Cameron Mitchell
walked down the corridors of the SGC with the look of someone who had remembered a favorite joke. When he arrived at the cluttered
office, he wasn't surprised to find the occupant staring at a computer screen.
"Jackson! You ready to
go?"
"What? Oh, no.
Not yet." Daniel replied without looking up.
Cameron stopped behind him and peered over his shoulder. "You're still
reading that stuff you brought back from Atlantis?"
"This 'stuff' as you call it, is all the historical files no one on the expedition has had a chance to read yet. Since they're not technical, they have a lower priority. I offered
to take a look at them," Daniel explained.
"You've been 'looking' at them for a week now! C'mon, Teal'c's waiting.
There's a new pizza place he wants to try."
Daniel turned from the screen and gave Cameron a questioning look.
"Okay.
I want to try it, but there is a pizza there with his name on it!" Cameron confessed.
"With his name on it?"
"Okay,
it doesn't say 'Teal'c' but he is curious about the 'Murray Special'."
Daniel returned his attention to the computer
screen.
"You go without me. I'll meet you at Sam's in a couple of hours."
"I'll try to save you some pizza, but
don't blame me if it's all gone!"
* * *
"Daniel?"
He looked up
from the computer to find Sam walking into the office.
"Hey, Sam."
"Have you been
here all night?"
"All night?
No. It's only…" Daniel looked at his watch.
"Yes, it's morning,"
she confirmed as she looked over his shoulder at the computer. "What kept you up all night?"
"Stonehenge."
"I thought you
were looking over the archives from Atlantis. What does Stonehenge have to do with Atlantis?"
"They made it,"
Daniel replied simply.
"I thought it
took hundreds of years to build Stonehenge."
"It did, but
I've found the journal of one of the Ancients. He has detailed descriptions of each stage of the construction."
"So you know
why it was built," Sam surmised.
Daniel didn't
reply.
"Daniel? Do
you know why Stonehenge was built?"
"It doesn't
say specifically, but …”
"I'll tell General
Landry that you'll have something for the briefing," she told him and quickly left.
"Sam." Daniel
called, but she was already gone.
"Maybe I'm having
a bad dream," he said to himself and returned to his computer.
* * *
"Dr. Jackson. Col.
Carter tells me you've learned something about the secret of Stonehenge," Gen. Landry said as
he entered the briefing room from his office.
"Kind of."
"Either you
learned something or you didn't. Which is it?"
Daniel closed
his eyes before replying. What he learned was something that he did and didn't want to report.
"Dr. Jackson?"
Landry prompted.
"As you know,
I've been reading the journals of some of the Ancients that were stored in the Atlantis computers. Most of what I read was
the usual day to day stuff until last night I came across a reference to a construction project the indigenous people were
attempting on the plaines east of Glastonbury. I looked into this further only to discover that one of the Ancients
was making regular trips to Earth to oversee the construction."
"Of Stonehenge," Cameron added.
"It wasn't called
'Stonehenge' at that time, but yes. Stonehenge.
The actual work on the site began in 8000 BCE, but the first stones weren't added until 2600 BCE. I'm leaving out a lot of
things you would find dull
and boring."
"And this isn't?
Cut to the chase, Jackson! What does it do?" Cameron asked impatiently.
Daniel looked
at the other members of SG-1 sitting around the conference table before continuing.
"I believe that one of the Ancients
used the time travel devise we found to return to the area and tell the people the next part of the plan. What the people
believed they were building was something quite different than what the Ancient knew what they were building. They thought
it was something…"
"Dr. Jackson,"
Landry said sharply. "What does it do?"
"Nothing. It's
an Ancient practical joke on us. Whoever it was who planned this did it just to give the local people something to do. That's
all."
Landry let out
a disappointed sigh. "Now I can understand your reluctance to tell us. Have you written a report on this?"
"Not yet, I
was…"
"Don't. This
doesn't go beyond these walls. All of you will speak of this to no one. Understand? Now, what are we doing about the
Ori today?"
* * *
Sam hesitantly looked into Daniel's office.
"I won't bite
you!" Daniel called out.
She came in
with sheepish look on her face. "Daniel, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that."
"I had to
tell someone sometime, Sam. You didn't know."
"Still…"
"Don't worry
about it. It's one of those things that even if we announced it to the world, they wouldn't believe us. In fact, if I said
something about it, I'd be the laughing stock of the archaeological world again," he said to her.
"We make all
these discoveries to help the world and we can't tell anyone. I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to the day
where we don't have to keep everything a secret."
"Until then,
it's just another day at the office," Cameron announced as he entered the room. "It's Tuesday. What's the movie tonight?"