Homeward Bound
(Jack's POV)

I rest my head against the side of the airplane, comforted by the familiar vibration and the sound of the engines as I try to make some sort of sense out of the events of the past couple of days. The thing is that I'm used to things going crazy on us when we are off-world --or whenever certain politicians who shall remain nameless try to get involved with something they can’t possibly hope to understand-- but this, this was totally unexpected and the fact remains that I don't like surprises... and as far as surprises go, this one was a whopper. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I'm happy for Daniel's sake, it’s just that I kind of wish he would stop pushing.

For the past couple of days he's been trying --and trying hard-- to get me on board with his plan to recruit Blair into the SGC. The problem is that while I agree that both Sandburg and Ellison could turn out to be valuable additions to our team, I am all too aware that Ellison's request to join as a civilian consultant is bound to cause more than a little trouble. I understand why he made that request in the first place, of course --in fact I would almost certainly have made a similar one if I had been in his shoes-- but the fact that I understand doesn't change the fact that finding a way to make it happen is going to be a nightmare. I don't even want to consider how many policies would have to be waived to make something like that possible, though with a little luck the whole snafu of Ellison being 'misplaced' in Peru for a year and a half should be enough to justify his reluctance to sign up without raising too many red flags.

Yeah, right! The chances of something like this not raising any eyebrows are about as good as the ones we have in terms of running into a trustworthy snake the next time we are off-world and I know it.

The truth is that no matter how we bring them on board --if we manage to do it at all-- with Sandburg's press conference looming in the background there's no way this is going to go unnoticed and that won't be a good position for them to find themselves in. Of course, I also know that if they don't hear from us in a matter of days that won’t really matter because both Ellison and Sandburg would disappear and I don't even want to imagine what that would do to Daniel.

The guy may not talk much about it but he's been yearning for a family since he was eight. I'm not blind, I know that that is the promise he gave his whole world up for when he chose to stay in Abydos... and that is the thing Apophis took from him when he took Sha're. The point is that losing Sandburg now would be yet another blow and I'm not sure Daniel can take it... especially if his brother were to be forced to go underground because of his involvement with the SGC... and we really can't afford to lose Daniel here. Yes, we have other archeologists but I’m well aware that they all rely on Daniel quite heavily to get things right. He is the heart and mind of our linguistics department, even if there are others in it who can take care of the details after they've been pointed in the right direction.

So, where do we stand? Let's see, we have a nearly impossible request that must somehow be granted or we run the risk of losing the one guy who keeps the SGC running in the first place. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration but not by much. The SGC could keep on running without Daniel, just not as efficiently, and Daniel probably wouldn't leave us even if Sandburg were to go under... but things would change for the worse and that is not something I want to see.

The thing is that, no matter how I look at it, this is a grade-A mess --one that is giving me a headache-- even if it's not my mess. Well, at least I can honestly say that in a couple of hours it will be completely out of my hands. That is a small comfort.

In that regard I love the chain of command. As soon as we land in Colorado Springs sorting this one out is going to be up to General Hammond... the only problem is that he is not going to be happy about this one and when the general ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Trickle down misery is the downside of the chain of command.

I think right now my most pressing concern has to do with the fact that, even though this isn't really my mess to sort out, it is my mess to explain... and I don't even have a clue as to how on earth am I supposed to tackle that one. We told the general that we might have a security leak and we went to Cascade to plug that leak... only to find that there was no leak in Cascade at all until we created it.

For some unknown reason I have the funny feeling that that is not what General Hammond wants to hear.