Can they rise to stop a war?
Can they lead others along a path to peace?
It will take faith, hope, love and...
~~~
Here we have a tale to tell. One not well known. At least, not for most of those upon Earth.
Is this story fiction or reality, you ask...
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Colonel Jack O'Neill drove out through the gate of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and headed on down the road. He was wearing civilian clothing: jeans, a t-shirt, and a ball cap. In the passenger's seat of his truck sat a woman he'd only known for a couple of weeks. Nic Waters watched the bland scenery go by, her arms crossed. She was wearing an army green tank top, jeans, and boots, with her light brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail. Also, she was wound tighter than a spring, which was the reason they were having this small outing. Ever since the mission to Erebus where his team had picked her up after she and her people helped them free Teal'c's son and mentor (and the slaves their uprising had freed escaped), she and Teal'c had been at each other's throats. If one so much as breathed in the general direction of the other, it was enough to start an argument, although most of the hostility seemed to come from her general dislike and distrust of Jaffa, considering how Nic and her team had ended up in the same place to begin with on a mission of her own. Jack's team knew there was bad blood between their collective races, as they had seen this first hand at the camp, but these two seemed to be taking that bad blood to heart. No one was sure how tonight's argument started, but Nic looked like she was a breath away from killing Teal'c. So Major Samantha Carter suggested Jack take Nic to O'Malley's, a local bar and grill.
"I wasn't going to kill him," Nic suddenly said and Jack snorted.
"We talked about this," he replied.
"Not my fault you're thinking so loud."
Jack rolled his eyes. "I don't care how loud I'm thinking, stay out of my head."
"If I was in your head, you would know it."
Jack decided to drop the subject of Nic's mental abilities at that moment. They weren't sure how far those abilities went, although she, thankfully, hadn't done anything serious to Teal'c with them.
~~~
Jack pulled into the parking lot, and they stepped out of the truck.
"Why here?" Nic asked.
"To loosen up. You need to unwind." Nic snorted. "Come on. We all know you need to have some time away from Stargate Command, and this will also give you a taste of how we live."
"So what am I doing? How is it you Tau'ri put it?" she searched for the word. "Slumming?"
Jack chuckled. "Not exactly. Try a hamburger... unless you're a vegetarian because you can turn into a cow."
"You assume that I know what that is."
"It's an animal that we use for food. We use the females for milk. The bigger ones we butcher and —"
"Boh-hah."
"What?"
"We call them boh-hah. The males are prized for their horns. The females give us milk until they are too old to do so. And it's not a form I prefer. They're slow and pretty dumb."
