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Sequal to 'He Refused To Call Them Zombies'. The Continuing Adventures Of O'Neill and Ryan. More SG-1 characters and some SGA characters appear in this one. I'm trying to build an actual plot, but I know at some point I'll go back in fill in some blanks about the early days of both the beginnings of the Apocalypse and O'Neill and Ryan's travels.
Like the last one, the title is a paraphrase of a line in the fic, this one coming directly from dialogue. It was too great a line not to use as a title... lol... I tried to keep the 'Apoca!Humor!Fic' theme going...
Cheyenne Mountain was quiet, silent, and O'Neill felt his heart sink when he realized that he'd been expecting everyone to be alive and well when they arrived. But Ryan shifted the back on his back and tapped O'Neill's arm to get his attention, gesturing towards a couple bodies, obviously infected, that had bullet holes in the heads, if there were even heads left. Someone had been alive here, relatively recently judging by the relatively intact bodies, which decayed rapidly once the brain was destroyed. "Come on, let's check inside," O'Neill said, leading the way and trusting Ryan to both follow and watch his back.
The outer doors were open, but the blast door was closed tight, and O'Neill knocked fruitlessly. "Anybody home?" he called. He heard the light sound of metal tapping metal and turned to see Ryan standing by the guardhouse, which was thankfully empty. The teenager pointed at the nice little phone on the lit up console. "If the power's still on, somebody's alive," O'Neill said. "Fail safes shut it off after 3 days if no one resets," he added, grabbing the phone and listening to the other end wrong, probably in Landry's office. After a moment, there was an answer.
"Sir?"
"Carter," O'Neill said, relieved. "Did I catch you in the shower?" he added. "And how'd you know it was me, anyway?"
"Bank of cameras, Jack."
"Daniel!" O'Neill said, unable to help a grin.
"Who's your friend?" Carter asks.
"That's Ryan, good shot with a handgun, and creepily obsessed with proper nutrition for a 15 year-old kid," O'Neill said, not noticing that behind him Ryan was flipping him off. He did here the snickers on the other end of the line and turned, seeing the raised middle finger. "That's not nice," he told the kid.
Ryan shrugged, smirking and offering the look O'Neill had named the 'Yeah, well, I shoot people in the head and don't flinch, what do you expect?' look.
"You gonna let us in, or do we get to camp out here for the rest of our probably relatively short lives?" O'Neill asked. He got his answer as the heavy blast door creaked slowly open, just wide enough for a person to get through, revealing Teal'c, who raised an eyebrow.
"O'Neill," the man said in greeting.
"Teal'c!" O'Neill replied, grinning widely. "Damn good to see you, buddy!"
"You as well," Teal'c agreed, stepping aside to give them room to pass.
O'Neill waited until Ryan had reshouldered his pack, then lead the way inside, feeling safe at last inside the walls of the mountain. "What's the status of the rest of the galaxy?"
"There's outbreaks on many worlds," Teal'c said. "We did not fully see the threat until several infected teams had gone out."
"Damn it," O'Neill said.
"DanielJackson knows more about the status of Atlantis than I do," Teal'c reported. "But I believe they have not been as badly affected as we have."
"That's good news at least," O'Neill said. "If the Milky Way dies out, at least Pegasus will keep Humanity alive."
"Is all of this not classified?" Teal'c asked, raising an eyebrow as he glanced at Ryan.
"There's been an apocalypse, I think classification goes out the window," Daniel said as he met up with the others, a wide smile on his face as O'Neill pulled him into a hug. "We thought for sure you were..."
"You're gonna hurt my feelings, Danny," O'Neill said in mock offense. "Thinking a little thing like an apocalypse could kill me."
"Jack, there are Zombies in the streets."
"I refuse to call them that," O'Neill said firmly. "This is not some bad horror movie. It's not even quality Romero horror."
"Jack, they're dead and walking around trying to eat us," Daniel said. "They're Zombies."
"Nuh-uh, not listening," O'Neill said, whistling loudly and off key. "Lalala..."
"Grow up, Jack," Daniel said, but he was laughing. "It's good to have you back."
"Good to be back," O'Neill agreed. "But right now, I'm actually looking forward to MREs if you have some?"
"We've got plenty," Daniel said, gesturing for them to follow him. "We got hit hard in here. Landry realized we were infected early enough to clear the base of everyone except a half dozen who volunteered to stay and keep the place running. We figured the chances were, one of us would be immune and could unlock the blast doors when other survivors returned. Unfortunately not many returned."
"Damn lucky SG-1 was immune," O'Neill said. "Or at least the three of you were."
"Cam's infected. Landry's last order before he got killed was to study the things, try to figure out a cure, or at least how much intelligence they had."
"Not much," O'Neill said. Then he stopped in the middle of the hall. "Wait a second, are you telling me..."
"He's in a sealed observation room," Daniel said, grimacing. "I'm not happy about it, but Sam's hoping for answers, even if we haven't gotten any."
"That's gonna change," O'Neill said. He understood Carter following orders, but he wasn't going to let one of his people, and Colonel Mitchell was part of SG-1 so he was automatically one of O'Neill's people, be a guinea pig. "We'll make it quick, put him out of his misery."
"I don't believe they feel anything, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "But it would be a merciful action."
"Jack, we might still learn something from Cameron..." Carter began, having overheard the last part of the conversation as she approached.
"If you wanna study one, we'll find someone we don't know," O'Neill said. "But Mitchell gets a bullet between the eyes ASAP. Understood?"
"Is that an order?"
"Last I checked, I do outrank you," O'Neill said.
"And the IOA outranks you," Woolsey said as he exited an elevator. "We need to get as many answers as we can, and..."
O'Neill took a quick, angry, step towards the man, and a soldier raised a gun to point at him. In the time it took to register that action, O'Neill heard the snap of Ryan's thigh holster and caught sight of the pistol in the corner of his vision, aimed steadily at the man, held in hands that had become expert in the past few months. O'Neill didn't like it, putting a gun in a kid's hand, but Ryan needed to know how to shoot to keep himself alive, so he'd given the lessons. "He's fast with the trigger, so you might want to tell your guard dog to back down first," O'Neill said. "He's got a 50 out of 51 record of hits, and the miss was his first shot with that gun. He's got a knack for getting right between the eyes, and brains don't bother him anymore."
"Tell him to lower it," Woolsey ordered.
In response, Ryan shifted his aim to the man, gun still held completely steady and perfectly aimed. He slowly began to mouth a count, and after a moment the soldier lowered his gun, and Ryan held his a moment longer before tucking it back into it's holster.
"We're putting Mitchell down," O'Neill said. "If you've got a problem with that, talk to Ryan here. But I should tell you, he doesn't talk. Hasn't said a single word in the two months I've known him. He tends to get his point across with glares and the gun. Sometimes a can of spray paint on a wall. But he doesn't talk, so I wouldn't expect to win the argument if I were you."
"If he doesn't talk, how can he possibly..." Woolsey began, only to stop when he saw Ryan's hand tap the holster. "He's psychotic."
"Maybe," O'Neill said. "Part of his charm."
"You would think that," Daniel said, clearing his throat. "You said something about being hungry? Come on, it's just about diner time, and we have actual food at dinner, real meals, not just MREs."
"Food, good idea," O'Neill agreed, grabbing the sleeve of Ryan's Jacket to pull him away from glaring at Woolsey and the soldier. "You can give them dirty looks later," he offered, grinning when Ryan stopped turning back to glare and fell into easy step beside him.
"Jack..." Daniel began, amused.
"Yeah, yeah, stray dog," O'Neill said. "And that would be the 'I will shoot you, too' look," he added, gesturing at the glare Ryan was giving him. "He's got a million of 'em."
"And I'll bet you're very familiar with that one," Daniel said.
"Oh yeah, and all it's various siblings and cousins," O'Neill said, shooting an affectionate look towards Ryan. "I especially like the 'I will find the most painfully way possible to kill you and I will make it take years to happen' look. I got that one when I said he wasn't driving the truck unless I saw a driver's licence."
"I heard we had a couple of new arrivals," came a new voice.
O'Neill looked up, a smile spreading across his face. "Lizzie," he greeted.
"It's Elizabeth, and you know it," Elizabeth Weir replied, even as she embraced O'Neill.
"It's good to see you, Lizzie," O'Neill replied, a twinkle in his eyes. "Tell me this didn't hit Atlantis, too."
"It did," Elizabeth said. "But we had a higher level of immunity than average, and a much smaller rate of... reanimation. Carson has a working theory that it might be connected to contact with Ancient technology..."
"Doesn't make sense," O'Neill interrupted. "Ryan's never been near Ancient Tech, and he's immune."
"Ryan?" Elizabeth said, noticing the boy for the first time, her expression contemplative for a moment, then softening as she saw what O'Neill had two months earlier: that Ryan was a scared kid. "Hello, Ryan. I'm Elizabeth Weir," she said, offering her hand.
"He doesn't talk, apparently," Daniel said. "And he threatened Woolsey's bodyguard with a gun for pointing a gun at Jack."
"I like him already," came yet another voice, this time belonging to Lt. Colonel John Sheppard. "Woolsey's been getting a little too 'evil overlord' for our tastes, makes us worry about his plans for Atlantis."
"Good to see you made it, Colonel," ONeill said, shaking the man's hand. "I wanna debrief with anyone who's in charge of anything, excepting Woolsey and any of his cronies. So SG-1, Lizzie, and Sheppard. Who else is left that can be trusted?"
"Carson should be part of it," Elizabeth said. "Especially since you just told us his theory is wrong. Maybe we can figure out some other common factor."
"I'll get a pad of paper for Ryan," Daniel offered, patting the teenager's arm before hurrying off. "Commissary in 5 minutes. Vala's probably already there and waiting, since there's chocolate pudding tonight."
"That woman sure does love her pudding," Sheppard said.
"I'm just hoping for coffee," O'Neill commented as the group started moving again."
The End.
I tried to keep them in character, but... I'm not sure how good I did on some of them. O'Neill's a bit... hug-y, but... he didn't know if he'd find ANYONE alive, or if the place would be full of... things he refuses to call Zombies... so... call it a mix of mental exhaustion and overwhelming relief. His 'family' is alive, and there's still a chance humanity will survive. But hey, he only hugged Daniel and Elizabeth, so... not TOO bad! lol
It's odd... I actually rather liked Woolsey when he took over on Atlantis, but... he's the first person who popped into my heard a burecratic bad guy... lol... so he plays the 'villian'...
Like the last one, the title is a paraphrase of a line in the fic, this one coming directly from dialogue. It was too great a line not to use as a title... lol... I tried to keep the 'Apoca!Humor!Fic' theme going...
Cheyenne Mountain was quiet, silent, and O'Neill felt his heart sink when he realized that he'd been expecting everyone to be alive and well when they arrived. But Ryan shifted the back on his back and tapped O'Neill's arm to get his attention, gesturing towards a couple bodies, obviously infected, that had bullet holes in the heads, if there were even heads left. Someone had been alive here, relatively recently judging by the relatively intact bodies, which decayed rapidly once the brain was destroyed. "Come on, let's check inside," O'Neill said, leading the way and trusting Ryan to both follow and watch his back.
The outer doors were open, but the blast door was closed tight, and O'Neill knocked fruitlessly. "Anybody home?" he called. He heard the light sound of metal tapping metal and turned to see Ryan standing by the guardhouse, which was thankfully empty. The teenager pointed at the nice little phone on the lit up console. "If the power's still on, somebody's alive," O'Neill said. "Fail safes shut it off after 3 days if no one resets," he added, grabbing the phone and listening to the other end wrong, probably in Landry's office. After a moment, there was an answer.
"Sir?"
"Carter," O'Neill said, relieved. "Did I catch you in the shower?" he added. "And how'd you know it was me, anyway?"
"Bank of cameras, Jack."
"Daniel!" O'Neill said, unable to help a grin.
"Who's your friend?" Carter asks.
"That's Ryan, good shot with a handgun, and creepily obsessed with proper nutrition for a 15 year-old kid," O'Neill said, not noticing that behind him Ryan was flipping him off. He did here the snickers on the other end of the line and turned, seeing the raised middle finger. "That's not nice," he told the kid.
Ryan shrugged, smirking and offering the look O'Neill had named the 'Yeah, well, I shoot people in the head and don't flinch, what do you expect?' look.
"You gonna let us in, or do we get to camp out here for the rest of our probably relatively short lives?" O'Neill asked. He got his answer as the heavy blast door creaked slowly open, just wide enough for a person to get through, revealing Teal'c, who raised an eyebrow.
"O'Neill," the man said in greeting.
"Teal'c!" O'Neill replied, grinning widely. "Damn good to see you, buddy!"
"You as well," Teal'c agreed, stepping aside to give them room to pass.
O'Neill waited until Ryan had reshouldered his pack, then lead the way inside, feeling safe at last inside the walls of the mountain. "What's the status of the rest of the galaxy?"
"There's outbreaks on many worlds," Teal'c said. "We did not fully see the threat until several infected teams had gone out."
"Damn it," O'Neill said.
"DanielJackson knows more about the status of Atlantis than I do," Teal'c reported. "But I believe they have not been as badly affected as we have."
"That's good news at least," O'Neill said. "If the Milky Way dies out, at least Pegasus will keep Humanity alive."
"Is all of this not classified?" Teal'c asked, raising an eyebrow as he glanced at Ryan.
"There's been an apocalypse, I think classification goes out the window," Daniel said as he met up with the others, a wide smile on his face as O'Neill pulled him into a hug. "We thought for sure you were..."
"You're gonna hurt my feelings, Danny," O'Neill said in mock offense. "Thinking a little thing like an apocalypse could kill me."
"Jack, there are Zombies in the streets."
"I refuse to call them that," O'Neill said firmly. "This is not some bad horror movie. It's not even quality Romero horror."
"Jack, they're dead and walking around trying to eat us," Daniel said. "They're Zombies."
"Nuh-uh, not listening," O'Neill said, whistling loudly and off key. "Lalala..."
"Grow up, Jack," Daniel said, but he was laughing. "It's good to have you back."
"Good to be back," O'Neill agreed. "But right now, I'm actually looking forward to MREs if you have some?"
"We've got plenty," Daniel said, gesturing for them to follow him. "We got hit hard in here. Landry realized we were infected early enough to clear the base of everyone except a half dozen who volunteered to stay and keep the place running. We figured the chances were, one of us would be immune and could unlock the blast doors when other survivors returned. Unfortunately not many returned."
"Damn lucky SG-1 was immune," O'Neill said. "Or at least the three of you were."
"Cam's infected. Landry's last order before he got killed was to study the things, try to figure out a cure, or at least how much intelligence they had."
"Not much," O'Neill said. Then he stopped in the middle of the hall. "Wait a second, are you telling me..."
"He's in a sealed observation room," Daniel said, grimacing. "I'm not happy about it, but Sam's hoping for answers, even if we haven't gotten any."
"That's gonna change," O'Neill said. He understood Carter following orders, but he wasn't going to let one of his people, and Colonel Mitchell was part of SG-1 so he was automatically one of O'Neill's people, be a guinea pig. "We'll make it quick, put him out of his misery."
"I don't believe they feel anything, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "But it would be a merciful action."
"Jack, we might still learn something from Cameron..." Carter began, having overheard the last part of the conversation as she approached.
"If you wanna study one, we'll find someone we don't know," O'Neill said. "But Mitchell gets a bullet between the eyes ASAP. Understood?"
"Is that an order?"
"Last I checked, I do outrank you," O'Neill said.
"And the IOA outranks you," Woolsey said as he exited an elevator. "We need to get as many answers as we can, and..."
O'Neill took a quick, angry, step towards the man, and a soldier raised a gun to point at him. In the time it took to register that action, O'Neill heard the snap of Ryan's thigh holster and caught sight of the pistol in the corner of his vision, aimed steadily at the man, held in hands that had become expert in the past few months. O'Neill didn't like it, putting a gun in a kid's hand, but Ryan needed to know how to shoot to keep himself alive, so he'd given the lessons. "He's fast with the trigger, so you might want to tell your guard dog to back down first," O'Neill said. "He's got a 50 out of 51 record of hits, and the miss was his first shot with that gun. He's got a knack for getting right between the eyes, and brains don't bother him anymore."
"Tell him to lower it," Woolsey ordered.
In response, Ryan shifted his aim to the man, gun still held completely steady and perfectly aimed. He slowly began to mouth a count, and after a moment the soldier lowered his gun, and Ryan held his a moment longer before tucking it back into it's holster.
"We're putting Mitchell down," O'Neill said. "If you've got a problem with that, talk to Ryan here. But I should tell you, he doesn't talk. Hasn't said a single word in the two months I've known him. He tends to get his point across with glares and the gun. Sometimes a can of spray paint on a wall. But he doesn't talk, so I wouldn't expect to win the argument if I were you."
"If he doesn't talk, how can he possibly..." Woolsey began, only to stop when he saw Ryan's hand tap the holster. "He's psychotic."
"Maybe," O'Neill said. "Part of his charm."
"You would think that," Daniel said, clearing his throat. "You said something about being hungry? Come on, it's just about diner time, and we have actual food at dinner, real meals, not just MREs."
"Food, good idea," O'Neill agreed, grabbing the sleeve of Ryan's Jacket to pull him away from glaring at Woolsey and the soldier. "You can give them dirty looks later," he offered, grinning when Ryan stopped turning back to glare and fell into easy step beside him.
"Jack..." Daniel began, amused.
"Yeah, yeah, stray dog," O'Neill said. "And that would be the 'I will shoot you, too' look," he added, gesturing at the glare Ryan was giving him. "He's got a million of 'em."
"And I'll bet you're very familiar with that one," Daniel said.
"Oh yeah, and all it's various siblings and cousins," O'Neill said, shooting an affectionate look towards Ryan. "I especially like the 'I will find the most painfully way possible to kill you and I will make it take years to happen' look. I got that one when I said he wasn't driving the truck unless I saw a driver's licence."
"I heard we had a couple of new arrivals," came a new voice.
O'Neill looked up, a smile spreading across his face. "Lizzie," he greeted.
"It's Elizabeth, and you know it," Elizabeth Weir replied, even as she embraced O'Neill.
"It's good to see you, Lizzie," O'Neill replied, a twinkle in his eyes. "Tell me this didn't hit Atlantis, too."
"It did," Elizabeth said. "But we had a higher level of immunity than average, and a much smaller rate of... reanimation. Carson has a working theory that it might be connected to contact with Ancient technology..."
"Doesn't make sense," O'Neill interrupted. "Ryan's never been near Ancient Tech, and he's immune."
"Ryan?" Elizabeth said, noticing the boy for the first time, her expression contemplative for a moment, then softening as she saw what O'Neill had two months earlier: that Ryan was a scared kid. "Hello, Ryan. I'm Elizabeth Weir," she said, offering her hand.
"He doesn't talk, apparently," Daniel said. "And he threatened Woolsey's bodyguard with a gun for pointing a gun at Jack."
"I like him already," came yet another voice, this time belonging to Lt. Colonel John Sheppard. "Woolsey's been getting a little too 'evil overlord' for our tastes, makes us worry about his plans for Atlantis."
"Good to see you made it, Colonel," ONeill said, shaking the man's hand. "I wanna debrief with anyone who's in charge of anything, excepting Woolsey and any of his cronies. So SG-1, Lizzie, and Sheppard. Who else is left that can be trusted?"
"Carson should be part of it," Elizabeth said. "Especially since you just told us his theory is wrong. Maybe we can figure out some other common factor."
"I'll get a pad of paper for Ryan," Daniel offered, patting the teenager's arm before hurrying off. "Commissary in 5 minutes. Vala's probably already there and waiting, since there's chocolate pudding tonight."
"That woman sure does love her pudding," Sheppard said.
"I'm just hoping for coffee," O'Neill commented as the group started moving again."
The End.
I tried to keep them in character, but... I'm not sure how good I did on some of them. O'Neill's a bit... hug-y, but... he didn't know if he'd find ANYONE alive, or if the place would be full of... things he refuses to call Zombies... so... call it a mix of mental exhaustion and overwhelming relief. His 'family' is alive, and there's still a chance humanity will survive. But hey, he only hugged Daniel and Elizabeth, so... not TOO bad! lol
It's odd... I actually rather liked Woolsey when he took over on Atlantis, but... he's the first person who popped into my heard a burecratic bad guy... lol... so he plays the 'villian'...
