c in a way Jack was finding quite disloyal. "You lied like dogs."

"Indeed we did, Daniel Jackson."

Jack leaned over the table and glared into Carter's face. "So what's your cover story?"

"Teal'c is Murray Obraytac, a political refugee from a small, indeterminate African nation," Carter said. Her eyes glowed, near Goa'uld-like with glee at her own cleverness. "I was the government liaison who brought him in when I was doing astronomical observations in Africa. We got married, and Murray became an American citizen five years ago."

Daniel leaned forward. "How many kids?"

Carter shifted toward him conspiratorially. "Just the one from his previous marriage, still in hiding and involved in the struggle back home. We're very worried."

"I'm sure you love him like your own." Jack shook his head in disgust. "All right, Carter. Game on. We'll see you at the starting line."

***
"I'm still amazed that he got away with it," Davis said when the story wound down.

"Well, Jack O'Neill has always had a loose idea of military decorum, but he generally knows exactly how far he can try my patience."

"Actually, sir, I meant Teal'c. I remember how hard it was a few years ago to get him permission to go on Colonel O'Neill's Vegas road trip. I can hardly fathom trying to get him on a television show, and yet the order came down before I even heard about it."

"You know Teal'c's built himself quite the fan base among the brass over the last few years." Hammond looked over at the television, which had switched from static to blue screen. "And it turns out that Major Carter knows even more people than I thought. Sergeant?"

Siler straightened up and handed Hammond the remote control. "All set, sir."

"Thank you, Sergeant." He waved David to a chair as Siler let himself out. "Ready, Major?"

"As I'll ever be, sir."

"Then let's get this over with," Hammond said and pressed 'play.'

***
The Washington Monument gleamed white against a clear blue sky. The Reflecting Pool seemed to be reflecting quite nicely. Behind them, Lincoln gazed placidly down on them while in front of them, a familiar blond figure in a blue shirt wore a similar expression of aloof benevolence. The tension among the contestants finally assembled at the starting line was palpable and invigorating.

Daniel would not stop talking.

"I think I left the stove on."

"You did not leave the stove on," Jack muttered again.

"I really think I did. I was making tea when you came. I took the kettle off the burner, but I don't remember turning off the stove."

Two identical young redheads, spitting images of a little orphan Annie who had barely escaped puberty, stood to Jack's left and glared at Daniel. "Shhh!" one of them hissed. "We can't hear Phil."

Comments

[epeeblade]

I love this. So cute!

[corilannam.livejournal.com]

Thanks, hon! Glad you enjoyed it!

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

bwahahaha! ::::flails and faints laughing:::

oh this is so frelling wonderful and delightful. and that's just the way it would go down. i'm hearing the faint echo of jack imitating bugs bunny and saying to sam: "you know, this means war...."

remember our conversation about if sg1, and the crew from farscape was on tar? i've smiled about it ever since. thank you for posting this. *hugs*

[corilannam.livejournal.com]

Hee! Oh yes, I remember that conversation well. That was a big part of why I wanted to go ahead and post this on the next WIP Amnesty Day -- I had so much fun just remembering this story that I wanted to share it, even in its very unfinished state.

I'm so glad it amused you! :-)

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

oh yes, it more than amused me. still giggling around 1pm this afternoon to the consternation of a co-worker. you know, that evil sg-1 giggle.

and i'm glad you remembered the conversation and that it helped to inspire you. *hugs*

[sithdragn.livejournal.com]

I'm wayyyy late to the party, but I had this tagged to read and just got around to it. OMG freaking hilarious!

Daniel paused in his scribbling and frowned. "I'm not really all that funny."

"Sure you are. I laugh at you all the time."

I was rofl!

Awesomeness. :D

Is this show still on TV? I gave it up after the year with the rednecks, er, Kentucky couple. *G*