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NEW FIC: Balancing Act part one (Anita Blake/Stargate SG1)
Balancing Act part one of seven an Anita Blake/Stargate SG-1 crossover
by Mhalachai
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. MGM/UA, Gekko Productions et al. own all things Stargate SG-1. I am but borrowing the characters for a brief time and shall return them intact at the end.
Summary: After being "asked" to change schools, 16-year-old Jack O'Neill moves to St. Louis. His new school looks as if it might be better than the last; the teachers seem halfway decent. And yet, there's something sort of odd about his new science teacher, Richard Zeeman...
Timeline: After Season 7 "Fragile Balance" for SG1 (the mini-Jack episode) and after Incubus Dreams for Anita Blake.
Rating: PG-13
Note: Yes, I know that Richard Zeeman teaches junior high science. Let's pretend he got transferred to a high school. We all know they're starving for science teachers.
Some Stargate SG-1 background for those of you who don't know the show:
The Stargate: Big ring thing that's the "gate to the stars", through which our heroes travel every week to seek adventure! Danger! Aliens! Ratings!
Jack O'Neill: In this story, "Jack" is a 16-year-old clone of Col. Jack O'Neill. The clone was made by the Asgard (little grey men) named Loki, with all of the older Jack's memories. At the end of the show, Little Jack went off to high school, telling Big Jack that they'd never meet again. Anyway, Jack has all kinds of military training under his belt: he's an ace pilot and parachutist, he's got covert ops training, and all kinds of stuff. He's also a bit of a smartass. Okay, a big smartass.
Carter, Daniel and Teal'c: actually Major Samantha (Sam) Carter, the scientist; Daniel Jackson, the anthropologist, and Teal'c, a former Jaffa who now fights for earth. They make up SG-1, the team that Jack leads.
Jaffa: big warrior men of the aliens, the Goa'ulds.
System Lords: the name of the Goa'ulds who rule planets and territories. In space. They're the bad guys.
SGC: Stargate Command, which lives inside Cheyenne Mountain and runs the Stargate program. Jack saved the universe a million times,all of which Little Jack remembers.
Sara and Charlie O'Neill: Before the beginning of the Stargate movie (about eight or nine years ago, canon time), Jack's son Charlie accidentally shot himself with Jack's gun, two weeks after a fight in which Jack got mad at Charlie for fooling around with a water gun. Sara and Jack divorced after Charlie's death.
Jack tried the combination again. Nothing. The locker wouldn't open. Slamming his palm against the metal didn't work, either.
"For crying out loud," he muttered, leaning his shoulder against the wall and wishing he didn't have to be here. Math class had been bad enough. A whole pack of strange kids, being the new guy to the school midway through November, in St. Louis nonetheless. Add to that a math teacher who seemed to be freaked out by the idea that Jack had been kicked out of his last school for fighting, and it was just a great day.
Not "Anubis is going to end the world" great, but close.
The bell rang, and the straggling kids in the halls began to run. Jack looked down at his new schedule, half-tempted to just bail on this whole school thing. Go out, get a job somewhere sweeping floors.
Although, if he did that, then he'd really never understand what Carter was talking about.
"Hi ho, to science class I go," Jack said under his breath as he hiked his overburdened backpack up higher on his shoulder, and set off for class.
"Jack O'Neill?"
Jack winced, almost out the door after class. I'd have made it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids. "Sir?" he said warily, turning back to the teacher.
The man, as tall as Teal'c and almost as big, leaned on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his chest, and smiled. "Call me Mr. Zeeman," he said.
Jack just stared. Well, glared, actually.
"We all got the memo about you, at the teacher's meeting," Zeeman continued. "About how you were kicked out of your old school for... fighting, was it?"
Actually, it had more to do with trying to avoid a fight, but try telling a senior jock you didn't want to hurt him. Things had gone badly, especially after the jock's lawyer father had gotten involved. Jack hadn't wanted to bother anyone in the Air Force (or, rather, didn't want anyone to tell his team-- no, damn it, his clone's team, SG-1), so he packed himself up and moved to St. Louis.
Zeeman took in Jack's rather sullen silence and soldiered on. "We also know that you're on your own, legally emancipated," he said in a tone just soft enough that Jack would cheerfully have choked him.
"Is this going to turn into some kind of Afternoon Special intervention?" Jack demanded. "I've got a bus to catch."
Zeeman raised his eyebrows, and Jack couldn't shake the feeling that this guy found him amusing. God, this whole high school thing keeps getting worse and worse. "I just wanted to tell you that if you have any questions about this class, or the school, you can ask at any time," Zeeman said smoothly.
"Right," Jack snarked, already on his way out the door. Just my luck, I get stuck with the guy who wants to reach out and help a student.
The halls had emptied. Jack passed rows of beat-up lockers, a sports banner, some posters suffering from too much enthusiasm and not enough proofreading, all the junk that made up an American high school. Just the place I don't want to be.
He wanted to be an adult again. He wanted to be with Carter and Daniel and Teal'c and everyone at the SGC, saving the galaxy. Hell, he'd even settle for facing off against the System Lords, anything besides sitting through classes with kids old enough to be his kids. Most of these kids would have been born around the same time as Charlie.
Jack stopped suddenly. No, he wasn't going to do this. He'd made a decision a very long time ago. At least, the other O'Neill had, and Jack didn't see why he should change it now. The rule was simple: he didn't think about Charlie, or Sara, during business hours. He changed it to school hours, then to ever, because otherwise, spending thirty hours a week with children whose fathers' hadn't been careless with their guns and whose fathers' hadn't been too relieved to be home to think about what might happen when a curious boy--
Taking two quick steps to the grimy windows framing the wall, Jack pressed his hands hard against the wooden frame, trying to stop thinking. He might have been able to escape the older Jack O'Neill's bum knee and aging joints, but the worst of what that Jack, and this one had seen was stuck forever in his brain.
I look sixteen, and I feel like an old man. A useless old man at that.
Wishing for the millionth time he could do something useful, instead of having to sit through classes more boring than one of Carter's briefing room lectures, Jack pushed off the wall, turned around, and almost jumped out of his skin.
Mr. Zeeman was standing not three feet away, looking at Jack curiously. How the hell did he sneak up on me? Jack thought furiously. No matter what anyone may say, I've still got years of covert ops training, and a man who weighs two hundred and thirty pounds, almost all of it solid muscle, should not be able to sneak up on me over this hard floor in dress shoes!
"Everything okay?" Zeeman asked, shifting his briefcase from one hand to another. Even that made a little bit of noise.
"Yeah, things are fine," Jack said, pretending to look at the floor, while giving Zeeman a once-over. The teacher didn't carry himself like he had any military training, but there was something odd about the man, something that set Jack on edge. Jack just didn't know what.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
"But, uh, you were talking about problems and stuff?" Jack hurried on, hoping that Zeeman wasn't thinking he was checking him out, not like that.
Zeeman nodded.
"You know who I talk to about a broken locker?"
The corner of the teacher's lip curled up in a smirk that looked slightly... wolfish. "The custodian can help you with that."
"Right." Jack shifted his bag around on his shoulder. "Thanks."
Zeeman stared at Jack with eyes just a little too still, like the eyes of some Jaffa he'd seen in a stand-off, then headed on down the hall.
He's still not making any noise! Whatever the hell was going on, Jack was going to get to the bottom of it.
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