Cleaning Up after The Ancients - Chapter 107

Chapter 107 - Breaks Beginning

“Still can't believe you won't let me go with you.” Rayla sulked as Eventus packed back up the last of human style clothing from their shared room at the SGC.

“We've been over this already, Rayla.” Eventus sighed, pretty sure the Elf was just complaining to complain at this point. “China has a face based authoritarian government, and things tend to work best with those kinds of groups when you give them the illusion of control.”

It wasn’t like they would still be around in a couple hundred years or anything, so really, what was the harm in humoring them a little.

“And anyways, didn't Doctor Jackson promise to take you on a tour of the Smithsonian tomorrow?”

The Archeologist almost surely hadn’t expected the US government to actually go along with the idea when Eventus had guilt tripped him into asking the higher ups if it could be allowed. In the end however the joke had been on him, because they had been more than happy to stick a diplomatic foot forward under the idea of not allowing China to completely outshine them.

“Yes…” Rayla pouted. “But then I'll be back to being stuck under this mountain for the rest of the time, and that's boring.”

Eventus rolled his eyes. “You overplayed your hand with that last one. I know you're perfectly happy losing yourself for days in whatever digital entertainment the humans are willing to provide.”

Crossing her arms, Rayla let out a small huff. “It always works for Vala.”

“Vala has decades of experience in dealing with people.” Eventus deadpanned as he shut his luggage case with a click. “You have a little over two weeks.”

He grabbed the case and slung it over his shoulder. “Now remember, keep yourself safe and try not to cause any international incidents while I'm gone.”

With those final words he left the room, giving a nod to the on duty guard before heading down to the elevator that would take him to the floor the Jumper was currently parked in.

Pressing the call button, he waited a moment only to blink in surprise when the door opened to reveal General O’Neill standing inside.

“Hey.” The man waved.

Furrowing his brow, Eventus took a moment to look down the halls before shrugging and stepping in. “Have you been waiting in here for me?”

“Yup.” O’Neill confirmed with a grin. “Wanted to talk to you about a couple things before you flew off.”

“In an elevator?” Eventus asked in confusion, to this day not really understanding why some people always seemed to want to do that.

“As good a place as any.” O’Neill returned, reaching over to press the door close button.

Eventus nodded, still not particularly getting it. “So what did you want to talk about?”

O’Neill gave a half smile. “To start with, I wanted to thank you for returning our Archeologist in the same mostly undamaged state as you checked him out in.”

“I’d say it wasn’t too much trouble.” Eventus offered with a wry smile. “But he did convince me to run through a monster infested space station to retrieve a database copy.”

O’Neill gave a knowing nod. “Yeah, that sort of thing’s surprisingly common with him. And hey, thanks for going along with it, saved me a bunch of trouble trying to convince him that it would be too dangerous to send our own people in before destroying the place.”

“They might have had an easier time of it then I did.” Eventus admitted honestly. “Those types of creatures are attracted to energy sources, so with my weapon and shield I was basically a walking snack for them.”

Not that they would have ignored a human team completely, but it was the difference between walking past a group of hungry animals with a granola bar and an entire braised pig.

“I’ll add it to the files.” O’Neill said. “Moving on though.” He grimaced slightly. “I know you heard this from a couple others already, but you really need to watch out for the Chinese government while you’re there.” He held up a hand to forestall any augment. “And I don’t mean kidnapping or things like that. I mean they’ll be attempting to use every lever they can think of to try and manipulate you.”

“That would be a mistake on their part.” Eventus said bluntly, staring the man directly in the eye as he reached over and pressed the button for his floor. “See General, unlike how things work for most, the problem with manipulating my people isn’t failing at it, or us finding out it was tried. It’s succeeding.”

He let the silence after that pronouncement hang ominously until the elevator doors opened, at which point he offered O’Neill a friendly nod. “Have fun with your politicians, and remember don’t call me unless the world is about to blow up, because from this point on, I’m on vacation.”

O’Neill gave a small snort of amusement, letting him exit the elevator before pressing a button on its control panel that once more caused the doors to shut.

Taking a left down the corridor, Eventus quickly arrived at the repurposed portion of the missile silo that the SGC had reworked into a makeshift Jumper landing bay where Shen Xiayio was already waiting next to the Jumper.

Her eyes flicked across his causal off-white pantsuit before she reached his face and smiled slightly. “Stylish.”

“I made sure to synthesize a handful of outfits in current Earth styles before coming.” Eventus admitted, once more seamlessly switching languages to match the woman’s native tongue. 

Pulling out the Jumpers remote, he clicked the button to lower the ramp, waiting only a moment for it to finish lowering before walking in and stowing his travel case on one of the connection points.

Turning back, he saw Xiaoyi standing at the foot of the Jumpers ramp, staring as a series of complicated emotions seemed to flash across her features before at last she gave a somewhat uncertain smile. “I'm a bit afraid to admit this, but I've never actually flown on a spaceship before.”

“Oh.” Eventus murmured in sudden understanding. “Fear of heights?”

“No.” Xiaoyi said, only to grimace slightly and give an acknowledging tilt of her head. “Well, maybe a little. But I'm sure your ship is perfectly safe.”

“It's been over a million years since the last time a gate ship went down to anything other than aggressive action.” Eventus confirmed with an amused grin. “Though of course I still ran this one through a full maintenance cycle before I flew it through the gate.”

With inertial dampeners active the ship's passengers could even expect to survive an uncontrolled orbital re-entry. Something that had paid off in dividends of saved lives during their war with the Wraith.

“Reassuring.” Xiaoyi lightly laughed, taking a breath before finally stepping through the hatch. “Though in this case I think it is more a little too much American media while growing up.”

Eventus’s lips twitched slightly as he held back a chuckle. “Well, if it helps, abductions and probings were mostly handled by my people's Science and Exploration branches.” He grinned at her. “Though of course, I have been known to make personal exceptions upon request.”

Xiaoyi covered her mouth and gave a strangled laugh. “That was bad.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Eventus agreed with a grin before motioning for Xiaoyi to follow him into the cockpit. “But now you’re focused on that instead of all the Loki influenced alien abduction movies the American’s put out.”

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Author’s Notes: At last we begin the vacation arc, and woe be unto anyone who messes with Eventus during his time off. Because he's done with everyone's bullshit for the moment.