Work Text:
The wormhole evaporated behind SG-1 as O'Neill looked around. “Okay, this is different. Ferretti wasn’t kidding about the grass being… pink.”
Carter hid a half-smile. “Kind of reminds me of the polka-dot plant I have at home, except for the shape. Same shade of pink, same shade of green.”
“Weird name for a plant.” O’Neill turned slowly, giving their surroundings a full 360-degree scan. “I guess we can take our pick of directions. Lou mentioned SG-2 never saw a soul while they were here, except for these little dinosaur-looking things, so let’s pick a nice comfortable hill and wait for sunset.”
“How long did you plan on sticking around here, anyway?” asked Daniel, shifting the pack on his back. Each of them carried a similar one. Not as bulky as a standard pack intended for overnight stays, each one still included a sleeping bag. They’d brought no tents or other shelter.
“Ideally, Daniel? The whole night.”
Teal’c glanced off toward the horizon. “I still do not understand the purpose of this visit. Could not Major Ferretti and his team have returned for more vegetation samples?”
O’Neill shook his head. “We’re not here just for samples of plants, Teal’c. We’ll bring some back with us, but we’re here because of something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Daniel gave him a sidelong look. “And that is…?”
In answer, O’Neill set off across the pink-and-green grass. “I’ll tell you all once we’ve found a place to get comfortable. Come on.”
A half-hour’s hike brought them to a gentle hill with an unimpeded view of the sky, including the spectacular sunset currently painting the horizon. O’Neill dropped his pack on the grass and began to unroll a sleeping bag.
“Okay, campers, let’s get set up.”
Carter caught Daniel’s eye and shook her head. Daniel shrugged in response. Apparently he was as mystified as she was regarding their CO’s true purpose in arranging this mission.
Soon they all had their sleeping bags spread out on the ground and were seated to watch as the double suns sank below the horizon. The air was warm, and a gentle breeze carried the scents of plant life and soil. Carter noted idly that, like most worlds they’d visited, this one smelled both like and yet unlike a similar stretch of grassland would smell on Earth. The differences were always subtle, but they were there. Since no two worlds held an identical mix of flora, fauna, or even soil composition, it stood to reason that they wouldn’t smell exactly the same. Even the most Earthlike of them had always smelled slightly different to her.
She glanced at her teammates. Teal’c appeared perplexed. His face, impassive and often unreadable to most people, held cues she’d learned to interpret if she was looking for them. It was clear to her that he was puzzled by this visit, but unwilling or at least unready to question the colonel.
Daniel appeared similarly confused, but his face showed it more readily. Yet he too had not yet spoken up.
The colonel, on the other hand, stretched himself full-length on his sleeping bag, completely relaxed, and tipped his cap forward to shield his upper face. Carter supposed that if no one else was going to say anything, she might as well.
“Colonel?”
“Just resting my eyes, Carter. What is it?”
“Sir, you did say you’d tell us what this is all about once we’d found a spot to get comfortable. I think this is about as comfortable as we’re going to get.”
The only part of his face currently visible was the smile slowly spreading across it. “Wait for it. And trust me.”
In about ten minutes, the sky was almost completely dark. Even the slight glow on what was for all purposes this world's western horizon had diminished to near nothingness, and the stars were visible overhead. The bright band of the Milky Way crossed the sky in a dazzling display much more brilliant than it appeared from anywhere she’d been on Earth.
Just as she was about to open her mouth and comment on the beauty of the sky, the colonel spoke.
“Okay, kids, I promised I’d explain. There’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and I decided why not now? Think of it as a one-night mini-vacation. We’re here to do some stargazing.”
In the starlight, she could see that he’d removed his hat from over his eyes.
“Stargazing, Jack?” Daniel’s voice drifted from the other side of the loose circle in which they’d arranged their sleeping bags, positioned so their heads would be pointed into its center if they were all to lie down as the colonel had done.
“Daniel, we’ve all spent plenty of time looking at constellations. Hell, that’s the basis for the symbols we use every time we go through a gate, isn’t it? But didn’t you ever try to come up with new ones nobody ever thought of before? I've spent more time looking at the stars themselves than at the pictures and patterns people imagine they make, even when I sit with my telescope. But I got to thinking not too long ago about how when I was a kid visiting at my grandfather’s house I used to dream up constellations nobody’d ever named before. I’d look up into the sky late at night and name them to myself. Are you telling me you’ve never done that?”
Daniel was silent a moment, and Carter wondered if he was thinking about the skies of Abydos.
Teal’c chose that moment to speak, breaking whatever brief tension she might have imagined. “You have brought us here to map the stars?”
“Not to map them, Tea'l’c. To imagine what we see in them. Ever since we started this whole… adventure… I’ve wanted to take a breather for just one night and look at the sky from someplace I’ve never seen it before, and just let myself play with what I see. I thought maybe the three of you might want to come along. Be kind of boring doing it all by myself.”
Carter supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. While she’d never seen it from precisely this angle, she knew the colonel’s mind had a playful side, and apparently the stress of the past month or two had prompted him to let off some steam in this manner. That’d he’d chosen to include Daniel, Teal’c and herself was touching.
She gazed up at the star-strewn firmament overhead. “All right, sir, I’ll play along. Tell us what you see.”
“Well, that arrangement of stars over there looks exactly like Homer Simpson…”
-fin-