Least Resistance, by Martha Wilson (PG-13)

[figs_sg1_rec]

Rec Category: Cameron Mitchell

Pairing: none
Categories: Cameron Mitchell, Daniel Jackson, John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Teyla, Ronon, gen, AU, crossover, drama
Warnings: language, crossover with Atlantis, spoilers through much of SG-1 S9
Author on LJ: ltlj 
Author's Website: Watergate
Link: Least Resistance

Why This Must Be Read: This story is part of the amazing Retrograde AU, which needs no introduction from me. In Least Resistance, Mitchell manages to talk himself and Daniel (who has been voted ‘Best Hostage Ever’) onto an Atlantis Gate team; but when half the team disappears – the half that includes Sheppard and Daniel – Mitchell has to overcome the Atlantis Expedition’s anxiety and paranoia in order to convince them that he hadn’t planned it, and that he wants to help them get their missing people back.

POVs alternate between Mitchell and Sheppard, as we slowly learn just what happened and who is responsible, and some all-too-familiar faces from a favorite S9 episode show up for an encore. With marvelous characterization that pulls even a non-SGA fan like me into the story, and great snippets of humor to lighten the intensity of the storyline, Least Resistance is a wonderful fic that will make you hurry back to Martha’s website to read everything else she’s written.

Cameron paced in the freezing mud, between the DHD and the edge of the big battery lamps the team of Marines had set up. They had a jumper in the air, scanning for life signs, but there was nothing, not in the valley or the surrounding hills, and it was widening its search pattern now. Three teams on foot were criss-crossing the valley, Cameron could see their handlights and hear the traffic on his headset. They were searching for evidence that wouldn't show up on the life signs detector; Cameron just hoped like hell they didn't find any bodies. "Where the hell are they?" he said aloud.

"That's what I'd like to know." Bates was watching him, arms folded.

Cameron snorted. "Don't look at me like that, Sergeant. You know this wasn't a plan." They had waited for fifteen minutes, then dialed back to the planet. There had been nothing to find but an empty hill. Weir had ordered the jumper through immediately, but they had had to wait for the rain to slack off before they could start the ground search.

Bates' smile was cold. "Because if I knew it was, you'd be dead."

Cameron rolled his eyes. Bates was a bastard with PTSD written all over him, and Cameron didn't make the mistake of thinking he was all talk. But he wasn't the dangerous one. If it had been Sheppard out here hovering on the brink of deciding that Cameron had conspired to take out half a gate team, Cameron would have worried.

At the moment, Cameron was more concerned about whether Sheppard and the others were still alive. Daniel Jackson, trouble magnet, he thought. Dammit.